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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Long Roll, by Mary Johnston.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
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+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
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+    hr { width: 33%;
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+
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+
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+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
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+
+    .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;}
+
+    .center   {text-align: center;}
+
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+    .caption  {font-weight: bold;}
+
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+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Long Roll, by Mary Johnston
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Long Roll
+
+Author: Mary Johnston
+
+Release Date: July 13, 2007 [EBook #22066]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONG ROLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 676px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="676" height="602" alt="Spine and Front Cover" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class='center'>
+
+<span class="big"><b>By Mary Johnston</b></span>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Books by Mary Johnston">
+<tr><td><hr class="books" /></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE LONG ROLL. The first of two books dealing<br />
+with the war between the States. With Illustrations<br />
+in color by <span class="smcap">N. C. Wyeth</span>.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>LEWIS RAND. With Illustrations in color by <span class="smcap">F. C. Yohn</span>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>AUDREY. With Illustrations in color by <span class="smcap">F. C. Yohn</span>.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>PRISONERS OF HOPE. With Frontispiece.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. With 8 Illustrations by<br />
+<span class="smcap">Howard Pyle, E.&nbsp;B. Thompson, A.&nbsp;W. Bette,</span> and <br />
+<span class="smcap">Eileen McConnell</span>.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><hr class="books" /></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>THE GODDESS OF REASON. <i>A Drama</i></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+</div>
+<br /><br />
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br />
+<span class="smcap">Boston and New York</span>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><a name="Frontispiece"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 486px;">
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="486" height="600" alt="STONEWALL JACKSON" title="STONEWALL JACKSON" />
+<span class="caption">STONEWALL JACKSON</span>
+<br /><br /><br /></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h1>THE LONG ROLL</h1>
+<h2>BY MARY JOHNSTON</h2>
+<h3>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS<br />
+BY N. C. WYETH</h3>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/005.png" width="150" height="200" alt="publishers icon" title="publishers icon" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br />
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br />
+THE RIVERSIDE PRESS CAMBRIDGE<br />
+1911<br /><br /></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h5>COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY MARY JOHNSTON<br />
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</h5>
+<h5><i>Published May</i> 1911<br /><br /></h5>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="center">
+<b>To the Memory of</b><br />
+<span class="big">JOHN WILLIAM JOHNSTON</span><br />
+MAJOR OF ARTILLERY, C. S. A.<br />
+AND OF<br />
+<span class="big">JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON</span><br />
+GENERAL, C. S. A.
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>TO THE READER</h2>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="contents">
+<colgroup>
+<col width="20%"></col>
+<col width="60%"></col>
+<col width="20%"></col>
+</colgroup>
+<tr><td align='left'>I.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Botetourt Resolutions</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>II.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Hilltop</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_7'>7</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>III.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Three Oaks</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_19'>19</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>IV.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Greenwood</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_28'>28</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>V.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Thunder Run</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_45'>45</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>VI.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">By Ashby's Gap</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_60'>60</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>VII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Dogs of War</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_72'>72</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>VIII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Christening</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_83'>83</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>IX.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Winchester</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_100'>100</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>X.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Lieutenant McNeil</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_112'>112</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XI.</td>
+<td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">As Joseph was a-Walking</span>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_121'>121</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XII.</td>
+<td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">The Bath and Romney Trip</span>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_135'>135</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XIII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fool Tom Jackson</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_150'>150</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XIV.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Iron-clads</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_172'>172</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XV.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Kernstown</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_193'>193</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XVI.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Rude's Hill</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_207'>207</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XVII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cleave and Judith</span>
+</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_217'>217</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XVIII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">McDowell</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_229'>229</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XIX.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Flowering Wood</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_247'>247</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XX.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Front Royal</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_263'>263</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXI.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Steven Dagg</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_277'>277</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Valley Pike</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_296'>296</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXIII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mother and Son</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_312'>312</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXIV.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Foot Cavalry</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_331'>331</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXV.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Ashby</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_343'>343</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXVI.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Bridge at Port Republic</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_354'>354</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXVII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Judith and Stafford</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_371'>371</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXVIII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Longest Way Round</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_382'>382</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXIX.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Nine-Mile Road</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_399'>399</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXX.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">At the President's</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_412'>412</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXXI.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The First of the Seven Days</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_434'>434</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXXII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Gaines's Mill</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_446'>446</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXXIII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Heel of Achilles</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_465'>465</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXXIV.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Railroad Gun</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_481'>481</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXXV.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">White Oak Swamp</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_498'>498</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXXVI.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Malvern Hill</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_516'>516</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXXVII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Woman</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_530'>530</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXXVIII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cedar Run</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_545'>545</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XXXIX.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Field of Manassas</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_557'>557</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XL.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Gunner of Pelham's</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_572'>572</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XLI.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Tollgate</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_580'>580</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XLII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Special Orders, No. 191</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_589'>589</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XLIII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Sharpsburg</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_602'>602</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XLIV.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">By the Opequon</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_616'>616</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XLV.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Lone Tree Hill</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_629'>629</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XLVI.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Fredericksburg</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_639'>639</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XLVII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Wilderness</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_655'>655</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>XLVIII.</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The River</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_670'>670</a></td></tr>
+
+</table><br /><br /></div>
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="illustrations">
+<colgroup>
+<col width="70%"></col>
+<col width="30%"></col>
+</colgroup>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Stonewall Jackson</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Frontispiece'><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Lovers</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_220'>220</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Battle</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_456'>456</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Vedette</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_642'>642</a></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+<br />
+From drawings by N. C. Wyeth.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE LONG ROLL</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BOTETOURT RESOLUTIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p>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 value&mdash;whether 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><i>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....</i></p>
+
+<p><i>In the controversies with the mother country, growing out of the effort</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span><i>
+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.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Virginia declared her Independence before any of the Colonies, and gave
+the first written Constitution to mankind</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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.</i><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>A cheer broke from the throng. "That she did&mdash;that she did! 'Old
+Virginia never tire.'"<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><i>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.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>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 region&mdash;an empire in itself</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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.</i><br /></p>
+
+<p>"And each of the three," cried a voice, "left on record his judgment <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>as
+to the integral rights of the federating States."<br /></p>
+
+<p><i>Under the leading of Virginia statesmen the Revolution of 1798 was
+brought about, Louisiana was acquired, and the second war of
+independence was waged</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Throughout the whole progress of the Republic she has never infringed on
+the rights of any State, or asked or received an exclusive benefit</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>On the contrary, she has been the first to vindicate the equality of all
+the States, the smallest as well as the greatest</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>These reasonable expectations have been grievously disappointed&mdash;</i><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>There arose a roar of assent. "That's the truth!&mdash;that's the plain
+truth! North and South, we're leagues asunder!&mdash;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!&mdash;Government by the North, for the
+North, and over the South! Go on, Judge Allen, go on!"<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><i>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.</i><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"South Carolina!&mdash;Georgia, too, will be out in January.&mdash;Alabama as
+well, Mississippi and Louisiana.&mdash;Go on!"<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>The States, each for itself, exercised this sovereign power when they
+dissolved their connection with the British Empire</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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.</i><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"The right's the right of self-government&mdash;and it's inherent and
+inalienable!&mdash;We fought for it&mdash;when didn't we fight for it? When we
+cease to fight for it, then chaos and night!&mdash;Go on, go on!"<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>The foundation, therefore, on which it was established, was</i> <span class="smcap">federal</span>,
+<i>and the State, in the exercise of the same sovereign authority by which
+she ratified for herself, may for herself abrogate and annul</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>The operation of its powers, whilst the State remains in the
+Confederacy, is</i> <span class="smcap">national</span>; <i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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 nation&mdash;not the exercise of the legitimate power
+of a government to enforce its laws on those subject to its
+jurisdiction</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>The assumption of such a power would be the assertion of a prerogative
+claimed by the British Government to legislate for the Colonies in</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span><i>all
+cases whatever; it would constitute of itself a dangerous attack on the
+rights of the States, and should be promptly repelled.</i><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>There was a great thunder of assent. "That is our doctrine&mdash;bred in the
+bone&mdash;dyed in the weaving! Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Washington,
+Henry&mdash;further back yet, further back&mdash;back to Magna Charta!"<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><i>These principles, resulting from the nature of our system of
+confederate States, cannot admit of question in Virginia</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i>....</p>
+
+<p><i>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</i> <span class="smcap">constitution</span>; <i>but that should a tyrannical</i>
+<span class="smcap">sectional majority</span>, <i>under the sanction of the forms of the</i>
+<span class="smcap">constitution</span>, <i>persist in acts of injustice and violence toward us, they
+only must be answerable for the consequences</i>."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>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.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Resolved therefore</span>, <i>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</i><span class="smcap">within the Union</span>.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>The applause shook the air. "Yes, yes! within the Union! They're not
+quite mad&mdash;not even the black Republicans! We'll save the Union!&mdash;We
+made it, and we'll save it!&mdash;Unless the North takes leave of its
+senses.&mdash;Go on!"<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><i>And in the event of a failure to obtain such guarantees, to adopt in
+concert with the other Southern States</i>, <span class="smcap">or alone</span>, <i>such measures as may
+seem most expedient to protect the rights and ensure the safety of the
+people of Virginia.</i><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+
+<h3>THE HILLTOP</h3>
+
+
+<p>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. "<i>Protection for the manufacturing North
+at the expense of the agricultural South</i>&mdash;an old storm centre!
+<i>Territorial Rights</i>&mdash;once a speck in the west, not so large as a man's
+hand, and now beneath it, the wrangling and darkened land! <i>The Bondage
+of the African Race</i>&mdash;a 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 <i>burst</i>. In that case underneath it would lie ruined
+fields and wrecked homes, and out of its elements would come a fearful
+pestilence! <i>The Triumph of the Republican Party</i>&mdash;no 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!&mdash;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 wrong&mdash;all these are in the bosom
+of that cloud!&mdash;<i>The Sovereignty of the State</i>. Where is the tempest
+which threatens here? <i>Not</i> 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
+thread&mdash;at the most we thought of it as a strong servant we had made
+between us, we thirteen artificers&mdash;a beautiful Talus to walk our coasts
+and cry 'All's well!' We thought so&mdash;by the gods, we think so yet! That
+<i>is</i> our Union&mdash;the golden thread, the faithful servant; not the monster
+that Frankenstein made, not this Minotaur swallowing States! <i>The
+Sovereignty of the State!</i> 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 Massachusetts&mdash;the years
+1803, 1811, and 1844 to the contrary&mdash;does regard herself as a county.
+Possibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> Connecticut&mdash;for all that there was a Hartford
+Convention!&mdash;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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;Hello, Allan!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm for the preservation of the Union," said Allan. "I can't help it.
+We made it, and we've loved it."</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>Union</i> that men should bow down and worship it! It's
+the thing behind the word that counts&mdash;and whoever says that
+Massachusetts and Virginia, and Illinois and Texas are united just now
+is a fool or a liar!&mdash;Who's this Colonel Anderson is bringing forward?
+Ah, we'll have the Union now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Albemarle man, staying at Lauderdale.&mdash;Major in the army, home on
+furlough.&mdash;Old-line Whig. I've been at his brother's place, near
+Charlottesville&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 hero&mdash;worse 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was an interruption. "How about Chapultepec?"&mdash;"And the Rio
+Grande?"&mdash;"Didn't we hear something about a fight in Texas?"</p>
+
+<p>The speaker laughed. "A fight in Texas? Folk, folk, if you knew how many
+fights there are in Texas&mdash;and 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!&mdash;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 health&mdash;still 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 Kentucky&mdash;no better men in
+Homer, no better men! And there are others as soldierly&mdash;McClellan 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> and
+Pennsylvania, of Georgia and New Hampshire!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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
+not&mdash;oh, we are not&mdash;ready to fight with each other! Brother against
+brother&mdash;comrade against comrade&mdash;friend against friend&mdash;to quarrel in
+the same tongue and to slay the man with whom you've faced a thousand
+dangers&mdash;no, we are not ready for that!</p>
+
+<p>"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 slow&mdash;go slow! The Right of the
+State&mdash;I grant it! I was bred in that doctrine, as were you all.
+Albemarle no whit behind Botetourt in that! The Botetourt
+Resolutions&mdash;amen 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!&mdash;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,&mdash;but Virginia made possible the Union,&mdash;let her stand fast in
+it in this day of storm! in this Convention let her voice be heard&mdash;as I
+know it will be heard&mdash;for 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 longing&mdash;having put on record what it thought of the present
+mischief and the makers of it&mdash;for a peacefu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>l 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
+<i>compulsory</i> Union?"</p>
+
+<p>Cary paused a moment. "She will not, she will not! There are politicians
+in the North whom I'll not defend! But the people&mdash;the people&mdash;the
+people are neither fools nor knaves! They were born North and we were
+born South and that is the chief difference between us! A <i>Compulsory</i>
+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 Conquest&mdash;not
+otherwise! What said Hamilton? <i>To coerce a State would be one of the
+maddest projects ever devised!</i>" 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. It's Allan Gold, from Thunder Run."</p>
+
+<p>"I am pleased to meet you, sir," said Allan. "You have been saying what
+I should like to have been able to say myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I am pleased that you are pleased. Are you, too, from the university?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. I couldn't go. I teach the school on Thunder Run."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Allan knows more," said Hairston Breckinridge, "than many of us who are
+at the university. But we mustn't keep you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"So were most of us. You don't hold any."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;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 trade&mdash;passed her
+statute thirty years before England! He said that all our great
+Revolutionary men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> 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
+wisdom&mdash;if only they'll stop stirring the gunpowder!'"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"I've thought and thought," said Allan. "People mean well, and yet
+there's such a dreadful lot of tragedy in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you there," quoth the miller. "And I certainly don't deny
+that slavery's responsible for a lot of bitter tal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>k 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 free&mdash;I'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 them&mdash;even 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 instance&mdash;never see one
+that he isn't laughing! And Tullius at Three Oaks,&mdash;<i>he'd</i> say he
+couldn't possibly think of going&mdash;must 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 quarrel&mdash;not 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 him&mdash;that's all. And here's your road to
+Thunder Run."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Ridge&mdash;the Blue
+Ridge&mdash;and then the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> 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 river&mdash;the upper reaches of the river
+James.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Breathes there the man with soul so dead,&mdash;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;We are going to have war.&mdash;We are going to have war."</p>
+
+<p>Allan sent his own voice before him. "I trust in God that's not
+true!&mdash;It's Richard Cleave, there, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>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,
+Allan&mdash;to make one think&mdash;to 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 <i>m&eacute;tier</i>. That's a curious thing to be said by a country
+lawyer in peaceful old Virginia in this year<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.
+Only&mdash;only&mdash;before this life I must have fought all along the line!"</p>
+
+<p>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 often&mdash;as you'll grant!" he
+said, and laughed. "But I suppose to-day loosed all our tongues, lifted
+every man out of himself!"</p>
+
+<p>"If war came," said Allan, "it couldn't be a long war, could it? After
+the first battle we'd come to an understanding."</p>
+
+<p>"Would we?" answered the other. "Would we?&mdash;God knows! In the past it
+has been that the more equal the tinge of blood, the fiercer was the
+war."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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>I</i> don't want war! But if it comes I'll go. We'll
+all go, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we'll all go," said Cleave. "We'll need to go."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"You and he are cousins, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Third cousins. His mother was a Dandridge&mdash;Unity Dandridge."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I like him. It's like old wine and blue steel and a cavalier poet&mdash;that
+type."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is old and fine, in men and in women."</p>
+
+<p>"He does not want war."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Hairston Breckinridge says that he won't discuss the possibility at
+all&mdash;he'll only say what he said to-day, that every one should work for
+peace, and that war between brothers is horrible."</p>
+
+<p>"It is. No. He wears a uniform. He cannot talk."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"If there should be war," asked Allan, "what will they do, all the
+Virginians in the army&mdash;Lee and Johnston and Stuart, Maury and Thomas
+and the rest?"</p>
+
+<p>"They'll come home."</p>
+
+<p>"Resigning their commissions?"</p>
+
+<p>"Resigning their commissions."</p>
+
+<p>Allan sighed. "That would be a hard thing to have to do."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll do it. Wouldn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 be&mdash;whether
+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. Well&mdash;do you think she will give them?"</p>
+
+<p>Allan gave a short laugh. "No!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what will happen. And then&mdash;and then a greater State than any
+will be forced into secession! And then the Virginians in the army will
+come home."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Hairston Breckinridge says that Major Cary's niece is with him at
+Lauderdale."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Judith Cary."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the beautiful one, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are all said to be beautiful&mdash;the three Greenwood Carys. But&mdash;Yes,
+that is the beautiful one."</p>
+
+<p>He began to hum a song, and as he did so he lifted his wide soft hat and
+rode bareheaded.</p>
+
+<p>"It's strange to me," said Allan presently, "that any one should be gay
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>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-light&mdash;enough
+light to reveal that there were tears on Cleave's cheek. Involuntarily
+Allan uttered an exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THREE OAKS</h3>
+
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is that, Jim. Give Dundee his supper at once and bring him around
+again. Down, Bugle! Down, Moira! Down, Baron!"</p>
+
+<p>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 him&mdash;"Richard!" 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."</p>
+
+<p>He came and knelt beside her on the braided rug. "It is always warm in
+here. Where are the children?"</p>
+
+<p>"Down at Tullius's cabin.&mdash;Tell me all about it. Who spoke?"</p>
+
+<p>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
+spoke&mdash;many others."</p>
+
+<p>"Did not you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. They asked me to, but with so many there was no need. People were
+much moved&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"He spoke strongly for patience, moderation, peace&mdash;I am going to
+Lauderdale after supper."</p>
+
+<p>"To see Judith?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Cleave put out a detaining hand. "One moment&mdash;Richard, are you
+quite, quite sure that she likes Maury Stafford so well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should she not like him? He's a likable fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"So are many people. So are you."</p>
+
+<p>Cleave gave a short and wintry laugh. "I? I am only her cousin&mdash;rather 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?&mdash;supple and keen, easy and
+strong, with his face like a picture, with all the advantages I did not
+have&mdash;education, travel, wealth!&mdash;Why, Edward told me&mdash;and could I not
+see for myself? It was in the air of the place&mdash;not a servant but knew
+he had come a-wooing!"</p>
+
+<p>"But there was no engagement then. Had there been we should have known
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>His mother sighed. "Oh, I am sorry&mdash;sorry!"</p>
+
+<p>"I should never have gone to Greenwood last summer&mdash;never have spent
+there that unhappy week! Before that it was just a fancy&mdash;and then I
+must go and let it bite into heart and brain and life&mdash;" 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 now&mdash;save those two&mdash;save those two!"</p>
+
+<p>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
+late&mdash;since the summer&mdash;everything was clarifying. There was at work
+some great solvent making into naught the dross of custom and habitude.
+The glass had turne<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>d; 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&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Her face so faire, as flesh it seemed not,<br />
+But hevenly pourtraict of bright angels hew,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cleare as the sky, withouten blame or blot&mdash;</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The cadet stiffened. "Thank you for nothing, Missy! Anyhow, I shan't
+sulk in my tents like your precious Achilles&mdash;just for a girl! Richard!
+'Old Jack' says&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish, Will," murmured his mother, "that you'd say 'Major Jackson.'"</p>
+
+<p>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 says&mdash;Old Jack says&mdash;that not a man since Napoleon has
+understood the use of cavalry."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think, then, that it is just all talk, Richard! You are sure
+that we're going to fight!"</p>
+
+<p>"You fight!" cried Miriam. "Why, you aren't sixteen!"</p>
+
+<p>Will flared up. "Plenty of soldiers have <i>died</i> at sixteen, Missy! 'Old
+Jack' knows, if you don't&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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
+day&mdash;and Miriam, you should pray too&mdash;that 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 garden&mdash;you 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 destruction&mdash;and the gift
+that the world should pray for is to build in peace! That is true, isn't
+it, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 by&mdash;and 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 die&mdash;and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.
+<i>Judith Cary&mdash;Judith Cary&mdash;Judith Cary!</i> He thought of Greenwood, of the
+garden there, of a week last summer, of Maury Stafford&mdash;Stafford 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!&mdash;<i>Judith Cary&mdash;Judith Cary&mdash;Judith Cary.</i> He saw Stafford
+beside her&mdash;Stafford beside her&mdash;Stafford beside her&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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.&mdash;<i>Judith
+Cary&mdash;Judith Cary.</i> If she love him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 him&mdash;if she love
+him&mdash;" He determined that to-night at Lauderdale he would try to see her
+alone for a minute. He would find out&mdash;he must find out&mdash;if there were
+any doubt he would resolve it.</p>
+
+<p>The air was very still and clear. He heard a carriage before him on the
+road. It was coming toward him&mdash;a horseman, too, evidently riding beside
+it. Just ahead the road crossed a bridge&mdash;not 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. "<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>It's Richard Cleave now! Stop, Ephraim!"</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;She wants
+to give you a message&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She moved aside and Judith took her place&mdash;Judith in fur cap and cloak,
+her beautiful face just lit by the coach lamp. "It's not a message,
+Richard. I&mdash;I did not know that you were coming to Lauderdale to-night.
+Had I known it, I&mdash;Give my love, my dear love, to Cousin Margaret. I
+would have come to Three Oaks, only&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are going home to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Fauquier wishes to get back to Albemarle&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you start from Lauderdale?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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!&mdash;Good-bye, Judith."</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;Good-bye,
+Richard."</p>
+
+<p>Fur cap, cloak, beautiful face, drew back. "Go on, Ephraim!" said the
+mistress of Silver Hill.</p>
+
+<p>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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I think so. You will be at Silver Hill throughout the week?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I think that I, too, will ride toward Albemarle to-morrow. It is
+worth something to be with Fauquier Cary a little longer."</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>he</i> 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. <i>Judith Cary&mdash;Judith Cary&mdash;There are other things in life
+than love&mdash;other things than love&mdash;other things than love.... Judith
+Cary&mdash;Judith Cary....</i></p>
+
+<p>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
+his&mdash;dry 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!'&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Old Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good marksmanship! It was Old Jack&mdash;snow 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 expect&mdash;most likely hot shot, grape and canister with
+musketry fire thrown in&mdash;but he saluted and stood fast. 'Mr. Wilson,'
+says Old Jack, 'upon returning home and going over with closed eyes
+after supper as is my c<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>ustom 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 sometimes&mdash;though he is awfully dull and has
+very peculiar notions."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>Cleave took his seat at the foot of his mother's couch. "Yes, Will, you
+may have it.&mdash;Fauquier sent his love to you, Mother, and to Miriam. They
+leave for Greenwood to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"And Cousin Judith," persisted Miriam. "What did she have on? Did she
+sing to you?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>GREENWOOD</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>Place &agrave; la poste</i>&mdash;in 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.</p>
+
+<p>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! <i>The Whig</i>.&mdash;'South Carolina is too hot-headed!&mdash;but
+when all's said, the North remains the aggressor.' <i>The
+Examiner</i>.&mdash;'Seward's promises are not worth the paper they are written
+upon.' '<i>Faith as to Sumter fully kept&mdash;wait and see.</i>' That which was
+seen was a fleet of eleven vessels, with two hundred and eighty-five
+guns and twenty-four hundred men&mdash;'<i>carrying provisions to a starving
+garrison!</i>' Have done with cant, and welcome open war! <i>The
+Enquirer</i>.&mdash;'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. "<i>The Staunton Gazette</i>&mdash;<i>The Farmer's Magazine</i>&mdash;<i>The
+Literary Messenger</i>&mdash;My <i>Blackwood</i>&mdash;Julius!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas, Miss Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>"Julius, the Reverend Mr. Corbin Wood will be here for supper and to
+spend the night. Let Car'line know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas, Miss Lucy. Easter's Jim hab obsarved to me dat Marse Edward am
+conducin' home a gent'man from Kentucky."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Miss Lucy, still sorting. "<i>The Winchester
+Times</i>&mdash;<i>The Baltimore Sun</i>.&mdash;The mint's best, Julius, in t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>he lower
+bed. I walked by there this morning.&mdash;Letters for my brother! I'll
+readdress these, and Easter's Jim must take them to town in time for the
+Richmond train."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as soon," said Miss Lucy, "as the Convention brings everybody to
+their senses.&mdash;Three letters for Edward&mdash;one in young Beaufort Porcher's
+writing. Now we'll hear the Charleston version&mdash;probably he fired the
+first shot!&mdash;A note for me.&mdash;Julius, the Palo Alto ladies will stop by
+for dinner to-morrow. Tell Car'line."</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas, Miss Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lucy took up a thick, bluish envelope. "From Fauquier at last&mdash;from
+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.&mdash;There'll be a message for you, Julius. There always is."</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;He don' never forgit! 'Pears ter me he'd better come
+home&mdash;all dis heah congratulatin' backwards an' forwards wid gunpowder
+over de kintry! Gunpowder gwine burn ef folk git reckless!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lucy sighed. "It will that, Julius,&mdash;it's burning now. Edward from
+Sally Hampton. More Charleston news!&mdash;One for Molly, three for Unity,
+five for Judith&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Mr. Stafford will be here to supper, then. Hairston
+Breckinridge, too, I imagine. Tell Car'line."</p>
+
+<p>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 t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>he head of his table and cared like a mother for
+his children.</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;Have you seen Miss Unity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas, ma'am. Miss Unity am in de flower gyarden wid Marse Hairston
+Breckinridge. Dey're training roses."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Miss Molly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Molly am in er reverence over er big book in de library."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>are</i> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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!&mdash;Yes, Julius, that's all. Tell Easter's Jim to go right
+away.&mdash;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,&mdash;and the roses."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"That is good!" said Miss Lucy. "They all have fine minds&mdash;the Cleaves.
+What else does she say?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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 sixteen&mdash;just like me."</p>
+
+<p>"Richard's a good brother."</p>
+
+<p>"She says that Richard has gone to Richmond&mdash;something about arms for
+his Company of Volunteers. Aunt Lucy&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that Richard loves Judith."</p>
+
+<p>"Molly, Molly, stop romancing!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not romancing. I don't believe in it. That week last summer he
+used to watch her and Mr. Stafford&mdash;and there was a look in his eyes
+like the knight's in the 'Arcadia'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Molly! Molly!"</p>
+
+<p>"And everybody knew that Mr. Stafford was a suitor. <i>I</i> knew it&mdash;Easter
+told me. And everybody thought that Judith was going to make him happy,
+only she doesn't seem to have done so&mdash;at 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Molly, I am going to lock up every poetry book in the house&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And that was one day, and the next morning Richard looked stern and
+fine, and rode away. He isn't really handsome&mdash;not like Edward, that
+is&mdash;only he has a way of looking so. And Judith&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Molly, you're uncanny&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miss Lucy rose with energy. "Stop, Molly! I shouldn't have let you ever
+begin. It's not kind to watch people like that."</p>
+
+<p>"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. Stafford&mdash;he wants her to so much!"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop talking, honey, and don't have so many fancies, and don't read so
+much poetry!&mdash;Who is it coming up the drive?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's Mr. Wood on his old grey horse&mdash;like a nice, quiet knight out of
+the 'Faery Queen.' Didn't you ever notice, Aunt Lucy, how everybody
+really belongs in a book?"</p>
+
+<p>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 silence&mdash;at opposite sides of the
+steps&mdash;nursing 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.</p>
+
+<p>"The air," said Miss Lucy, from the doorway, "is turning cold. What did
+you fall out about?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> the steps. "Aunt
+Lucy, you remember Hilary Preston!&mdash;and this is my sister Unity,
+Preston,&mdash;the Quakeress we call her! and this is Molly, the little
+one!&mdash;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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pretty dance," said Judith. "Do you think it would be very
+wrong of you to watch it?"</p>
+
+<p>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, no&mdash;it 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 now&mdash;and the recital's tragic, my dear; the
+recital's tragic!"</p>
+
+<p>From the hall came Edward Cary's voice, "Judith, Judith, we want you for
+the reel!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lucy, sitting beside Cousin William on the sofa, raised her head.
+"Horses are coming up the drive!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's not unusual," said Cousin William, with a smile. "Why do you
+look so startled?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I thought&mdash;but 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Balance corners!" called Eli. "Swing yo' partners!&mdash;<i>Sachay!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;Dat's marster!&mdash;Go 'way, 'ooman! don' tell me he in Richmon'!
+Dat's marster!"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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. He&mdash;the North&mdash;demands of Virginia eight
+thousand men to be used for this purpose. She will not give them. We
+have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 reserved&mdash;the right of self-preservation. Unterrified she
+entered the Union, unterrified she leaves it."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> 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 suffer&mdash;to 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 it&mdash;to
+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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>dar</i> 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 druv&mdash;an' dey druv King Pharaoh into de sea! Ain' dey gwine ter do
+hit ergain? Tell me dat! Ain' dey gwine ter do hit ergain?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The master signed with his hand. "I trust you&mdash;one 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>tech</i> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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 over&mdash;it will be over in
+three months, will it not, sir?&mdash;we'll finish the 'Virginia Reel!'"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;'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."</p>
+
+<p>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 squar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>ely 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.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been in Richmond?" she said. "Molly had a letter from
+Miriam&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I went to find, if possible, rifled muskets for my company. I did
+not do as well as I had hoped&mdash;the supply is dreadfully small&mdash;but 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are going back to Botetourt?"</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as it is dawn. The company will at once offer its services to
+the governor. Every moment now is important."</p>
+
+<p>"At dawn.... You will be its captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so. We will hold immediately an election of officers&mdash;and
+that's as pernicious a method of officering companies and regiments as
+can be imagined! 'They are volunteers, offering all&mdash;they can be trusted
+to choose their leaders.' I don't perceive the sequence."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that you will make a good captain."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "Why, then, the clumsy thing will work for once! I'll try to
+be a good captain.&mdash;The clock is striking. I do not know when nor how I
+shall see Greenwood again. Judith, you'll wish me well?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Will I wish you well, Richard? Yes, I will wish you well. Do not go at
+dawn."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her. "Do you ask me to wait?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I ask you. Wait till&mdash;till later in the morning. It is so sad to
+say good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>He came nearer. "Judith, was it so hard to forgive&mdash;that tournament? You
+had both crowns, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know," said Judith, "what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember&mdash;do you remember last Christmas when, going to
+Lauderdale, I passed you on your way to Silver Hill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I remember."</p>
+
+<p>"I was on my way to Lauderdale, not to see Fauquier, but to see you. I
+wished to ask you a question&mdash;I 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-night&mdash;Judith&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You ask me what?" said Judith. "Here is Mr. Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall turn my face toward the sea to-morrow. Heigho! War is folly at
+the best. And you?&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I leave Greenwood in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 me&mdash;a kindness she could afford. 'Do not go till morning&mdash;<i>dear
+cousin</i>!'" 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off, said good-night, and entered the house.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 wit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>hout 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."</p>
+
+<p>Cleave turned squarely. "You have reason to regret leaving Greenwood&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 war&mdash;the underlying, the primeval, the immemorial....
+All the same, Maury Stafford&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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 honeysuck<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>le."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant to wake up very early," said Judith. "Is any one downstairs
+yet, Hagar?&mdash;No, not that dress. The one with the little flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"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.&mdash;Miss Judith, honey, yo' ain' got enny mo' blood in yo'
+face than dat ar counterpane! I gwine git yo' er cup er coffee!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THUNDER RUN</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;The
+bell rang; the teacher, whom they liked well enough, was speaking. <i>No
+more school!</i> Recess forever&mdash;or 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 schoo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>l 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 History&mdash;I'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
+school&mdash;no more school! And was father going&mdash;and were Johnny and Sam
+and Dave? Where were they going to fight? As far as the big sawmill? as
+far away as the <i>river</i>? Were the dogs going, too?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The tollgate keeper, old and crippled, sat on the porch beside a wooden
+bucket of well-water. The county newspaper lay on his knee,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> 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,&mdash;The Mountain Rifles, the Fincastle Rifles, the Botetourt
+Dragoons, the Zion Hill Company, the Roaring Run men, the Thunder Run&mdash;'
+Air you listenin', Sairy?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>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 war&mdash;Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Beat of drums and call of fife, heroic ardour and the cult of Mars&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"Of&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"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
+men&mdash;all are gone. There is now but one party&mdash;<i>the party of the
+invaded</i>. 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 Virg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>inia. 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-born&mdash;no, 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!'"</p>
+
+<p>The ironer stretched another garment upon the board. "If only we fight
+half as well as that thar newspaper talks! Is the editor going?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I see," retorted Sairy, "what Brother Dame meant by good comin'
+out o' evil!&mdash;Here's Christianna."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's fine weather, Christianna," answered the old man. "Come in,
+come in, and take a cheer!"</p>
+
+<p>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
+porc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>h, 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Sho!" exclaimed Sairy. "Didn't he have no weapon at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>so</i>!" Her drawling voice died,
+then rose again. "I'll miss Billy&mdash;I 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Sho!" said Sairy. "We'll all miss Billy. I reckon we all that stay at
+home air going to have our fill o' missing!&mdash;What have you got in your
+basket, honey?"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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 ribbon&mdash;I'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 town&mdash;High 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sairy put away the ironing-board. "Sho! We've just got the little end,
+as usual. What's in the bag, child?"</p>
+
+<p>"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
+smaller&mdash;but he'll have room for it, I reckon? <i>I</i> think it's right
+pretty."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;An' here he comes now, down the
+mountain, to thank ye himself!"</p>
+
+<p>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, and&mdash;and 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 again&mdash;thar'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."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll walk a piece of the road with you," said Allan, and the two went
+out of the gate together.</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;Thar's a wagon comin' up the road an' a man on
+horseback behind. Here, I'll take the toll&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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 night&mdash;every time a rooster crows they think it's Johnny
+Mason's bugle and the order to the front! Ain't Allan Gold going?"</p>
+
+<p>Sairy spoke from the path. "Course he's goin'&mdash;he and twenty more from
+Thunder Run. I reckon Thunder Run ain't goin' to lag behind! Even Steve
+Dagg's goin'&mdash;though I look for him back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> afore the battle. Jim's goin',
+too, to see what he can make out of it&mdash;'t won't harm no one, I reckon,
+if he makes six feet o' earth."</p>
+
+<p>"They're the only trash in the lot," put in Tom. "The others are
+first-rate&mdash;though a heap of them are powerfully young."</p>
+
+<p>"Thar's Billy Maydew, for instance," said Sairy. "Sho! Billy is too
+young to go&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"All the cadets have gone from Lexington, remarked the man on horseback.
+They've gone to Richmond to act as drill-masters&mdash;every 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 children&mdash;that 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 out&mdash;the minister blessing them, and the people
+crying and cheering! Major T. J. Jackson led them."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Coffin's bright enough," said Tom, "but Allan's more dependable.&mdash;Well,
+good-day, gentlemen, an' thank ye both!"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Sairy, cutting the gingerbread into squares, held the knife suspended.
+"Have ye been talkin' about Billy all this time?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 l<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>ed 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.</p>
+
+<p>"'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,&mdash;an' I
+don't see how I'm goin' to tell him good-bye myself."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 new&mdash;only 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 bright&mdash;he 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.</p>
+
+<p>He had on his uniform. They had been slow in coming&mdash;the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> uniforms&mdash;from
+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 buff&mdash;on 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 frontiersmen&mdash;whose lives had depended upon watchfulness&mdash;quickness
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate good-byes," said Allan. "I wish I had stolen away last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ye get killed!" answered Sairy sharply. "That's what I'm afraid
+of. I know you'll go riskin' yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you," said Tom. "You've been like a son to us these five
+years. Don't you forget to write."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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
+river&mdash;two 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;Mr. Harris, let us have juleps all
+round&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you very kindly, sir," said Allan, "but I must go find my
+captain."</p>
+
+<p>"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 it&mdash;and he says he isn't going to show them
+but this once. They seemed right prompt to learn."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There were exclamations. "Two years! Thunderation!&mdash;This war'll be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> over
+before persimmons are ripe! Why, the boys haven't volunteered but for
+one year&mdash;and even that seemed kind of senseless! Two years! He's daft!"</p>
+
+<p>"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. Gold&mdash;and I just met Matthew Coffin and he
+says thar's going to be a parade presently."</p>
+
+<p>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
+events&mdash;no 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!</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Wish I was in de land ob cotton,<br />
+Old times dar am not forgotten<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Look away! look away! Dixie Land.</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Look away! look away!<br />
+Look away down South to Dixie!</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The throng wept and cheered. The negroes, slave and free,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> 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-servants&mdash;these
+were the proudest of the proud and the envied of their brethren. The
+latter were voluble. "Des look at Wash,&mdash;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 Oaks&mdash;he gwine march right
+behin' de captain, an' Marse Hairston Breckinridge's boy he gwine march
+right behin' him!&mdash;Dar de big drum ag'in!"</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>In Dixie land I'll take my stand,<br />
+To live and die in Dixie!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Look away! Look away!<br />
+Look away down South to Dixie!</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>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
+asleep&mdash;he had been to the house where the captain lodged and his mother
+had come to the door with her finger on her lips,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> 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 sleep&mdash;even upon a
+sofa&mdash;the 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 swim&mdash;who
+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!"</p>
+
+<p>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, heroes&mdash;adored, adored heroes!" A
+scramble for the flowers, then out at the gate and on to the next house,
+and so <i>da capo</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn, though the stars were yet shining, began to make itself felt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Maxwelton's braes are bonnie,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where early fa's the dew,</span><br />
+And 't was there that Annie Laurie<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gie'd me her promise true,&mdash;</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Gie'd me her promise true<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which ne'er forgot shall be&mdash;</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Suddenly, from High Street, wrapped in mist, a bugle rang out. The
+order&mdash;the order&mdash;the order to the front! It called again, sounding the
+assembly. <i>Fall in, men, fall in!</i></p>
+
+<p>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 arms&mdash;the 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! <i>Attention! Take arms! Shoulder
+arms! Right face!</i> <span class="smcap">forward, march</span>!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>BY ASHBY'S GAP</h3>
+
+
+<p>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 attached&mdash;the
+Rockbridge Artillery&mdash;occupied 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
+Confederacy&mdash;an 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.</p>
+
+<p>First Brigade headquarters was a tree&mdash;an especially big tree&mdash;a 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 orders&mdash;down 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> 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 said&mdash;in fact,
+they did say&mdash;that every fool knew that a crazy man could fight!</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> attacked upon the fifteenth at Bunker Hill. What if he
+has fifteen thousand men?&mdash;what if he has <i>twenty</i> thousand?&mdash;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 dream&mdash;and yet Johnston won't move to the westward and
+attack! <i>Good Lord! we didn't come from home just to watch these
+chestnuts get ripe! All the generals are crazy, anyhow.</i></p>
+
+<p>It was nine, in the morning of Thursday the eighteenth,&mdash;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
+&oelig; 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 hot&mdash;"What's that drum beginning for? <i>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!"</i></p>
+
+<p>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 turnpike&mdash;and found its head turned toward the
+south! There was stupefaction, then tongues were loosed. "What's
+this&mdash;what's this, boys? Charlestown ain't in this direction. Old Joe's
+lost his bearings! Johnny Lemon, you go tell him so&mdash;go ask Old Jack if
+you can't.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 do&mdash;maybe it's
+some roundabout way. Close up&mdash;close 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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?
+Boys&mdash;boys&mdash;" The citizens, too, had their say. "Is Winchester to be
+left to Patterson? We've done our best by you&mdash;and you go marching
+away!" Several of the older women were weeping, the younger looked
+scornful. <i>Close up, men, close up&mdash;close up!</i></p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Close up, close up, men!</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 blanket&mdash;it was hot, hot,
+and every pound like ten! <i>To keep&mdash;to throw away? To keep&mdash;to throw
+away?</i> The beat of feet kept time to that pressing question, and to
+<i>Just marching to be marching!&mdash;reckon Old Joe thinks it's fun</i>, and to
+<i>Where in hell are we going, anyway?</i></p>
+
+<p>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 suit&mdash;a third<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>, 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. <i>Close up, men&mdash;close up!</i></p>
+
+<p>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 had n't ought to let you come. Darn it all! if we march
+down this pike longer, we'll all land home!&mdash;If you listen right hard
+you can hear Thunder Run!&mdash;And that thar Yank hugging himself back thar
+at Charlestown!&mdash;dessay he's telegraphin' right this minute that we've
+run away&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Andrew Kerr, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 passed&mdash;a 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The infant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>ry groaned. "Ten of the Black Horse!&mdash;where are the rest of
+them, I wonder? Oh, ain't they lucky dogs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stuart's men have the sweetest time!&mdash;just galloping over the country,
+and making love, and listening to Sweeney's banjo&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>If you want to have a good time&mdash;<br />
+If you want to have a good time,<br />
+Jine the cavalry!&mdash;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>What's that road over there&mdash;the cool-looking one? The road to Ashby's
+Gap? Wish this pike was shady like that!"</p>
+
+<p>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 couriers&mdash;No! staff officers, the
+65th saw the gold lace&mdash;with some message or order from the commanding
+general, now well in advance with his guard of Black Horse. They were
+riding down the line&mdash;Old Jack was with them&mdash;the 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 hunt&mdash;it's
+a bear hunt! 'General Johnston to the 65th'&mdash;" 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>He was gone&mdash;the other staff officers were gone&mdash;Old 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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. <i>Fall in&mdash;fall in, men!</i> The
+short rest made the going worse, the soldiers rose so stiff and sore.</p>
+
+<p>The men had eaten before leaving the camp above Winchester&mdash;but 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>ere 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>Close up, men, close up!</i></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Fall in&mdash;fall in, men!</i> The column stumbled to its feet and
+began the descent of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Clouds came up; at midnight when they reached the lower slope,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 cars&mdash;ever 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
+cavalry&mdash;the latter having now come up&mdash;marched by the wagon road and
+arrived in fair time.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>give</i>, the slip out of convention and restraint back toward a
+less trammelled existence, the faint return<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> of the more purely
+physical, the slight withdrawal of the more purely mental, the rapid
+breaking down of the sheer artificial&mdash;these 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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 slept&mdash;the 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DOGS OF WAR</h3>
+
+
+<p>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 Run&mdash;on 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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the nearer echoes awoke. A Federal battery, posted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You have hunters from the mountains. After the battle send me the man
+you think would make the best scout&mdash;an intelligent man."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir."</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;No, 'taint Black
+Horse&mdash;I see them through the trees&mdash;gray slouch hats and no feathers in
+them! Infantry, too&mdash;more infantry than horse. Hampton, maybe&mdash;No, they
+look like home folk&mdash;" 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I am General Jackson. What troops have you over there?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Virginia Legion."</p>
+
+<p>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 you&mdash;I
+heard of you!"</p>
+
+<p>The other gave his smile, quick and magnetic. "And I of you, general.
+Magruder chanted your praises day and night&mdash;our good old Fuss and
+Feathers, too! Oh, Mexico!"</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>Dear land of the daughters of Spain!</i>" The
+light went indoors again. "That demonstration upstream is increasing.
+Colonel Evans will need support."</p>
+
+<p>"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
+wonder&mdash;I wonder!" He laughed again. "Good old Burnside! It's an odd
+world we live in, general!"</p>
+
+<p>"The world, sir, is as God made it and as Satan darkened it."</p>
+
+<p>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
+65th&mdash;yonder by the colours! May I speak to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How are you, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, Fauquier. And you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, too, I suppose. I haven't asked. You've got a fine, tall
+company!"</p>
+
+<p>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
+legend&mdash;this army!"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that you are right. When you were a boy you used to dream
+artillery."</p>
+
+<p>"I dream it still. Sooner or later, by hook or by crook, I'll get into
+that arm. It wasn't feasible this spring."</p>
+
+<p>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 got&mdash;and more beside!
+Where is Will?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the 2d. I wanted him nearer me, but 'twould have broken his heart to
+leave his company. Edward is with the Rifles?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 pride&mdash;and, beside, some one must cook.
+Jeames cooks.'" Cary laughed. "I left him getting up his load and
+hurrying off to roll call. Ph&oelig;bus Apollo swincking for Mars!&mdash;I was
+at Greenwood the other day. They all sent you their love."</p>
+
+<p>A colour came into Cleave's dark cheek. "Thank them for me when you
+write. Only the ladies are there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I told them it had the air of a Spanish nunnery. Maury Stafford is
+with Magruder on the Peninsula."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Judith had a letter from him. He was in the affair at Bethel.&mdash;What's
+this? Orders for us all to move, I hope!"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> Cary. "<i>General</i>," he read aloud, though in a low
+voice, "<i>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.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The commander of the Virginia Legion gathered up his reins. "Thank you,
+general! <i>Au revoir</i>&mdash;and 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.</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>Get on, men, get
+on!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>Get on, men, get on!</i></p>
+
+<p>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 hot&mdash;they 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I seem to have waked up," said Allan, then, very sob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>erly. "I am going
+to like this thing."</p>
+
+<p>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 you&mdash;that you're the man he
+asked for this morning."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, sir. General Jackson's compliments, and I am coming."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 home&mdash;ah, at home!&mdash;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
+porches&mdash;Ah, that was the way, that was the way. <i>Close up, there!
+Don't straggle, men, don't straggle!</i></p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Throw it away!" said Coffin sharply. "It isn't regular. Do as I tell
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Billy stared. "But I don't want to. It air my stick, an' I air a-goin'
+to hang it over the fireplace&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 Run&mdash;and you men have got to learn a
+thing or two! Come now!"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't," said Billy. "An' if 't were Thunder Run, you wouldn't dar'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 right&mdash;that 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let him alone, Gold," said the lieutenant sharply. "Do as I order you,
+Billy Maydew!"</p>
+
+<p>Billy rose, eighteen years old, and six feet tall. "If it's jest the
+same to you, lieutenant," he said polit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>ely, "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!"</p>
+
+<p>The sound ahead swelled suddenly into loud and continuous firing.
+Apparently Evans had met the turning column. <i>Fall in, men, fall in!</i></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;'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."</p>
+
+<p>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 gum&mdash;they'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."</p>
+
+<p>"General Jackson's compliments, and I will support him."</p>
+
+<p>The 65th entered the wood. The trees were small&mdash;bundles of hard, bright
+green needles aloft on slender trunks, out of which, in the strong
+s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>unshine, 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
+ambulances&mdash;there seemed to be a table of planks on which the worst
+cases were laid&mdash;the sufferers had help, of course, a little help. A
+Creole from Bayou T&ecirc;che lay writhing, shot through the stomach, beneath
+a pine. He was raving. "M&eacute;lanie, M&eacute;lanie, donnez-moi de l'eau! M&eacute;lanie,
+M&eacute;lanie! donnez-moi de l'eau!"</p>
+
+<p>Stragglers were coming over the hilltop&mdash;froth and spume thrown from a
+great wave somewhere beyond that cover&mdash;men 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 cowards&mdash;cowards 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 <i>you</i> 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
+there&mdash;we've been in hell since daybreak&mdash;damned 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 bleeding&mdash;I saw him&mdash;but 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
+there&mdash;on the Mathews Hill&mdash;we 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 strappin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>g 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&mdash;? General Jackson. I'll get
+the men back&mdash;damned&mdash;blessed&mdash;if I don't, sir! Form right here, men!
+The present's the best time, and here's the best place."</p>
+
+<p>At the crest of the hill the 65th came upon Imboden's battery&mdash;the
+Staunton Artillery&mdash;four smoothbore, brass six-pounders, guns, and
+caissons drawn by half the proper number of horses&mdash;the rest being
+killed&mdash;and conducted by wounded, exhausted, powder-grimed and swearing
+artillerymen. Imboden, in front, was setting the pitch.
+"&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;! &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;! &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;!" 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Imboden, an entirely gallant man, hastened to explain. "Beg pardon,
+general! Bad habit, I acknowledge, but the occasion excuses&mdash;My 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 support&mdash;not a damned
+infantryman in sight for the last half hour! Alone down there by the
+Robinson House, and Ricketts and Griffin&mdash;Regulars by the Lord!&mdash;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 down&mdash;and 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>I</i> couldn't hold the Henry Hill! <i>I</i>
+couldn't fight McDowell with one battery&mdash;no, by God, not even if 't was
+the Staunton Artillery! We had to move out."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson eyed him, unmollified. "I have never seen the occasion, Captain
+Imboden, that justified profanity. As for support&mdash;I wi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>ll support your
+battery. Unlimber right here."</p>
+
+<p>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 support&mdash;then 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
+house&mdash;the Henry House&mdash;in 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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A CHRISTENING</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> a fragment inflicting upon a bugler of the 65th
+a ghastly wound. "Steady, men, steady!&mdash;all's well," said Old Jack. He
+threw up his left hand, palm out,&mdash;an usual gesture,&mdash;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
+give&mdash;I will give&mdash;for 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;General Jackson, we are driven&mdash;we are overwhelmed! My God!
+only Evans and Bartow and I against the whole North and the Regulars! We
+are being pushed back&mdash;you must support.&mdash;In three minutes the battle
+will be upon this hill&mdash;Hunter and Heintzleman's divisions. They're hot
+and huzzaing&mdash;they think they've got us fast! They have, by God! if our
+troops don't come up!" He turned his horse. "But you'll support&mdash;we
+count on you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Count only upon God, General Bee," said Jackson. "But I will give them
+the bayonet."</p>
+
+<p>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 followed&mdash;another&mdash;then 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 b<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>oldly, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 ground&mdash;a 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> 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 <i>la gloire</i>, 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 Ford&mdash;at 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> 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!&mdash;Here's the West
+P'inters&mdash;here's the generals! Now, boys, just see how loud you can
+holler!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Ricketts and Griffin upon the Mathews Hill ceased firing&mdash;greatly to the
+excitement of Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New
+Orleans. The smoke slightly lifted. "What're they doing? They've got
+their horses&mdash;they're limbering up! What in hell!&mdash;d'ye suppose they've
+had enough? No! Great day in the morning! They're coming up here!"</p>
+
+<p>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 b<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>ut 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 S<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>cotch 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 shells&mdash;shells
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>beau sabreur</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 howitze<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>rs, 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;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
+regiments&mdash;Michigan and Minnesota this time&mdash;came up the hill. A
+grey-haired officer&mdash;Heintzleman&mdash;seated 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 socke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>t. 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
+thirsty&mdash;oh, very, very thirsty! Time went in waves with hollows between
+of negation. A movement took hours&mdash;surely 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 din&mdash;we 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
+Hill&mdash;and he had seen both events from a ring of pines out of which he,
+with two others, was keeping twenty Rhode Islanders.</p>
+
+<p>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, eac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>h man, twenty rounds. The First
+Brigade answered at close range. All the Henry plateau blazed and
+thundered.</p>
+
+<p>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 Carolina&mdash;each 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 be&mdash;<i>could it be from Manassas</i>? <i>Could it be the missing
+brigade?</i> 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,&mdash;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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;without premeditation, without co&ouml;peration, each man for
+himself, <i>Yaai</i>, <i>Yai</i> ... <i>Yaai</i>, <i>Yaai</i>,
+<i>Yai</i>.... <i>Yaai!</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>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
+re&euml;nlistment. 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> 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 fiend&mdash;Munford&mdash;on the
+turnpike. Four hundred troopers between them? No! <i>Four thousand</i>&mdash;and
+each riding like the Headless Horseman with terror in his hand! There
+was Confederate infantry upon the turnpike&mdash;a couple of regiments, a
+legion, a battery&mdash;they 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.
+Centreville&mdash;Centreville first, and a little food&mdash;all the haversacks
+had been thrown away&mdash;but no stopping at Centreville! No! Beyond
+Centreville the Potomac&mdash;Washington&mdash;<i>home</i>! 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 column&mdash;they'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 Ford&mdash;to find no Miles or Richardson or
+Runyon for them to attack! It was a mistake and a confusion of identity.
+The crossing troops were Confederates&mdash;D. 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,&mdash;ordered the men to halt and bivouac for the night in the woods
+about the stream.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p><p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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 we&mdash;heavy 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> 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 kindred&mdash;we were all more or less
+akin&mdash;and 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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>WINCHESTER</h3>
+
+
+<p>The December afternoon was drawing to a quiet close. The season had
+proved extraordinarily mild&mdash;it 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.&mdash;Down, pussy, down, down!&mdash;A green Christmas makes a fat
+graveyard. Did ye hear the firing yesterday?"</p>
+
+<p>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
+grey&mdash;of Winchester, in short, in war time.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">"I saw de beam in my sistah's eye,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Cyarn see de beam in mine!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Yo'd better lef' yo' sistah's doah,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">An' keep yo' own doah fine!&mdash;</span><br />
+An' I had er mighty battle lak Jacob an' de angel&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>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 coug<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>h 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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Cleave laughed. "I don't want you to be! I am not 'terribly'
+unhappy myself&mdash;despite 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
+South&mdash;yes, 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 pleasure&mdash;and to-morrow we'll come back to the warehouse with
+a full basket! I wish the coffee was not getting so low."</p>
+
+<p>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 place&mdash;dear 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> I were unhappy
+at Three Oaks. So we closed the house and came."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her mother smiled. "I don't think he's really spoiled; not, that is, by
+Richard.&mdash;When did you come to town, Major Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Miriam!"</p>
+
+<p>"But they do, mother! Of course, not Richard. Richard knows how to be a
+soldier. And Will&mdash;Will 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 men&mdash;they're
+soldiers, too! But I've heard the <i>militia</i> say it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Maury Stafford laughed. "Then I won't! I'll only confide to you that the
+Army of the Northwest thinks that General Jackson is&mdash;is&mdash;well, is
+General Jackson!&mdash;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 other&mdash;all 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? Nothing&mdash;when they have
+managed to convert to their way of thinking both the commanding general
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> the government at Richmond!&mdash;You look grave, Mrs. Cleave! I should
+not have said that, I know. Pray forget it&mdash;and 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 wall&mdash;without comment and
+without removal from the ground occupied! Well! Why not expect the thing
+to show its nature?&mdash;Is this pleasant old house your goal?"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He is acting just now as aide to General Jackson. You have been all
+this while with General Magruder on the Peninsula?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford looked at her, amused. "But some of us run out again&mdash;Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> to-day, news of the Allegheny engagement&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not like the idea?"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is the best thing that could happen. Draw them into the middle
+valley and they are ours."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford made a gesture. "<i>Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame!</i> Mrs. Cleave,
+there is no help for it! We are bewitched&mdash;and all by a stone wall in an
+old cadet cap!"</p>
+
+<p>Cleave laughed. "No, no! but it is, I think, apparent&mdash;You will not go
+in? I will walk with you, then, as far as the hotel."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;Well, what do you think of affairs in
+general?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that last summer we won a Pyrrhic victory."</p>
+
+<p>"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 Potomac&mdash;Maryland, alone, an
+honourable exception! France and England, too! They'll be our active
+allies not a minute later than April Fool's Day!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are bitter."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the case, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Cleave gravely. "And the blockade is daily growing more
+effective, and yet before we are closed in a ri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>ng 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!&mdash;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 out&mdash;even 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."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not bitter."</p>
+
+<p>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 direction&mdash;and 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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very good. How red the sunsets are! Look at that bough across
+the sky!"</p>
+
+<p>"Were you," asked Cleave, "were you in Albemarle this autumn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. For one day in October. The country looked its loveliest. The old
+ride through the woods, by the mill&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I remember," said Cleave. "My cousins were well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite well. Enchanted princesses guarded by the sable Julius. The old
+place was all one drift of red and yellow leaves."</p>
+
+<p>They reached the hotel. Cleave spok<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>e 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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Some one spoke from down the hall. "Is that Captain Cleave? Come here,
+sir."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 books&mdash;the 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the stretch of the Potomac north of us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have ridden over the country between Harper's Ferry and Bath."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know where is Dam No. 5?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Come nearer, Gold," said the general. "Go on with your report."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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 canal&mdash;some 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&mdash;" He drew out a slip of paper
+and read from it: "'Yankees upon the Maryland side of the Potomac from
+Point of Rocks to Hancock&mdash;say 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 force&mdash;perhaps
+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 division&mdash;perhaps fifteen thousand men&mdash;in winter
+quarters at Frederick City.'&mdash;That is all I have to report, general."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," said Jackson. "Give me your memorandum. Captain Cleave&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>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 dam&mdash;Dam No. 5."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope that He will give it, sir. That part of Virginia is worth making
+an effort for."</p>
+
+<p>"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 sure&mdash;General 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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's stillness in the room; then, "Very well, sir," said
+Cleave.</p>
+
+<p>"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. <i>Captain Cleave on Special Service.</i> Here, too,
+is the name and address of a Catholic priest in Frederick City. He may
+be depe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>nded 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."</p>
+
+<p>"You spoke, sir," said Cleave, "of a captured dispatch from General
+Kelly. May I see it?"</p>
+
+<p>Jackson took it from a box upon the table. "There it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you object, sir, to its reaching General Banks?"</p>
+
+<p>The other retook the paper, glanced over it, and gave it back. "No, not
+if it goes by a proper courier."</p>
+
+<p>"Has the former courier been sent to Richmond?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet." He wrote another line. "This, if you wish to see the
+courier."</p>
+
+<p>"That is all, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is all, captain. Within four days, near Martinsburg. Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>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 Andr&eacute;
+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. <i>The Post of Honour is
+the Post of Danger.</i> I can see that in round hand. But what I can't see
+is how you are going to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"I want," said the other, "one half-hour quite to myself. Then I think
+I'll know. Here's the picket. The word's <i>Bethel</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The Stonewall Brigade was encamped in the fields just without the town.
+It was early in the war and there were yet tents&mdash;long 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 <i>officer</i> who did n<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>ot 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>I
+thought, sir</i>&mdash;the <i>It is due to my dignity, sir</i>&mdash;none 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Cleave spoke. "Where is Lieutenant Breckinridge, Tullius?"</p>
+
+<p>Tullius straightened himself. "Lieutenant Breckinridge is at the
+colonel's, sah. An' Lieutenant Coffin, he's at the Debatin' Society in
+Company C."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Er <i>cup</i> of coffee, you mean, Marse Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, coffee berries. Haven't you any there?"</p>
+
+<p>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 u<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>pon 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 man&oelig;uvres, 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 know&mdash;those 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>LIEUTENANT McNEIL</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 Wheeling&mdash;and
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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 now&mdash;Your coat's all right, and your signal's all
+right, but I'm damned if your voice ain't Southern&mdash;" The head of the
+boat touched the shore and the dress of the horseman was seen more
+closely.&mdash;"Lieutenant," ended the speaker, with a change of tone.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>Horse and man entered the boat, which moved out into the stream.</p>
+
+<p>"I was once," stated the sergeant-major, though still in the pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>per
+tone of respect toward a lieutenant, "I was once in Virginia for a
+month, down on the Pamunkey&mdash;and the people all said 'gaily.'"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The heretofore silent blue soldier shifted his rifle. "What in hell&mdash;"
+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 picture&mdash;a 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 <i>say</i> 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!&mdash;" 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 day&mdash;a storekeeper&mdash;a 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 Branch&mdash;the Valley of the
+South Branch is a hotbed of rebels.' That's what he said&mdash;'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 <i>vice versa</i>. So it
+goes. But the valley of the South Branch is old stock,' he says, 'and a
+hotbed of rebels.'"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"McNeill," said the Virginian. "It is lovely weather. You don't often
+have a December like this in your part of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"No, we don't. And I only hope 't will last."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope it will," assented McNeill. "It's bad marching in bad weather."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't guess," said the sergeant-major, "that we'll do much marching
+before springtime."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;" 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 of&mdash;of&mdash;of
+<i>masquerading</i>&mdash;and your voice is Southern, if your politics ain't! 'T
+isn't my usual way."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>is</i>
+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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. It is. But there are one or two loyal families."</p>
+
+<p>"You wish to go on to Frederick this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 successful&mdash;they
+make statements that it is hard to credit. I should be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> glad of any
+reliable information. What did you see or hear coming through?"</p>
+
+<p>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 troopers&mdash;nearly 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&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold&mdash;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>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 subject&mdash;on 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
+cross&mdash;preparatory, say, to joining with General Kelly&mdash;Jackson might
+swing out of Winchester and give him check. Otherwise, he'll probably
+keep on drilling&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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.&mdash;You read Byron?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Lieutenant McNeill briefly. "He's a great poet. 'Don Juan,'
+now, and Suvaroff at Ismail&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>He made no answer, but he took the city.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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 together&mdash;Very opportunely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>; here he is!"</p>
+
+<p>A tall, blond being, cap-&agrave;-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 <i>loyal</i> Virginian bearing
+a letter from General Kelly to General Banks&mdash;a 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."</p>
+
+<p>"I must ride rapidly," said McNeill, "but if Captain Marchmont&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I always ride rapidly," answered the captain. "Learned it in Texas in
+1843. At your service, lieutenant, whenever you're ready."</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>do</i> you want to
+sell?"</p>
+
+<p>McNeill laughed. "Not to-day, captain!" He stroked the brown shoulder.
+"Not to-day, Dun&mdash;Dandy!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's his name? Dundandy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied the lieutenant. "Just Dandy. I'm rather fond of him. I
+think we'll see it out together."</p>
+
+<p>"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 me&mdash;carried 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, rather."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am a Virginian."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are fighting against Virginia. Curious!"</p>
+
+<p>The other smiled. "To be where you are you must believe in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+inviolability of the Union."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I?" answered Marchmont coolly. "I believe in it, of course. I am
+fighting for it. It chanced, you see, that I was in France&mdash;and out of
+service and damnably out at elbows, too!&mdash;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 England&mdash;where I haven't been of late years&mdash;and a row
+turned up, I should fight with England."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 live&mdash;and each man to run
+the great race according to his inner vision! If he really conflicts
+with me, I'll let him know it."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"As Joseph was a-walking,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He heard an angel sing,</span><br />
+'This night shall be born<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our Heavenly King&mdash;'"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I remember that one quite well," said Captain Marchmont, and
+proceeded to sing in an excellent bass,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"He neither shall be born<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In housen nor in hall,</span><br />
+Nor in the place of Paradise,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But in an ox's stall&mdash;</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"Do you know the next verse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said McNeill.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"He neither shall be clothed<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In purple nor in pall,</span><br />
+But all in fair linen<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As are babies all!"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"That's it," nodded the other. "And the next goes,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"He neither shall be rocked<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In silver nor in gold</span><br />
+But in a wooden cradle<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That rocks on the mould&mdash;"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take you at once to General Banks. You go back to Kelly at Romney
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as soon as General Banks shall have answered General Kelly's
+letter."</p>
+
+<p>"You have an occasional fight over there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, up and down the line. Ashby's command is rather active."</p>
+
+<p>"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.&mdash;Major Hertz,
+whom I knew in Prussia, Captain Wingate of your old army and one or two
+others."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm exceedingly obliged," said McNeill, "but I have ridden hard of
+late, and slept li<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>ttle, 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," said Marchmont. "You'll get a better night there, though
+I'm sorry not to have you with us.&mdash;There are the lights of Frederick,
+and here's the picket. You have your pass from Williamsport?"</p>
+
+<p>McNeill gave it to a blue soldier, who called a corporal, who read it by
+a swinging lantern. "Very good. Pass, Lieutenant McNeill."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>"AS JOSEPH WAS A-WALKING"</h3>
+
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course he's all right!" said the general. "Kelly's letter is
+perfectly <i>bona fide</i>, 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&mdash;" He came back to the
+red-covered table. "Did you talk of the military situation coming
+along?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very little, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"He wasn't inquisitive? Didn't criticise, or draw you on to talk&mdash;didn't
+ask about my troops and my movements?"</p>
+
+<p>"He did not, sir."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;" 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."</p>
+
+<p>"What," asked Marchmont, "is this long black patch in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> midst of the
+shading?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the valley of the South Branch of the Potomac&mdash;see, it's marked!
+Now, this man's from that locality."</p>
+
+<p>"H&mdash;m! Dark as Erebus, apparently, along the South Branch!"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It was hardly of military matters, sir. But if you wish to detain
+him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"General Kelly must have my letter. I'm not to move, and it's important
+that he should know it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not question him again?"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;and I've been reviewing troops all day. Do you think it's
+worth while, captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"In war very little things are worth while, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But you were with him all afternoon, and he seemed perfectly all
+right&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I liked him very well." He pulled at his long yellow
+moustache. "There was only one little circumstance.... If you are
+doubtful, sir&mdash;The papers, of course, might be forged."</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;Where's he lodging?"</p>
+
+<p>"McNeill, sir? He said he would find quarters with some connection or
+other&mdash;a Catholic priest&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A Catholic&mdash;There 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."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Marchmont read: "'Distrust without exception the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> 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.'&mdash;Humph!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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 again&mdash;no light nor sound; again&mdash;only
+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."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," said the captain. "This one looks stronger than it really
+is. Stand back, you two."</p>
+
+<p>He put his shoulder to the door&mdash;"Wait a minute, sir! Somebody's lit a
+candle upstairs."</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>face. "Faith!" he said, "an' I
+thought I was after hearin' a noise. Good-evenin', gentlemen&mdash;or rather
+good-morning, for it must be toward cockcrow. What&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Father Lavalle and Father O'Hara," said the aide, "are nothing to the
+question. You have a guest with you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Father Tierney looked enlightened. "Oh! Av coorse! There's always
+business on hand between soldiers. Was it Lieutenant McNeill you'll be
+looking after?"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"So, father, if you'll be good enough to explain to Lieutenant
+McNeill&mdash;or if you'll tell me which is his room&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," said Marchmont. "But orders are orders, father, and I must
+awaken Lieutenant McNeill. Indeed, it's hard to think that he's
+asleep&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't aslape."</p>
+
+<p>"Then will you be so good as to tell him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, and I wish I could do that same thing, my son, but it isn't in
+nature&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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. H&mdash;m! things look rather black for you!"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And how did he know the countersign?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Faith, and I understood that the general himself gave him the word&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"H&mdash;m!" 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You two go at once to headquarters' stables. Saddle my horse&mdash;not the
+black I rode yesterday&mdash;the fresh one, Caliph. Get your own horses.
+Double-quick now! Ten minutes is all I give you."</p>
+
+<p>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 two&mdash;one 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not stop now, father," said the aide dryly. "Perhaps, upon my
+return to Frederick I may call upon you."</p>
+
+<p>"Do so, do so, my son," said Father Tierney. "And ye're going to
+overtake the lieutenant with the general's last words?&mdash;Faith, and while
+I think of it&mdash;he 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"By all the powers, my son!" answered Father Tierney. "The moonlight's
+desaving you! That isn't water&mdash;that'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!"</p>
+
+<p>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, sir&mdash;a man on a great
+bay horse. Said he had important dispatches."</p>
+
+<p>The moon-flooded road, hard beneath the hoofs of the horses, stretched
+south and west, unmarked by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. A man on a great bay horse. Three quarters of an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he riding fast?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Riding fast."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas, sah. Er big man on er big bay. 'Bout half er hour ergo, sah."</p>
+
+<p>Marchmont galloped on. He looked back over his shoulder&mdash;his 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."</p>
+
+<p>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 lat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>ter 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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. "Why&mdash;It is yesterday's comrade! Good-morning, Captain
+Marchmont!"</p>
+
+<p>"We must have started," said Marchmont, "somewhere near the same hour. I
+have a communication from General Banks for the commander at
+Williamsport."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>They put themselves in motion. "Two men are behind us," remarked the man
+from Romney.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. There they come through the fields. Two troopers who are riding
+with me&mdash;Regulars. They'll accommodate their pace to ours."</p>
+
+<p>"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 strea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>m. 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not yet know. There is no occasion, as I have all instructions
+from General Banks. I wish to make no unnecessary delay."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you the countersign?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you cross by the ferry?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"That is, after you pass through Williamsport?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a mile or two beyond."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> 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
+interruption&mdash;not a long continued one, I trust&mdash;to our pleasant
+relations."</p>
+
+<p>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 course&mdash;the sooner the better! I can have no
+possible objection."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"By jingo!" cried the captain, "that's true! There's a squad of them
+here." He raised his voice. "Men from northwest Virginia, advance!"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>Three voices made themselves heard. "Know it like a book."&mdash;"Don't know
+it like a book&mdash;know it like I know my gun and dawg."&mdash;"Don't know any
+good of it&mdash;they-uns air all rebels down that-a-way!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Especially," said a fourth voice, "the McNeills."</p>
+
+<p>The courier from Kelly glanced at him sharply. "And what have you got,
+my man, against the McNeills?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," demanded the captain, "this one? This is Lieutenant
+McNeill."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"He says he is."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"'Dundee&mdash;'" exclaimed Marchmont. "That's the circumstance. You started
+to say 'Dundee.'"</p>
+
+<p>He gave an abrupt laugh. "On the whole, I like you even better than I
+did&mdash;but it's a question now for a drumhead and a provost guard. I'm
+sorry&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>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 wounded&mdash;the bay's wounded, too! They'll
+get him at the canal!&mdash;Thar's a bridge around the bend, but he don't
+know it!&mdash;Climb atop the fence; ye can see better&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 wounded&mdash;he's sinking! No, by God, he ain't! Whar's the
+captain from Frederick! Thar he is&mdash;thar 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 l<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>ike 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Then fling ope your gates, and let me go free,<br />
+For it's up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The two troopers reached the shore. "Where is he, sir?&mdash;Out there?" They
+emptied their pistols&mdash;it 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> 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!&mdash;No, thar! That's him, downs-tream!
+Fire!&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>One of the troopers uttered an exclamation. "Hear that, sir! He's
+across! Damned if he isn't halloaing to tell us so!"</p>
+
+<p>Faintly, from the southern shore, came a voice. It was raised in a line
+of song,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"As Joseph was a-walking,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">He heard the angels sing"&mdash;</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>"THE BATH AND ROMNEY TRIP"</h3>
+
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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,
+Cuninghame&mdash;Colonel Ashby will understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Here," said the vedette, "is Colonel Ashby now."</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;Ah, it's Richard Cleave!"</p>
+
+<p>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?"&mdash;"Going to Hancock,&mdash;no, don't know where
+it is!"&mdash;"Purty day! Seen any rebels crost the river?"&mdash;"At Williamsport
+they told us there was a rebel spy got away this morning&mdash;galloped down
+a cliff like Israel Putnam and took to the river, and if he was drowned
+or not they don't know&mdash;" "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."&mdash;"Wish <i>I</i> could find out something&mdash;wish I could find out
+when we're going to fight!"&mdash;"Low braidge!"&mdash;"That's a pretty big dam.
+What's the troops over there in the field? Indiana? That's a right nice
+picnic-ground<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>'Kiss me good-bye, my dear,' he said;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'When I come back, we will be wed.'</span><br />
+Crying, she kissed him, 'Good-bye, Ned!'<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the soldier followed the drum,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The drum</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The echoing, echoing drum!"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> found his commander.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a very strong, old, stone mill, sir, with windows. It would
+command any short-range attack upon the workers."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! good! We will put riflemen there. As soon as General Garnett is
+up, send him to me."</p>
+
+<p>From the not-distant road came a heavy rumble of wheels and the sound of
+horses' feet. "There are the guns, now, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. They must wait until nightfall to get into position. Send Captain
+McLaughlin to me in half an hour's time."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Captain Colston of the 2d is here&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. I will see him now. That is all, major."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. The <i>Honeywood</i> Colstons."</p>
+
+<p>"This stone mill is upon your land?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. My mother owns it."</p>
+
+<p>"You have been about the dam as a boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. In the water above it and in the water below it. I know every
+log, I reckon. It works the mill."</p>
+
+<p>"If we break it, it will work the mill no longer. In addition, if the
+enemy cross, they will probably destroy the property."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. My mother and I would not let that weigh with us. As I know
+the construction I should esteem it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Colston departed. "Now, Captain Cleave," said the general.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson nodded. "Yes, sir, I ought to have every soldier in Virginia&mdash;if
+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."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 somewhere&mdash;no 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!)&mdash;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. Breakfast&mdash;"at early
+dawn"&mdash;was good and plentiful. Three days' rations had been served and
+cooked, and stowed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>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 there&mdash;wherever "there" was&mdash;in 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 column&mdash;the Stonewall Brigade, three brigades of
+Loring's, five batteries, and a few cavalry companies; eight thousand,
+five hundred men in all.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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-wea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>ry 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 tortoises&mdash;but 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. <i>Officers will be held responsible for any destruction of
+property. We are here to protect and defend, not to destroy.</i> 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 &mdash;&mdash; 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> 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 humanity&mdash;to
+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 ice&mdash;and the wagons were not up!</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> lifted monotonous voices, weary and harsh as reeds by a winter
+pond. <i>Close up, men&mdash;close up&mdash;close up!</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+past&mdash;but 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> summer&mdash;Greenwood and a quiet garden. That did not
+answer! Harassment, longing, sore desire, check and
+bitterness&mdash;unhappiness 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! What does he want?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is much suffering among his men, sir. They have seen hard service
+and they have faced it gallantly&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Are his men insubordinate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, sir. But&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are, I believe, the officer whom General Loring sent me once
+before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general. Many of the men are without rations. Others are almost
+barefoot. The great number a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>re unused to mountain work or to so
+rigorous a climate."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>World Drama</i>! 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."</p>
+
+<p>Cleave pushed his horse a little into the road. "Sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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: "<i>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.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He folded the l<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>eaf 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.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry," said Cleave gravely. "But when you have been with him
+longer you will understand him better."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that he is really mad."</p>
+
+<p>The other shook his head. "He is not mad. Don't get that idea, Stafford.
+It <i>is</i> hard on the troops, poor fellows! How the snow falls! We had
+better turn out and let the guns pass."</p>
+
+<p>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 him&mdash;Yes, sir! Get up
+there, Selim! Pull, Flora, pull!&mdash;Whoa!&mdash;Damnation! Come lay a hand to
+this gun, boys! Where's Hetterich! Hetterich, this damned wheel's off
+again!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall you remain with the staff?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Only through this campaign. I prefer the line."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> yourself&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It was no trouble. As I told you once before, I am anxious to serve
+you."</p>
+
+<p>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.
+<i>Close up, men! Close up&mdash;close up!</i></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you had anything to eat, Will?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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 a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>nswer 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 it&mdash;I didn't need it, anyway." He looked
+over his shoulder. "Well, I'd better be catching up!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard put a hand upon his arm. "Don't give away any more clothing. You
+have your blanket, I see."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and Mr. Rat has an oilcloth. Oh, we'll sleep. I could sleep now&mdash;"
+he spoke dreamily; "right in that fence corner. Doesn't it look soft and
+white?&mdash;like a feather bed with lovely clean sheets. The fence rails
+make it look like my old crib at home&mdash;" 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.</p>
+
+<p>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. "<i>Judge Allen's
+Resolutions</i>&mdash;hey, Richard! The world has moved since then! I wish
+Fincastle could see us now&mdash;or 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 flowers&mdash;we 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 madman&mdash;they 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 prettiest&mdash;and did he respond?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, he responded," replied Stafford, with grimness. "But not by
+me.&mdash;Major Cleave, sir, of his staff."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> 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?"</p>
+
+<p>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 &AElig;sop's fables?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir,&mdash;a number of them."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Along the edge of the not-distant ravine other small fires had been
+built. From the circle about one of these arose a quavering voice&mdash;a
+soldier trying to sing cheer into company.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Dere was an old niggah, dey called him Uncle Ned&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">He's dead long ago, long ago!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He had no wool on de top ob his head,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">De place whar de wool ought to grow.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Den lay down de shubble an de hoe,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Hang up de fiddle an de bow&mdash;</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+
+<h3>FOOL TOM JACKSON</h3>
+
+
+<p>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
+bath&mdash;apparently never wanted one!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 man&mdash;not even a better born or educated man&mdash;than 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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> 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 corn&mdash;and without paying for it either. "Yes, sir, there are
+Yankees at Bath. More'n you can shake a stick at!"</p>
+
+<p>The foragers brought back the news. "There are Yankees at Bath&mdash;eight
+miles away! Any number of them. Just as certain as it's sleeting, that's
+where Old Jack's going!"</p>
+
+<p>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 C&aelig;sar were here they couldn't get this
+army eight miles to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>The cavalry, the artillery, the Stonewall Brigade, Meems and Carson's
+Militia, the three brigades of Loring&mdash;on 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 ahead&mdash;Bath 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?&mdash;Boys, I feel better!"</p>
+
+<p>Old Jack&mdash;the men began with suddenness again to call him Old Jack&mdash;Old
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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-eyed&mdash;all 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>shoes</i>, cords of firewood, forage for the
+horses, flour, and fresh meat, sugar, coffee, sutlers' stores of every
+kind, wines, spirits, cigars&mdash;oh, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the afternoon McLaughlin's battery dropped shells into
+Hancock, but an hour before dark came orders to cease firing. A
+scout&mdash;Allan Gold&mdash;brought 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 destination&mdash;Kelly'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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> valley. Low hills were on
+either side&mdash;low 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;war, heroic and glorious, with
+banners, trumpets, and rewarded enterprise? Manassas had been war&mdash;for
+one brief summer day! But ever since there was only marching, tenting,
+suffering, and fatigue&mdash;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>nd fatigue&mdash;and fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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 man&mdash;and he'll be
+good to Pluto. Pluto's almost worn out himself&mdash;he'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 war&mdash;and the quarrel never theirs. Do but look at that
+stream!&mdash;how cool and pleasant, winding between the willows&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 again&mdash;a veil of sleet. The two waiting for
+the ambulance looked down upon the grey soldiers, grey, weary, and bent
+before the wind. "Who woul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>d 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 comfortable&mdash;but 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,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Through a circle that ever returneth in<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To the selfsame spot,</span><br />
+And much of Madness and more of Sin<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Horror the soul of the plot&mdash;</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Is it not wonderful, the gold light on the mountains?"</p>
+
+<p>At last the ambulance appeared&mdash;a 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 y<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>et
+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. <i>What were they doing at home, by
+the fire, after supper, with the children playing about?</i></p>
+
+<p>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 high&mdash;but 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 it&mdash;I wouldn't have a horse treated
+so! Just look at Flora&mdash;just 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.</p>
+
+<p>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. Rest&mdash;delicious 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
+lonel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>y in the twilight, and by the woods ran Buffalo Run, ice upon the
+shallows to either bank.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;" The persimmons were carried to
+the hospital tents.</p>
+
+<p>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 water&mdash;water 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+vales&mdash;very fine and utterly unappreciated. The earth was hostile, the
+sky was hostile, the commanding general was hostile. Snow began to fall.</p>
+
+<p>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 there&mdash;home, wife, child,
+mother&mdash;all 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 kitchen&mdash;but 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 ha<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>d 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 sound&mdash;the
+artillery and the wagon train climbing Sleepy Creek Mountain. It was
+three o'clock in the afternoon&mdash;oh, leaden weariness, hunger, cold,
+sickness, worn-out shoes&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>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,
+that&mdash;that&mdash;that&mdash;Richard 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 quarters&mdash;that's where we're<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> going. Yes, siree,
+up with the polar bears&mdash;" "And the living skeletons&mdash;" "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!&mdash;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 hats&mdash;Oh, Lord!" "Yes, and the clown&mdash;and
+the ring master&mdash;" "<i>What d'ye think of our ring master?</i>" "Who d'ye
+mean? <i>Him?</i> Think of him? I think he's a damned clown! Don't they call
+him Fool Tom&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Will rose from the straw. "While I am by, I'll allow no man to reflect
+upon the general commanding this army&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 C&aelig;sar, or Marlborough, or
+Eug&egrave;ne, 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 pedagogue&mdash;by God, he's the Falerian pedagogue who sold
+his pupils to the Romans! Oh, the lamb-like pupils, trooping after him
+through flowers and sunshine&mdash;straight 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 Hudibras&mdash;I 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> 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 there&mdash;he 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.&mdash;Hip, hip, hooray! Here's Old Jack with his hand lifted and his
+old cap pulled low, and his sabre carried <i>oblikely</i>, and his 'God has
+been very good to us to-day, men!' Yaaah&mdash;Look out! What are you about?"</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>all</i> cheer like mad&mdash;our friend from Georgia, too&mdash;all 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 aide&mdash;a favourite with his general&mdash;had ventured to demur. "I
+don't think General Jackson likes me, sir. Would not some other&mdash;"
+Loring, the Old Blizzard of two years later&mdash;had 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 cower&mdash;by the
+Lord, I've seen him make others do it! You go ahead, and when you're
+there talk indigo Presbyterian!"</p>
+
+<p>"There" was a space of trampled snow underneath a giant pine. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> 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 coffee&mdash;worse luck!&mdash;but Tullius has a
+couple of sweet potatoes."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't stay, thank you," said the other. "General Jackson is over
+yonder?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Has he not reason to?" Stafford looked about him. "Ugh! steppes of
+Russia!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think it a Moscow march? Perhaps it is. But I doubt if Ney
+complained."</p>
+
+<p>"You think that we complain too much?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"No. Many disagreeable duties are left to the brigades of General
+Loring."</p>
+
+<p>"I challenge that statement, sir. It is not true."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Representations of disaffected soldiers?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir! Representations of gentlemen and patriots. Remonstrances of
+brave men against the leadership of a petty tyrant&mdash;a diseased mind&mdash;a
+Presbyterian deacon crazed for personal distinction&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I give you warning!"</p>
+
+<p>"A crazy Barebones masquerading as a Cromwell&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The other's two hands on the shoulders of General Loring's aide had
+undoubtedly&mdash;the weight of the body being thrown forward&mdash;the 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 snow&mdash;two staff officers brawling before a disheartened
+army! What have you to say for yourselves? Nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford broke the silence. "Major Cleave has my leave to explain his
+action, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson's eyes drew to a yet narrower line. "Your leave is not
+necessary, sir. What was this brawl about, Major Cleave?"</p>
+
+<p>"We quarrelled, sir," sa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>id Cleave slowly. "Major Stafford gave
+utterance to certain sentiments with which I did not agree, and ... we
+quarrelled."</p>
+
+<p>"What sentiments? Yes, sir, I order you to answer."</p>
+
+<p>"Major Stafford made certain statements as to the army and the
+campaign&mdash;statements which I begged to contradict. I can say no more,
+sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You will tell me what statements, major."</p>
+
+<p>"It is impossible for me to do that, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"My orders are always possible of execution, sir. You will answer me."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Jackson cut him short. "Be silent, sir! I have not asked you for your
+report. Major Cleave, I am waiting."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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 deprecation&mdash;a 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>Cleave laughed. "It doesn't much look like it, sir! Well&mdash;I'm back with
+the regiment, anyway!"</p>
+
+<p>All that night it snowed, snowed hard. When the day broke the valley had
+the seeming of a crowded graveyard&mdash;numberless white mounds stretching
+north and south in the feeble light. A bugle blew, silver chill;&mdash;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!&mdash;Powerful good place
+for an ambush&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 dog&mdash;a big, brown shepherd&mdash;lay 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.</p>
+
+<p>It was the beginning of a track of desolation. From Hanging Rock to
+Romney the Confederate column traversed a country<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> 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!&mdash;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!&mdash;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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;I reckon we'd better step up,
+boys!&mdash;Naw, my foot don't hurt no more!"</p>
+
+<p>A mounted officer came by. "General Jackson says, 'Press forward, men!'"</p>
+
+<p>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 school&mdash;now 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 ye&mdash;and the fire go with ye&mdash;and the hearts of your
+mothers go with ye! Oh-h!&mdash;Oh-h-h-h!&mdash;Oh-h! Shoot them down!"</p>
+
+<p>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 lo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>nely 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>I</i> say, 'By God!' General Jackson says, 'You
+are too slow.' They've gone&mdash;only 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!'"</p>
+
+<p>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!'"</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Close
+up, men</i>, the <i>Get on, men!</i> of the officers, thin, like a child's
+fretful wail, was taken up by the wind and lost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>. With Romney well in
+sight came a third courier. "General Jackson says, 'Press forward!'&mdash;No,
+sir. He didn't say anything else. But I've been speaking with a courier
+of Ashby's. <i>He</i> says there are three railroad bridges,&mdash;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!'"</p>
+
+<p><i>Press forward&mdash;Press forward!</i> 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!&mdash;Frozen creeks, frozen rivers, steel in a world of snow&mdash;Kelly
+probably already at Cumberland, and Rosecrans beyond at
+Wheeling&mdash;hunger, cold, winter in the spurs of the Alleghenies, disease,
+stragglers, weariness, worn-out shoes, broken-down horses,
+disappointment, disillusion, a very, very strange commanding
+general&mdash;Suddenly 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."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE IRON-CLADS</h3>
+
+
+<p>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 windows&mdash;four yards to a side&mdash;say thirty-two yards.
+That's enough for a dozen good shirts. The damask itself?&mdash;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.&mdash;Well, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Lucy, chile, when you done sont de curtains ter Richmon', how is
+you gwine surmantle de windows?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will leave them bare, Julius. All the more sunlight."</p>
+
+<p>Unity came in, knitting. "Aunt Lucy, the velvet piano cover could go."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a good idea, dear. A capital blanket!"</p>
+
+<p>"A soldier won't mind the embroidery. What is it, Julius?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Unity, when you done sont dat kiver ter Richmon', what you gwine
+investigate dat piano wif?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we'll leave it bare, Julius! The grain of the wood shows better
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"The bishop," said Miss Lucy thoughtfully&mdash;"the bishop sent his study
+carpet last week. What do you think, Unity?"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;But if you think it would do any good&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We might wait awhile, seeing that spring is here. If the war should
+last until next winter, of course we shall send it."</p>
+
+<p>Unity laughed. "Julius looks ten years younger! Why, Uncle Julius, we
+have bare floors in summer, anyhow!"</p>
+
+<p>"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
+counterpanes&mdash;no'm, hit ain't right eben if de ginerals do sequesterate
+supplies! How de house gwine look when marster come home?"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear, I did. I am sorry, for I know that you like them. But
+everything is so hard to get&mdash;and the armies&mdash;and the poor people. I've
+told Car'line to give us no more desserts."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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?</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Knit&mdash;knit&mdash;knit&mdash;<br />
+The soldiers' feet to fit!"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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 Fair&mdash;every one is <i>giving</i>. Oh, I wish we had a thousand gunboats
+and a hundred <i>Virginias</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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 Roads&mdash;except 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 ships&mdash;and 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> forgive me, but I am blithe
+when I hear of their ships gone down at sea!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Judith, without turning. "Not stranded as they were before
+Roanoke Island, but wrecked and sunken. Come, look, Unity, at the wild
+storm!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>Her sister looked at her, but with a distant gaze. "It is because I can
+dream&mdash;no, not dream, see! I follow all the time&mdash;I follow with my mind
+the troops upon the march, and the ships on the sea. I do not hate the
+ships&mdash;they are beautiful, with the green waves about them and the
+sea-gulls with shining wings. And yet I wish that they would sink&mdash;down,
+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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" cried Unity. "The great oak bough is going!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Some one is coming up the drive," exclaimed Unity. "It's a soldier!
+He's singing!"</p>
+
+<p>The wind, blowing toward the house, brought the air and the quality of
+the voice that sang it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Beau chevalier qui partez pour la guerre,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qu'allez-vous faire</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Si loin d'ici?</span><br />
+Voyez-vous pas que la nuit est profonde,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et que le monde</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">N'est que souci?"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Edward!" cried Judith. "It is Edward!"</p>
+
+<p>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 lap&mdash;mammy singin' ter him, an' he singin' ter mammy!
+O Marse Jesus! let me look at him&mdash;"</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Beau chevalier qui partez pour la guerre,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qu'allez-vous faire</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Si loin de nous?&mdash;"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Eleven months," said Edward. "Judith, Judith, if you knew how good home
+looks&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How thin you are, and brown! And walking!&mdash;Where is Prince John&mdash;and
+Jeames?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 Merrimac&mdash;You're worn yourself,
+Judith, and your eyes are so big and dark!&mdash;Is it Maury Stafford or
+Richard Cleave?"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;" She held him off and looked at him. "I never saw it
+before&mdash;but you're like your grandfather, my dear; you're like my dear
+father!&mdash;O child, how thin you are!"</p>
+
+<p>Unity and Molly hung upon him. "The papers told us that you were on the
+Merrimac&mdash;though we don't know how you got there! Did you come from
+Richmond? Have you seen father?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 you&mdash;dat's what I wants ter know? My po'
+lamb!&mdash;Marse Edward, don' you laugh kaze mammy done fergit you ain' er
+baby still&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>The Buzzards and the Butterflies&mdash;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>and I'll go to sleep.' I did it, and I went off like a baby&mdash;Well,
+Julius, and how are you?"</p>
+
+<p>Within the parlour there were explanations, ejaculations, questions, and
+answers. "So short a furlough&mdash;when we have not seen you for almost a
+year! Never mind&mdash;of 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 mind&mdash;we'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 refugees&mdash;Fairfaxes
+and Fauntleroys. They've gone on to Richmond, and we're alone just now.
+We take turn about at the hospitals in Charlottesville&mdash;there are three
+hundred sick&mdash;and 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
+word&mdash;and 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 wait&mdash;Here's
+Julius with the wine! And your room's ready&mdash;fire 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
+<i>darling</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>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 walls&mdash;with 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"We were encamped on the Warwick River&mdash;infantry, 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
+fever&mdash;malarial&mdash;of 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 marshes&mdash;all winter, in
+fact.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> About two weeks ago&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Edward, were you very homesick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Devilish. For the certain production of a very curious feeling, give me
+picket duty on a wet marsh underneath the stars! Poetic
+places&mdash;marshes&mdash;with 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 Colorado&mdash;General Magruder, you know&mdash;gold lace, stars, and
+black plume! With him came Lieutenant Wood, C. S. N. We were paraded&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Edward, try as I may, I cannot get over the strangeness of your being
+in the ranks!"</p>
+
+<p>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 do&mdash;to spy on life!&mdash;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?&mdash;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 army&mdash;and 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 seamen&mdash;seamen at an emergency, anyhow!
+Anyhow, when it comes to an emergency Virginians and Louisianians are
+there to meet it&mdash;on sea or on land! Just now there is an emergency&mdash;the
+Virginia's got to have a crew. General Magruder, for all he's got only a
+small force with which to hold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> a long line&mdash;General 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 ph&oelig;nix; and the last state of her is greater
+than the first, and her name is going down in history! Louisianians and
+Virginians, who volunteers?'</p>
+
+<p>"About two hundred volunteered&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Edward, what did you know about seamanship?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 eighty&mdash;all 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."</p>
+
+<p>"What does it look like, Edward&mdash;the Merrimac?"</p>
+
+<p>"It looks, Judith, like Hamlet's cloud. Sometimes there is an appearance
+of a barn with everything but the roof submerged&mdash;or 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.&mdash;Yes, call her a turtle, plated with iron; she looks as much
+like that as like anything else.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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
+another&mdash;and 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 up&mdash;and, 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 News&mdash;and the workmen
+rivetted the last plates&mdash;and smoke began to come out of the
+smokestack&mdash;and suddenly Commodore Buchanan, with his lieutenants behind
+him, appeared between us and the Merrimac&mdash;or 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 blue&mdash;blue and still. There were
+sea-gulls, I remember, flying overhead, screaming as they flew&mdash;and the
+marshes were growing emerald&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes! What did Commodore Buchanan want?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 Judith&mdash;Judith!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Edward."</p>
+
+<p>"Come back to Greenwood. You looked a listening Jeanne d'Arc. What did
+you hear?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I heard the engines working, and the sea fowl screaming, and the wind
+in the rigging of the Cumberland. Go on, Edward."</p>
+
+<p>"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 went&mdash;the 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,&mdash;poor
+thing!</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Edward!"</p>
+
+<p>"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
+swarm&mdash;men 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
+Roads&mdash;ah, she was ugly and courageous! Our two small gunboats, the
+Raleigh and the Beaufort, coming from Norfolk, now overtook us,&mdash;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
+water&mdash;seventy 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 batte<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>ries. Then began a frightful uproar that shook
+the marshes and sent the sea birds screaming. Smoke arose, and flashing
+fire, and an excitement&mdash;an excitement&mdash;an excitement.&mdash;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 Congress&mdash;very 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
+her&mdash;stand by, men!'</p>
+
+<p>"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 lifted&mdash;and 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 man&oelig;uvre
+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
+gol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>d 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 rowboat&mdash;funny! right on the water like that!' 'A launch, I
+reckon,' said a third, 'with plenty of rowers. Now it's behind the
+Minnesota.'&mdash;'Shut up, you talkers,' said a midshipman, 'I want to look
+at the Congress!'</p>
+
+<p>"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 exploded&mdash;a loud and awful sound in the night above the Roads. We
+stood and watched that sea picture, and we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Edward," said Judith. "What happened at dawn?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 flying&mdash;the 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.</p>
+
+<p>"The Minnesota grew in size. Every man of us looked eagerly&mdash;from 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 spirits&mdash;poor 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> sea-gulls dipping between her and the Minnesota.
+Despite the engines she was happy, and the gunners were all ready at the
+starboard ports&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Leaning over, he took the poker and stirred the fire.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"The best laid plans of mice and men<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Do aften gang agley&mdash;"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Miss Lucy's needles clicked. "Yes, the papers told us. The Ericsson."</p>
+
+<p>"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 shingle&mdash;and 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 scene&mdash;a <i>deus
+ex machina</i>, indeed, dropped from the clouds between us and our prey. In
+a moment we knew it for the Ericsson&mdash;the 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 guns&mdash;11-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 sure&mdash;there is no
+denying the drama of the Monitor's appearance&mdash;and 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
+Guilbert&mdash;the 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 o<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>pened 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 Cumberland&mdash;we could only ram with the blunt prow. The Minnesota,
+as we passed, gave us all her broadside guns&mdash;a 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 man&oelig;uvre and man&oelig;uvre to gain position
+where we could ram the Monitor....</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> 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
+there&mdash;the dear and ugly warship, the first of the iron-clads&mdash;we 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> Monitor."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What," asked Edward between two chords, "what do you hear from the
+Valley?"</p>
+
+<p>Unity answered: "General Banks has crossed the Potomac and entered
+Winchester&mdash;poor, 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 letters&mdash;they make you see
+everything that is done."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you hear from Richard Cleave?"</p>
+
+<p>"He never writes."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+<p>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, 'Never&mdash;oh, nevermore let us
+have war!'"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>KERNSTOWN</h3>
+
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>An aide passed at a gallop. "Shields and nine thousand men. Ashby was
+misinformed&mdash;more than we thought&mdash;Shields and nine thousand men."</p>
+
+<p>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
+music&mdash;the 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!"</p>
+
+<p>The colonel came along the line. "Boys, there is going to be a
+considerable deer drive!&mdash;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.&mdash;<i>Right face! Forward march!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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 daisy&mdash;jest as
+though we hadn't tramped them thirty-six miles from New Market since
+yesterday daybreak! My Lord! wish I had your staying qualities&mdash;<i>Au
+re-vo-ree!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Stone fences bordered the pike. The infantry, moving in double column,
+climbed them and entered another strip of springtime woods. The
+artillery&mdash;McLaughlin's, Carpenter's, and Waters's batteries&mdash;found 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> fond of 'Yankee
+Doodle!' There are three bands playing it at once.... There's the 'Star
+Spangled Banner'&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Oh, say can you see,<br />
+Through the blue shades of evening&mdash;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>I used to love it!... Good Lord, how long ago!"</p>
+
+<p>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
+right&mdash;Shields'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 are&mdash;How many men have they got? Oh, about nine
+thousand.&mdash;There goes the artillery now&mdash;there goes Rockbridge!&mdash;Yes,
+sir!&mdash;<i>Attention! Fall in!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>The infernal things!</i>"
+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.
+"&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;! 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.&mdash;Sho! how them things do screech!"</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>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 off&mdash;clean 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 enough&mdash;blue 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."</p>
+
+<p>In the woods along the ridge and in the old field itself the infantry
+deployed. There were portions of three brigades,&mdash;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 Winchester&mdash;the loved valley town so near
+that one might see its bourgeoning trees, hear its church bells.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> him the cloud of disfavour and
+hostility raised by that icy march to Romney less than three months ago.
+And yet&mdash;and 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
+<i>amende honorable</i>, 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 yet&mdash;and 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 march&mdash;to march northward, back
+along the pike, back toward Winchester.</p>
+
+<p>He was cheered now as he rode quietly to and fro, forming his line of
+battle&mdash;Fulkerson'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."</p>
+
+<p>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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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! <i>Zoon&mdash;Zoon&mdash;Zoon!</i> O Lord! listen to that
+shell!&mdash;Sho! that wasn't much. I'm getting to kind of like the fuss.
+There ain't so many of them screeching now, anyhow!"</p>
+
+<p>A lieutenant raised his voice. "Their fire is slackening.&mdash;Don't reckon
+they're tired of it, sir? Hope their ammunition's out!"</p>
+
+<p>From the rear galloped a courier. "Where's General Jackson?&mdash;They're
+drawing off!&mdash;a big body, horse and foot, is backing toward
+Winchester&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Glory hallelujah!" said the men. "Maybe we won't have to fight on
+Sunday after all!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;Sh! the colonel's speaking."</p>
+
+<p>Fulkerson's speech was a shout, for there had arisen a deafening noise
+of artillery. "Run for your lives, men&mdash;toward the enemy! Forward, and
+take the stone fence!"</p>
+
+<p>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 wall&mdash;hours
+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!"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;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's&mdash;Sandy Pendleton it was said&mdash;leaped 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>The battle was now general&mdash;Fulkerson 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;" The 65th went on, led by Richard Cleave.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"'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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>hit
+you, and if it isn't going to hit you it isn't&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;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.
+<i>Attention! Fix bayonets! Forward! Charge!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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 colour&mdash;the 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;Now, you rebs, you go back on the other side!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 quit&mdash;I 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;Thar, now!"</p>
+
+<p>A bullet split the standard, another&mdash;a spent ball coming from the
+hillside&mdash;struck 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."</p>
+
+<p>It was almost dusk to the green and rolling world about the field of
+Kernstown. Upon that field, beneath the sulphurous battle cloud,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>Break
+ranks!</i> Garnett was gallant and brave; they saw tha<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>t 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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+infant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>ry, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 while&mdash;I imagine that's what General Johnston
+wants, and what General Jackson will procure.&mdash;And now you'd better all
+go to sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going, Cleave?"</p>
+
+<p>"To see about the colonel. They've just brought him to the farmhouse
+yonder. Dr. McGuire says he will get well&mdash;dear old Brooke!"</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Marse Charlie whom, uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could," said Cleave, with gentleness. "I haven't seen him, but
+maybe some one else has."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not impossible, Daniel. Maybe you'll find him yet."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>RUDE'S HILL</h3>
+
+
+<p>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 shouts&mdash;a 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>peine forte et dure</i> 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 road&mdash;they went by
+another; natives described the beauties of the village before which they
+were sure to break ranks&mdash;at 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
+Fr&eacute;mont 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."</p>
+
+<p>Rude's Hill formed a strong natural position. There was water,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> there
+were woods, there was an excellent space for a drill-ground. Jackson's
+directions as to drill-grounds were always characteristically explicit.
+"<i>Major: You will see that a camp is chosen where there are wood, water,
+and a drill-ground&mdash;</i>" 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 week&mdash;two weeks!&mdash;and the general
+in blue with nineteen thousand men still on the farther side of Tom's
+Brook!</p>
+
+<p>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 Valley&mdash;so 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.</p>
+
+<p>At Rude's Hill there was an election of company officers. The
+proceedings&mdash;amazing enough to the professional soldier&mdash;put 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 obey&mdash;and there re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>sulted a shattering of monotony
+comparable to a pitched battle.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+lieutenant&mdash;and what was the use in changing, anyhow? Lieutenant Coffin
+was all right. Hadn't he been as brave as a lion at Kernstown&mdash;and any
+man is liable to lose his temper at times&mdash;and wouldn't we hate him to
+have to write back to that young lady at home&mdash;? The last plea almost
+settled it, for the Confederate heart might be trusted to melt at the
+m<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>ention 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
+feast&mdash;special rations, special music, special fires, and, between
+supper and tattoo, an entertainment in each regiment.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Listen to the mocking bird&mdash;Listen to the mocking bird....<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">The mocking bird still singing o'er her grave.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">Listen to the mocking bird&mdash;Listen to the mocking bird....</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">Still singing where the weeping willows wave."</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The pine trees took it up, and the hazel copses and the hurrying
+Shenandoah.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Twas in the mild September&mdash;September&mdash;September,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">And the mocking bird was singing far and wide."</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"<i>Far and wide</i>.... 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.&mdash;The audience is not expected to participate in
+the debate otherwise than judicially, at the close."</p>
+
+<p>The close saw it decided by a rising vote that England would come
+first&mdash;Sergeant 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."</p>
+
+<p>Private Edwin Horsemanden gave the title of his selection, a poetic
+selection. Some of his fellow privates looked puzzled. "'Oz
+Etaliahn?'&mdash;What does 'Oz Etaliahn' mean? Cherokee or Choctaw, which?
+Explain it to us, Eddy. Is it something to eat&mdash;or to drink? ''T is
+true, 'tis pity, 'tis pity 'tis 'tis true'&mdash;but most of us never went to
+college!... Oh, an opera house!&mdash;In Paris, do you say? Go on, Eddy, go
+on!"</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"At Paris it was, at the opera there,&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">And she looked like a queen in a book that night&mdash;"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Of all the operas that Verdi wrote."</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Who's Verdi?"</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"The best, to my taste, is the 'Trovatore.'"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"'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."
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"And Mario"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Hm! stumped again."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"can sooth with a tenor note</span><br />
+The souls in Purgatory."</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The large bearded man was up once more. "I rise to object. There isn't
+any such place. The com&mdash;commanding general'll put him in irons for
+misrepresenting the sidereal system. There's only heaven, hell, and the
+enemy.&mdash;<i>Yaaaaih, Yaai.... Yaaai, yaaaah, yaaaaih!</i> Certainly, sergeant.
+The pleasure is mine, sir. Don't mention it, I beg. Mum's the word!"</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"The moon on the tower slept soft as snow"&mdash;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"And who was not thrilled in the strangest way<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'<i>Non ti scordar di me?</i>'"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"What's that? Wait a minute, Eddy! Let's get the words. I always did
+want a chance at German.&mdash;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.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Non ti scordar di me?&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"Attention! Company A!"</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Non ti scordar di me?&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">Non ti scordar di me?"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Very good! We'll get the meaning after we learn the words. Company B!"</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Non ti scordar di me?"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"Well roared, Bottom! Company C!"</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">"Non ti scordar di me?"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"L<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>ook out, or General Banks'll be sending over Tom's Brook to know
+what's the matter! Company D!"</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Non ti scordar di me?"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Company D goes to the head of the class! Company E!"</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Non ti scordar di me?"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"'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!"</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Non ti scordar di me?"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Non ti&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"Sh! Go on, Eddy boy, and tell us exactly what occurred."</p>
+
+<p>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,</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"And the one bird singing alone to his nest,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the one star over the tower."</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The 65th sighed and propped its chin on its hand. Presently the 65th
+grew misty-eyed.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Then I smelt the smell of that jasmine flower<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She used to wear in her breast</span><br />
+It smelt so faint and it smelt so sweet.&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The pipe dropped from the 65th's hand. It sat sorry and pleased. Private
+Edwin Horsemanden went on without interruption and finished with &eacute;clat.
+The chief musician cleared his throat. "The Glee Club of Company H will
+now&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 novelty&mdash;a pretty
+little foreign song bird brought by the trade-wind, an English
+nightingale singing in Virginian forests.&mdash;Gentlemen, the Glee Club of
+Company H will give you what by now is devil a bit of a novelty&mdash;what
+promises to be as old as the hills before we have done with it&mdash;what our
+grandchildren's grandchildren ma<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>y sing with pride&mdash;what 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. <i>Attention!</i>"</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Way down South in the land of cotton,<br />
+'Simmon seed and sandy bottom&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"I hear the distant thunder hum,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Maryland!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">The Old Line bugle, fife and drum&mdash;"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>An orderly from headquarters found Richard Cleave. "General Jackson
+wishes to see you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>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
+books&mdash;the Bible, a dictionary, and "Napoleon's Maxims." Jackson wa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>s
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean, sir, that I am to answer his questions?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Cleave smiled. "That, sir, is not a great deal."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask, sir, when this junction is to occur?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have not decided, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Does General Ewell know when it will occur?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not precisely. He will be told in good time."</p>
+
+<p>"Whether, when you move, you move north or west or south or east, is, I
+suppose, sir, purely a matter of conjecture?"</p>
+
+<p>"Purely, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But the <i>morale</i> of the army, its efficiency and spirit, may be freely
+praised and imparted?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 d&eacute;tour 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."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>CLEAVE AND JUDITH</h3>
+
+
+<p>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 love&mdash;the 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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 her&mdash;Mrs. Carter'll bring her home."</p>
+
+<p>Judith entered the carriage. An old acquaintance, passing, paused to
+speak to her. "Isn't there a greater stir than usual?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Some of General Ewell's men are over from Gordonsville. There goes
+General Dick Taylor now&mdash;the one in grey and white! He's a son, you
+know, of Zachary&mdash;Old Rough and Ready. General Jackson, too, has an
+officer here to-day, checking the stores that came from Richmond.&mdash;How
+is it at the hospital?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 patriot&mdash;and 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.&mdash;There is music again! Yesterday a man
+died, crying for the band to hush. He said it drowned something he
+needed to hear."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," replied her friend, nodding his head. "That is perfectly
+true. That is very true, indeed!&mdash;That band's coming from the station.
+They're looking for a regiment from Richmond.&mdash;That's a good band! What
+are they playing&mdash;?"</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Bright flowers spring from the hero's grave,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The craven knows no rest,&mdash;</span><br />
+Thrice cursed the traitor and the knave,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The hero thrice is blessed&mdash;"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait for him, then," said Judith. "There is some message, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>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 Valley&mdash;fighting,
+fighting! in battle and danger, perhaps, that very day.</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;I thought it was one of the others.... I hope that you are a
+little glad to see me."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence, deep, breathless, then Cleave spoke.
+"Judith ... Am I mad?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that you love me," she said. "If you do not, it does not
+matter.... I have loved you for two years."</p>
+
+<p>"Maury Stafford?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have never believed that you understood&mdash;though what it was that made
+you misunderstand I have never guessed....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> There is no Maury Stafford.
+There never was."</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door. "Come out," he said. "Come out with me into the
+light. Send the carriage on."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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! Now&mdash;now&mdash;It is like a wonderful home-coming ... and
+yet you are still there, above the mountains, beckoning, drawing&mdash;There
+and here, here in my arms!... Judith&mdash;What does 'Judith' mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"It means 'praised.' Oh, Richard, I heard that you were wounded at
+Kernstown!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was nothing. It is healed.... I will write to your father at once."</p>
+
+<p>"He will be glad, I think. He likes you.... Have you a furlough? How
+long can you stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Love, I cannot stay at all. I am on General Jackson's errand. I must
+ride on to Gordonsville&mdash;It would be sweet to stay!"</p>
+
+<p>"When will you come again?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know. There will be battles&mdash;many battles, perhaps&mdash;up and
+down the Valley. Every man is needed. I am not willing to ask even a
+short furlough."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"I?" he answered, "I feel immortal. I will come back."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No. Aunt Lucy is in town, Unity, too.... Let's say good-bye before we
+reach the carriage."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;There is something I have to think
+of."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 490px;">
+<img src="images/illus02.jpg" width="490" height="600" alt="THE LOVERS" title="THE LOVERS" />
+<span class="caption">THE LOVERS</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>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 w<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>hile 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.</p>
+
+<p>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-fires&mdash;"Lord save us!" said Harris, "I believe they're broiling
+partridges! Of all the dandy places!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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
+woods&mdash;Virginian to the backbone. Trimble's got a fine lot&mdash;Georgians
+and Alabamians and Mississippians. Here come some of the 2d Virginia
+Cavalry! Ain't they pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>They were. But Harris stood up for the absent Valley. "Huh! Ashby's good
+enough for me! Ashby's got three stallions&mdash;the white he's fondest of,
+and a black like a piece of coal, and a red roan&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>him</i>! 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
+Louisiana&mdash;Acadians I've heard them called&mdash;and they can't speak a word
+of English, poor souls!&mdash;There goes their band again. They're always
+playing, dancing, and cooking rice. We call them Parlavoos&mdash;name of
+their county, I reckon.&mdash;He's got Wheat's Battalion, too. Sorrow a bit
+of a Frenchman there&mdash;they're Irish Tartars!&mdash;That's headquarters, sir.
+By the apple<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> orchard."</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;An officer from General Jackson? All right! All right! glad
+to see him. Tell him to wait&mdash;Jim, you black idiot, what have I done
+with that button?"</p>
+
+<p>The aide smiled, Cleave smiled. There was something in the voice that
+announced the person, quaintly rough, lovable and gallant,&mdash;"dear Dick
+Ewell." He came out presently, a small man with a round bald head, hook
+nose and bright eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"This the officer? Glad to see you, Major&mdash;Major Cleave? Stay to
+breakfast. Bob, you black rascal, another plate! Can't give you
+much,&mdash;mysterious inward complaint, myself,&mdash;can't eat anything but
+frumenty.&mdash;Well, sir, how is General Jackson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite well, general."</p>
+
+<p>"Most remarkable man! Wants to tie a bandage round everybody's eyes but
+his own!"&mdash;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!&mdash;Did you happen to meet any of my couriers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general. One at the foot of the Massanuttons, one in Elk Run
+Valley."</p>
+
+<p>"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!&mdash;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.&mdash;Well, sir,
+and what does General Jackson say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a letter for you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>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?
+'<i>Move in three days by Stanardsville. Take a week's rations. Rest</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span><i> on
+Sunday. Other directions will be given as needed.</i>' Hm! Highly
+characteristic! Never anything more than a damned dark lantern!&mdash;Well,
+it's something to know that we're going by Stanardsville and are to rest
+on Sunday! Where is Stanardsville?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a few miles this side of Swift Run Gap."</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;Bob, you damned Ethiopian, where
+are your wits? Fill Major Cleave's cup.&mdash;Glad to welcome you, major, to
+Camp Ewell. Pretty tidy place, don't you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do indeed, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen Dick Taylor's beauties&mdash;his 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Your description applies there, too, sir. It's a little rough and
+ready, but&mdash;it's a damned fine army!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kernstown didn't shake it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kernstown was as much a victory as a defeat, sir. No, it didn't shake
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Morale</i> good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Extraordinarily so. That army is all right, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish," said Ewell plaintively, "that I knew what to make of General
+Jackson. What do you make of him, major?"</p>
+
+<p>"I make a genius, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Ewell raised his shoulder and ducked his head, his bright round eyes
+much like a robin's. "And he isn't crazy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the very least."</p>
+
+<p>"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?&mdash;of
+course, I only heard Loring's side. He doesn't just wind in and out of
+mountains for the fun of doing it?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;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!&mdash;And so you think that when my
+force and old Jackson's force get together we'll do big things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fairly big, sir. It is fortunate to expect them. They will arrive the
+sooner."</p>
+
+<p>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 church&mdash;Presbyterian." He rose. "You'd better come with
+me.&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what General Jackson expects, sir. But my own idea is that
+you'll not be long at Stanardsville."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll whistle again, will he?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. But I speak without authority."</p>
+
+<p>"There's an idea abroad that he means to leave the Valley&mdash;come
+east&mdash;cross the mountains himself instead of my crossing them. What do
+you think of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not in his council, sir. The Valley people would hate to see him
+go."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, all that I can say is that I hope Banks is puzzled, too!&mdash;Jim,
+Jim! damn you, where's my sword and sash?"</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;That's Harry Hayes's band&mdash;playing some Frenchy thing or
+other! Cavalry's over there&mdash;I know you've got Ashby, but Flournoy and
+Munford are right wicked, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"The&mdash;Virginia is with you, sir?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Fine regiment. You know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know one of its officers&mdash;Major Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>"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.&mdash;You went to Romney together?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we went together."</p>
+
+<p>"Fine fellow, but unhappy. Canker somewhere, I should say. Here we are,
+and if General Jackson don't treat my army well, I'll&mdash;I'll&mdash;I'll know
+he's crazy!"</p>
+
+<p>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 hands&mdash;Cleave, 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.</p>
+
+<p>The&mdash;Virginia 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!"</p>
+
+<p>Cleave's hand made no motion from his side. "Thank you," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> said. "It
+is good when a man can feel that he is truly welcome."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think that I do?"</p>
+
+<p>The other shrugged. "Why, I should not have thought so. What is it,
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go where we can speak without interruption. The woods down
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I have done so. It is not difficult."</p>
+
+<p>"No. It would, I imagine, come readily. Upon that evening, Maury
+Stafford, you lied to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"And where," demanded Stafford hoarsely, "where did you get this
+precious information&mdash;or misinformation? Who was at the pains to
+persuade you&mdash;no hard matter, I warrant!&mdash;that I was dealing falsely?
+Your informant, sir, was mistaken, and I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 candl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>e closely
+held. The other uttered a sound, a hard and painful gasp. "You have seen
+her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she tell you that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. She does not know why I misunderstood. Nor shall I tell her."</p>
+
+<p>"You have seen her&mdash;You are happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am happy."</p>
+
+<p>"She loves you&mdash;She is going to marry you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>He turned, the leaves crisp beneath his footfall. "Wait," said Stafford.
+"One moment&mdash;" He drew himself up against the beech. "I wish to tell you
+why I&mdash;as you phrase it&mdash;lied 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
+<i>Duty</i>&mdash;<i>Duty</i>&mdash;<i>Duty</i>&mdash;! 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!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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
+threats&mdash;threatened men live long."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>McDOWELL</h3>
+
+
+<p>At Stanardsville he heard from a breathless crowd about the small hotel
+news from over the mountains. Banks was at last in motion&mdash;was marching,
+nineteen thousand strong, up the Valley&mdash;had 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 back&mdash;was believed to be
+somewhere about Harrisonburg.</p>
+
+<p>"Any other news?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir! Fr&eacute;mont's pressing south from Moorefield, Milroy east from
+Monterey! General Edward Johnson's had to fall back from the
+Alleghenies!&mdash;he's just west of Staunton. He hasn't got but a brigade
+and a half."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything more?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Fort Pulaski's taken! The darned gunboats battered down the wall. All
+of the garrison that ain't dead are prisoners."</p>
+
+<p>"News from New Orleans ain't hilarious. Damned mortar boats bombard and
+bombard!&mdash;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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What else?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything more?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all to-day."</p>
+
+<p>The village wag stepped forth, half innocent and half knave. "Saay,
+colonel! The prospects of this here Confederacy look rather <i>blue</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"It is wonderful," said Cleave, "how quickly blue can turn to grey."</p>
+
+<p>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 s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>hone 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;Yes, sah, dat's de
+Magaheysville road."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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,
+commissary&mdash;van, main body and rear, an army against the daybreak sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if ever I saw the like of that!" breathed the orderly. "What d'ye
+reckon it means, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"It mean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>s that General Jackson is moving east from Harrisonburg."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a sound&mdash;D'ye reckon they're ghosts, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. They're the Army of the Valley&mdash;There! the advance has made the
+turn."</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;The top of the morning to you, Cleave!&mdash;knew that Old Jack had
+sent you off somewhere, but didn't know where.&mdash;Where are we going? By
+God, if you'll tell us, we'll tell you! Apparently we're leaving the
+Valley&mdash;damn it all! Train to Richmond by night, I reckon. We've left
+Fourth of July, Christmas, and New Year behind us&mdash;Banks rubbing his
+hands, Fr&eacute;mont 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!"</p>
+
+<p>Cleave drew his horse to one side. "I'll wait here until he comes
+up&mdash;no, not the Lord; General Jackson. I want, too, to speak to Will.
+Where in column is the 65th?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fourth, I think. He's a nice boy&mdash;Will. It was pretty to watch him at
+Kernstown&mdash;V. M. I. airs and precision, and gallantry enough for a
+dozen!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell him you said so, colonel! Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>Will, too, wanted to know&mdash;he said that Mr. Rat wanted to know&mdash;all the
+fellows wanted to know, what&mdash;("I wish you'd let me swear, Richard!")
+what it all meant? "Mr. Rat and I don't believe he's responsible&mdash;it
+isn't in the least like his usual conduct! Old Jack backing away from
+cannons and such&mdash;quitting parade ground before it's time!&mdash;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!&mdash;What do
+you think?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;'gallant for a
+dozen!'"</p>
+
+<p>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 another&mdash;saving always battle days. Riding
+with his steadfast grey-blue eyes level before him, he communed with
+himself or with Heaven&mdash;certainly not with his dissatisfied troops.</p>
+
+<p>He acknowledged Cleave's salute, and took the letter which the other
+produced. "Good! good! What did you do at Charlottesville?"</p>
+
+<p>"I sent the stores on to Major Harman at Staunton, sir. There was a good
+deal of munition." He gave a memorandum.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>One hundred rifled muskets with bayonets.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;Belgian&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</span><br />
+Fifty flintlocks.<br />
+Two hundred pikes.<br />
+Five hundred pounds cannon powder.<br />
+Two&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;musket&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"<br />
+Five thousand rounds of cartridge.<br />
+Eight sets artillery harness.<br />
+Ten artillery sabres.<br />
+One large package of lint.<br />
+One small case drugs and surgical instruments.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Good, good," said Jackson. "What day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Monday, sir. Virginia Central that afternoon. I telegraphed to Major
+Harman."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 As<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>hby'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 Ridge&mdash;you ain't got any
+call to go on the other!&mdash;if you've got any Tuckahoes, let them go, but
+you Cohees stay in your native land&mdash;Valley men ain't got no <i>right</i> to
+go! <i>What'd the women say to you along the road?</i> Clearing out like a
+passel of yaller dogs afore there's trouble and leavin' them an' the
+children to entertain the Yankees!"</p>
+
+<p>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
+eend&mdash;Mebbe, sah, he jes'er drawin' dat gent'man on?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"For the Lord's sake, where are we going now?"</p>
+
+<p>"This is the worst road to Port Republic."</p>
+
+<p>"Why are we going to Port Republic?"</p>
+
+<p>"Boys, I don't know. Anyway, we ain't going through the Gap. We're still
+in the Valley."</p>
+
+<p>"By gosh, I've heard the captain give some mighty good guesses! I'm
+going to ask him.&mdash;Captain, what d' ye reckon we camped ten days in that
+mud hole for?"</p>
+
+<p>Hairston Breckinridge gave the question consideration. "Well, Tom, maybe
+there were reasons, after all. General Ewell, for instance&mdash;he could
+have joined us there any minute. They say he's going to take our place
+at Elk Run to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"That so? Wish him joy of the mud hole!"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>him</i>,
+you know, on the other side of the Blue Ridge."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And for all he knew, if he moved north and west to join Fr&eacute;mont we
+might pile out and strike Milroy, and if he went south and west to meet
+Milroy he might hear of something happening to Fr&eacute;mont."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And if he moved south on Staunton he might find himself caught like a
+scalybark in a nut cracker&mdash;Edward Johnson on one side and the Army of
+the Valley on the other."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The other day I asked Major Cleave if General Jackson never amused
+himself in any way&mdash;never played any game, chess for instance. He said,
+'Not at all&mdash;which was lucky for the other chess player.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he ought to know, for he's a mighty good chess player himself.
+And you think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I think General Banks has had to stay where he is."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And where are we going now&mdash;besides Port Republic?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't any idea. But I'm willing to bet that we're going somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>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 strained&mdash;poor
+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
+<i>da capo</i>&mdash;stuck wheels, straining teams, oaths, adjuration, at last
+"Sergeant Jordan!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Sh!" breathed one of the ring. "Officer coming by. Heard you too,
+Williams&mdash;all that about Old Jack."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> 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 <i>What's it for?</i>&mdash;<i>What's it for?</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the exact distance?" asked the general. "Eighteen miles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; just about eighteen. You should get there, should you not, by
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 fish&mdash;how
+wonderful a piece of His handiwork! I have always wished to see it&mdash;the
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"That man back there says Staunton's awfully anxious. Says people all
+think we've gone to reinforce Richmond without caring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> 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. Says&mdash;Here's Old Jack, boys! going to lead us himself back to
+Goshen! One cheer ain't enough&mdash;<i>three cheers for General Jackson!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that stony old road?" asked a Winchester man.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a road over the mountains into Albemarle. Thank the Lord&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Column left.</i> <span class="smcap">march</span>!"</p>
+
+<p>It rang infernally. <i>Column left.</i> <span class="smcap">march</span>!&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+melancholy&mdash;desperately melancholy. Here and there through openings,
+like great casement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>s 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Jack&mdash;or Major-General T. J.
+Jackson&mdash;or 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.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>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!&mdash;<i>cars
+to go to Richmond on</i>. The army groaned and got its supper, took out its
+pipe and began, though reluctantly enough, to regard the situation with
+a philosophic eye.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday dawned clear and sweet. Pleasant morning&mdash;no drill, and light
+camp duties&mdash;coffee, hot biscuits, good smoke&mdash;general Sunday
+atmosphere&mdash;bugler getting ready to sound "Church!"&mdash;regimental
+chaplains moving toward chosen groves&mdash;"Old Hundred" in the air.&mdash;"Oh,
+come on and go! All the people are going at home."</p>
+
+<p>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.
+<i>Break camp</i>&mdash;<i>Break camp!</i></p>
+
+<p>The regiments, marching down to Meechum's Station, were of one mind.
+<i>Old Jack was losing his religion.</i> Manassas on Sunday&mdash;Kernstown on
+Sunday&mdash;forced marches on Sunday&mdash;Sunday train to Richmond. Language
+failed.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"2d&mdash;4th&mdash;5th&mdash;65th&mdash;Jerusalem! the whole brigade's going on this train!
+Another's coming right behind&mdash;why 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 th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>e siding! You all on top, can you see
+the artillery and the wagons?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Way over there. Going along a road&mdash;nice shady road. Rockbridge's
+leading&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the road to Rockfish Gap."</p>
+
+<p>"Rockfish Gap? Go 'way! You've put your compass in the wrong pocket.
+Rockfish Gap's back where we came from. Look out!"</p>
+
+<p>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 soldiers&mdash;part 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
+Richmond&mdash;Richmond 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.&mdash;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 <i>west</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>us</i>. You all hurry
+up. Banks thinks we've gone to Richmond, but we ain't! <i>Yaaaih!
+Yaaaaihhh! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaaih!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;Feel good? I feel like a shouting
+Methodist! My grandmother was a shouting Methodist. I feel I'm going to
+shout&mdash;anyhow, I've got to sing&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord&mdash;</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>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
+mountains&mdash;Staunton 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. <i>Leave those stores where they
+are.</i> 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 Valley&mdash;had 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!"</p>
+
+<p>Staunton did little sleeping that Saturday night. Jackson was
+gone&mdash;Ashby with him. There was not a Confederate vedette between the
+town and Banks at Harrisonburg&mdash;the latter was probably moving down the
+pike this very night, in the dark of the moon. Soldiers of Edward
+Johnson&mdash;tall Georgians and 44th Virginians&mdash;had 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 Fr&eacute;mont, had joined or would join him. Any hour
+they might move eastward on Staunton. Banks&mdash;Fr&eacute;mont&mdash;Milroy&mdash;three
+armies, forty thousand men&mdash;all converging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+filled&mdash;chiefly 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
+Peninsula&mdash;at that very hour, had they known it, in grips with Hancock
+at Williamsburg.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday afternoon brought many rumours. Milroy would march from McDowell
+to-morrow&mdash;Banks was coming down the turnpike&mdash;Fr&eacute;mont 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?&mdash;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,&mdash;take what they want and kill the rest, and no more think of
+paying!&mdash;Says, too, they're burning barns. What d'yo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>u 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>V. M. I., Home Guard, and attendant throng neared the Virginia Central.
+A whistle shrieked down the line, shrieked with enormous vigour&mdash;"What's
+that? Train due?"&mdash;"No. Not due for an hour&mdash;always late then! Better
+halt until it pulls in. Can't imagine&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 cars&mdash;<i>cars with men atop!</i> They were all in grey&mdash;they were
+all yelling&mdash;the 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, shouting&mdash;no! singing&mdash;</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">"We're the Stonewall.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Zoom! Zoom!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">We're the openers of the ball.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Zoom! Zoom!</span><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">"Fix bayonets! Charge!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Rip! Rip!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">N. P. Banks for our targe.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Zip! Zip!</span><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">"We wrote it on the way.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Zoom! Zoom!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Hope you like our little lay.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Zoom! Zoom!</span><br />
+For we didn't go to Richmond and we're coming home to stay!"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>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 rider&mdash;watching 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"God blessed our arms with victory at McDowell yesterday.</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: right">"<span class="smcap">T. J. Jackson</span><br />
+<i>Major-General</i>.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FLOWERING WOOD</h3>
+
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a feast for a king.&mdash;All these fighting men going up and down
+the Valley are going to eat you out of house and home.&mdash;I got some pay
+two months ago, and I've enough left to make it fairer&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;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 you&mdash;but it's all gone. Howsoever, you won't go
+hungry with what you've got. Have you a nice place to sleep in?"</p>
+
+<p>"The nicest in the world. A bed of oak leaves and a roof all stars."</p>
+
+<p>"You could stay here to-night. I've got a spare room."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 breakfast&mdash;and if the army passes
+I've got enough for one or two besides. Good-bye&mdash;God bless you."</p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly did. There surely are good women in the land!" Allan
+disburdened himself. "Rake the coals out and get the skillet."</p>
+
+<p>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 one&mdash;one&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Syllable."</p>
+
+<p>"That's it. Now they aren't any printed books hereabouts, but you've got
+it all in your head&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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'&mdash;now
+'ordnance'&mdash;now 'ammunition'&mdash;'battery'&mdash;'caisson'&mdash;
+'Howitzer'&mdash;'Napoleon'&mdash;'Tredegar'&mdash;'limber'&mdash;'trail'&mdash;
+'cannon-powder'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the week Billy had made progress&mdash;more 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 &eacute;clat some oral
+arithmetic&mdash;"If 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?"&mdash;"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 Fr&eacute;mont executes a flank movement and delays us six
+hours, just how long will it be before Old Jack pushes Banks into the
+Potomac?"&mdash;"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 guardhouse&mdash;how many men are in Company A?"&mdash;"If"&mdash;this
+was Billy's&mdash;"if 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'&mdash;and I just served on
+a hundred times, only looking at him every time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> the gun thundered and I
+straightened up&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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
+wanted&mdash;a 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
+hoeing&mdash;far back and high up on Thunder Run.</p>
+
+<p>Thirty leagues away, in the flowering wood by the Mt. Solon road Allan
+sat up. "I was nearly asleep," he said, "back on t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>he mountain-side
+above Thunder Run." He listened. "Horses' hoofs&mdash;a 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;Ain't straggling,
+I hope? Far too many stragglers&mdash;curse of this service&mdash;civilians turned
+soldiers and all that. What's that? You know him, Stafford? One of
+General Jackson's scouts?&mdash;Then do you know, pray, where is General
+Jackson? for, by God, I don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"I came across country myself to-day, sir&mdash;I and a boy that's with me.
+We've been ahead with Ashby, fending off Fr&eacute;mont. General Jackson is
+marching very rapidly, and I expect him to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Where's he going, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't the least idea, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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 Valley&mdash;by God, it's lovely!&mdash;and reinforce Jackson? Damn it,
+gentlemen, I'm a major-general on a seesaw! Richmond in danger&mdash;Valley
+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
+ac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>ross 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've some bread and bacon and a few eggs and half a pot of apple butter
+and a piece of honeycomb, sir&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 cook&mdash;and everything was good and savoury&mdash;and the trio was
+very hungry. Ewell had cigars, and smoked them like a
+Spaniard&mdash;generous, too&mdash;giving 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 know&mdash;all the country
+was keen-set to know&mdash;eye-witnesses of events were duly appreciated. The
+scout had been at McDowell?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but not in the battle, the Stonewall Brigade not being engaged.
+12th Georgia did best&mdash;and the 44th Virginia. 12th Georgia held the
+crest. There was one man, just a boy like Billy there ('I'm eighteen!'
+from Billy)&mdash;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 them&mdash;poor fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the spirit. In the morning you followed on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but Milroy and Schenck did not do badly. That was a good fetch of
+theirs&mdash;firing the forest! Everywhere a great murk with tongues of
+flame&mdash;smoke in nostril and eyes and the wind blowing fast. It looked
+like the end of the world. Old Jack&mdash;beg pardon, sir, General
+Jackson&mdash;General 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> squadron of Ashby's."</p>
+
+<p>"Keeping Fr&eacute;mont back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. General Jackson wanted the passes blocked. We did it pretty
+thoroughly."</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Burned all the bridges; cut down trees&mdash;in one place a mile of
+them&mdash;and made abatis, toppled boulders over the cliffs and choked the
+roads. If Fr&eacute;mont 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 say&mdash;you know him, Major Stafford&mdash;Major Cleave&mdash;I've
+heard him say that General Jackson uses cavalry as Napoleon did and as
+no one has done since."</p>
+
+<p>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'&mdash;Shakespeare, was it, Morris?
+Don't read much out on the plains."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Maury Stafford burst into laughter. "By Heaven. Morris, you'd better
+tell him that! Have you ever seen him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. They say he's real pious and as simple as they make them&mdash;but Lord!
+there hasn't been anything simple about his late proceedings."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Ewell took his cigar from his lips. "Don't be so damned sarcastic,
+Maury! It's worse than drink&mdash;Well, Deane?"</p>
+
+<p>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 off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>ice there with a light and writing
+materials."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">O Love! who bewailest</span><br />
+The frailty of all things here,<br />
+Why choose you the frailest<br />
+For your cradle, your home, and your bier?</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>Allan made the fire yet brighter, listened a moment to the hooting of
+the owl, then read on:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Its passions will rock thee<br />
+As the storms rock the ravens on high;<br />
+Bright reason will mock thee&mdash;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>Allan was entirely hospitable. "Certainly, sir! Spread your cloak just
+there&mdash;the wind will blow the smoke the other way. Well, we'll all be
+glad to see the army!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What are you reading?"</p>
+
+<p>Allan showed him. "Humph!&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Its passions will rock thee<br />
+As the storms rock the ravens on high;<br />
+Bright reason will mock thee&mdash;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Well&mdash;we all know the man was a seer."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Ever since we were both younger than we are now. I like him better
+than any one I know&mdash;and I think he's fond of me."</p>
+
+<p>"He seems to have warm friends."</p>
+
+<p>"He has. He's true as steel, and big-minded. He's strong-thewed&mdash;in and
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not noticed it," said Allan dryly. "He's a very good leader."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that General Jackson has favourites."</p>
+
+<p>"At least, he is no longer in disfavour. I remember toward the close of
+the Romney expedition&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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 he&mdash;isn'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 up&mdash;if he's an officer&mdash;before 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> reprimand would have done
+for! As you say, he made the very man we're talking of do that from
+Bloomery Gap to Romney&mdash;and 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 re&euml;nlist. 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.'&mdash;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 matter&mdash;rank and fame and name for courage all in peril&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I see. But with Richard Cleave it was not serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least. These smaller arrests and censures&mdash;not 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>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 tragic&mdash;a 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford rose. "I must get back to General Ewell! Thank you, Gold, for
+your hospitality."</p>
+
+<p>"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 you&mdash;and Richard
+Cleave is not the least in that predicament!"</p>
+
+<p>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 it&mdash;Stonewall Jackson's "foot
+cavalry" sleeping under the round moon, by Mt. Solon.</p>
+
+<p>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 lieutenant&mdash;"dear 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> advices from Richmond.
+I hate uncertainty like the devil, and so I thought I'd ride across&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"General Ewell," said Jackson gently, "you will oblige me by not
+swearing. Profanity, sir, is most distasteful to me. Now, you rode
+across?"</p>
+
+<p>Ewell swallowed. "Rode across&mdash;rode across&mdash;I 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 opinion&mdash;following the late victory and all&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 Richmond&mdash;we may best serve Richmond by threatening Washington."</p>
+
+<p>"Threatening Washington?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 Lee&mdash;and if they are of the tenour I
+expect&mdash;you will move with promptness to Luray."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"With promptness to Luray. I strongly value swiftness of movement."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand that, sir. Double the distance in half the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! When instructions are given, it is desirable that those
+instructions be followed. I assume the responsibility of giving the
+proper instructions."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, general. Obey and ask no questions."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so. Be careful of your ammunition wagons, but otherwise as little
+impedimenta as possible."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, sir. The road to glory cannot be followed with much
+baggage."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 courier&mdash;the one with the freshest horse. Order
+General Ewell's horses to be saddled."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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"!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<p>"My force at Strasburg is 4476 infantry, two brigades; 1600 cavalry, 10
+Parrott guns and 6 smoothbore pieces. I have on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+
+<p>In pursuance of his promise General Banks wrote at length from
+Strasburg, the evening of the 22d:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<p>"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 gather&mdash;and I
+do not wish to excite alarm unnecessarily&mdash;I 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
+co&ouml;perate 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...."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> 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.
+<i>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.</i></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,<br />
+Fallen from her high estate,<br />
+And weltering in her blood.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>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 Fr&eacute;mont, 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.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>FRONT ROYAL</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+sir&mdash;infantry&mdash;scattered along a little branch. Arms stacked."</p>
+
+<p>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.
+<i>Forward!&mdash;Commence&mdash;Firing!</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Little Sorrel swerved toward the skirmishers and paused a moment abreast
+of Cleave. Jackson spoke from the saddle. "How many?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two companies, sir. Several killed, the rest prisoners, save six or
+eight who will reach the town."</p>
+
+<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;Can't you all stop and tell a body?&mdash;No; you can't, of course. Go
+along, and God bless you!&mdash;Their camp's this side the North Fork&mdash;about
+a thousand of them.&mdash;Guns? Yes, they've got two guns. Cavalry? No, no
+cavalry.&mdash;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.&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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 village&mdash;Ewell was behind&mdash;Jackson and the
+cavalry had quite disappeared.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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
+noting&mdash;Stafford'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 Stafford&mdash;Maury Stafford! Cleave's hand
+struck the sun-warmed stone impatiently. He was not fond of deep
+unhappiness&mdash;no, 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 go&mdash;let him go! with his beauty and his fatal
+look, like a figure out of an old, master canvas!&mdash;Cleave wrenched his
+thought to matters more near at hand.</p>
+
+<p>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
+battery&mdash;Atwell's&mdash;strongly posted and throwing canister from
+ten-pounder Parrotts&mdash;might have laughed had there not been&mdash;had 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 fields&mdash;the 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 medi&aelig;val engines on the opposite knoll.</p>
+
+<p>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, t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>he dust that all
+raised, made a cort&egrave;ge 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 earth&mdash;and 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, Buckton&mdash;was 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.</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;Shade of Alexander Hamilton, listen to that!"</p>
+
+<p>"That" was the "Marseillaise," grandly played. <i>Tramp, tramp!</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Kenly, a gallant soldier, caught, through no fault of his, in a powerful
+trap, man&oelig;uvred ably. His guns were well served, an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>d 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.</p>
+
+<p>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, sir&mdash;Ashby, I reckon, or the devil himself&mdash;on
+the right! If they get to the river first&mdash;" 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!</p>
+
+<p><i>Face to the Rear! March!</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>To the rear!
+To the rear!</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 man&mdash;an
+officer&mdash;drew 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.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>God save you, merry gentlemen!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let nothing you dismay&mdash;</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Give him way, men! He's a friend of mine."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"As the Yankees were a-marching,<br />
+They heard the rebel yell&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> camp. For
+all their haste the men found tongue as they passed that dismal pyre.
+They sniffed the air. "Coffee burning!&mdash;good Lord, ain't it a sin?&mdash;Look
+at those boxes&mdash;shoes as I am a Christian man!&mdash;And all the wall
+tents&mdash;like 'Laddin's palaces! Geewhilikins! what was that? That was
+oil. There might be gunpowder somewhere! Captain, honey, don't you want
+us to <i>treble-quick</i> 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 it&mdash;they're halfway
+over! Their guns are over!&mdash;We ain't ever going to let them all get
+across?&mdash;Ain't we going down the hill at them?&mdash;Yes.
+<i>Forward!</i>&mdash;Yaaaih!&mdash;Yaaih!&mdash;Yaaaaaaaihh!&mdash;Yaaaaaih!&mdash;Thar's the
+cavalry! Thar's Old Jack!"</p>
+
+<p>Jackson and the 6th Virginia came at a gallop out of the woods, down the
+eastern bank of the stream. The skirmishers, First
+Maryland,&mdash;Louisiana,&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Jackson was up just in time to witness the burst of flames. He turned to
+the nearest regiment&mdash;the 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. "<i>Mes enfans! Nous allons traverser le pont
+l&agrave;-bas. En avant!</i>" 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, st<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>umbled, slipped between the ties, went down into the flood
+and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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
+out&mdash;the 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good! good!" said Jackson. "We will cross rougher rivers ere we are
+done." He turned to Flournoy's bugler. "<i>Squadrons. Right front into
+line. March!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Kenly looked, pressed his lips together, opened them and gave the order.
+"<i>Face to the rear. Forward. March!</i>" 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 escape&mdash;or it might please the gods to let him meet with
+reinfor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>cements! 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.</p>
+
+<p>The Shenandoah was impetuous, deep, turbid, with many eddies, lifted by
+the spring rains almost level with its banks. The horses liked it
+not&mdash;poor 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
+encouragement&mdash;soft 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
+nothing&mdash;at 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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-sweet&mdash;fall 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 feverishness&mdash;if they're reinforced I don't know if I
+can hold the men&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 night&mdash;if we could hold them off one hour&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The infantry?"</p>
+
+<p>"The infantry air halted. The road air stuffed with them.
+One&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;six companies, stretched out like a black horse's
+tail."</p>
+
+<p>"Faced which way?"</p>
+
+<p>"That way. No! by Jiminy, they ain't! They air faced this way! They air
+going to make a stand!"</p>
+
+<p>"They have done well, and they've got a brave officer, whoever he is.
+The guns?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 him&mdash;anyhow, 't war not Sergeant Coffin&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is the infantry deploying?"</p>
+
+<p>"They air still in column&mdash;black as flies in the road. They air tearing
+down the fence, so they can get into the fields."</p>
+
+<p>"Look behind&mdash;toward the river."</p>
+
+<p>Billy obediently turned upon the branch. "We air coming on in five
+lines&mdash;like the bean patch at home. I love them Lou-is-iana Tigers!
+What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"An awful cloud of dust&mdash;and a trumpet out of it! The First Maryland's
+getting out of the way&mdash;Now the Tigers!&mdash;Oh-h-h!"</p>
+
+<p>He scrambled down. "By the left flank!" shouted Cleave. "Double quick.
+March!"</p>
+
+<p>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
+hoofs&mdash;a 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/291.png" width="600" height="86" alt="Bugle call music" title="Bugle call music" />
+</div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 tr<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>oopers 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 horse&mdash;others did not. All
+turned, before the shock, and fled, in a mad gallop of their own.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>to 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 shock&mdash;then, in a moment, the
+m&ecirc;l&eacute;e.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>STEVEN DAGG</h3>
+
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast was soon over&mdash;"sorry breakfast!" The <i>assembly</i> 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 Valley&mdash;never 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, '<i>Men, we're going to rid the Valley
+of Virginia of the enemy. Press on.</i>' 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> now
+turn avalanche; fall on Banks at Middletown and grind him small!&mdash;<i>Fours
+right! Forward! March!</i> ('Oh, Gawd! my cut foot! It's my lasting hope
+that&mdash;sh!&mdash;Fool Tom Jackson'll break you same as he broke Garnett')."</p>
+
+<p>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 shoes&mdash;through holes enough, God knows!&mdash;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 &aelig;sthetic 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 it&mdash;mere 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+again&mdash;into a thousand pieces. At last, "Where did you get that
+canteen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Picked it up at McDowell. Ef 't warn't covered with dust you could see
+the U. S."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Empty, I reckon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nop. Buttermilk."</p>
+
+<p>"O Gawd! I could drink Thunder Run dry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry. Reckon we'll come to a stream bimeby. Saving the milk 'gainst an
+emergency."</p>
+
+<p>It did not appear that we would come to a stream, or a spring, or a
+well, or anything liquid&mdash;to 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!'&mdash;Yes; he knows you marched twenty-six miles yesterday, and that
+it's hot weather! All the same we've got to get there!&mdash;Thank you,
+colonel, I will take a swallow! I'm damned tired myself."</p>
+
+<p>Between nine and ten they came to a village. Boys and women stood in the
+dusty street with buckets of water&mdash;a 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 road&mdash;and 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.
+"<i>Seven miles to Middletown</i>.&mdash;Seven miles to hell!"</p>
+
+<p>Some time later, the brigade made a discovery. "They are willows&mdash;yes,
+they are!&mdash;running cross field, through the blur! Whoever's toting the
+water bucket, get it ready!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The halt came&mdash;Jackson'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,&mdash;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 <i>Fall-In</i>."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p><i>Fall in! Fall in!&mdash;Fall in! Fall in!</i> 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>I ain't a-going.</i>" Steve's
+eyes filled with tears. He felt sublimely virtuous; a martyr from the
+first. "What does anybody there care for <i>me</i>! They wouldn't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+<p>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 him&mdash;voices 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."</p>
+
+<p>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, too&mdash;gentlemen and
+such.&mdash;Yah!"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;and all them damned gunners with eyes like lynxes&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Morning, miss," said Steve. "Could you spare a poor sick soldier a bite
+to eat?"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>Steve sank into the chair. "It was pneumonia, and my strength ain't come
+back yet."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"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
+ev<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>ening. Maybe a wagon'll come along and give you a lift, so's you can
+get there in time&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Get where, ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, wherever the battle's going to be!"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The woman&mdash;she was hardly more than a girl&mdash;hesitated. 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;. Where do you think we'll fight to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where?&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>Steve shook his tousled head. "Naw, I'm so burned the skin would come
+off. O Gawd!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> this soup is good."</p>
+
+<p>"People getting over fevers and lung troubles don't usually burn. They
+stay white and peaked even out of doors in July."</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon I ain't that kind. I'll take another plateful. Gawd, what a
+pretty arm you've got!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't any."</p>
+
+<p>"You've got too pretty a mouth to be lying that-a-way! Look-a-here, the
+doctor prescribed it."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I tell you I had a furlough? Where'd you keep that peach brandy
+when you had it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm looking for James home any minute now. He's patrolling between here
+and the pike."</p>
+
+<p>"You're lying. You said he was with Ashby, and Ashby's away north to
+Newtown&mdash;the 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> 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 Steve&mdash;namely, 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't loaded! I drew the cartridge."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you please put that gun down, ma'am, and listen to reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm listening to something else. There's three or four horses coming
+down the road&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please put that gun down, ma'am. I'll say good-bye and go just as
+peaceable&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you let me go, ma'am? I didn't mean no harm."</p>
+
+<p>"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, baby&mdash;bye, bye!"</p>
+
+<p>A hand tried the door. "What's the matter here? Open!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's locked, sir. Come round to the window&mdash;Bye, baby, bye!"</p>
+
+<p>The dismounted cavalryman&mdash;an officer&mdash;appeared outside<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"What's all this? Has this soldier annoyed you, madam?"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;I reckon he's my prisoner, sir,
+and I give him up to you."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"That coward's eaten all I had, sir. I'm sorry&mdash;If you could wait a
+little, I've some flour and I'll make a pan of biscuits&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No. We cannot wait. We must be up with the army before it strikes the
+Valley pike."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got some cold potatoes, and some scraps of bread crust I was
+saving for the chickens&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then won't you take both to the four men out there? Hungry soldiers
+<i>like</i> cold potatoes and bread crusts. I'll see to this fellow.&mdash;Now,
+sir, what have you got to say for yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll try to find it again for you. What were you doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 knew&mdash;and I just as innocent as her baby&mdash;she
+up and turned my own musket against me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Who locked the door?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Take the key out of your pocket and go open it. Faugh!&mdash;What's your
+brigade?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Stonewall, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! They'd better stone you out of it. Regiment?"</p>
+
+<p>"65th, sir. Company A.&mdash;If you'd be so good just to look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> at my foot,
+sir, you'd see for yourself that I couldn't march&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll try it with the Rogue's March.&mdash;65th. Company A. Richard Cleave's
+old company."</p>
+
+<p>"He ain't my best witness, sir. He's got a grudge against me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford looked at him. "Don't put yourself in a fury over it. Have you
+one against him?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I would do much, you mean. What is your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Steven Dagg."</p>
+
+<p>The woman returned. "They've eaten it all, sir. I saved you a piece of
+bread. I wish it was something better."</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;Now you, sir! In front
+of me.&mdash;March!"</p>
+
+<p>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 pike&mdash;hung 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.</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;in the sc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>rimmage a moment ago he must have slipped off. I'm
+sorry&mdash;but I don't reckon he's much loss."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't very well fight nowhere," whined Steve. "If you'd be so good as
+to look at my foot, sir&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;It isn't just Ewell's division, he says. He says it's all of
+them and Stonewall Jackson!&mdash;Take the fellow up somebody and bring him
+along!&mdash;<i>Fours right! Forward!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> 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 happened&mdash;there 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 crash&mdash;He rubbed a bump upon his forehead,
+large as a guinea hen's egg. "Gawd! I wish I'd never come into this here
+world!"</p>
+
+<p>The world was, indeed, to-day rather like a bad dream&mdash;like 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 not&mdash;only excitedly shouted each at the other&mdash;he
+drew breath again. He could see the two but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 guns&mdash;they've strung thousands of men
+behind stone fences&mdash;they're using our own wagons for breastworks! The
+cavalry was trying to get past. Listen to that!"</p>
+
+<p>The other officer shouted also, waving his sword. "There's a battery
+behind&mdash;Here it comes!&mdash;We ought to have started last night. The general
+said he must develop the forces of the enemy&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He's developing them all right. Well, good-bye! Meet in Washington!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 quit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>e
+through, but there was hope&mdash;or fear&mdash;(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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We are," said Steve. "Ain't the racket awful?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 Bedford&mdash;Whoa, there! Look out!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 leg&mdash;damn 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 men&mdash;all those three!" He began to cry, though
+noiselessly. "They hadn't ought to cut at me like that&mdash;shooting, too,
+without looking! They ought to ha' seen I wasn't no damned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> Yank&mdash;" 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 Reb&mdash;Hey, what did you say?"</p>
+
+<p>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
+m&ecirc;l&eacute;e&mdash;Ashby jousting with Hatch's convoying cavalry&mdash;the Louisiana
+troops firing in a long battle line, from behind the stone fences&mdash;a
+horrible jam of wagons, overturned or overturning, panic-stricken mules,
+drivers raving out oaths, using mercilessly long, snaky, black
+whips&mdash;heat, dust, thirst and thunder, wild excitement, blood and death!
+There were all manner of wagons. Ambulances were there with
+inmates,&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> 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?"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;'" He began to cough. "There seems to
+be smoke. I guess you'll have to drag me out, brother."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 company&mdash;Company A, 65th Virginia. I had an awful
+fight with three damned Yanks, and a fourth came in and dragged my gun
+away! If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> you don't mind I'll just stay here and help you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sorra an objection," said the Irishman. "Pick up Tim's musket behind
+you there and get to wurruk!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bon jour!" said the other side. "One camarade ees always zee welcome!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;horse stepped on his
+face, I reckon. Gawd! we have gangs of prisoners!&mdash;Who's that coming out
+of the cloud?"</p>
+
+<p>"Chew's Horse Artillery&mdash;with Ashby, the darlint!"</p>
+
+<p>Ashby stopped before the stone house to the right. "There are men in
+here&mdash;officers with them. Captain, go bid them surrender."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>The captain returned once more. "Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Double canister, point-blank, Allen.&mdash;Well, sergeant?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not certain it was an empty house, sir. One of the Tigers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>, there,
+thinks there are women in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Women!"</p>
+
+<p>"He don't know&mdash;just thinks so. Thinks he heard a cry when the Yanks
+broke in&mdash;Ah!&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! We can't take chances. Limber up, lieutenant, and move on with
+the others.&mdash;Volunteers to break open that door!"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VALLEY PIKE</h3>
+
+
+<p>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 Troy&mdash;the 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 distant&mdash;gallop 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 na&iuml;ve indiscipline all their own&mdash;such 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.</p>
+
+<p>Inefficient even in plundering, he found himself possessed of but a
+handful of crackers, a tin of sardines&mdash;a comestible he had never seen
+before and did not like when he tasted it&mdash;and 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A drum beat, a bugle blew. <i>Fall in! Fall in!</i> Officers passed from
+wagon to wagon. They were ready enough with the flats of their swords.
+"For shame, men, for shame! <i>Fall in! Fall in!</i> General Jackson is
+beyond Newtown by now. You don't want him to have to <i>wait</i> for you, do
+you? <i>Fall in!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> 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' impedimenta&mdash;knapsacks,
+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 them&mdash;a small man on a tall horse&mdash;indulged 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 fallen&mdash;fell this morning!
+Yes, it did! News certain. Rebellion's over and Jack Ketch's waiting for
+you&mdash;waiting 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!&mdash;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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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! '<i>Pennsylvania</i> Avenue!'"</p>
+
+<p>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 wom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>en 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+battery&mdash;There it opens! Oh, we're going to have a chance, too!"</p>
+
+<p>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 little&mdash;what d'ye
+call it?&mdash;they've planted there&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Avalanche," panted Steve. "O Gawd!" A minie ball had pierced the
+other's brain. He fell without a sound, and Steve went on.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>o 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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
+had&mdash;all that could be obtained from the far corners of haversacks and
+all that, with abounding willingness, the neighbouring farmhouses could
+scrape together&mdash;but when it came to sleep&mdash;. With nodding heads the men
+waited longingly for roll call and tattoo, and instead there came an
+order from the front. "<i>A night march!</i> O Lord, have mercy, for
+Stonewall Jackson never does." <i>Fall in! Fall in! Column Forward!</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 dream&mdash;black 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 halt&mdash;a company deployed&mdash;the foe dispersed, streaming off
+into the darkness&mdash;the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> hurt laid to one side for the
+ambulances&mdash;<i>Column Forward!</i> 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
+sleep&mdash;to sleep! <i>Column Forward!&mdash;Column Forward!</i></p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>Pulled out, he gave an account of his cut foot, piteous enough. The
+lieutenant listened. "The 65th? Scamp, I reckon, but flesh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> is weak!
+Hasn't been exactly a circus parade for any of us. Let him ride, men&mdash;if
+ever we get this damned wheel out! Keep an eye on him, Fleming!&mdash;Now,
+all together!&mdash;Pull, White Star!&mdash;Pull, Red Star!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Here was where we crossed the pike&mdash;there's the old ridge. Griffin
+tearing up his cards&mdash;and Griffin's dead at McDowell."</p>
+
+<p>"That was Fulkerson's wall&mdash;that shadow over there! There's the bank
+where the 65th fought.&mdash;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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Old Jack didn't lose it. Garnett lost it."</p>
+
+<p>"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!&mdash;Shields the best man they've had in the Valley.
+Kernstown!&mdash;Heard what the boys at Middletown called Banks? <i>Mr.
+Commissary Banks.</i> Oh, law! that pesky rearguard again!"</p>
+
+<p>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: <i>Halt. Stack arms!
+Break ranks!</i> From regiment to regiment ran a further word. "One hour.
+You are to rest one hour, men. Lie down."</p>
+
+<p>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 sleep&mdash;Kernstown
+battlefield!"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> "Good-morning,
+Randolph! Farmers and soldiers see the dawn!</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Light thickens; and the crow<br />
+Makes wing to the rooky wood.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>The poor guns! Even they look overmarched." As he spoke he stroked the
+howitzer as though it had been a living thing.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Cleave addressed the figure, which, there being no help for it, had come
+from behind the caisson. "You, Dagg, of course! Straggling or
+deserting&mdash;I wonder which this time! Are you not ashamed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gawd, major! I just couldn't keep up. I got a cut foot&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down on that rock.&mdash;Take off your shoe&mdash;what is left of it. Now,
+let me see. Is that the cut, that scratch above the ankle?"</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't how deep it is. It's how it hurts."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 ar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>ound 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general. He sends his compliments, and says he is ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Good!&mdash;What is this soldier doing here?" He looked at Steve.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a straggler, sir, from my regiment. Lieutenant Randolph picked
+him up&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Found him under a bridge, sir. I'd call him a deserter&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 tired&mdash;hungry and thirsty&mdash;and my
+head swimming&mdash;I just dropped out, meaning to catch up after a bit! I
+had a sore foot. Major Cleave's awful hard on me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;" Cleave made a sound of
+contempt.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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, too&mdash;sending me to the guardhouse every whip-stitch!" This to
+him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>self; 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 well&mdash;very 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."</p>
+
+<p>With his staff he rode away&mdash;a 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 asleep&mdash;half 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.</p>
+
+<p>Steve, stumbling back over the wet field, between the ranks of sleeping
+men, found Company A&mdash;that 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?"</p>
+
+<p>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!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The men arose, the ranks were formed. <i>No breakfast?</i>&mdash;Hairston
+Breckinridge explained the situation. "We're going to breakfast in
+Winchester, men! All the dear old cooks are getting ready for us&mdash;rolls
+and waffles and broiled chicken and poached eggs and coffee&mdash;and all the
+ladies in muslin and ribbons are putting flowers on the table and
+saying, 'The Army of the Valley is coming home!'&mdash;Isn't that a Sunday
+morning breakfast worth waiting for? The sooner we whip Banks the sooner
+we'll be eating it."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. All right," said the men. "We'll whip him all right."</p>
+
+<p>"We're sure to whip him now we've got Steve back!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's so. Where've you been anyway, Steve, and how many did you kill
+on the road?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord! Steve's been absent at a council of war&mdash;talking familiarly
+with generals! Always thought there must be more in him than appeared,
+since there couldn't well be less&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Band's playing! 'The Girl I Left Behind Me'!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's Winchester! Didn't we have a good time there 'fore and after
+Bath and Romney? 'Most the nicest Valley town!&mdash;and we had to go away
+and leave it blue as indigo&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I surely will be glad to see Miss Fanny again&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Company C over there's most crazy. It all lives there&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Will Cleave's got to be sergeant.&mdash;'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!"</p>
+
+<p>"A lot of things grow up quick&mdash;and a lot of things don't grow at all.
+There goes the 4th&mdash;long and steady! Our turn next."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 comrades&mdash;Sergeant Coffin was looking straight at him
+with his melancholy, bad-tempered eyes&mdash;he 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 clutched&mdash;his 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 wall&mdash;he 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
+<i>zzzz-ip! zzzzzz-ip!</i> 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 running&mdash;running 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&mdash;" A shell came, and
+burst&mdash;burst 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> 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 wandered&mdash;not for curiosity, but that
+he might see and dodge a coming harm.</p>
+
+<p>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 cannon&mdash;three 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 sound&mdash;zzzz-ip! zzzzz-ip!&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 narrow&mdash;too narrow for the gun team and the carriage to
+pass. All stopped and there was a colloquy.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got an axe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, captain."</p>
+
+<p>"John Agnor, you've felled many a tree. Take the axe and cut that post
+down."</p>
+
+<p>"Captain, I will be killed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will be killed doing your duty, John. Get down."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;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!&mdash;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 any&mdash;tear somebody's shirt. Number 1! Number 2! Look out!
+look out&mdash;Give them hell. Good Heaven! here's Old Jack. General, we hope
+you'll go away from here!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> We'll stay it out&mdash;give you our word. Let
+them enfilade ahead!&mdash;but you'd better go back, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, captain, but I wish to see&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 now&mdash;a 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;Gawd!
+Look at Old Jack a-comin'! Reckon I'll stay&mdash;Told them once't on Thunder
+Run I wouldn't move North for nothing! <i>Yaaaihhhh! Yaaaaihhh</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><i>Yaaihhhhh! Yaaihhhhh! Yaaaihh! Yaaaaaaaihhhh!</i> Ten thousand grey
+soldiers with the sun on their bayonets&mdash;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>There came by a riderless horse, gentle enough, unfrightened, wanting
+only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>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 follow&mdash;to 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 through&mdash;Ewell 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.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p>
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>"The Stonewall Brigade, sir. You see, 'twas this a-way. I was helping
+serve a gun, most of the gunners being strewed around dead&mdash;and 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 that&mdash;and a great piece struck me in the back! I just kin hobble.
+Thank you, ma'am! You are better to me than I deserve."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>MOTHER AND SON</h3>
+
+
+<p>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 Will"&mdash;Will, somewhere on the Martinsburg pike, battling
+in heat and dust, battling for the Confederacy, driving the foe out of
+Virginia, back across the Potomac&mdash;Will 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&mdash;" 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"It ain't nothing. It's my foot, that a shell kind of got in the way of.
+But don't you tell anybody&mdash;for fear they might want to cut it off,
+ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> room together&mdash;the
+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 sang&mdash;oh, the most sentimental of
+ditties! Miriam had liked him very well&mdash;they had read together&mdash;"The
+Pilgrims of the Rhine"&mdash;Goldsmith&mdash;Bernardin de Saint Pierre. He had a
+trick of serenading&mdash;danced well. She put her cheek down to his hand.
+"My poor, poor boy! My poor, brave boy!"</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant smiled at her&mdash;rather 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?"</p>
+
+<p>The assistant placed a basin and cloths. The surgeon gave a jerk of his
+head. "You come on this side, Mrs. Cleave."</p>
+
+<p>"No chloroform?"</p>
+
+<p>"No chloroform. Contraband of war. Damned chivalric contest."</p>
+
+<p>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 two&mdash;riders 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"West Point notions! Good Lord!"</p>
+
+<p>"Says the aide, 'General Jackson commands General Ewell, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> so may
+command you. His orders are that you shall pursue vigorously'&mdash;Says
+Steuart, 'I will send a courier to find General Ewell. If his orders are
+corroboratory I will at once press forward&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"Good God! did he think Banks would wait?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 him&mdash;but
+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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Falligant says the men are nigh dead, officers nodding in their
+saddles, giving orders in their sleep. Falligant says&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not, madam. There may be skirmishes of course&mdash;our 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."</p>
+
+<p>The wounded in the house slept or did not sleep. The young widow sat
+beside the dead officer. She would not be drawn away&mdash;said 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 nothing&mdash;I have given Mrs. Cleave directions, and his boy
+is a good nurse. I'll come back myself about midnight. That<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you might sleep yourself, doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 repassing&mdash;the 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 morrow&mdash;the 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 service&mdash;a
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not tired at all. That Louisiana boy called me
+'Zephine'&mdash;'Zephine!' 'Zephine, your eyes are darker, but your lips are
+not so red.' He said he kept all my letters over his heart&mdash;only 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."</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor says t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>hat he will do well."</p>
+
+<p>"He is like Will. Oh, mother, I feel ten thousand years old! I feel as
+though I had always lived."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>She put her daughter slightly from her and leaned forward, listening.
+"That is Richard. His foot strikes that way upon the street."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "It would have been as hard to wake up at the end of a
+week!&mdash;Mother, I am so dirty!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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, hard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>y, bronzed. It is striking
+twelve. Tullius is saddling Dundee."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be no fighting in the morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"General Jackson is doing wonderful work, is he not, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But if they are out of Virginia&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"They should be in Virginia&mdash;prisoners of war. It was a cavalry
+failure.&mdash;Well, it cannot be helped."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you cross at Harper's Ferry?"</p>
+
+<p>"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
+Fr&eacute;mont from the South Branch. That done, we must turn and meet them
+both."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Then Miriam and I will make our way there also. How long will it last,
+Richard&mdash;the war?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may last one year and it may last ten. The probability is perhaps
+five."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Five years! All the country will be grey-haired."</p>
+
+<p>"War is a forge, mother. Many things will be forged&mdash;more of iron
+perhaps than of gold."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no doubt of the final victory?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I ever have I put it from me. I do not doubt the armies nor the
+generals&mdash;and, 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 need&mdash;yet he
+is earnest, disinterested, able, a patriot. And Congress does its
+best&mdash;is 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, Meminger&mdash;they are all good men. And
+the railroad men and the engineers and the chemists and the
+mechanics&mdash;all so wonderfully and pathetically ingenious, labouring day
+and night, working miracles without material, making bricks without
+straw. Arsenals, foundries, powder-mills, workshop, manufactories&mdash;all
+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 kind&mdash;a 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 ports&mdash;and
+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."</p>
+
+<p>He rose from the table. "And yet the brave man fights and must hope.
+Hope is the sky above him&mdash;and 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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret laughed. "They never do! But I agree with you&mdash;and yet, it is
+lovely! Her eyes were always wonderful, and she smiles like some old
+picture. I shall love her well, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning. Richard Cleave, isn't it? Hear you are going to be a
+general. Hear Old Jack said so."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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
+weeks&mdash;reason to be thankful. Well, good-bye! Always liked you, Cleave!"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>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.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>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 <span class="smcap">P. M.</span></i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, Jarrow. Have you got the mail bag?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir." He laid upon the table a small, old, war-worn leather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is the volunteer, Gold?"</p>
+
+<p>"A boy named Billy Maydew, sir. Company A, 65th. A Thunder Run man."</p>
+
+<p>"He understands that he is to be captured?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"None at all. Let me see the contents, Jarrow."</p>
+
+<p>Jarrow spread them on the table. "I thought it best, sir, to include a
+few of a general nature&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Jarrow read aloud,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Mobile</span>, March 1st, 1862.</p>
+<p><span class="smcap">His Excellency Jefferson Davis</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">President of the Confederate States of America:</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir</i>,&mdash;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&mdash;<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Very good. The next, Jarrow."<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Richmond, Va.</span>, February 22d.</p>
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">Hon. J. P. Benjamin</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Secretary of War:</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir</i>,&mdash;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&mdash;<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Good! good! The next, Jarrow."<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Executive Department,<br />Milledgeville, Ga.</span></p>
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">His Excellency Jefferson Davis</span>:<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir</i>,&mdash;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&mdash;<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Good! The next."<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Havana</span>, March 22d, 1862.<br /></p>
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">Hon. J. P. Benjamin</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Secretary of War, Richmond</span>.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir</i>,&mdash;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&mdash;<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Lay that aside. It might jeopardize the agent. The next."<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Copy of a proposed General Order.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">War Department<br />Adjt. and Insp. General's Office</span><br /></p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Good! The next."<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Surgeon General's Office,<br />Richmond, Va.</span><br /></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>materia
+medica</i> 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&mdash;<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Very good! The next, Jarrow&mdash;"<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac RR.<br />President's Office</span><br /></p>
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap">Hon. George W. Randolph</span>:</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Dear Sir</i>,&mdash;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 r<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>etreat, 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.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: center">Very respectfully and truly yours, etc.<br /></p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">P. V. Daniel, Jr.</span><br /></p>
+
+<p>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.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Good! good. The next, Jarrow."<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Copy of resolutions declaring the sense of Congress.</p>
+
+<p>"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,</p>
+
+<p>"Be it resolved by the Congress of the Confederate States of America
+that this Congress do solemnly declare and publish to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>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&mdash;"<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Just so. That will do for this packet. Now what have you there?"</p>
+
+<p>"These are genuine soldiers' letters, sir&mdash;the usual thing&mdash;incidents 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Father</span>,&mdash;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&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>An aide uttered a startled laugh. "Pray be quiet, gentlemen," said
+Jackson.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: center">Aff'y your son, <br /></p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">John Smith.</span><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>Jackson. "Always deceive, mystify, and mislead the enemy.
+You may thereby save your Capital city. The next."</p>
+
+<p>"From one of Ashby's men, sir."<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Sister</span>,&mdash;We are now about thirty companies&mdash;every 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,</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">William Patterson.</span><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Scratch out the oath, Jarrow. He is writing to a lady, nor should it be
+used to a man. The next."<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Fitzhugh</span>,&mdash;Papers, reports, etc., will give you the details.
+Suffice it, that we've had a lovely time. A minie drew some blood from
+me&mdash;not much, and spilt in a good cause. As you see, I am writing with
+my left hand&mdash;the other arm's in a sling. The army's in the highest
+spirits&mdash;South going North on a visit.</p>
+
+<div class="center">All the grey bonnets are over the border!<br /></div>
+
+<p>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 <i>from the
+other side of the water</i>.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: center">Yours as ever,</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Peter Francisco.</span><br /></p>
+
+<p>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.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>Jarrow drew the whole together. "I thought the three would be enough,
+sir. I never like to overdo."</p>
+
+<p>"You have the correct idea, Jarrow. Bring the boy in, Gold. I want the
+bag captured early to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> 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>I</i> think we're going to Washington&mdash;Always 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!&mdash;Say, boys, look at that fight!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Washington.</span></p>
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">Brigadier-General Saxton</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Harper's Ferry.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Copy of Secretary of War's dispatch to Governors of States.</p>
+
+<p>"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 Washingt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>on. You will please
+organize and forward immediately all the volunteer and militia force in
+your state."</p>
+
+<p>In addition, the President has notified General McClellan that his
+return to Washington may be ordered. City in a panic.</p>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: right">X. Y. <br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Harper's Ferry, Virginia</span>, May 31.</p>
+
+<p>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 Fr&eacute;mont and McDowell?</p>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">R. Saxton.</span><br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hon. E. M. Stanton</span>, <i>Secretary of War</i>.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>At Williamsport on the Maryland side, twelve miles above, General Banks
+likewise sent a telegram to the Government at Washington.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Williamsport</span>, May 28, 1862.</p>
+
+<p>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 large&mdash;not 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">N. P. Banks</span>,<br />
+<i>Major-General Commanding</i></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hon. E. M. Stanton</span>.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>Into column! By the left flank! March!</i></p>
+
+<p>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.<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Harper's Ferry,<br />
+Virginia.</span><br />
+May 31. Midnight.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hon. Geoerge W. Randolph</span>, Secretary of War:<br /></p>
+
+
+<p>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 Fr&eacute;mont who comes from the West.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">T. J. Jackson,</span><br />
+<i>Major-General Commanding</i></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FOOT CAVALRY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Three armies had for their objective Strasburg in the Valley of
+Virginia, eighteen miles below Winchester. One came from the northwest,
+under Fr&eacute;mont, 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. Fr&eacute;mont, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+grey&mdash;sixty-five thousand men under the stars and bars. They, too,
+watched the turning aside of McDowell, watched Shields, Ord, King, and
+Fr&eacute;mont 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.</p>
+
+<p>Out of Virginia, before Corinth in Tennessee, and at Cumberland Gap,
+Armies of the Ohio, of the Mississippi, of the West&mdash;one hundred and ten
+thousand in blue, eighty thousand in grey, Halleck and
+Beauregard&mdash;listened 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
+Stonewa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>ll Jackson. That done, he will turn and join McClellan. The two
+will enfold Lee and Jackson&mdash;the Anaconda Scheme&mdash;and crush every bone
+in their bodies. Richmond will fall and the war end."</p>
+
+<p>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,
+Arizona&mdash;at 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?"&mdash;"Stonewall Jackson? Valley of
+Virginia?"&mdash;"Valley of Virginia! I know!&mdash;saw it once. God's country."</p>
+
+<p>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
+below&mdash;the 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> freedom, life, might be gone in a night, blown from
+existence by McClellan's siege guns!</p>
+
+<p>Over seas the nations watched. Any day might bring a packet with
+news&mdash;Richmond fallen, fallen, fallen, the Confederacy vanquished, suing
+for peace&mdash;Richmond 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!</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"
+"From the Valley? Jackson has turned south from Harper's Ferry. Shields
+and Fr&eacute;mont will meet at Strasburg long before the rebels get there.
+Together they'll make Jackson pay&mdash;grind the stonewall small!"</p>
+
+<p>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
+goo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>ds, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+brigadiers&mdash;Taylor, Trimble, Elzey, Scott, and the Maryland Line. The
+old Army of the Valley came next in column&mdash;all 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 man&oelig;uvres, 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
+Fr&eacute;mont.</p>
+
+<p>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
+salvers&mdash;the lavish,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> 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</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>In Dixie Land whar I was born in<br />
+Early on one frosty mornin'!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land!</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"The butcher had a little dog,<br />
+And Bingo was his name.<br /><br />
+B-i-n-g-o-go-! B-i-n-g-o-go!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Bingo was his name!"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"<i>Fall in!</i> Oh, Lord, we just fell out!"</p>
+
+<p>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 re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>giments were again in motion. A courier had
+come from Jackson. "<i>General Winder, you will press forward</i>."</p>
+
+<p>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!"&mdash;"Ain't
+any road in the world like the Valley pike, and never was! <i>She</i> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>orientate</i> 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!&mdash;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;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Fr&eacute;mont. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;" "The 65th, reliable always&mdash;" "The 65th with its
+accustomed courage&mdash;" "The disciplined, intelligent, and courageous
+65th&mdash;" "The gallantry of the 65th&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 la<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>y 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.</p>
+
+<p>The Stonewall fell to getting breakfast&mdash;big 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
+minuet&mdash;reconnoissance of Fr&eacute;mont 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 Fr&eacute;mont's&mdash;his army's three miles over
+there in the woods. Old Dick's with General Taylor. Don't need your
+help, boys&mdash;thank you all the same! Fr&eacute;mont won't attack in force. Old
+Jack says so&mdash;sitting up there on a hickory stump reading the Book of
+Kings!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Down the pike, during an hour of dewy morning, the Louisiana Brigade and
+Fr&eacute;mont'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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>
+prayer meeting!&mdash;Oh, here are your men back with prisoners! Now, you men
+in blue, what command's that in the woods? Eh?&mdash;What?" "<i>Von Bayern bin
+ich nach diesem Lande gekommen.</i>" "<i>Am Rhein habe ich geh&ouml;rt dass viel
+bezahlt wird f&uuml;r ...</i>" "Take 'em away! Semmes, you go and tell General
+Jackson all Europe's here.&mdash;Mean you to go? Of course I don't mean you
+to go, you thundering idiot! Always could pick C&aelig;sar out of the crowd.
+When I find him I obey him, I don't send him messages. &mdash;&mdash;! &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;!
+They've developed sharpshooters. Send Wheat over there, General
+Taylor&mdash;tell him to shake the pig-nuts out of those trees!"</p>
+
+<p>Toward midday the army marched. All the long afternoon it moved to the
+sound of musketry up the Valley pike. There was skirmishing in
+plenty&mdash;dashes by Fr&eacute;mont'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 breath&mdash;Stonewall Jackson coming up the pike, holding Fr&eacute;mont off
+with one hand while he passes Shields.</p>
+
+<p>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, Fr&eacute;mont 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> to break in violet and daffodil.</p>
+
+<p>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. Fr&eacute;mont, 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. "No&mdash;we'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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the further shore Ashby now kept guard between Fr&eacute;mont 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
+Fr&eacute;mont. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, at roll call, each colonel spoke to his regiment. "Men!
+There has been a great battle before Richmond&mdash;at 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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> 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.&mdash;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."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>ASHBY</h3>
+
+
+<p>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
+Fr&eacute;mont. 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 front&mdash;Wyndham, I
+suppose, still bent on 'bagging' you."</p>
+
+<p>"Here they are!" said Ashby. "But you are too late, Colonel Sir Percy
+Wyndham!"</p>
+
+<p>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! <i>Fire!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"If you want to have a good time&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .25em;">If you want to have a good time&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .25em;">If you want to catch the devil</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Jine the cavalry!"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>A courier appeared beside Ashby. "General Jackson wants to know, sir, if
+they can cross?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look at the bridge and tell him, No."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then he says to fall back. Ammunition's precious."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Fr&eacute;mont has pontoons. He's out of the
+reckoning for at least a day and a night&mdash;probably longer. Nice for us
+all!"</p>
+
+<p>"It has been a remarkable campaign."</p>
+
+<p>"'Remarkable'! Tell you what it's like, Stafford. It's like
+1796&mdash;Napoleon's Italian campaign."</p>
+
+<p>"You think so? Well, it may be true. Hear the wind in the pines!"</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I did&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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 own&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you are not altogether wrong. Such things happen sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they do. But I think it a pity! This war"&mdash;he jerked his head
+toward the environing night&mdash;"is big enough, with horribly big stakes.
+If I were you, I'd drum the individual out of camp."</p>
+
+<p>"Think only of the general? I wish I could!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, can't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not yet."</p>
+
+<p>"There are only two things&mdash;barring disease&mdash;which can so split the
+brain in two&mdash;send 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never both?"</p>
+
+<p>"Knight-errant and Saracen in one? That's difficult."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing is so difficult as life, nor so strange. And, perhaps, love and
+hate are both illnesses. Sometimes I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"A happy recovery then! You are too good a fellow&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not a good fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not at least an amiable one to-night! Don't let the fever get
+too high!"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you listen," said Stafford, "to the wind in the pines? and did you
+ever see the automatic chess-player?"</p>
+
+<p>Two days later, Fr&eacute;mont, 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 Ha<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>rrisonburg, 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
+Fr&eacute;mont 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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
+cavalry&mdash;Fr&eacute;mont'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 front&mdash;Ashby's men.</p>
+
+<p>The pickets had their tale to tell. "Burst out of the wood&mdash;the damned
+Briton again, sir, with his squadrons from New Jersey! Rode us
+down&mdash;John Ferrar killed&mdash;Gilbert captured&mdash;You can see from the hilltop
+there. They are forming for a charge. There's infantry behind&mdash;Blinker's
+Dutch from the looks of them!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Blinker's Dutch," said the troopers. "'Hooney,' 'Nix furstay,' 'Bag
+Jackson,' 'Kiss und steal,' 'Hide under bed,' 'Rifle bureau drawers,'
+'Take lockets und rings'&mdash;Blinker's Dutch! We should have dog whips!"</p>
+
+<p>To the rear was the little ridge clothed with beech and oak. The road
+wound up and over it. Ashby's bugle sounded. "<i>Right face. Trot!
+March!</i>" 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
+camped&mdash;Captain 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.</p>
+
+<p>"About a thousand, shouldn't you think, sir?" asked an aide.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Between seven and eight hundred. Do you remember in 'Ivanhoe'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"By God, sir, Wyndham is coming to eat you up! This time he knows he's
+caught the hare."</p>
+
+<p>"Do all John Bulls ride like that? Shades of the Revolution! did we all
+ride like that before we came to Virginia?"</p>
+
+<p>"God! what a noise!"</p>
+
+<p>Ashby spoke. "Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ready, Captain Chew?" demanded Ashby. "Very well, then, let
+them have it!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Ashby put his bugle to his lips. Clear and sweet rose the notes, a
+silver tempest. "<i>Ashby! Ashby!</i>" shouted the grey lines and charged.
+"<i>Ashby! Ashby!</i>" Out of the woods and down the hill they came like
+undyked waters. The two tides met and clashed. There followed a wild
+m&ecirc;l&eacute;e, 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. "Fr&eacute;mo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>nt 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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 far&mdash;Besides, Fr&eacute;mont 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 trumps&mdash;Damn 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, general, there is nothing. Soldier of fortu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>ne. 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. With General Ewell. And now as I am somewhat in haste&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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, butterflies&mdash;large bronze one on your hat.&mdash;This our escort?
+Perfectly true you'll have a fight presently. There's the New York
+cavalry as well as the New Jersey&mdash;plenty of infantry&mdash;Pennsylvania
+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.&mdash;Now,
+gentlemen, at your service!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>I hear the distant thunder hum,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Maryland!</span><br /><br />
+The old line bugle, fife and drum,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Maryland!</span><br />
+She breathes! She burns! she'll come! she'll come&mdash;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"Oh! here's the 58th, too! Give them a cheer, boys! Hurrah! 58th
+Virginia! Hurrah! The Maryland Line!"</p>
+
+<p>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 th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>ere 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>Spasmodically the 58th started forward. The copse, all dim and smoky,
+flowered again, three hundred red points of fire. The soun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>d 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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"On, on, men!" cried Ashby. "Help's coming&mdash;the Maryland Line!" There
+was a wavering answer, half cheer, half-wailing cry, "<i>Ashby! Ashby!</i>"
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 Fr&eacute;mont'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.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p>
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BRIDGE AT PORT REPUBLIC</h3>
+
+
+<p>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 Fr&eacute;mont'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 cort&egrave;ge&mdash;soldiers with the body of Ashby. The dead general's
+mother was in Winchester. They would have taken him there, but could
+not, for Fr&eacute;mont'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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Fr&eacute;mont 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 Fr&eacute;mont
+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.</p>
+
+<p><i>"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."</i></p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>-o'-the-wisp junction with Fr&eacute;mont 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 65th&mdash;twenty 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 James"&mdash;"No, 'tisn't! Nothing's
+like mist over the James."&mdash;"Well, the bridge's like the bridge at home,
+anyway!"&mdash;"'Tisn't much like it. Hasn't got sidewalks inside."&mdash;"Yes, it
+has!"&mdash;"No, it hasn't!"&mdash;"I know better, I've been through it."&mdash;"I've
+been through it twice't&mdash;was through it after Elk Run, a month
+ago!"&mdash;"Well, it hasn't got sidewalks, anyway,"&mdash;"I tell you it
+has."&mdash;"You 're mistaken!"&mdash;"I'm not."&mdash;"You never did see straight
+nohow!"&mdash;"If I was at home I'd thrash you!"</p>
+
+<p>Mathew Coffin turned his head. "Who's that jowering back there? Stop it!
+Sunday morning and all!"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 bridge&mdash;told you 'twas&mdash;Ain't it like, Billy Maydew?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you feel, Billy, when you got away?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 Maydew&mdash;suck 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!'&mdash;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 was&mdash;and I say again this here air a most con-ve-ni-ent
+bridge."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Report ahead," said Billy, under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>Coffin halted. "What was that you said, Maydew?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't speak to you&mdash;sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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 w<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>on't do it. But one
+thing's sure&mdash;I certainly should like to!"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said, 'Report ahead&mdash;and be damned to you!'"</p>
+
+<p>Coffin's lips shut hard. "Very good! We'll see how three days of
+guardhouse tastes to you!&mdash;Forward!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;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
+well&mdash;and I was sitting before the tavern on a man's knee,&mdash;old man
+'twas, for he said he had fought the Indians,&mdash;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 powdered&mdash;and the man put me down
+and got up, and everybody else before the tavern got up&mdash;and somebody
+holloaed out 'Hurrah for General Washington&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;Don't look
+like the war horse in Job, does he now?&mdash;Looks like a doctor's
+horse&mdash;Little Sorrel's his name." The small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> boy surged forward. "He's
+coming out!"&mdash;"How do you know him?"&mdash;"G' way! You always know generals
+when you see them! Great, big men, all trimmed up with gold. Besides, I
+saw him last night."&mdash;"You didn't!"&mdash;"Yes, I did! Saw his shadow on the
+curtain."&mdash;"How did you know 'twas his?"&mdash;"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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,
+gentlemen&mdash;the 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."</p>
+
+<p>Within headquarters, in a large bare room, Jackson was having his
+customary morning half-hour with his heads of departments&mdash;an 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?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor, simple, ignorant creatures!" said Jackson. "There is no witch of
+Endor can raise that horse and rider!&mdash;Major Hawks!"</p>
+
+<p>The chief commissary came forward. "General Banks's stores are holding
+out well, sir. We are issuing special rations to the men to-day&mdash;Sunday
+dinner&mdash;fresh beef, rice and beans, canned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> fruits, coffee, sugar&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good! good! They deserve the best.&mdash;Colonel Crutchfield&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!&mdash;Captain Boswell&mdash;Ah, Mr. Hotchkiss."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Put it here on the table.&mdash;Now, Doctor McGuire."</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;the confidence and
+exaltation that all feel."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, doctor. God's shield is over us.&mdash;Captain Wilbourne&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"You acted rightly. You saw nothing of General Shields?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson rose and drew closer the sabre and the Bible. "That is all,
+gentlemen. After religious services you will return to your respective
+duties."</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 bugles&mdash;headquarters 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.</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;and where? Quick now! Eh&mdash;what!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's a lovely horse. Looks exactly, I imagine, like Rozinante&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"It has occurred to me that if after the evacuation of Corinth
+Beauregard should come back to Virginia&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;" 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 it&mdash;I think, too, that we ought to go
+take the bridge."</p>
+
+<p>The streams of blue troopers flowed toward the principal street and
+united there. Some one saw the flag more plainly. "That's a
+headquarters!&mdash;What if Jackson were there? Good Lord! what if we took
+Jackson?" A bugler blew a vehement rally. "<i>All of you, come on! All of
+you, come on!</i>" 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!&mdash;No."&mdash;"Yes! Saw it at Kernstown! Forward!"</p>
+
+<p>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 charge&mdash;but
+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 he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>ad,
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Federal cavalry, massed before the bridge and in the field to either
+side, swore and swore, "He's out!&mdash;Jackson's out! There he goes&mdash;up the
+road! Fire!&mdash;Damn it all, what's the use? He's charmed. We almost got
+him! Good Lord! We'd all have been major-generals!"</p>
+
+<p>A patrol galloped up. "They've got a great wagon train, sir, at the
+other end of the village&mdash;ordnance reserve, supply, everything! It is in
+motion. It's trying to get off by the Staunton road."</p>
+
+<p>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 up&mdash;damned creeping snails!"&mdash;"Yes, we
+could cross, but when we got to the other side, what then?&mdash;No, don't
+dare to burn the bridge&mdash;don't know what the general would
+say."&mdash;"Listen to those drums over there! If Stonewall Jackson brings
+all those hornets down on us!"&mdash;"If we had a gun&mdash;Speak of the
+angels!&mdash;Unlimber right here, lieutenant!&mdash;Got plenty of canister? Now
+if the damned infantry would only come on! Thought it was just behind us
+when we crossed the ford&mdash;What's that off there?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That" was a sharp sputter of musketry. "Firing! Who are they firing at?
+There aren't any rebels&mdash;we took them all prisoners&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There's fighting, anyway&mdash;wagon escort, maybe. The devil! Look across
+the river! Look! All the hornets are coming down&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;No. There's a
+squad coming up here."</p>
+
+<p>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 him&mdash;Jim Watts&mdash;even 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> with pistol
+shots. The bugle called again, <i>Rally to the colours! Rally!</i></p>
+
+<p>"I calculate," said one of the six blue horsemen, "that the boys have
+found Stonewall."</p>
+
+<p>"Then they'll need us all!" swore the trooper leading. "If anybody's in
+the cow-house they can wait."&mdash;<i>Right about face! Forward! Trot!</i></p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;" 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.</p>
+
+<p>Billy, his legs already out of the bush, looked at him with large, calm
+grey eyes. "Kin I go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go where? You'll get killed."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm just waiting," said Coffin, "until Jim here gets over his spasm.
+Then I'll give the word."</p>
+
+<p>Jim groaned. "I feel sicker'n a yaller dog after a fight&mdash;'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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>She was young and pretty. Coffin swept off his cap. "That's the reason
+we're trying to get to the edge of town&mdash;to help the men with the wagon
+train."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes grew luminous. "How brave you are! Go, and God bless you!"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>They were nearly out of town&mdash;they 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?"</p>
+
+<p>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 together&mdash;Mathew Coffin but three years older than
+he, and no great shakes anyhow. "What for?" asked Billy.</p>
+
+<p>"I just want to say to you," said Coffin thickly, "that as to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Billy's brow clouded. "I had forgotten all about that. I was going along
+very nicely with you. You were really behaving yourself&mdash;like a&mdash;like 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Gentleman</i>.'&mdash;Who are you to judge of a gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>Billy looked at him calmly. "I air one of them.&mdash;I air a-judging from
+that-a stand."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to the guardhouse for disobedience and bad language and
+impertinence."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 along&mdash;I air only
+fighting Yankees this mornin'!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The two guns, Federal Parrott, Confederate howitzer, belching smoke,
+made in twenty minutes the head of the street all murk. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> 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. <i>Fire!&mdash;load, fire!&mdash;load, fire! One, two,&mdash;one, two!</i> 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.
+<i>Fire&mdash;load, fire&mdash;load!</i> 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 himself&mdash;<i>Fire, load&mdash;Fire, load&mdash;One, two</i>. The enemy knew
+his fame. They said, "Coffin! Which is Coffin?"&mdash;<i>Fire, load, one, two</i>.
+The grey armies knew this young hero. They cheered when he went by. They
+cheered&mdash;they cheered&mdash;when 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! <i>Yaaaaih! Yaaaih!</i>"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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, Carter&mdash;Jack!
+Grown up and moved away. Judge Allen, sir!&mdash;Mr. Boyd!&mdash;would you just
+give a hand?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> Here I am, under Purgatory Mountain. Darling&mdash;take this
+thing away! Darling&mdash;Darling! Men!&mdash;Colonel Cleave!&mdash;Boys&mdash;boys&mdash;" All
+the brain began to think. "O God, send somebody!"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"They'll have to cut it off," moaned Coffin.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 them&mdash;we've druv them! The 37th's down there.
+Just listen to Rockbridge!&mdash;Who've you got there?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 him&mdash;he was that gallant. The men ought to 'lect him
+back. He sure did well."</p>
+
+<p>The nearest house flung open its doors. "Bring him right in here&mdash;oh,
+poor soldier! Right here in the best room!&mdash;Run, Maria, and turn down
+the bed. Oh, poor boy! He looks like my Robert down at Richmond! This
+way&mdash;get a little blackberry wine, Betty, and the scissors and my roll
+of lint&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 boys&mdash;Wait&mdash;I didn't hear, I'll put my ear down. You
+couldn't lose all that blood and not be awful weak&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd be ashamed to report now!" whispered Coffin. "Maybe I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> was wrong&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sho!" said Billy. "We're all wrong more or less. Here, darn you, drink
+your wine, and stop bothering!"</p>
+
+<p>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!&mdash;Aim at the gunners!&mdash;Fire! Fix bayonets! Charge!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>A mile or two in the deep woods they met Shields's infantry advance.
+There followed a movement toward the town&mdash;futile 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> he halted, listening to the guns at Cross Keys.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, sir, that he will stay where he is."</p>
+
+<p>"All day, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"All day."</p>
+
+<p>"He has ten thousand men. Will he not try to attack?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir! No! He cannot do it. I should tear him to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>A heavy sound came into being. The staff officer swung round on his
+horse. "Listen, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Artillery firing to the northwest. Fr&eacute;mont will act without
+Shields."</p>
+
+<p>A courier came at a gallop. "General Ewell's compliments, sir, and the
+battle of Cross Keys is beginning."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! good! My compliments to General Ewell, and I expect him to win
+it."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>JUDITH AND STAFFORD</h3>
+
+
+<p>The cort&egrave;ge 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>A courier had ridden far in advance. At Meechum's was a little crowd of
+country people. "They're coming! That's an ambulance!&mdash;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 hurt&mdash;and 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The train from Staunton came in&mdash;box 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. "God&mdash;this Thy
+servant! God&mdash;this 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Dat sholy so," agreed Isham, from the box. "Des look at me er-drivin'
+horses dat once I'd er scorned to tech!&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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 Lucy&mdash;of all people in the world! Aunt Lucy, if you
+do not smile this instant, I hope all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> 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!&mdash;but I am thinking most of
+Cross Keys!"</p>
+
+<p>"Judith, Judith, you are the strongest of us all&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Judith, darling; nothing's going to hurt Richard! I just feel it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, Molly! Judith's not afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I am not afraid. I think the cannon have stopped at Cross Keys, and
+that they are resting on the field.&mdash;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. No&mdash;we 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?&mdash;Oh, yes! I didn't like the ending.
+Well, let us begin 'Mansfield Park'&mdash;Molly, have you seen my knitting?"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I shall be kept here until to-morrow. Will you be Sister of Mercy
+all day?"</p>
+
+<p>"I go home to-day about four o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"If I ride over at five may I see you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you wish. I must go now&mdash;I am late. Is it true that we won the
+battle yesterday? Tell me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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.'&mdash;Fr&eacute;mont has drawn off to Harrisonburg. There is a rumour of a
+battle to-day with Shields."</p>
+
+<p>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 Stafford&mdash;Captain Howard&mdash;Go on singing? Very well,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Soft o'er the fountain, lingering falls the southern moon&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"Why is it that convalescent soldiers want the very most sentimental
+ditties that can be sung?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Far o'er the mountain, breaks the day too soon!"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"I know that string is going to snap presently! Then where would I buy
+guitar strings in a land without a port?</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Nita! Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .25em;">Nita! Juanita! Lean thou on my heart!"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>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.&mdash;"It is a lovely evening. Suppose we walk."</p>
+
+<p>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 hill&mdash;a 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes you are like one flower," answered Stafford, "and sometimes
+like another. To-day, in that dress, you are like heliotrope."</p>
+
+<p>Judith wondered. "Is it wise to go on&mdash;if 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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!'"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"You have noticed that? It is always so in times like these. We leave
+the artificial. Things have a hardier growth&mdash;feeling breaks its
+banks&mdash;custom is not listened to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not so bad as that!" said Judith, smiling. "And we will not
+really let the box grow out of all proportion!&mdash;Now tell me of the
+Valley."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;Wait! your scarf has caught."</p>
+
+<p>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 Mountains&mdash;War puts a stop to reading."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The Hill Difficulty! On the other side was the Valley of
+Humiliation, was it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes: where Christian met Apollyon. We are nearly up, and the sunset
+will be beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>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 flocks&mdash;hear the pilgrims singing.
+Look where that shaft of light is strikin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>g!"</p>
+
+<p>"There is heliotrope all around me," he answered. "I see nothing, know
+nothing but that!"</p>
+
+<p>"You do very wrongly," she said. "You pain me and you anger me!"</p>
+
+<p>"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 self&mdash;yet would it be
+twisted off and carried whither the wind willed! My passion is that
+tempest and my soul is that leaf."</p>
+
+<p>"It is more than a year since first I told you that I could not return
+your feeling. Last October&mdash;that day we rode to the old mill&mdash;I 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Even pale friendship, Judith&mdash;I wanted that!"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I could hear from you only on those terms. I kept them until they, too,
+were of no use&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"When I wrote to you last month&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew of your happiness&mdash;before you wrote. I learned it from one
+nearly concerned. I&mdash;I&mdash;" 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 Gordonsville&mdash;under 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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 love&mdash;at least, true women do not!"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot break it. It is too strong. Sometimes I wish to break it,
+sometimes not."</p>
+
+<p>Judith rose. "Let us go. The sun is down."</p>
+
+<p>She took the narrow path and he walked beside and above her a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>s 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."</p>
+
+<p>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 one&mdash;I do not wish to be
+angry. If you choose we will talk like friends&mdash;like 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I go back to the front to-morrow. Be patient with me these few minutes.
+And I, Judith&mdash;I will cling with all my might to the tree&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 still&mdash;the elm
+tops dreaming! And beyond that gold sky and the mountains all the
+fighting! Let us go through the graveyard. It is so still&mdash;and all their
+troubles are over."</p>
+
+<p>Within the graveyard, too, was an old bench around an elm. "A few
+minutes only!" pleaded Stafford. "Presently I must ride back to
+town&mdash;and 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.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 6.5em;"><span class="smcap">Ludwell Cary</span><br /><br />
+<i>In part I sleep. I wake within the whole.</i></span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to the cow-bells!" said Judith. "There shows the evening star."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Can a woman know what love is? This envelope of the soul&mdash;If I could
+but tear it! Judith, Judith! Power and longing grow in the very air I
+breathe!&mdash;will to move the universe if thereby I might gain you!&mdash;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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you love him so? I will work him harm if I can!"</p>
+
+<p>She rose. "I have been patient long enough.&mdash;No! not with me, if you
+please! I will go alone. Let me pass, Major Stafford!&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm," said the farmer. "Straight from Staunton&mdash;telegram to the
+colonel in Charlottesville. '<i>Big fighting at Port Republic. Jackson
+whipped Shields. Stonewall Brigade suffered heavily</i>.'&mdash;No'm&mdash;That was
+all. We won't hear details till to-morrow.&mdash;My boy John's in the
+Stonewall, you know&mdash;but Lord! John always was a keerful fellow! I
+reckon he's safe enough&mdash;but I ain't going to tell his mother about the
+battle till to-morrow; she might as well have her sleep.&mdash;War's
+pernicious hard on mothers. I reckon we'll see the bulletin to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke she turned and went into the house. The group <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>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&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Nita! Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part!"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"I have a curious feeling about that man," said Miss Lucy, "and yet it
+is the rarest thing that I distrust anybody!&mdash;What is it, Molly?"</p>
+
+<p>"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
+<i>glad</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Who looked glad?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Molly&mdash;Molly&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She did! You know how Edward looks when he's white-hot angry&mdash;still 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."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Molly, you're uncanny!" said Unity. "Oh me! Love and Hate&mdash;North and
+South&mdash;and we'll not have the bulletin until to-morrow&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER_XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LONGEST WAY ROUND</h3>
+
+
+<p>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!&mdash;drive them!" had said Jackson. It had
+driven them then, turning on its steps it had passed again the
+battlefield. Fr&eacute;mont's army, darkening the heights upon the further side
+of that river of burned bridges, looked impotently on. Fr&eacute;mont 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 Fr&eacute;mont 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"The general says have you brought off every inch of the captured guns?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him all but one unserviceable caisson. We did not have horses for
+that."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>The other swore. "All those miles&mdash;dark and raining!&mdash;Lieutenant
+Parke!&mdash;Something told me I'd better do it in the first place!"</p>
+
+<p>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 s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>oldiers 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 took&mdash;the old charcoal kiln where the guns had been
+planted, the ground around, the side of the ravine&mdash;these made an ugly
+sight between eyelid and ball! So many dead horses!&mdash;eighty of them in
+one place&mdash;one 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> 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 "<i>l'empereur</i>"
+and "<i>la France</i>." Slowly, amid drizzling rain, brigade after brigade
+made Brown's Gap and bivouacked within the dripping forest.</p>
+
+<p>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 guessed&mdash;bothering
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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 Fr&eacute;mont, 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>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</i>."</p>
+
+<p>And of a slightly earlier date.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>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</i>."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You will arrest all travellers up and down the Valley. None is to pass,
+going north or going south."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I will do my best, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good, good! That is all, colonel."</p>
+
+<p>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 Fr&eacute;mont 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 Fr&eacute;mont'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
+thin&mdash;nothing 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> in the next room heard more
+jingling, a heavy entrance, Munford's voice again.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, Gilmer. What did the general say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He says, sir, that General Fr&eacute;mont 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 an&aelig;sthetics."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, Gilmer, I will so report to the officer in charge of the
+flag of truce.&mdash;Well, what is it, man? You look as though you were
+bursting with news!"</p>
+
+<p>"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 batteries&mdash;gorgeous troops&mdash;Hood's Texans&mdash;thousands of
+Georgians&mdash;all of them playing 'Dixie,' and hurrahing, and asking
+everybody they see to point out Jackson!&mdash;No, sir, I'm not dreaming! I
+know we thought that they couldn't get here for several days yet&mdash;but
+here they are! Good Lord! I wouldn't, for a pretty, miss the hunting
+down the Valley!"</p>
+
+<p>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 Fr&eacute;mont's request. He
+says&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The party with the flag of truce went back to Fr&eacute;mont. They went like
+Lieutenant Gilmer, "bursting with news." The next day Munford pushed his
+advance to New Market. Fr&eacute;mont 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 he&mdash;the
+deserter&mdash;being 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.
+"Ya<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>as, 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." Fr&eacute;mont
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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
+Division&mdash;it's just behind. How can Lee spare it?&mdash;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 South&mdash;they 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!</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time Hood, Lawton, and Whiting actually arrived in the
+Valley. They came into Staunton, in good order, veteran<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> troops, ready
+to march against Shields or Fr&eacute;mont 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.&mdash;There suddenly appeared before them on the pike at Staunton
+Stonewall Jackson, ridden through the night from Mt. Meridian.</p>
+
+<p>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
+bloodshed&mdash;that 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>wherever it may be</i>. Then we will march against Shields or
+Fr&eacute;mont, or maybe against Banks or Sigel."</p>
+
+<p>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 no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>rtheast 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.</p>
+
+<p>In the upshot it proved that they were not yet to fraternize with the
+Army of the Valley. When presently, they marched, it was <i>up</i> 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 right&mdash;if he wins through I'll applaud, too&mdash;but, by God! he
+oughtn't to treat reasonable men so!&mdash;<i>Column Forward!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;"invade Maryland
+and move on Washington&mdash;sixty thousand bloody-minded rebels!"&mdash;"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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. Commissar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>y 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 day&mdash;twenty-five&mdash;even 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the seventeenth there was read a general order. "<i>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</i>."&mdash;"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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. "<i>Take
+the cars and go to Gordonsville. Go at once</i>." 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
+hilltops&mdash;that was all.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>The morning of the nineteenth found the army bivouacked near
+Charlottesville. An impression prevailed&mdash;Heaven knows how or why&mdash;that
+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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> but it was toward Louisa Court House.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"&mdash;"Gentlemen, I think it is the Rappahannock."&mdash;"Go away! it is
+the headwaters of the York."&mdash;"Rapidan maybe, or Rivanna."&mdash;"Probably
+Pamunkey, or the Piankatank,</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Where the bullfrogs jump from bank to bank."</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"Why not say the James?"&mdash;"Because it isn't. We know the James."&mdash;"Maybe
+it's the Chickahominy! I'm sure we've marched far enough! Think I hear
+McClellan's cannon, anyhow!"&mdash;"Say, captain, is that the river
+Dan?"&mdash;"<i>Forbidden to give names!</i>"&mdash;"Good Lord! I'd like to see&mdash;no, I
+wouldn't like to see Old Jack in the Inquisition!"&mdash;"I was down here
+once and I think it is the South Anna."&mdash;"It couldn't be&mdash;it couldn't be
+Acquia Creek, boys?"&mdash;"Acquia Creek! Absurd! You aren't even warm!"&mdash;"It
+might be the North Anna."&mdash;"Gentlemen, cease this idle discussion. It is
+the Tiber!"</p>
+
+<p>On a sunny morning, somewhere in this <i>terra incognita</i>, one of Hood's
+Texans chanced, during a halt, to stray into a by-road where an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>
+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?"</p>
+
+<p>The Texan settled himself astride a bough. "I don't really know."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know! To what command do you belong?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know! What is your State?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really and truly, I don't&mdash;O 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?"</p>
+
+<p>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'&mdash;and it's gotten to be a
+joke&mdash;and I was just fooling. Of course, sir, I don't mean that it has
+gotten to be a joke&mdash;only 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," said Jackson. "You might get me a handful of cherries."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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, Fr&eacute;mont, Banks, and Sigel.
+They knew now that they were within fifty miles of Richmond; but if they
+were going there anyhow, why&mdash;why&mdash;why 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sah. An' what hour she say, gineral, will suit you bes'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her, with my compliments, that I trust she will breakfast at the
+usual hour."</p>
+
+<p>Morning came and breakfast time. "Ole Miss" sent to notify the general.
+The servant found the room empty and the bed unslept in&mdash;only 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Jest two of you? Advance, number one, and give the countersign!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am an officer bearing dispatches&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That air not the point! Give the countersign!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a pass from General Whiting&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am upon an important mission from General Jackson&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It air not any more important than my orders air! You get down from
+that thar horse and mark time!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is not necessary. Call your officer of guard."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"It air a man trying to get by without the countersign."</p>
+
+<p>The first horseman moved a little to one side. "Come here, sergeant!
+Have you got a light? Wait, I will strike a match."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Billy Maydew, sir. Company A, 65th Virginia."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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?&mdash;Tired horses&mdash;one of them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>'s gone
+lame. They're stopping here."</p>
+
+<p>He slipped out of bed and went to the window. Just light enough to see
+by. "Who's there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two Confederate officers on important business. Our horses are tired.
+Have you two good fresh ones?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have an order from General Whiting authorizing me to impress horses."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 another&mdash;not when one of yours is
+your daughter's and you've ridden the other to the Court House and to
+church for twelve years&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 when&mdash;He 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 him&mdash;Richmond? No, 't wasn't Richmond. After Manassas,
+when I went to look for Hugh? Rappahannock? No, 't wasn't there.
+Lexington? Good God! That was Stonewall Jackson!"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NINE-MILE ROAD</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the golden afternoon light of the twenty-third of June, the city of
+Richmond, forty thousand souls, lay, fevered enough, on her seven hills.
+Over her floated the stars and bars. In her streets rolled the drum.
+Here it beat quick and bright, marking the passage of some regiment from
+the defences east or south to the defences north. There it beat deep
+and slow, a muffled drum, a Dead March&mdash;some officer killed in a
+skirmish, or dying in a hospital, borne now to Hollywood. Elsewhere,
+quick and bright again, it meant Home Guards going to drill. From the
+outskirts of the town might be heard the cavalry bugles blowing,&mdash;from
+the Brook turnpike and the Deep Run turnpike, from Meadow Bridge road
+and Mechanicsville road, from Nine-Mile and Darbytown and Williamsburg
+stage roads and Osborne's old turnpike, and across the river from the
+road to Fort Darling. From the hilltops, from the portico or the roof of
+the Capitol, might be seen the camp-fires of Lee's fifty thousand
+men&mdash;the Confederate Army of the Potomac, the Army of the Rappahannock,
+the Army of Norfolk, the Army of the Peninsula&mdash;four armies waiting for
+the arrival of the Army of the Valley to coalesce and become the Army of
+Northern Virginia. The curls of smoke went up, straight, white, and
+feathery. With a glass might be seen at various points the crimson flag,
+with the blue St. Andrew's cross and the stars, eleven stars, a star for
+each great State of the Confederacy. By the size you knew the arm&mdash;four
+feet square for infantry, three feet square for artillery, two and a
+half by two and a half for cavalry.</p>
+
+<p>The light lay warm on the Richmond houses&mdash;on mellow red brick, on pale
+grey stucco. It touched old ironwork balconies and ivy-topped walls, and
+it gilded the many sycamore trees, and lay in pools on the heavy leaves
+of the magnolias. Below the pillared Capitol, in the green up and down
+of the Capitol Square, in Main Street, in Grace Street by St. Paul's,
+before the Exchange, the Ballard House, the Spotswood, on Shockoe Hill
+by the President's House, through all the leafy streets there was vivid
+movement. In this time and place Life was so near to Death; the ocean of
+pain and ruin so evidently beat against its shores, that from very
+contrast and threatened doom Life took a higher light, a deeper
+splendour. All its notes resounded, nor did it easily relinquish the
+major key.</p>
+
+<p>In the town were many hospitals. These were being cleaned, aired, and
+put in order against the impending battles. The wounded in them now,
+chiefly men from the field of Seven Pines, looked on and hoped for the
+best. Taking them by and large, the wounded were a cheerful set. Many
+could sit by the windows, in the perfumed air, and watch the women of
+the South, in their soft, full gowns, going about their country's
+business. Many of the gowns were black.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>About the hotels, the President's House, the governor's mansion, and the
+Capitol, the movement was of the official world. Here were handsome men
+in broadcloth, grown somewhat thin, somewhat rusty, but carefully
+preserved and brushed. Some were of the old school and still affected
+stocks and ruffled shirts. As a rule they were slender and tall, and as
+a rule wore their hair a little long. Many were good Latinists, most
+were good speakers. One and all they served their states as best they
+knew how, overworked and anxious, facing privation here in Richmond with
+the knowledge that things were going badly at home, sitting long hours
+in Congress, in the Hall of Delegates, in courts or offices, struggling
+there with Herculean difficulties, rising to go out and listen to
+telegrams or to read bulletins. Sons, brothers, kinsmen, and friends
+were in the field.</p>
+
+<p>This golden afternoon, certain of the latter had ridden in from the
+lines upon this or that business connected with their commands. They
+were not many, for all the world knew there would be a deadly fighting
+presently, deadly and prolonged. Men and officers must stay within
+drum-beat. Those who were for an hour in Richmond, in their worn grey
+uniforms, with the gold lace grown tarnished (impossible of
+replacement!), with their swords not tarnished, their netted silk
+sashes, their clear bright eyes and keen thin faces, found friends
+enough as they went to and fro&mdash;more eager questioners and eager
+listeners than they could well attend to. One, a general officer, a man
+of twenty-nine, in a hat with a long black plume, with the most charming
+blue eyes, and a long bronze, silky, rippling beard which he constantly
+stroked, could hardly move for the throng about him. Finally, in the
+Capitol Square, he backed his horse against the railing about the great
+equestrian Washington. The horse, a noble animal, arched his neck. There
+was around it a wreath of bright flowers. The rider spoke in an
+enchanting voice. "Now if I tell you in three words how it was and what
+we did, will you let me go? I've got to ride this afternoon to Yellow
+Tavern."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes! Tell us, General Stuart."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear people, it was the simplest thing in the world! A man in the
+First has made a song about it, and Sweeney has set it to the banjo&mdash;if
+you'll come out to the camp after the battle you shall hear it! General
+Lee wanted to know certain things about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> country behind McClellan.
+Now the only way to know a thing is to go and look at it. He ordered a
+reconnoissance in force. I took twelve hundred cavalrymen and two guns
+of the horse artillery and made the reconnoissance. Is there anything
+else that you want to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Be good, general, and tell us what you did."</p>
+
+<p>"I am always good&mdash;just born so! I rode round McClellan's army&mdash;Don't
+cheer like that! The town'll think it's Jackson, come from the Valley!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell us, general, how you did it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, I haven't time. If you like, I'll repeat the man in the
+First's verses, and then I'm going. You'll excuse the metre? A poor,
+rough, unlearned cavalryman did it.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Fitz Lee, Roony Lee, Breathed and Stuart,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Martin to help, and Heros von Borcke,</span><br />
+First Virginia, Fourth, Ninth, two guns and a Legion&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From Hungary Run to Laurel Hill Fork,</span><br /><br />
+"By Ashland, Winston, Hanover, Cash Corner,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Enon Church, Salem Church, Totopotomoy, Old Church,</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"You observe that we are trotting.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"By Hamstead, Garlick, Tunstall Station, Talleyville,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forge Mill, Chickahominy, Sycamore, White Birch.</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Here we change gait.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"By Hopewell and Christian, Wilcox and Westover,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Turkey Bridge, Malvern Hill, Deep Bottom and Balls</span><br />
+Four days, forty leagues, we rode round McClellan<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As Jeremiah paced round Jericho's walls.&mdash;"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"It wasn't Jeremiah, general! It was Joshua."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so? I'll tell Sweeney. Anyhow, the walls fell.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Halt! Advance! Firing! Engagement at Hanover.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Skirmish at Taliaferro's. Skirmish at Hawes.</span><br />
+Tragic was Totopotomoy, for there we lost Latan&eacute;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hampden-like, noble, dead for his Cause.</span><br /><br />
+"At Old Church broke up meeting. Faith! 'twas a pity<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But indigo azure was pulpit and pew!</span><br />
+Fitz Lee did the job. Sent his love to Fitz Porter.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Good Lord! Of Mac's Army the noble review!</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>"There isn't anything our horses can't do.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 8em;">"Tunstall Station was all bubbly white with wagons.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 9em;">We fired those trains, those stores, those sheltering sheds!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">And then we burned three transports on Pamunkey</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 9em;">And shook the troops at White House from their beds!</span><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">"Loud roars across our path the swollen Chickahominy</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 9em;">'Plunge in, Confeds! you were not born to drown.'</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">We danced past White Oak swamp, we danced past Fighting Joseph Hooker!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 9em;">We rode round McClellan from his sole to his crown!</span><br /><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">"There are strange, strange folk who like the Infantry!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Men have been found to love Artillery.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">McClellan's quoted thus 'In every family</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">There should exist a gunboat'&mdash;ah, but we,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Whom all arms else do heap with calumny,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Saying, 'Daily those damned centaurs put us up a tree!'</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">We insist upon the virtues of the Cavalry!</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Now, friends, I'm going! It was a beautiful raid! I always liked Little
+Mac. He's a gentleman, and he's got a fine army. Except for poor Latan&eacute;
+we did not lose a man. But I left a general behind me."</p>
+
+<p>"A general? General who&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Stuart gave his golden laugh. "General Consternation."</p>
+
+<p>The sun slipped lower. Two horsemen came in by the Deep Run road and
+passed rapidly eastward through the town. The afternoon was warm, but
+the foremost wore a great horseman's cloak. It made all outlines
+indefinite and hid any insignia of rank. There was a hat or cap, too,
+pulled low. It was dusty; he rode fast and in a cloud, and there came no
+recognition. Out of the town, on the Nine-Mile road, he showed the
+officer of the guard who stopped him a pass signed "R. E. Lee" and
+entered the Confederate lines. "General Lee's headquarters?" They were
+pointed out, an old house shaded by oaks. He rode hither, gave his horse
+to the courier with him, and spoke to the aide who appeared. "Tell
+General Lee, some one from the Valley."</p>
+
+<p>The aide shot a quick glance, then opened a door to the left. "General
+Lee will be at leisure presently. Will you wait here, sir?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He from the Valley entered. It was a large, simply furnished room, with
+steel engravings on the walls,&mdash;the 1619 House of Burgesses, Spotswood
+on the Crest of the Blue Ridge with his Golden Horseshoe Knights,
+Patrick Henry in Old St. John's, Jefferson writing the Declaration of
+Independence, Washington receiving the Sword of Cornwallis. The windows
+were open to the afternoon breeze and the birds were singing in a
+rosebush outside. There were three men in the room. One having a large
+frame and a somewhat heavy face kept the chair beside the table with a
+kind of granite and stubborn air. He rested like a boulder on a mountain
+slope; marked with old scars, only waiting to be set in motion again to
+grind matters small. The second man, younger, slender, with a short red
+beard, leaned against the window, smelled the roses, and listened to the
+birds. The third, a man of forty, with a gentle manner and very honest
+and kindly eyes, studied the engravings. All three wore the stars of
+major-generals.</p>
+
+<p>The man from the Valley, entering, dropped his cloak and showed the same
+insignia. D. H. Hill, leaving the engravings, came forward and took him
+by both hands. The two had married sisters; moreover each was possessed
+of fiery religious convictions; and Hill, though without the genius of
+the other, was a cool, intelligent, and determined fighter. The two had
+not met since Jackson's fame had come upon him.</p>
+
+<p>It clothed him now like a mantle. The man sitting by the table got
+ponderously to his feet; the one by the window left the contemplation of
+the rosebush. "You know one another by name only, I believe, gentlemen?"
+said D. H. Hill. "General Jackson&mdash;General Longstreet, General Ambrose
+Powell Hill."</p>
+
+<p>The four sat down, Jackson resting his sabre across his knees. He had
+upon him the dust of three counties; he was all one neutral hue like a
+faded leaf, save that his eyes showed through, grey-blue, intense
+enough, though quiet. He was worn to spareness.</p>
+
+<p>Longstreet spoke in his heavy voice. "Well, general, Fate is making of
+your Valley the Flanders of this war."</p>
+
+<p>"God made it a highway, sir. We must take it as we find it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said A. P. Hill, smiling, "since we have a Marlborough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> for that
+Flanders&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Jackson shifted the sabre a little. "Marlborough is not my <i>beau ideal</i>.
+He had circumstances too much with him."</p>
+
+<p>An inner door opened. "The artillery near Cold Harbour&mdash;" said a voice,
+cadenced and manly. In a moment Lee entered. The four rose. He went
+straight to Stonewall Jackson, laid one hand on his shoulder, the other
+on his breast. The two had met, perhaps, in Mexico; not since. Now they
+looked each other in the eyes. Both were tall men, though Lee was the
+tallest; both in grey, both thin from the fatigue of the field. Here the
+resemblance ended. Lee was a model of manly beauty. His form, like his
+character, was justly proportioned; he had a great head, grandly based,
+a face of noble sweetness, a step light and dauntless. There breathed
+about him something knightly, something kingly, an antique glamour,
+sunny shreds of the Golden Age. "You are welcome, General Jackson," he
+said; "very welcome! You left Frederickshall&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Last night, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"The army is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is there, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You have become a name to conjure with, general! I think that your
+Valley will never forget you." He took a chair beside the table. "Sit
+down, gentlemen. I have called this council, and now the sun is sinking
+and General Jackson has far to ride, and we must hasten. Here are the
+maps."</p>
+
+<p>The major-generals drew about the table. Lee pinned down a map with the
+small objects upon the board, then leaned back in his chair. "This is
+our first council with General Jackson. We wait but for the Army of the
+Valley to precipitate certainly one great battle, perhaps many battles.
+I think that the fighting about Richmond will be heavier than all that
+has gone before." An aide entered noiselessly with a paper in his hand.
+"From the President, sir," he said. Lee rose and took the note to the
+window. The four at table spoke together in low tones.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the most difficult ground in the world," said A. P. Hill. "You'll
+have another guess-time of it than in your Valley, general! No broad
+pike through the marshes of the Chickahominy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are there good maps?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Longstreet; "damned bad."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jackson stiffened. D. H. Hill came in hastily. "It's rather difficult to
+draw them accurately with a hundred and ten thousand Yankees lying
+around loose. They should have been made last year."</p>
+
+<p>Lee returned. "Yes, the next ten days will write a page in blood." He
+sighed. "I do not like war, gentlemen. Now, to begin again! We are
+agreed that to defend Richmond is imperative. When Richmond falls the
+Confederacy falls. It is our capital and seat of government. Here only
+have we railroad communications with the far South. Here are our
+arsenals and military manufactories, our depots of supply, our treasury,
+our hospitals, our refugee women and children. The place is our heart,
+and arm and brain must guard it. Leave Richmond and we must withdraw
+from Virginia. Abandon Virginia, and we can on our part no longer
+threaten the northern capital. Then General Jackson cannot create a
+panic every other day, nor will Stanton then withdraw on every fresh
+alarm a division from McClellan."</p>
+
+<p>He leaned his head on his hand, while with the firm fingers of the other
+he measured the edge of the table. "No! It is the game of the two
+capitals, and the board is the stretch of country between. To the end
+they will attempt to reach Richmond. To the end we must prevent that
+mate. Let us see their possible roads. Last year McDowell tried it by
+Manassas, and he failed. It is a strategic point,&mdash;Manassas. There may
+well be fighting there again. The road by Fredericksburg ... they have
+not tried that yet, and yet it has a value. Now the road that McClellan
+has taken,&mdash;by sea to Fortress Monroe, and so here before us by the
+York, seeing that the Merrimac kept him from the James. It is the best
+way yet, though with a modification it would be better! There is a key
+position which I trust he'll not discover&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He won't," said D. H. Hill succinctly. "The fairies at his cradle
+didn't give him intuition, and they made him extremely cautious. He's a
+good fellow, though!"</p>
+
+<p>Lee nodded. "I have very genuine respect for General McClellan. He is a
+gentleman, a gallant soldier, and a good general." He pushed the map
+before him away, and took another. "Of late Richmond's strongest defence
+has been General Jackson in the Valley. Well! McDowell and Fr&eacute;mont and
+Banks may be left awhile to guard that capital which is so very certain
+it is in danger. I propose now to bring General Jackson suddenly upon
+McClellan's right&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jackson, who had been holding himself with the rigidity of a warrior on
+a tomb, slightly shifted the sabre and drew his chair an inch nearer the
+commander-in-chief. "His right is on the north bank of the
+Chickahominy&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. General Stuart brought me much information that I desired. Fitz
+John Porter commands there&mdash;the 5th Army Corps&mdash;twenty-five thousand
+men. I propose, general, that you bring your troops as rapidly as
+possible from Frederickshall to Ashland, that from Ashland you march by
+the Ashcake road and Merry Oaks Church to the Totopotomoy Creek road and
+that, moving by this to Beaver Dam Creek, you proceed to turn and
+dislodge Porter and his twenty-five thousand, crumpling them back upon
+McClellan's centre&mdash;here." He pointed with a quill which he took from
+the ink-well.</p>
+
+<p>"Good! good! And the frontal attack?"</p>
+
+<p>"General A. P. Hill and his division will make that. The batteries on
+the Chickahominy will cover his passage of the bridge. General
+Longstreet will support him. General Magruder with General Huger and the
+reserve artillery will be left before Richmond. They will so demonstrate
+as to distract General McClellan's attention from the city and from his
+right and General Porter. General Stuart will take position on your line
+of march from Ashland, and General D. H. Hill will support you."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! good! This is the afternoon of the twenty-third."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Frederickshall is forty miles from this point&mdash;" He touched the
+map again. "Now, general, when can you be here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thursday morning, the twenty-sixth, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"That is very soon."</p>
+
+<p>"Time is everything in war, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"That is perfectly true. But the time is short and the man&oelig;uvre
+delicate. You and your troops are at the close of a campaign as arduous
+as it is amazing. The fatigue and the strain must be great. You and
+General Hill are far apart and the country between is rough and
+unmapped. Yet victory depends on the simultaneous blow."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson sat rigid again, his hand stiffly placed upon the sabre. "It is
+not given to man to say with positiveness what he can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> do, sir. But it
+is necessary that this right be turned before McClellan is aware of his
+danger. Each day makes it more difficult to conceal the absence of my
+army from the Valley. Between the danger of forced marching and the
+obvious danger that lies in delay, I should choose the forced marching.
+Better lose one man in marching than five in a battle not of our
+selecting. A straw may bring failure as a straw may bring victory. I may
+fail, but the risk should be taken. Napoleon failed at Eylau, but his
+plan was correct."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Lee. "Then the morning of the twenty-sixth be it!
+Final orders shall await you at Ashland."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson rose. "Good! good! By now my horses will have been changed. I
+will get back. The army was to advance this morning to Beaver Dam
+Station."</p>
+
+<p>He rode hard through the country all night, it being the second he had
+spent in the saddle. Beaver Dam Station and the bivouacking Army of the
+Valley saw him on Tuesday morning the twenty-fourth. "Old Jack's back
+from wherever he's been!" went the rumour. Headquarters was established
+in a hut or two near the ruined railroad. Arriving here, he summoned his
+staff and sent for Ewell. While the former gathered he read a report,
+forwarded from Munford in the rear. "Scout Gold and Jarrow in from the
+Valley. Fr&eacute;mont still fortifying at Strasburg&mdash;thinks you may be at
+Front Royal. Shields at Luray considers that you may have gone to
+Richmond, but that Ewell remains in the Valley with forty thousand men.
+Banks at Winchester thinks you may have gone against Shields at Luray,
+or King at Catlett's, or Doubleday at Fredericksburg, or gone to
+Richmond&mdash;but that Ewell is moving west on Moorefield!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good! good!" said Jackson. Staff arrived, and he proceeded to issue
+rapid and precise orders. All given, staff hurried off, and the general
+spoke to Jim. "Call me when General Ewell comes." He stretched himself
+on a bench in the hut. "I am suffering," he said, "from fever and a
+feeling of debility." He drew his cloak about him and closed his eyes.
+It was but half an hour, however, that he slept or did not sleep, for
+Ewell was fiery prompt.</p>
+
+<p>The Army of the Valley entered upon a forced march through country both
+difficult and strange. It had been of late in the possession of the
+enemy, and the enemy had stretched felled trees across forest roads and
+burned the bridges spanning deep and sluggish creeks. Guides were at
+fault, cross-roads directions most uncertain. The wood gre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>w intolerably
+thick, and the dust of the roads was atrocious; the air cut away by the
+tall green walls on either hand; the sun like a furnace seven times
+heated. Provisions had not come up in time at Beaver Dam Station and the
+troops marched upon half-rations. Gone were the mountains and the
+mountain air, present was the languorous breath of the low country. It
+had an upas quality, dulling the brain, retarding the step. The men were
+very tired, it was hot, and a low fever hung in the air.</p>
+
+<p>They marched until late of a night without a moon, and the bugles waked
+them long ere dawn. A mist hung over all the levels, presaging heat.
+<i>Column Forward!</i> To-day was a repetition of yesterday, only accented.
+The sun girded himself with greater strength, the dust grew more
+stifling, the water was bad, gnats and mosquitoes made a painful cloud,
+the feet in the ragged shoes were more stiff, more swollen, more
+abraded. The moisture in the atmosphere weakened like a vapour bath. The
+entire army, "foot cavalry" and all, marched with a dreadful slowness.
+<i>Press Forward&mdash;Press Forward&mdash;Press Forward&mdash;Press Forward!</i> It grew to
+be like the humming insects on either hand, a mere noise to be expected.
+"Going to Richmond&mdash;Going to Richmond&mdash;Yes, of course we're going to
+Richmond&mdash;unless, indeed, we're going a roundabout way against McDowell
+at Fredericksburg! Richmond will keep. It has kept a long time&mdash;ever
+since William Byrd founded it. General Lee is there&mdash;and so it is all
+right&mdash;and we can't go any faster. War isn't all it's cracked up to be.
+Oh, hot, hot, hot! and skeetery! and General Humidity lives down this
+way. <i>Press Forward&mdash;Press Forward&mdash;Press Forward. If that noise don't
+stop I'll up with my musket butt and beat somebody's brains out!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Ashland was not reached until the late evening of this day. The men fell
+upon the earth. Even under the bronze there could be seen dark circles
+under their eyes, and their lips were without colour. Jackson rode along
+the lines and looked. There were circles beneath his own eyes, and his
+lips shut thin and grey. "Let them rest," he said imperturbably, "until
+dawn." There rode beside him an officer from Lee. He had now the
+latter's General Order, and he was almost a day behind.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat later, in the house which he occupied, his chief of staff,
+Ewell and the brigadiers gone, the old man, Jim, appeared before him.
+"Des you lis'en ter me er minute, gineral! Ob my sa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>rtain circumspection
+I knows you didn't go ter bed las' night&mdash;nurr de night befo'&mdash;nurr de
+night befo' dat&mdash;'n' I don' see no preperation for yo' gwine ter bed
+dish-yer night! Now, dat ain' right. W'at Miss Anna gwine say w'en she
+heah erbout hit? She gwine say you 'stress her too much. She gwine say
+you'll git dar quicker, 'n' fight de battle better, ef you lie down
+erwhile 'n' let Jim bring you somethin' ter eat&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have eaten. I am going to walk in the garden for awhile."</p>
+
+<p>He went, all in bronze, with a blue gleam in his eye. Jim looked after
+him with a troubled countenance. "Gwine talk wif de Lawd&mdash;talk all night
+long! Hit ain' healthy. Pray an' pray 'n' look up ter de sky 'twel he
+gits paralysis! De gineral better le' me tek his boots off, 'n' go ter
+bed 'n' dream ob Miss Anna!"</p>
+
+<p>At three the bugles blew. Again there was incalculable delay. The sun
+was up ere the Army of the Valley left Ashland. It was marching now in
+double column, Jackson by the Ashcake road and Merry Oaks Church, Ewell
+striking across country, the rendezvous Pole Green Church, a little
+north and east of Mechanicsville and the Federal right. The distance
+that each must travel was something like sixteen miles.</p>
+
+<p>The spell of yesterday persisted and became the spell of to-day. Sixteen
+miles would have been nothing in the Valley; in these green and glamoury
+lowlands they became like fifty. Stuart's cavalry began to appear,
+patrols here, patrols there, vedettes rising stark from the broom sedge,
+or looming double, horsemen and shadow, above and within some piece of
+water, dark, still, and clear. Time was when the Army of the Valley
+would have been curious and excited enough over Jeb Stuart's troopers,
+but now it regarded them indifferently with eyes glazed with fatigue. At
+nine the army crossed the ruined line of the Virginia Central, Hood's
+Texans leading. An hour later it turned southward, Stuart on the long
+column's left flank, screening it from observation, and skirmishing
+hotly through the hours that ensued. The army crossed Crump's Creek,
+passed Taliaferro's Mill, crossed other creeks, crept southward through
+hot, thick woods. Mid-day came and passed. The head of the column turned
+east, and came shortly to a cross-roads. Here, awaiting it, was Stuart
+himself, in his fighting jacket. Jackson drew up Little Sorrel beside
+him. "Good-morning, general."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, general&mdash;or rather, good-afternoon. I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> hoped to see
+you many hours ago."</p>
+
+<p>"My men are not superhuman, sir. There have occurred delays. But God is
+over us still."</p>
+
+<p>He rode on. Stuart, looking after him, raised his brows. "In my opinion
+A. P. Hill is waiting for a man in a trance!"</p>
+
+<p>The army turned southward again, marching now toward Totopotomoy Creek,
+the head of the column approaching it at three o'clock. Smoke before the
+men, thick, pungent, told a tale to which they were used. "Bridge on
+fire!" It was, and on the far side of the creek appeared a party in blue
+engaged in obstructing the road. Hood's Texans gave a faint cheer and
+dashed across, disappearing in flame, emerging from it and falling upon
+the blue working party. Reilly's battery was brought up; a shell or two
+fired. The blue left the field, and the grey pioneers somehow fought the
+flames and rebuilt the bridge. An hour was gone before the advance could
+cross on a trembling structure. Over at last, the troops went on,
+southward still, to Hundley Corner. Here Ewell's division joined them,
+and here to the vague surprise of an exhausted army came the order to
+halt. The Army of the Valley went into bivouac three miles north of that
+right which, hours before, it was to have turned. It was near sunset. As
+the troops stacked arms, to the south of them, on the other side of
+Beaver Dam Creek, burst out an appalling cannonade. Trimble, a veteran
+warrior, was near Jackson. "That has the sound of a general engagement,
+sir! Shall we advance?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jackson looked at him with a curious serenity. "It is the batteries on
+the Chickahominy covering General Hill's passage of the stream. He will
+bivouac over there, and to-morrow will see the battle&mdash;Have you ever
+given much attention, general, to the subject of growth in grace?"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>AT THE PRESIDENT'S</h3>
+
+
+<p>A large warehouse on Main Street in Richmond had been converted into a
+hospital. Conveniently situated, it had received many of the more
+desperately wounded from Williamsburg and Seven Pines and from the
+skirmishes about the Chickahominy and up and down the Peninsula. Typhoid
+and malarial cases, sent in from the lines, were also here in
+abundance. To a great extent, as June wore on, the wounded from
+Williamsburg and Seven Pines had died and been buried, or recovered and
+returned to their regiments, or, in case of amputations, been carried
+away after awhile by their relatives. Typhoid and malaria could hardly
+be said to decrease, but yet, two days before the battle of
+Mechanicsville, the warehouse seemed, comparatively speaking, a cool and
+empty place.</p>
+
+<p>It was being prepared against the battles for which the beleaguered city
+waited&mdash;waited heartsick and aghast or lifted and fevered, as the case
+might be. On the whole, the tragic mask was not worn; the city
+determinedly smiled. The three floors of the warehouse, roughly divided
+into wards, smelled of strong soap and water and home-made
+disinfectants. The windows were wide; swish, swish! went the mops upon
+the floors. A soldier, with his bandaged leg stretched on a chair before
+him, took to scolding: "Women certainly are funny! What's the sense of
+wiping down walls and letting James River run over the floors? Might be
+some sense in doing it <i>after</i> the battle! Here, Sukey, don't splash
+that water this a-way!&mdash;Won't keep the blood from the floor when they
+all come piling in here to-morrow, and makes all of us damned
+uncomfortable to-day!&mdash;Beg your pardon, Mrs. Randolph! Didn't see you,
+ma'am.&mdash;Yes, I should like a game of checkers&mdash;if we can find an island
+to play on!"</p>
+
+<p>The day wore on in the hospital. Floors and walls were all scrubbed,
+window-panes glistening, a Sunday freshness everywhere. The men agreed
+that housecleaning was all right&mdash;after it was over. The remnant of the
+wounded occupied the lower floor; typhoid, malaria, and other ills were
+upstairs. Stores were being brought in, packages of clothing and lint
+received at the door. A favorite surgeon made his rounds. He was cool
+and jaunty, his hands in his pockets, a rose in his buttonhole. "What
+are you malingerers doing here, anyhow? You're eating your white bread,
+with honey on it&mdash;you are! Propped up and walking around&mdash;Mrs. McGuire
+reading to you&mdash;Mrs. Randolph smilingly letting you beat her at her own
+game&mdash;Miss Cooper writing beautiful letters for you&mdash;Miss Cary leaving
+really ill people upstairs just because one of you is an Albemarle man
+and might recognize a home face! Well! eat the whole slice up to-day,
+honey and all! for most of you are going home to-morrow. Yes, yes!
+you're well enough&mdash;and we want all the room we can get."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He went on, Judith Cary with him. "Whew! we must be going to have a
+fight!" said the men. "Bigger'n Seven Pines."</p>
+
+<p>"Seven Pines was big enough!"</p>
+
+<p>"That was what I thought&mdash;facing Casey's guns!&mdash;Your move, Mrs.
+Randolph."</p>
+
+<p>The surgeon and nurse went on through cool, almost empty spaces. "This
+is going," said the surgeon crisply, "to be an awful big war. I
+shouldn't be surprised if it makes a Napoleonic thunder down the
+ages&mdash;becomes a mighty legend like Greece and Troy! And, do you know,
+Miss Cary, the keystone of the arch, as far as we are concerned, is a
+composition of three,&mdash;the armies in the field, the women of the South,
+and the servants."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that the conduct of the negroes everywhere is an everlasting
+refutation of much of the bitter stuff which is said by the other side.
+This war would crumble like that, if, with all the white men gone, there
+were on the plantations faithlessness to trust, hatred, violence,
+outrage&mdash;if there were among us, in Virginia alone, half a million
+incendiaries! There aren't, thank God! Instead we owe a great debt of
+gratitude to a dark foster-brother. The world knows pretty well what are
+the armies in the field. But for the women, Miss Cary, I doubt if the
+world knows that the women keep plantations, servants, armies, and
+Confederacy going!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Judith, "that the surgeons should have a noble statue."</p>
+
+<p>"Even if we do cut off limbs that might have been saved&mdash;hey? God knows,
+they often might! and that there's haste and waste enough!&mdash;Here's Sam,
+bringing in a visitor. A general, too&mdash;looks like a Titian I saw once."</p>
+
+<p>"It is my father," said Judith. "He told me he would come for me."</p>
+
+<p>A little later, father and daughter, moving through the ward, found the
+man from Albemarle&mdash;not one of those who would go away to-morrow. He lay
+gaunt and shattered, with strained eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> and fingers picking at the
+sheet. "Don't you know me, Mocket?"</p>
+
+<p>Mocket roused himself for one moment. "Course I know you, general! Crops
+mighty fine this year! Never saw such wheat!" The light sank in his
+eyes; his face grew as it was before, and his fingers picked at the
+sheet. He spoke in a monotone. "We've had such a hard time since we left
+home&mdash;We've had such a hard time since we left home&mdash;We've had such a
+hard time since we left home&mdash;We&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Judith dashed her hand across her eyes. "Come away! He says just that
+all the time!"</p>
+
+<p>They moved through the ward, Warwick Cary speaking to all. "No, men! I
+can't tell you just when will be the battle, but we must look for it
+soon&mdash;for one or for many. Almost any day now. No, I cannot tell you if
+General Jackson is coming. It is not impossible. 'Washington Artillery?'
+That's a command to be proud of. Let me see your Tiger Head." He looked
+at the badge with its motto <i>Try Us</i>, and gave it back smilingly. "Well,
+we do try you, do we not?&mdash;on every possible occasion!&mdash;Fifth North
+Carolina? Wounded at Williamsburg!&mdash;King William Artillery?&mdash;Did you
+hear what General D. H. Hill said at Seven Pines? He said that he would
+rather be captain of the King William Artillery than President of the
+Confederate States.&mdash;Barksdale's Mississippians? Why, men, you are all
+by-words!"</p>
+
+<p>The men agreed with him happily. "You've got pretty gallant fellows
+yourself, general!" The King William man cleared his throat. "He's got a
+daughter, too, that I'd like to&mdash;I'd like to <i>cheer</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's so, general!" said the men. "That's so! She's a chip of the old
+block."</p>
+
+<p>Father and daughter laughed and went on&mdash;out of this ward and into
+another, quite empty. The two stood by the door and looked, and that
+sadly enough. "All the cots, all the pallets," said Cary, in a low
+voice. "And out in the lines, they who will lie upon them! And they
+cannot see them stretching across their path. I do not know which place
+seems now the most ghostly, here or there."</p>
+
+<p>"It was hard to get mattresses enough. So many hospitals&mdash;and every one
+has given and given&mdash;and beds must be kept for those who will be taken
+to private houses. So, at last, some one thought of pew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> cushions. They
+have been taken from every church in town. See! sewed together, they do
+very well."</p>
+
+<p>They passed into a room where a number of tables were placed, and from
+this into another where several women were arranging articles on broad
+wooden shelves. "If you will wait here, I will go slip on my outdoor
+dress." One of the women turned. "Judith!&mdash;Cousin Cary!&mdash;come look at
+these quilts which have been sent from over in Chesterfield!" She was
+half laughing, half crying. "Rising Suns and Morning Stars and Jonah's
+Gourds! Oh me! oh me! I can see the poor souls wrapped in them! The
+worst of it is, they'll all be used, and we'll be thankful for them, and
+wish for more! Look at this pile, too, from town! Tarletan dresses cut
+into nets, and these surgeons' aprons made from damask tablecloths! And
+the last fringed towels that somebody was saving, with the monogram so
+beautifully done!" She opened a closet door. "Look! I'll scrape lint in
+my sleep every night for a hundred years! The young girls rolled all
+these bandages&mdash;" Another called her attention. "Will you give me the
+storeroom key? Mrs. Haxall has just sent thirty loaves of bread, and
+says she'll bake again to-morrow. There's more wine, too, from
+Laburnum."</p>
+
+<p>The first came back. "The room seems full of things, and yet we have
+seen how short a way will go what seems so much! And every home gets
+barer and barer! The merchants are as good as gold. They send and send,
+but the stores are getting bare, too! Kent and Paine gave bales and
+bales of cotton goods. We made them up into these&mdash;" She ran her hand
+over great piles of nightshirts and drawers. "But now we see that we
+have nothing like enough, and the store has given as much again, and in
+every lecture room in town we are sewing hard to get more and yet more
+done in time. The country people are so good! They have sent in
+quantities of bar soap&mdash;and we needed it more than almost anything!&mdash;and
+candles, and coarse towelling, and meal and bacon&mdash;and hard enough to
+spare I don't doubt it all is! And look here, Cousin Cary!" She
+indicated a pair of crutches, worn smooth with use. To one a slip of
+paper was tied with a thread. Her kinsman bent forward and read it: "<i>I
+kin mannedge with a stick</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Judith returned, in her last year's muslin, soft and full, in the shady
+Eug&eacute;nie hat which had been sent her from Paris two years ago. It went
+well with the oval face, the heavy bands of soft dark hair, the mouth of
+sweetness and strength, the grave and beautiful eyes. Father and
+daughter, out they stepped into the golden, l<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>ate afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Main Street was crowded. A battery, four guns, each with six horses,
+came up it with a heavy and jarring sound over the cobblestones. Behind
+rode a squad or two of troopers. The people on the sidewalk called to
+the cannoneers cheerful greetings and inquiries, and the cannoneers and
+the troopers returned them in kind. The whole rumbled and clattered by,
+then turned into Ninth Street. "Ordered out on Mechanicsville
+pike&mdash;that's all they know," said a man.</p>
+
+<p>The two Carys, freeing themselves from the throng, mounted toward the
+Capitol Square, entered it, and walked slowly through the terraced,
+green, and leafy place. There was passing and repassing, but on the
+whole the place was quiet. "I return to the lines to-morrow," said
+Warwick Cary. "The battle cannot be long postponed. I know that you will
+not repeat what I say, and so I tell you that I am sure General Jackson
+is on his way from the Valley. Any moment he may arrive."</p>
+
+<p>"And then there will be terrible fighting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; terrible fighting&mdash;Look at the squirrels on the grass!"</p>
+
+<p>As always in the square, there were squirrels in the great old trees,
+and on the ground below, and as always there were negro nurses, bright
+turbaned, aproned, ample formed, and capable. With them were their
+charges, in perambulators, or, if older, flitting like white butterflies
+over the slopes of grass. A child of three, in her hand a nut for the
+squirrel, started to cross the path, tripped and fell. General Cary
+picked her up, and, kneeling, brushed the dust from her frock, wooing
+her to smiles with a face and voice there was no resisting. She
+presently fell in love with the stars on his collar, then transferred
+her affection to his sword hilt. Her mammy came hurrying. "Ef I des'
+tuhn my haid, sumpin' bound ter happen, 'n' happen dat minute! Dar now!
+You ain' hut er mite, honey, 'n' you's still got de goober fer de
+squirl. Come mek yo' manners to de gineral!"</p>
+
+<p>Released, the two went on. "Have you seen Edward?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Three days ago&mdash;pagan, insouciant, and happy! The men adore him.
+Fauquier is here to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!&mdash;I have not seen him for so long&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He will be at the President's to-night. I think you had best go with
+me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you think so, father&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know, dear child!&mdash;That poor brave boy in his cadet grey and
+white.&mdash;But Richard is a brave man&mdash;and their mother is heroic. It is of
+the living we must think, and this cause of ours. We are on the eve of
+something terrible, Judith. When Jackson comes General Lee will have
+eighty-five thousand men. Without reinforcements, with McDowell still
+away, McClellan must number an hundred and ten thousand. North and
+South, we are going to grapple, in swamp, and poisoned field, and dark
+forest. We are gladiators stripped, and which will conquer the gods
+alone can tell! But we ourselves can tell that we are determined&mdash;that
+each side is determined&mdash;and that the grapple will be of giants. Well!
+to-night, I think the officers who chance to be in town will go to the
+President's House with these thoughts in mind. To-morrow we return to
+the lines; and a great battle chant will be written before we tread
+these streets again. For us it may be a p&aelig;an or it may be a dirge, and
+only the gods know which! We salute our flag to-night&mdash;the government
+that may last as lasted Greece or Rome, or the government which may
+perish, not two years old! I think that General Lee will be there for a
+short time. It is something like a recognition of the moment&mdash;a
+libation; and whether to life or to death, to an oak that shall live a
+thousand years or to a dead child among nations, there is not one living
+soul that knows!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will go, father, of course. Will you come for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I or Fauquier. I am going to leave you here, at the gates. There is
+something I wish to see the governor about, at the mansion."</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her and let her go; stood watching her out of the square and
+across the street, then with a sigh turned away to the mansion. Judith,
+now on the pavement by St. Paul's, hesitated a moment. There was an
+afternoon service. Women whom she knew, and women whom she did not know,
+were going in, silent, or speaking each to each in subdued voices. Men,
+too, were entering, though not many. A few were in uniform; others as
+they came from the Capitol or from office or department. Judith, too,
+mounted the steps. She was very tired, and her religion was an
+out-of-door one, but there came upon her a craving for the quiet within
+St. Paul's and for the beautiful, old, sonorous words. She enter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span>ed,
+found a shadowy pew beneath the gallery, and knelt a moment. As she rose
+another, having perhaps marked her as she entered, paused at the door of
+the pew. She saw who it was, put out a hand and drew her in. Margaret
+Cleave, in her black dress, smiled, touched the younger woman's forehead
+with her lips, and sat beside her. The church was not half filled; there
+were no people very near them, and when presently there was singing, the
+sweet, old-world lines beat distantly on the shores of their
+consciousness. They sat hand in hand, each thinking of battlefields; the
+one with a constant vision of Port Republic, the other of some
+to-morrow's vast, melancholy, smoke-laden plain.</p>
+
+<p>As was not infrequently the case in the afternoon, an army chaplain read
+the service. One stood now before the lectern. "Mr. Corbin Wood,"
+whispered Judith. Margaret nodded. "I know. We nursed him last winter in
+Winchester. He came to see me yesterday. He knew about Will. He told me
+little things about him&mdash;dear things! It seems they were together in an
+ambulance on the Romney march."</p>
+
+<p>Her whisper died. She sat pale and smiling, her beautiful hands lightly
+folded in her lap. For all the years between them, she was in many ways
+no older than Judith herself. Sometimes the latter called her "Cousin
+Margaret," sometimes simply "Margaret." Corbin Wood read in a mellow
+voice that made the words a part of the late sunlight, slanting in the
+windows. He raised his arm in an occasional gesture, and the sunbeams
+showed the grey uniform beneath the robe, and made the bright buttons
+brighter. <i>Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye
+children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday
+when it is past, and as a watch in the night.</i></p>
+
+<p>The hour passed, and men and women left St. Paul's. The two beneath the
+gallery waited until well-nigh all were gone, then they themselves
+passed into the sunset street. "I will walk home with you," said Judith.
+"How is Miriam?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is beginning to learn," answered the other; "just beginning, poor,
+darling child! It is fearful to be young, and to meet the beginning! But
+she is rousing herself&mdash;she will be brave at last."</p>
+
+<p>Judith softly took the hand beside her and lifted it to her lip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>s. "I
+don't see how your children could help being brave. You are well cared
+for where you are?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed. Though if my old friend had not taken us in, I do not know
+what we should have done. The city is fearfully crowded."</p>
+
+<p>"I walked from the hospital with father. He says that the battle will be
+very soon."</p>
+
+<p>"I know. The cannon grow louder every night. I feel an assurance, too,
+that the army is coming from the Valley."</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," said Judith, "I say to myself, 'This is a dream&mdash;all but
+one thing! Now it is time to wake up&mdash;only remembering that the one
+thing is true.' But the dream goes on, and it gets heavier and more
+painful."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Margaret. "But there are great flashes of light through it,
+Judith."</p>
+
+<p>They were walking beneath linden trees, fragrant, and filled with
+murmurous sound. The street here was quiet; only a few passing people.
+As the two approached the corner there turned it a slight figure, a girl
+dressed in homespun with a blue sunbonnet. In her hands was a cheap
+carpet-bag, covered with roses and pansies. She looked tired and
+discouraged, and she set the carpet-bag down on the worn brick pavement
+and waited until the two ladies came near. "Please, could you tell me&mdash;"
+she began in a soft, drawling voice, which broke suddenly. "Oh, it's
+Mrs. Cleave! it's Mrs. Cleave!&mdash;Oh! oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"Christianna Maydew!&mdash;Why, Christianna!"</p>
+
+<p>Christianna was crying, though evidently they were joyful tears. "I&mdash;I
+was so frightened in this lonely place!&mdash;an'&mdash;an' Thunder Run's so far
+away&mdash;an'&mdash;an' Billy an' Pap an' Dave aren't here, after all&mdash;an' I
+never saw so many strange people&mdash;an' then I saw <i>you</i>&mdash;oh! oh!"</p>
+
+<p>So brushed aside in this war city were all unnecessary conventions, that
+the three sat down quite naturally upon a wide church step. An old and
+wrinkled nurse, in a turban like a red tulip, made room for them, moving
+aside a perambulator holding a sleeping babe. "F'om de mountains, ain'
+she, ma'am? She oughter stayed up dar close ter Hebben!"</p>
+
+<p>Christianna dried her eyes. Her sunbonnet had fallen back. She looked
+like a wild rose dashed with dew. "I am such a fool to cry!" said
+Christianna. "I ought to be laughin' an' clappin' my hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> I reckon
+I'm tired. Streets are so hard an' straight, an' there's such a terrible
+number of houses."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you come, Christianna, and when, and why?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was this a-way," began Christianna, with the long mountain day
+before her. "It air so lonesome on Thunder Run, with Pap gone, an' Dave
+gone, an' Billy gone, an'&mdash;an' Billy gone. An' the one next to me, she's
+grown up quick this year, an' she helps mother a lot. She planted," said
+Christianna, with soft pride, "she planted the steep hillside with corn
+this spring&mdash;yes, Violetta did that!"</p>
+
+<p>"And so you thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"An' Pap has&mdash;had&mdash;a cousin in Richmond. Nanny Pine is her name. An' she
+used to live on Thunder Run, long ago, an' she wasn't like the rest of
+the Maydews, but had lots of sense, an' she up one mahnin', mother says,
+an' took her foot in her hand, an' the people gave her lifts through the
+country, an' she came to Richmond an' learned millinery&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Millinery!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm. To put roses an' ribbons on bonnets. An' she married here, a man
+named Oak, an' she wrote back to Thunder Run, to mother, a real pretty
+letter, an' mother took it to Mr. Cole at the tollgate (it was long ago,
+before we children went to school) an' Mr. Cole read it to her, an' it
+said that she had now a shop of her own, an' if ever any Thunder Run
+people came to Richmond to come right straight to her. An' so&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And you couldn't find her?"</p>
+
+<p>"An' so, last week, I was spinning. An' I walked up an' down, an' the
+sun was shining, clear and steady, an' I could see out of the door, an'
+there wasn't a sound, an' there wa'n't anything moved. An' it was as
+though God Almighty had made a ball of gold with green trees on it and
+had thrown it away, away! higher than the moon, an' had left it there
+with nothin' on it but a dronin', dronin' wheel. An' it was like the
+world was where the armies are. An' it was like I had to get there
+somehow, an' see Pap again an' Dave an' Billy an'&mdash;an' see Billy. There
+wa'n't no help for it; it was like I had to go. An' I stopped the wheel,
+an' I said to mother, 'I am going where the armies are.' An' she says to
+me, she says, 'You don't know where they are.' An' I says to her, I
+says, 'I'll find out.' An' I took my sunbonnet, an' I went down the
+mountain to the tollgate and asked Mr. Cole. An' he had a lette<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span>r
+from&mdash;from Mr. Gold&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" thought Margaret. "It is Allan Gold!"</p>
+
+<p>"An' he read it to me, an' it said that not a man knew, but that he
+thought the army was goin' to Richmond an' that there would be terrible
+fightin' if it did. An' I went back up the mountain, an' I said to
+mother, 'Violetta can do most as much as I can now, an' I am goin' to
+Richmond where the army's goin'. I am goin' to see Pap an' Dave an'&mdash;an'
+Billy, an' I am goin' to stay with Cousin Nanny Pine.' An' mother says,
+says she, 'Her name is Oak now, but I reckon you'll know her house by
+the bonnets in the window.' Mother was always like that," said
+Christianna, again, with soft pride. "Always quick-minded! She sees the
+squirrel in the tree quicker'n any of us&mdash;'ceptin' it's Billy. An' she
+says, 'How're you goin' to get thar, Christianna&mdash;less'n you walk?' An'
+I says, 'I'll walk.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, poor child!" cried Judith! "Did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am; only a real little part of the way. It's a hundred and fifty
+miles, an' we ain't trained to march, an' it would have taken me so
+long. No, ma'am. Mrs. Cole heard about my goin' an' she sent a boy to
+tell me to come see her, an' I went, an' she gave me a dollar (I surely
+am goin' to pay it back, with interest) an' a lot of advice, an' she
+couldn't tell me how to find Pap an' Dave an' Billy, but she said a deal
+of people would know about Allan Gold, for he was a great scout, an' she
+gave me messages for him; an' anyhow the name of the regiment was the
+65th, an' the colonel was your son, ma'am, an' he would find the others
+for me. An' she got a man to take me in his wagon, twenty miles toward
+Lynchburg, for nothin'. An' I thanked him, an' asked him to have some of
+the dinner mother an' Violetta had put in a bundle for me; but he said
+no, he wasn't hungry. An' that night I slept at a farmhouse, an' they
+wouldn't take any pay. An' the next day and the next I walked to
+Lynchburg, an' there I took the train." Her voice gathered firmness. "I
+had never seen one before, but I took it all right. I asked if it was
+goin' to Richmond, an' I climbed on. An' a man came along an' asked me
+for my ticket, an' I said that I didn't have one, but that I wanted to
+pay if it wasn't more than a dollar. An' he asked me if it was a gold
+dollar or a Confederate dollar. An' there were soldiers on the train,
+an' one came up an' took off his hat an' asked me where I was goin', an'
+I told him an' why, an' he said it didn't matter whether it was gold or
+Confederate, and that the conductor didn't want it anyhow. An' the
+conductor&mdash;that was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> what the first man was called&mdash;said he didn't
+reckon I'd take up much room, an' that the road was so dog-goned tired
+that one more couldn't make it any tireder, an' the soldier made me sit
+down on one of the benches, an' the train started." She shut her eyes
+tightly. "I don't like train travel. I like to go slower&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But it brought you to Richmond&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Christianna opened her eyes. "Yes, ma'am, we ran an' ran all day, making
+a lot of noise, an' it was so dirty; an' then last night we got
+here&mdash;an' I slept on a bench in the house where we got out&mdash;only I
+didn't sleep much, for soldiers an' men an' women were going in and out
+all night long&mdash;an' then in the mahnin' a coloured woman there gave me a
+glass of milk an' showed me where I could wash my face&mdash;an' then I came
+out into the street an' began to look for Cousin Nanny Pine&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And you couldn't find her?"</p>
+
+<p>"She isn't here, ma'am. I walked all mahnin', looking, but I couldn't
+find her, an' nobody that I asked knew. An' they all said that the army
+from the Valley hadn't come yet, an' they didn't even know if it was
+coming. An' I was tired an' frightened, an' then at last I saw a window
+with two bonnets in it, and I said, 'Oh, thank the Lord!' an' I went an'
+knocked. An' it wasn't Cousin Nanny Pine. It was another milliner. 'Mrs.
+Oak?' she says, says she. 'Mrs. Oak's in Williamsburg! Daniel Oak got
+his leg cut off in the battle, an' she boarded up her windows an' went
+to Williamsburg to nurse him&mdash;an' God knows I might as well board up
+mine, for there's nothin' doin' in millinery!' An' she gave me my
+dinner, an' she told me that the army hadn't come yet from the Valley,
+an' she said she would let me stay there with her, only she had three
+cousins' wives an' their children, refugeein' from Alexandria way an'
+stayin' with her, an' there wasn't a morsel of room. An' so I rested for
+an hour, an' then I came out to look for some place to stay. An' it's
+mortal hard to find." Her soft voice died. She wiped her eyes with the
+cape of her sunbonnet.</p>
+
+<p>"She had best come with me," said Margaret to Judith. "Yes, there is
+room&mdash;we will make room&mdash;and it will not be bad for Miriam to have some
+one.... Are we not all looking for that army? And her people are in
+Richard's regiment." She rose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> "Christianna, child, neighbours must
+help one another out! So come with me, and we shall manage somehow!"</p>
+
+<p>Hospitality rode well forward in the Thunder Run creed. Christianna
+accepted with simplicity what, had their places been changed, she would
+as simply have given. She began to look fair and happy, a wild rose in
+sunshine. She was in Richmond, and she had found a friend, and the army
+was surely coming! As the three rose from the church step, there passed
+a knot of mounted soldiers. It chanced to be the President's staff, with
+several of Stuart's captains, and the plumage of these was yet bright.
+The Confederate uniform was a handsome one; these who wore it were young
+and handsome men. From spur to hat and plume they exercised a charm.
+Somewhere, in the distance, a band was playing, and their noble, mettled
+horses pranced to the music. As they passed they raised their hats. One,
+who recognized Judith, swept his aside with a gesture appropriate to a
+minuet. With sword and spur, with horses stepping to music, by they
+went. Christianna looked after them with dazzled eyes. She drew a
+fluttering breath. "I didn't know things like that were in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>A little later the three reached the gate of the house which sheltered
+Margaret and Miriam. "I won't go in," said Judith. "It is growing
+late.... Margaret, I am going to the President's to-night. Father wishes
+me to go with him. He says that we are on the eve of a great battle, and
+that it is right&mdash;" Margaret smiled upon her. "It <i>is</i> right. Of course
+you must go, dear and darling child! Do not think that I shall ever
+misunderstand you, Judith!"</p>
+
+<p>The other kissed her, clinging for a moment to her. "Oh, mother,
+mother!... I hear the cannon, too, louder and louder!" She broke away.
+"I must <i>not</i> cry to-night. To-night we must all have large bright
+eyes&mdash;like the women in Brussels when 'There was revelry by
+night'&mdash;Isn't it fortunate that the heart doesn't show?"</p>
+
+<p>The town was all soft dusk when she came to the kinsman's house which
+had opened to her. Crowded though it was with refugee kindred, with
+soldier sons coming and going, it had managed to give her a small quiet
+niche, a little room, wh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span>ite-walled, white-curtained, in the very arms
+of a great old tulip tree. The window opened to the east, and the view
+was obstructed only by the boughs of the tree. Beyond them, through
+leafy openings, night by night she watched a red glare on the eastern
+horizon&mdash;McClellan's five-mile-distant camp-fires. Entering presently
+this room, she lit two candles, placed them on the dressing table, and
+proceeded to make her toilette for the President's House.</p>
+
+<p>Through the window came the sound of the restless city. It was like the
+beating of a distant sea, with a ground swell presaging storm. The wind,
+blowing from the south, brought, too, the voice of the river, passionate
+over its myriad rocks, around its thousand islets. There were odours of
+flowers; somewhere there was jasmine. White moths came in at the window,
+and Judith, rising, put glass candle-shades over the candles. She sat
+brushing her long hair; fevered with the city's fever, she saw not
+herself in the glass, but all the stress that had been and the stress
+that was to be. Cleave's latest letter had rested in the bosom of her
+dress; now the thin oblong of bluish paper lay before her on the
+dressing table. The river grew louder, the wind from the south stirred
+the masses of her hair, the jasmine odour deepened. She bent forward,
+spreading her white arms over the dark and smooth mahogany, drooped her
+head upon them, rested lip and cheek against the paper. The sound of the
+warrior city, the river and the wind, beat out a rhythm in the
+white-walled room. <i>Love&mdash;Death! Love&mdash;Death! Dear Love&mdash;Dark
+Death&mdash;Eternal Love</i>&mdash;She rose, laid the letter with others from him in
+an old sandalwood box, coiled her hair and quickly dressed. A little
+later, descending, she found awaiting her, in the old, formal, quaint
+parlour, Fauquier Cary.</p>
+
+<p>The two met with warm affection. Younger by much than was the master of
+Greenwood, he was to the latter's children like one of their own
+generation, an elder brother only. He held her from him and looked at
+her. "You are a lovely woman, Judith! Did it run the blockade?"</p>
+
+<p>Judith laughed: "No! I wear nothing that comes that way. It is an old
+dress, and it is fortunate that Easter darns so exquisitely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Warwick will meet us at the house. We both ride back before dawn. Why,
+I have not seen you since last summer!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No. Just before Manassas!"</p>
+
+<p>They went out. "I should have brought a carriage for you. But they are
+hard to get&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather walk. It is not far. You look for the battle to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"That depends, I imagine, on Jackson. Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps the
+next day. It will be bloody fighting when it comes&mdash;Heigho!"</p>
+
+<p>"The bricks of the pavement know that," said Judith. "Sometimes,
+Fauquier, you can see horror on the faces of these houses&mdash;just as
+plain! and at night I hear the river reading the bulletin!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child!&mdash;Yes, we make all nature a partner. Judith, I was glad to
+hear of Richard Cleave's happiness&mdash;as glad as I was surprised. Why, I
+hardly know, and yet I had it firmly in mind that it was Maury
+Stafford&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Judith spoke in a pained voice. "I cannot imagine why so many people
+should have thought that. Yes, and Richard himself. It never was; and I
+know I am no coquette!"</p>
+
+<p>"No. You are not a coquette. Ideas like that arrive, one never knows
+how&mdash;like thistledown in the air&mdash;and suddenly they are planted and hard
+to uproot. Stafford himself breathed it somehow. That offends you,
+naturally; but I should say there was never a man more horribly in love!
+It was perhaps a fixed idea with him that he would win you, and others
+misread it. Well, I am sorry for him! But I like Richard best, and he
+will make you happier."</p>
+
+<p>He talked on, in his dry, attractive voice, moving beside her slender,
+wiry, resolute, trained muscle and nerve, from head to foot. "I was at
+the Officer's Hospital this morning to see Carewe. He was wounded at
+Port Republic, and his son and an old servant got him here somehow. He
+was talking about Richard. He knew his father. He says he'll be a
+brigadier the first vacancy, and that, if the war lasts, he won't stop
+there. He'll go very high. You know Carewe?&mdash;how he talks? 'Yes, by God,
+sir, Dick Cleave's son's got the stuff in him! Always was a kind of
+dumb, heroic race. Lot of iron ore in that soil, some gold, too. Only
+needed the prospector, Big Public Interest, to come along. Shouldn't
+wonder if he carved his name pretty high on the cliff.'&mdash;Now, Judith, I
+have stopped beneath this lamp just to see you look the transfigured
+lover&mdash;ha<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>ppier at praise of him than at garlands and garlands for
+yourself!&mdash;Hm! Drawn to the life. Now we'll go on to the President's
+House."</p>
+
+<p>The President's House on Shockoe Hill was all alight, men and women
+entering between white pillars, from the long windows music floating.
+Beyond the magnolias and the garden the ground dropped suddenly. Far and
+wide, a vast horizon, there showed the eastern sky, and far and wide,
+below the summer stars, there flared along it a reddish light&mdash;the
+camp-fires of two armies, the grey the nearer, the blue beyond. Faint,
+faint, you could hear the bugles. It was a dark night; no moon, only the
+flicker of fireflies in magnolias and roses and the gush of light from
+the tall, white-pillared house. The violins within were playing
+"Trovatore." Warwick Cary, an aide with him, came from the direction of
+the Capitol and joined his daughter and brother. The three entered
+together.</p>
+
+<p>There was little formality in these gatherings at the White House of the
+Confederacy. The times were too menacing, the city too conversant with
+alarm bells, sudden shattering bugle notes, thunderclaps of cannon, men
+and women too close companions of great and stern presences, for the
+exhibition of much care for the minuter social embroidery. No necessary
+and fitting tracery was neglected, but life moved now in a very intense
+white light, so deep and intense that it drowned many things which in
+other days had had their place in the field of vision. There was an old
+butler at the President's door, and a coloured maid hovered near to help
+with scarf or flounce if needed. In the hall were found two volunteer
+aides, young, handsome, gay, known to all, striking at once the note of
+welcome. Close within the drawing-room door stood a member of the
+President's Staff, Colonel Ives, and beside him his wife, a young,
+graceful, and accomplished woman. These smilingly greeted the coming or
+said farewell to the parting guest.</p>
+
+<p>The large drawing-room was fitted for conversation. Damask-covered sofas
+with carved rosewood backs, flanked and faced by claw-foot chairs, were
+found in corners and along the walls; an adjoining room, not so brightly
+lit, afforded further harbourage, while without was the pillared
+portico, with roses and fireflies and a view of the flare upon the
+horizon. From some hidden nook the violins played Italian opera. On the
+mantles and on one or two tables, midsummer flowers bloomed in Parian
+vases.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Scattered in groups, through the large room, were men in uniform and
+civilians in broadcloth and fine linen. So peculiarly constituted were
+the Confederate armies that it was usual to find here a goodly number of
+private soldiers mingling with old schoolmates, friends, kindred wearing
+the bars and stars of lieutenants, captains, majors, colonels, and
+brigadiers. But to-night all privates and all company officers were with
+their regiments; there were not many even of field and staff. It was
+known to be the eve of a fight, a very great fight; passes into town
+were not easy to obtain. Those in uniform who were here counted; they
+were high in rank. Mingling with them were men of the civil
+government,&mdash;cabinet officers, senators, congressmen, judges, heads of
+bureaus; and with these, men of other affairs: hardly a man but was
+formally serving the South. If he were not in the field he was of her
+legislatures; if not there, then doing his duty in some civil office; if
+not there, wrestling with the management of worn-out railways; or, cool
+and keen, concerned in blockade running, bringing in arms and
+ammunition, or in the Engineer Bureau, or the Bureau of Ordnance or the
+Medical Department, or in the service of the Post, or at the Treasury
+issuing beautiful Promises to Pay, or at the Tredegar moulding cannon,
+or in the newspaper offices wrestling with the problem of worn-out type
+and wondering where the next roll of paper was to come from, or in the
+telegraph service shaking his head over the latest raid, the latest cut
+wires; or he was experimenting with native medicinal plants, with
+balloons, with explosives, torpedoes, submarine batteries; or thinking
+of probable nitre caves, of the possible gathering of copper from old
+distilleries, of the scraping saltpetre from cellars, of how to get tin,
+of how to get chlorate of potassium, of how to get gutta-percha, of how
+to get paper, of how to get salt for the country at large; or he was
+running sawmills, building tanneries, felling oak and gum for artillery
+carriages, working old iron furnaces, working lead mines, busy with
+foundry and powder mill.... If he was old he was enlisted in the City
+Guard, a member of the Ambulance Committee, a giver of his worldly
+substance. All the South was at work, and at work with a courage to
+which were added a certain colour and <i>&eacute;lan</i> not without value on her
+page of history. The men, not in uniform, here to-night were doing their
+part, and it was recognized that they were doing it. The women, no less;
+of whom there were a number at the President's House this evening. With
+soft,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> Southern voices, with flowers banded in their hair, with bare
+throat and arms, with wide, filmy, effective all-things-but-new dresses,
+they moved through the rooms, or sat on the rosewood sofas, or walking
+on the portico above the roses looked out to the flare in the east. Some
+had come from the hospitals,&mdash;from the Officer's, from Chimborazo,
+Robinson's, Gilland's, the St. Charles, the Soldier's Rest, the South
+Carolina, the Alabama,&mdash;some from the sewing-rooms, where they cut and
+sewed uniforms, shirts, and underclothing, scraped lint, rolled
+bandages; several from the Nitre and Mining Bureau, where they made
+gunpowder; several from the Arsenal, where they made cartridges and
+filled shells. These last would be refugee women, fleeing from the
+counties overrun by the enemy, all their worldly wealth swept away, bent
+on earning something for mother or father or child. One and all had come
+from work, and they were here now in the lights and flowers, not so much
+for their own pleasure as that there might be cheer, music, light,
+laughter, flowers, praise, and sweetness for the men who were going to
+battle. Men and women, all did not come or go at once; they passed in
+and out of the President's House, some tarrying throughout the evening,
+others but for a moment. The violins left "Il Trovatore," began upon
+"Les Huguenots."</p>
+
+<p>The President stood between the windows, talking with a little group of
+men,&mdash;Judge Campbell, R. M. T. Hunter, Randolph the Secretary of War,
+General Wade Hampton, General Jeb Stuart. Very straight and tall, thin,
+with a clear-cut, clean-shaven, distinguished face, with a look half
+military man, half student, with a demeanour to all of perfect if
+somewhat chilly courtesy, by temperament a theorist, able with the
+ability of the field marshal or the scholar in the study, not with that
+of the reader and master of men, the hardest of workers, devoted,
+honourable, single-minded, a figure on which a fierce light has beaten,
+a man not perfect, not always just, nor always wise, bound in the toils
+of his own personality, but yet an able man who suffered and gave all,
+believed in himself, and in his cause, and to the height of his power
+laboured for it day and night&mdash;Mr. Davis stood speaking of Indian
+affairs and of the defences of the Western waters.</p>
+
+<p>Warwick Cary, his daughter on his arm, spoke to the Presiden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span>t's wife, a
+comely, able woman, with a group about her of strangers whom she was
+putting at their ease, then moved with Judith to the windows. The
+President stepped a little forward to meet them. "Ah, General Cary, I
+wish you could bring with you a wind from the Blue Ridge this stifling
+night! We must make this good news from the Mississippi refresh us
+instead! I saw your troops on the Nine-Mile road to-day. They cheered
+me, but I felt like cheering them! Miss Cary, I have overheard six
+officers ask to-night if Miss Cary had yet come."</p>
+
+<p>Warwick began to talk with Judge Campbell. Judith laughed. "It was not
+of me they were asking, Mr. President! There is Hetty Cary entering now,
+and behind her Constance, and there are your six officers! I am but a
+leaf blown from the Blue Ridge."</p>
+
+<p>"Gold leaf," said Wade Hampton.</p>
+
+<p>The President used toward all women a stately deference. "I hope," he
+said, "that, having come once to rest in this room, you will often let a
+good wind blow you here&mdash;" Other guests claimed his attention. "Ah, Mrs.
+Stanard&mdash;Mrs. Enders&mdash;Ha, Wigfall! I saw your Texans this afternoon&mdash;"
+Judith found General Stuart beside her. "Miss Cary, a man of the Black
+Troop came back to camp yesterday. Says he, 'They've got an angel in the
+Stonewall Hospital! She came from Albemarle, and her name is Judith. If
+I were Holofernes and a Judith like that wanted my head, by George, I'd
+cut it off myself to please her!'&mdash;Yes, yes, my friend!&mdash;Miss Cary, may
+I present my Chief of Staff, Major the Baron Heros von Borcke? Talk
+poetry with him, won't you?&mdash;Ha, Fauquier! that was a pretty dash you
+made yesterday! Rather rash, I thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The other withered him with a look. "That was a carefully planned,
+cautiously executed man&oelig;uvre; modelled it after our old
+reconnoissance at Cerro Gordo. You to talk of rashness!&mdash;Here's A. P.
+Hill."</p>
+
+<p>Judith, with her Prussian soldier of fortune, a man gentle, intelligent,
+and brave, crossed the room to one of the groups of men and women. Those
+of the former who were seated rose, and one of the latter put out an arm
+and claimed her with a caressing touch. "You are late, child! So am I.
+They brought in a bad case of fever, and I waited for the night nurse.
+Sit here with us! Mrs. Fitzgerald's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> harp has been sent for and she is
+going to sing&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Judith greeted the circle. A gentleman pushed forward a chair. "Thank
+you, Mr. Soul&eacute;. My father and I stay but a little while, Mrs. Randolph,
+but it must be long enough to hear Mrs. Fitzgerald sing&mdash;Yes, he is
+here, Colonel Gordon&mdash;there, speaking with Judge Campbell and General
+Hill.&mdash;How is the general to-day, Mrs. Johnston?"</p>
+
+<p>"Better, dear, or I should not be here. I am here but for a moment. He
+made me come&mdash;lying there on Church Hill, staring at that light in the
+sky!&mdash;Here is the harp."</p>
+
+<p>Its entrance, borne by two servants, was noted. The violins were hushed,
+the groups turned, tended to merge one into another. A voice was heard
+speaking with a strong French accent&mdash;Colonel the Count Camille de
+Polignac, tall, gaunt, looking like a Knight of Malta&mdash;begging that the
+harp might be placed in the middle of the room. It was put there. Jeb
+Stuart led to it the lovely Louisianian. Mrs. Fitzgerald drew off her
+gloves and gave them to General Magruder to hold, relinquished her fan
+to Mr. Jules de Saint Martin, her bouquet to Mr. Francis Lawley of the
+London <i>Times</i>, and swept her white hand across the strings. She was a
+mistress of the harp, and she sang to it in a rich, throbbingly sweet
+voice, song after song as they were demanded. Conversation through the
+large room did not cease, but voices were lowered, and now and then came
+a complete lull in which all listened. She sang old Creole ditties and
+then Scotch and Irish ballads.</p>
+
+<p>Judith found beside her chair the Vice-President. "Ah, Miss Cary, when
+you are as old as I am, and have read as much, you will notice how
+emphatic is the testimony to song and dance and gaiety on the eve of
+events which are to change the world! The flower grows where in an hour
+the volcano will burst forth; the bird sings in the tree which the
+earthquake will presently uproot; the pearly shell gleams where will
+pass the tidal wave&mdash;" He looked around the room. "Beauty, zeal, love,
+devotion&mdash;and to-morrow the smoke will roll, the cannon thunder, and the
+brute emerge all the same&mdash;just as he always does&mdash;just as he always
+does&mdash;stamping the flower into the mire, wringing the bird's neck,
+crushing the shell! Well, well, let's stop moralizing. What's she
+singing now? Hm! 'Kathleen Mavourneen.' Ha, Benjamin! What's the news
+with you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Judith, turning a little aside, dreamily listened now to the singer, now
+to phrases of the Vice-President and the Secretary of State. "After
+this, if we beat them now, a treaty surely.... Palmerston&mdash;The
+Emperour&mdash;The Queen of Spain&mdash;Mason says ... Inefficiency of the
+blockade&mdash;Cotton obligations&mdash;Arms and munitions...." Still talking,
+they moved away. A strident voice reached her from the end of the
+room&mdash;L. Q. C. Lamar, here to-night despite physicians. "The fight had
+to come. We are men, not women. The quarrel had lasted long enough. We
+hate each other, so the struggle had to come. Even Homer's heroes, after
+they had stormed and scolded long enough, fought like brave men, long
+and well&mdash;"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Ye banks and braes and streams around<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The castle o' Montgomery&mdash;"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>sang Mrs. Fitzgerald.</p>
+
+<p>There was in the room that slow movement which imperceptibly changes a
+well-filled stage, places a figure now here, now there, shifts the
+grouping and the lights. Now Judith was one of a knot of younger women.
+In the phraseology of the period, all were "belles"; Hetty and Constance
+Cary, Mary Triplett, Turner MacFarland, Jenny Pegram, the three Fishers,
+Evelyn Cabell, and others. About them came the "beaux,"&mdash;the younger
+officers who were here to-night, the aides, the unwedded legislators.
+Judith listened, talked, played her part. She had a personal success in
+Richmond. Her name, her beauty, the at times quite divine expression of
+her face, made the eye follow, after which a certain greatness of mind
+was felt and the attention became riveted. The pictures moved again,
+Mrs. Fitzgerald singing "positively, this time, the last!" Some of the
+"belles," attended by the "beaux," drifted toward the portico, several
+toward the smaller room and its softly lowered lights. A very young man,
+an artillerist, tall and fair, lingered beside Judith. "'Auld lang
+Syne!' I do not think that she ought to sing that to-night! I have
+noticed that when you hear music just before battle the strain is apt to
+run persistently in your mind. She ought to sing us 'Scots wha hae&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman standing near laughed. "That's good, or my name isn't Ran
+Tucker! Mrs. Fitzgerald, Captain Pelham does not wish to be left in such
+'a weavin' way.' He says that song is lik<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span>e an April shower on a bag of
+powder. The inference is that it will make the horse artillery
+chicken-hearted. I move that you give John Pelham and the assemblage
+'Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The singing ended, there was a wider movement through the room. Judith,
+with Pelham still beside her, walked on the portico, in the warm,
+rose-laden air. There was no moon, and the light in the east was very
+marked. "If we strike McClellan's right," said the artillerist, "all
+this hill and the ground to the north of it will be the place from which
+to watch the battle. If it lasts after nightfall, you will see the
+exploding shells beautifully." They stood at the eastern end, Judith
+leaning against one of the pillars. Here a poet and editor of the
+<i>Southern Literary Messenger</i> joined them; with him a young man, a
+sculptor, Alexander Galt. A third, Washington the painter, came, too.
+The violins had begun again&mdash;Mozart now&mdash;"The Magic Flute." "Oh, smell
+the roses!" said the poet. "To-night the roses, to-morrow the
+thorns&mdash;but roses, too, among the thorns, deep and sweet! There will
+still be roses, will there not, Miss Cary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, still," said Judith. "If I could paint, Mr. Washington, I would
+take that gleam on the horizon."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, is it not fine? It is a subject, however, for a mystic. I have an
+idea myself for a picture, if I can get the tent-cloth to paint it on,
+and if some brushes and tubes I sent for ever get through the block."</p>
+
+<p>"If I had a tent I certainly would give it to you," said Pelham. "What
+would you paint?"</p>
+
+<p>"A thing that happened ten days ago. The burial of Latan&eacute;. The women
+buried him, you know. At Summer Hill.&mdash;Mrs. Brockenborough, and her
+daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Somebody read me a letter about
+it&mdash;so simple it wrung your heart! 'By God,' I said, 'what Roman things
+happen still!' And I thought I'd like to paint the picture."</p>
+
+<p>"I read the letter, too," said the poet. "I am making some verses about
+it&mdash;see if you like them&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"For woman's voice, in accents soft and low,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">Trembling with pity, touched with pathos, read</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">O'er his hallowed dust the ritual for the dead:</span><br /><br />
+"'Tis sown in weakness, it is raised in power'&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">Softly the promise floated on the air,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">While the low breathings of the sunset hour</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">Came back responsive to the mourner's prayer.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">Gently they laid him underneath the sod</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: .5em;">And left him with his fame, his country and his God!"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Judith, sweetly and gravely. "How can we but like them? And
+I hope that you will find the tent-cloth, Mr. Washington."</p>
+
+<p>Re&euml;ntering, presently, the large room, they found a vague stir, people
+beginning to say good-night, and yet lingering. "It is growing late,"
+said some one, "and yet I think that he will come." Her father came up
+to her and drew her hand through his arm. "Here is General Lee now. We
+will wait a moment longer, then go."</p>
+
+<p>They stood in the shadow of the curtains watching the Commander-in-Chief
+just pausing to greet such and such an one in his progress toward the
+President. An aide or two came behind; the grand head and form moved on,
+simple and kingly. Judith drew quicker breath. "Oh, he looks so great a
+man!"</p>
+
+<p>"He looks what he is," said Warwick Cary. "Now let us go, too, and say
+good-night."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIRST OF THE SEVEN DAYS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Miriam and Christianna sat at the window, watching. The day was
+parching, the sky hot blue steel, the wind that blew the dust through
+the streets like a breath from the sun himself. People went by, all
+kinds of people, lacking only soldiers. There seemed no soldiers in
+town. Miriam, alternately listless and feverishly animated, explained
+matters to the mountain girl. "When there's to be a battle, every one
+goes to the colours.&mdash;Look at that old, old, old man, hobbling on his
+stick. You'd think that death was right beside him, wouldn't you?&mdash;ready
+to tap him on the shoulder and say, 'Fall, fall, old leaf! But it isn't
+so; death is on the battlefield looking for young men. Listen to his
+stick&mdash;tap, tap, tap, tap, tap&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Christianna rose, looked at the clock, which was about to strike noon,
+left the room and returned with a glass of milk. "Mrs. Cleave said you
+was to drink this&mdash;Yes, Miss Miriam, do!&mdash;There now! Don't you want to
+lie down?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" said Miriam. "I don't want to do anything but sit here and
+watch.&mdash;Look at that old, old woman with the basket on her arm! I know
+what is in it&mdash;Things for her son; bread and a little meat and shirts
+she has been making him&mdash;There's another helping her, as old as she is.
+I mean to die young."</p>
+
+<p>The people went by like figures on a frieze come to life. The room in
+which the two girls sat was on the ground floor of a small,
+old-fashioned house. Outside the window was a tiny balcony, with a
+graceful ironwork railing, and heavy ropes and twists of wistaria shaded
+this and the window. The old brick sidewalk was almost immediately
+below. For the most part the people who passed went by silently, but
+when there was talking the two behind the wistaria could hear. A nurse
+girl with her charges came by. "What's a 'cisive battle, honey? Yo'd
+better ask yo' pa that. Reckon it's where won't neither side let go. Why
+won't they? Now you tell me an' then I'll tell you! All I knows is,
+they're gwine have a turrible rumpus presently, an' yo' ma said tek you
+to yo' gran'ma kaze she gwine out ter git jes' ez near the battle an'
+yo' pa ez she kin git!" Nurse and children passed, and there came by an
+elderly man, stout and amiable-looking. His face was pale, his eyes
+troubled; he took off his straw hat, and wiped his forehead with a large
+white handkerchief. Appearing from the opposite direction, a young man,
+a case of surgeon's instruments in his hand, met him, and in passing
+said good-day. The elder stopped him a moment, on the hot brick pavement
+before the wistaria. "Well, doctor, they're all out Mechanicsville way!
+I reckon we may expect to hear the cannon any moment now. I saw you at
+Gilland's, didn't I, yesterday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am there&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, if by ill luck my boy is wounded and brought there, you'll look
+out for him, eh? Youngest boy, you know&mdash;Blue eyes, brown hair. I'm on
+the Ambulance Committee. We've got a string of wagons ready on the
+Nine-Mile road. You look out for him if he's brought in&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The surgeon promised and each went his way. Three women passed the
+window. One was knitting as she walked, one was in deep black, and a
+third, a girl, carried a great silver pitcher filled with iced drink for
+some near-by convalescent. Two men came next. A negro followed, bearing
+a spade. One of the two was in broadcloth, with a high silk hat. "I told
+them," he was saying, "better bury her this morning, poor little thing,
+before the fighting begins. <i>She</i> won't mind, and it will be hard to
+arrange it then&mdash;" "Yes, yes," said the second, "better so! Leave
+to-morrow for the Dead March from 'Saul.'"</p>
+
+<p>They passed. A church bell began to ring. Miriam moved restlessly. "Is
+not mother coming back? She ought to have let me go with her. I can't
+knit any more,&mdash;the needles are red hot when I touch them,&mdash;but I can
+sew. I could help her.&mdash;If I knew which sewing-room she went to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Christianna's hand timidly caressed her. "Better stay here, Miss Miriam.
+I'm going to give you another glass of milk now, directly&mdash;There's a
+soldier passing now."</p>
+
+<p>It proved but a battered soldier&mdash;thin and hollow-eyed, arm in a sling,
+and a halt in his walk. He came on slowly, and he leaned for rest
+against a sycamore at the edge of the pavement. Miriam bent out from the
+frame of wistaria. "Oh, soldier! don't you want a glass of milk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, soldier" looked nothing loath. He came over to the little balcony,
+and Miriam took the glass from Christianna and, leaning over, gave it to
+him. "Oh, but that's nectar!" he said, and drank it. "Yes&mdash;just out of
+hospital. Said I might go and snuff the battle from afar. Needed my
+pallet for some other poor devil. Glad I'm through with it, and sorry he
+isn't!&mdash;Yes, I've got some friends down the street. Going there now and
+get out of this sun. Reckon the battle'll begin presently. Hope the
+Accomac Invincibles will give them hell&mdash;begging your pardon, I'm sure.
+That milk certainly was good. Thank you, and good-bye, Hebe&mdash;two Hebes."
+He wavered on down the street. Christianna looked after him criticall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span>y.
+"They oughtn't to let that thar man out so soon! Clay white, an' thin as
+a bean pole, an' calling things an' people out of their names&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Men and women continued to pass, the church bell to ring, the hot wind
+to blow the dust, the sun to blaze down, the sycamore leaves to rustle.
+A negro boy brought a note. It was from Margaret Cleave. "<i>Dearest:
+There is so much to do. I will not come home to dinner nor will Cousin
+Harriet neither. She says tell Sarindy to give you two just what you
+like best. Christianna must look after you. I will come when I can.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Sarindy gave them thin crisp toast, and a pitcher of cool milk, and a
+custard sweetened with brown sugar. Sarindy was excited. "Yaas, Lawd,
+dar's sho' gwine ter be doin's this day! What you reckon, Miss Miriam?
+Dar's er lady from South Callina stayin' cross't de street, 'n' she's
+got er maid what's got de impidence ob sin! What you reckon dat yaller
+gal say ter me? She say dat South Callina does de most ob de fightin'
+'n' de bes' ob it, too! She say Virginia pretty good, but dat South
+Callina tek de cake. She say South Callina mek 'em run ebery time!
+Yaas'm! 'n' I gits up 'n' I meks her er curtsy, 'n' I say ter her,
+'Dat's er pretty way ter talk when you're visitin' in Virginia, 'n' ef
+dat's South Callina manners I'se glad I wuz born in Virginia!' Yaas'm.
+'N' I curtsy agin, 'n' I say, 'Ain' nobody or nothin' ever lay over
+Virginia fer fightin' 'n' never will! 'N' ef Virginia don' mek 'em run
+ebery time, South Callina needn't hope ter!' 'N' I asks her how come she
+never hear ob Gineral Stonewall Jackson? Yaas'm. 'N' I curtsy ter her
+ebery time&mdash;lak dis! 'N' ain' she never hear ob Gineral Lee? An' I ain'
+er doubtin' dat Gineral Wade Hampton is a mighty fine man&mdash;'deed I knows
+he is&mdash;but ain' she never heard ob Gineral Johnston? 'N' how erbout
+Gineral Stuart&mdash;Yaas'm! 'n' the Black Troop, 'n' the Crenshaw Battery,
+'n' the Purcell Battery. Yaas'm! 'n' the Howitzers, 'n' the Richmon'
+Blues&mdash;Yaas'm! I sho' did mek her shet her mouf!&mdash;Braggin' ter er
+Virginia woman ob South Callina!"</p>
+
+<p>The two went back to the large room. The air was scorching. Miriam
+undressed, slipped her thin, girlish arms into a muslin sacque, and lay
+down. Christianna drew the blinds together, took a palm-leaf fan and sat
+beside her. "I'll fan you, jest as easy," she said, in her sweet,
+drawling voice. "An' I can't truly sing, but I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> can croon. Don't you
+want me to croon you 'Shining River'?"</p>
+
+<p>Miriam lay with closed eyes. A fly buzzed in the darkened room. The fan
+went monotonously to and fro. Christianna crooned "Shining River" and
+then "Shady Grove." Outside, on the brick pavement, the sound of feet
+went by in a slender stream.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Shady Grove! Shady Grove&mdash;<br />
+Going to Church in Shady Grove&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The stream without grew wide and deep, then hurrying. Christianna looked
+over her shoulder, then at Miriam. The latter's long lashes lay on her
+cheek. Beneath them glistened a tear, but her slight, girlish bosom rose
+and fell regularly. Christianna crooned on,</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Shady Grove! Shady Grove&mdash;<br />
+Children love my Shady Grove&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><i>Boom! Boom!&mdash;Boom, Boom! Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!</i></p>
+
+<p>Miriam started up with a cry. Outside the window a hoarse and loud voice
+called to some one across the street. "That's beyond Meadow Bridge! D'
+ye know what I believe? I believe it's Stonewall Jackson!" The name came
+back like an echo from the opposite pavement. "Stonewall Jackson!
+Stonewall Jackson! He thinks maybe it's Stonewall Jackson!"</p>
+
+<p><i>Boom&mdash;Boom&mdash;Boom&mdash;Boom, Boom!</i></p>
+
+<p>Miriam rose, threw off the muslin sacque and began to dress. Her eyes
+were narrowed, her fingers rapid and steady. Christianna opened the
+window-blinds. The sound of the hurrying feet came strongly in, and with
+it voices. "The top of the Capitol!&mdash;see best from there&mdash;I think the
+hills toward the almshouse&mdash;Can you get out on the Brook turnpike?&mdash;No;
+it is picketed&mdash;The hill by the President's House&mdash;try it!" Christianna,
+turning, found Miriam taking a hat from the closet shelf. "Oh, Miss
+Miriam, you mustn't go&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Miriam, a changed creature, steady and sure as a fine rapier, turned
+upon her. "Yes, I am going, Christianna. If you like, you may come with
+me. Yes, I am well enough.&mdash;No, mother wouldn't keep me back. She would
+understand. If I lay there and listened, I should go mad. Get your
+bonnet and come."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The cannon shook the air. Christianna got her sunbonnet and tied the
+strings with trembling fingers. All the wild rose had fled from her
+cheeks, her lips looked pinched, her eyes large and startled. Miriam
+glanced her way, then came and kissed her. "I forgot it was your first
+battle. I got used to them in Winchester. Don't be afraid."</p>
+
+<p>They went out into the hot sunshine. By now the greater part of the
+stream had hurried by. They saw that it flowed eastward, and they
+followed. The sun blazed down, the pavement burned their feet. The
+mountain girl walked like a piece of thistledown; Miriam, light and
+quick in all her actions, moved beside her almost as easily. It was as
+though the hot wind, rushing down the street behind them, carried them
+on with the dust and loosened leaves. There were other women, with
+children clinging to their hands. One or two had babes in their arms.
+There were old men, too, and several cripples. The lighter-limbed and
+unencumbered were blown ahead. The dull sound rocked the air. This was a
+residence portion of the city, and the houses looked lifeless. The doors
+were wide, the inmates gone. Only where there was illness, were there
+faces at the window, looking out, pale and anxious, asking questions of
+the hurrying pale and anxious folk below. The cannonading was not yet
+continuous. It spoke rather in sullen thunders, with spaces between in
+which the heart began to grow quiet. Then it thundered again, and the
+heart beat to suffocation.</p>
+
+<p>The wind blew Miriam and Christianna toward the President's House. Tall,
+austere, white-pillared, it stood a little coldly in the heat. Before
+the door were five saddle horses, with a groom or two. The staff came
+from the house, then the President in grey Confederate cloth and soft
+hat. He spoke to one of the officers in his clear, incisive voice, then
+mounted his grey Arab. A child waved to him from an upper window. He
+waved back, lifted his hat to the two girls as they passed, then, his
+staff behind him, rode rapidly off toward the sound of the firing.</p>
+
+<p>Miriam and Christianna, turning a little northward, found themselves on
+a hillside thronged with people. It was like a section of an
+amphitheatre, and it commanded a great stretch of lowland broken here
+and there by slight elevations. Much of the plain was in forest, but in
+some places the waist-deep corn was waving, and in others the wheat
+stood in shocks. There were marshes and boggy green m<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span>eadows and old
+fields of pine and broom sedge. Several roads could be seen. They all
+ran into a long and low cloud of smoke. It veiled the northern horizon,
+and out of it came the thunder. First appeared dull orange flashes,
+then, above the low-lying thickness, the small white expanding cloud
+made by the bursting shell, then to the ear rushed the thunder. On the
+plain, from the defences which rimmed the city northward to the battle
+cloud, numbers of grey troops were visible, some motionless, some
+marching. They looked like toy soldiers. The sun heightened red splashes
+that were known to be battle-flags. Horsemen could be seen galloping
+from point to point. In the intervals between the thunders the hillside
+heard the tap of drum and the bugles blowing. The moving soldiers were
+going toward the cloud.</p>
+
+<p>Miriam and Christianna sank down beneath a little tree. They were on a
+facet of the hill not quite so advantageous as others. The crowded
+slopes were beyond. However, one could see the smoke cloud and hear the
+cannon, and that was all that could be done anyhow. There were men and
+women about them, children, boys. The women were the most silent,&mdash;pale
+and silent; the men uttered low exclamations or soliloquies, or talked
+together. The boys were all but gleeful&mdash;save when they looked at the
+grown people, and then they tried for solemnity. Some of the children
+went to sleep. A mother nursed her babe. Near the foot of this hill,
+through a hollow, there ran a branch,&mdash;Bacon Quarter Branch. Here, in
+the seventeenth century, had occurred an Indian massacre. The heavy,
+primeval woods had rung to the whoop of the savage, the groan of the
+settler, the scream of English woman and child. To-day the woods had
+been long cut, and the red man was gone. War remained&mdash;he had only
+changed his war paint and cry and weapons.</p>
+
+<p>Miriam clasped her thin brown hands about her knee, rested her chin on
+them, and fastened her great brown eyes on the distant battle cloud.
+Christianna, her sunbonnet pushed back, looked too, with limpid,
+awe-struck gaze. Were Pap and Dave and Billy fighting in that cloud? It
+was thicker than the morning mist in the hollow below Thunder Run
+Mountain, and it was not fleecy, pure, and white. It was yellowish,
+fierce, and ugly, and the sound that came from it made her heart beat
+thick and hard. Was he there&mdash;Was Allan Gold there in the cloud? She
+felt that she could not si<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span>t still; she wished to walk toward it. That
+being impossible, she began to make a little moaning sound. A woman in
+black, sitting on the grass near her, looked across. "Don't!" she said.
+"If you do that, all of us will do it. We've got to keep calm. If we let
+go, it would be like Rachel weeping. Try to be quiet."</p>
+
+<p>Christianna, who had moaned as she crooned, hardly knowing it, at once
+fell silent. Another woman spoke to her. "Would you mind holding my
+baby? My head aches so. I must lie down here on the grass, just a
+minute." Christianna took the baby. She handled it skilfully, and it was
+presently cooing against her breast. Were Pap and Dave over there,
+shooting and cutting? And Billy&mdash;Billy with a gun now instead of the
+spear the blacksmith had made him? And Allan Gold was not teaching in
+the schoolhouse on Thunder Run....</p>
+
+<p>The woman took the baby back. The sun blazed down, there came a louder
+burst of sound. A man with a field-glass, standing near, uttered a
+"Tchk!" of despair. "Impenetrable curtain! The ancients managed things
+better&mdash;they did not fight in a fog!"</p>
+
+<p>He seemed a person having authority, and the people immediately about
+him appealed for information. He looked through the glass and gave it,
+and was good, too, about lending the glass. "It's A. P. Hill, I'm
+sure&mdash;with Longstreet to support him. It's A. P. Hill's brigades that
+are moving into the smoke. Most of that firing is from our batteries
+along the Chickahominy. We are going undoubtedly to cross to the north
+bank&mdash;Yes. McClellan's right wing&mdash;Fitz John Porter&mdash;A good soldier&mdash;Oh,
+he'll have about twenty-five thousand men."</p>
+
+<p>A boy, breathing excitement from top to toe, sent up a shrill voice.
+"Isn't Jackson coming, sir? Aren't they looking for Jackson?"</p>
+
+<p>The soldier who had drunk the milk was discovered by Miriam and
+Christianna, near their tree. He gave his voice. "Surely! He'll have
+come down from Ashland and A. P. Hill is crossing here. That's an army
+north, and a big lot of troops south, and Fitz John Porter is between
+like a nut in a nut cracker. The cracker has only to work all right, and
+crush goes the filbert!" He raised himself and peered under puckered
+brows at the smoke-draped horizon. "Yes, he's surely over
+there&mdash;Stonewall.&mdash;Going to flank Fitz<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> John Porter&mdash;Then we'll hear a
+hell of a fuss."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a battery galloping to the front," said the man with the glass.
+"Look, one of you! Wipe the glass; it gets misty. If it's the Purcell,
+I've got two sons&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The soldier took the glass, turning it deftly with one hand. "Yes, think
+it is the Purcell. Don't you worry, sir! They're all right. Artillerymen
+are hard to kill&mdash;That's Pender's brigade going now&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Christianna clutched Miriam. "Look! look! Oh, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>It soared into the blue, above the smoke. The sunlight struck it and it
+became a beautiful iridescent bubble, large as the moon. "Oh, oh!" cried
+the boy. "Look at the balloon!"</p>
+
+<p>The hillside kept silence for a moment while it gazed, then&mdash;"Is it
+ours?&mdash;No; it is theirs!&mdash;It is going up from the hill behind Beaver Dam
+Creek.&mdash;Oh, it is lovely!&mdash;Lovely! No, no, it is horrible!&mdash;Look, look!
+there is another!"</p>
+
+<p>A young man, a mechanic, with sleeves rolled up, began to expatiate on
+"ours." "We haven't got but one&mdash;it was made in Savannah by Dr. Langon
+Cheves. Maybe they'll send it up to-day, maybe not. I've seen it. It's
+like Joseph's coat in the Bible. They say the ladies gave their silk
+dresses for it. Here'll be a strip of purple and here one of white with
+roses on it, and here it is black, and here it is yellow as gold. They
+melted rubber car-springs in naphtha and varnished it with that, and
+they're going to fill it with city gas at the gas works&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The bubbles floated in the clear air, above and beyond the zone of
+smoke. It was now between four and five in the afternoon. The slant rays
+of the sun struck them and turned them mother-of-pearl. An old man
+lifted a dry, thin voice like a grasshopper's. "Once I went to Niagara,
+and there was a balloon ascension. Everybody held their breath when the
+fellow went up, and he got into some trouble, I don't remember just what
+it was, and we almost died of anxiety until he came down; and when he
+landed we almost cried we were so glad, and we patted him on the back
+and hurrahed&mdash;and he was a Yankee, too! And now it's war time, and
+there's nothing I 'd like better than to empty a revolver into that fine
+windbag!"</p>
+
+<p>The sound in the air became heavier. A man on horseback spurred along
+the base of th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span>e hill. The people nearest stopped him. "Tell you? I
+can't tell you! Nobody ever knows anything about a battle till it's
+over, and not much then. Is Jackson over there? I don't know. He ought
+to be, so I reckon he is! If he isn't, it's A. P. Hill's battle, all
+alone."</p>
+
+<p>He was gone. "I don't believe it's much more than long-range firing
+yet," said the soldier. "Our batteries on the Chickahominy&mdash;and they are
+answering from somewhere beyond Beaver Dam Creek. No musketry. Hello!
+The tune's changing!"</p>
+
+<p>It changed with such violence that after a moment's exclamation the
+people sat or stood in silence, pale and awed. Speculation ceased. The
+plunging torrent of sound whelmed the mind and stilled the tongue. The
+soldier held out a moment. "Close range now. The North's always going to
+beat us when it comes to metal soldiers. I wonder how many they've got
+over there, anyhow!" Then he, too, fell silent.</p>
+
+<p>The deep and heavy booming shook air and earth. It came no longer in
+distinct shocks but with a continuous roar. The smoke screen grew denser
+and taller, mounting toward the balloons. There was no seeing for that
+curtain; it could only be noted that bodies of grey troops moved toward
+it, went behind it. A thin, elderly man, a school-teacher, borrowed the
+glass, fixed it, but could see nothing. He gave it back with a shake of
+the head, sat down again on the parched grass, and veiled his eyes with
+his hand. "'Hell is murky,'" he said.</p>
+
+<p>No lull occurred in the firing. The sun as it sank reddened the battle
+cloud that by now had blotted out the balloons. "When it is dark," said
+the soldier, "it will be like fireworks." An hour later the man with the
+glass discovered a string of wagons on one of the roads. It was coming
+citywards. "Ambulances!" he said, in a shaking voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ambulances&mdash;ambulances&mdash;" The word went through the crowd like a sigh.
+It broke the spell. Most on the hillside might have an interest there.
+Parents, wives, brothers, sisters, children, they rose, they went away
+in the twilight like blown leaves. The air was rocking; orange and red
+lights began to show as the shells exploded. Christianna put her hand on
+Miriam's. "Miss Miriam&mdash;Miss Miriam! <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span>Mrs. Cleave'll say I didn't take
+care of you. Let's go&mdash;let's go. They're bringing back the wounded. Pap
+might be there or Dave or Billy or&mdash;Miss Miriam, Miss Miriam, your
+brother might be there."</p>
+
+<p>The long June dusk melted into night, and still the city shook to the
+furious cannonading. With the dark it saw, as it had not seen in the
+sunshine. As the soldier said, it was like fireworks.</p>
+
+<p>Beginning at twilight, the wagons with the wounded came all night long.
+Ambulances, farm wagons, carts, family carriages, heavy-laden, they
+rumbled over the cobblestones with the sound of the tumbrels in the
+Terror. It was stated that a number of the wounded were in the field
+hospitals. In the morning the knowledge was general that very many had
+lain, crying for water, all night in the slashing before Beaver Dam
+Creek.</p>
+
+<p>All the houses in Richmond were lighted. Through the streets poured a
+tide of fevered life. News&mdash;News&mdash;News!&mdash;demanded from chance couriers,
+from civilian spectators of the battle arriving pale and exhausted, from
+the drivers of wagon, cart, and carriage, from the less badly
+wounded&mdash;"Ours the victory&mdash;is it not? is it not?&mdash;Who led?&mdash;who
+fought?&mdash;who is fighting now? Jackson came? Jackson certainly came? We
+are winning&mdash;are we not? are we not?" Suspense hung palpable in the hot
+summer night, suspense, exaltation, fever. It breathed in the hot wind,
+it flickered in the lights, it sounded in the voice of the river. For
+many there sounded woe as well&mdash;woe and wailing for the dead. For
+others, for many, many others, there was a misery of searching, a
+heart-breaking going from hospital to hospital. "Is he here?&mdash;Are they
+here?" The cannon stopped at nine o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>The Stonewall Hospital was poorly lighted. In ward number 23 the oil
+lamps, stuck in brackets along the walls, smoked. At one end, where two
+pine tables were placed, the air from the open window blew the flames
+distractingly. A surgeon, half dead with fatigue, strained well-nigh to
+the point of tears, exclaimed upon it. "That damned wind! Shut the
+window, Miss Cary. Yes, tight! It's hell anyhow, and that's what you do
+in hell&mdash;burn up!"</p>
+
+<p>Judith closed the window. As she did so she looked once at the light on
+the northern horizon. The firing shook the window-pane. The flame of the
+lamp now stood straight. She turned the wick higher, then lifted a
+pitcher and poured water into a basin, an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span>d when the surgeon had washed
+his hands took away the reddened stuff. Two negroes laid a man on the
+table&mdash;a gaunt North Carolinian, his hand clutching a shirt all
+stiffened blood. Between his eyelids showed a gleam of white, his breath
+came with a whistling sound. Judith bent the rigid fingers open, drew
+the hand aside, and cut away the shirt. The surgeon looked. "Humph!
+Well, a body can but try. Now, my man, you lie right still, and I won't
+hurt you much. Come this side, Miss Cary&mdash;No, wait a moment!&mdash;It's no
+use. He's dying."</p>
+
+<p>The North Carolinian died. The negroes lifted him from the table and put
+another in his place. "Amputation," said the surgeon. "Hold it firmly,
+Miss Cary; just there." He turned to the adjoining table where a younger
+man was sewing up a forearm, ripped from wrist to elbow by a piece of
+shell. "Lend me your saw, will you, Martin?&mdash;Yes, I know the heat's
+fearful! but I can't work by a lamp that has Saint Vitus!" He turned
+back to his table. "Now, my lad, you just clench your teeth. Miss Cary
+and I aren't going to hurt you any more than we can help. Yes, above the
+knee." The younger surgeon, having finished the cut, wiped away with a
+towel the sweat that blinded him. "The next.&mdash;Hm! Doctor, will you look
+here a moment?&mdash;Oh, I see you can't! It's no use, Mrs. Opie. Better have
+him taken back. He'll die in an hour.&mdash;The next."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The ward was long, low ceiled, with brown walls and rafters. Between the
+patches of lamplight the shadows lay wide and heavy. The cots, the
+pallets, the pew cushions sewed together, were placed each close by
+each. A narrow aisle ran between the rows; by each low bed there was
+just standing room. The beds were all filled, and the wagons bringing
+more rumbled on the cobblestones without. All the long place was
+reekingly hot, with a strong smell of human effluvia, of sweat-dampened
+clothing, of blood and powder grime. There was not much crying aloud;
+only when a man was brought in raving, or when there came a sharp scream
+from some form under the surgeon's knife. But the place seemed one
+groan, a sound that swelled or sank, but never ceased. The shadows on
+the wall, fantastically dancing, mocked this with nods and becks and
+waving arms,&mdash;mocked the groaning, mocked the heat, mocked the smell,
+mocked the thirst, mocked nausea, agony, delirium, and the rattle in the
+throat, mocked the helpers and the helped, mocked the night and the
+world and the dying and the dead. At dawn the cannon began again.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+<h3>GAINES'S MILL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dawn broke cold and pure, the melancholy ashen seas slowly, slowly
+turning to chill ethereal meads of violets, the violet more slowly yet
+giving place to Adonis gardens of rose and daffodil. The forests stood
+dew-drenched and shadowy, solemn enough, deep and tangled woodlands that
+they were, under the mysterious light, in the realm of the hour whose
+finger is at her lips. The dawn made them seem still, and yet they were
+not still. They and the old fields and the marshes and the wild and
+tangled banks of sluggish water-courses, and the narrow, hidden roads,
+and the low pine-covered hilltops, and all the vast, overgrown, and
+sombre lowland were filled with the breathing of two armies. In the cold
+glory of the dawn there faced each other one hundred and eighty thousand
+men bent on mutual destruction.</p>
+
+<p>A body of grey troops, marching toward Cold Harbour, was brought to a
+halt within a taller, deeper belt than usual. Oak and sycamore, pine and
+elm, beech, ash, birch and walnut, all towered toward the violet meads.
+A light mist garlanded their tops, and a graceful, close-set underbrush
+pressed against their immemorial trunks. It was dank and still, dim and
+solemn within such a forest cavern. Minutes passed. The men sat down on
+the wet, black earth. The officers questioned knew only that Fitz John
+Porter was falling back from Beaver Dam Creek, presumably on his next
+line of intrenchments, and that, presumably, we were following. "Has
+Jackson joined?" "Can't tell you that. If he hasn't, well, we'll beat
+them anyhow!"</p>
+
+<p>This body of troops had done hard fighting the evening before and was
+tired enough to rest. Some of the men lay down, pillowing their heads on
+their arms, dozing, dozing in the underbrush, in the misty light,
+beneath the tall treetops where the birds were cheeping. In the meantime
+a Federal balloon, mounting into the amethyst air, discovered that
+this stretch of woodland was thronged with grey soldiers, and signalled
+as much to Fitz John Porter, falling back with steadiness to his second
+line at Gaines's Mill. He posted several batteries, and ordered them to
+shell the wood.</p>
+
+<p>In the purple light the guns began. The men in grey had to take the
+storm; they were in the wood and orders had not come to leave it. They
+took it in various ways, some sullenly, some contemptuously, some with
+nervous twitchings of head and body, many with dry humour and a
+quizzical front. The Confederate soldier was fast developing a
+characteristic which stayed with him to the end. He joked with death and
+gave a careless hand to suffering. A few of the more imaginative and
+&aelig;sthetically minded lost themselves in open-mouthed contemplation of the
+bestormed forest and its behaviour.</p>
+
+<p>The cannonade was furious, and though not many of the grey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> soldiers
+suffered, the grey trees did. Great and small branches were lopped off.
+In the dim light they came tumbling down. They were borne sideways,
+tearing through the groves and coverts, or, caught by an exploding shell
+and torn twig from twig, they fell in a shower of slivers, or, chopped
+clean from the trunk, down they crashed from leafy level to level till
+they reached the forest floor. Beneath them rose shouts of warning, came
+a scattering of grey mortals. Younger trees were cut short off. Their
+woodland race was run; down they rushed with their festoons of vines,
+crushing the undergrowth of laurel and hazel. Other shells struck the
+red brown resinous bodies of pines, set loose dangerous mists of bark
+and splinter. As by a whirlwind the air was filled with torn and flying
+growth, with the dull crash and leafy fall of the forest non-combatants.
+The light was no longer pure; it was murky here as elsewhere. The violet
+fields and the vermeil gardens were blotted out, and in the shrieking of
+the shells the birds could not have been heard to sing even were they
+there. They were not there; they were all flown far away. It was dark in
+the wood, dark and full of sound and of moving bodies charged with
+danger. The whirlwind swept it, the treetops snapped off. "<i>Attention!</i>"
+The grey soldiers were glad to hear the word. "<i>Forward! March!</i>" They
+were blithe to hear the order and to leave the wood.</p>
+
+<p>They moved out into old fields, grown with sedge and sassafras, here and
+there dwarf pines. Apparently the cannon had lost them; at any rate for
+a time the firing ceased. The east was now pink, the air here very pure
+and cool and still, each feather of broom sedge holding its row of
+diamond dewdrops. The earth was much cut up. "Batteries been along
+here," said the men. "Ours, too. Know the wheel marks. Hello! What you
+got, Carter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody's dropped his photograph album."</p>
+
+<p>The man in front and the man behind and the man on the other side all
+looked. "One of those folding things! Pretty children! one, two, three,
+four, and their mother.&mdash;Keep it for him, Henry. Think the Crenshaw
+battery, or Braxton's, or the King William, or the Dixie was over this
+way."</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the poisoned field were more woods, dipping to one of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span>
+innumerable sluggish creeks of the region. There was a bridge&mdash;weak and
+shaken, but still a bridge. This crossed at last, the troops climbed a
+slippery bank, beneath a wild tangle of shrub and vine, and came
+suddenly into view of a line of breastworks, three hundred yards away.
+There was a halt; skirmishers were thrown forward. These returned
+without a trigger having been pulled. "Deserted, sir. They've fallen
+back, guns and all. But there's a meadow between us and the earthworks,
+sir, that&mdash;that&mdash;that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The column began to move across the meadow&mdash;not a wide meadow, a little
+green, boggy place commanded by the breastworks. Apparently grey troops
+had made a charge here, the evening before. The trees that fringed the
+small, irregular oval, and the great birds that sat in the trees, and
+the column whose coming had made the birds to rise, looked upon a meadow
+set as thick with dead men as it should have been with daisies. They lay
+thick, thick, two hundred and fifty of them, perhaps, heart pierced,
+temple pierced by minie balls, or all the body shockingly torn by grape
+and canister. The wounded had been taken away. Only the dead were here,
+watched by the great birds, the treetops and the dawn. They lay
+fantastically, some rounded into a ball, some spread eagle, some with
+their arms over their eyes, some in the posture of easy sleep. At one
+side was a swampy place, and on the edge of this a man, sunk to the
+thigh, kept upright. The living men thought him living, too. More than
+one started out of line toward him, but then they saw that half his head
+was blown away.</p>
+
+<p>They left the meadow and took a road that skirted another great piece of
+forest. The sun came up, drank off the vagrant wreaths of mist and dried
+the dew from the sedge. There was promise of a hot, fierce, dazzling
+day. Another halt. "What's the matter this time?" asked the men. "God! I
+want to march on&mdash;into something happening!" Rumour came back. "Woods in
+front of us full of something. Don't know yet whether it's buzzards or
+Yankees. Get ready to open fire, anyway." All ready, the men waited
+until she came again. "It's men, anyhow. Woods just full of bayonets
+gleaming. Better throw your muskets forward."</p>
+
+<p>The column moved on, but cautiously, with a strong feeling that it, in
+its turn, was being watched&mdash;with muskets thrown forward. Then suddenly
+came recognition. "Grey&mdash;grey!&mdash;See the flag! They're ours! See&mdash;"
+Rumour broke into jubilant shouting. "It's the head of Jackson's column!
+It's the Valley men! Hurrah! Hurr<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span>ah! Stonewall! Stonewall Jackson!
+Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihhhh!&mdash;'Hello, boys! You've been doing pretty well up
+there in the blessed old Valley!' 'Hello, boys! If you don't look out
+you'll be getting your names in the papers!' 'Hello, boys! come to help
+us kill mosquitoes? Haven't got any quinine handy, have you?' 'Hello,
+boys! Hello Kernstown, McDowell, Front Royal, Winchester, Harper's
+Ferry, Cross Keys, Port Republic! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihh!' 'Hello, you damned
+Cohees! Are you the foot cavalry?'&mdash;65th Virginia, Stonewall Brigade?
+Glad to see you, 65th! Welcome to these here parts. What made you late?
+We surely did hone for you yesterday evening. Oh, shucks! the best
+gun'll miss fire once in a lifetime. Who's your colonel? Richard Cleave?
+Oh, yes, I remember! read his name in the reports. We've got a good one,
+too,&mdash;real proud of him. Well, we surely are glad to see you fellows in
+the flesh!&mdash;Oh, we're going to halt. You halted, too?&mdash;Regular love
+feast, by jiminy! Got any tobacco?"</p>
+
+<p>A particularly ragged private, having gained permission from his
+officer, came up to the sycamore beneath which his own colonel and the
+colonel of the 65th were exchanging courtesies. The former glanced his
+way. "Oh, Cary! Oh, yes, you two are kin&mdash;I remember. Well, colonel, I'm
+waiting for orders, as you are. Morally sure we're in for an awful
+scrap. Got a real respect for Fitz John Porter. McClellan's got this
+army trained, too, till it isn't any more like the rabble at Manassas
+than a grub's like a butterfly! Mighty fine fighting machine now. Fitz
+John's got our old friend Sykes and the Regulars. That doesn't mean what
+it did at Manassas&mdash;eh? We're all Regulars now, ourselves.&mdash;Yes, Cold
+Harbour, I reckon, or maybe a little this way&mdash;Gaines's Mill. That's
+their second line. Wonderful breastworks. Mac's a master engineer!&mdash;Now
+I'll clear out and let you and Cary talk."</p>
+
+<p>The two cousins sat down on the grass beneath the sycamore. For a little
+they eyed each other in silence. Edward Cary was more beautiful than
+ever, and apparently happy, though one of his shoes was nothing more
+than a sandal, and he was innocent of a collar, and his sleeve demanded
+a patch. He was thin, bright-eyed, and bronzed, and he handled his rifle
+with lazy expertness, and he looked at his cousin with a genuine respect
+and liking. "Richard, I heard about Will. I know you were like a father
+to the boy. I am very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that you are, Edward. I would rather not talk about it, please.
+When the country bleeds, one must put away private grief."</p>
+
+<p>He sat in the shade of the tree, thin and bronzed and bright-eyed like
+his cousin, though not ragged. Dundee grazed at hand, and scattered upon
+the edge of the wood, beneath the little dogwood trees, lay like acorns
+his men, fraternizing with the "Tuckahoe" regiment. "Your father and
+Fauquier&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Both somewhere in this No-man's Land. What a wilderness of creeks and
+woods it is! I slept last night in a swamp, and at reveille a beautiful
+moccasin lay on a log and looked at me. I don't think either father or
+Fauquier were engaged last evening. Pender and Ripley bore the brunt of
+it. Judith is in Richmond."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I had a letter from her before we left the Valley."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad, Richard, it is you. We were all strangely at sea,
+somehow&mdash;She is a noble woman. When I look at her I always feel
+reassured as to the meaning and goal of humanity."</p>
+
+<p>"I know&mdash;I love her dearly, dearly. If I outlive this battle I will try
+to get to see her&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Off somewhere, on the left, a solitary cannon boomed. The grey soldiers
+turned their heads. "A signal somewhere! We're spread over all creation.
+Crossing here and crossing there, and every half-hour losing your way!
+It's like the maze we used to read about&mdash;this bottomless, mountainless,
+creeky, swampy, feverish, damned lowland&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The two beneath the sycamore smiled. "'Back to our mountains,' eh?" said
+Edward. Cleave regarded the forest somewhat frowningly. "We are not," he
+said, "in a very good humour this morning. Yesterday was a day in which
+things went wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a sickening disappointment," acknowledged Edward. "We listened
+and listened. He's got a tremendous reputation, you know&mdash;Jackson.
+Foreordained and predestined to be at the crucial point at the critical
+moment! Backed alike by Calvin and God! So we looked for a comet to
+strike Fitz John Porter, and instead we were treated to an eclipse. It
+was a frightful slaughter. I saw General Lee afterwards&mdash;magnanimous,
+calm, and grand! What was really the reason?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Cleave moved restlessly. "I cannot say. Perhaps I might hazard a guess,
+but it's no use talking of guesswork. To-day I hope for a change."</p>
+
+<p>"You consider him a great general?"</p>
+
+<p>"A very great one. But he's sprung from earth&mdash;ascended like the rest of
+us. For him, as for you and me, there's the heel undipped and the
+unlucky day."</p>
+
+<p>The officers of the first grey regiment began to bestir themselves.
+<i>Fall in&mdash;Fall in&mdash;Fall in!</i> Edward rose. "Well, we shall see what we
+shall see. Good-bye, Richard!" The two shook hands warmly; Cary ran to
+his place in the line; the "Tuckahoe" regiment, cheered by the 65th,
+swung from the forest road into a track leading across an expanse of
+broom sedge. It went rapidly. The dew was dried, the mist lifted, the
+sun blazing with all his might. During the night the withdrawing
+Federals had also travelled this road. It was cut by gun-wheels, it was
+strewn with abandoned wagons, ambulances, accoutrements of all kinds.
+There were a number of dead horses. They lay across the road, or to
+either hand in the melancholy fields of sedge. From some dead trees the
+buzzards watched. One horse, far out in the yellow sedge, lifted his
+head and piteously neighed.</p>
+
+<p>The troops came into the neighbourhood of Gaines's Mill. Through grille
+after grille of woven twig and bamboo vine they descended to another
+creek, sleeping and shadowed, crossed it somehow, and came up into
+forest again. Before them, through the trees, was visible a great open
+space, hundreds of acres. Here and there it rose into knolls, and on
+these were planted grey batteries. Beyond the open there showed a
+horseshoe of a creek, fringed with swamp growth, a wild and tangled
+woodland; beyond this again a precipitous slope, almost a cliff,
+mounting to a wide plateau. All the side of the ascent was occupied by
+admirable breastworks, triple lines, one above the other, while at the
+base between hill and creek, within the enshadowing forest, was planted
+a great abattis of logs and felled trees. Behind the breastwork and on
+the plateau rested Fitz John Porter, reinforced during the night by
+Slocum, and now commanding thirty-five thousand disciplined and
+courageous troops. Twenty-two batteries frowned upon the plain below.
+The Federal drums were beating&mdash;beating&mdash;beating. The grey soldiers lay
+down in the woods and awaited orders. They felt, rather than saw, that
+other troops were all about them,&mdash;A. P. Hill&mdash;Longstreet&mdash;couched in
+the wide woods, strung in the brush that bordered creek and swamp,
+massed in the shelter of the few low knolls.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They waited long. The sun blazed high and higher. Then a grey battery,
+just in front of this strip of woods, opened with a howitzer. The shell
+went singing on its errand, exploded before one of the triple tiers. The
+plateau answered with a hundred-pounder. The missile came toward the
+battery, overpassed it, and exploded above the wood. It looked as large
+as a beehive; it came with an awful sound, and when it burst the
+atmosphere seemed to rock. The men lying on the earth beneath jerked
+back their heads, threw an arm over their eyes, made a dry, clicking
+sound with their tongue against their teeth. The howitzer and this shell
+opened the battle&mdash;again A. P. Hill's battle.</p>
+
+<p>Over in the forest on the left, near Cold Harbour, where Stonewall
+Jackson had his four divisions, his own, D. H. Hill's, Ewell's, and
+Whiting's, there was long, long waiting. The men had all the rest they
+wanted, and more besides. They fretted, they grew querulous. "Oh, good
+God, why don't we move? There's firing&mdash;heavy firing&mdash;on the right. Are
+we going to lie here in these swamps and fight mosquitoes all day?
+Thought we were brought here to fight Yankees! The general walking in
+the forest and saying his prayers?&mdash;Oh, go to hell!"</p>
+
+<p>A battery, far over on the edge of a swamp, broke loose, tearing the
+sultry air with shell after shell tossed against a Federal breastwork on
+the other side of the marsh. The Stonewall Brigade grew vividly
+interested. "That's D. H. Hill over there! D. H. Hill is a fighter from
+way back! O Lord, why don't we fight too? Holy Moses, what a racket!"
+The blazing noon filled with crash and roar. Ten of Fitz John Porter's
+guns opened, full-mouthed, on the adventurous battery.</p>
+
+<p>It had nerve, <i>&eacute;lan</i>, sheer grit enough for a dozen, but it was
+out-metalled. One by one its guns were silenced,&mdash;most of the horses
+down, most of the cannoneers. Hill recalled it. A little later he
+received an order from Jackson. "General Hill will withdraw his troops
+to the left of the road, in rear of his present position, where he will
+await further orders." Hill went, with shut lips. One o'clock&mdash;two
+o'clock&mdash;half-past two. "O God, have mercy! <i>Is</i> this the Army of the
+Valley?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Allan Gold, detached at dawn on scout duty, found himself about this
+time nearer to the Confederate centre than to his own base of operations
+at the left. He had been marking the windings of creeks, observing where
+there were bridges and where there were none, the depth of channels and
+the infirmness of marshes. He had noted the Federal positions and the
+amount of stores abandoned, set on fire, good rice and meat, good shoes,
+blankets, harness, tents, smouldering and smoking in glade and thicket.
+He had come upon dead men and horses and upon wounded men and horses. He
+had given the wounded drink. He had killed with the butt of his rifle a
+hissing and coiled snake. He had turned his eyes away from the black and
+winged covering of a dead horse and rider. Kneeling at last to drink at
+a narrow, hidden creek, slumbering between vine-laden trees, he had
+raised his eyes, and on the other side marked a blue scout looking,
+startled, out of a hazel bush. There was a click from two muskets; then
+Allan said, "Don't fire! I won't. Why should we? Drink and forget." The
+blue scout signified acquiescence. "All right, Reb. I'm tired fighting,
+anyway! Was brought up a Quaker, and wouldn't mind if I had stayed one!
+Got anything to mix with the water?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let's take it just dry so." Both drank, then settled back on
+their heels for a moment's conversation. "Awful weather," said the blue
+scout. "Didn't know there could be such withering heat! And
+malaria&mdash;lying out of nights in swamps, with owls hooting and
+jack-o'-lanterns round your bed! Ain't you folks most beat yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the grey scout. "Don't you think you've about worn your
+welcome out and had better go home?&mdash;Look out there! Your gun's slipping
+into the water."</p>
+
+<p>The blue recovered it. "It's give out this morning that Stonewall
+Jackson's arrived on the scene."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he has."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's a one-er! Good many of you we wish would desert.&mdash;No; we
+ain't going home till we go through Richmond."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Allan politely, "first and last, a good many folk have
+settled hereabouts since Captain John Smith traded on the Chickahominy
+with the Indians. There's family graveyards all through these woods. I
+hope you'll like the country."</p>
+
+<p>The other drank again of the brown water. "It wasn't so bad in the
+spring time. We thought it was awful lovely at first, all spangled with
+flowers and birds.&mdash;Are you married?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither am I. But I'm going to be, when I get back to where I belong.
+Her name's Flora."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a pretty name."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and she's pretty, too&mdash;" He half closed his eyes and smiled
+blissfully, then rose from the laurels. "Well, I must be trotting along,
+away from Cold Harbour. Funniest names! What does it mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was an inn, long ago, where you got only cold fare. Shouldn't wonder
+if history isn't going to repeat itself&mdash;" He rose, also, tall and
+blonde. "Well, I must be travelling, too&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Rations getting pretty low, aren't they? How about coffee?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, one day," said Allan, "we're going to drink a lot of it! No, I
+don't know that they are especially low."</p>
+
+<p>The blue scout dipped a hand into his pocket. "Well, I've got a packet
+of it, and there's plenty more where that came from.&mdash;Catch, Reb!"</p>
+
+<p>Allan caught it. "You're very good, Yank. Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you got any quinine?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>The blue scout tossed across a small box. "There's for you! No, I don't
+want it. We've got plenty.&mdash;Well, good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you'll get back safe," said Allan, "and have a beautiful
+wedding."</p>
+
+<p>The blue vanished in the underbrush, the grey went on his way through
+the heavy forest. He was moving now toward sound, heavy, increasing,
+presaging a realm of jarred air and ringing ear-drums. Ahead, he saw a
+column of swiftly moving troops. Half running, he overtook the rear
+file. "Scout?"&mdash;"Yes&mdash;Stonewall Brigade&mdash;" "All right! all right! This
+is A. P. Hill's division.&mdash;Going into battle. Come on, if you want to."</p>
+
+<p>Through the thinning woods showed a great open plain, with knolls where
+batteries were planted. The regiment to which Allan had attached himself
+lay down on the edge of the woo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span>d, near one of the cannon-crowned
+eminences. Allan stretched himself beneath a black gum at the side of
+the road. Everywhere was a rolling smoke, everywhere terrific sound. A
+battery thundered by at a gallop, six horses to each gun, straining,
+red-nostrilled, fiery-eyed. It struck across a corner of the plain. Over
+it burst the shells, twelve-pounders&mdash;twenty-pounders. A horse went
+down&mdash;the drivers cut the traces. A caisson was struck, exploded with
+frightful glare and sound. About it, when the smoke cleared, writhed men
+and horses, but the gun was dragged off. Through the rain of shells the
+battery gained a lift of ground, toiled up it, placed the guns,
+unlimbered and began to fire. A South Carolina brigade started with a
+yell from the woods to the right, tore in a dust cloud across the old
+fields, furrowed with gullies, and was swallowed in the forest about the
+creek which laved the base of the Federal position. This rose from the
+level like a Gibraltar, and about it now beat a wild shouting and rattle
+of musketry. Allan rose to his knees, then to his feet, then, drawn as
+by a magnet, crept through a finger of sumach and sassafras,
+outstretched from the wood, to a better vantage point just in rear of
+the battery.</p>
+
+<p>Behind him, through the woods, came a clatter of horses' hoofs. It was
+met and followed by cheering. Turning his head, he saw a general and his
+staff, and though he had never seen Lee he knew that this was Lee, and
+himself began to cheer. The commander-in-chief lifted his grey hat, came
+down the dim, overarched, aisle-like road, between the cheering troops.
+With his staff he left the wood for the open, riding beneath the shelter
+by the finger of sumach and sassafras, toward the battery. He saw Allan,
+and reined up iron-grey Traveller. "You do not belong to this
+regiment.&mdash;A scout? General Jackson's?&mdash;Ah, well, I expect General
+Jackson to strike those people on the right any moment now!" He rode up
+to the battery. The shells were raining, bursting above, around. In the
+shelter of the hill the battery horses had at first, veteran,
+undisturbed, cropped the parched grass, but now one was wounded and now
+another. An arm was torn from a gunner. A second, stooping over a limber
+chest, was struck between the shoulders, crushed, flesh and bone, into
+pulp. The artillery captain came up to the general-in-chief. "General
+Lee, won't you go away? Gentlemen, won't you tell him that there's
+danger?"</p>
+
+<p>The staff reinforced the statement, but without avail. General Lee shook
+his head, and with his field-glasses continued to gaze<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span> toward the left,
+whence should arise the dust, the smoke, the sound of Jackson's flanking
+movement. There was no sign on the left, but here, in the centre, the
+noise from the woods beyond the creek was growing infernal. He lowered
+the glass. "Captain Chamberlayne, will you go tell General Longstreet&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Out of the thunder-filled woods, back from creek and swamp and briar and
+slashing, from abattis of bough and log, from the shadow of that bluff
+head with its earthworks one above the other, from the scorching flame
+of twenty batteries and the wild singing of the minies, rushed the South
+Carolina troops. The brigadier&mdash;Maxey Gregg&mdash;the regimental, the company
+officers, with shouts, with appeals, with waved swords, strove to stop
+the rout. The command rallied, then broke again. Hell was in the wood,
+and the men's faces were grey and drawn. "We must rally those troops!"
+said Lee, and galloped forward. He came into the midst of the disordered
+throng. "Men, men! Remember your State&mdash;Do your duty!" They recognized
+him, rallied, formed on the colours, swept past him with a cheer and
+re&euml;ntered the deep and fatal wood.</p>
+
+<p>The battery in front of Allan began to suffer dreadfully. The horses
+grew infected with the terror of the plain. They jerked their heads
+back; they neighed mournfully; some left the grass and began to gallop
+aimlessly across the field. The shells came in a stream, great, hurtling
+missiles. Where they struck flesh or ploughed into the earth, it was
+with a deadened sound; when they burst in air, it was like crackling
+thunder. The blue sky was gone. A battle pall wrapped the thousands and
+thousands of men, the guns, the horses, forest, swamp, creeks, old
+fields; the great strength of the Federal position, the grey brigades
+dashing against it, hurled back like Atlantic combers. It should be
+about three o'clock, Allan thought, but he did not know. Every nerve was
+tingling, the blood pounding in his veins. Time and space behaved like
+waves charged with strange driftwood. He felt a mad excitement, was sure
+that if he stood upright or tried to walk he would stagger. An order ran
+down the line of the brigade he had adopted. <i>Attention!</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 487px;">
+<img src="images/illus03.jpg" width="487" height="600" alt="THE BATTLE" title="THE BATTLE" />
+<span class="caption">THE BATTLE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>He found himself on his feet and in line, steady, clear of head as
+though he trod the path by Thunder Run. <i>Forward! March!</i> The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> brigade
+cleared the wood, and in line of battle passed the exhausted battery.
+Allan noted a soldier beneath a horse, a contorted, purple, frozen face
+held between the brute's fore-legs. The air was filled with whistling
+shells; the broom sedge was on fire. <i>Right shoulder. Shift Arms!
+Charge!</i></p>
+
+<p>Somewhere, about halfway over the plain, he became convinced that his
+right leg from the hip down was gone to sleep. He had an idea that he
+was not keeping up. A line passed him&mdash;another; he mustn't let the
+others get ahead! and for a minute he ran quite rapidly. There was a
+yellow, rain-washed gulley before him; the charge swept down one side
+and up the other. This crack in the earth was two thirds of the way
+across the open; beyond were the wood, the creek, the abattis, the
+climbing lines of breastworks, the thirty-five thousand in blue, and the
+tremendous guns. The grey charge was yelling high and clear, preparing
+to deliver its first fire; the air a roar of sound and a glaring light.
+Allan went down one side of the gulley with some ease, but it was
+another thing to climb the other. However, up he got, almost to the
+top&mdash;and then pitched forward, clutching at the growth of sedge along
+the crest. It held him steady, and he settled into a rut of yellow earth
+and tried to think it over. Endeavouring to draw himself a little
+higher, a minie ball went through his shoulder. The grey charge passed
+him, roaring on to the shadowy wood.</p>
+
+<p>He helped himself as best he could, staunched some blood, drew his own
+conclusions as to his wounds. He was not suffering much; not over much.
+By nature he matched increasing danger with increasing coolness. All
+that he especially wanted was for that charge to succeed&mdash;for the grey
+to succeed. His position here, on the rim of the gully, was an admirable
+one for witnessing all that the shifting smoke might allow to be
+witnessed. It was true that a keening minie or one of the monstrous
+shells might in an instant shear his thread of life, probably would do
+so; all the probabilities lay that way. But he was cool and courageous,
+and had kept himself ready to go. An absorbing interest in the field of
+Gaines's Mill, a passionate desire that Victory should wear grey,
+dominated all other feeling. Half in the seam of the gully, half in the
+sedge at the top, he made himself as easy as he could and rested a
+spectator.</p>
+
+<p>The battle smoke, now heavily settling, now drifting like clouds before
+a wind, now torn asunder and lifting from the scene, made the great
+field to come and go in flashes, or like visions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> of the night. He saw
+that A. P. Hill was sending in his brigades, brigade after brigade. He
+looked to the left whence should come Jackson, but over there, just seen
+through the smoke, the forest stood sultry and still. Behind him,
+however, in the wood at the base of the armed hill, there rose a clamour
+and deep thunder as of Armageddon. Like a grey wave broken against an
+iron shore, the troops with whom he had charged streamed back
+disordered, out of the shadowy wood into the open, where in the gold
+sedge lay many a dead man and many a wounded. Allan saw the crimson flag
+with the blue cross shaken, held on high, heard the officers crying,
+"Back, men, back! Virginians, do your duty!" The wave formed again. He
+tried to rise so that he might go with it, but could not. It returned
+into the wood. Before him, racing toward the gully, came another
+wave&mdash;Branch's brigade, yelling as it charged. He saw it a moment like a
+grey wall, with the colours tossing, then it poured down into the gully
+and up and past him. He put up his arms to shield his face, but the men
+swerved a little and did not trample him. The worn shoes, digging into
+the loose earth covered him with dust. The moving grey cloth, the smell
+of sweat-drenched bodies, of powder, of leather, of hot metal, the
+panting breath, the creak and swing, the sudden darkening, heat and
+pressure&mdash;the passage of that wave took his own breath from him, left
+him white and sick. Branch went on. He looked across the gully and saw
+another wave coming&mdash;Pender, this time. Pender came without yelling,
+grim and grey and close-mouthed. Pender had suffered before Beaver Dam
+Creek; to-day there was not much more than half a brigade. It, too,
+passed, a determined wave. Allan saw Field in the distance coming up. He
+was tormented with thirst. Three yards from the gully lay stretched the
+trunk of a man, the legs blown away. He was almost sure he caught the
+glint of a canteen. He lay flat in the sedge and dragged himself to the
+corpse. There was the canteen, indeed; marked with a great U. S., spoil
+taken perhaps at Williamsburg or at Seven Pines. It was empty, drained
+dry as a bone. There was another man near. Allan dragged himself on. He
+thought this one dead, too, but when he reached him he opened large blue
+eyes and breathed, "Water!" Allan sorrowfully shook his head. The blue
+eyes did not wink nor close, they glazed and stayed open. The scout
+dropped beside the body, exhausted. Field's charge passed over him. When
+he opened his eyes, this portion of the pla<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span>in was like a sea between
+cross winds. All the broken waves were wildly tossing. Here they
+recoiled, fled, even across the gully; here they seethed, inchoate;
+there, regathering form and might, they readvanced to the echoing hill,
+with its three breastworks and its eighty cannon. Death gorged himself
+in the tangled slashing, on the treacherous banks of the slow-moving
+creek. A. P. Hill was a superb fighter. He sent in his brigades. They
+returned, broken; he sent them in again. They went. The 16th and 22d
+North Carolina passed the three lines of blazing rifles, got to the head
+of the cliff, found themselves among the guns. In vain. Morrell's
+artillerymen, Morrell's infantry, pushed them back and down, down the
+hillside, back into the slashing. The 35th Georgia launched itself like
+a thunderbolt and pierced the lines, but it, too, was hurled down.
+Gregg's South Carolinians and Sykes Regulars locked and swayed. Archer
+and Pender, Field and Branch, charged and were repelled, to charge
+again. Save in marksmanship, the Confederate batteries could not match
+the Federal; strength was with the great, blue rifled guns, and yet the
+grey cannoneers wrought havoc on the plateau and amid the breastworks.
+The sound was enormous, a complex tumult that crashed and echoed in the
+head. The whole of the field existed in the throbbing, expanded
+brain&mdash;all battlefields, all life, all the world and other worlds, all
+problems solved and insoluble. The wide-flung grey battlefront was now
+sickle-shaped, convex to the foe. The rolling dense smoke flushed
+momently with a lurid glare. In places the forest was afire, in others
+the stubble of the field. From horn to horn of the sickle galloped the
+riderless horses. Now and again a wounded one among them screamed
+fearfully.</p>
+
+<p>Allan dragged himself back to the gully. It was safer there, because the
+charging lines must lessen speed, break ranks a little; they would not
+be so resistlessly borne on and over him. He was not light-headed, or he
+thought he was not. He lay on the rim of the gully that was now trampled
+into a mere trough of dust, and he looked at the red light on the
+rolling vapour. Where it lifted he saw, as in a pageant, war in
+mid-career. Sound, too, had organized. He could have beaten time to the
+gigantic rhythm. It rose and sank; it was made up of groaning, shouting,
+breathing of men, gasping, and the sounds that horses make, with louder
+and louder the thun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span>der of the inanimate, the congregated sound of the
+allies man had devised,&mdash;the saltpetre he had digged, the powder he had
+made, the rifles he had manufactured, the cannon he had moulded, the
+solid shot, grape, canister, shrapnel, minie balls. The shells were
+fearful, Allan was fain to acknowledge. They passed like whistling
+winds. They filled the air like great rocks from a blasting. The
+staunchest troops blanched a little, jerked the head sidewise as the
+shells burst and showered ruin. There came into Allan's mind a picture
+in the old geography,&mdash;rocks thrown up by Vesuvius. He thought he was
+speaking to the geography class. "I'll show you how they look. I was
+lying, you see, at the edge of the crater, and they were all overhead."
+The picture passed away, and he began to think that the minies'
+unearthly shriek was much like the winter wind round Thunder Run
+Mountain&mdash;Sairy and Tom&mdash;Was Sairy baking gingerbread?&mdash;Of course not;
+they didn't have gingerbread now. Besides, you didn't want gingerbread
+when you were thirsty.... <i>Oh, water, water, water, water!...</i> Tom might
+be taking the toll&mdash;if there was anybody to pay it, and if they kept the
+roads up. Roses in bloom, and the bees in them and over the pansies....
+The wrens sang, and Christianna came down the road. Roses and pansies,
+with their funny little faces, and Sairy's blue gingham apron and the
+blue sky. The water-bucket on the porch, with the gourd. He began to
+mutter a little. "Time to take in, children&mdash;didn't you hear the bell? I
+rang it loudly. I am ringing it now. Listen! Loud, loud&mdash;like church
+bells&mdash;and cannons. The old lesson.... Curtius and the gulf."</p>
+
+<p>In the next onrush a man stumbled and came to his knees beside him. Not
+badly hurt, he was about to rise. Allan caught his arm. "For God's
+sake&mdash;if you've got any water&mdash;" The man, a tall Alabamian, looked down,
+nodded, jerked loose another U. S. canteen, and dropped it into the
+other's hand. "All right, all right&mdash;not at all&mdash;not at all&mdash;" He ran
+on, joining the hoar and shouting wave. Allan, the flask set to his
+lips, found not water, but a little cold and weak coffee. It was
+nectar&mdash;it was happiness&mdash;it was life&mdash;though he could have drunk ten
+times the amount!</p>
+
+<p>The cool draught and the strength that was in it revived him, drew his
+wandering mind back from Thunder Run to Gaines's Mill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span> Again he wished
+to know where was the Army of the Valley. It might be over there, in the
+smoke pall, turning Fitz John Porter's right ... but he did not believe
+it. Brigade after brigade had swept past him, had been broken, had
+reformed, had again swept by into the wood that was so thick with the
+dead. A. P. Hill continued to hurl them in, standing, magnificent
+fighter! his eyes on the dark and bristling stronghold. On the hill,
+behind the climbing breastworks and the iron giants atop, Fitz John
+Porter, good and skilful soldier, withdrew from the triple lines his
+decimated regiments, put others in their places, scoured with the hail
+of his twenty-two batteries the plain of the Confederate centre. All the
+attack was here&mdash;all the attack was here&mdash;and the grey brigades were
+thinning like mist wreaths. The dead and wounded choked field and gully
+and wood and swamp. Allan struck his hands together. What had
+happened&mdash;what was the matter? How long had he lain here? Two hours, at
+the least&mdash;and always it was A. P. Hill's battle, and always the grey
+brigades with a master courage dashed themselves against the slope of
+fire, and always the guns repelled them. It was growing late. The sun
+could not be seen. Plain and woods were darkening, darkening and filled
+with groaning. It was about him like a melancholy wind, the groaning. He
+raised himself on his hands and saw how many indeed were scattered in
+the sedge, or in the bottom of the yellow gully, or slanted along its
+sides. He had not before so loudly heard the complaining that they made,
+and for a moment the brain wondered why. Then he was aware that the air
+was less filled with missiles, that the long musketry rattle and the
+baying of the war dogs was a little hushed. Even as he marked this the
+lull grew more and more perceptible. He heard the moaning of the
+wounded, because now the ear could take cognizance.</p>
+
+<p>The shadow deepened. A horse, with a blood-stained saddle, unhurt
+himself, approached him, stood nickering for a moment, then panic-struck
+again, lashed out with his heels and fled. All the plain, the sedge
+below, the rolling canopy above, was tinged with reddish umber. The
+sighing wind continued, but the noise of firing died and died. For all
+the moaning of the wounded, there seemed to fall a ghastly silence.</p>
+
+<p>Over Allan came a feeling as of a pendulum forever stopped, as of Time
+but a wreck on the shore of Space, and Space a deserted coas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span>t, an
+experiment of some Power who found it ineffective and tossed it away.
+The Now and Here, petrified forever, desolate forever, an obscure bubble
+in the sea of being, a faint tracing on the eternal Mind to be overlaid
+and forgotten&mdash;here it rested, and would rest. The field would stay and
+the actors would stay, both forever as they were, standing, lying, in
+motion or at rest, suffering, thirsting, tasting the sulphur and feeling
+the heat, held here forever in a vise, grey shadows suffering like
+substance, knowing the lost battle.... A deadly weakness and horror came
+over him. "O God!&mdash;Let us die&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>From the rear, to A. P. Hill's right, where was Longstreet, broke a
+faint yelling. It grew clearer, came nearer. From another
+direction&mdash;from the left&mdash;burst a like sound, increasing likewise, high,
+wild, and clear. Like a breath over the field went the
+conviction&mdash;<i>Jackson&mdash;Jackson at last!</i> Allan dropped in the broom
+sedge, his arm beneath his head. The grey sleeve was wet with tears. The
+pendulum was swinging; he was home in the dear and dread world.</p>
+
+<p>The sound increased; the earth began to shake with the tread of men; the
+tremendous guns began again their bellowing. Longstreet swung into
+action, with the brigades of Kemper, Anderson, Pickett, Willcox, Pryor,
+and Featherstone. On the left, with his own division, with Ewell's, with
+D. H. Hill's, Jackson struck at last like Jackson. Whiting, with two
+brigades, should have been with Jackson, but, missing his way in the
+wood, came instead to Longstreet, and with him entered the battle. The
+day was descending. All the plain was smoky or luridly lit; a vast
+Shield of Mars, with War in action. With Longstreet and with Jackson up
+at last, Lee put forth his full strength. Fifty thousand men in grey,
+thirty-five thousand men in blue, were at once engaged&mdash;in three hundred
+years there had been in the Western Hemisphere no battle so heavy as
+this one. The artillery jarred even the distant atmosphere, and the high
+mounting clouds were tinged with red. Six miles away, Richmond listened
+aghast.</p>
+
+<p>Allan forgot his wounds, forgot his thirst, forgot the terror, sick and
+cold, of the minute past. He no longer heard the groaning. The storm of
+sound swept it away. He was a fighter with the grey; all his soul was in
+the prayer. "Let them come! Let them conquer!" He thought, <i>Let the war
+bleed and the mighty die</i>. He saw a charge approaching. Willingly would
+he have been stamped into the earth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> would it further the feet on their
+way. The grey line hung an instant, poised on the further rim of the
+gully, then swept across and onward. Until the men were by him, it was
+thick night, thick and stifling. They passed. He heard the yelling as
+they charged the slope, the prolonged tremendous rattle of musketry, the
+shouts, the foiled assault, and the breaking of the wave. Another came,
+a wall of darkness in the closing day. Over it hung a long cloud,
+red-stained. Allan prayed aloud. "O God of Battles&mdash;O God of Battles&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The wave came on. It resolved itself into a moving frieze, a wide battle
+line of tall men, led by a tall, gaunt general, with blue eyes and
+flowing, tawny hair. In front was the battle-flag, red ground and blue
+cross. Beside it dipped and rose a blue flag with a single star. The
+smoke rolled above, about the line. Bursting overhead, a great shell lit
+all with a fiery glare. The frieze began to sing.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"The race is not to them that's got<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The longest legs to run,</span><br />
+Nor the battle to that people<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That shoots the biggest gun&mdash;"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>Allan propped himself upon his hands. "Fourth Texas! Fourth
+Texas!&mdash;Fourth&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The frieze rushed down the slope of the gully, up again, and on. A foot
+came hard on Allan's hand. He did not care. He had a vision of keen,
+bronze faces, hands on gun-locks. The long, grey legs went by him with a
+mighty stride. Gun-barrel and bayonet gleamed like moon on water. The
+battle-flag with the cross, the flag with the single star, spread red
+and blue wings. Past him they sped, gigantic, great ensigns of desperate
+valour, war goddesses, valkyries, ... rather the great South herself,
+the eleven States, Rio Grande to Chesapeake, Potomac to the Gulf! All
+the shells were bursting, all the drums were thundering&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The Texans passed, he sank prone on the earth. Other waves he knew were
+following&mdash;all the waves! Jackson with Ewell, Longstreet, the two Hills.
+He thought he saw his own brigade&mdash;saw the Stonewall. But it was in
+another quarter of the field, and he could not call to it. All the earth
+was rocking like a cradle, blindly swinging in some concussion and
+conflagration as of world systems.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As dusk descended, the Federal lines were pierced and broken. The Texans
+made the breach, but behind them stormed the other waves,&mdash;D. H. Hill,
+Ewell, the Stonewall Brigade, troops of Longstreet. They blotted out the
+triple breastworks; from north, west, and south they mounted in thunder
+upon the plateau. They gathered to themselves here twenty-two guns, ten
+thousand small arms, twenty-eight hundred prisoners. They took the
+plateau. Stubbornly fighting, Fitz John Porter drew off his exhausted
+brigades, plunged downward through the forest, toward the Chickahominy.
+Across that river, all day long McClellan, with sixty-five thousand men,
+had rested behind earthworks, bewildered by Magruder, demonstrating in
+front of Richmond with twenty-eight thousand. Now, at the twelfth hour,
+he sent two brigades, French and Meagher.</p>
+
+<p>Night fell, black as pitch. The forest sprang dense, from miry soil. The
+region was one where Nature set traps. In the darkness it was not easy
+to tell friend from foe. Grey fired on grey, blue on blue. The blue
+still pressed, here in disorder, here with a steady front, toward the
+grapevine bridge across the Chickahominy. French and Meagher arrived to
+form a strong rearguard. Behind, on the plateau, the grey advance
+paused, uncertain in the darkness and in its mortal fatigue. Here, and
+about the marshy creek and on the vast dim field beyond, beneath the
+still hanging battle cloud, lay, of the grey and the blue, fourteen
+thousand dead and wounded. The sound of their suffering rose like a
+monotonous wind of the night.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HEEL OF ACHILLES</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Stonewall Brigade, a unit in Jackson's advance, halted on the
+plateau near the McGehee house. All was dark, all was confused. In the
+final and general charge, regiments had become separated from brigades,
+companies from regiments. Fragments of many commands were on the
+plateau,&mdash;Whiting, Ewell, D. H. Hill, Jackson's own division, portions
+of Longstreet's brigades, even a number of A. P. Hill's broken,
+exhausted fighters. Many an officer lay silent or moaning, on the
+scarped slope, in the terrific tangle about the creek, or on the
+melancholy plain beyond. Captains shouted orders in the colonels'
+places; lieutenants or sergeants in the captains'. Here, on the plateau,
+where for hours the blue guns had thundered, the stars were seen but
+dimly through the smoke. Bodies of men, and men singly or in twos and
+threes, wandered like ghosts in Hades. "This way, Second Virginia!"
+"Fall in here, Hood's Texans!"&mdash;"Hampton's men, over here!"&mdash;"Fifteenth
+Alabama! Fifteenth Alabama!"&mdash;"I'm looking for the Milledgeville
+Hornets."&mdash;"Iverson's men! Iverson's men!"&mdash;"Fall in here, Cary's
+Legion!"&mdash;"First Maryland!"&mdash;"Fifth Virginia over here!"&mdash;"Where in hell
+is the Eleventh Mississippi!"&mdash;"Lawton! Lawton!"&mdash;"Sixty-fifth Virginia,
+fall in here!"</p>
+
+<p>East and south, sloping toward the Chickahominy, ran several miles of
+heavy forest. It was filled with sound,&mdash;the hoofs of horses, the
+rumbling of wheels, the breaking through undergrowth of masses of
+men,&mdash;sound that was dying in volume, rolling toward the Chickahominy.
+On the trampled brow of the plateau, beneath shot-riddled trees, General
+D. H. Hill, coming from the northern face, found General Winder of the
+First Brigade standing with several of his officers, trying to pierce
+the murk toward the river. "You rank here, General Winder?" said Hill.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so, general. Such a confusion of troops I have never seen! They
+have been reporting to me. It is yours now to command."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen General Jackson?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Not lately."</p>
+
+<p>D. H. Hill looked toward the Chickahominy. "I don't deny it's
+temptatious! And yet.... Very dark. Thick woods. Don't know what
+obstructions. Men exhausted. Our centre and right not come up. Artillery
+still across the swamp&mdash;What's that cheering toward the river?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. McClellan may have sent reinforcements."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you pickets out?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. What do you think, Cleave?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think, sir, the rout outweighs the reinforcements. I think we should
+press on at once."</p>
+
+<p>"If we had cavalry!" said Winder impatiently. "However, General Stuart
+has swept down toward the Pamunkey. That will be their line of
+retreat&mdash;to the White House."</p>
+
+<p>"There is the chance," said Cleave, "that General McClellan will abandon
+that line, and make instead for the James and the gunboats at Harrison's
+Landing."</p>
+
+<p>Hill nodded. "Yes, it's a possibility. General Lee is aware of it. He'll
+not unmask Richmond and come altogether on this side the Chickahominy
+until he knows. All that crowd down there may set to and cross
+to-night&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How many bridges?" asked Lawton.</p>
+
+<p>"Alexander's and Grapevine. Woodbury's higher up."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not believe that there are three, sir. There is a report that two
+are burned. I believe that the Grapevine is their only road&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You believe, colonel, but you do not know. What do you think, General
+Winder?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think, sir, with Colonel Cleave, that we should push down through the
+woods to the right of the Grapevine Bridge. They, too, are exhausted,
+their horses jaded, their ammunition spent. We could gather a little
+artillery&mdash;Poague's battery is here. They are crushed together, in great
+masses. If we could fall upon them, cause a great panic there at the
+water, much might come of it."</p>
+
+<p>Hill looked with troubled eyes about the plateau. "And two or three
+thousand men, perhaps, be swallowed up and lost! A grand charge that
+took this plateau&mdash;yes! and a grand charge at Beaver Dam Creek yesterday
+at dark, and a grand charge when Albert Sidney Johnston was killed, and
+a grand charge when Ashby was killed, and on a number of other
+occasions, and now a grand night-time charge with worn-out troops. All
+grand&mdash;just the kind of grandeur the South cannot afford!... An army yet
+of blue troops and fresh, shouting brigades, and our centre and right on
+the other side of the creek.... I don't dare do it, gentlemen!&mdash;not on
+my own responsibility. What do you think, General Lawton?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are right, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"More and more troops are coming upon the plateau," said Winder.
+"General Hill, if you will order us to go we will see to it that you do
+not repent&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"They are defeated and retreating, sir," said Cleave. "If t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span>hey are
+crossing the river, it is at least in the realm of probability that they
+have but the one path. No one knows better than you what resolute
+pressure might now accomplish. Every moment that we wait they gain in
+steadiness, and other reserves will come up. Make their junction with
+their centre, and to-morrow we fight a terrific battle where to-night a
+lesser struggle might secure a greater victory."</p>
+
+<p>"Speaking largely, that is true," said Hill. "But&mdash;I wish General
+Jackson were here! I think you know, gentlemen, that, personally, I
+could wish, at this minute, to be down there in the woods, beside the
+Grapevine Bridge. But with the knowledge that the enemy is bringing up
+reserves, with the darkness so thick, with no great force, and that
+exhausted, and with no artillery, I cannot take the responsibility of
+the advance. If General Jackson were here&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"May I send in search of him, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, General Winder, you may do that. And if he says, 'Go!' there won't
+one of you be happier than I."</p>
+
+<p>"We know that, general.&mdash;Cleave, I am going to send you. You're far the
+likeliest. We want him to come and lead us to the completest victory. By
+God, we want Front Royal and Port Republic again!"</p>
+
+<p>Cleave, turning, disappeared into the darkness. "See to your men,
+General Winder. Get them ready," said Hill. "I'm going a little way into
+the woods to see what I can see myself." He went, Lawton with him.
+Before many minutes had passed they were back. "Nearly walked into their
+lines! Strung across the Grapevine road. Massed thick between us and the
+Chickahominy. Scattered like acorns through the woods. Pretty miserable,
+I gather. Passed party hunting water. Speech bewrayeth the man, so
+didn't say anything. Heard the pickets talking. 'Twas Meagher and French
+came up. They're building great fires by the water. Looks as though they
+meant to cross. Nothing of General Jackson yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. Not yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm going into the house for a morsel of food. Send for me the
+moment you hear anything. I wish the artillery were up. Who's this?
+Colonel Fauquier Cary? In the darkness, couldn't tell. Yes, General
+Winder thinks so, too. We've sent to ask General Jackson. Come with me,
+Cary, to the house. Faugh! this stifling heat! And that was Sykes we
+were fighting against&mdash;George Sykes! Remember<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span> he was my roommate at the
+Point?"</p>
+
+<p>The short path to McGehee's house was not trodden without difficulty.
+All the great plateau was cumbered with d&eacute;bris of the struggle. On the
+cut and furrowed ground one stumbled upon abandoned stores and arms.
+There were overturned wagons and ambulances with dead horses; there were
+ruined gun-carriages; there were wrecked litters, fallen tents, dead men
+and the wounded. Here, and on the plain below, the lanterns of the
+surgeons and their helpers moved like glowworms. They gathered the
+wounded, blue and grey. "Treat the whole field alike," had said Lee.
+Everywhere were troops seeking their commands, hoarsely calling, joining
+at last their comrades. Fires had been kindled. Dim, dim, in the
+southwestern sky beyond the yet rolling vapour, showed a gleaming where
+was Richmond. D. H. Hill and Fauquier Cary went indoors. An aide managed
+to find some biscuits, and there was water from the well. "I haven't
+touched food since daybreak," said the general.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I. Much as I like him, I am loath to let Fitz John Porter strike
+down the York River line to-night, if that's his road, or cross the
+Chickahominy if that's the road! We have a victory. Press it home and
+fix it there."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that you are right. Surely Jackson will see it so."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is General Jackson?"</p>
+
+<p>"God knows!&mdash;Thank you, Reid. Poor fare, Cary, but familiar. Come, Reid,
+get your share."</p>
+
+<p>They ate the hard biscuits and drank the well-water. The air was still
+and sultry; through the windows they heard, afar off, the bugles&mdash;their
+own and those of the foe.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"High, over all the melancholy bugle grieves."</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>Moths came in to the candle. With his hand Cary warned them away. One
+lit on his sleeve. "I wonder what you think of it," he said, and put him
+out of window. There was a stir at the door. A sergeant appeared. "We're
+gathering up the wounded, general&mdash;and we found a Yankee officer under
+the trees just here&mdash;and he said you'd know him&mdash;but he'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span>s fainted dead
+away&mdash;" He moved aside. "Litters gave out long ago, so we're taking U.
+S. blankets&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Four men, carrying by the corners a blanket with an unconscious man upon
+it, came into the room. The Confederate officers looked. "No, I don't
+know him. Why, wait&mdash;Yes, I do! It's Clitz&mdash;Clitz that was so young and
+red-cheeked and our pet at the Point!... Yes, and one day in Mexico his
+regiment filed past, going into a fight, and he looked so like a gallant
+boy that I prayed to God that Clitz might not be hurt!... Reid, have him
+put in a room here! See that Dr. Mott sees him at once.&mdash;O God, Cary,
+this fratricidal war! Fighting George Sykes all day, and now this boy&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Cary. "Once to-day I was opposed to Fitz John Porter. He
+looked at me out of a cloud, and I looked at him out of one, and the
+battle roared between. I always liked him." He walked across the room,
+looked out of the window upon the battlefield, and came back. "But," he
+said grimly, "it is a war of invasion. What do you think is wrong with
+Jackson?"</p>
+
+<p>The other looked at him with his fine, kindly eyes. "Why, let me tell
+you, Cary,&mdash;since it won't go any further,&mdash;I am as good a Presbyterian
+as he is, but I think he has prayed too much."</p>
+
+<p>"I see!" said Cary. "Well, I would be willing to put up a petition of my
+own just now.&mdash;Delay! Delay! We have set opportunity against a wall and
+called out the firing party." He rose. "Thanks for the biscuits. I feel
+another man. I'll go now and look after my wounded. There are enough of
+them, poor souls!"</p>
+
+<p>Another stir occurred at the door. The aide appeared. "They've taken
+some prisoners in the wood at the foot of the hill, sir. One of them
+says he's General Reynolds&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Reynolds! Good God, Reynolds! Bring him in&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>General Reynolds came in. "Reynolds!"&mdash;"Hill!"&mdash;"How are you,
+Reynolds?"&mdash;"Good Lord, it's Fauquier Cary!"</p>
+
+<p>The aide put a chair. The prisoner sank into it and covered his face
+with his hands. Presently he let them drop. "Hill, we ought not to be
+enemies! Messmates and tent-mates for a year!... It's ghastly."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll agree with you there, Reynolds. It's ghastlier than ghastly.&mdash;You
+aren't hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>Outside, over the great hilltop up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span>on which Richard Cleave was moving,
+the darkness might be felt. The air smelled strongly of burned powder,
+was yet thickened by smoke. Where fires had been kindled, the ruddy
+light went up like pillars to sustain a cloudy roof. There were
+treetops, burnished, high in air; then all the land fell to the swampy
+shores of the creek, and beyond to the vast and sombre battle plain,
+where the shells had rained. The masses of grey troops upon it, resting
+on their arms, could be divined by the red points of camp-fires.
+Lanterns, also, were wandering like marsh lights, up and down and to and
+fro. Here, on the plateau, it was the same. They danced like giant
+fireflies. He passed a blazing log about which were gathered a dozen
+men. Some wag of the mess had said something jocular; to a man they were
+laughing convulsively. Had they been blamed, they would perhaps have
+answered that it was better to laugh than to cry. Cleave passed them
+with no inclination to blame, and came to where, under the trees, the
+65th was gathered. Here, too, there were fires; his men were dropped
+like acorns on the ground, making a little "coosh," frying a little
+bacon, attending to slight hurts, cognizant of the missing but not
+referring to them loudly, glad of victory, burying all loss, with a wide
+swing of courage making the best of it in the darkness. When they saw
+Cleave they suspended all other operations long enough to cheer him. He
+smiled, waved his hand, spoke a short word to Hairston Breckinridge, and
+hurried on. He passed the 2d Virginia, mourning its colonel&mdash;Colonel
+Allen&mdash;fallen in the front of the charge. He passed other bivouacs&mdash;men
+of Rodes's, of Garland's, of Trimble's. "Where is General
+Jackson?"&mdash;"Can't tell you, sir&mdash;" "Here is General Ewell."</p>
+
+<p>"Old Dick" squatted by a camp-fire, was broiling a bit of bacon, head on
+one side, as he looked up with bright round eyes at Cleave, whom he
+liked. "That you, Richard Cleave? By God, sir, if I were as excellent a
+major-general as I am a cook!&mdash;Have a bit?&mdash;Well, we wolloped them! They
+fought like men, and we fought like men, and by God, I can't get the
+cannon out of my ears! General Jackson?&mdash;I thought he was in front with
+D. H. Hill. Going to do anything more to-night? It's pretty late, but
+I'm ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing&mdash;without General Jackson," said Cleave. "Thank you, general&mdash;if
+I might have a mouthful of coffee? I haven't the least idea when I have
+eaten."</p>
+
+<p>Ewell handed him the tin cup. He drank hastily and went on. Now it was
+by a field hospital, ghastly sights and ghastly sounds, pine boughs set
+for torches. He shut his eyes in a moment's fain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span>tness. It looked a
+demoniac place, a smoke-wreathed platform in some Inferno circle. He met
+a staff officer coming up from the plain. "General Lee has ridden to the
+right. He is watching for McClellan's next move. There's a rumour that
+everything's in motion toward the James. If it's true, there's a chase
+before us to-morrow, eh?&mdash;A. P. Hill suffered dreadfully. 'Prince John'
+kept McClellan beautifully amused.&mdash;General Jackson? On the slope of the
+hill by the breastworks."</p>
+
+<p>A red light proclaimed the place as Cleave approached it. It seemed a
+solitary flame, night around it and a sweep of scarped earth. Cleave,
+coming into the glow, found only the old negro Jim, squat beside it like
+a gnome, his eyes upon the jewelled hollows, his lips working. Jim rose.
+"De gineral, sah? De gineral done sont de staff away ter res'. Fo' de
+Lawd, de gineral bettah follah dat 'zample! Yaas, sah,&mdash;ober dar in de
+big woods."</p>
+
+<p>Cleave descended the embankment and entered a heavy wood. A voice
+spoke&mdash;Jackson's&mdash;very curtly. "Who is it, and what is your business?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the colonel of the 65th Virginia, sir. General Winder sends me,
+with the approval of General D. H. Hill, from the advance by the McGehee
+house."</p>
+
+<p>A part of the shadow detached itself and came forward as Jackson. It
+stalked past Cleave out of the belt of trees and over the bare red earth
+to the fire. The other man followed, and in the glare faced the general
+again. The leaping flame showed Jackson's bronzed face, with the brows
+drawn down, the eyes looking inward, and the lips closed as though no
+force could part them. Cleave knew the look, and inwardly set his own
+lips. At last the other spoke. "Well, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"The enemy is cramped between us and the Chickahominy, sir. Our pickets
+are almost in touch of theirs. If we are scattered and disorganized,
+they are more so,&mdash;confused&mdash;distressed. We are the victors, and the
+troops still feel the glow of victory."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"There might be a completer victory. We need only you to lead us, sir."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken. The men are wearied. They worked very hard in the
+Valley. They need not do it all."</p>
+
+<p>"They are not so wearied, sir. There is comment, I think, on what the
+Army of the Valley has not done in the last two days. We have our chance
+to refute it all to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"General Lee is the commander-in-chief. General Lee will give orders."</p>
+
+<p>"General Lee has said to himself: 'He did so wonderfully in the Valley,
+I do not doubt he will do as wonderfully here. I leave him free. He'll
+strike when it is time.'&mdash;It is time now, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, you are forgetting yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, I wish to rouse you."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson walked past the fire to a fallen tree, sat himself down and
+looked across to the other man. The low flame more deeply bronzed his
+face. His eyes looked preternaturally sunken. He sat, characteristically
+rigid, a figure in grey stone. There was about him a momentary air of an
+Indian, he looked so ruthless. If it was not that, thought Cleave, then
+it was that he looked fanatic. Whichever it might be, he perceived that
+he himself stood in arctic air. He had been liked, he knew; now he saw
+the mist of disfavour rise. Jackson's voice came gratingly. "Who sent
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"General Winder and General D. H. Hill."</p>
+
+<p>"You will tell General Hill that I shall make no further attack
+to-night. I have other important duties to perform."</p>
+
+<p>"I know what I risk," said Cleave, "and I do not risk it lightly. Have
+you thought of how you fell on them at Front Royal and at Winchester?
+Here, too, they are confused, retreating&mdash;a greater force to strike, a
+greater result to win, a greater service to do for the country, a
+greater name to make for yourself. To-morrow morning all the world may
+say, 'So struck Napoleon&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"Napoleon's confidence in his star was pagan. Only God rules."</p>
+
+<p>"And the man who accepts opportunity&mdash;is he not His servant? May we not,
+sir, may we not make the attack?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; not to-night. We have marred too many Sundays&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not Sunday!"</p>
+
+<p>Jackson looked across with an iron countenance. "So little the fighter
+knows! See, what war does! But I will keep, in part at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> least, the
+Sabbath. You may go, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"General Jackson, this is Friday evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Cleave, did you hear my order? Go, sir!&mdash;and think yourself
+fortunate that you do not go under arrest."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir&mdash;Sir&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Jackson rose. "One other word, and I take your sword. It occurs to me
+that I have indulged you in a freedom that&mdash;Go!"</p>
+
+<p>Cleave turned with sharp precision and obeyed. Three paces took him out
+of the firelight into the overhanging shadow. He made a gesture of
+sorrow and anger. "Who says that magic's dead? Now, how long will that
+potion hold him?" He stumbled in the loose, bare earth, swamp and creek
+below him. He looked down into that trough of death. "I gained nothing,
+and I have done for myself! If I know him&mdash;Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>He shook himself, went on through the sultry, smoky night, alternate
+lantern-slides of glare and darkness, to the eastern face of the
+plateau. Here he found Winder, reported, and with him encountered D. H.
+Hill coming with Fauquier Cary from the McGehee house. "What's that?"
+said Hill. "He won't pursue to-night? Very well, that settles it! Maybe
+they'll be there in the morning, maybe not. Look here, Winder!
+Reynolds's taken&mdash;you remember Reynolds?"</p>
+
+<p>Cary and Cleave had a moment apart. "All well, Fauquier? The
+general?&mdash;Edward?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. I saw Warwick for a moment. A minie had hurt his hand&mdash;not
+serious, he said. Edward I have not seen."</p>
+
+<p>"I had a glimpse of him this morning.&mdash;This morning!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;long ago, is it not? You'll get your brigade after this."</p>
+
+<p>The other looked at him oddly. "Will I? I strongly doubt it. Well, it
+seems not a large thing to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the main battlefield where A. P. Hill's and Longstreet's
+shattered brigades lay on their arms, beyond the small farmhouse where
+Lee waked and watched, beyond the Chickahominy and its swamps, beyond
+forest and farm land, lay Richmond under the stars. Eastwardly, within
+and without its girdling earthworks, that brilliant and histrionic
+general, John Bankhead Magruder, El Capitan Colorado, with a lisping
+tongue, a blade like Bayard's, and a talent for drama and strategy, kept
+General McClellan under the impression, confirmed by the whole Pinkerton
+force, that "at least eighty thousand men" had remained to guard
+Richmond, when Lee with "at least eighty thousand men" had crossed the
+Chickah<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span>ominy. Richmond knew better, but Richmond was stoically calm as
+to the possibility of a storming. What it had been hard to be calm over
+was the sound, this Friday, of the guns beyond the Chickahominy.
+Mechanicsville, yesterday, was bad enough, but this was frightful.
+Heavy, continuous, it took away the breath and held the heart in an iron
+grip. All the loved ones there&mdash;all the loved ones there!&mdash;and heavier
+and heavier toward night grew the fearful sound.... Then began the
+coming of the wounded. In the long dusk of the summer evening, the
+cannonading ceased. A little after nine arrived couriers, announcing the
+victory. The church bells of Richmond, not yet melted into cannon, began
+to ring. "It was a victory&mdash;it was a victory," said the people to one
+another.... But the wounded continued to come in, ambulance, cart, and
+wagon rolling like tumbrels over the stones. To many a mother was
+brought tidings of the death of her son, and many a wife must say, "I am
+widowed," and many children cried that night for their father. The heat
+was frightful. The city tossed and moaned, without sleep, or nursed, or
+watched, or wandered fevered through the streets. The noise of the James
+around its rocky islands was like the groaning of the distant
+battlefield. The odour of the June flowers made the city like a chamber
+of death. All windows were open wide to the air, most houses lighted.
+Sometimes from these there came forth a sharp cry; sometimes womens'
+forms, restless in the night, searching again the hospitals. "He might
+be here."&mdash;"He might be at this one." Sometimes, before such or such a
+house, cart or carriage or wagon stopped. "Oh, God! wounded or&mdash;?" All
+night long fared the processions from the field of Gaines's Mill to the
+hospitals. Toward dawn it began to be "No room. Try Robinson's&mdash;try the
+De Sales."&mdash;"Impossible here! We can hardly step between the rows. The
+beds gave out long ago. Take him to Miss Sally Tompkins."&mdash;"No room. Oh,
+the pity of it! Take him to the St. Charles or into the first private
+house. They are all thrown open."</p>
+
+<p>Judith, kept at the Stonewall all the night before, had gone home,
+bathed, drawn the shutters of her small room, lain down and resolutely
+closed her eyes. She must sleep, she knew,&mdash;must gather strength for the
+afternoon and night. The house was quiet. Last night the eldest son had
+been brought in wounded. The mother, her cousin, had him in her chamber;
+she and his mammy and the ol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span>d family doctor. His sister, a young wife,
+was possessed by the idea that her husband might be in one of the
+hospitals, delirious, unable to tell where he belonged, calling upon
+her, and no one understanding. She was gone, in the feverish heat, upon
+her search. There came no sounds from below. After the thunder which had
+been in the ear, after the sounds of the hospital, all the world seemed
+as silent as a cavern or as the depth of the sea. Judith closed her
+eyes, determinedly stilled her heart, drew regular breath, put herself
+out of Richmond back in a certain cool and green forest recess which she
+loved, and there wooed sleep. It came at last, with a not unhappy dream.
+She thought she was walking on the hills back of Greenwood with her Aunt
+Lucy. The two said they were tired and would rest, and entered the
+graveyard and sat down upon the bank of ivy beside Ludwell Cary's grave.
+That was all natural enough; a thing they had done many times. They were
+taught at Greenwood that there was nothing mournful there. Shells lay
+about them, beneath the earth, but the beneficent activities had
+escaped, and were active still, beneficent still.... The word "shells"
+in the dream turned the page. She was upon a great sea beach and quite
+alone. She sat and looked at the waves coming rolling in, and presently
+one laid Richard at her feet. She bandaged the cut upon his forehead,
+and called him by his name, and he looked at her and smiled. "Out of the
+ocean, into the ocean," he said. "All of us. A going forth and a
+returning." She felt herself, in the dream, in his arms, and found it
+sweet. The waves were beneath them; they lay now on the crests, now in
+the hollows, and there seemed no port. This endured a long while, until
+she thought she heard the sea-fairies singing. Then there came a booming
+sound, and she thought, "This is the port, or perhaps it is an island
+that we are passing." She asked Richard which it was, but he did not
+answer, and she turned upon the wave and found that he was not there....
+It was seaweed about her arms. The booming grew louder, rattled the
+window-glass. She opened her eyes, pushed her dark loosened hair from
+her arms and bosom, and sat up. "The cannon again!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at her watch. It was two o'clock. Rising, she put on her
+dark, thin muslin, and took her shady hat. The room seemed to throb to
+the booming guns. All the birds had flown from the tulip tree outside.
+She went downstairs and tapped at her cousin's door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> "How is
+he?"&mdash;"Conscious now, thank God, my dear! The doctor says he will be
+spared. How the house shakes! And Walter and Ronald out there. You are
+going back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Do not look for me to-night. There will be so much to be done&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, my dear. Louder and louder! And Ronald is so reckless! You
+must have something to eat."</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley will give me a glass of milk. Tell Rob to get well. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>She kissed her cousin, drank her glass of milk in the dining-room where
+the silver was jingling on the sideboard, and went out into the hot,
+sound-filled air. At three she was at her post in the hospital.</p>
+
+<p>The intermittent thunder, heavier than any on the continent before, was
+stilled at last,&mdash;at nine, as had happened the night before. The mazed
+city shook the mist from before its eyes, and settled to the hot night's
+work, with the wagons, bringing the dead and the wounded, dull on the
+cobblestones to the ear, but loud, loud to the heart. All that night the
+Stonewall Hospital was a grisly place. By the next morning every
+hospital in town was choked with the wounded, and few houses but had
+their quota. The surgeons looked like wraiths, the nursing women had
+dark rings beneath their eyes, set burningly in pale faces, the negroes
+who valiantly helped had a greyish look. More emotional than the whites,
+they burst now and then into a half wail, half chant. So heavy was the
+burden, so inadequate the small, beleaguered city's provision for the
+weight of helpless anguish, that at first there was a moment of
+paralysis. As easy to strive with the tornado as with this wind of pain
+and death! Then the people rallied and somewhat outstripped a people's
+best.</p>
+
+<p>From the troops immediately about the city came the funeral escorts. All
+day the Dead March from "Saul" wailed through the streets, out to
+Hollywood. The churches stayed open; old and young, every man in the
+city, white or black, did his part, and so did all the women. The need
+was so great that the very young girls, heretofore spared, found place
+now in hospital or house, beside the beds, the pallets, the mere
+blanket, or no blanket, on the floor. They could keep away the
+tormenting flies, drawn by the heat, the glare, the blood and effluvia,
+could give the parched lips water, could watch by the less terrifically
+hurt. All the city laboured; putting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span> aside the personal anguish, the
+private loss known, suspected, or but fearfully dreaded. Glad of the
+victory but with only calamity beneath its eyes, the city wrestled with
+crowding pain, death, and grief.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Cleave was at one of the great hospitals. An hour later came,
+too, Miriam and Christianna. "Yes, you can help. Miriam, you are used to
+it. Hold this bandage so, until the doctor comes. If it grows
+blood-soaked&mdash;like this one&mdash;call some one at once. Christianna, you are
+strong.&mdash;Mrs. Preston, let her have the bucket of water. Go up and down,
+between the rows, and give water to those who want it. If they cannot
+lift themselves, help them&mdash;so!"</p>
+
+<p>Christianna took the wooden bucket and the tin dipper. For all she
+looked like a wild rose she was strong, and she had a certain mountain
+skill and light certainty of movement. She went down the long room,
+giving water to all who moaned for it. They lay very thick, the wounded,
+side by side in the heat, the glare of the room, where all the light
+possible must be had. Some lay outstretched and rigid, some much
+contorted. Some were delirious, others writhed and groaned, some were
+most pathetically silent and patient. Nearly all were thirsty; clutched
+the dipper with burning fingers, drank, with their hollow eyes now on
+the girl who held it, now on mere space. Some could not help themselves.
+She knelt beside these, raised the head with one hand, put water to the
+lips with the other. She gained her mountain steadiness and did well,
+crooning directions in her calm, drawling voice. This bucket emptied,
+she found where to fill it again, and pursued her task, stepping lightly
+between the huddled, painful rows, among the hurrying forms of nurses
+and surgeons and coloured helpers.</p>
+
+<p>At the very end of the long lane, she came upon a blanket spread on the
+blood-stained floor. On it lay a man, blond and straight, closed eyes
+with a line between them, hand across his breast touching his shirt
+where it was stiff with dried blood. "Air you thirsty?" began
+Christianna, then set the bucket suddenly down.</p>
+
+<p>Allan opened his eyes. "Very thirsty.... I reckon I am light-headed. I'm
+not on Thunder Run, am I?"</p>
+
+<p>The frightful day wore on to late afternoon. No guns shook the air in
+these hours. Richmond understood that, out beyond the entre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span>nchments,
+there was a pause in the storm. McClellan was leaving his own wonderful
+earthworks. But would he retreat down the Peninsula by the way he had
+come, or would he strike across and down the James to his gunboats by
+Westover? The city gathered that General Lee was waiting to find out. In
+the meantime the day that was set to the Dead March in "Saul" passed
+somehow, in the June heat and the odour of flowers and blood.</p>
+
+<p>Toward five o'clock Judith left the Stonewall Hospital. She had not
+quitted it for twenty-four hours, and she came now into the light and
+air like a form emerging from Hades, very palely smiling, with the grey
+of the underworld, its breath and its terror still about her. There was
+hardly yet a consciousness of fatigue. Twelve hours before she had
+thought, "If I do not rest a little, I shall fall." But she had not been
+able to rest, and the feeling had died. For the last twelve she had
+moved like an automaton, swift, sure, without a thought of herself. It
+was as though her will stood somewhere far above and swayed her body
+like a wand. Even now she was going home, because the will said she
+must; must rest two hours, and come back fresher for the night.</p>
+
+<p>As she came out into the golden light, Cleave left the group of young
+and old about the door and met her. In the plane along which life now
+moved, nothing was unnatural; certainly Richmond did not find it so,
+that a lover and his beloved should thus encounter in the street, a
+moment between battles. Her dark eyes and his grey ones met. To find him
+there seemed as natural as it had been in her dream; the street was no
+more to her than the lonely beach. They crossed it, went up toward the
+Capitol Square, and, entering, found a green dip of earth with a bench
+beneath a linden tree. Behind them rose the terraced slope to the
+pillared Capitol; as always, in this square children's voices were heard
+with their answering nurses, and the squirrels ran along the grass or
+upon the boughs above. But the voices were somewhat distant and the
+squirrels did not disturb; it was a leafy, quiet nook. The few men or
+women who passed, pale, distrait, hurrying from one quarter of the city
+to another, heeded as little as they were heeded. Lovers'
+meetings&mdash;lovers' partings&mdash;soldiers&mdash;women who loved them&mdash;faces pale
+and grave, yet raised, hands in hands, low voices in leafy places&mdash;man
+and woman together in the golden light, in the breathing space before
+the cannon should begin again&mdash;Richmond was growing used to that. All
+life was now in public. For the most part a clear altruism swayed the
+place and time, and in the glow smallnes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span>s of comment or of thought was
+drowned. Certainly, it mattered not to Cleave and Judith that it was the
+Capitol Square, and that people went up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"I have but the shortest while," he said. "I came this morning with
+Allen's body&mdash;the colonel of the 2d. I ride back directly. I hope that
+we will move to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Following McClellan?"</p>
+
+<p>"To get across his path, if possible."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be another battle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. More than one, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"I have believed that you were safe. I do not see that I could have
+lived else."</p>
+
+<p>"Many have fallen; many are hurt. I found Allan Gold in the hospital. He
+will not die, however.... Judith, how often do I see your face beside
+the flag!"</p>
+
+<p>"When I was asleep I dreamed of you. We were drifting together, far out
+at sea&mdash;your arm here&mdash;" She lifted his hand, drew his arm about her,
+rested her head on his breast. "I love you&mdash;I love you&mdash;I love you."</p>
+
+<p>They stayed in the leafy place and the red-gold light for half an hour,
+speaking little, sitting sometimes with closed eyes, but hand in hand.
+It was much as though they were drifting together at sea, understanding
+perfectly, but weary from battling, and with great issues towering to
+the inner vision.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> They would have been less nobly minded had their own
+passion inexorably claimed them. All about them were suffering and death
+and the peril of their cause. For one half-hour they drew happiness from
+the darkly gigantic background, but it was a quiet and lofty form,
+though sweet, sweet! with whom they companioned. When the time was
+passed the two rose, and Cleave held her in his arms. "Love&mdash;Love&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>When he was gone she waited awhile beneath the trees, then slowly
+crossed the Capitol Square and moved toward the small room behind the
+tulip tree. The streets were flooded with a sunset glow. Into Franklin
+from Main came marching feet, then, dull, dull! the muffled drums.
+Soldiers and furled colours and the coffin, atop it the dead man's cap
+and gauntlets and sword; behind, pacing slowly, his war horse, stirrups
+crossed over saddle. Soldiers, soldiers, and the drums beating like
+breaking hearts. She moved back to a doorstep and let the Dead March
+from "Saul" go by.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RAILROAD GUN</h3>
+
+
+<p>The troops, moving at dawn to the Chickahominy, over a road and through
+woods which testified in many ways of the blue retreat, found the
+Grapevine Bridge a wreck, the sleepers hacked apart, framework and
+middle structure cast into the water. Fitz John Porter and the 5th Army
+Corps were across, somewhere between the river and Savage Station,
+leaving only, in the thick wood above the stream, a party of
+sharpshooters and a battery. When the grey pioneers advanced to their
+work, these opened fire. The bridge must be rebuilt, and the grey worked
+on, but with delays and difficulties. D. H. Hill, leading Jackson's
+advance, brought up two batteries and shelled the opposite side. The
+blue guns and riflemen moved to another position and continued, at short
+intervals, to fire on the pioneers. It was Sunday the twenty-ninth;
+fearfully hot by the McGehee house, and on Turkey Hill, and in the dense
+midsummer woods, and in the mosquito-breeding bogs and swamps through
+which meandered the Chickahominy. The river spread out as many arms as
+Briareus; short, stubby creeks, slow waters prone to overflow and creep,
+between high knotted roots of live-oak and cypress, into thickets of bog
+myrtle. The soil hereabouts was black and wet, further back light and
+sandy. The Valley troops drew the most uncomplimentary comparisons. To a
+man they preferred mountains, firm rolling champaign, clean rivers with
+rocky bottoms, sound roads, and a different vegetation. They were not in
+a good humour, anyhow.</p>
+
+<p>Ewell was at Dispatch Station, seven miles below, guarding Bottom's
+Bridge and tearing up the York River Railroad. Stuart was before him,
+sweeping down on the White House, burning McClellan's stations and
+stores, making that line of retreat difficult enough for an encumbered
+army. But McClellan had definitely abandoned any idea of return upon
+Yorktown. The head of his column was set for the James, for Harrison's
+Landing and the gunboats. There were twenty-five difficult miles to go.
+He had something like a hundred thousand men. He had five thousand
+wagons, heavy artillery trains, enormous stores, a rabble of camp
+followers, a vast, melancholy freight of sick and wounded. He left his
+camps and burned his depots, and plunged into the heavy, still, and
+torrid forest. This Sunday morning, the twenty-ninth, the entrenchments
+before Richmond, skilful, elaborate pieces of engineering, were found by
+Magruder's and Huger's scouts deserted by all but the dead and a few
+score of sick and wounded, too far gone to be moved. Later, columns of
+smoke, rising from various quarters of the forest, betrayed other
+burning camps or depots. This was followed by tidings which served to
+make his destination certain. He was striking down toward White Oak
+Swamp. There the defeated right, coming from the Chickahominy, would
+join him, and the entire great force move toward the James. Lee issued
+his orders. Magruder with Huger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> pursued by the Williamsburg road. A. P.
+Hill and Longstreet, leaving the battlefield of the twenty-seventh,
+crossed the Chickahominy by the New Bridge, passed behind Magruder, and
+took the Darbytown road. A courier, dispatched to Ewell, ordered him to
+rejoin Jackson. The latter was directed to cross the Chickahominy with
+all his force by the Grapevine Bridge, and to pursue with eagerness. He
+had the directest, shortest road; immediately before him the corps which
+had been defeated at Gaines's Mill. With D. H. Hill, with Whiting and
+Lawton, he had now fourteen brigades&mdash;say twenty thousand men.</p>
+
+<p>The hours passed in languid sunshine on the north bank of the
+Chickahominy. The troops were under arms, but the bridge was not
+finished. The smoke and sound of the rival batteries, the crack of the
+hidden rifles on the southern side, concerned only those immediately at
+issue and the doggedly working pioneers. Mere casual cannonading,
+amusement of sharpshooters, no longer possessed the slightest tang of
+novelty. Where the operation was petty, and a man in no extreme personal
+danger, he could not be expected to be much interested. The troops
+yawned; some of the men slept; others fretted. "Why can't we swim the
+damned old trough? They'll get away! Thank the Lord, I wasn't born in
+Tidewater Virginia! Oh, I'd like to see the Shenandoah!"</p>
+
+<p>The 65th Virginia occupied a rise of sandy ground covered with hazel
+bushes. Company A had the brink of it, looking out toward the enormously
+tall trees towering erect from the river's margin of swamp. The hazel
+bushes gave little shade and kept off the air, the blue above was
+intense, the buzzards sailing. Muskets were stacked, the men sprawling
+at ease. A private, who at home was a Sunday School superintendent, read
+his Bible; another, a lawyer, tickled a hop toad with a spear of grass;
+another, a blacksmith, rebound the injured ankle of a schoolboy. Some
+slept, snoring in the scanty shade; some compared diaries or related,
+scrappily enough, battle experiences. "Yes, and Robinson was scouting,
+and he was close to Garland's line, and, gosh! he said it was short
+enough! And Garland rode along it, and he said, said he, 'Boys, you are
+not many, but you are a noble few.'" Some listened to the booming of the
+sparring batteries; two or three who had lost close friends or kinsmen
+moped aside. The frank sympathy of all for these made itself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> apparent.
+The shadiest hazel bushes unobtrusively came into their possession;
+there was an evident intention of seeing that they got the best fare
+when dinner was called; a collection of tobacco had been taken and
+quietly pushed their way. Some examined knapsack and haversacks, good
+oilcloths, belts, rolled blankets, canteens, cartridge-boxes and
+cartridges, picked up upon the road. Others seriously did incline to
+search for certain intruders along the seams of shirt and trousers;
+others merely lay on their backs and looked up into Heaven. Billy Maydew
+was one of these, and Steve Dagg overturned the contents of a knapsack.</p>
+
+<p>It was well filled, but with things Steve did not want. "O Gawd! picters
+and pincushions and Testaments with United States flags in them&mdash;I never
+did have any luck, anyhow!&mdash;in this here war nor on Thunder Run
+neither!"</p>
+
+<p>Dave Maydew rolled over. "Steve says Thunder Run didn't like him&mdash;Gosh!
+what's a-going to happen ef Steve takes to telling the truth?"</p>
+
+<p>Sergeant Coffin turned from contemplation of a bursting shell above the
+Grapevine crossing. "If anybody finds any letter-paper and doesn't want
+it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A chorus arose. "Sorry we haven't got any!"&mdash;"I have got some&mdash;lovely!
+But I've got a girl, too."&mdash;"Sorry, sergeant, but it isn't pale blue,
+scented with forget-me-nots."&mdash;"Just <i>think</i> her a letter&mdash;think it out
+loud! Wait, I'll show you how. <i>Darling Chloe</i>&mdash;Don't get angry! He's
+most gotten over getting angry and it becomes him beautifully&mdash;<i>Darling
+Chloe</i>&mdash;What're <i>you</i> coming into it for, Billy Maydew? 'Don't tease
+him!'&mdash;My son, he loves to be teased. All lovers love to be teased.
+<i>Darling Chloe</i>. It is Sunday morning. The swans are warbling your name
+and so are half a dozen pesky Yankee Parrotts. The gentle zephyrs speak
+of thee, and so does the hot simoom that blows from Chickahominy,
+bringing an inordinate number of mosquitoes. I behold thy sinuous grace
+in the curls of smoke from Reilly's battery, and also in the slide and
+swoop of black buzzards over a multitude of dead horses in the woods.
+Darling Chloe, we are stranded on an ant heap which down here they call
+a hill, and why in hell we don't swim the river is more than at the
+moment I can tell you. It's rumoured that Old Jack's attending church in
+the neighbourhood, but we are left outside to praise God from whom all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span>
+blessings flow. Darling Chloe, this company is not so unpopular with me
+as once it was. War is teaching it a damned lot, good temper and pretty
+ways and what not&mdash;It is teaching it! Who says it is not?&mdash;Darling
+Chloe, if you could see how long and lean and brown we are and how
+ragged we are and how lousy&mdash;Of course, of course, sergeant, you're not!
+Only the high private in the rear rank is, and even he says he's
+not&mdash;Darling Chloe, if I could rise like one of those damned crows down
+there and sail over these damned flats and drop at your feet in God's
+country beyond the mountains, you wouldn't walk to church to-day with
+me. You'd turn up your pretty little nose, and accept the arm of some
+damned bombproof&mdash;Look out! What's the matter here? 'The last straw!
+shan't slander her!'&mdash;I'm not slandering her. I don't believe either
+she'd do it. Needn't all of you look so glum! I'll take it back. We
+know, God bless every last woman of them, that they don't do it! They
+haven't got any more use for a bombproof than we have!&mdash;I can't retract
+handsomer than that!&mdash;Darling Chloe, the Company's grown amiable, but it
+don't think much so far of its part in this campaign. Heretofore in
+tableaux and amateur theatricals it has had a star r&ocirc;le, and in this
+damned Richmond play it's nothing but a walking shadow! Darling Chloe,
+we want somebody to whoop things up. We demand the centre of the
+stage&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>It was so hot on the little sandy hill that there was much straggling
+down through the woods to some one of the mesh of water-courses. The men
+nearest Steve were all turned toward the discourser to Chloe, who sat on
+a lift of sand, cross-legged like an Eastern scribe. Mathew Coffin, near
+him, looked half pleased, half sulky at the teasing. Since Port Republic
+he was a better-liked non-commissioned officer. Billy Maydew, again flat
+on his back, stared at the blue sky. Steve stole a tin cup and slipped
+quietly off through the hazel bushes.</p>
+
+<p>He found a muddy runlet straying off from the river and quenched his
+thirst, then, turning, surveyed through the trees the hump of earth he
+had left and the company upon it. Beyond it were other companies, the
+regiment, the brigade. Out there it was hot and glaring, in here there
+was black, cool, miry loam, shade and water. Steve was a Sybarite born,
+and he lingered here. He didn't mean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span> to straggle, for he was afraid of
+this country and afraid now of his colonel; he merely lingered and
+roamed about a little, beneath the immensely tall trees and in the thick
+undergrowth. In doing this he presently came, over quaking soil and
+between the knees of cypresses, flush with the Chickahominy itself. He
+sat down, took his own knees in his arms and looked at it. It was not so
+wide, but it looked stiller than the sky, and bottomless. The banks were
+so low that the least rain lifted it over. It strayed now, here and
+there, between tree roots. There was no such word as "sinister" in
+Steve's vocabulary. He only said, "Gawd! I wouldn't live here for
+choice!" The country across the stream engaged his attention. Seen from
+this bank it appeared all forest clad, but where his own existence from
+moment to moment was in question Steve could read the signboards as well
+as another. Certain distant, southward moving, yellowish streaks he
+pronounced dust clouds. There were roads beneath, and moving troops and
+wagon trains. He counted four columns of smoke of varying thickness. The
+heavier meant a cluster of buildings, holding stores probably, the
+thinner some farmhouse or barn or mill. From other signs he divined that
+there were clearings over there, and that the blue troops were burning
+hayricks and fences as well as buildings. Sound, too&mdash;it seemed deathly
+still here on the brim of this dead water, and yet there was sound&mdash;the
+batteries, of course, down the stream where they built the bridge, but
+also a dull, low, dreary murmur from across,&mdash;from the thick forest and
+the lost roads, and the swamps through which guns were dragged; from the
+clearings, the corn and wheat fields, the burning depots and encampments
+and houses of the people&mdash;the sound of a hostile army rising from the
+country where two months before it had settled. All was blended; there
+came simply a whirring murmur out of the forest beyond the Chickahominy.</p>
+
+<p>Steve rose, yawned, and began again to prowl. Every rood of this region
+had been in possession of that humming army over there. All manner of
+desirable articles were being picked up. Orders were strict. Weapons,
+even injured weapons, ammunition, even half-spoiled ammunition,
+gun-barrels, ramrods, bayonets, cartridge-boxes, belts&mdash;all these must
+be turned in to the field ordnance officer. The South gleaned her
+battlefields of every ounce of lead or iron, every weapon or part of a
+weapon, every manufactured article of war. T<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span>his done, the men might
+appropriate or themselves distribute apparel, food, or other matters.
+Steve, wandering now, his eyes on earth, saw nothing. The black wet
+soil, the gnarled roots, the gloomy meanders of the stream, looked
+terribly lonely. "Gawd! even the water-rats don't come here!" thought
+Steve, and on his way back to the hill entered a thicket of low bushes
+with shiny green leaves. Here he all but stumbled over a dead soldier in
+a blue uniform. He lay on his face, arms out, hands clutching at some
+reed-like grass. His rifle was beside him, haversack&mdash;all undisturbed.
+"Picket," said Steve. "O Gawd, ain't war glorious?"</p>
+
+<p>Not at all without imagination, he had no fondness for touching dead
+men, but there were several things about this one that he wanted. He saw
+that the shoes wouldn't fit, and so he left them alone. His own rifle
+was back there, stacked with the others on the hot hillside, and he had
+no intention of bothering with this one. If the ordnance officer wanted
+it, let him come himself and get it! He exchanged cartridge-boxes, and
+took the other's rolled oilcloth, and then he looked into the haversack.</p>
+
+<p>Rising to his feet, he glanced about him with quick, furtive,
+squirrel-like motions of his head. Cool shade, stillness, a creepy
+loneliness. Taking the haversack, he left the thicket and went back to
+the brink of Chickahominy. Here he sat down between the cypress knees
+and drew out of the haversack the prize of prizes. It fixed a grin upon
+his lean, narrow face, the sight and smell of it, the black, squat
+bottle. He held it up to the light; it was three quarters full. The cork
+came out easily; he put it to his lips and drank. "Gawd! it ain't so
+damned lonely, after all!"</p>
+
+<p>The sun climbed to the meridian. The pioneers wrought as best they might
+on the Grapevine Bridge. The blue battery and the blue sharpshooters
+persisted in their hindering, and the grey battery continued to
+interfere with the blue. In the woods and over the low hills back of the
+Chickahominy the grey brigades of Stonewall Jackson rested, impatiently
+wondering, staring at the river, staring at the smoke of conflagrations
+on the other side and the dust streaks moving southward. Down on the
+swampy bank, squat between the cypress knees, Steve drank again, and
+then again,&mdash;in fact, emptied the squat, black bottle. The stuff filled
+him with a tremendous courage, and conferred upon him great fluency of
+thought. He waxed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> eloquent to the cypress roots upon the conduct of the
+war. "Gawd! if they'd listen ter me I'd te&mdash;tell them how!&mdash;I'd
+bui&mdash;build a bridge for the whole rotten army to cross on! Ef it broke
+I'd bui&mdash;build another. Yah! They don't 'pre&mdash;'preciate a man when they
+see him. Gawd! they're damn slow, and ain't a man over here got anything
+to drink! It's all over there." He wept a little. "O Gawd, make them
+hurry up, so's I kin git across." He put the bottle to his lips and
+jerked his head far back, but there was not a drop left to trickle
+forth. He flung it savagely far out into the water. "Ef I thought there
+was another like you over there&mdash;" His courage continued to mount as he
+went further from himself. He stood up and felt a giant; stretched out
+his arm and admired the muscle, kicked a clod of black earth into the
+stream and rejoiced in the swing of his leg. Then he smiled, a
+satyr-like grin wrinkling the cheek to the ear; then he took off his
+grey jacket, letting it drop upon the cypress roots; then he waded into
+the Chickahominy and began to swim to the further shore. The stream was
+deep but not swift; he was lank and lean but strong, and there was on
+the other side a pied piper piping of bestial sweetnesses. Several times
+arms and legs refused to co&ouml;perate and there was some likelihood of a
+death by drowning, but each time instinct asserted herself, righted
+matters, and on he went. She pulled him out at last, on the southern
+bank, and he lay gasping among the tree roots, somewhat sobered by the
+drenching, but still on the whole a courageous giant. He triumphed.
+"Yah! I got across! Goo'&mdash;goo-'bye, ye darned fools squattin' on the
+hillside!"</p>
+
+<p>He left the Chickahominy and moved through the woods. He went quite at
+random and with a peculiar gait, his eyes on the ground, looking for
+another haversack. But just hereabouts there showed nothing of the kind;
+it was a solemn wood of pines and cedars, not overtrampled as yet by
+war. Steve shivered, found a small opening where the sun streamed in,
+planted himself in the middle of the warmth, and presently toppled over
+on the pine needles and went to sleep. He slept an hour or more, when he
+was waked by a party of officers riding through the wood. They stopped.
+Steve sat up and blinked. The foremost, a florid, side-whiskered,
+magnificently soldierly personage, wearing a very fine grey uniform and
+the stars of a major-general, addressed him. "What are you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> doing here,
+thir? Thraggling?&mdash;Anther me!"</p>
+
+<p>Steve saluted. "I ain't the straggling kind, sir. Any man that says I
+straggle is a liar&mdash;exceptin' the colonel, and he's mistaken. I'm one of
+Stonewall's men."</p>
+
+<p>"Thtonewall! Ith Jackthon acwoss?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're building a bridge. I don't know if they air across yet. I
+swum."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you thwim for? Where'th your jacket? What's your
+wegiment?&mdash;'65th Virginia?'&mdash;Well, 65th Virginia, you appear to me a
+detherter&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Steve began to whine. "Gawd, general, I ain't no deserter. If you'll
+jest have patience and listen, I kin explain&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Time'th lacking, thir. You get up behind one of my couriers, and if
+Jackthon's crothed I'll return you to your colonel. Take him up,
+O'Brien."</p>
+
+<p>"General Magruder, sor, can't I make him trot before me face like any
+other water-spaniel? He's wet and dhirty, sor."</p>
+
+<p>"All wight, all wight, O'Brien. Come on, Gwiffith. Nine-Mile road and
+Thavage Thation!"</p>
+
+<p>The officers rode on. The courier regarded with disfavour the unlucky
+Steve. "Forward march, dhirty, desartin', weak-kneed crayture that ye
+be! Thrott!"</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the pine wood the two came into an area which had been
+overtrampled. Indescribably dreary under the hot sun looked the
+smouldering heaps and mounds of foodstuffs, the wrecked wagons, the
+abandoned picks and spades and shovels, the smashed camp equipage,
+broken kettles, pots and pans, the blankets, bedding, overcoats, torn
+and trampled in the mire, or piled together and a dull red fire slow
+creeping through the mass. Medicine-chests had been split by a blow of
+the axe, the vials shivered, and a black mire made by the liquids.
+Ruined weapons glinted in the sun between the furrows of a ruined
+cornfield; bags of powder, boxes of cartridges, great chests of shot and
+shell showed, half submerged in a tortuous creek. At the edge of the
+field, there was a cannon spiked and overturned. Here, too, were dead
+horses, and here, too, were the black, ill-omened birds. There was a
+trench as well, a long trench just filled, with two or three little head
+boards bearing some legend. "Holy Virgin!" said the courier, "if I was a
+horse, a child, or a woman, I'd hate war with a holy hathred!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Steve whined at his stirrup. "Look a-here, sir, I can't keep up! My
+foot's awful sore. Gawd don't look my way, if it ain't! I ain't
+desertin'. Who'd I desert to? They've all gone. I wanted a bath an' I
+swum the river. The regiment'll be over directly an' I'll rejoin. Take
+my oath, I will!"</p>
+
+<p>"You trot along out of this plundering mess," ordered the courier. "I'm
+thinking I'll drop you soon, but it won't be just here! Step lively
+now!"</p>
+
+<p>The two went on through the blazing afternoon sunshine, and in a
+straggling wood came upon a deserted field hospital. It was a ghastly
+place. The courier whistled reflectively, while the imaginative Steve
+felt a sudden sinking at the pit of the stomach, together with a cold
+dizziness and perspiration on the backs of his hands. The mind of the
+courier, striking out vigorously for some kind of a stimulant, laid hold
+of anger as the nearest efficient. "Bedad," he cried, "ye desartin',
+dhirty hound! it's right here I'll be afther lavin' ye, with the naked
+dead and the piles of arms and legs! Let go of my bridle or I'll strike
+you with my pistol butt! Ughrrrrr!&mdash;Get out of this, Peggy!"</p>
+
+<p>They left, mare and man, in a cloud of pine needles and parched earth.
+Steve uttered something like a howl and went too, running without regard
+to an in truth not mythical sore foot. He ran after the disappearing
+courier, and when presently he reached a vast patch of whitened
+raspberry bushes giving on a not wide and very dusty road and halted
+panting, it was settled forever that he couldn't go back to the
+plundering possibilities or to his original station by the Chickahominy,
+since to do so would be to pass again the abandoned field hospital. He
+kept his face turned from the river and somewhat to the east, and
+straggled on. A signpost told him that the dusty ribbon was the
+Nine-Mile road. Presently, among the berry bushes, he came upon a grey
+artilleryman sitting winding a strip of cloth around a wound in his leg.
+The artilleryman gave him further information. "Magruder's moving this
+way. I was ahead with my battery,&mdash;Griffith's brigade,&mdash;and some
+stinking sharpshooters sitting with the buzzards in the trees let fly at
+us! Result, I've got to hobble in at the end of the parade!&mdash;What's the
+matter with you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Captain," said Steve, "asked for a volunteer to swim the river (we're
+on the other side) and find out 'bout the currents. I swam it, and Gawd!
+jest then a Yankee battery opened and I couldn't get back! Regiment'll
+be over after awhile I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>The two sat down among the berry bushes. The road was visible, and upon
+it a great approaching pillar of dust. "Head of our column," said the
+artilleryman. "Four roads and four pursuing forces, and if we can only
+all strike Mac at once there'll be a battle that'll lay over Friday's,
+and if he gets to his gunboats at all it will be in a damaged condition.
+Magruder's bearing toward Savage Station, and if Jackson's across the
+Chickahominy we might do for Fitz John Porter&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"We might," agreed Steve. "I'll lie a little flatter, because the sun
+and the wetting has made my head ache. They're fine troops."</p>
+
+<p>The grey regiments went by, long swinging tread and jingling
+accoutrements. A major-general, riding at the head of the column, had
+the air of a Roman consul, round, strong, bullet head, which he had
+bared to the breeze that was springing up, close-cropped black hair,
+short black beard, high nose, bold eyes, a red in his cheeks. "That's
+General Lafayette McLaws," volunteered the artilleryman. "That's General
+Kershaw with him. It's Kershaw's brigade. See the palmetto on the
+flags."</p>
+
+<p>Kershaw's went by. Behind came another high and thick dust cloud. "Cobb
+and Toombs and Barksdale and Kemper and Semmes," said the artilleryman.
+"Suppose we canter on? I'll break a staff from those little heaven trees
+there. We might get to see the show, after all. York River Railroad's
+just over there."</p>
+
+<p>They went on, first to the ailanthus bushes, then, leaving the road to
+the troops, they struck across a ruined cornfield. Stalk and blade and
+tassel, and the intertwining small, pale-blue morning-glory, all were
+down. Gun-wheels, horses' hoofs, feet of men had made of naught the
+sower's pains. The rail fence all around was burning. In a furrow the
+two found a knapsack, and in it biscuit and jerked beef. "My Aunt Eliza!
+I was hungry!" said the artilleryman. "Know how the Israelites felt when
+they gathered manna off the ground!" Out of the cornfield they passed
+into a shaggy finger of forest. Suddenly firing broke out ahead. Steve
+started like a squirrel. "That's close to us!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There's the railroad!" said the other. "There's Fair Oaks Station. They
+had entrenchments there, but the scouts say they evacuated them this
+morning. If they make a stand, reckon it'll be at Savage Station. That
+musketry popping's down the line! Come on! I can go pretty fast!"</p>
+
+<p>He plied his staff. They came into another ragged field, narrow and
+sloping to a stretch of railroad track and the smoking ruins of a wooden
+station. Around were numerous earthworks, all abandoned. Beyond the
+station, on either side the road, grey troops were massing. The firing
+ahead was as yet desultory. "Just skirmishers passing the time of day!"
+said the artilleryman. "Hello! What're they doing on the railroad track?
+Well, I should think so!"</p>
+
+<p>Across the track, immediately below them, had been thrown by the
+retreating army a very considerable barricade. Broken wagons, felled
+trees, logs and a great mass of earth spanned it like a landslide. Over
+and about it worked a grey company detailed to clear the way. From the
+edge of a wood, not many yards up the track, came an impatient chorus.
+"Hurry up, boys! hurry up! hurry up! We want to get by&mdash;want to get
+by&mdash;"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"A railroad gun on a flat car placed&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>The artilleryman began to crow. "It's Lieutenant Barry and the railroad
+gun! Siege piece run on a car. Iron penthouse over it, muzzle sticking
+out&mdash;engine behind&mdash;"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"The Yankees skedaddle as though in haste<br />
+But this thirty-two pounder howitzer imp<br />
+It makes them halt and it makes them limp,<br />
+This railroad gun on a flat car placed."</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Hurry up there! Hurry up! Hurry! Steam's up! Coal's precious! Can't
+stay here burning diamonds like this all day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come on!" said the artilleryman. "I can sit down and dig. We've got to
+clear that thing away in a hurry." A shell from a hidden blue battery
+burst over the working party. Steve held back. "Gawd, man, we can't do
+no good! We'r<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span>e both lame men. If we got back a little into the wood we
+could see fine. That's better than fighting&mdash;when you're all used up
+like us&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The artilleryman regarded him. "No, it isn't better than fighting. I've
+been suspicioning you for some time, and I've stopped liking the company
+I'm in. All the same, I'm not going to drop it. Now you trot along in
+front. Being artillery I haven't a gun any more than you have, but I've
+a stick, and there isn't anything in the world the matter with my arm.
+It's used to handling a sponge staff. Forward! trot!"</p>
+
+<p>On the other side the ruined station, on the edge of an old field,
+Magruder, with him McLaws, waited for the return of a staff officer whom
+he had sent to the Grapevine Bridge three miles away. The shell which
+had burst over the party clearing the railroad track was but the first
+of many. Concealed by the heavy woods, the guns of the Federal rearguard
+opened on the grey brigades. Kershaw and Griffith, to the right of the
+road, suffered most. Stephen D. Lee sent forward Carlton's battery, and
+Kemper's guns came to its aid. They took position in front of the centre
+and began to answer the blue guns. A courier arrived from the
+skirmishers thrown out toward the dense wood. "Enemy in force and
+advancing, sir. Sumner and Franklin's corps, say the scouts."</p>
+
+<p>"All wight!" said Magruder. "Now if Jackthon's over, we'll cwush them
+like a filbert."</p>
+
+<p>The staff officer returned. "Well, thir, well, thir? Ith General
+Jackthon acroth? Will he take them in the rear while I thrike
+here?&mdash;Bryan, you look intolerably thober! What ith it?"</p>
+
+<p>"The bridge will not be finished for two hours, sir. Two or three
+infantry companies have crossed by hook or crook, but I should say it
+would be morning before the whole force is over."</p>
+
+<p>"Damn! Well&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I left my horse and got across myself, sir, and saw General Jackson&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, well&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He says, sir! 'Tell General Magruder that I have other important duties
+to perform'"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>There was a dead silence. Then McLaws spoke with Roman directness. "In
+my opinion there are two Jacksons. The one that came down here left the
+other one in the Valley."</p>
+
+<p>A great shell came with a shriek and exploded, a fra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span>gment mortally
+wounding General Griffith at the head of the Mississippi brigade. The
+Mississippians uttered a loud cry of anger. Carleton's battery thundered
+defiantly. Magruder drew a long breath. "Well, gentlemen; philothophy to
+the rethcue! If we can't bag the whole rearguard, we'll bag what we can.
+General advanthe and drive them!"</p>
+
+<p>Back on the railroad, in the long shadows of the late afternoon, the
+working party cleared away the last layer of earth and log and stood
+back happy. "Come on, you old railroad gun, and stop your blaspheming!
+Should think the engine'd blush for you!"</p>
+
+<p>The railroad gun puffed up, cannoneers picturesquely draped where there
+was hold for foot or hand. There was a momentary pause, filled with an
+interchange of affectionate oaths and criticism. The lame artilleryman
+laid hold of the flat car. "Take me along, won't you, and shuck me at my
+battery! Kemper's, you know. Can't I go, lieutenant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, climb on!"</p>
+
+<p>"And can't my friend here go, too? He's infantry, but he means well. He
+volunteered to swim the Chickahominy, and now he wants to get back so's
+he can report to Stonewall Jackson. Sh! don't deny it now. You're too
+modest. Can't he go, too, lieutenant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes. Climb on! All right, Brown! Let her go!"</p>
+
+<p>Kershaw, Griffith, and Semmes' brigades, advancing in line through light
+and shadow, wood and clearing, came presently into touch with the enemy.
+There followed a running fight, the Federals slowly retreating.
+Everywhere, through wood and clearing, appeared McClellan's earthworks.
+Behind these the blue made stand, but at last from line to line the grey
+pressed them back. A deep cut appeared, over which ran a railroad
+bridge; then woods, fields, a second ruined railroad station, beside
+which were burning cars filled with quartermaster's stores; beyond these
+a farmhouse, a peach orchard, and a field crossed by long rows of
+hospital tents. Before the farmhouse appeared a strong Federal line of
+battle, and from every little eminence the blue cannon blazed. Kershaw
+charged furiously; the two lines clashed and clanged. Semmes' brigade
+came into action on the right, Kemper's battery supporting. Griffith's,
+now Barksdale's&mdash;joined battle with a yell, the Mississippians bent on
+avenging Griffith. The air filled with smoke, the roar of guns and the
+rattle of musketry. There occurred, in the late afternoon, a bloody
+fight between forces not large, and fairly matched.</p>
+
+<p>The engine pushing the railroad gun alternately puffed and shrieked
+through dark woodland and sunset-flooded clearing. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span> courier appeared,
+signalling with his hat. "General Magruder's there by the bridge over
+the cut! Says, 'Come on!' Says, 'Cross the bridge and get into battery
+in the field beyond,' Says, 'Hurry up!'"</p>
+
+<p>The siege-piece and the engine hurried. With a wild rattle and roar, the
+crew all yelling, black smoke everywhere, and the whistle screaming like
+a new kind of shell, the whole came out of the wood upon the railroad
+bridge. Instantly there burst from the blue batteries a tremendous,
+raking fire. Shot and shell struck the engine, the iron penthouse roof
+over the siege-piece, the flat car, the bridge itself. From the car and
+the bridge slivers were torn and hurled through the air. A man was
+killed, two others wounded, but engine and gun roared across. They
+passed Magruder standing on the bank. "Here we are, general, here we
+are! Yaaih! Yaaaih!"</p>
+
+<p>"Th' you are. Don't thop here! Move down the track a little. Other
+Richmond howitthers coming."</p>
+
+<p>The other howitzers, four pieces, six horses to each, all in a gallop,
+captain ahead, men following in a mad run, whips crackling, drivers
+shouting, came all in thunder on the bridge and across. The blue shells
+flew like harpies, screaming, swooping, scattering ruin. A red gleam
+from the declining sun bathed the wild train. In a roar of sound the
+whole cleared the bridge and plunged from the track to the level field.
+<i>Forward into battery, left oblique, march!</i></p>
+
+<p>McLaws on the right, hard pressed, sent to Magruder for reinforcements.
+The 13th and 21st Mississippi answered. Kershaw, supported by Semmes and
+Kemper, advancing under an iron hail by deserted camp and earthwork,
+ordered the 2d, 3d and 7th South Carolina to charge. They did so, with a
+high, ringing cry, through the sunset wood into the fields, by the farm
+and the peach orchard, where they and the blue lines stubbornly engaged.
+On both sides, the artillery came furiously into action.</p>
+
+<p>The long twilight faded, the stars began to show. The firing slackened,
+died to occasional sullen outbursts, then to silence. On both sides the
+loss was heavy; the action remained indecisive. The grey rested on the
+field; the blue presently took up again their line of retreat toward
+White Oak Swamp. They left in the hands of the grey their dead, several
+hundred prisoners, and twenty-five hundred men in hospital. In the hot
+and sultry night, dark, with presage of a storm, through a ruined
+country, by the light <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span>of their own burning stores, the blue column
+wound slowly on by the single road toward White Oak Swamp and its single
+bridge. The grey brigades lit their small camp-fires, gathered up the
+wounded, grey and blue, dug trenches for the dead, found food where they
+might and went hungry where there was none, answered to roll call and
+listened to the silence after many names, then lay down in field and
+wood beneath the gathering clouds.</p>
+
+<p>Some time between sunset and the first star Steve Dagg found himself, he
+hardly knew how, crouching in a line of pawpaw bushes bordering a
+shallow ravine. The clay upon his shirt and trousers made it seem
+probable that he had rolled down the embankment from the railroad gun to
+the level below. That he was out of breath, panting in hard painful
+gasps, might indicate that he had run like a hare across the field. He
+could not remember; anyhow here he was, a little out of hell, just
+fringing it as it were. Lying close to earth, between the smooth pawpaw
+stems, the large leaves making a night-time for him, Steve felt deadly
+sick. "O Gawd! why'd I volunteer in, seein' I can't volunteer out?"
+Behind him he heard the roaring of the guns, the singing of the minies.
+A chance shell went over his head, dug itself into the soil at the
+bottom of the ravine, and exploded. The earth came pattering upon the
+pawpaw leaves. Steve curled up like a hedgehog. "O Gawd! I ain't got a
+friend in the world. Why didn't I stay on Thunder Run and marry Lucinda
+Heard?"</p>
+
+<p>At dark the guns ceased. In the silence his nausea lessened and the
+chill sweat dried upon him. He lay quiet for awhile, and then he parted
+the pawpaw bushes and crept out. He looked over his shoulder at the
+field of battle. "I ain't going that-a-way and meet that gunner
+again&mdash;damn him to everlasting hell!" He looked across the ravine toward
+the west, but a vision came to him of the hospital in the wood, and of
+how the naked dead men and the severed legs and arms might stir at
+night. He shivered and grew sick again. Southward? There was a glare
+upon all that horizon and a sound of distant explosions. The Yankees
+were sweeping through the woods that way, and they might kill him on
+sight without waiting for him to explain. A grey army was also over
+there,&mdash;Lee and Longstreet and A. P. Hill. He was as afraid of the grey
+as of the blue; after the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> railroad gun he was afraid of a shadow.
+Finally, he turned northward toward the Chickahominy again.</p>
+
+<p>The night, so dark and hot, presently became darker by reason of masses
+of clouds rising swiftly from the horizon and blotting out the stars.
+They hung low, they pressed heavily, beneath them a sulphur-tainted and
+breathless air. Lightnings began to flash, thunder to mutter. "Yah!"
+whimpered Steve. "I'm going to get wet again! It's true. Everything's
+agin me."</p>
+
+<p>He came again upon the swampy margin of the Chickahominy. It was wide,
+threaded by motionless waters, barred and banded with low-growing swamp
+shrubs, set with enormously tall and solemn trees. Steve, creeping
+between protruding roots, heard a screech owl in the distance. It cried
+and cried, but then the thunder rolled more loudly and drowned its
+hooting. He came flush with the dark stretch of the river. "Gawd, do I
+want to get across, or do I want to stay here? I wish I was dead&mdash;no, I
+don't!" He faced the lightning. "Gawd, that was jes' a mistake&mdash;don't
+take any notice of it, please.&mdash;Yaaah!" He had set his foot on a log,
+which gave beneath it and sank into deep water. With a screech like the
+owl's he drew back and squeezed himself, trembling, between the roots of
+a live-oak. He concluded that he would stay here until the dawn.</p>
+
+<p>The storm drew nearer, with long lightnings and thunder that crashed and
+rolled through the swamp. A vivid flash, holding a second or more,
+showed the stretch of the river, and several hundred yards above Steve's
+nook a part of a high railroad bridge. The gaunt trestle ran out past
+midstream, then stopped, all the portion toward the northern shore
+burned away. It stood against the intensely lit sky and stream like the
+skeleton of some antediluvian monster, then vanished into Stygian
+darkness. The thunder crashed at once, an ear-splitting clap followed by
+long reverberations. As these died, in the span of silence before should
+come the next flash and crash, Steve became conscious of another sound,
+dull and distant at first, then nearer and rushingly loud. "Train on the
+track down there! What in hell&mdash;It can't cross!" He stood up, held by a
+sapling, and craned his neck to look up the river. A great flash showed
+the bridge again. "Must be Yankees still about here&mdash;last of the
+rearguard we've been fighting. What they doing with the train? They must
+have burned the bridge themselves! Gawd!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A wildly vivid orange flash lit water, wood and sky, and the gaunt half
+of a bridge, stopping dead short in the middle of the Chickahominy. The
+thunder crashed and rolled, then out of that sound grew another&mdash;the
+noise of a rushing train. Something huge and dark roared from the wooded
+banks out upon the bridge. It belched black smoke mingled with sparks;
+behind it were cars, and these were burning. The whole came full upon
+the broken bridge. It swayed beneath the weight; but before it could
+fall, and before the roaring engine reached the gap, the flames of the
+kindled cars touched the huge stores of ammunition sent thus to
+destruction by the retreating column. In the night, over the
+Chickahominy, occurred a rending and awful explosion.... Steve, coming
+to himself, rose to his knees in the black mire. The lightning flashed,
+and he stared with a contorted face. The bridge, too, was gone. There
+was only the churned water, filled with scantlings and torn branches of
+trees. The rain was falling, a great hissing sweep of rain, and the wind
+howled beneath the thunder. Steve turned blindly; he did not know where
+he was going, but he had a conviction that the river was rising and
+would come after him. A hundred yards from the water, in the midnight
+wood, as he hurried over earth that the rain was fast turning into
+morass, he stumbled over some obstacle and fell. Putting out his hands,
+they came flat against a dead man's face. He rose and fled with a
+screech, southwardly now, in the direction of White Oak Swamp.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
+
+<h3>WHITE OAK SWAMP</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Grapevine Bridge being at last rebuilt, Stonewall Jackson's fourteen
+brigades crossed the Chickahominy, the movement occupying a great part
+of the night. Dawn of the thirtieth found the advance at Savage Station.</p>
+
+<p>The storm in the night had swelled the myriad creeks, and extended all
+morasses. The roads were mud, the wild tangles of underwood held water
+like a sponge. But the dawn was glorious, with carmine and purple towers
+and the coolest fresh-washed purity of air and light. Major-General
+Richard Ewell, riding at the head of his division, opined that it was as
+clear as the plains. A reconnoitring party brought him news about
+something or other to the eastward. He jerked his head, swore
+reflectively, and asked where was "Old Jackson."</p>
+
+<p>"He rode ahead, sir, to speak to General Magruder."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you go, Nelson, and tell him&mdash;No, you go, Major Stafford."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford went, riding through the cool, high glory of the morning. He
+found Jackson and Magruder at the edge of the peach orchard. All around
+were Magruder's troops, and every man's head was turned toward the stark
+and dust-hued figure on the dust-hued nag. The first had come from the
+Valley with a towering reputation, nor indeed did the last lack bards to
+sing of him. Whatever tarn cap the one had worn during the past three
+days, however bewildering had been his inaction, his reputation held.
+This was Jackson.... There must have been some good reason ... this was
+Stonewall Jackson. Magruder's brigades cheered him vehemently, and he
+looked at them unsmiling, with a mere motion of his hand toward the
+rusty old cadet cap. Magruder, magnificently soldierly, with much of
+manner and rich colour, magnanimously forgetful this morning of "other
+important duties" and affably debonair though his eyelids dropped for
+want of sleep, came gradually to halt in his fluent speech.&mdash;"Weally,
+you can't talk forever to a potht! If thilenthe be golden he ith the
+heavietht weight of hith time."&mdash;Jackson gathered up his reins, nodded
+and rode off, the troops cheering as he went by.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford, coming up with him, saluted and gave his message. Jackson
+received it with impassivity and rode on. Conceiving it to be his duty
+to attend an answer, the staff officer accompanied him, though a little
+in the rear. Here were an aide and a courier, and the three rode
+silently behind their silent chief. At the Williamsburg road there came
+a halt. Jackson checked Little Sorrel, and sat looking toward Richmond.
+Down the road, in the sunrise light, came at a canter a knot of horsemen
+handsomely mounted and equipped, the one in front tall and riding an
+iron-grey. Stafford recognized the commander-in-chief. Jackson sat very
+still, beneath a honey loc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span>ust. The night before, in a wood hard by, the
+17th Mississippi had run into a Federal brigade. The latter had fired,
+at point blank, a withering volley. Many a tall Mississippian had
+fallen. Now in the early light their fellow soldiers had gone seeking
+them in the wood, drawn them forth, and laid them in a row in the wet
+sedge beside the road. Nearly every man had been shot through the brain.
+They lay ghastly, open-eyed, wet with rain, staring at the cool and pure
+concave of the sky. Two or three soldiers were moving slowly up and down
+the line, bent on identifications. Presumably Jackson was aware of that
+company of the dead, but their presence could not be said to disturb
+him. He sat with his large hands folded over the saddle-bow, with the
+forage cap cutting all but one blue-grey gleam of his eyes, still as
+stone wall or mountain or the dead across the way. As the horsemen came
+nearer his lips parted. "That is General Lee?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!"</p>
+
+<p>Lee's staff halted; Lee himself came on, checked the iron-grey,
+dismounted, and walked toward the honey locust. Jackson swung himself
+stiffly out of the saddle and stepped forward. The two met. Lee
+stretched out his hand, said something in his gracious voice. The
+piteous row of dead men, with their open eyes, caught his glance. He
+drew his brows together, pressed his lips hard, parted them in a sigh
+and went on with his speech. The two men, so different in aspect, talked
+not long together. The staff could not hear what was said, but Lee spoke
+the most and very earnestly. Jackson nodded, said, "Good!" several
+times, and once, "It is in God's hands, General Lee!"</p>
+
+<p>The courier holding Traveller brought him up. Lee mounted, tarried, a
+great and gallant figure, a moment longer, then rode toward Magruder at
+the peach orchard. His staff followed, saluting Stonewall Jackson as
+they passed. He, too, remounted in his stiff and awkward fashion, and
+turned Little Sorrel's head down the Williamsburg road. Behind him now,
+in the clear bright morning, could be heard the tramp of his brigades.
+Stafford pushed his horse level with the sorrel. "Your pardon, general,
+but may I ask if there's any order for General Ewell&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There is none, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Then shall I return?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you will wait, sir. From the cross-roads I may send directions."</p>
+
+<p>They rode on by wood and field. Overhead was a clear, high, azure sky;
+no clouds, but many black sailing specks. Around, on the sandy road, and
+in the shaggy, bordering growth, were witnesses enough to the Federal
+retreat&mdash;a confused medley of abandoned objects. Broken and half-burned
+wagons appeared, like wreckage from a storm. There did not lack dead or
+dying horses, nor, here and there, dead or wounded men. In the thicker
+woods or wandering through the ruined fields appeared, forlornly,
+stragglers from the Federal column. D. H. Hill, leading the grey
+advance, swept up hundreds of these. From every direction spirals of
+smoke rose into the crystal air,&mdash;barns and farmhouses, mills, fences,
+hayricks, and monster heaps of Federal stores set on fire in that
+memorable "change of base." For all the sunshine of the June morning,
+the rain-washed air, the singing birds in the jewelled green of the
+forest, there was something in the time and place inexpressibly sinister
+and sad.</p>
+
+<p>Or so thought Maury Stafford, riding silently with the aide and the
+courier. At Gaines's Mill he had won emphatic praise for a cool and
+daring ride across the battlefield, and for the quick rallying and
+leading into action of a command whose officers were all down. With
+Ewell at Dispatch Station, he had volunteered for duty at the crossing
+of the Chickahominy, and in a hand-to-hand fight with a retiring Federal
+regiment he and his detachment had acquitted themselves supremely well.
+As far as this warfare went, he had reason to be satisfied. But he was
+not so, and as he rode he thought the morning scene of a twilight
+dreariness. He had no enthusiasm for war. In every aspect of life, save
+one, that he dealt with, he carried a cool and level head, and he
+thought war barbarous and its waste a great tragedy. Martial music and
+earth-shaking charges moved him for a moment, as they moved others for
+an hour or a day. The old, instinctive response passed with swiftness,
+and he settled to the base of a steadfast conclusion that humanity
+turned aside to the jungle many times too often in a century. That,
+individually, he had turned into a certain other allied jungle, he was
+conscious&mdash;not sardonically conscious, for here all his judgment was
+warped, but conscious. His mind ranged in this jungle with an unhappy
+fury hardly modern.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As he rode he looked toward Richmond. He knew, though he scarcely knew
+how he knew, that Judith Cary was there. He had himself meant to ride to
+Richmond that idle twenty-eighth. Then had come the necessity of
+accompanying Ewell to Dispatch Station, and his chance was gone. The
+Stonewall Brigade had been idle enough.... Perhaps, the colonel of the
+65th had gone.... It was a thick and bitter jungle, and he gathered
+every thorn within it to himself and smelled of every poisonous flower.</p>
+
+<p>The small, silent cavalcade came to a cross-roads. Jackson stopped,
+sitting Little Sorrel beneath a tall, gaunt, lightning-blackened pine.
+The three with him waited a few feet off. Behind them they heard the
+on-coming column; D. H. Hill leading, then Jackson's own division. The
+sun was above the treetops, the sky cloudless, all the forest
+glistening. The minutes passed. Jackson sat like a stone. At last, from
+the heavy wood pierced by the cross-road, came a rapid clatter of hoofs.
+Munford appeared, behind him fifty of his cavalry. The fifty checked
+their horses; the leader came on and saluted. Jackson spoke in the
+peculiar voice he used when displeased. "Colonel Munford, I ordered you
+to be here at sunrise."</p>
+
+<p>Munford explained. "The men were much scattered, sir. They don't know
+the country, and in the storm last night and the thick wood they
+couldn't see their horses' ears. They had nothing to eat and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He came to a pause. No amount of good reasons ever for long rolled
+fluently off the tongue before Jackson. He spoke now, still in the
+concentrated monotony of his voice of displeasure. "Yes, sir. But,
+colonel, I ordered you to be here at sunrise. Move on with your men. If
+you meet the enemy drive in his pickets, and if you want artillery
+Colonel Crutchfield will furnish you."</p>
+
+<p>Munford moved on, his body of horse increasing in size as the lost
+troopers emerged in twos and threes or singly from the forest and turned
+down the road to join the command. The proceeding gave an effect of
+disordered ranks. Jackson beckoned the courier. "Go tell Colonel Munford
+that his men are straggling badly."</p>
+
+<p>The co<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span>urier went, and presently returned. Munford was with him.
+"General, I thought I had best come myself and explain&mdash;they aren't
+straggling. We were all separated in the dark night and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. But I ordered you to be here at sunrise. Move on now, and
+drive in the enemy's pickets, and if you want artillery Colonel
+Crutchfield will furnish you."</p>
+
+<p>Munford and the 2d Virginia went on, disappearing around a bend in the
+road. The sound of the artillery coming up was now loud in the clear
+air. Jackson listened a moment, then left the shadow of the pine, and
+with the two attending officers and the courier resumed the way to White
+Oak Swamp.</p>
+
+<p>Brigade by brigade, twenty-five thousand men in grey passed Savage
+Station and followed Stonewall Jackson. The air was fresh, the troops in
+spirits. Nobody was going to let McClellan get to the James, after all!
+The brigades broke into song. They laughed, they joked, they cheered
+every popular field officer as he passed, they genially discussed the
+heretofore difficulties of the campaign and the roseate promise of the
+day. They knew it was the crucial day; that McClellan must be stopped
+before sunset or he would reach the shelter of his gunboats. They were
+in a Fourth of July humour; they meant to make the day remembered. Life
+seemed bright again and much worth while. They even grudgingly agreed
+that there was a curious kind of attractiveness about all this flat
+country, and the still waters, and the very tall trees, and labyrinthine
+vivid green undergrowth. Intermittent fevers had begun to appear, but,
+one and all, the invalids declared that this was their good day.
+"Shucks! What's a little ague? Anyhow, it'll go away when we get back to
+the Valley. Going back to the Valley? Well, we should think so! This
+country's got an eerie kind of good looks, and it raises sweet potatoes
+all right, but for steady company give us mountains! We'll drop
+McClellan in one of these swamps, and we'll have a review at the fair
+grounds at Richmond so's all the ladies can see us, and then we'll go
+back to the Valley pike and Massanutton and Mr. Commissary Banks! They
+must be missing us awful. Somebody sing something,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whom we shall see no more!</span><br />
+He wore a grey Confederate coat<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All buttoned down before&mdash;"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't like it that way? All right&mdash;"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"He wore a blue damn-Yankee coat<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All buttoned down before&mdash;"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The Stonewall Brigade passed a new-made grave in a small graveyard, from
+which the fence had been burned. A little further on they came to a
+burned smithy; the blacksmith's house beside it also a ruin, black and
+charred. On a stone, between two lilac-bushes, sat a very old man.
+Beside him stood a girl, a handsome creature, dark and bright-cheeked.
+"Send them to hell, boys, send them to hell!" quavered the old man. The
+girl raised a sweet and vibrant voice: "Send them to hell, men, send
+them to hell!"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll do our best, ma'am, we'll do our best!" answered the Stonewall.</p>
+
+<p>The sun mounted high. They were moving now through thick woods, broken
+by deep creeks and bits of swamp. All about were evidences enough that
+an army had travelled before them, and that that army was exceedingly
+careless of its belongings. All manner of impediments lay squandered;
+waste and ruin were everywhere. Sometimes the men caught an odour of
+burning meat, of rice and breadstuffs. In a marshy meadow a number of
+wrecked, canvas-topped wagons showed like a patch of mushrooms, giant
+and dingy. In a forest glade rested like a Siegfried smithy an abandoned
+travelling forge. Camp-kettles hacked in two were met with, and boxes of
+sutlers' wares smashed to fragments. The dead horses were many, and
+there was disgust with the buzzards, they rose or settled in such
+clouds. The troops, stooping to drink from the creeks, complained that
+the water was foul.</p>
+
+<p>Very deep woods appeared on the horizon. "Guide says that's White Oak
+Swamp!&mdash;Guide says that's White Oak Swamp!" Firing broke out ahead.
+"Cavalry rumpus!&mdash;Hello! Artillery butting in, too!&mdash;everybody but us!
+Well, boys, I always did think infantry a mighty no-'count, undependable
+arm&mdash;infantry of the Army of the Valley, anyway! God knows the moss has
+been growing on us for a week!"</p>
+
+<p>Munford sent back a courier to Jackson, riding well before the head of
+the column. "Bridge is burned, sir. They're in strong force on the other
+side&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said Jackson. "Tell Colonel Crutchfield to bring up the guns."</p>
+
+<p>He rode on, the aide, the courier, and Maury Stafford yet with him. They
+passed a deserted Federal camp and hospital, and came between tall trees
+and through dense swamp undergrowth to a small stream with many arms. It
+lay still beneath the blue sky, overhung by many a graceful, vine-draped
+tree. The swamp growth stretched for some distance on either side, and
+through openings in the foliage the blue glint of the arms could be
+seen. To the right there was some cleared ground. In front the road
+stopped short. The one bridge had been burned by the retreating Federal
+rearguard. Two blue divisions, three batteries&mdash;in all over twenty
+thousand men&mdash;now waited on the southern bank to dispute the White Oak
+Crossing.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford again pushed his horse beside Jackson's. "Well, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hunted once through this swamp, general. There is an old crossing
+near the bridge&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Passable for cavalry, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Passable by cavalry and infantry, sir. Even the guns might somehow be
+gotten across."</p>
+
+<p>"I asked, sir, if it was passable for cavalry."</p>
+
+<p>"It is, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson turned to his aide. "Go tell Colonel Crutchfield I want to see
+him."</p>
+
+<p>Crutchfield appeared. "Where are your guns, colonel?"</p>
+
+<p>"General, their batteries on the ridge over there command the road, and
+the thick woods below their guns are filled with sharpshooters. I want
+to get the guns behind the crest of the hill on this side, and I am
+opening a road through the wood over there. They'll be up
+directly&mdash;seven batteries, Carter's, Hardaway's, Nelson's, Rhett's,
+Reilly's, and Balthis'. We'll open then at a thousand yards, and we'll
+take them, I think, by surprise."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, colonel. That is all."</p>
+
+<p>The infantry began to arrive. Brigade by brigade, as it came up, turned
+to right or to left, standing under arms in the wood above the White Oak
+Swamp. As the Stonewall Brigade came, under tall trees and over earth
+that gave beneath the feet, flush with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> the stream itself, the grey
+guns, now in place upon the low ridge to the right, opened, thirty-one
+of them, with simultaneous thunder. Crutchfield's man&oelig;uvre had not
+been observed. The thirty-one guns blazed without warning, and the blue
+artillery fell into confusion. The Parrotts blazed in turn, four times,
+then they limbered up in haste and left the ridge. Crutchfield sent
+Wooding's battery tearing down the slope to the road immediately in
+front of the burned bridge. Wooding opened fire and drove out the
+infantry support from the opposite forest. Jackson, riding toward the
+stream, encountered Munford. "Colonel, move your men over the creek and
+take those guns."</p>
+
+<p>Munford looked. "I don't know that we can cross it, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you can cross it, colonel. Try."</p>
+
+<p>Munford and a part of the 2d Virginia dashed in. The stream was in truth
+narrow enough, and though it was deep here, with a shifting bottom, and
+though the d&eacute;bris from the ruined bridge made it full of snares, the
+horsemen got across and pushed up the shore toward the guns. A thick and
+leafy wood to the right leaped fire&mdash;another and unsuspected body of
+blue infantry. The echoes were yet ringing when, from above, an unseen
+battery opened on the luckless cavalry. The blue rifles cracked again,
+the horses began to rear and plunge, several men were hit. There was
+nothing to do but to get somehow back to the north bank. Munford and his
+men pushed out of the rain of iron, through the wood for some distance
+down the stream, and there recrossed, not without difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>The thirty-one guns shelled the wood which had last spoken, and drove
+out the skirmishers with whom it was filled. These took refuge in
+another deep and leafy belt still commanding the stream and the ruined
+causeway. A party of grey pioneers fell to work to rebuild the bridge.
+From the crest on the southern side behind the deep foliage two Federal
+batteries, before unnoted, opened on the grey cannoneers. Wooding, on
+the road before the bridge, had to fall back. Under cover of the guns
+the blue infantry swarmed again into the wood. Shell and bullet hissed
+and pattered into the water by the abutments of the ruined bridge. The
+working party drew back. "Damnation! They mustn't fling them minies
+round loose like that!"</p>
+
+<p>Wright's brigade of Huger's division came up. Wright made his report.
+"We tried Brackett's ford a mile up stream, sir. Couldn't manage it. Got
+two companies over by the skin of our teeth. They drove in some pickets
+on the other side. Road through the swamp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> over there covered by felled
+trees. Beyond is a small meadow and beyond that rising ground, almost
+free of trees. There are Yankee batteries on the crest, and a large
+force of infantry lying along the side of the ridge. They command the
+meadow and the swamp."</p>
+
+<p>So tall were the trees, so thick the undergrowth, so full the midsummer
+foliage that the guns, thundering at each other across the narrow
+stream, never saw their antagonists. Sharpshooters and skirmishers were
+as hidden. Except as regarded the pioneers striving with the bridge,
+neither side could see the damage that was done. The noise was
+tremendous, echoing loudly from the opposing low ridges and rolling
+through the swamp. The hollow filled with smoke; above the treetops a
+dull saffron veil was drawn across the sky. The firing was without
+intermission, a monotonous thunder, beneath which the working party
+strove spasmodically at the bridge, the cavalry chafed to and fro, and
+the infantry, filling all the woods and the little clearings to the
+rear, began to swear. "Is it the Red Sea down there? Why can't we cross
+without a bridge? Nobody's going to get drowned! Ain't more'n a hundred
+men been drowned since this war began! O Great Day in the Morning! I'm
+tired of doing nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>General Wade Hampton of D. H. Hill's division, leaving his brigade in a
+pine wood, went with his son and with an aide, Rawlins Lowndes, on a
+reconnoitring expedition of his own. He was a woodsman and hunter, with
+experience of swamps and bayous. Returning, he sought out Jackson, and
+found him sitting on a fallen pine by the roadside near the slowly,
+slowly mending bridge. Hampton dismounted and made his report. "We got
+over, three of us, general, a short way above. It wasn't difficult. The
+stream's clear of obstructions there and has a sandy bottom. We could
+see through the trees on the other side. There's a bit of level, and a
+hillside covered with troops&mdash;a strong position. But we got across the
+stream, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Can you make a bridge there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can make one for infantry, sir. Not, I think, for the artillery.
+Cutting a road would expose our position."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. Make the bridge, general."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Hampton's men cut saplings and threw a rude foot-bridge across the
+stream where he had traversed it. He returned and reported. "They are
+quiet and unsuspecting beyond, sir. The crossing would be slow, and
+there may be an accident, but cross we certainly can."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson, still seated on the fallen pine, sat as though he had been
+there through eternity, and would remain through eternity. The gun
+thundered, the minies sang. One of the latter struck a tree above his
+head and severed a leafy twig. It came floating down, touched his
+shoulder like an accolade and rested on the pine needles by his foot. He
+gave it no attention, sitting like a graven image with clasped hands,
+listening to the South Carolinian's report. Hampton ceased to speak and
+waited. It was the height of the afternoon. He stood three minutes in
+silence, perhaps, then glanced toward the man on the log. Jackson's eyes
+were closed, his head slightly lifted. "Praying?" thought the South
+Carolinian. "Well, there's a time for everything&mdash;" Jackson opened his
+eyes, drew the forage cap far down over them, and rose from the pine.
+The other looked for him to speak, but he said nothing. He walked a
+little way down the road and stood among the whistling minies, looking
+at the slowly, slowly building bridge.</p>
+
+<p>Hampton did as Wright and Munford had done before him&mdash;went back to his
+men. D. H. Hill, after an interview of his own, had retired to the
+artillery. "Yes, yes, Rhett, go ahead! Do something&mdash;make a noise&mdash;do
+something! Infantry's kept home from school to-day&mdash;measles, I reckon,
+or maybe it's lockjaw!"</p>
+
+<p>About three o'clock there was caught from the southward, between the
+loud wrangling of the batteries above White Oak, another sound,&mdash;first
+two or three detonations occurring singly, then a prolonged and
+continuous roar. The batteries above White Oak Swamp, the sharpshooters
+and skirmishers, the grey chafing cavalry, the grey masses of unemployed
+infantry, all held breath and listened. The sound was not three miles
+away, and it was the sound of the crash of long battle-lines. There was
+a curious movement among the men nearest the grey general-commanding.
+With their bodies bent forward, they looked his way, expecting short,
+quick orders. He rested immobile, his eyes just gleaming beneath the
+down-drawn cap, Little Sorrel cropping the marsh grass beside him.
+Munford, coming up, ventured a remark. "General Longstreet or General A.
+P. Hill has joined with their centre, I suppose, general? The firing is
+very heavy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The troops that have been lying before Richmond. General Lee will
+see that they do what is right."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford, near him, spoke again. "The sound comes, I think, sir, from a
+place called Glendale&mdash;Glendale or Frayser's Farm."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said Jackson; "very probably."</p>
+
+<p>The thunder never lessened. Artillery and infantry, Franklin's corps on
+the south bank of White Oak, began again to pour an iron hail against
+the opposing guns and the working party at the bridge, but in every
+interval between the explosions from these cannon there rolled louder
+and louder the thunder from Frayser's Farm. A sound like a grating wind
+in a winter forest ran through the idle grey brigades. "It's A. P.
+Hill's battle again!&mdash;A. P. Hill or Longstreet! Magruder and Huger and
+Holmes and A. P. Hill and Longstreet&mdash;and we out of it again, on the
+wrong side of White Oak Swamp! And they're looking for us to help&mdash;<i>Wish
+I was dead!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The 65th Virginia had its place some distance up the stream, in a
+tangled wood by the water. Facing southward, it held the extreme right;
+beyond it only morass, tall trees, swaying masses of vine. On the left
+an arm of the creek, thickly screened by tree and bush, divided it from
+the remainder of the brigade. It rested in semi-isolation, and its ten
+companies stared in anger at the narrow stream and the deep woods
+beyond, listening to the thunder of Longstreet and A. P. Hill's
+unsupported attack and the answering roar of the Federal 3d Army Corps.
+It was a sullen noise, deep and unintermittent. The 65th, waiting for
+orders, could have wept as the orders did not come. "Get across? Well,
+if General Jackson would just give us leave to try!&mdash;Oh, hell! listen to
+that!&mdash;Colonel, can't you do something for us?&mdash;Where's the colonel
+gone?"</p>
+
+<p>Cleave was beyond their vision. He had rounded a little point of land
+and now, Dundee's hoofs in water, stood gazing at the darkly wooded
+opposite shore. He stood a moment thus, then spoke to the horse, and
+they entered the stream. It was not deep, and though there were
+obstructions, old stakes and drowned brushwood, Cleave and Dundee
+crossed. The air was full of booming sound, but there was no motion in
+the wood into which they rose from the water. All its floor was marshy,
+water in pools and threads, a slight growth of cane, and above, the tall
+and solemn trees. Cleave saw that th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span>ere was open meadow beyond.
+Dismounting, he went noiselessly to the edge of the swamp. An open
+space, covered with some low growth; beyond it a hillside. Wood and
+meadow and hill, all lay quiet and lonely in the late sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>He went back to Dundee, remounted, passed again through the sombre wood,
+over the boggy earth, entered the water and recrossed. Turning the
+little point of the swamp, he rode before his regiment on his way to
+find Winder. His men greeted him. "Colonel, if you could just get us
+over there we'd do anything in the world for you! This weeping-willow
+place is getting awful hard to bear! Look at Dundee! Even he's drooping
+his head. You know we'd follow you through hell, sir; and if you could
+just manage it so's we could follow you through White Oak Swamp&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Cleave passed the arm of the creek separating the 65th from the rest of
+the brigade, and asked of Winder from the first troops beyond the screen
+of trees. "General Winder has ridden down to the bridge to see General
+Jackson."</p>
+
+<p>Cleave, following, found his leader indeed before Jackson, just
+finishing his representations whatever they were, and somewhat perturbed
+by the commanding general's highly developed silence. This continuing
+unbroken, Winder, after an awkward minute of waiting, fell a little
+back, a flush on his cheeks and his lips hard together. The action
+disclosed Cleave, just come up, his hand checking Dundee, his grey eyes
+earnestly upon Jackson. When the latter spoke, it was not to the
+brigadier but to the colonel of the 65th. "Why are you not with your
+regiment, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I left it but a moment ago, sir, to bring information I thought it my
+duty to bring."</p>
+
+<p>"What information?"</p>
+
+<p>"The 65th is on General Winder's extreme right, sir. The stream before
+it is fordable."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I forded it. The infantry could cross without much difficulty. The 65th
+would be happy, sir, to lead the way."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Winder opened his lips. "The whole Stonewall Brigade is ready, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson, without regarding, continued to address himself to Cleave. His
+tone had been heard before by the latter&mdash;in his own case on the night
+of the twenty-seventh as well as once before, and in the case of others
+where there had been what was construed as remonstrance or negligence or
+disobedience. He had heard him speak so to Garnett after Kernstown. The
+words were simple enough&mdash;they always were. "You will return to your
+duty, sir. It lies where your regiment is, and that is not here. Go!"</p>
+
+<p>Cleave obeyed. The ford was there. His regiment might have crossed, the
+rest of the Stonewall following. Together they might traverse the swamp
+and the bit of open, pass the hillside, and strike Franklin upon the
+flank, while, brigade by brigade, the rest of the division followed by
+that ford. Rout Franklin, and push forward to help A. P. Hill. It had
+appeared his duty to give the information he was possessed of. He had
+given it, and his skirts were cleared. There was anger in him as he
+turned away; he had a compressed lip, a sparkling eye. Not till he
+turned did he see Stafford, sitting his horse in the shadow behind
+Jackson. The two men stared full at each other for a perceptible moment.
+But Stafford's face was in the shadow, and as for Cleave his mind was
+full of anger for the tragedy of the inaction. At the moment he gave
+small attention to his own life, its heights or depths, past or future.
+He saw Stafford, but he could not be said to consider him at all. He
+turned from the road into the wood, and pushed the great bay over spongy
+ground toward the isolated 65th. Stafford saw that he gave him no
+thought, and it angered him. On the highroad of his life it would not
+have done so, but he had left the road and was lost in the jungle. There
+were few things that Richard Cleave might do which would not now work
+like madness on the mind astray in that place.</p>
+
+<p>The cannonading over White Oak Swamp continued, and the sound of the
+battle of Frayser's Farm continued. On a difficult and broken ground
+Longstreet attacked, driving back McCall's division. McCall was
+reinforced and Longstreet hard pressed. Lee loosed A. P. Hill, and the
+battle became furious. He looked for Jackson, but Jackson was at White
+Oak Swamp; for Huger, but a road covered with felled trees delayed
+Huger; for Magruder, but in the tangle of wood and swamp Magruder, too,
+went astray; for Holmes, but Fitz John Porter held Holmes in check.
+Longstreet and A. P. Hill strove unsupported, fifty thousand grey troops
+in hearing of their guns. The battle swayed to and fro, long, loud, and
+sanguina<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span>ry, with much hand-to-hand work, much use of bayonets, and,
+over all, a shriek of grape and canister.</p>
+
+<p>Back on White Oak Swamp, Franklin on the southern side, Jackson on the
+northern, blue and grey alike caught the noise of battle. They
+themselves were cannonading loudly and continuously. One Federal battery
+used fifteen hundred rounds. The grey were hardly less lavish. Not much
+damage was done except to the trees. The trough through which crept the
+sluggish water was filled with smoke. It drifted through the swamp and
+the woods and along the opposing hillsides. It drifted over and about
+the idle infantry, until one command was hidden from another.</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson, seated on the stump of a felled oak, his sabre across
+his knees, his hands rigid upon it, his great booted feet squarely
+planted, his cap drawn low, sent the aide beside him with some order to
+the working party at the bridge. A moment later the courier went, too,
+to D. H. Hill, with a query about prisoners. The thunders continued, the
+smoke drifted heavily, veiling all movements. Jackson spoke without
+turning. "Whoever is there&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>No one was there at the moment but Maury Stafford. He came forward. "You
+will find the 1st Brigade," said Jackson. "Tell General Winder to move
+it nearer the stream. Tell him to cross from his right, with caution, a
+small reconnoitring party. Let it find out the dispositions of the
+enemy, return and report."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford went, riding westward through the smoke-filled forest, and came
+presently to the Stonewall Brigade and to Winder, walking up and down
+disconsolately. "An order from General Jackson, sir. You will move your
+brigade nearer the stream. Also you will cross, from your right, with
+caution, a small reconnoitring party. It will discover the dispositions
+of the enemy, return and report."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," said Winder. "I'll move at once. The 65th is already on the
+brink&mdash;there to the right, beyond the swamp. Perhaps, you'll take the
+order on to Colonel Cleave?&mdash;Very good! Tell him to send a picked squad
+quietly across and find out what he can. I hope to God there'll come
+another order for us all to cross at its heels!"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford, riding on, presently found himself in a strip of bog and
+thicket and tall trees masking a narrow, sluggish piece of wate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span>r. The
+brigade behind him was hidden, the regiment in front not yet visible.
+Despite the booming of the guns, there was here an effect of stillness.
+It seemed a lonely place. Stafford, traversing it slowly because the
+ground gave beneath his horse's feet, became aware of a slight movement
+in a laurel thicket and of two eyes gleaming behind the leaves. He
+reined in his horse. "What are you doing in there? Straggling or
+deserting? Come out!" There was a pause; then Steve Dagg emerged.
+"Major, I ain't either stragglin' or desertin'. I was just seperated&mdash;I
+got seperated last night. The regiment's jes' down there&mdash;I crept down
+an' saw it jes' now. I'm goin' back an' join right away&mdash;send me to hell
+if I ain't!&mdash;though Gawd knows my foot's awful sore&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford regarded him closely. "I've seen you before. Ah, I remember! On
+the Valley pike, moving toward Winchester.... Poor scoundrel!"</p>
+
+<p>Steve, his back against a swamp magnolia, undertook to show that he,
+too, remembered, and that gratefully. "Yes, sir. You saved me from
+markin' time on a barrel-head, major&mdash;an' my foot <i>was</i> sore&mdash;an' I
+wasn't desertin' that time any more'n this time&mdash;an' I was as obleeged
+to you as I could be. The colonel's awful hard on the men."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he?" said Stafford gratingly. "They seem to like him."</p>
+
+<p>He sat his horse before the laurel thicket and despised himself for
+holding conference with this poor thief; or, rather, some fibre in his
+brain told him that, out of this jungle, if ever he came out of it, he
+would despise himself. Had he really done so now, he would have turned
+away. He did not so; he sat in the heart of the jungle and compared
+hatreds with Steve.</p>
+
+<p>The latter glanced upward a moment with his ferret eyes, then turned his
+head aside and spat. "If there's any of my way of thinkin' they don't
+like him&mdash;But they're all fools! Crept down through the swamp a little
+ago an' heard it! 'Colonel, get us across, somehow, won't you? We'll
+fight like hell!' 'I can't, men. I haven't any orders.' Yaah! I wish
+he'd take the regiment over without them, and then be court-martialled
+and shot for doing it!" Steve spat again. "I seed long ago that you
+didn't like him either, major. He gets along too fast&mdash;all the prizes
+come his way."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Stafford, from the heart of the jungle. "They come his
+way.... And he's standing there at the edge of the water, hoping for
+orders to cross."</p>
+
+<p>Steve, beneath the swamp magnolia, had a widening of the lips. "Luck's
+turned agin him one way, though. He's out of favour with Old Jack. The
+regiment don't know why, but it saw it mighty plain day before
+yesterday, after the big battle! Gawd knows I'd like to see him so deep
+in trouble he'd never get out&mdash;and so would you, major. Prizes would
+stop coming his way then, and he might lose those he has&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If I entertain a devil," said Stafford, "I'll not be hypocrite enough
+to object to his conversation. Nor, if I take his suggestion, is there
+any sense in covering him with reprobation. So go your way, miserable
+imp! while I go mine!"</p>
+
+<p>But Steve kept up with him, half-running at his stirrup. "I got to
+rejoin, 'cause it's jest off one battlefield on to another, and there
+ain't nowhere else to go! This world's a sickenin' place for men like
+me. So I've got to rejoin. Ef there's ever anything I kin do for you,
+major&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At the head of the dividing arm of the creek they heard behind them a
+horseman, and waited for a courier to come up. "You are going on to the
+65th?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. I belong there. I was kept by General Winder for some special
+duty, and I'm just through it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have an order," said Stafford, "from General Winder to Colonel
+Cleave. There are others to carry and time presses. I'll entrust it to
+you. Listen now, and get it straight."</p>
+
+<p>He gave an order. The courier listened, nodded energetically, repeated
+it after him, and gathered up the reins. "I am powerfully glad to carry
+that order, sir! It means 'Cross,' doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>He rode off, southward to the stream, in which direction Steve had
+already shambled. Stafford returned, through wood and swamp, to the road
+by the bridge. Above and around the deep inner jungle his intellect
+worked. He knew that he had done a villainy; knew it and did not repent.
+A nature, fine enough in many ways, lay bound hand and foot, deep in
+miasmas and primal heat, captive to a master and consuming passion. To
+create a solitude where he alone might reach one woman's figure, he
+would have set a world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span> afire. He rode back now, through the woods, to a
+general commanding who never forgave nor listened overmuch to
+explanations, and he rode with quietude, the very picture of a gallant
+soldier.</p>
+
+<p>Back on the edge of White Oak Swamp, Richard Cleave considered the order
+he had received. He found an ambiguity in the wording, a choice of
+constructions. He half turned to send the courier again to Winder, to
+make absolutely sure that the construction which he strongly preferred
+was correct. As he did so, though he could not see the brigade beyond
+the belt of trees, he heard it in motion, <i>coming down through the woods
+to cross the stream in the rear of the 65th</i>. He looked at the ford and
+the silent woods beyond. From Frayser's Farm, so short a distance away,
+came a deeper roll of thunder. It had a solemn and a pleading sound,
+<i>How long are we to wait for any help?</i> Cleave knit his brows; then,
+with a decisive gesture of his hand, he dismissed the doubt and stepped
+in front of his colour company. <i>Attention! Into column. Forward!</i></p>
+
+<p>On the road leading down to the bridge Stafford met his own division
+general, riding Rifle back to his command. "Hello, Major Stafford!" said
+Old Dick. "I thought I had lost you."</p>
+
+<p>"General Jackson detained me, general."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, you aren't the only one! But let me tell you, major, he's
+coming out of his spell!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think it was a spell, then, sir?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Sure of it! Old Jackson simply hasn't been here at all. D. H. Hill
+thinks he's been broken down and ill&mdash;and somebody else is poetical and
+says his star never shines when another's is above it, which is
+nonsense&mdash;and somebody else thinks he thought we did enough in the
+Valley, which is damned nonsense&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, sir. Damned nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>Ewell jerked his head. "Yes, sir. No man's his real self all the
+time&mdash;whether he's a Presbyterian or not. Old Jackson simply hasn't been
+in this cursed low country at all! But &mdash;&mdash;! I've been trying to give
+advice down there, and, by God, sir, he's approaching! If it was a
+spell, it's lifting! That bridge'll be built pretty soon, I reckon, and
+when we cross at last we'll cross with Stonewall Jackson going on
+before!"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>MALVERN HILL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Star by star the heavens paled. The dawn came faintly and mournfully up
+from the east. Beneath it the battlefield of Frayser's Farm lay hushed
+and motionless, like the sad canvas of a painter, the tragic dream of a
+poet. It was far flung over broken ground and strewn with wrecks of war.
+Dead men and dying&mdash;very many of them, for the fighting had been
+heavy&mdash;lay stretched in the ghostly light, and beside them dead and
+dying horses. Eighteen Federal guns had been taken. They rested on
+ridged earth, black against the cold, grey sky. Stark and silent, far
+and wide, rolled the field beneath the cold, mysterious, changing light.
+Beside the dead men there were sleeping troops, regiments lying on their
+arms, fallen last night where they were halted, slumbering heavily
+through the dew-drenched summer night. As the sky grew purple and the
+last star went out, the bugles began to blow. The living men rose. If
+the others heard a reveille, it was in far countries.</p>
+
+<p>Edward Cary, lying down in the darkness near one of the guns, had put
+out a hand and touched a bedfellow. The soldier seemed asleep, and
+Edward slept too, weary enough to have slept in Hades. Now, as the
+bugles called, he sat up and looked at his companion&mdash;who did not rise.
+"I thought you lay very still," said Edward. He sat a moment, on the
+dank earth, beside the still, grey figure. The gun stood a little above
+him; through a wheel as through a rose window he saw the flush of dawn.
+The dead soldier's eyes were open; they, too, stared through the
+gun-wheel at the dawn. Edward closed them. "I never could take death
+seriously," he said; "which is fortunate, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later his regiment, moving down the Quaker road, came to a
+halt before a small, pillared, country church. A group of officers sat
+their horses near the portico. Lee was in front, quiet and grand. Out of
+the cluster Warwick Cary pushed his horse across to the halted regiment.
+Father and son were presently holding converse beneath a dusty roadside
+cedar. "I am thankful to see you!" said Edward. "We heard of the great
+charge you made. Please take better care of yourself, father!"</p>
+
+<p>"The past week has been like a dream," answered the other; "one of those
+dreams in which, over and over, some undertaking, vital to you and
+tremendous, is about to march. Then, over and over, comes some pettiest
+obstacle, and the whole vast matter is turned awry."</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday should have been ours."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. General Lee had planned as he always plans. We should have crushed
+McClellan. Instead, we fought alone&mdash;and we lost four thousand men; and
+though we made the enemy lose as many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span>, he has again drawn himself out
+of our grasp and is before us. I think that to-day we will have a
+fearful fight."</p>
+
+<p>"Jackson is over at last."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, close behind us. Whiting is leading; I saw him a moment. There's a
+report that one of the Stonewall regiments crossed and was cut in pieces
+late yesterday afternoon&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope it wasn't Richard's!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not. I have a curious, boding feeling about it.&mdash;There beat your
+drums! Good-bye, again&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He leaned from his saddle and kissed his son, then backed his horse
+across the road to the generals by the pillared church. The regiment
+marched away, and as it passed it cheered General Lee. He lifted his
+hat. "Thank you, men. Do your best to-day&mdash;do your best."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll mind you, Marse Robert, we'll mind you!" cried the troops, and
+went by shouting.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere down the Quaker Road the word "Malvern Hill" seemed to drop
+from the skies. "Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill. They're all massed on
+Malvern Hill. Three hundred and forty guns. And on the James the
+gunboats. Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill."</p>
+
+<p>A man in line with Edward described the place. "My last year at William
+and Mary I spent Christmas at Westover. We hunted over all Malvern Hill.
+It rises one hundred and fifty feet, and the top's a mile across. About
+the base there are thick forests and swamps, and Turkey Creek goes
+winding, winding to the James. You see the James&mdash;the wide, old, yellow
+river, with the birds going screaming overhead. There were no gunboats
+on it that day, no Monitors, or Galenas, or Maritanzas, and if you'd
+told us up there on Malvern Hill that the next time we climbed it&mdash;! At
+Westover, after supper, they told Indian stories and stories of
+Tarleton's troopers, and in the night we listened for the tap of Evelyn
+Byrd's slipper on the stair. We said we heard it&mdash;anyhow, we didn't hear
+gunboats and three hundred thirty-two pounders!"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"'When only Beauty's eyes did rake us fore and aft,<br />
+When only Beaux used powder, and Cupid's was the shaft&mdash;'"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>sang Edward,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"'Most fatal was the war and pleasant to be slain&mdash;'"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p><i>Malvern Hill</i>, beat out the marching feet. <i>Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill.
+Malvern Hill.</i></p>
+
+<p>There was a deep wood, out from which ran like spurs shallow ravines,
+clad with briar and bush and young trees; there was a stretch of rail
+fence; and there was a wheat field, where the grain stood in shocks.
+Because of the smoke, however, nothing could be seen plainly; and
+because of the most awful sound, few orders were distinctly heard.
+Evidently officers were shouting; in the rents of the veil one saw waved
+arms, open mouths, gesticulations with swords. But the loud-mouthed guns
+spoke by the score, and the blast bore the human voice away. The
+regiment in which was Edward Cary divined an order and ceased firing,
+lying flat in sedge and sassafras, while a brigade from the rear roared
+by. Edward looked at his fingers. "Barrel burn them?" asked a neighbour.
+"Reckon they use red-hot muskets in hell? Wish you could see your lips,
+Edward! Round black O. Biting cartridges for a living&mdash;and it used to be
+when you read Plutarch that you were all for the peaceful heroes! You
+haven't a lady-love that would look at you now!</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"'Take, oh, take those lips away<br />
+That so blackly are enshrined&mdash;'</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Here comes a lamp-post&mdash;a lamp-post&mdash;a lamp-post!"</p>
+
+<p>The gunboats on the river threw the "lamp-posts." The long and horrible
+shells arrived with a noise that was indescribable. A thousand shrieking
+rockets, perhaps, with at the end an explosion and a rain of fragments
+like rocks from Vesuvius. They had a peculiar faculty for getting on the
+nerves. The men watched their coming with something like shrinking, with
+raised arms and narrowed eyes. "Look out for the lamp-post&mdash;look out for
+the lamp-post&mdash;look out&mdash;Aaahhhh!"</p>
+
+<p>Before long the regiment was moved a hundred yards nearer the
+wheat-field. Here it became entangled in the ebb of a charge&mdash;the
+brigade which had rushed by coming back, piecemeal, broken and driven by
+an iron flail. It would reform and charge again, but now there was
+confusion. All the field was confused, dismal and dreadful, beneath the
+orange-tinted smoke. The smoke rolled and billowed, a curtain of strange
+texture, now parting, now closing, and when it parted disclosing
+immemorial Death and Wounds with some attendant martial pageantry. The
+commands were split as by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span> wedges, the uneven ground driving them
+asunder, and the belching guns. They went up to hell mouth, brigade by
+brigade, even regiment by regiment, and in the breaking and reforming
+and twilight of the smoke, through the falling of officers and the
+surging to and fro, the troops became interwoven, warp of one division,
+woof of another. The sound was shocking; when, now and then there fell a
+briefest interval it was as though the world had stopped, had fallen
+into a gulf of silence.</p>
+
+<p>Edward Cary found beside him a man from another regiment, a small,
+slight fellow, young and simple. A shock of wheat gave both a moment's
+protection. "Hot work!" said Edward, with his fine camaraderie. "You
+made a beautiful charge. We almost thought you would take them."</p>
+
+<p>The other looked at him vacantly. "I added up figures in the old
+warehouse," he said, in a high, thin voice. "I added up figures in the
+old warehouse, and when I went home at night I used to read plays. I
+added up figures in the old warehouse&mdash;Don't you remember Hotspur? I
+always liked him, and that part&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>'To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon;<br />
+Or dive into the bottom of the deep&mdash;'"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>He stood up. Edward rose to his knees and put out a hand to draw him
+down. "It's enough to make you crazy, I'll confess&mdash;but you mustn't
+stand up like that!"</p>
+
+<p>The downward drawing hand was too late. There were blue sharpshooters in
+a wood in front. A ball entered the clerk's breast and he sank down
+behind the wheat. "I added up figures in the old warehouse," he again
+told Cary, "and when I went home at night I read plays&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The figure stiffened in Edward's grasp. He laid it down, and from behind
+the wheat shock watched a grey battery in process of being knocked to
+pieces. It had arrived in this quarter of the field in a wild gallop,
+and with a happy insouciance had unlimbered and run up the guns back of
+a little crest topped with sumach, taking pains meanwhile to assure the
+infantry that now it was safe. The infantry had grinned. "Like you
+first-rate, artillery! Willing to bet on the gunners, but the guns are a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span><i>leetle</i> small and few. Don't know that we feel so <i>awful</i> safe!"</p>
+
+<p>The grey began. Four shells flew up the long slope and burst among the
+iron rows that made a great triple crown for Malvern Hill. The grey
+gunners cheered, and the appreciative infantry cheered, and the first
+began to reload while the second, flat in scrub and behind the wheat,
+condescended to praise. "Artillery does just about as well as can be
+expected! Awful old-fashioned arm&mdash;but well-meaning.... Look
+out&mdash;look ... Eeehhh!"</p>
+
+<p>The iron crown that had been blazing toward other points of the compass
+now blazed toward this. Adversity came to the insouciant grey battery,
+adversity quickening to disaster. The first thunder blast thickened to a
+howling storm of shrapnel, grape, and canister.</p>
+
+<p>At the first gun gunner No. 1, ramming home a charge, was blown into
+fragments; at the second the arm holding the sponge staff was severed
+from gunner No. 3's shoulder. A great shell, bursting directly over the
+third, killed two men and horribly mangled others; the carriage of the
+fourth was crushed and set on fire. This in the beginning of the storm;
+as it swelled, total destruction threatened from the murk. The captain
+went up and down. "Try it a little longer, men. Try it a little longer,
+men. We've got to make up in quality, you know. We've got to make up in
+quality, you know. Marse Robert's looking&mdash;I see him over there! Try it
+a little longer&mdash;try it a little longer."</p>
+
+<p>An aide arrived. "For God's sake, take what you've got left away! Yes,
+it's an order. Your being massacred won't help. Look out&mdash;Look&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>No one in battle ever took account of time or saw any especial reason
+for being, now here, and now in quite a different place, or ever knew
+exactly how the places had been exchanged. Edward was practically
+certain that he had taken part in a charge, that his brigade had driven
+a body of blue infantry from a piece of woods. At any rate they were no
+longer in the wheat field, but in a shady wood, where severed twigs and
+branches floated pleasantly down. Lying flat, chin on hand, he watched a
+regiment storm and take a thick abattis&mdash;felled trees filled with
+sharpshooters&mdash;masking a hastily thrown up earthwork. The regiment was
+reserving its fire and losing heavily. An elderly man led it, riding a
+large old steady horse. "That's Ex-Governor Smith," said the regiment in
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span> wood. "That's Extra Billy! He's a corker! Next time he runs he's
+going to get all the votes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The regiment tried twice to pass the abattis, but each time fell back.
+The brigadier had ordered it not to fire until it was past the trees; it
+obeyed, but sulkily enough. Men were dropping; the colour-bearer went
+down. There was an outcry. "Colonel! we can't stand this! We'll all get
+killed before we fire a shot! The general don't know how we're fixed&mdash;"
+Extra Billy agreed with them. He rose in his stirrups, turned and nodded
+vigorous assent. "Of course you can't stand it, boys! You oughtn't to be
+expected to. It's all this infernal tactics and West P'int tomfoolery!
+Damn it, fire! and flush the game!"</p>
+
+<p>Edward laughed. From the fuss it was apparent that the abattis and
+earthwork had succumbed. At any rate, the old governor and his regiment
+were gone. He was of the colour-guard, and all the colour-guard were
+laughing. "Didn't you ever see him go into battle with his old blue
+umbrella up! Trotting along same as to a caucus&mdash;whole constituency
+following! Fine old political Roman! Look out, Yedward! Whole pine tree
+coming down."</p>
+
+<p>The scene changed again, and it was the side of a ravine, with a fine
+view of the river and with Morell and Couch blazing somewhere above. The
+shells went overhead, bellowing monsters charging a grey battery on a
+hillock and a distant line of troops. "That's Pegram&mdash;that battery,"
+said some one. "He does well." "Has any one any idea of the time?" asked
+another. "Sun's so hidden there's no guessing. Don't believe we'll ever
+see his blessed light again."</p>
+
+<p>A fisherman from the Eastern Shore stated that it was nearly five
+o'clock. "Fogs can't fool me. Day's drawing down, and tide's going
+out&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant-colonel appeared. "Somebody with an order has been shot,
+coming through the cornfield toward us. Three volunteers to bring him
+in!"</p>
+
+<p>Edward and the Eastern Shore man and a lean and dry and middle-aged
+lawyer from King and Queen bent their heads beneath their shoulders and
+plunged into the corn. All the field w<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span>as like a miniature abattis,
+stalk and blade shot down and crossed and recrossed in the wildest
+tangle. To make way over it was difficult enough, and before the three
+had gone ten feet the minies took a hand. The wounded courier lay
+beneath his horse, and the horse screamed twice, the sound rising above
+the roar of the guns. A ball pierced Edward's cap, another drew blood
+from the lawyer's hand. The fisherman was a tall and wiry man; as he ran
+he swayed like a mast in storm. The three reached the courier, dragged
+him from beneath the horse, and found both legs crushed. He looked at
+them with lustreless eyes. "You can't do anything for me, boys. The
+general says please try to take those three guns up there. He's going to
+charge the line beyond, and they are in the way."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, we will," said the lawyer. "Now you put one arm round Cary's
+neck and one round mine&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But the courier shook his head. "You leave me here. I'm awful tired. You
+go take the guns instead. Ain't no use, I tell you. I'd like to see the
+children, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>In the act of speaking, as they lifted him, a ball went through his
+throat. The three laid the body down, and, heads bent between shoulders,
+ran over and through the corn toward the ravine. Two thirds of the way
+across, the fisherman was shot. He came to his knees and, in falling,
+clutched Edward. "Mast's overboard," he cried, in a rattling voice. "Cut
+her loose, damn you!&mdash;I'll take the helm&mdash;" He, too, died. Cary and the
+lawyer got back to the gully and gave the order.</p>
+
+<p>The taking of those guns was no simple matter. It resembled child's play
+only in the single-mindedness and close attention which went to its
+accomplishment. The regiment that reached them at last and took them,
+and took what was left of the blue gunners, was not much more than half
+a regiment. The murk up here on this semi-height was thick to choking;
+the odour and taste of the battle poisoned brass on the tongue, the
+colour that of a sand storm, the heat like that of a battleship in
+action, and all the place shook from the thunder and recoil of the tiers
+of great guns beyond, untaken, not to be taken. A regiment rushed out of
+the rolling smoke, by the half regiment. "Mississippi!
+Mississippi!&mdash;Well, even Mississippi isn't going to do the impossible!"
+As the line went by, tall and swinging and yelling itself hoarse, the
+colonel was wounded and fell. The charge went on while the officer&mdash;he
+was an old man, very stately looking&mdash;dragged himself aside, and sitting
+in the sedge tied a large bright handkerchief above a wound in his leg.
+The c<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span>harge dashed itself against the hillside, and the tier of guns
+flamed a death's sickle and mowed it down. Breathless, broken, the
+regiment fell back. When it reached the old man with the bright
+handkerchief, it would have lifted him and carried him with it to the
+rear. He would not go. He said, "Tell the 21st they can't get me till
+they take those guns!"</p>
+
+<p>The 21st mended its gaps and charged again. The old man set his hat on
+his sword, waved it in the air, and cheered his men as they passed. They
+passed him but to return. To go up against those lines of bellowing guns
+was mere heroic madness. Bleeding, exhausted, the men put out their
+hands for the old man. He drew his revolver. "I'll shoot anybody who
+touches me! Tell the 21st they can't get their colonel till they take
+those guns!"</p>
+
+<p>The 21st charged a third time, in vain. It came back&mdash;a part of it came
+back. The old man had fainted, and his men lifted and bore him away.</p>
+
+<p>From the platform where he lay in the shadow of the three guns Edward
+Cary looked out over Malvern Hill, the encompassing lowland, marsh and
+forest and fields, the winding Turkey Creek and Western Creek, and to
+the south the James. A wind had sprung up and was blowing the battle
+smoke hither and yon. Here it hung heavily, and here a long lane was
+opened. The sun was low and red behind a filmy veil, dark and ragged
+like torn crape. He saw four gunboats on the river; they were throwing
+the long, howling shells. The Monitor was there, an old foe&mdash;the cheese
+box on a shingle. Edward shut his eyes and saw again Hampton Roads, and
+how the Monitor had looked, darting from behind the Minnesota. The old
+turtle, the old Merrimac ... and now she lay, a charred hull, far, far
+beneath the James, by Craney Island.</p>
+
+<p>The private on his right was a learned man. Edward addressed him. "Have
+you ever thought, doctor, how fearfully dramatic is this world?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It's one of those facts that are too colossal to be seen.
+Shakespeare says all the world's a stage. That's only a half-truth. The
+world's a player, like the rest of us."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Below this niche stretched the grey battle-lines; above it, on the
+hilltop, by the cannon and over half the slope beneath, spread the blue.
+A forest stood behind the grey; out of it came the troops to the charge,
+the flags tossing in front. The upward reaching fingers of coppice and
+brush had their occupants, fragments of commands under cover, bands of
+sharpshooters. And everywhere over the open, raked by the guns, were
+dead and dying men. They lay thickly. Now and again the noise of the
+torment of the wounded made itself heard&mdash;a most doleful and ghostly
+sound coming up like a wail from the Inferno. There were, too, many dead
+or dying horses. Others, still unhurt, galloped from end to end of the
+field of death. In the wheat-field there were several of the old,
+four-footed warriors, who stood and ate of the shocked grain. There
+arrived a hush over the battlefield, one of those pauses which occur
+between exhaustion and renewed effort, effort at its height. The guns
+fell silent, the musketry died away, the gunboats ceased to throw those
+great shells. By contrast with the clangour that had prevailed, the
+stillness seemed that of a desert waste, a dead world. Over toward a
+cross-road there could be made out three figures on horseback. The
+captain of Edward's company was an old college mate; lying down with his
+men, he now drew himself over the ground and loaned Cary his
+field-glass. "It's General Lee and General Jackson and General D. H.
+Hill."</p>
+
+<p>A body of grey troops came to occupy a finger of woods below the three
+captured guns. "That's Cary's Legion," said the captain. "Here comes the
+colonel now!"</p>
+
+<p>The two commands were but a few yards apart. Fauquier Cary, dismounting,
+walked up the sedgy slope and asked to speak to his nephew. The latter
+left the ranks, and the two found a trampled space beside one of the
+great thirty-two pounders. A dead man or two lay in the parched grass,
+but there was nothing else to disturb. The quiet yet held over North and
+South and the earth that gave them standing room. "I have but a moment,"
+said the elder man. "This is but the hush before the final storm. We
+came by Jackson's troops, and one of his officers whom I knew at the
+Point rode beside me a little way. They all crossed White Oak Swamp by
+starlight this morning, and apparently Jackson is again the Jackson of
+the Valley. It was a curious eclipse. The force of the man is such that,
+while his officers acknowledge the eclipse, it makes no difference to
+them. He is Stonewall Jackson<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span>&mdash;and that suffices. But that is not what
+I have to tell&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw father a moment this morning. He said there was a rumour about
+one of the Stonewall regiments&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It was the 65th."</p>
+
+<p>"Cut to pieces?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Richard&mdash;Richard was not killed?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But many were. Hairston Breckinridge was killed&mdash;and some of the
+Thunder Run men&mdash;and very many others. Almost destroyed, Carlton said.
+They crossed at sunset. There were a swamp and a wood and a hollow
+commanded by hills. The enemy was in force behind the hill, and there
+was beside a considerable command in ambush, concealed in the woods by
+the swamp. These had a gun or two. All opened on the 65th. It was cut to
+pieces in the swamp and in a little marshy meadow. Only a remnant got
+back to the northern side of the creek. Richard is under arrest."</p>
+
+<p>"He was acting under orders!"</p>
+
+<p>"So Carlton says he says. But General Jackson says there was no such
+order; that he disobeyed the order that was given, and now tries to
+screen himself. Carlton says Jackson is more steel-like than usual, and
+we know how it fared with Garnett and with others. There will be a
+court-martial. I am very anxious."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not," said Edward stoutly. "There will be an honourable acquittal.
+We must write and tell Judith that she's not to worry! Richard Cleave
+did nothing that he should not have done."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, we know that. But Carlton says that, on the face of it, it's
+an ugly affair. And General Jackson&mdash;Well, we can only await
+developments."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Judith!&mdash;and his sister and mother.... Poor women!"</p>
+
+<p>The other made a gesture of assent and sorrow. "Well, I must go back.
+Take care of yourself, Edward. There will be the devil's own work
+presently."</p>
+
+<p>He went, and Edward returned to his fellows. The silence yet held over
+the field; the westering sun glowed dull red behind the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span>smoke; the
+three figures rested still by the cross-roads; the mass of frowning
+metal topped Malvern Hill like a giant, smoke-wreathed <i>chevaux de
+frise</i>. Out of the brushwood to the left of the regiment, straight by
+it, upward towards the guns, and then at a tangent off through the
+fields to the woods, sped a rabbit. Legs to earth, it hurried with all
+its might. The regiment was glad of a diversion&mdash;the waiting was growing
+so intolerable. The men cheered the rabbit. "Go it, Molly
+Cottontail!&mdash;Go it, Molly!&mdash;Go it, Molly!&mdash;Hi! Don't go that-away!
+Them's Yankees! They'll cut your head off! Go t'other way&mdash;that's it! Go
+it, Molly! Damn! If't wasn't for my character, I'd go with you!"</p>
+
+<p>The rabbit disappeared. The regiment settled back to waiting, a very
+intolerable employment. The sun dipped lower and lower. The hush grew
+portentous. The guns looked old, mailed, dead warriors; the gunboats
+sleeping forms; the grey troops battle-lines in a great war picture, the
+three horsemen by the cross-roads a significant group in the same; the
+dead and wounded over all the fields, upon the slope, in the woods, by
+the marshes, the jetsam, still and heavy, of war at its worst. For a
+moment longer the wide and dreary stretch rested so, then with a wild
+suddenness sound and furious motion rushed upon the scene. The gunboats
+recommenced with their long and horrible shells. A grey battery opened
+on Berdan's sharpshooters strung in a line of trees below the great
+crown of guns. The crown flamed toward the battery, scorched and mangled
+it. By the cross-roads the three figures separated, going in different
+directions. Presently galloping horses&mdash;aides, couriers&mdash;crossed the
+plane of vision. They went from D. H. Hill in the centre to Jackson's
+brigades on the left and Magruder's on the right. They had a mile of
+open to cross, and the iron crown and the sharpshooters flamed against
+them. Some galloped on and gave the orders. Some threw up their arms and
+fell, or, crashing to earth with a wounded horse, disentangled
+themselves and stumbled on through the iron rain. The sun drew close to
+the vast and melancholy forests across the river. Through a rift in the
+smoke, there came a long and crimson shaft. It reddened the river, then
+struck across the shallows to Malvern Hill, suffused with a bloody tinge
+wood and field and the marshes by the creeks, then splintered against
+the hilltop and made a hundred guns to gleam. The wind heightened,
+lifting the smoke and driving it northward. It bared to the last red
+light the wild and dreary battlefield.</p>
+
+<p>From the centre rose the Confederate yell. Rodes's brigade, led<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span> by
+Gordon, charged. It had half a mile of open to cross, and it was caught
+at once in the storm that howled from the crest of Malvern Hill. Every
+regiment suffered great loss; the 3d Alabama saw half its number slain
+or wounded. The men yelled again, and sprang on in the teeth of the
+storm. They reached the slope, almost below the guns. Gordon looked
+behind for the supporting troops which Hill had promised. They were
+coming, that grim fighter leading them, but they were coming far off,
+under clanging difficulties, through a hell of shrapnel. Rodes's brigade
+alone could not wrest that triple crown from the hilltop&mdash;no, not if the
+men had been giants, sons of Anak! They were halted; they lay down, put
+muskets to shoulder and fired steadily and fired again on the blue
+infantry.</p>
+
+<p>It grew darker on the plain. Brigades were coming from the left, the
+right, the centre. There had been orders for a general advance. Perhaps
+the aides carrying them were among the slain, perhaps this, perhaps
+that. The event was that brigades charged singly&mdash;sometimes even
+regiments crossed, with a cry, the twilight, groaning plain and charged
+Malvern Hill unsupported. The place flamed death and destruction. Hill's
+ten thousand men pressed forward with the order of a review. The shot
+and shell met them like a tornado. The men fell by hundreds. The lines
+closed, rushed on. The Federal infantry joined the artillery. Musketry
+and cannon, the din became a prolonged and fearful roar of battle.</p>
+
+<p>The sun disappeared. There sprang out in the western sky three long red
+bands of clouds. On the darkening slope and plain Hill was crushed back,
+before and among his lines a horror of exploding shells. Jackson threw
+forward Lawton and Whiting, Winder and the Louisiana troops, while on
+the right, brigade after brigade, Magruder hurled across the plain nine
+brigades. After Hill, Magruder's troops bore the brunt of the last
+fearful fighting.</p>
+
+<p>They stormed across the plain in twilight that was lit by the red
+flashes from the guns. The clouds of smoke were red-bosomed; the red
+bars stayed in the west. The guns never ceased their thundering, the
+musketry to roll. Death swung a wide scythe in the twilight of that
+first day of July. Anderson and Armistead, Barksdale, Semmes and
+Kershaw, Wright and Toombs and Maho<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span>ne, rushed along the slope of
+Malvern Hill, as Ripley and Garland and Gordon and all the brigadiers of
+D. H. Hill had rushed before them. Death, issuing from that great power
+of artillery, laid the soldiers in swathes. The ranks closed, again and
+again the ranks closed; with diminished numbers but no slackening of
+courage, the grey soldiers again dashed themselves against Malvern Hill.
+The red bars in the west faded slowly to a deep purple; above them, in a
+clear space of sky, showed the silver Venus. Upon her cooling globe, in
+a day to come, intelligent life might rend itself as here&mdash;the old
+horror, the old tragedy, the old stained sublimity over again! All the
+drifting smoke was now red lit, and beneath it lay in their blood
+elderly men, and men in their prime, and young men&mdash;very many, oh, very
+many young men! As the night deepened there sprang, beneath the thunder,
+over all the field a sound like wind in reeds. It was a sighing sound, a
+low and grievous sound. The blue lost heavily, for the charges were
+wildly heroic; but the guns were never disabled, and the loss of the
+grey was the heaviest. Brigade by brigade, the grey faced the storm and
+were beaten back, only again to reel forward upon the slope where Death
+stood and swung his scythe. The last light dwelt on their colours, on
+the deep red of their battle-flags; then the western sky became no
+warmer than the eastern. The stars were out in troops; the battle
+stopped.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>D. H. Hill, an iron fighter with a mania for personal valour, standing
+where he had been standing for an hour, in a pleasantly exposed spot,
+clapped on his hat and beckoned for his horse. The ground about him
+showed furrowed as for planting, and a neighbouring oak tree was so
+riddled with bullets that the weight of a man might have sent it
+crashing down. D. H. Hill, drawing long breath, spoke half to his staff,
+half to the stars: "Give me Federal artillery and Confederate infantry,
+and I'd whip the world!"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>A WOMAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>Allan Gold, lying in a corner of the Stonewall Hospital, turned his
+head toward the high window. It showed him little, merely a long strip
+of blue sky above housetops. The window was open, and the noises of the
+street came in. He knew them, checked them off in his mind. He was doing
+well. A body, superbly healthful, might stand out boldly against> a
+minie ball or two, just as calm nerves, courage and serene judgement
+were of service in a war hospital such as this. If he was restless now,
+it was because he was wondering about Christianna. It was an hour past
+her time for coming.</p>
+
+<p>The ward was fearfully crowded. This, however, was the end by the stair,
+and he had a little cut-off place to himself. Many in the ward yet lay
+on the floor, on a blanket as he had done that first morning. In the
+afternoon of that day a wide bench had been brought into his corner, a
+thin flock mattress laid upon it, and he himself lifted from the floor.
+He had protested that others needed a bed much more, that he was used to
+lying on the earth&mdash;but Christianna had been firm. He wondered why she
+did not come.</p>
+
+<p>Chickahominy, Gaines's Mill, Garnett's and Golding's farms, Peach
+Orchard, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Frayser's Farm, Malvern
+Hill&mdash;dire echoes of the Seven Days' fighting had thronged into this
+hospital as into all others, as into the houses of citizens and the
+public buildings and the streets! All manner of wounded soldiers told
+the story&mdash;ever so many soldiers and ever so many variants of the story.
+The dead bore witness, and the wailing of women which was now and then
+heard in the streets; not often, for the women were mostly silent, with
+pressed lips. And the ambulances jolting by&mdash;and the sound of
+funerals&mdash;and the church bells tolling, tolling&mdash;all these bore witness.
+And day and night there was the thunder of the cannon. From
+Mechanicsville and Gaines's Mill it had rolled near and loud, from
+Savage Station somewhat less so; White Oak Swamp and Frayser's Farm had
+carried the sound yet further off, and from Malvern Hill it came but
+distantly. But loud or low, near or far, day by day and into each night,
+Richmond heard the cannon. At first the vibration played on the town's
+heart, like a giant hand on giant strings. But at last the tune grew old
+and the town went about its business. There was so much to do! One could
+not stop to listen to cannon. Richmond was a vast hospital; pain and
+fever in all places, and, around, the shadow of death. Hardly a house
+but mourned a kinsman or kinsmen; early and late the dirges wailed
+through the streets. So breathlessly filled were the days, that often
+the dead were buried at night. The weather was hot&mdash;days and nights hot,
+close and still. Men and women went swiftly through them, swift and
+direct as weavers' shuttles. Privation, early comrade of the South, was
+here; scant room, scant supplies, not too much of wholesome food for the
+crowded town, few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span> medicines or alleviatives, much to be done and done
+at once with the inadequatest means. There was little time in which to
+think in general terms; all effort must go toward getting done the
+immediate thing. The lift and tension of the time sloughed off the
+immaterial weak act or thought. There were present a heroic simplicity,
+a naked verity, a full cup of service, a high and noble altruism. The
+plane was epic, and the people did well.</p>
+
+<p>The sky within Allan's range of vision was deep blue; the old brick
+gable-ends of houses, mellow and old, against it. A soldier with a
+broken leg and a great sabre cut over the head, just brought into the
+ward, brought with him the latest news. He talked loudly, and all down
+the long room, crowded to suffocation, the less desperately wounded
+raised themselves on their elbows to hear. Others, shot through stomach
+or bowels, or fearfully torn by shells, or with the stumps of amputated
+limbs not doing well, raved on in delirium or kept up their pitiful
+moaning. The soldier raised his voice higher, and those leaning on
+elbows listened with avidity. "Evelington Heights? Where's Evelington
+Heights?"&mdash;"Between Westover and Rawling's millpond, near Malvern
+Hill!"&mdash;"Malvern Hill! That was ghastly!"&mdash;"Go on, sergeant-major! We're
+been pining for a newspaper."</p>
+
+<p>"Were any of you boys at Malvern Hill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,&mdash;only those who were there ain't in a fix to tell about it! That
+man over there&mdash;and that one&mdash;and that one&mdash;oh, a middling lot! They're
+pretty badly off&mdash;poor boys!"</p>
+
+<p>From a pallet came a hollow voice. "I was at Malvern Hill, and I ain't
+never going there again&mdash;I ain't never going there again&mdash;I ain't
+never.... Who's that singing? I kin sing, too&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>'The years creep slowly by, Lorena;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The snow is on the grass again;</span><br />
+The sun's low down the sky, Lorena;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The frost gleams where the flowers have been&mdash;'"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Don't mind him," said the soldiers on elbows. "Poor fellow!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> he ain't
+got any voice anyhow. We know about Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill was
+pretty bad. And we heard there'd been a cavalry rumpus&mdash;Jeb Stuart and
+Sweeney playing their tricks! We didn't know the name of the place.
+Evelington Heights! Pretty name."</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant-major would not be cheated of Malvern Hill. "'Pretty bad!'
+I should say 'twas pretty bad! Malvern Hill was <i>awful</i>. If anything
+could induce me to be a damn Yankee 'twould be them guns of their'n!
+Yes, sirree, bob! we fought and fought, and ten o'clock came and there
+wasn't any moon, and we stopped. And in the night-time the damn Yankees
+continued to retreat away. There was an awful noise of gun-wheels all
+the night long&mdash;so the sentries said, and the surgeons and the wounded
+and, I reckon, the generals. The rest of us, we were asleep. I don't
+reckon there ever was men any more tired. Malvern Hill was&mdash;I can't
+swear because there are ladies nursing us, but Malvern Hill was&mdash;Well,
+dawn blew at reveille&mdash;No, doctor, I ain't getting light-headed. I just
+get my words a little twisted. Reveille blew at dawn, and there were
+sheets of cold pouring rain, and everywhere there were dead men, dead
+men, dead men lying there in the wet, and the ambulances were wandering
+round like ghosts of wagons, and the wood was too dripping to make a
+fire, and three men out of my mess were killed, and one was a boy that
+we'd all adopted, and it was awful discouraging. Yes, we were right
+tired, damn Yankees and all of us.... Doctor, if I was you I wouldn't
+bother about that leg. It's all right as it is, and you might hurt
+me.... Oh, all right! Kin I smoke?... Yuugh! Well, boys, the damn
+Yankees continued their retreat to Harrison's Landing, where their
+hell-fire gunboats could stand picket for them.... Say, ma'am, would you
+kindly tell me why that four-post bed over there is all hung with
+wreaths of roses?&mdash;'Isn't any bed there?' But there is! I see it....
+Evelington Heights&mdash;and Stuart dropping shells into the damn Yankees'
+camp.... They <i>are</i> roses, the old Giants of Battle by the beehive....
+Evelington Heights. Eveling&mdash;Well, the damn Yankees dragged their guns
+up there, too.... If the beehive's there, then the apple tree's
+here&mdash;Grandma, if you'll ask him not to whip me I'll never take them
+again, and I'll hold your yarn every time you want me to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The ward heard no more about Evelington Heights. It knew, however, that
+it had been no great affair; it knew that McClellan with his exhausted
+army, less many thousand dead, wounded, and prisoners, less fifty-two
+guns and thirty-five thousand small arms, less enormous stores captured
+or destroyed, less some confidence <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span>at Washington, rested down the James
+by Westover, in the shadow of gunboats. The ward guessed that, for a
+time at least, Richmond was freed from the Northern embrace. It knew
+that Lee and his exhausted army, less even more of dead and wounded than
+had fallen on the other side, rested between that enemy and Richmond.
+Lee was watching; the enemy would come no nearer for this while. For all
+its pain, for all the heat, the blood, the fever, thirst and woe, the
+ward, the hospital, all the hospitals, experienced to-day a sense of
+triumph. It was so with the whole city. Allan knew this, lying, looking
+with sea-blue eyes at the blue summer sky and the old and mellow roofs.
+The city mourned, but also it rejoiced. There stretched the black
+thread, but twisted with it was the gold. A p&aelig;an sounded as well as a
+dirge. Seven days and nights of smoke and glare upon the horizon, of the
+heart-shaking cannon roar, of the pouring in of the wounded, of
+processions to Hollywood, of anguish, ceaseless labour, sick waiting,
+dizzy hope, descending despair.... Now, at last, above it all the bells
+rang for victory. A young girl, coming through the ward, had an armful
+of flowers,&mdash;white lilies, citron aloes, mignonette, and phlox&mdash;She gave
+her posies to all who stretched out a hand, and went out with her
+smiling face. Allan held a great stalk of garden phlox, white and sweet.
+It carried him back to the tollgate and to the log schoolhouse by
+Thunder Run.... Twelve o'clock. Was not Christianna coming at all?</p>
+
+<p>This was not Judith Cary's ward, but now she entered it. Allan, watching
+the narrow path between the wounded, saw her coming from the far door.
+He did not know who she was; he only looked from the flower in his hand
+and had a sense of strength and sweetness, of something noble
+approaching nearer. She paused to ask a question of one of the women;
+answered, she came straight on. He saw that she was coming to the
+cut-off corner by the stair, and instinctively he straightened a little
+the covering over him. In a moment she was standing beside him, in her
+cool hospital dress, with her dark hair knotted low, with a flower at
+her breast. "You are Allan Gold?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Judith Cary. Perhaps you have heard of me. I have been to
+Lauderdale and to Three Oaks."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Allan. "I have heard of you. I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was an empty box beside the wall. Judith drew it nearer to his bed
+and sat down. "You have been looking for Christianna? I came to tell you
+about poor little Christianna&mdash;and&mdash;and other things. Christianna's
+father has been killed."</p>
+
+<p>Allan uttered an exclamation. "Isham Maydew! I never thought of his
+going!... Poor child!"</p>
+
+<p>"So she thought she ought not to come to-day. Had there been strong
+reason, many people dependent upon her, she would have come."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Christianna&mdash;poor wild rose!... It's ghastly, this war! There is
+nothing too small and harmless for its grist."</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you. Nothing too great; nothing too small. Nothing too
+base, as there is nothing too noble."</p>
+
+<p>"Isham Maydew! He was lean and tough and still, like Death in a picture.
+Where was he killed?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was at White Oak Swamp. At White Oak Swamp, the day before Malvern
+Hill."</p>
+
+<p>Allan looked at her. There was more in her voice than the non-coming of
+Christianna, than the death of Isham Maydew. She had spoken in a clear,
+low, bell-like tone that held somehow the ache of the world. He was
+simple and direct, and he spoke at once out of his thought. He knew that
+all the men of her house were at the front. "You have had a loss of your
+own?&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "I? No. I have had no loss."</p>
+
+<p>"Now," thought Allan, "there's something proud in it." He looked at her
+with his kindly, sea-blue eyes. In some chamber of the brain there
+flashed out a picture&mdash;the day of the Botetourt Resolutions, winter dusk
+after winter sunset and Cleave and himself going homeward over the long
+hilltop&mdash;with talk, among other things, of visitors at Lauderdale. This
+was "the beautiful one." He remembered the lift of Cleave's head and his
+voice. Judith's large dark eyes had been raised; transparent, showing
+always the soul within as did his own, they now met Allan's. "The 65th,"
+she said, "was cut to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>The words, dragged out as they were, left a shocked silence. Here, in
+the corner by the stair, the arch of wood partially obscuring the ward,
+with the still blue sky and the still bric<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span>k gables, they seemed for the
+moment cut away from the world, met on desert sands to tell and hear a
+dreadful thing. "Cut to pieces," breathed Allan. "The 65th cut to
+pieces!"</p>
+
+<p>The movement which he made displaced the bandage about his shoulder. She
+left the box, kneeled by him and straightened matters, then went back to
+her seat. "It was this way," she said,&mdash;and told him the story as she
+had heard it from her father and from Fauquier Cary. She spoke with
+simplicity, in the low, bell-like tone that held the ache of the world.
+Allan listened, with his hand over his eyes. His regiment that he
+loved!... all the old, familiar faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he was killed&mdash;Hairston Breckinridge was killed, fighting
+gallantly. He died, they say, before he knew the trap they were caught
+in. And Christianna's father was killed, and others of the Thunder Run
+men, and very many from the county and from other counties. I do not
+know how many. Fauquier called it slaughter, said no worse thing has
+happened to any single command. Richard got what was left back across
+the swamp."</p>
+
+<p>Allan groaned. "The 65th! General Jackson himself called it 'the
+fighting 65th!' Just a remnant of it left&mdash;left of the 65th!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The roll was called, and so many did not answer. They say other
+Stonewall regiments wept."</p>
+
+<p>Allan raised himself upon the bench. She started forward. "Don't do
+that!" and with her hand pressed him gently down again. "I knew," she
+said, "that you were here, and I have heard Richard speak of you and say
+how good and likable you were. And I have worked hard all the morning,
+and just now I thought, 'I must speak to some one who knows and loves
+him or I will die.' And so I came. I knew that the ward might hear of
+the 65th any moment now and begin to talk of it, so I was not afraid of
+hurting you. But you must lie quiet."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, I will. I want to know about Richard Cleave&mdash;about my
+colonel."</p>
+
+<p>Her dark eyes met the sea-blue ones fully. "He is under arrest," she
+said. "General Jackson has preferred charges against him."</p>
+
+<p>"Charges of what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of disobedience to orders&mdash;of sacrificing the regiment&mdash;of&mdash;o<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span>f
+retreating at last when he should not have done so and leaving his men
+to perish&mdash;of&mdash;of&mdash;. I have seen a copy of the charge. <i>Whereas the said
+colonel of the 65th did shamefully</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her voice broke. "Oh, if I were God&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence&mdash;silence here in the corner by the stair,
+though none beyond in the painful, moaning ward. A bird sailed across
+the strip of blue sky; the stalk of phlox on the soldier's narrow bed
+lay withering in the light. Allan spoke. "General Jackson is very stern
+with failure. He may believe that charge. I don't see how he can; but if
+he made it he believes it. But you&mdash;you don't believe it?&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Believe it?" she said. "No more than God believes it! The question is
+now, how to help Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you heard from him?"</p>
+
+<p>She took from her dress a folded leaf torn from a pocket-book. "You are
+his friend. You may read it. Wait, I will hold it." She laid it before
+him, holding it in her slight, fine, strong fingers.</p>
+
+<p>He read. <i>Judith: You will hear of the fate of the 65th. How it happened
+I do not yet understand. It is like death on my heart. You will hear,
+too, of my own trouble. As to me, believe only that I could sit beside
+you and talk to-day as we talked awhile ago, in the sunset. Richard.</i></p>
+
+<p>She refolded the paper and put it back. "The evidence will clear him,"
+said Allan. "It must. The very doubt is absurd."</p>
+
+<p>Her face lightened. "General Jackson will see that he was hasty&mdash;unjust.
+I can understand such anger at first, but later, when he
+reflects&mdash;Richard will be declared innocent&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. An honourable acquittal. It will surely be so."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad I came. You have always known him and been his friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me tell you the kind of things I know of Richard Cleave. No, it
+doesn't hurt me to talk."</p>
+
+<p>"I can stay a little longer. Yes, tell me."</p>
+
+<p>Allan spoke at some length, in his frank, quiet voice. She sat beside
+him, with her cheek on her hand, the blue sky and old house roofs above
+her. When he ceased her eyes were full of tears. She would not let them
+fall. "If I began to cry I should never stop," she said, and smiled them
+away. Presently she rose. "I must go now. Christianna will be back
+to-morrow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She went away, passing up the narrow path between the wounded and out at
+the further door. Allan watched her going, then turned a little on the
+flock bed, and lifting his unbandaged arm laid it across his eyes. <i>The
+65th cut to pieces&mdash;The 65th cut to pieces&mdash;</i></p>
+
+<p>At sunset Judith went home. The small room up in the branches of the
+tulip tree&mdash;she hardly knew how many months or years she had inhabited
+it. There had passed, of course, only weeks&mdash;but Time had widened its
+measure. To all intents and purposes she had been a long while in
+Richmond. This high, quiet niche was familiar, familiar! familiar the
+old, slender, inlaid dressing-table and the long, thin curtains and the
+engraving of Charlotte Corday; familiar the cool, green tree without the
+window and the nest upon a bough; familiar the far view and wide
+horizon, by day smoke-veiled, by night red-lit. The smoke was lifted
+now; the eye saw further than it had seen for days. The room seemed as
+quiet as a tomb. For a moment the silence oppressed her, and then she
+remembered that it was because the cannon had stopped.</p>
+
+<p>She sat beside the window, through the dusk, until the stars came out;
+then went downstairs and took her part at the table, about which the
+soldier sons of the house were gathering. They brought comrades with
+them. The wounded eldest son was doing well, the army was victorious,
+the siege was lifted, the house must be made gay for "the boys." No
+house was ever less bright for Judith. Now she smiled and listened, and
+the young men thought she did not realize the seriousness of the army
+talk about the 65th. They themselves were careful not to mention the
+matter. They talked of a thousand heroisms, a thousand incidents of the
+Seven Days; but they turned the talk&mdash;if any one, unwary, drew it that
+way&mdash;from White Oak Swamp. They mistook her feeling; she would rather
+they had spoken out. Her comfort was when, afterwards, she went for a
+moment into the "chamber" to see the wounded eldest. He was a
+warm-hearted, rough diamond, fond of his cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this damned stuff I hear about Richard Cleave and a
+court-martial? What&mdash;nonsense! I beg your pardon, Judith." Judith kissed
+him, and finding "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" face down on the counterpane
+offered to read to him.</p>
+
+<p>"You would rather talk about Richard," he said. "I know you would. So
+should I. It's all the damnedest nonsense! Such a charge as that!&mdash;Tell
+you what, Judith. D'ye remember 'Woodstock' and Cromwell in it? Well,
+Stonewall Jackson's like Cromwell&mdash;of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span> course, a better man, and a
+greater general, and a nobler cause, but still he's like him! Don't you
+fret! Cromwell had to listen to the truth. He did it, and so will
+Stonewall Jackson. Such damned stuff and nonsense! It hurts me worse
+than that old bayonet jab ever could! I'd like to hear what Edward
+says."</p>
+
+<p>"He says, 'Duck your head and let it go by. The grass'll grow as green
+to-morrow.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You aren't crying, are you, Judith?&mdash;I thought not. You aren't the
+crying kind. Don't do it. War's the stupidest beast."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Margaret's with Richard, isn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not with him&mdash;that couldn't be, they said. But she and Miriam have gone
+to Merry Mount. It's in the lines. I have had a note from her."</p>
+
+<p>"What did she say?&mdash;You don't mind, Judith?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Rob, I don't mind. It was just a verse from a psalm. She said, <i>I
+had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the
+land of the living.... Be of good courage and He shall strengthen thy
+heart.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Later, in her room again, she sat by the window through the greater part
+of the night. The stars were large and soft, the airs faint, the jasmine
+in the garden below smelled sweet. The hospital day stretched before
+her; she must sleep so that she could work. She never thought&mdash;in that
+city and time no woman thought&mdash;of ceasing from service because of
+private grief. Moreover, work was her salvation. She would be betimes at
+the hospital to-morrow, and she would leave it late. She bent once more
+a long look upon the east, where were the camp-fires of Lee and
+Stonewall Jackson. In imagination she passed the sentries; she moved
+among the sleeping brigades. She found one tent, or perhaps it would be
+instead a rude cabin.... She stretched her arms upon the window-sill,
+and they and her thick fallen hair were wet at last with her tears.</p>
+
+<p>Three days passed. On the third afternoon she left the hospital early
+and went to St. Paul's. She chose again the dusk beneath the gallery,
+and she prayed dumbly, fiercely, "O God.... O God&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The church was fairly filled. The grey army was now but a little way
+without the city; it had come back to the seven hills after t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span>he seven
+days. It had come back the hero, the darling. Richmond took the cypress
+from her doors; put off the purple pall and tragic mask. Last July
+Richmond was to fall, and this July Richmond was to fall, and lo! she
+sat secure on her seven hills and her sons did her honour, and for them
+she would have made herself a waste place. She yet toiled and watched,
+yet mourned for the dead and hung over the beds of the wounded, and more
+and more she wondered whence were to appear the next day's yard of cloth
+and measure of flour. But in these days she overlaid her life with
+gladness and made her house pleasant for her sons. The service at St.
+Paul's this afternoon was one of thankfulness; the hymns rang
+triumphantly. There were many soldiers. Two officers came in together.
+Judith knew General Lee, but the other?... in a moment she saw that it
+was General Jackson. Her heart beat to suffocation. She sank down in the
+gold dusk of her corner. "O God, let him see the truth. O God, let him
+see the truth&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Outside, as she went homeward in the red sunset, she paused for a moment
+to speak to an old free negro who was begging for alms. She gave him
+something, and when he had shambled on she stood still a moment here at
+the corner of the street, with her eyes upon the beautiful rosy west.
+There was a garden wall behind her and a tall crape myrtle. As she
+stood, with the light upon her face, Maury Stafford rode by. He saw her
+as she saw him. His brooding face flushed; he made as if to check his
+horse, but did not so. He lifted his hat high and rode on, out of the
+town, back to the encamped army. Judith had made no answering motion;
+she stood with lifted face and unchanged look, the rosy light flooding
+her, the rosy tree behind her. When he was gone she shivered a little.
+"It is not Happiness that hates; it is Misery," she thought. "When I was
+happy I never felt like this. I hate him. He is <i>glad</i> of Richard's
+peril."</p>
+
+<p>That night she did not sleep at all but sat bowed together in the
+window, her arms about her knees, her forehead upon them, and her dark
+hair loose about her. She sat like a sibyl till the dawn, then rose and
+bathed and dressed, and was at the hospital earliest of all the workers
+of that day. In the evening again, just at dusk, she re&euml;ntered the room,
+and presently again took her seat by the window. The red light of the
+camp-fires was beginning to show.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a knock at the door. Judith rose and opened to a turbaned
+coloured girl. "Yes, Dilsey?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Judith, de gin'ral air downstairs. He say, ax you kin he come up
+to yo' room?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, Dilsey! Tell him to come."</p>
+
+<p>When her father came he found her standing against the wall, her hands,
+outstretched behind her, resting on it. The last soft bloom of day was
+upon her; indefinably, with her hands so, the wall behind her and her
+lifted head, she looked a soldier facing a firing party. "Tell me
+quickly," she said, "the exact truth."</p>
+
+<p>Warwick Gary closed the door behind him and came toward her. "The court
+found him guilty, Judith."</p>
+
+<p>As she still stood, the light from without upon her face, he took her in
+his arms, drew her from the wall and made her sit in the chair by the
+window, then placed himself beside her, and leaning over took her hands
+in his strong clasp. "Many a court has found many a man guilty, Judith,
+whom his own soul cleared."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true," she answered. "Your own judgment has not changed?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Judith, no."</p>
+
+<p>She lifted his hand and kissed it. "Just a moment, and then you'll tell
+me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>They sat still in the soft summer air. The stars were coming out. Off to
+the east showed the long red light where was the army. Judith's eyes
+rested here. He saw it, and saw, presently, courage lift into her face.
+It came steady, with a deathless look. "Now," she said, and loosed her
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very bad," he answered slowly. "The evidence was more adverse
+than I could have dreamed. Only on the last count was there acquittal."</p>
+
+<p>"The last count?&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The charge of personal cowardice."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyelids trembled a little. "I am glad," she said, "that they had a
+gleam of reason."</p>
+
+<p>The other uttered a short laugh, proud and troubled. "Yes. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span> would not
+have occurred to me&mdash;just that accusation.... Well, he stood cleared of
+that. But the other charges, Judith, the others&mdash;" He rested his hands
+on his sword hilt and gazed broodingly into the deepening night. "The
+court could only find as it did. I myself, sitting there, listening to
+that testimony.... It is inexplicable!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me all."</p>
+
+<p>"General Jackson's order was plain. A staff officer carried it to
+General Winder with perfect correctness. Winder repeated it to the
+court, and word for word Jackson corroborated it. The same officer,
+carrying it on from Winder to the 65th came up with a courier belonging
+to the regiment. To this man, an educated, reliable, trusted soldier, he
+gave the order."</p>
+
+<p>"He should not have done so?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is easy to say that&mdash;to blame because this time there's a snarl to
+unravel! The thing is done often enough. It should not be done, but it
+is. Staff service with us is far too irregular. The officer stands to
+receive a severe reprimand&mdash;but there is no reason to believe that he
+did not give the order to the courier with all the accuracy with which
+he had already delivered it to Winder. He testified that he did so give
+it, repeated it word for word to the court. He entrusted it to the
+courier, taking the precaution to make the latter say it over to him,
+and then he returned to General Jackson, down the stream, before the
+bridge they were building. That closed his testimony. He received the
+censure of the court, but what he did has been done before."</p>
+
+<p>"The courier testified&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No. That is the link that drops out. The courier was killed. A Thunder
+Run man&mdash;Steven Dagg&mdash;testified that he had been separated from the
+regiment. Returning to it along the wooded bank of the creek, he arrived
+just behind the courier. He heard him give the order to the colonel.
+'Could he repeat it?' 'Yes.' He did so, and it was, accurately,
+Jackson's order."</p>
+
+<p>"Richard&mdash;what did Richard say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He said the man lied."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>"The courier fell before the first volley from the troops in the woods.
+He died almost at once, but two men testified as to the only thing he
+had said. It was, 'We ought never all of us to have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span>crossed. Tell Old
+Jack I carried the order straight.'"</p>
+
+<p>He rose and with a restless sigh began to pace the little room. "I see a
+tangle&mdash;something not understood&mdash;some stumbling-block laid by laws
+beyond our vision. We cannot even define it, cannot even find its edges.
+We do not know its nature. Things happen so sometimes in this strange
+world. I do not think that Richard himself understands how the thing
+chanced. He testified&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, oh, yes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He repeated to the court the order he had received. It was not the
+order that Jackson had given and that Winder had sent on to him, though
+it differed in only two points. And neither&mdash;and there, Judith, there is
+a trouble!&mdash;neither was it with entire explicitness an order to do that
+which he did do. He acknowledged that, quite simply. He had found at the
+time an ambiguity&mdash;he had thought of sending again for confirmation to
+Winder. And then&mdash;unfortunate man! something happened to strengthen the
+interpretation which, when all is said, he preferred to receive, and
+upon which he acted. Time pressed. He took the risk, if there was a
+risk, and crossed the stream."</p>
+
+<p>"Father, do you blame him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He blames himself, Judith, somewhat cruelly. But I think it is because,
+just now, of the agony of memory. He loved his regiment.&mdash;No. What sense
+in blaming where, had there followed success, you would have praised?
+Then it would have been proper daring; now&mdash;I could say that he had been
+wiser to wait, but I do not know that in his place I should have waited.
+He was rash, perhaps, but who is there to tell? Had he chosen another
+interpretation and delayed, and been mistaken, then, too, commination
+would have fallen. No. I blame him less than he blames himself, Judith.
+But the fact remains. Even by his own showing there was a doubt. Even
+accepting his statement of the order he received, he took it upon
+himself to decide."</p>
+
+<p>"They did not accept his statement&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Judith. They judged that he had received General Jackson's order
+and had disobeyed it.&mdash;I know&mdash;I know! To us it is monstrous. But the
+court must judge by the evidence&mdash;and the verdict was to be expected. It
+was his sole word, and where his own safety was at stake. 'Had not the
+dead courier a reputation for reliability, for accuracy?' 'He had, and
+he would not lay the blam<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span>e there, besmirching a brave man's name.'
+'Where then?' 'He did not know. It was so that he had received the
+order'&mdash;Judith, Judith! I have rarely seen truth so helpless as in this
+case."</p>
+
+<p>She drew a difficult breath. "No help. And they said&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He was pronounced guilty of the first charge. That carried with it the
+verdict as to the second&mdash;the sacrifice of the regiment. There,
+too&mdash;guilty. Only the third there was no sustaining. The loss was
+fearful, but there were men enough left to clear him from that charge.
+He struggled with desperation to retrieve his error, if error it were;
+he escaped death himself as by a miracle, and he brought off a remnant
+of the command which, in weaker hands, might have been utterly swallowed
+up. On that count he is clear. But on the others&mdash;guilty, and without
+mitigation."</p>
+
+<p>He came back to the woman by the window. "Judith, I would rather put the
+sword in my own heart than put it thus in yours. War is a key, child,
+that unlocks to all dreadful things, to all mistakes, to every sorrow!"</p>
+
+<p>"I want every worst drop of it," she said. "Afterward I'll look for
+comfort. Do not be afraid for me; I feel as strong as the hills, the
+air, the sea&mdash;anything. What is the sentence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dismissal from the army."</p>
+
+<p>Judith rose and, with her hands on the window-sill, leaned out into the
+night. Her gaze went straight to the red light in the eastern sky. There
+was an effect as though the force, impalpable, real, which was herself,
+had gone too, flown from the window straight toward that horizon,
+leaving here but a fair ivory shell. It was but momentary; the chains
+held and she turned back to the shadowed room. "You have seen him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"How&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He has much of his mother in him, Judith. Eventually he will, I think,
+take it that way. But now it is his father that shows. He is very
+silent&mdash;grey and hard and silent."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"At present yet under guard. To-morrow it will all be over."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He will be free, you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he will be free."</p>
+
+<p>She came and put her arm around her father's neck. "Father, you know
+what I want to do then? To do just as soon as I shall have seen him and
+made him realize that it is for my happiness. I want to marry him....
+Ah, don't look at me so, saying nothing!" She withdrew herself a little,
+standing with her clasped hands against his breast. "You expected that,
+did you not? Why, what else.... Father, I am not afraid of you. You will
+let me do it."</p>
+
+<p>He regarded her with a grave, compassionate face. "No. You need not fear
+me, Judith. It is hardly father and child with you and me. It is soul
+and soul, and I trust your soul with its own concerns. Moreover, if it
+is pain to consider what you would do, the pang would be greater to find
+you not capable.... Yes, I would let you do it. But I do not think that
+Richard will."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>CEDAR RUN</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Seven Days brought a sterner temper into this war. The two sides
+grew to know each other better; each saw how determined was the other,
+and either foe, to match the other, raised the bronze in himself to
+iron. The great army, still under McClellan, at Harrison's Landing,
+became the Army of the Potomac. The great army guarding Richmond under
+Lee, became the Army of Northern Virginia. President Lincoln called
+upon the Governors of the Northern States for three hundred thousand
+men, and offered bounties. President Davis called upon the Governors of
+the Southern States for conscripts, and obtained no great number, for
+the mass of the men had volunteered. The world at large looked on, now
+and henceforth, with an absorbed regard. The struggle promised to be
+Homeric, memorable. The South was a fortress beleaguered; seven hundred
+thousand square miles of territory lost and inland as the steppes of
+Tartary, for all her ports were blocked by Northern men-of-war. Little
+news from the fortress escaped; the world had a sense of gigantic grey
+figures moving here and there behind a great battle veil, of a push
+against the fortress, a push from all sides, with approved battering
+rams, scaling ladders, hooks, grapples, mines, of blue figures, all
+known and described in heroic terms by the Northern public prints, a
+push repelled by the voiceless, printless, dimly-discerned grey figures.
+Not that the grey, too, were not described to the nations in the prints
+above. They were. The wonder was that the creatures could fight&mdash;even,
+it appeared, fight to effect. Around and over the wide-flung fortress
+the battle smoke rolled and eddied. Drums were distantly heard, now
+rallying, now muffled. A red flag with a blue cross rose and fell and
+rose again; grey names emerged, floated, wraith-like, over the sea, not
+to be stopped by blue men-of-war, names and picturesque nicknames, loved
+of soldiers. It grew to be allowed that there must be courage in the
+fortress, and a gift of leadership. All was seen confusedly, but with a
+mounting, mounting interest. The world gaped at the far-borne clang and
+smoke and roar. Military men in clubs demonstrated to a nicety just how
+long the fortress might hold out, and just how it must be taken at last.
+Schoolboys fought over again in the schoolyards the battles with the
+heathenish names. The Emperor of the French and the King of Prussia and
+the Queen of Spain and the Queen of England and the Czar and the Sultan
+and the Pope at Rome asked each morning for the war news, and so did
+gaunt cotton-spinners staring in mill towns at tall smokeless chimneys.</p>
+
+<p>Early in June Halleck was appointed commander-in-chief of all the armies
+of the United States. What to do with McClellan, at present summering on
+the James twenty-five miles below Richmond, came upon the board.
+McClellan claimed, quite rightly, that here and now, with his army on
+both sides of the James, he held the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span> key position, and that with
+sufficient reinforcements he could force the evacuation of Richmond.
+Only give him reinforcements with which to face Lee's "not less than two
+hundred thousand!" Recall the Army of the Potomac, and it might be some
+time before it again saw Richmond! Halleck deliberated. General Pope had
+come out of the west to take concentrated command of the old forces of
+Banks, Sigel, Fr&eacute;mont, and McDowell. He had an attitude, had Pope, at
+the head of his forty thousand men behind the Rappahannock! The armies
+were too widely separated, McClellan's location notoriously unhealthy.
+Impossible to furnish reinforcements to the tune asked for, Washington
+might, at any moment, be in peril. It was understood that Stonewall
+Jackson had left Richmond on the thirteenth, marching toward
+Gordonsville.</p>
+
+<p>The James River might be somewhat unhealthy for strangers that summer,
+and Stonewall Jackson had marched toward Gordonsville. The desire at the
+moment most at the heart of General Robert Edward Lee was that General
+McClellan should be recalled. Therefore he guarded Richmond with
+something less than sixty thousand men, and he made rumours to spread of
+gunboats building, and he sent Major-General T. J. Jackson northward
+with twelve thousand men.</p>
+
+<p>In this July month there was an effect of suspense. The fortress was
+taking muster, telling its strength, soldering its flag to the staff and
+the staff to the keep. The besiegers were gathering; the world was
+watching, expectant of the grimmer struggle. There came a roar and clang
+from the outer walls, from the Mississippi above Vicksburg, from the
+Georgian coast, from Murfreesboro in Tennessee, from Arkansas, from
+Morgan's raids in Kentucky. There was fire and sound enough, but the
+battles that were to tell were looked for on Virginia soil. Hot and
+still were the July days, hot and still was the air, and charged with a
+certain sentiment. Thunderbolts were forging; all concerned knew that,
+and very subtly life and death and the blue sky and the green leaves
+came freshlier across the senses. Jackson, arriving at Gordonsville the
+nineteenth of July, found Pope before him with forty-seven thousand men.
+He asked for reinforcements and Lee, detaching yet another twelve
+thousand from the army at Richmond, sent him A. P. Hill and the Light
+Division. Hill arrived on the second of August, splendid fighter, in his
+hunting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span> shirt, with his red beard! That evening in Jackson's quarters,
+some one showed him a captured copy of Pope's Orders, numbers 12 and 75.
+He read, crumpled the papers and tossed them aside, then turned to
+Jackson sitting sucking a lemon. "Well, general, here's a new candidate
+for your attention!"</p>
+
+<p>Jackson looked up. "Yes, sir. By God's blessing he shall have it." He
+sucked on, studying a map of the country between Slaughter Mountain and
+Manassas which Hotchkiss had made him. In a letter to his wife from
+Richmond he had spoken of "fever and debility" attending him during his
+stay in that section of the country. If it were so he had apparently
+left them in the rear when he came up here. He sat now tranquil as a
+stone wall, in sight of the mountains, sucking his lemon and studying
+his maps.</p>
+
+<p>This was the second. On the sixth of August Pope began to cross the
+Rappahannock. On the afternoon of the seventh the grey army was in
+motion. All the eighth it was in column, the heat intense, the dust
+stifling, an entanglement of trains and a misunderstanding of orders on
+the part of Hill and Ewell resulting in a confused and retarded march.
+Night fell, hot and breathless. Twenty-three thousand grey soldiers,
+moving toward Orange Court House, made the dark road vocal with
+statements as to the reeking heat, the dust, the condition of their
+shoes and the impertinence of the cavalry. The latter was more
+irritating than were the flapping soles, the dust in the throat, and the
+sweat pouring into the eyes. The infantry swore, swerving again and
+again to one side of the narrow road to let small bodies of horsemen go
+by. It was dark, the road going through an interminable hot, close wood.
+Officers and men were liberal in their vituperation. "Thank the Lord, it
+ain't my arm!"&mdash;"Here you fellows&mdash;damn you! look where you are going!
+Trampling innocent bystanders that way!&mdash;Why in hell didn't you stay
+back where you belong?"&mdash;"Of course if you've positively got to get to
+the front and can't find any other road it's our place to give you this
+one!&mdash;Just wait a moment and we'll ask the colonel if we can't <i>lie
+down</i>. It'll be easier to ride over us that way.&mdash;Oh, go to hell!"</p>
+
+<p>The parties passed, the ranks of the infantry straightened out again on
+the dark road, the column wound on through the hot, midnight wood. More
+hoof-beats&mdash;another party of cavalry to be let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span> by! They passed the
+infantry in the darkness, pushing the broken line into the ditch and
+scrub. In the pitchy blackness an impatient command lost at this
+juncture its temper. The men swore, an officer called out to the
+horsemen a savage "Halt!" The party pressed on. The officer furious,
+caught a bridle rein. "Halt, damn you! Stop them, men! Now you cavalry
+have got to learn a thing or two! One is, that the infantry is the
+important thing in war! It's the aristocracy, damn you! The other is
+that we were on this road first anyhow! Now you just turn out into the
+woods yourself, and the next time I tell you to halt, damn you, halt!"</p>
+
+<p>"This, sir," said a voice, "is General Jackson and his staff."</p>
+
+<p>The officer stammered forth apologies. "It is all right, sir," said the
+voice in the darkness. "The cavalry must be more careful, but colonel,
+true aristocrats do not curse and swear."</p>
+
+<p>An hour later the column halted in open country. A pleasant farmhouse
+with a cool, grassy yard surrounded by an ornamental fence, white paling
+gleaming in the waved lights, flung wide its doors to Stonewall Jackson.
+The troops bivouacked around, in field and meadow. A rain came up, a
+chilly downpour. An aide appeared before the brigade encamped
+immediately about the farmhouse. "The general says, sir, that the men
+may take the rail fence over there, but the regimental officers are to
+see that under no circumstances is the fence about Mrs. Wilson's yard to
+be touched."</p>
+
+<p>The night passed. Officers had had a hard day; they slept perhaps
+somewhat soundly, wrapped in their oilcloths, in the chilly rain, by the
+smallest of sputtering camp-fires. The rain stopped at three o'clock;
+the August dawn came up gloriously with a cool freshness. Reveille
+sounded. Stonewall Jackson came from the farmhouse, looked about him and
+then walked across the grassy yard. A little later five colonels of five
+regiments found themselves ordered to report to the general commanding
+the brigade.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, as you came by did you notice the condition of the
+ornamental fence about the yard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not especially, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I did, sir. One panel is gone. I suppose the men were tempted. It was a
+confounded cold rain."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The brigadier pursed his lips. "Well, colonel, you heard the order. All
+of you heard the order. I regret to say, so did I. Dog-gone tiredness
+and profound slumber are no excuse. You ought&mdash;we ought&mdash;to have heard
+them at the palings. General Jackson has ordered you all under arrest."</p>
+
+<p>"Five of us, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Five of you. Damn it, sir, six of us!"</p>
+
+<p>The five colonels looked at one another and looked at their brigadier.
+"What would you advise, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The brigadier was very red. "I have sent one of my staff to Mrs. Wilson,
+gentlemen, to enquire the cost of the entire ornamental fence! I'd
+advise that we pay, and&mdash;if we've got any&mdash;pay in gold."</p>
+
+<p>By eight o'clock the column was in motion&mdash;a fair day and a fair
+country, with all the harvest fields and the deep wooded hills and the
+August sky. After the rain the roads were just pleasantly wet; dewdrops
+hung on the corn blades, blackberries were ripening, ox-eye daisies
+fringed the banks of red earth. The head of the column, coming to a
+by-road, found awaiting it there an old, plain country woman in a faded
+sunbonnet and faded check apron. She had a basket on her arm, and she
+stepped into the middle of the road before Little Sorrel. "Air this
+General Jackson?"</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson checked the horse. The staff and a division general or
+two stopped likewise. Behind them came on the infantry advance, long and
+jingling. "Yes, madam, I am General Jackson. What can I do for you?"</p>
+
+<p>The old woman put down her basket and wiped her hands on her apron.
+"General, my son John air in your company. An' I've brought him some
+socks an' two shirts an' a chicken, an' a pot of apple butter. An' ef
+you'll call John I'll be obleeged to you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>A young man in the group of horsemen laughed, but stopped abruptly as
+Jackson looked round. The latter turned to the old woman with the
+gentlest blue eyes, and the kindliest slow smile. "I've got a great many
+companies, ma'am. They are all along the road from Gordonsville. I don't
+believe I know your son."</p>
+
+<p>But the old woman would not have that. "My lan', general! I reckon you
+all know John! I reckon John wuz the first man to jine the army. He wuz
+choppi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span>ng down the big gum by the crick, an' the news come, an' he
+chopped on twel the gum wuz down, an' he says, says he, 'I'll cut it up
+for you, Maw, an' then I'm goin'.' An' he went.&mdash;He's about your make
+an' he has light hair an' eyes an' he wuz wearing butternut&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What is his last name, ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>"His middle name's Henry an' his last name's Simpson."</p>
+
+<p>"In whose brigade is he, and in what regiment?"</p>
+
+<p>But the old woman shook her head. She knew only that he was in General
+Jackson's company. "We never larned to write, John an' me. He wuz
+powerful good to me&mdash;en I reckon he's been in all the battles 'cause he
+wuz born that way. Some socks, and two shirts an' something to eat&mdash;an'
+he hez a scar over his eye where a setting hen pecked him when he was
+little&mdash;an' won't you please find him for me, sir?" The old voice
+quavered toward tears.</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson dismounted, and looked toward the on-coming column.
+The advance was now but a few hundred yards away; the whole army to the
+last wagon train had its orders for expedition. He sent for his
+adjutant. "Companies from Orange County, sir? Yes, there are a number in
+different regiments and brigades."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you will go, colonel, and halt the advance. See if there is an
+Orange company and a private named John Simpson."</p>
+
+<p>There was not. The woman with the basket was old and tired. She sat down
+on the earth beneath a sign post and threw her apron over her head.
+Jackson sent an aide back three miles to the main body. "Captain, find
+the Orange companies and a private named John Simpson. Bring him here.
+Tall, light-haired, light eyes, with a scar over one eye. If he is not
+in the main column go on to the rear."</p>
+
+<p>The aide spurred his horse. Jackson explained matters. "You'll have to
+wait a while, Mrs. Simpson. If your son's in the army he'll be brought
+to you. I'll leave one of my aides with you!" He spoke to Little Sorrel
+and put his hand on the saddle bow. Mrs. Simpson's apron came down.
+"Please, general, don't you go! Please, sir, you stay! They won't know
+him like you will! They'll just come back an' say they can't find
+him!&mdash;An' I got to see John&mdash;I just got to!&mdash;Don't go, please, sir! Ef
+'t was your mother&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson and his army waited for half an hour while John
+Simpson was looked for. At the end of that time the cross roads saw him
+coming, riding behind the aide. Tall and lank, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span> butternut still, and
+red as a beet, he slipped from the horse, and saluted the general, then,
+almost crying, gathered up the checked apron and the sunbonnet and the
+basket and the old woman. "Maw, Maw! jes' look what you have done!
+Danged ef you haven't stopped the whole army! Everybody cryin' out 'John
+Simpson'!"</p>
+
+<p>On went the column through the bright August forenoon. The day grew hot
+and the dust whirled up, and the cavalry skirmished at intervals with
+detached blue clouds of horsemen. On the horizon appeared at some
+distance a conical mountain. "What's that sugar loaf over there?"
+"That's Slaughter's Mountain south of Culpeper. Cedar Run's beyond."</p>
+
+<p>The day wore on. Slaughter Mountain grew larger. The country between was
+lovely, green and rolling; despite the heat and the dust and the delay
+the troops were in spirits. They were going against Major-General John
+Pope and they liked the job. The old Army of the Valley, now a part of
+the Army of Northern Virginia, rather admired Shields, had no especial
+objection to McDowell, and felt a real gratitude toward Mr. Commissary
+Banks, but it was prepared to fight Pope with a vigour born of
+detestation. A man of the old Army, marching with Ewell, began to
+sing:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Pope told a flattering tale<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which proved to be bravado,</span><br />
+About the streams that spout like ale<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On the Llano Estacado!</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"That's the Staked Plains, you know. Awful hot out there! Pretty hot
+here, too. Look at them lovely roasting ears! Can't touch 'em. Old Jack
+says so. Pope may live on the country, but we mayn't." "That mountain is
+getting pretty big." "Hello! Just a cavalry scrimmage&mdash;Hello! hello!
+Artillery's more serious!" "Boys, boys! we've struck
+Headquarters-in-the-saddle!&mdash;What's that awful noise?&mdash;Old Jack's
+coming&mdash;Old Jack's coming to the front!&mdash;Mercy! didn't know even we
+could cheer like that!&mdash;Yaaaih! Yaaaaaaihhh! Stonewall Jackson!
+Stonewall Jackson! Yaaaaaaiiiihhh!"</p>
+
+<p>As the day declined the battle swelled in smoke and thunder. The blue
+batteries were well placed, and against them thundered twenty-six grey
+rifled guns: two Parrotts of Rockbridge with a gun of Carpenter's
+appeared at the top of the hill, tore down the long slope and came into
+battery in an open field, skirted by a wood. Behind was the Stonewall
+Brigade in column of regiments. The guns were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span> placed <i>en &eacute;chelon</i>, the
+horses taken away, the ball opened with canister. Immediately the
+Federal guns answered, got the range of the grey, and began to do deadly
+mischief. All around young trees were cut off short. The shells came,
+thick, black, and screaming. The place proved fatal to officers.
+Carpenter was struck in the head by a piece of shell&mdash;mortally wounded.
+The chief of artillery, Major Snowden Andrews fell, desperately injured,
+then Captain Caskie was hurt, then Lieutenant Graham. The gunners worked
+like mad. The guns thundered, recoiled, thundered again. The blue shells
+arrived in a deadly stream. All was smoke, whistling limbs of trees,
+glare and roar. General Winder came up on foot. Standing by a grey
+Parrott he tried with his field glass to make out the Federal batteries.
+Lowering the glass he shouted some direction to the men about the gun
+below him. The noise was hideous, deafening. Seeing that he was not
+understood he raised his arm and hollowed his hand above his mouth. A
+shell passed beneath his arm, through his side. He fell stiffly back,
+mangled and dying.</p>
+
+<p>There was a thick piece of woods, deep and dark, stretching westward.
+The left of Jackson's division rested here. Ewell's brigades and
+batteries were on the mountain slope; the Light Division, A. P. Hill in
+his red battle shirt at its head, not yet up; Jubal Early forming a line
+of battle in the rolling fields. An aide came to "Old Jube." "General
+Jackson's compliments to General Early, and he says you will advance on
+the enemy, and General Winder's troops will support you." Early had a
+thin, high, drawling voice. "My compliments to General Jackson, and tell
+him I will do it."</p>
+
+<p>The Stonewall Brigade, drawn up in the rear of the Artillery, stood
+waiting its orders from Winder. There came a rumor. "The general is
+killed! General Winder is killed!" The Stonewall chose to be
+incredulous. "It is not so! We don't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>The 65th, cut to pieces at White Oak Swamp, had renewed itself.
+Recruits&mdash;boys and elderly men&mdash;a few melancholy conscripts, a number of
+transferals from full commands had closed its ranks. The 65th, smaller
+now, of diluted quality, but even so, dogged and promising well,&mdash;the
+65th, waiting on the edge of a wheat field, looked across it to
+Taliaferro's and Campbell's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span> brigades and the dark wood in front. Billy
+Maydew was sergeant now and Matthew Coffin was first lieutenant of
+Company A. The two had some talk under a big walnut tree.</p>
+
+<p>"Artillery's been shouting for two hours," said Coffin. "They've got a
+hell lot of cavalry, too, but if there's any infantry I can't see it."</p>
+
+<p>"There air a message gone to Campbell and Taliaferro. I heard Old Jack
+send it. 'Look well to your left,' he says, says he. That thar wood's
+the left," said Billy. "It looks lonesomer than lonesome, but thar! when
+lonesome things do blaze out they blaze out the worst!"</p>
+
+<p>The colonel of the 65th&mdash;Colonel Erskine&mdash;came along the front. "It's
+too true, men. We've lost General Winder. Well, we'll avenge him!&mdash;Look!
+there is Jubal Early advancing!"</p>
+
+<p>Early's line of battle was a beautiful sight. It moved through the
+fields and up a gentle hillside, and pushed before it bright clusters of
+Federal cavalry. When the grey lines came to the hilltop the Federal
+batteries opened fiercely. Early posted Dement and Brown and loudly
+answered. To the left rolled great wheat fields, the yellow grain
+standing in shocks. Here gathered the beautiful blue cavalry, many and
+gallant. Ewell with Trimble's South Carolinians and Harry Hayes's
+Louisianians held the slope of the mountain, and from these heights
+bellowed Latimer's guns. Over hill and vale the Light Division was seen
+coming, ten thousand men in grey led by A. P. Hill.</p>
+
+<p>"It surely air a sight to see," said Billy. "I never even dreamed it,
+back thar on Thunder Run."</p>
+
+<p>"There the Yankees come!" cried Coffin. "There! a stream of them&mdash;up
+that narrow valley!&mdash;Now&mdash;now&mdash;now Early has touched them!&mdash;Damn you,
+Billy! What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the wood," answered Billy. "Thar's something coming out of the
+lonesome wood."</p>
+
+<p>On the left the 1st and 42d Virginia were the advance regiments. Out of
+the forest, startling, unexpected, burst a long blue battle line. Banks,
+a brave man if not a wise one, interpreted Pope's orders somewhat to
+suit h<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span>imself, and attacked without waiting for Sigel or McDowell. In
+this instance valor seemed likely to prove the better part of
+discretion. Of the grey generals, Hill was not up, Early was hotly
+engaged, the artillery fire, grey and blue alike, sweeping the defile
+before Ewell kept him on the mountain side. Bayonets fixed, bright
+colours tossing, skirmishers advanced, on with verve and determination
+came Banks's attack. As it crossed the yellow stubble field Taliaferro
+and Campbell, startled by the apparition but steady, poured in a
+withering fire. But the blue came on, swung its right and partly
+surrounded the 1st Virginia. Amid a hell of shots, bayonet work, shouts,
+and cries 1st Virginia broke; fell back upon the 42d, that in its turn
+was overwhelmed. Down came the blue wave on Taliaferro's flank. The
+wheat field filled with uproar. Taliaferro broke, Campbell broke.</p>
+
+<p>The Stonewall stirred like leaves in autumn. Ronald, colonel of the 2d,
+commanding in Winder's place, made with despatch a line of battle. The
+smoke was everywhere, rolling and thick. Out of it came abruptly a
+voice. "I have always depended upon this brigade. Forward!"</p>
+
+<p>Billy had an impression of wheat stubble beneath his feet, wheat stubble
+thick strewn with men, silent or lamentably crying out, and about his
+ears a whistling storm of minies. There was, too, a whirl of grey forms.
+There was no alignment&mdash;regiments were dashed to pieces&mdash;everybody was
+mixed up. It was like an overturned beehive. Then in the swirling smoke,
+in the swarm and shouting and grey rout, he saw Little Sorrel, and
+Stonewall Jackson standing in his stirrups. He had drawn his sabre; it
+flashed above his head like a gleam from the sinking sun. Billy spoke
+aloud. "I've been with him from the first, and this air the first time I
+ever saw him do that." As he spoke he caught hold of a fleeing grey
+soldier. "Stand still and fight! Thar ain't nothing in the rear but
+damned safety!"</p>
+
+<p>The grey surge hung poised, the tide one moment between ebb and flow.
+The noise was hellish; sounds of triumph, sounds of panic, of anger,
+encouragement, appeal, despair, woe and pain, with the callous roar of
+musketry and the loud indifference of the guns. Above it all the man on
+the quaint war horse made himself heard. From the blue line of steel
+above his head, from the eyes below the forage cap, from the bearded
+lips, from the whole man there poured a magic control. He shouted and
+his voice mastered the storm. "Rally, brave men! Rally and follow me! I
+will lead you. Jackson will lead you. Rally! Rally!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Billy saw the 21st Virginia, what was left of it, swing suddenly around,
+give the Confederate yell, and dash itself against the blue. Taliaferro
+rallied, Campbell rallied, the Stonewall itself under Ronald rallied.
+The first of the Light Division, Branch's North Carolinians came on with
+a shout, and Thomas's Georgians and Lane and Archer and Pender. Early
+was up, Ewell sweeping down from the mountain. Jackson came along the
+restored front. The soldiers greeted him with a shout that tore the
+welkin. He touched the forage cap. "Give them the bayonet! Give them the
+bayonet! <i>Forward, and drive them!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The cavalry with Banks was fine and staunch. At this moment it undertook
+a charge useless but magnificent. With clarion sound, with tossing
+colours, with huzzas and waving sabres, a glorious and fearful sight,
+the cavalry rushed diagonally across the trampled field, its flank
+exposed to the North Carolinians. These opened a blasting fire while
+Taliaferro's brigade met it full, and the 13th Virginia, couched behind
+a grey zigzag of fence, gave volley after volley. Little more than half
+of those horsemen returned.</p>
+
+<p>Dusk fell and the blue were in full retreat. After them swept the
+grey&mdash;the Light Division, Jubal Early, Ewell, Jackson's own. In the corn
+fields, in the wheat fields, in the forest thick, thick! lay the dead
+and wounded, three thousand men, grey and blue, fallen in that fight of
+an hour and a half. The blue crossed Cedar Run, the grey crossed it
+after them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span> The moon, just past the full, rose above the hilltops. On
+the whole the summer night was light enough. Stonewall Jackson brought
+up two fresh brigades and with Pegram's battery pressed on by moonlight.
+That dauntless artillerist, a boy in years, an old wise man in command,
+found the general on Little Sorrel pounding beside him for some time
+through the moonlit night. Jackson spoke but once. "Delightful
+excitement," he said.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIELD OF MANASSAS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The column, after an extraordinary march attended by skirmishes, most
+wearily winding through a pitch black night, heard the "Halt!" with
+rejoicing. "Old Jack be thanked! So we ain't turning on our tail and
+going back through Thoroughfare Gap after all! See anything of Marse
+Robert?&mdash;Go away! he ain't any nearer than White Plains. He and
+Longstreet won't get through Thoroughfare until to-morrow&mdash;<i>Break
+ranks!</i> Oh Lord, yes! with pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>Under foot there was rough, somewhat rolling ground. In the dark night
+men dropped down without particularity as to couch or bedchamber. Nature
+and the time combined to spread for them a long and echoing series of
+sleeping rooms, carpeted and tapestried according to Nature's whim,
+vaulted with whistling storm or drift of clouds or pageantry of stars.
+The troops took the quarters indicated sometimes with, sometimes without
+remark. To-night there was little speech of any kind before falling into
+dreamless slumber. "O hell! Hungry as a dog!"&mdash;"Me, too!"&mdash;"Can't you
+just <i>see</i> Manassas Junction and Stuart's and Trimble's fellows gorging
+themselves? Biscuit and cake and pickles and 'desecrated' vegetables and
+canned peaches and sardines and jam and coffee!&mdash;freight cars and wagons
+and storehouses just filled with jam and coffee and canned peaches and
+cigars and&mdash;" "I wish that fool would hush! I wasn't hungry
+before!"&mdash;"and nice cozy fires, and rashers of bacon broiling, and
+plenty of coffee, and all around just like daisies in the field, clean
+new shirts, and drawers and socks, and handkerchiefs and shoes and
+writing paper and soap."&mdash;"Will you go to hell and stop talking as you
+go?"&mdash;"Seems somehow an awful lonely place, boys!&mdash;dark and a wind. Hear
+that whippoorwill? Just twenty thousand men sloshin' round&mdash;and Pope may
+be right over there by the whippoorwill. Jarrow says that with McCall
+and Heintzelman and Fitz John Porter, there are seventy thousand of
+them. Well? They've got Headquarters-in-the-saddle and we've got
+Stonewall Jackson&mdash;That's so! that's so! Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>Dawn came calmly up, dawn of the twenty-eighth of August. The ghostly
+trumpets blew&mdash;the grey soldiers stirred and rose. In the sky were yet a
+star or two and a pale quarter moon. These slowly faded and the faintest
+coral tinge overspread that far and cold eastern heaven. The men were
+busied about breakfast, but now this group and presently that suspended
+operations. "What's there about this place anyhow? It has an awful,
+familiar look. The stream and the stone bridge and the woods and the
+hill&mdash;the Henry Hill. Good God! it's the field of Manassas!"</p>
+
+<p>The field of Manassas, in the half light, somehow inspired a faint awe,
+a creeping horror. "God! how young we were that day! It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span> seems so long
+ago, and yet it comes back. Do you remember how we crashed together at
+the Stone Bridge? There's the Mathews Hill where we first met Sykes and
+Ricketts&mdash;seen them often since. The Henry Hill&mdash;there's the house&mdash;Mrs.
+Henry was killed. Hampton and Cary came along there and Beauregard with
+his sword out and Old Joe swinging the colours high, restoring the
+battle!&mdash;and Kirby Smith, just in time&mdash;just in time, and the yell his
+column gave! Next day we thought the war was over."&mdash;"I didn't."&mdash;"Yes,
+you did! You said, 'Well, boys, we're going back to every day, but by
+jiminy! we've got something to tell our grandchildren!' The ravine
+running up there&mdash;that was where Bee was killed! Bee! I can see him now.
+Then we were over there." "Yes, on the hilltop by the pine wood.
+'Jackson standing like a stone wall.' Look, the light's touching it.
+Boys, I could cry, just as easy&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The August morning strengthened. "Our guns were over there by the
+charred trees. There's where we charged, there's where we came down on
+Griffin and Ricketts!&mdash;the 33d, the 65th. The 65th made its fight there.
+Richard Cleave&mdash;" "Don't!"&mdash;"Well, that's where we came down on Griffin
+and Ricketts. Manassas! Reckon Old Jack and Marse Robert want a <i>second</i>
+battle of Manassas?"</p>
+
+<p>The light grew full. "Ewell's over there&mdash;A. P. Hill's over there. All
+together, north of the Warrenton turnpike. Where's Marse Robert and
+Longstreet?"</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Fauquier Cary, riding by, heard the last remark and answered it.
+"Marse Robert and Longstreet are marching by the road we've marched
+before them. To-night, perhaps, we'll be again a united family."</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel, are we going to have a battle?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't at the council, friends, but I can tell you what I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes! We think that you think pretty straight&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"McCall and Heintzelman and Fitz John Porter have joined General Pope."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. So we hear."</p>
+
+<p>"And others of the Army of the Potomac are on the way."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, undoubtedly."</p>
+
+<p>"But are not here yet."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I think that the thing above all others that General Lee
+wants is an immediate battle."</p>
+
+<p>He rode on. The men to whom he had been speaking looked after him
+approvingly. "He's a fine piece of steel! Always liked that whole
+family&mdash;Isn't he a cousin of &mdash;&mdash;? Yes. Wonder what he thinks about that
+matter! Heigho! Look at the stealing light and the grey shadows!
+Manassas!"</p>
+
+<p>Cary, riding by Ewell's lines, came upon Maury Stafford lying stretched
+beneath an oak, studying, too, the old battlefield. The sun was up; the
+morning cool, fresh, and pure. Dismounting, Cary seated himself beside
+the other. "You were not in the battle here? On the Peninsula, were you
+not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, with Magruder. Look at that shaft of light."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It strikes the crest of the hill&mdash;just where was the Stonewall
+Brigade."</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell. The two sat, brooding over the scene, each with his own
+thoughts. "This field will be red again," said Stafford at last.</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt. Yes, red again. I look for heavy fighting."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw you when you came in with A. P. Hill on the second. But we have
+not spoken together, I think, since Richmond."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Cary. "Not since Richmond."</p>
+
+<p>"One of your men told me that, coming up, you stopped in Albemarle."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I went home for a few hours."</p>
+
+<p>"All at Greenwood are well and&mdash;happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"All at Greenwood are well. Southern women are not precisely happy. They
+are, however, extremely courageous."</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask if Miss Cary is at Greenwood?"</p>
+
+<p>"She remained at her work in Richmond through July. Then the need at the
+hospital lessening, she went home. Yes, she is at Greenwood."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I am going to ask another question. Answer it or not as you
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span>see fit. Does she know that&mdash;most unfortunately&mdash;it was I who carried
+that order from General Jackson to General Winder?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think that she knows it." He rose. "The bugles are sounding. I
+must get back to Hill. General Lee will be up, I hope, to-night. Until
+he comes we are rather in the lion's mouth. Happily John Pope is hardly
+the desert king." He mounted his horse, and went. Stafford laid himself
+down beneath the oak, looked sideways a moment at Bull Run and the hills
+and the woods, then flung his arm upward and across his eyes, and went
+in mind to Greenwood.</p>
+
+<p>The day passed in a certain still and steely watchfulness. In the August
+afternoon, Jeb Stuart, feather in hat, around his horse's neck a garland
+of purple ironweed and yarrow, rode into the lines and spoke for ten
+minutes with General Jackson, then spurred away to the Warrenton
+turnpike. Almost immediately Ewell's and Taliaferro's divisions were
+under arms and moving north.</p>
+
+<p>Near Groveton they struck the force they were going against&mdash;King's
+division of McDowell's corps moving tranquilly toward Centreville. The
+long blue column&mdash;Doubleday, Patrick, Gibbon, and Hatch's
+brigades&mdash;showed its flank. It moved steadily, with jingle and creak of
+accoutrements, with soldier chat and laughter, with a band playing a
+quickstep, with the rays of the declining sun bright on gun-stock and
+bayonet, and with the deep rumble of the accompanying batteries. The
+head of the column came in the gold light to a farmhouse and an apple
+orchard. Out of the peace and repose of the scene burst a roar of grey
+artillery.</p>
+
+<p>The fight was fierce and bloody, and marked by a certain savage
+picturesqueness. Gibbon and Doubleday somehow deployed and seized a
+portion of the orchard. The grey held the farmhouse and the larger part
+of the fair, fruit-bearing slopes. The blue brought their artillery into
+action. The grey batteries, posted high, threw their shot and shell over
+the heads of the grey skirmishers into the opposing ranks: Wooding,
+Poague, and Carpenter did well; and then, thundering through the woods,
+came John Pelham of Stuart's Horse Artillery, and he, too, did well.</p>
+
+<p>As for the infantry, grey and blue, they were seasoned troops. There was
+no charging this golden afternoon. They merely stood, blue and grey, one
+hundred yards apart, in the sunset-flooded apple orchard, and then in a
+twilight apple orchard, and then in an apple orchard with the stars
+conceivably shining above the roof of smoke, and directed each against
+the other a great storm of musketry, round shot, and canister.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It lasted two and a half hours, that tornado, and it never relaxed in
+intensity. It was a bitter fight, and there was bitter loss. Doubleday
+and Gibbon suffered fearfully, and Ewell and Taliaferro suffered. Grey
+and blue, they stood grimly, and the tornado raged. The ghosts of the
+quiet husbandmen who had planted the orchard, of the lovers who may have
+walked there, of the children who must have played beneath the
+trees&mdash;these were scared far, far from the old peaceful haunt. It was a
+bitter fight.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford was beside Ewell when the latter fell, a shell dreadfully
+shattering his leg. The younger man caught him, drew him quite from poor
+old Rifle, and with the help of the men about got him behind the slight,
+slight shelter of one of the little curtsying trees. Old Dick's face
+twitched, but he could speak. "Of course I've lost that
+leg! &mdash;&mdash;! &mdash;&mdash;! Old Jackson isn't around, is he? Never mind! Occasion
+must excuse. Go along, gentlemen. Need you all there. Doctors and
+chaplains and the teamsters, and Dick Ewell will forgather all
+right &mdash;&mdash;! &mdash;&mdash;! Damn you, Maury, I don't want you to stay! What's that
+that man says? Taliaferro badly wounded &mdash;&mdash;! &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;! Gentlemen, one
+and all you are ordered back to your posts. I've lost a leg, but I'm not
+going to lose this battle!"</p>
+
+<p>Night came with each stark battle line engaged in giving and receiving
+as deadly a bombardment as might well be conceived. The orchard grew a
+place tawny and red and roaring with sound. And then at nine o'clock the
+sound dwindled and the light sank. The blue withdrew in good order,
+taking with them their wounded. The battle was drawn, the grey rested on
+the field, the loss of both was heavy.</p>
+
+<p>Back of the apple orchard, on the long natural terrace where he had
+posted his six guns, that tall, blond, very youthful officer whom, a
+little later, Stuart called "the heroic chivalric Pelham," whom Lee
+called "the gallant Pelham," of whom Stonewall Jackson said, "Every army
+should have a Pelham on each flank"&mdash;Major John Pelham surveyed the
+havoc among his men and horses. Then like a good and able leader, he
+brought matters shipshape, and later announced that the Horse Artillery
+would stay where it was for the night.</p>
+
+<p>The farmhouse in the orchard had been turned into a field hospital.
+Thither Pelham's wounded were borne. Of the hurt horses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span> those that
+might be saved were carefully tended, the others shot. The pickets were
+placed. Fires were kindled, and from a supply wagon somewhere in the
+rear scanty rations brought. An embassy went to the farmhouse. "Ma'am,
+the major&mdash;Major Pelham&mdash;says kin we please have a few roasting ears?"
+The embassy returned. "She says, sir, just to help ourselves. Corn,
+apples&mdash;anything we want, and she wishes it were more!"</p>
+
+<p>The six guns gleamed red in the light of the kindled fires. The men sat
+or lay between them, tasting rest after battle. Below this platform, in
+the orchard and on the turnpike and in the woods beyond, showed also
+fires and moving lights. The air was yet smoky, the night close and
+warm. There were no tents nor roofs of any nature. Officers and men
+rested in the open beneath the August stars. Pelham had a log beneath a
+Lombardy poplar, with a wide outlook toward the old field of Manassas.
+Here he talked with one of his captains. "Too many men lost! I feel it
+through and through that there is going to be heavy fighting. We'll have
+to fill up somehow."</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody from this region's in already. We might get some
+fifteen-year-olds or some sixty-five-year-olds, though, or we might ask
+the department for conscripts&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't like the latter material. Prefer the first. Well, we'll think
+about it to-morrow&mdash;It's late, late, Haralson! Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," said Haralson. "Here's a man wants to speak to you."</p>
+
+<p>Running up the hillside, from the platform where were the guns to a
+little line of woods dark against the starlit sky, was a
+cornfield&mdash;between it and the log and the poplar only a little grassy
+depression. A man had come out of the cornfield. He stood ten feet
+away&mdash;a countryman apparently, poorly dressed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who are you?" demanded Pelham, "and how did you get in my lines?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've been," said the man, "tramping it over from the mountains. And
+when I got into this county I found it chock full of armies. I didn't
+want to be taken up by the Yankees, and so I've been mostly travelling
+by night. I was in that wood up there while you all were fighting. I had
+a good view of the battle. When it was over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span>I said to myself, 'After
+all they're my folk,' and I came down through the corn. I was lying
+there between the stalks; I heard you say you needed gunners. I said to
+myself, 'I might as well join now as later. We've all got to join one
+way or another, that's clear,' and so I thought, sir, I'd join you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why haven't you 'joined,' as you call it, before?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've been right sick for a year or more, sir. I got a blow on the head
+in a saw mill on Briony Creek and it made me just as useless as a bit of
+pith. The doctor says I am all right now, sir. I got tired of staying on
+Briony&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know anything about guns?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know all about a shotgun. I could learn the other."</p>
+
+<p>"What's your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Philip Deaderick."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, come into the firelight, Deaderick, so that I can see you."</p>
+
+<p>Deaderick came, showed a powerful figure, and a steady bearded face.
+"Well," said the Alabamian, "the blow on your head doesn't seem to have
+put you out of the running! I'll try you, Deaderick."</p>
+
+<p>"I am much obliged to you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't any awkward squad into which to put you. You'll have to
+learn, and learn quickly, by watching the others. Take him and enroll
+him, Haralson, and turn him over to Dreux and the Howitzer. Now,
+Deaderick, the Horse Artillery is heaven to a good man who does his
+duty, and it's hell to the other kind. I advise you to try for heaven.
+That's all. Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>Day broke over the field of Groveton, over the plains of Manassas.
+Stonewall Jackson moved in force westward from the old battle-ground.
+South of Bull Run, between Young's Branch and Stony Ridge, ran an
+unfinished railroad. It was bordered by woods and rolling fields. There
+were alternate embankments and deep railroad cuts. Behind was the long
+ridge and Catharpin Run, in front, sloping gently to the little stream,
+green fields broken to the north by one deep wood. Stonewall Jackson
+laid his hand on the railroad with those deep cuts and on the rough and
+rising ground beyond. In the red dawn there stretched a battle front of
+nearly two miles. A. P. Hill had the left. Trimble and Lawton of Ewell's
+had the centre, Jackson's own division the right, Jubal Early and Forno
+of Ewell's a detached force on this wing. There were forty guns, and
+they were ranged along the rocky ridge behind the infantry. Jeb Stuart
+guarded the flanks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The chill moisture of the morning, the dew-drenched earth, the quiet
+woods, the rose light in the sky&mdash;the troops moving here and there to
+their assigned positions, exchanged opinions. "Ain't it like the
+twenty-first of July, 1861?"&mdash;"It air and it ain't&mdash;mostly
+ain't!"&mdash;"That's true! Hello! they are going to give us the railroad
+cut! God bless the Manassas Railroad Company! If we'd dug a whole day we
+couldn't have dug such a ditch as that!"&mdash;"Look at the boys behind the
+embankment! Well, if that isn't the jim-dandiest breastwork! 'N look at
+the forty guns up there against the sky!"&mdash;"Better tear those vines away
+from the edge. Pretty, aren't they? All the blue morning glories.
+Regiment's swung off toward Manassas Junction! Now if Longstreet should
+come up!"&mdash;"Maybe he will. Wouldn't it be exciting? Come up with a yell
+same as Kirby Smith did last year! Wonder where the Yankees are?"
+"Somewhere in the woods, the whole hell lot of them."&mdash;"Some of them
+aren't a hell lot. Some of them are right fine. Down on the Chickahominy
+I acquired a real respect for the Army of the Potomac&mdash;and a lot of
+it'll be here to-day. Yes, sir, I like Fitz John Porter and Sykes and
+Reynolds and a lot of them first rate! They can't help being commanded
+by The-Man-without-a-Rear. That's Washington's fault, not
+theirs."&mdash;"Yes, sir, Ricketts and Meade and Kearney and a lot of them
+are all right."&mdash;"Good Lord, what a shout! That's either Old Jack or a
+rabbit."&mdash;"It's Old Jack! It's Old Jack! He's coming along the front.
+Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! He's passed. O
+God! I wish that Bee and Bartow and all that fell here could see him and
+us now."&mdash;"There's Stuart passing through the fields. What guns are
+those going up Stony Ridge?&mdash;Pelham and the Horse Artillery."&mdash;"Listen!
+Bugles! There they come! There they come! Over the Henry Hill."
+<i>Attention!</i></p>
+
+<p>About the middle of the morning the cannonading ceased. "There's a
+movement this way," said A. P. Hill on the left. "They mean to turn us.
+They have ploughed this wood with shells, and now they're coming to sow
+it. All right, men! General Jackson's looking!&mdash;and General Lee will be
+here to-night to tell the story to. I suppose you'd like Marse Robert to
+say, 'Well done!' All right, then, do well!&mdash;I don't think we're any too
+rich, Garrett, in ammunition. Better go tell General Jackson so."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The men talked, Hill's men and Ewell's men on Hill's right&mdash;not volubly,
+but with slow appreciation. "Reynolds? Like Reynolds all right. Milroy?
+Don't care for the gentleman. Sigel&mdash;Schurz&mdash;Schenck&mdash;Steinwehr? <i>Nein.
+Nein!</i> Wonder if they remember Cross Keys?"&mdash;"They've got a powerful
+long line. There isn't but one thing I envy them and that's those
+beautiful batteries. I don't envy them their good food, and their good,
+whole clothes or anything but the guns."&mdash;"H'm, I don't envy them
+anything&mdash;our batteries are doing all right! We've got a lot of their
+guns, and to-night we'll have more. Artillery's done fine to-day."&mdash;"So
+it has! so it has!"&mdash;"Listen, they're opening again. That's Pelham&mdash;now
+Pegram&mdash;now Washington Artillery&mdash;now Rockbridge!"&mdash;"Yes sir, yes sir!
+We're all right. We're ready. Music! They always come on with music.
+Funny! but they've got the bands. What are they playing? Never heard it
+before. Think it's 'What are the Wild Waves Saying?'"&mdash;"I think it's
+'When this Cruel War is Over.'"&mdash;"Go 'way, you boys weren't in the
+Valley! We've heard it several times. It's 'Der Wacht am Rhein.'"&mdash;"All
+right, sir! All right. Now!"</p>
+
+<p>Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, after the third great blue
+charge, Edward Cary, lips blackened from tearing cartridges, lock and
+barrel of his rifle hot within his hands, his cap shot away, his sleeve
+torn to ribbons where he had bared and bandaged a flesh wound in the
+arm, Edward Cary straightened himself and wiped away the sweat and
+powder grime which blinded him. An officer's voice came out of the murk.
+"The general asks for volunteers to strip the field of cartridges."</p>
+
+<p>There were four men lying together, killed by the same shell. The head
+of one was gone, the legs of another; the third was disembowelled, the
+fourth had his breast crushed in. Their cartridge boxes when opened were
+found to be half full. Edward emptied them into the haversack he carried
+and went on to the next. This was a boy of sixteen, not dead yet,
+moaning like a wounded hound. Edward gave him the little water that was
+in his canteen, took four cartridges from his box, and crept on. A minie
+sang by him, struck a yard away, full in the forehead of the dead man
+toward whom he was making. The dead man had a smile upon his lips; it
+was as though he mocked the bullet. All the field running back from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</a></span> the
+railroad cuts and embankment was overstormed by shot and shell, and
+everywhere from the field rose groans and cries for water. The word
+"water" never ceased from use. <i>Water!&mdash;Water, Water!&mdash;Water!&mdash;Water!</i>
+On it went, mournfully, like a wind.&mdash;<i>Water!&mdash;Water!</i> Edward gathered
+cartridges steadily. All manner of things were wont to come into his
+mind. Just now it was a certain field behind Greenwood covered with
+blackberry bushes&mdash;and the hot August sunshine&mdash;and he and Easter's Jim
+gathering blackberries while Mammy watched from beneath a tree. He heard
+again the little thud of the berries into the bucket. He took the
+cartridges from two young men&mdash;brothers from the resemblance and from
+the fact that, falling together, one, the younger, had pillowed his head
+on the other's breast, while the elder's arm was around him. They lay
+like children in sleep. The next man was elderly, a lonely,
+rugged-looking person with a face slightly contorted and a great hole in
+his breast. The next that Edward came to was badly hurt, but not too
+badly to take an interest. "Cartridges?&mdash;yes, five. I'm awful
+thirsty!&mdash;Well, never mind. Maybe it will rain. Who's charging now?
+Heintzelman, Kearney, and Reno&mdash;Got 'em all? You can draw one from my
+gun, too. I was just loading when I got hit. Well, sorry you got to go!
+It's mighty lonely lying here."</p>
+
+<p>Edward returned to the front, gave up his haversack, and got another. As
+he turned to resume the cartridge quest there arose a cry. "Steady, men!
+steady! Hooker hasn't had enough!" Edward, too, saw the blue wall coming
+through the woods on the other side of the railroad. He took a musket
+from a dead man near by and with all the other grey soldiers lay flat in
+the grass above the cut. Hooker came within range&mdash;within close range.
+The long grey front sprang to its feet and fired, dropped and loaded,
+rose and fired. A leaden storm visited the wood across the track. The
+August grass was long and dry. Sparks set it afire. Flames arose and
+caught the oak scrub. Through it all and through the storm of bullets
+the blue line burst. It came down on the unfinished track, it crossed,
+it leaped up the ten-foot bank of earth, it clanged against the grey
+line atop. The grey gave back, the colours fell and rose; the air
+rocked, so loud was the din. Stonewall Jackson appeared. "General Hill,
+order in your second line." Field's Virginians, Thomas's Georgians
+charged forward. They yelled, all their rifles flashed at once, they
+drove Hooker down into the cut, across the track, up into the burning
+brushwood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</a></span> and the smoke-filled woods. But the blue were staunch and
+seasoned troops; they reformed, they cheered. Hooker brought up a fresh
+brigade. They charged again. Down from the woods plunged the blue wave,
+through the fire, down the bank, across and up. Again din and smoke and
+flame, all invading, monstrous. Jackson's voice rose higher. "General
+Hill, order in General Pender."</p>
+
+<p>North Carolina was, first and last, a stark fighter. Together with Gregg
+and Field and Thomas, Pender drove Hooker again down the red escarpment,
+across the railroad, through the burning brush, into the wood; even
+drove him out of the wood, took a battery and dashed into the open
+beyond. Then from the hills the blue artillery opened and from the
+plains below volleyed fresh infantry. Pender was borne back through the
+wood, across the railroad, up the red side of the cut.</p>
+
+<p>Hooker had a brigade in column behind a tree-clad hill. Screened from
+sight it now moved forward, swift and silent, then with suddenness broke
+from the wood in a splendid charge. With a gleam of bayonets, with a
+flash of colours, with a loud hurrah, with a staggering volley its
+regiments plunged into the cut, swarmed up the red side and fell upon A.
+P. Hill's weakened lines. The grey wavered. Stonewall Jackson's voice
+was heard again. "General Hill, I have ordered up Forno from the right
+and a regiment of Lawton's." He jerked his hand into the air. "Here they
+are. Colonel Forno, give them the bayonet!"</p>
+
+<p>Louisiana and Georgia swept forward, Tennessee, Alabama, and Virginia
+supporting. They swept Grover's brigade down and back. There was bitter
+fighting, hand-to-hand, horrible work: the dead lay in the railroad cut
+thick as fallen leaves. The dead lay thick on either bank and thick in
+the grass that was afire and thick in the smoky wood. The blue gave way,
+went back; the grey returned to their lines.</p>
+
+<p>Edward went again for cartridges. He was beside Gregg's South
+Carolinians when a courier came up. "General Jackson wishes to know each
+brigade's amount of ammunition," and he heard Gregg's answer, "Tell
+General Jackson that this brigade has one round to the man, but I'll
+hold the position with the bayonet." Edward gleaned steadily. "Wate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</a></span>r!
+water! water!" cried the field. "O God! water!"</p>
+
+<p>It was growing late, the long, hot day declining. There had been nine
+hours of fighting. "Nine hours&mdash;ninety hours&mdash;ninety minutes?" thought
+Edward. "Time's plastic like everything else. Double it, fold it back on
+itself, stretch it out, do anything with it&mdash;" He took the cartridges
+from a trunk of a man, crept on to a soldier shot through the hip. The
+latter clutched him with a blackened hand. "Has Marse Robert come? Has
+General Lee come?"</p>
+
+<p>"They say he has. Over there on Stuart's Hill, holding Reynolds and
+McDowell and Fitz John Porter in check."</p>
+
+<p>The man fell back. "Oh, then it is all right. Stonewall Jackson and
+Robert Edward Lee. It's all right&mdash;" He spoke drowsily. "It's all right.
+I'll go to sleep."</p>
+
+<p>Edward looking sideways toward Stony Ridge saw the forty guns black
+against the sun. As he looked they blazed and thundered. He turned his
+eyes. Kearney and Reno, five brigades, were coming at a double across
+the open. As he looked they broke into the charge. With his bag of
+cartridges he made for the nearest grey line. The blue came on, a
+formidable wave indeed. Stonewall Jackson rode along the grey front.</p>
+
+<p>"Men, General Early and two regiments of Lawton's are on their way. You
+must stand it till they come. If you have only one cartridge, save it
+until they are up from the cut. Then fire, and use your bayonets. Don't
+cheer! It makes your hand less steady."</p>
+
+<p>The blue wave plunged into the railroad cut. "I think," said a grey
+soldier, "that I hear Jubal Early yelling." The blue wave mounted to the
+level. "<i>Yaaaiih! Yaaaaiih!</i>" came out of the distance. "We know that we
+do," said the men. "Now, our friend, the enemy, you go back!" Out of the
+dun cloud and roar came a deep "Steady, men! You've got your bayonets
+yet. Stand it for five minutes. General Early's coming. This is
+Manassas&mdash;Manassas&mdash;Manassas! God is over us! Stand it for five
+minutes&mdash;for three minutes.&mdash;General Early, drive them with the
+bayonet."</p>
+
+<p>Late that night on the banks of Bull Run the general "from the West,
+where we have always seen the backs of our enemy" sent a remarkable
+telegram to Halleck at Washington. <i>"We fought a terrific battle here
+yesterday with the combined forces of the enemy, which lasted with
+continuous fury from daylight until dark, by which time the enemy was
+driven from the field which we now occupy. The enemy is</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</a></span>
+<i>still in our
+front, but badly used up. We lost not less than eight thousand men
+killed and wounded, but from the appearance of the field the enemy lost
+two to one. The news has just reached me from the front that the enemy
+is retreating toward the mountains."</i></p>
+
+<p>The delusion holding, he, at noon of the thirtieth, ordered a general
+advance. "The troops to be immediately thrown forward in pursuit of the
+enemy and to press him vigorously." One of his officers undertook a
+comment. "By the Lord Harry, it will be the shortest pursuit that even
+he ever saw! Why, damn it all! they're still here! I tell you the place
+is unlucky!"</p>
+
+<p>Twenty thousand blue soldiers formed the front that came down from the
+hills and moved toward the Groveton wood and the railroad track. Behind
+them were supporting masses, forty thousand strong. On every slope
+gleamed the great blue guns. The guns opened; they shelled with
+vehemence the wood, the railroad cut, and embankment, the field
+immediately beyond. A line of grey pickets was seen to leave the wood
+and make across the track and into cover. Pope at the Stone House saw
+these with his field glass. "The last of their rear guard," he said.</p>
+
+<p>One of his generals spoke. "Their guns are undoubtedly yet on that
+ridge, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I am perfectly well aware of that, sir. But they will not be there long
+after our line has crossed the track. Either we will gloriously take
+them, or they will limber up and scamper after Jackson. He, I take it,
+is well on his way to Thoroughfare Gap. All that we need is expedition.
+Crush him, and then when Longstreet is up, crush <i>him</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And those troops on Stuart Hill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Give you my word they are nothing, general! A rebel regiment, at the
+most a brigade, thrown out from Jackson's right. I have positive
+information. Fitz John Porter is mistaken&mdash;arrogantly mistaken.&mdash;Ah, the
+rebel guns are going to indulge in a little bravado."</p>
+
+<p>The twenty thousand gleaming bayonets passed the turnpike, passed
+Dogan's house, moved on toward the wood. It rose torn and thin and black
+from yesterday's handling. Immediately beyond was the railroad cut. On
+the other side of the railroad ran a stretc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</a></span>h of field and scrub,
+mounting to Stony Ridge, that rose from the base of the woods. Stony
+Ridge looked grey itself and formidable, and all about it was the smoke
+of the forty grey guns. The twenty thousand bayonets pressed on.</p>
+
+<p>There came a blare of bugles. Loud and high they rang&mdash;the bugles of the
+Light Division, of Ewell's, of Jackson's own. They pierced the thunder
+of the guns, they came from the wood at the base of Stony Ridge. There
+was a change in the heart-beat below the twenty thousand bayonets.
+Porter and Ricketts and Hatch stared, and saw start from the wood a
+downward moving wall. It moved fast; it approached with a certain
+impetuous steadiness. Behind it were shorter lines, detached masses.
+Together all came down from Stony Ridge like an avalanche. The avalanche
+came to and took the field of yesterday, and stood revealed,&mdash;Stonewall
+Jackson holding the railroad cut. "I thought as much," said Fitz John
+Porter. "Go ask him to give us Reynolds."</p>
+
+<p>After the third charge the 65th and another regiment of the Stonewall
+Brigade, finding their ammunition exhausted, armed themselves with
+stones. Those of the Thunder Run men who had not fallen at White Oak
+Swamp proved themselves expert. Broken rock lay in heaps by the railroad
+bed. They brought these into the lines, swung and threw them. With
+stones and bayonets they held the line. Morell and Sykes were great
+fighters; the grey men recognized worthy foes. The battle grew Titanic.
+Stonewall Jackson signalled to Lee on the Warrenton turnpike, "Hill hard
+pressed. Every brigade engaged. Would like more guns."</p>
+
+<p>Lee sent two batteries, and Stephen D. Lee placed them. There arose a
+terrific noise, and presently a wild yelling. Lee signalled:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>General Jackson. Do you still need reinforcements? Lee.</i></p>
+
+<p>The signal officer on the knoll behind the Stonewall wigwagged back.</p>
+
+<p><i>No. The enemy are giving way. Jackson.</i></p>
+
+<p>They gave way, indeed. The forty guns upon the ridge, the eight that Lee
+had sent, strewed the green field beyond the Groveton wood with shot and
+shrapnel. Morell fell back, Hatch fell back; the guns became deadly,
+mowing down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</a></span> the blue lines. Stonewall Jackson rode along the front.</p>
+
+<p>"General Hill, it is time for the counterstroke. Forward, and drive
+them!"</p>
+
+<p>The signaller wigwagged to the Warrenton turnpike:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>General Lee. I am driving them. Jackson.</i></p>
+
+<p>The signaller on the turnpike signalled back:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>General Jackson. General Longstreet is advancing. Look out for and
+protect his left flank. Lee.</i></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Lee's great battle was over and won. Every division, brigade, regiment,
+battery, fifty thousand infantry and cavalry brought by the great leader
+into simultaneous action, the Army of Northern Virginia moved as in a
+vast parade over plain and hill. Four miles in length, swept the first
+wave with, in the centre, seven grey waves behind it. It was late. The
+grey sea moved in the red and purple of a great sunset. From Stony Ridge
+the forty guns thundered like grey breakers, while the guns of
+Longstreet galloped toward the front. Horses and men and guns were at
+the martial height of passion. To the right Jeb Stuart appeared,
+magnificent. On swept the resistless sea. A master mind sent it over
+those Manassas hills and plains, here diverting a portion of its waves,
+here curbing a too rapid onslaught, here harking the great mass forward,
+surmounting barriers, overwhelming a stubborn opposition, crumbling and
+breaking to pieces. Wave on wave, rapid, continuous, unremitting,
+thundered the assault, in the red sunset of the thirtieth of August.
+Pope's Army fought bravely, but in the dusk it melted away.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2>
+
+<h3>A GUNNER OF PELHAM'S</h3>
+
+
+<p>Major John Pelham looked at the clouds boiling up above Bull Run
+Mountains.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Rain, rain go away,<br />
+Come again another day!&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>he said. "What's the house they've burned over there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Chantilly, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Ruined wall and chimney, fallen roof-tree, gaping holes where windows
+had been, the old mansion stood against the turmoil of the sky. It
+looked a desolation, a poignant gloom, an unrelieved sorrow. A courier
+appeared. "The enemy's rearguard is near Ox Hill, sir. They've driven in
+some of our patrols. The main body is moving steady toward Fairfax Court
+House. General Jackson has sent the Light Division forward. General
+Stuart's going, too. He says, 'Come on.'"</p>
+
+<p>The clouds mounted high and dark, thunder began to mutter; by the time a
+part of the Light Division and a brigade of Ewell's came into touch with
+Reno and Kearney, the afternoon, already advanced, was of the hue of
+twilight. Presently there set in a violent storm of thunder and
+lightning, wind and rain. The trees writhed like wounded soldiers, the
+rain came level against the face, stinging and blinding, the artillery
+of the skies out-thundered man's inventions. It grew darker and darker,
+save for the superb, far-showing lightning flashes. Beneath these the
+blue and the grey plunged into an engagement at short range.</p>
+
+<p>What with the howling of the storm, the wind that took voices and
+whirled them high and away, the thunder above and the volleying musketry
+below, to hear an order was about the most difficult feat imaginable.
+Stafford gathered, however, that Lawton, commanding since Ewell's wound,
+was sending him to Jackson with a statement as to affairs on this wing.
+He went, riding hard against the slanting rain, and found Jackson
+standing in the middle of the road, a piece of bronze played round by
+lightning. One of the brigadiers was speaking to him. "The cartridges
+are soaking wet, sir. I do not know that I can hold my position."
+Jackson's voice came deep and curt. "Yes, sir, you can. If your muskets
+won't go off, neither will the enemy's. You are to hold it, whether you
+can or not. Go and do it."</p>
+
+<p>The brigadier went. Stafford gave his information, and received an
+order. "Go back along the road until you find the horse artillery. Tell
+Major Pelham to bring his guns to the knoll yonder with the blasted
+tree."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford turned his horse and started. The rain and wind were now at his
+back&mdash;a hundred paces, and the road, lonely save for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</a></span> stragglers, the
+grey troops, the battle in front, was all sheeted and shrouded in the
+darkly drifting storm. The fitful bursts of musketry were lost beneath
+the artillery of the clouds. He travelled a mile, found Pelham and gave
+his order, then stood aside under the tossing pines while the horse
+artillery went by. It went by in the dusk of the storm, in the long howl
+of the wind and the dash of the rain, like the iron chariots of Pluto,
+the horses galloping, the gunners clinging wherever they might place
+hand or foot, the officers and mounted men spurring alongside. Stafford
+let them all turn a bend in the road, then followed.</p>
+
+<p>All this stretch of road and field and wood had been skirmished over,
+Stuart and the blue cavalry having been in touch through the earlier
+part of the day. The road was level, with the mournful boggy fields,
+with the wild bending woods. In the fields and in the woods there were
+dark objects, which might be mounds of turf or huge twisted roots, or
+which might be dead men and horses. Stafford, riding through wind and
+rain, had no sooner thought this than he saw, indeed, what seemed a mere
+hummock beneath a clump of cedars undoubtedly move. He looked as closely
+as he might for the war of water, air, and fire, and made out a horse
+outstretched and stark, and a man pinned beneath. The man spoke. "Hello,
+upon the road there! Come and do a Christian turn!"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford left his horse and, stepping through a quagmire of watery turf,
+came into the ring of cedars. The man who had called upon him, a tall,
+long-moustached person in blue, one arm and booted leg painfully caught
+beneath the dead steed, spoke in a voice curt with suffering. "Grey,
+aren't you? Don't care. Can't help it. Get this infernal weight off me,
+won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>The other bent to the task, and at last managed to free the blue
+soldier. "There! That position must have been no joke! How long&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The blue cavalryman proceeded to feel bone and flesh, slowly and
+cautiously to move the imprisoned limbs. He drew a breath of relief.
+"Nothing broken!&mdash;How long? Well, to reckon by one's feeling I should
+say about a week. Say, however, since about noon. We drove against a
+party under Stuart. He got the best of us, and poor Caliph got a bullet.
+I could see the road. Everything grey&mdash;grey as the sea."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you call before? Any one would have helped you."</p>
+
+<p>The other continued to rub his arm and leg. "You haven't got a drop of
+brandy&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have. I should have thought of that before." He gave the other a
+small flask. The cavalryman drank. "Ah! in '55, when I was with Walker
+in Nicaragua, I got pinned like that beneath a falling cottonwood." He
+gave the flask back. "You are the kind of Samaritan I like to meet. I
+feel a new man. Thanks awfully."</p>
+
+<p>"It was foolish of you to lie there for hours&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The other leaned his back against a cedar. "Well, I thought I might hold
+out, perhaps, until we beat you and I was again in the house of my
+friends. I don't, however, object to acknowledging that you're hard to
+beat. Couldn't manage it. Growing cold and faint&mdash;head ringing. Waited
+as long as I could, then called. They say your prisons are very bad."</p>
+
+<p>"They are no worse than yours."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be. Any of them are bad."</p>
+
+<p>"We are a ravaged and blockaded country. It is with some difficulty that
+we feed and clothe our armies in the field. As for medicines with which
+to fight disease, you will not let them pass, not for our women and
+children and sick at home, and not for your own men in prison. And, for
+all our representations, you will not exchange prisoners. If there is
+undue suffering, I think you must share the blame."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, it is all hellish enough!&mdash;Well, on one side of the dice,
+prisoner of war; on the other, death here under poor Caliph. Might
+escape from prison, no escape from death. By Jove, what a thunderclap!
+It's Stonewall Jackson pursuing us, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I hear Pelham's guns&mdash;You are an Englishman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Francis Marchmont, at your service; colonel of the Marchmont"&mdash;he
+laughed&mdash;"Invincibles."</p>
+
+<p>"I am Maury Stafford, serving on General Ewell's staff.&mdash;Yes, that's
+Pelham."</p>
+
+<p>He straightened himself. "I must be getting back to the front. It is
+hard to hear for the wind and rain and thunder, but I think the musketry
+is recommencing." He looked about him. "We came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</a></span> through these woods
+this morning. Stuart has patrols everywhere, but I think that dip
+between the hills may be clear. You are pretty pale yet. You had better
+keep the brandy flask. Are you sure that you can walk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Walk beside you into your lines, you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I mean try a way out between the hills."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not your prisoner?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>Marchmont pulled at his moustaches. "Yes. I think I can walk. I won't
+deprive you of your flask&mdash;but if I might have another mouthful&mdash;Thank
+you." He rose stiffly. "If at any time I can serve you, I trust that you
+will remember my name&mdash;Francis Marchmont, colonel Marchmont Invincibles.
+Send me a slip of paper, a word, anything. <i>Ox Hill</i> will do&mdash;and you
+will find me at your service. Yes, the firing is beginning again&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford, once more upon the road, travelled northward in an unabated
+storm. Tree and bush, weed, flower and grass, writhed and shrank beneath
+the anger of the air; the rain hissed and beat, the lightning glared,
+the thunder crashed. Between the flashes all was dusk. Before him the
+rattle of musketry, the booming of the guns grew louder. He saw to the
+right, on a bare rise of ground, Pelham's guns.</p>
+
+<p>There came an attempted flanking movement of the blue&mdash;a dash of cavalry
+met by Stuart and followed by a movement of two of Hill's brigades. The
+action barred the road and fields before Stafford. He watched it a
+moment, then turned aside and mounted the rise of ground to Pelham's
+guns. A great lightning-flash lit them, ranged above him. All their wet
+metal gleamed; about them moved the gunners; a man with a lifted sponge
+staff looked an unearthly figure against the fantastic castles and
+battlements, the peaks and abysses of the boiling clouds. The light
+vanished; Stafford came level with the guns in the dusk.</p>
+
+<p>Pelham welcomed him. "'Trust in God and keep your powder dry,' eh,
+major? It's the kind of storm you read about&mdash;Hello! they've brought up
+another battery&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford dismounted. One of the guns had the vent so burned and enlarged
+that it was useless. It rested cold and silent beside its bellowing
+fellows. Stafford seated himself on the limber, and watched the double
+storm. It raged above the little hill, with its chain lightnings, with
+wind, with reverberations of thunder; and it raged below,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</a></span> between some
+thousands of grey and blue figures, small, small, in the dusk, shadowy
+manikins sending from metal tubes glow-worm flashes! He sat, with his
+chin in his hand, pondering the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Pelham came heavily into action. There was a blue battery on the
+opposite hill. The two spoke in whispers beneath the storm. The gunners,
+now in darkness, now in the vivid lightning, moved about the guns. Now
+they bent low, now they stood upright. The officer gestured to them and
+they to each other. Several were killed or wounded; and as now this
+section, now that, was more deeply engaged, there was some shifting
+among the men, occasional changes of place. The dusk increased; it was
+evident that soon night and the storm would put an end to the battle.
+Stafford, watching, made out that even now the blue and grey forms in
+the tossing woods and boggy meadows were showing less and less their
+glow-worm fires, were beginning to move apart. The guns above them
+boomed more slowly, with intervals between their speech. The thunder
+came now, not in ear-splitting cracks but with long rolling peals, with
+spaces between filled only by the wind and the rain. The human voice
+might be heard, and the officers shouted, not gestured their orders. The
+twilight deepened. The men about the gun nearest Stafford looked but
+shadows, bending, leaning across, rising upright. They talked, however,
+and the words were now audible. "Yes, if you could handle
+lightning&mdash;take one of them zigzags and turn it loose on blue
+people!"&mdash;"That battery is tired; it's going home! Right tired myself.
+Reckon we're all tired but Old Jack. He don't never get tired. This is a
+pretty behaving gun&mdash;" "That's so! and she's got good men. They do
+first-rate."&mdash;"That's so! Even the new one's good"&mdash;"Good! He learned
+that gun same as though they <i>grew</i> artillery wherever he came from.
+Briery Creek&mdash;No, Briony Creek&mdash;hey, Deaderick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Briony Creek."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford dropped his hand. "Who spoke?"</p>
+
+<p>The question had been breathed, not loudly uttered. No one answered. The
+gunners continued their movements about the guns, stooping, handling,
+lifting themselves upright. It was all but night, the lightning less and
+less violent, revealing little beyond mere shape and action. Stafford
+sank back. "Storm within and storm without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</a></span>. They breed delusions!"</p>
+
+<p>The blue battery opposite limbered up and went away. The musketry fire
+in the hollows between the hills grew desultory. A slow crackle of shots
+would be followed by silence; then might come with fierce energy a
+sudden volley; silence followed it, too,&mdash;or what, by comparison, seemed
+silence. The thunder rolled more and more distantly, the wind lashed the
+trees, the rain beat upon the guns. Officers and men of the horse
+artillery were too tired, too wet, and too busy for much conversation,
+but still human voices came and went in the lessening blast, in the
+semi-darkness and the streaming rain.</p>
+
+<p>There was a gunner near Stafford who worked in silence and rested from
+his work in silence. Stafford became conscious of him during one of the
+latter periods&mdash;a silent man, leaning against his gun. He was not ten
+feet away, but the twilight was now deep, and he rested indistinct, a
+shadow against a shadow. Once there came a pale lightning flash, but his
+arm was raised as if to shield his eyes, and there was seen but a
+strongly made gunner with a sponge staff. Darkness came again at once.
+The impression that remained with Stafford was that the gunner's face
+was turned toward him, that he had, indeed, when the flash came, been
+regarding him somewhat closely. That was nothing&mdash;a man not of the
+battery, a staff officer sitting on a disabled gun, waiting till he
+could make his way back to his chief&mdash;a moment's curiosity on an
+artilleryman's part, exhibited in a lull between fighting. Stafford had
+a certain psychic development. A thinker, he was adventurous in that
+world; to him, the true world of action. The passion that had seized and
+bound him had come with the force of an invader, of a barbaric horde,
+from a world that he ordinarily ignored. It held him helpless, an
+enslaved spirit, but around it vaguely worked the old habits of mind.
+Now it interested him&mdash;though only to a certain degree&mdash;that, in some
+subtle fashion and for some reason which he could not explain, the
+gunner with the sponge staff could so make himself felt across space. He
+wondered a little about this man; and then, insensibly, he began to
+review the past. He had resolution enough, and he did not always choose
+to review the past. To-night it was perhaps the atmosphere, the
+commotion of the elements, the harp of the wind, the scourging rain&mdash;at
+any rate, he reviewed it and fully. When the circle was completed and
+his attention touched again the storm and the twilight hill near
+Chantilly, and he lifted his eyes from the soaked and trodden ground, it
+was to find the double shadow still be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</a></span>fore him. He felt that the eyes
+of the gunner with the sponge staff were on him, had been on him for
+some time. Quite involuntarily he moved, with a sudden gesture, as
+though he evaded a blow. A sergeant's voice came through the twilight,
+the wind and the rain. "Deaderick!"</p>
+
+<p>The man by the gun moved, took up the sponge staff that had rested
+beside him, turned in the darkness and went away.</p>
+
+<p>A little later Stafford left the hilltop. The cannon had ceased their
+booming, except for here and there a fitful burst; the musketry fire had
+ceased. Pope's rearguard, Lee's advance, the two drew off and the
+engagement rested indecisive. Blue and grey, a thousand or two men
+suffered death or wounding. They lay upon the miry earth, beneath the
+pelting storm. Among the blue, Kearney and Stevens were killed. Through
+the darkness that wrapped the scene, Stafford found at last his way to
+his general. He found him with Stuart, who was reporting to Stonewall
+Jackson. "They're retreating pretty rapidly, sir. They'll reach Fairfax
+Court House presently."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. They won't stop there. We'll bivouac on the field, general."</p>
+
+<p>"And to-morrow, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, sir, we will follow them out of Virginia."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>September the second dawned bright and clear. From Fairfax Court House
+Pope telegraphed to Halleck. "There is undoubted purpose on the part of
+the enemy to keep on slowly turning my position so as to come in on the
+right. The forces under my command are unable to prevent his doing so.
+Telegraph what to do."</p>
+
+<p>Halleck telegraphed to fall back to the fortifications of Alexandria and
+Washington.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TOLLGATE</h3>
+
+
+<p>On Thunder Run Mountain faint reds and yellows were beginning to show in
+the maple leaves, while the gum trees dwelling in the hollows had a
+deeper tinge of crimson. But the mass of the forest was yet green. The
+September sun was like balm, amber days, at once alert and dream-like.
+The September nights were chilly. But the war, that pinched and starved
+and took away on all hands, left the forest and the wood for fires. On
+Thunder Run the women cut the wood, and the children gathered dead
+boughs and pine cones.</p>
+
+<p>The road over the mountain was in a bad condition. It had not been
+worked for a year. That mattered the less perhaps, that it was now so
+little travelled. All day and every day Tom Cole sat in the sunshine on
+the toll gate porch, the box for the toll beside him, and listened for
+wheels or horses' hoofs. It was an event now when he could hobble out to
+the gate, take the toll and pass the time of day. He grew querulous over
+the state of the road. "There'd surely be more travel if 't warn't so
+bad! Oh, yes, I know there aren't many left hereabouts to travel, and
+what there are, haven't got the means. But there surely would be more
+going over the mountain if the road wan't so bad!" He had a touch of
+fever, and he babbled about the road all night, and how hard it was not
+to see or talk to anybody! He said that he wished that he had died when
+he fell out of Nofsinger's hayloft. The first day that he was well
+enough to be left, Sairy went round to the Thunder Run women, beginning
+with Christianna Maydew's mother. Several days afterward, Tom hobbling
+out on the porch was most happily welcomed by the noise of wheels. "Thar
+now!" said Sairy, "ain't it a real picnic feeling to get back to
+business?" Tom went out to the gate with the tobacco box. A road wagon,
+and a sulky and a man on horseback! The old man's eyes glistened.
+"Mornin', gentlemen!" "Mornin', Mr. Cole! County's mended your road
+fine! Big hole down there filled up and the bridge that was just a
+mantrap new floored! The news? Well, Stonewall Jackson's after them!"</p>
+
+<p>But despite the filled-up holes travel was slight, slight! To-day from
+dawn until eleven, no one had passed. Tom sat in the sun on the porch,
+and the big yellow cat slept beside him, and the china asters bloomed in
+the tiny yard. Sairy was drying apples. She had them spread on boards in
+the sun. Now and then she came from the kitchen to look at them, and
+with a peach bough to drive the bees away. The close of summer found, as
+ever, Thunder Run shrunken to something like old age; but even so his
+murmur was always there like a wind in the trees. This morning there was
+a fleet of clouds in the September sky. Their shadows drove across the
+great landscape, the ridges and levels of the earth, out upon which
+Thunder Run Mountain looked so steadily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A woman, a neighbour living a mile beyond the schoolhouse, came by.
+Sairy went over to the little picket fence and the two talked. "How is
+she?"&mdash;"She's dead."&mdash;"Sho! You don't say so! Poor thing, poor thing! I
+reckon I thought of her mor'n I slept last night.&mdash;'N the child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Born dead."</p>
+
+<p>Sairy struck her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Sho! War killin'
+'em even thar!"</p>
+
+<p>The mountain woman spoke on in the slow mountain voice. "She had awful
+dreams. Somebody was fool enough to tell her 'bout how dreadful thirsty
+wounded folk get, lyin' thar all round the clock an' no one comin'! An'
+some other fool read her out of an old newspaper 'bout Malvern Hill down
+thar at Richmond. Mrs. Cole, she thought she was a soldier. An' when she
+begun to suffer she thought she was wounded. She thought she was all
+mangled and torn by a cannon ball. Yes'm, it was pitiful. An' she said
+thar was a high hill. It was five miles high, she said. An' she said
+thar was water at the top, which was foolish, but she couldn't help
+that, an' God knows women go through enough to make them foolish! An'
+she said thar was jest one path, an' thar was two children playing on
+it, an' she couldn't make them understand. She begged us all night to
+tell the children thar was a wounded soldier wantin' to get by. An' at
+dawn she said the water was cold an' died."</p>
+
+<p>The woman went on up Thunder Run Mountain. Sairy turned again the drying
+apples, then brought her patching out upon the porch and sat down in a
+low split-bottomed chair opposite Tom. The yellow cat at her feet
+yawned, stretched, and went back to sleep. The china asters bloomed; the
+sun drew out the odours of thyme and rue and tansy. Tom read a last
+week's newspaper. <i>General Lee crosses the Potomac.</i></p>
+
+<p>Christianna came down the road and unlatched the gate. "Come in, come
+in, Christianna!" said Tom. "Come in and take a cheer! Letter came
+yesterday&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Christianna sat down on the edge of the porch, her back against the
+pillar. She took off her sunbonnet. "Violetta learned to do a heap of
+things while I was down t' Richmond. I took a heap of them back, too,
+but somehow I've got more time than I used t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</a></span>o have. Somehow I jest
+wander round&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Tom took a tin box from beside the tobacco box. "'T would be awful if
+the letter didn't come once't every ten days or two weeks! Reckon I'd go
+plumb crazy, an' so would Sairy&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sairy turned the garment she was patching. "Sho! I wouldn't go crazy.
+What's the use when it's happening all the time? I ain't denying that
+most of the light would go out of things. Stop imaginin' an' read
+Christianna what he says about furin' parts."</p>
+
+<p>"After Gaines's Mill it was twelve days," said Tom, "an' the twelfth day
+we didn't say a word, only Sairy read the Bible. An' now he's well and
+rejoined at Leesburg."</p>
+
+<p>He cleared his throat. "<span class="smcap">Dear Aunt Sairy and Tom</span>:&mdash;It's fine to get back
+to the Army! It's an Army that you can love. I do love it. But I love
+Thunder Run and the School House and Tom and Sairy Cole, too, and
+sometimes I miss them dreadfully! I rejoined at Leesburg. The 65th&mdash;I
+can't speak of the 65th&mdash;you know why. It breaks my heart. But it's
+reorganized. The boys were glad to see me, and I was glad to see them.
+Tell Christianna that Billy's all right. He's sergeant now, and he does
+fine. And Dave's all right, too, and the rest of the Thunder Run men.
+The War's done a heap for Mathew Coffin. It's made a real man of him.
+Tom, I wish you could have seen us fording the Potomac. It was like a
+picture book. All a pretty silver morning, with grey plovers wheeling
+overhead, and the Maryland shore green and sweet, and the water cool to
+your waist, and the men laughing and calling and singing 'Maryland, my
+Maryland!' Fitzhugh Lee was ahead with the cavalry. It was pretty to see
+the horses go over, and the blessed guns that we know and love, every
+iron man of them, and all the white covered wagons. Our division crossed
+last, Old Jack at the head. When we came up from the river into Maryland
+we turned toward Frederick. The country's much like our own and the
+people pleasant enough. You know we've got the Maryland Line, and a
+number besides. They're fine men, a little dashing, but mighty steady,
+too. They've expressed themselves straight along as positively certain
+that all Maryland would rise and join us. There's a line of the song,
+you know:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Huzzah! huzzah!</span><br />
+She breathes, she burns, she'll come, she'll come,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Maryland! my Maryland!"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"She hasn't come yet. The people evidently don't dislike us, and as a
+matter of course we aren't giving them any reason to. But their farms
+are all nice and green and well tilled, and we haven't seen a burned
+house or mill, and the children are going to school, and the stock is
+all sleek and well fed&mdash;and if they haven't seen they've heard of the
+desolation on our side of the river. They've got a pretty good idea of
+what War is and they're where more people would be if they had that idea
+beforehand. They are willing to keep out of it.&mdash;So they're respectful,
+and friendly, and they crowd around to try to get a glimpse of General
+Lee and General Jackson, but they don't volunteer&mdash;not in shoals as the
+Marylanders said they would! The Maryland Line looks disdain at them.
+Mathew Coffin is dreadfully fretted about the way we're dressed. He says
+that's the reason Maryland won't come. But the mess laughs at him. It
+says that if Virginia doesn't mind, Maryland needn't. I wish you could
+see us, Aunt Sairy. When I think of how I went away from you and Tom
+with that trunk full of lovely clean things!&mdash;Now we are gaunt and
+ragged and shoeless and dirty&mdash;" Tom stopped to wipe his spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>Sairy threaded a needle. "All that's less lasting than some other
+things, they air. I reckon they'll leave a brighter streak than a deal
+of folk who aren't gaunt an' ragged an' shoeless an' dirty."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't ever see them so," said Christianna, in her soft drawling
+voice. "I see them just like a piece we had in a book of reading pieces
+at school. It was a hard piece but, I learned it.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">"All furnished, all in arms,</span><br />
+All plumed like estridges that with the wind<br />
+Bated&mdash;like eagles having lightly bathed,<br />
+Glittering in golden coats like images."</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"No. I reckon if Virginia don't mind, Maryland needn't."</p>
+
+<p>Tom began again. "We've got a lovely camp here, and it's good to lie and
+rest on the green grass. The Army has had hard fighting and hard
+marching. Second Manassas was a big battle. It's in the air that we'll
+have another soon. Don't you worry about me. I'll come out all right.
+And if I don't, never forget that yo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</a></span>u did everything in the world for
+me and that I loved you and thought of you at the very last. Is living
+getting hard on Thunder Run? I fear so sometimes, for it's getting hard
+everywhere, and you can't see the end&mdash;I wish I had some pay to send
+you, but we aren't getting any now. This war's going to be fought
+without food or pay. Tell me, Aunt Sairy, just right honestly how you
+are getting on. It's getting toward winter. When I say my prayers I pray
+now that it won't be a hard winter. A lot of us are praying that. It's
+right pitiful, the men with wives and children at home, and the country
+growing to look like a desert.&mdash;But that's gloomy talk, and if there's
+one thing more than another we've got to avoid it's being gloomy!&mdash;Tell
+me everything when you write. Write to Winchester&mdash;that's our base of
+supplies and rendezvous now. Tell me about everybody on Thunder Run, but
+most of all tell me about yourselves. Give my very best regards to
+Christianna. She surely was good to me in Richmond. I don't know what I
+would have done without her. At first, before I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sairy put out her hand. "Give it to me, Tom. I'll read the rest. You're
+tired."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not," said Tom.&mdash;"At first, before I came up with the Army, I
+missed her dreadfully."</p>
+
+<p>Sairy rose, stepped from the porch, and turned the drying apples. Coming
+back, she touched the girl on the shoulder&mdash;very gently. "They're all
+fools, Christianna. Once I met a woman who did not know her thimble
+finger. I thought that beat all! But it's hard to match the men."</p>
+
+<p>"You've put me out!" said Tom. "Where was I? Oh&mdash;At first, before I came
+up with the Army, I missed her dreadfully. Billy reminds me of her at
+times.&mdash;It's near roll call, and I must stop. God bless you both.
+Allan."</p>
+
+<p>Tom folded the letter with trembling hands, laid it carefully atop of
+the others in the tin box, and took off and wiped his glasses. "Yes, if
+a letter didn't come every two weeks I'd go plumb crazy! I've got to
+hear him say 'dear Tom' that often, anyhow&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Christianna rose, pulling her sunbonnet over her eyes. "Thank you, Mrs.
+Cole an' Mr. Cole. I thought I'd like to hear. Now I'll be going back up
+the mountain. Violetta an' Rosalinda are pulling fodder and mother is
+ploughing for wheat. I do the spinning mostly. You've got lovely china
+asters, Mrs. Cole. They have a flower they called magnolia down 't
+Richmond&mdash;like a great swe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</a></span>et white cup, an' they had pink crape
+myrtles. I liked it in Richmond, for all the death an' mourning. Thunder
+Run's so far away. Good mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good mahnin', Mr. Cole."</p>
+
+<p>The slight homespun figure disappeared around the bend of the road.
+Sairy sewed in silence. Tom went back to the newspaper. The yellow cat
+slept on, the bees buzzed and droned, the sweet mountain air brushed
+through the trees, a robin sang. Half an hour passed. Tom raised his
+head. "I hear some one coming!" He reached for the tobacco box.</p>
+
+<p>It proved to be an old well-loved country doctor, on a white horse, with
+his saddle bags before him. Sairy hurried out, too, to the gate.
+"Doctor, I want to ask you something about Tom&mdash;" "Psha, I'm all right,"
+said Tom. "Won't you get down and set a little, doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor would and did, and after he had prescribed for the tollgate
+keeper a two hours' nap every day and not to get too excited over war
+news, Tom read him Allan's letter, and they got into a hot discussion of
+the next battle. Sairy turned the drying apples, brushed away the bees,
+and brought fresh water from the well, then sat down again with her
+mending. "Doctor, how's the girl at Three Oaks?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor came back from Maryland to his own county and to the fold
+which he tended without sleep, without rest, and with little pay save in
+loving hearts. "Miriam Cleave? She's better, Mrs. Cole, she's better!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm mighty glad to hear it," said Sairy. "'T ain't a decline, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Just shock on shock coming to a delicate child. Her mother will
+bring her through. And there's a great woman."</p>
+
+<p>"That's so, that's so!" assented Tom cordially. "A great woman."</p>
+
+<p>Sairy nodded, drawing her thread across a bit of beeswax. "For once you
+are both right. He isn't there now, doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. He wasn't there but a week or two."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[Pg 586]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You don't&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Tom. I don't know where he has gone. They have some land in the far
+south, down somewhere on the Gulf. He may have gone there."</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon," said Tom, "he couldn't stand it in Virginia. All the earth
+beginnin' to tremble under marchin' feet and everybody askin', 'Where's
+the army to-day?' I reckon he couldn't stand it. I couldn't. Allan don't
+believe he did it, an' I don't believe it either."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," said Sairy.</p>
+
+<p>"He came up here," said Tom, "just as quiet an' grave an' simple as you
+or me. An' he sat there in his lawyer's clothes, with his back to that
+thar pillar, an' he told Sairy an' me all about Allan. He told us how
+good he was an' how all the men loved him an' how valuable he was to the
+service. An' he said that the wound he got at Gaines's Mill wasn't so
+bad after all as it might have been, and that Allan would soon be
+rejoining. An' he said that being a scout wasn't as glorious, maybe, but
+it was just as necessary as being a general. An' that he had always
+loved Allan an' always would. An' he told us about something Allan did
+at McDowell and then again at Kernstown&mdash;an' Sairy cried an' so did I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sairy folded her work. "I wasn't crying so much for Allan&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"An' then he asked for a drink of water 'n we talked a little about the
+crops, 'n he went down the mountain. An' Sairy an' I don't believe he
+did it."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor drew his hand downward over mouth and white beard. "Well,
+Mrs. Cole, I don't either. The decisions of courts and judges don't
+always decide. There's always a chance of an important witness called
+Truth having been absent. I didn't see Richard Cleave but once while he
+was at Three Oaks. He looked and acted then just like Richard
+Cleave,&mdash;only older and graver. It was beautiful to see him and his
+mother together." The doctor rose. "But I reckon it's as Tom says and he
+couldn't stand it, and has gone where he doesn't hear 'the army&mdash;the
+army&mdash;the army'&mdash;all day long. Mrs. Cleave hasn't said anything, and I
+wouldn't ask. The last time I saw her&mdash;and I think he had just gone&mdash;she
+looked like a woman a great artist might have met in a dream."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor gazed out over the autumn sea of mountains and up at the pure
+serene of the heavens, and then at his old, patient white horse with the
+saddle bags across the saddle. "Mrs. Cole, all you've got to do is to
+keep Tom from getting excited. I'll be back this way the first of the
+week and I'll stop again&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[Pg 587]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Tom cleared his throat. "I don't know when Sairy an' me can pay you,
+doctor. I never realized till it came how war stops business. I'd about
+as well be keeping toll gate in the desert of Sahary."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not doing it for pay," said the doctor. "It's just the place to
+stop and rest and talk, and as for giving you a bit of opinion and
+advice, Lord! I'm not so poor that I can't do that. If you want to give
+me something in return I certainly could use three pounds of dried
+apples."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor rode on down the mountain. Tom and Sairy had a frugal dinner.
+Then the former lay down to take the prescribed nap, and the latter set
+her washtub on a box in the yard beneath the peach trees. Tom didn't
+sleep long; he said every time he was about to drop off he thought he
+heard wheels. He came back to his split-bottomed chair on the porch, the
+tobacco box for the toll, the tin box with Allan's letters, and the view
+across the china asters of the road. The afternoon was past its height,
+but bright yet, with the undersong of the wind and of Thunder Run. The
+yellow cat had had his dinner, too, and after sauntering around the
+yard, and observing the robin on the locust tree again curled himself on
+the porch and slept.</p>
+
+<p>Sairy straightened herself from the washtub. "Somebody's comin' up the
+road. It's a man!" She came toward the porch, wiping her hands, white
+and crinkled, upon her apron. "He's a soldier, Tom! Maybe one of the
+boys air come back&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Tom rose too, quickly. He staggered and had to catch at the sapling that
+made the pillar. "Maybe it's&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_588" id="Page_588">[Pg 588]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, no! no, no! Don't you think that, an' have a set-back when you find
+it ain't! It ain't tall enough for Allan, an' it ain't him anyhow. It
+<i>couldn't</i> be."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I reckon it couldn't," said Tom. "But anyhow it's one of the boys."
+He was half way to the gate, Sairy after him, and they were the first to
+welcome Steve Dagg back to Thunder Run.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Cole forgot that he had no opinion of Steve anyway. Sairy pursed her
+lips, but a soldier was a soldier. Steve came and sat down on the edge
+of the porch, beside the china asters, "Gawd! don't Thunder Run sound
+natural! Yass'm, I walked from Buford's, an' 't was awful hard to do,
+cause my foot is all sore an' gangrened. I've got a furlough till it
+gets well. It's awful sore. Gawd! ef Thunder Run had seen what I've
+seen, an' heard what I've heard, an' done what I've done, an' been
+through what I've been through&mdash;"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[Pg 589]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII</h2>
+
+<h3>SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 191</h3>
+
+
+<p>In Lee's tent, pitched in a grove a mile from Frederick, was held a
+council of war,&mdash;Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet, Jeb Stuart. Lee sat
+beside the table, Jackson faced him, sabre across knees, Longstreet had
+his place a little to one side, and Stuart stood, his shoulder against
+the tent pole. The last-named had been speaking. He now ended with "I
+think I may say, sir, that hardly a rabbit has gotten past my pickets.
+He's a fine fellow, Little Mac is! but he's mighty cautious, and you
+couldn't exactly call him swift as lightning. He's still a score of
+miles to the east of us, and he knows mighty little what we are about."</p>
+
+<p>Jackson spoke. "General McClellan does not know if the whole army has
+crossed or only part of it has crossed. He does not know whether we are
+going to move against Washington, or move against Baltimore, or invade
+Pennsylvania. Always mystify, mislead, and deceive the enemy as far as
+possible."</p>
+
+<p>Longstreet spoke. "Well, by the time he makes those twenty miles the
+troops should be rested and in condition. We'll have another battle and
+another victory."</p>
+
+<p>Lee spoke, addressing Stuart. "You have done your work most skilfully,
+general. It is not every army that has a Jeb Stuart!" He paused, then
+spoke to all. "McClellan will not be up for several days. Across the
+river, in Virginia, are yet fourteen thousand of the enemy. I had hoped
+that, scattered as they are, Washington would withdraw them when it
+heard of our crossing. It has not done so, however. It is not well to
+have in our rear that entrenched camp at Harper's Ferry. It is my idea,
+gentlemen, that it might be possible to repeat the man&oelig;uvre of Second
+Manassas."</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson hitched his chair closer. Stuart chuckled joyously.
+Longstreet looked dubious. "Do you mean, general, that you would again
+divide the army?"</p>
+
+<p>Lee rested his crossed hands on the table before him. "Gentlemen, did I
+have the Northern generals' numbers, I, too, might be cautious. Having
+only Robert E. Lee's numbers, I advance another policy. It is my idea
+again to divide the army."</p>
+
+<p>"In the enemy's country? We have not fifty-five thousand fighting
+strength."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in the enemy's country. And I know that we have not fifty-five
+thousand fighting strength. My plan is this, gentlemen. General Stuart
+has proved his ability to hold all roads and mask all movements. We will
+form two columns, and behind the screen which his cavalry provides, one
+column will move north and one column will move south. By advancing
+toward Hagerstown the first will create the impression that Pennsylvania
+is to be invaded. Moreover Catoctin and South Mountain are strong
+defensive positions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_590" id="Page_590">[Pg 590]</a></span> The other column will move with expedition.
+Recrossing the Potomac, it will invest and capture Harper's Ferry. That
+done, it will return at once into Maryland, rejoining me before
+McClellan is up."</p>
+
+<p>Longstreet swore. "By God, that is a bold plan!&mdash;What if McClellan
+should learn it?"</p>
+
+<p>"As against that, we must trust in General Stuart. These people must be
+driven out of Harper's Ferry. All our communications are threatened."</p>
+
+<p>Longstreet was blunt. "Well, sir, I think it is madness. Pray don't send
+me on any such errand!"</p>
+
+<p>Lee smiled. "General Jackson, what is your opinion?"</p>
+
+<p>Jackson spoke with brevity. "I might prefer, sir, to attack McClellan
+first and then turn upon Harper's Ferry. But I see no madness in the
+other plan&mdash;if the movement is rapid. Sometimes to be bold is the sanest
+thing you can do. It is necessary of course that the enemy should be
+kept in darkness."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, general, you will undertake the reduction of Harper's Ferry?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you order me to do it, sir, I will do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. You will start at dawn. Besides your own you shall have
+McLaws's and Anderson's divisions. The remainder of the army will leave
+Frederick an hour or two later. Colonel Chilton will at once issue the
+order of march." He drew a piece of paper toward him and with a pencil
+made a memorandum&mdash;<span class="smcap">Special Orders, No</span>. 191.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the ninth of September passed. The tenth of September
+passed, and the eleventh, mild, balmy and extremely still. The twelfth
+found the landscape for miles around Frederick still dozing. At noon,
+however, upon this day things changed. McClellan's strong cavalry
+advance came into touch with Jeb Stuart a league or two to the east.
+There ensued a skirmish approaching in dignity to an engagement. Finally
+the grey drew off, though not, to the Federal surprise, in the direction
+of Frederick. Instead they galloped north.</p>
+
+<p>The blue advance trotted on, sabre to hand, ready for the dash into
+Frederick. Pierced at last was the grey, movable screen! Now with the
+infantry close behind, with the magnificent artillery rumbling up, with
+McCl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_591" id="Page_591">[Pg 591]</a></span>ellan grim from the Seven Days&mdash;now for the impact which should
+wipe out the memory of the defeat of a fortnight ago, of the second Bull
+Run, an impact that should grind rebellion small! They came to Frederick
+and found a quiet shell. There was no one there to sabre.</p>
+
+<p>Information abounded. McClellan, riding in with his staff toward
+evening, found himself in a sandstorm of news, through which nothing
+could be distinctly observed. Prominent citizens were brought before
+him. "Yes, general; they undoubtedly went north. Yes, sir, the morning
+of the tenth. Two columns, but starting one just after the other and on
+the same road. Yes, sir, some of our younger men did follow on horseback
+after an hour or two. They could just see the columns still moving
+north. Then they ran against Stuart's cordon and they had to turn back.
+Frederick's been just like a desert island&mdash;nobody coming and nobody
+getting away. For all he's as frisky as a puppy, Jeb Stuart's a mighty
+good watch dog!"</p>
+
+<p>McClellan laughed. "'Beauty' Stuart!&mdash;I wish I had him here." He grew
+grave again. "I am obliged to you, sir. Who's this, Ames?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a priest, sir, that's much looked up to. He says he has a
+collection of maps&mdash;Father Tierney, will you speak to the general?"</p>
+
+<p>"Faith, and that I will, my son!" said Father Tierney. "Good avenin',
+general, and the best of fortunes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, Father. What has your collection to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Faith," said Father Tierney, "and that's for you to judge, general. It
+was the avenin' of the eighth, and I was sittin' in my parlour after
+Judy O'Flaherty's funeral, and having just parted with Father Lavalle at
+the Noviciate. And there came a rap, and an aide of Stonewall
+Jackson's&mdash;But whisht! maybe I am taking up your time, general, with
+things you already know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, go on! 'An aide of Stonewall Jackson's&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Holy powers!' thinks I, 'no rest even afther a funeral!' but 'Come in,
+come in, my son!' I said, and in he comes. 'My name is Jarrow, Father,'
+says he, 'and General Jackson has heard that you have a foine collection
+of maps.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And that's thrue enough,' says I, 'and what then, my son?' Whereupon
+he lays down his sword and cap and says, 'May I look at thim?'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_592" id="Page_592">[Pg 592]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Father Tierney coughed. "There's a number of gentlemen waiting in the
+entrry. Maybe, general, you'd be afther learning of the movement of the
+ribils with more accuracy from thim. And I could finish about the maps
+another time. You aren't under any obligation to be listenin' to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Shut the door, Ames," said the general. "Now Father.&mdash;'May I look at
+them,' he said."</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, av course,' said I, 'far be it from Benedict Tierney to put a
+lock on knowledge!' and I got thim down. 'There's one that was made for
+Leonard Calvert in 1643'&mdash;says I, 'and there's another showing St.
+Mary's about the time of the Indian massacre, and there's a very rare
+one of the Chesapeake&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Extremely interesting' he says, 'but for General Jackson's purposes
+1862 will answer. You have recent maps also?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, I have,' I said, and I got thim down, rather disappointed, having
+thought him interested in Colonial Maryland and maybe in the location of
+missions. 'What do you wish?' said I, still polite, though I had lost
+interest. 'A map of Pennsylvania,' said he&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A map of Pennsylvania!&mdash;Ames, get your notebook there."</p>
+
+<p>"And I unrolled it and he looked at it hard. 'Good road to Waynesboro?'
+he said, and says I, 'Fair, my son, fair!' And says he, 'I may take this
+map to General Jackson?' 'Yes,' said I, 'but I hope you'll soon be so
+good as to return it.' 'I will,' said he. 'Bedad,' said I, 'you ribils
+are right good at returning things! I'll say that for you!' said I&mdash;and
+he rolled up the map and put it under his arm."</p>
+
+<p>The general drew a long breath. "Pennsylvania invaded by way of
+Waynesboro. I am much obliged, Father&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, wait, my son, I'm not done, yet! And thin, says he, 'General
+Jackson wants a map of the country due east from here, one,' says he,
+'that shows the roads to Baltimore.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Baltimore!&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'Have you got that one?' says he. 'Yis,' says I, and unrolled it, and
+he looked at it carefully and long. 'I see,' says he, 'that by going
+north from Frederick to Double Pipe Creek you would strike there the
+turnpike running east. Thank you, Father! May I take this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_593" id="Page_593">[Pg 593]</a></span>one, too?'
+And he rolled it up and put it under his arm&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Baltimore," said McClellan, "Baltimore&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'And now, Father,' says he, 'have you one of the region between here
+and Washington?' ... Don't be afther apologizing, general! There are
+times when I want a strong word meself. So I got that map, too, and he
+looked at it steadily. 'I understand,' says he, 'that going west by
+north you would strike a road that leads you south again?'&mdash;'And that's
+thrue,' said I. And he looked at the map long and steadily again, and he
+asked what was the precise distance from Point of Rocks to Washington&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Point of Rocks! Good Lord! Ames, get ready to take these telegrams&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And thin he said, 'May I have this, too, Father?' and he rolled it up,
+and said General Jackson would certainly be obliged and would return
+thim in good order. (Which he did.) And thin he took up his cap and
+sword and said good avenin' and went. That's all that I know of the
+matter, general, saving and excepting, that the ribil columns certainly
+<i>started</i> next morning with their faces toward the great State of
+Pennsylvania. Don't mention it, general!&mdash;though if you are interested
+in good works, and I'm not doubting the same, there's an orphan asylum
+here&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Having arrived at a cross-roads without a signpost McClellan
+characteristically hesitated. The activity of the next twelve hours was
+principally electrical and travelled by wire from Frederick to
+Washington and Washington to Frederick. The cavalry, indeed was pushed
+forward toward Boonsboro, but for the remainder of the army, as it came
+up, corps by corps, the night passed in inaction, and morning dawned on
+inaction. March north toward Pennsylvania, and leave Washington to be
+bombarded!&mdash;turn south and east toward Washington and hear a cry of
+protest and anger from an invaded state!&mdash;turn due east to Baltimore and
+be awakened by the enemy's cannon thundering against the other sides of
+the figure!&mdash;leave Baltimore out of the calculation and lose, perhaps,
+the whole of Maryland! McClellan was disturbed enough. And then, in the
+great drama of real life there occurred an incident.</p>
+
+<p>An aide appeared in the doorway of the room in which were gathered
+McClellan and several of his generals. The discussion had been a heated
+one; all the men looked haggard, disturbed. "What is it?" asked
+McClellan sharply.</p>
+
+<p>The aide held something in his hand. "This has just been found, sir. It
+seems to have been dropped at a street corner. Lea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_594" id="Page_594">[Pg 594]</a></span>ves and rubbish had
+been blown over it. The soldier who found it brought it here. He thought
+it important&mdash;and I think it is, sir."</p>
+
+<p>He crossed the floor and gave it to the general. "Three cigars wrapped
+in a piece of paper! Why, what&mdash;A piece of paper wrapped around three
+cigars. Open the shutters more widely, Ames!"</p>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia</span>
+<br /><i>September 9, 1862.</i></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 191</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>The army will resume its march to-morrow, taking the Hagerstown road.
+General Jackson's command will form the advance, and after passing
+Middletown with such portion as he may select, take the route toward
+Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac at the most convenient point, and by
+Friday morning take possession of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,
+capture such of the enemy as may be at Martinsburg, and intercept such
+as may attempt to escape from Harper's Ferry.</p>
+
+<p>General Longstreet's command will pursue the main road as far as
+Boonsborough, where it will halt with reserve, supply, and baggage
+trains of the army.</p>
+
+<p>General McLaws, with his own division and that of General R. H.
+Anderson, will follow General Longstreet. On reaching Middletown he will
+take the route to Harper's Ferry, and by Friday morning possess himself
+of the Maryland Heights and endeavour to capture the enemy at Harper's
+Ferry and vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>General Walker with his division, after accomplishing the object in
+which he is now engaged, will cross the Potomac at Cheek's Ford, ascend
+its right bank to Lovettesville, take possession of Loudoun Heights, if
+practicable, by Friday morning, Key's Ford on his left, and the road
+between the end of the mountain and the Potomac on his right. He will as
+far as possible co&ouml;perate with generals McLaws and Jackson and intercept
+the retreat of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>General D. H. Hill's division will form the rearguard of the Army,
+pursuing the road taken by the main body. The reserve artillery,
+ordnance and supply trains, etc., will precede General Hill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_595" id="Page_595">[Pg 595]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>General Stuart will detach a squadron of cavalry to accompany the
+commands of generals Longstreet, Jackson, and McLaws, and, with the main
+body of the cavalry, will cover the route of the army, bringing up all
+stragglers that may have been left behind.</p>
+
+<p>The commands of Generals Jackson, McLaws, and Walker, after
+accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will join
+the main body of the army at Boonsboro or Hagerstown.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>By command of General R. E. Lee,</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p style="text-align: right">R. H. <span class="smcap">Chilton,</span><br />
+Assistant Adjutant-General.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>In the room at Frederick there was a silence that might have been felt.
+At last McClellan rose, and stepping softly to the window, leaned his
+hands upon the sill, and looked out at the bright blue sky. He turned
+presently. "Gentlemen, the longer I live, the more firmly I believe that
+old saying, 'Truth is stranger than fiction!'&mdash;By the Hagerstown
+Road&mdash;General Hooker, General Reno&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the tenth Stonewall Jackson, leaving Frederick,
+marched west by the Boonsboro Road. Ahead, Stuart's squadrons stopped
+all traffic. The peaceful Maryland villages were entered without warning
+and quitted before the inhabitants recovered from their surprise.
+Cavalry in the rear swept together all stragglers. The detachment,
+twenty-five thousand men, almost half of Lee's army, drove, a swift,
+clean-cut body, between the autumn fields and woods that were beginning
+to turn. In the fields were farmers ploughing, in the orchards gathering
+apples. They stopped and stared. "Well, ain't that a sight?&mdash;And half of
+them barefoot!&mdash;and their clothes fit for nothing but scarecrows. Well,
+they ain't robbers. No&mdash;and their guns are mighty bright!"</p>
+
+<p>South Mountain was crossed at Turner's Gap. It was near sunset when the
+bugles rang halt. Brigade by brigade Stonewall Jackson's command left
+the road, stacked arms, broke ranks in fair, rolling autumn fields and
+woods. A mile or two ahead was the village of Boonsboro. Jackson sent
+forward to make enquiries Major Kyd Douglas of his staff. That officer
+took a cavalryman with him and trotted off.</p>
+
+<p>The little place looked like a Sweet Auburn of the vale, so tranquilly
+innocent did it lie beneath the rosy west. The two officers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_596" id="Page_596">[Pg 596]</a></span> commented
+upon it, and the next moment ran into a Federal cavalry company sent to
+Sweet Auburn from Hancock for forage or recruits or some such matter.
+The blue troopers set up a huzzah, and charged. The two in grey turned
+and dug spur,&mdash;past ran the fields, past ran the woods! The thundering
+pursuit fired its revolvers; the grey turned in saddle and emptied
+theirs, then bent head to horse's neck and plied the spur. Before them
+the road mounted. "Pass the hill and we are safe!&mdash;Pass the hill and we
+are safe!" thought the grey, and the spur drew blood. Behind came the
+blue&mdash;a dozen troopers. "Stop there, you damned rebels, stop there! If
+you don't, when we catch you we'll cut you to pieces!" Almost at the
+hilltop one of the grey uttered a cry. "Good God! the general!"</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson was coming toward them. He was walking apparently in
+deep thought, and leading Little Sorrel. He was quite alone. The two
+officers shouted. They saw him look up, take in the situation, and put
+his hand on the saddle bow. Then, to give him time, the two turned.
+"Yaaiih! Yaaaaiiahh!" they yelled, and charged the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The blue, taken by surprise, misinterpreted the first shout and the
+ensuing action. There must, of course, be coming over the hill a grey
+force detached on some reconnoissance or other from the rebel horde
+known to be reposing at Frederick. Presumably it would be cavalry&mdash;and
+coming at a gallop! To stop to cut down these two yelling grey devils
+might be to invite destruction. The blue troopers first emptied their
+revolvers, then wheeled horse, and retired to Sweet Auburn, out of which
+a little later the grey cavalry did indeed drive them.</p>
+
+<p>In the last of the rosy light the two officers, now again at the
+hilltop, saw the camp outspread below it and coming at a double quick
+the regiment which Jackson had sent to the rescue. One checked his
+horse. "What's that?" asked the other.</p>
+
+<p>"The general's gloves. He dropped them when he mounted."</p>
+
+<p>He stooped from his horse and gathered them up. Later, back in camp, he
+went to headquarters. Jackson was talking ammunition with his chief of
+ordnance, an aide of A. P. Hill's standing near, waiting his turn.
+"Well, Major Douglas?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_597" id="Page_597">[Pg 597]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Your gloves, general. You dropped them on the hilltop."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! put them there, major, if you please.&mdash;Colonel Crutchfield, the
+ordnance train will cross first. As the batteries come up from the river
+see that every caisson is filled. That is all. Now, Captain
+Scarborough&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"General Hill very earnestly asks, sir, that he may be permitted to
+speak to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is General Hill? Is he here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, he is outside the tent."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him to come in. You have a very good fast horse, Major Douglas.
+There is nothing more, I think, to-night. Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>A. P. Hill entered alone, without his sword. "Good-evening, General
+Hill," said Jackson.</p>
+
+<p>Hill stood very straight, his red beard just gleaming a little in the
+dusky tent. "I am come to prefer a request, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A week ago, upon the crossing of the Potomac, you placed me under
+arrest for what you conceived&mdash;for disobedience to orders. Since then
+General Branch has commanded the Light Division."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel certain, sir, that battle is imminent. General Branch is a good
+and brave soldier, but&mdash;but&mdash;I am come to beg, sir, that I may be
+released from arrest till the battle is over."</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson, sitting stiffly, looked at the other standing, tense,
+energetic, before him. Something stole into his face that without being
+a smile was like a smile. It gave a strange effect of mildness,
+tenderness. It was gone almost as soon as it had come, but it had been
+there. "I can understand your feeling, sir," he said. "A battle <i>is</i>
+imminent. Until it is over you are restored to your command."</p>
+
+<p>The detachment of the Army of Northern Virginia going against Harper's
+Ferry crossed the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal at Williamsport and forded
+the Potomac a few hundred yards below the ferry. A. P. Hill, McLaws,
+Walker, Jackson's own, the long column overpassed the silver reaches,
+from the willows and sycamores of the Maryland shore to the tall and
+dreamy woods against the Virginia sky. "We know this place," said the
+old Army of the Valley. "Dam No. 5's just above there!" Regiment by
+regiment, as it dipped into the water, the column broke into song.
+"Carry me back to Old Virginny!" sang the soldiers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_598" id="Page_598">[Pg 598]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At Martinsburg were thirty-five hundred blue troops. Stonewall Jackson
+sent A. P. Hill down by the turnpike; he himself made a d&eacute;tour and came
+upon the town from the west. The thirty-five hundred blue troops could
+retire southward, a thing hardly to their liking, or they could hasten
+eastward and throw themselves into Harper's Ferry. As was anticipated,
+they chose the latter course.</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson entered Martinsburg amid acclaim. Here he rested his
+troops a few hours, then in the afternoon swung eastward and bivouacked
+upon the Opequon. "At early dawn," he marched again. Ahead rode his
+cavalry, and they kept the roads on two sides of Harper's Ferry. A
+dispatch came from General Lafayette McLaws. <i>General Jackson:&mdash;After
+some fighting I have got the Maryland Heights. Loudoun Heights in
+possession of General Walker. Enemy cut off north and east.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Good! good!" said Jackson. "North, east, south, and west."</p>
+
+<p>On the Maryland side of the Potomac, some miles to the north of Harper's
+Ferry, Lee likewise received a report&mdash;brought in haste by a courier of
+Stuart's. <i>General:&mdash;The enemy seems to have waked up. McClellan
+reported moving toward South Mountain with some rapidity. I am holding
+Crampton and Turner's Gaps. What are my orders?</i></p>
+
+<p>Lee looked eastward toward South Mountain and southward to Harper's
+Ferry. "General McClellan can only be guessing. We must gain time for
+General Jackson at Harper's Ferry." He sent word to Stuart. "D. H.
+Hill's division returning to South Mountain General Longstreet ordered
+back from Hagerstown. We must gain time for General Jackson. Hold the
+gaps."</p>
+
+<p>D. H. Hill and Stuart held them. High above the valleys ran the
+roads&mdash;and all the slopes were boulder-strewn, crested moreover by
+broken stone walls. Hooker and Reno with the First and Ninth corps
+attacked Turner's Gap, Franklin's corps attacked Crampton's Gap. High
+above the country side, bloody and determined, eight thousand against
+thirty thousand, raged the battle.</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson, closely investing Harper's Ferry, posting his
+batteries on both sides of the river, on the Maryland Heights and
+Loudoun Heights, heard the firing to the northward. He knit his brows.
+He knew that McClellan had occupied Frederick, but he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_599" id="Page_599">[Pg 599]</a></span> knew nothing of
+the copy of an order found wrapped around three cigars. "What do you
+think of it, general?" ventured one of his brigadiers.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, sir, it may be a cavalry engagement. Pleasanton came into
+touch with General Stuart and the Horse Artillery."</p>
+
+<p>"It could not be McClellan in force?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not, sir. Not unless to his other high abilities were added
+energy and a knowledge of our plans.&mdash;Captain Page, this order to
+General McLaws: <i>General:&mdash;You will attack so as to sweep with your
+artillery the ground occupied by the enemy, take his batteries in
+reverse, and otherwise operate against him as circumstances may
+justify.</i> Lieutenant Byrd, this to General Walker: <i>General:&mdash;You will
+take in reverse the battery on the turnpike and sweep with your
+artillery the ground occupied by the enemy, and silence the batteries on
+the island of the Shenandoah.</i> Lieutenant Daingerfield, this to General
+A. P. Hill: <i>General:&mdash;You will move along the left bank of the
+Shenandoah, and thus turn the enemy's flank and enter Harper's Ferry.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>This was Sunday. From every hilltop blazed the grey batteries, and down
+upon the fourteen thousand blue soldiers cooped in Harper's Ferry they
+sent an iron death. All afternoon they thundered, and the dusk knew no
+cessation. Harper's Ferry was flame-ringed, there were flames among the
+stars. The air rocked and rang, the river shivered and hurried by. Deep
+night came and a half silence. There was a feeling as if the earth were
+panting for breath. All the air tasted powder.</p>
+
+<p>A. P. Hill, struggling over ground supposed impassable, was in line of
+battle behind Bolivar Heights. Lawton and Jones were yet further
+advanced. All the grey guns were ready&mdash;at early dawn they opened. Iron
+death, iron death!&mdash;they rained it down on Harper's Ferry and the
+fourteen thousand in garrison there. They silenced the blue guns. Then
+the bugles blew loudly, and Hill assaulted. There were lines of
+breastworks and before them an abattis. The Light Division tore through
+the latter, struck against the first. From the height behind thundered
+the grey artillery.</p>
+
+<p>For a day and a night the blue defence had been stubborn. It was over.
+Out from the eddying smoke, high from the hilltop within the town, there
+was shaken a white flag. A. P. Hill received the place's surrender, and
+Stonewall J<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_600" id="Page_600">[Pg 600]</a></span>ackson rode to Bolivar Heights and then into the town.
+Twelve thousand prisoners, thirteen thousand stands of arms,
+seventy-three guns, a great prize of stores, horses, and wagons came
+into his hand with Harper's Ferry.</p>
+
+<p>On the Bolivar turnpike the Federal General White and his staff met the
+conqueror. The first, general and staff, were handsomely mounted, finely
+equipped, sparklingly clean and whole. The last was all leaf brown&mdash;dust
+and rain and wear and tear, scarfed and stained huge boots, and shabby
+forage cap. The surrender was unconditional. Formalities over, there
+followed some talk, a hint on the side of the grey of generous terms,
+some expression on the side of the blue of admiration for great
+fighters, some regret from both for the mortal wound of Miles, the
+officer in command. Stonewall Jackson rode into the town with the
+Federal general. The streets were lined with blue soldiers crowding,
+staring. "That's him, boys! That's Jackson! That's him! <i>Well!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Later A. P. Hill came to the lower room in a stone house where the
+general commanding sat writing a dispatch to Lee. Jackson finished the
+thing in hand, then looked up. "General Hill, the Light Division did
+well. I move almost at once, but I shall leave you here in command until
+the prisoners and public property are disposed of. You will use
+expedition."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not, then, sir, to relinquish the command to General Branch?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are not, sir. Battle will follow battle, and you will lead the
+Light Division. Be more careful hereafter of my orders."</p>
+
+<p>"I will try, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! good!&mdash;What is it, colonel?"</p>
+
+<p>"A courier, sir, from General Lee."</p>
+
+<p>The courier entered, saluted, and gave the dispatch. Jackson read it,
+then read it aloud, figure, mien, and voice as quiet as if he were
+repeating some every-day communication.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_601" id="Page_601">[Pg 601]</a></span></p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">On the march</span>, <i>September 14th</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">General</span>,&mdash;I regret to say that McClellan has, in some unaccountable
+fashion, discovered the division of the army as well as its objectives. We
+have had hard fighting to-day on South Mountain, D. H. Hill and Longstreet
+both suffering heavily. The troops fought with great determination and held
+the passes until dusk. We are now falling back on Sharpsburg. Use all
+possible speed in joining me there.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right;"><span class="smcap">Lee</span>.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson rose. "General Hill, arrange your matters as rapidly
+as possible. Sharpsburg on the Antietam. Seventeen miles."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_602" id="Page_602">[Pg 602]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII</h2>
+
+<h3>SHARPSBURG</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Sharpsburg!" said long afterwards Stephen D. Lee. "Sharpsburg was
+Artillery Hell!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sharpsburg," said the infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia.
+"Sharpsburg! That was the field where an infantryman knew that he stood
+on the most dangerous spot on the earth!"</p>
+
+<p>Through the passes of the South Mountain, over Red Hill, out upon the
+broken ground east of the Antietam poured the blue torrent&mdash;McClellan
+and his eighty-seven thousand. Lee met it with a narrow grey sea&mdash;not
+thirty thousand men, for A. P. Hill was yet upon the road from Harper's
+Ferry. In Berserker madness, torrent and uproar, clashed the two
+colours.</p>
+
+<p>There was a small white Dunkard church with a background of dark woods.
+It was north of Sharpsburg, near the Hagerstown turnpike, and it marked
+the Confederate left. Stonewall Jackson held the left. Before him was
+Fighting Joe Hooker with Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts.</p>
+
+<p>From a knoll behind Sharpsburg the commander-in-chief looked from
+Longstreet on the right to D. H. Hill, and from Hill to Jackson. He
+looked to the Harper's Ferry Road, but he did not see what he wished to
+see&mdash;A. P. Hill's red battle shirt. "Artillery Hell" had begun. There
+was enormous thunder, enormous drifting murk. All the country side, all
+the little Maryland villages and farmhouses blenched beneath that sound.
+Lee put down his field glass. He stood, calm and grand, the smoke and
+uproar at his feet. The Rockbridge Guns came by, going to some indicated
+quarter of the field. In thunder they passed below the knoll, the iron
+war-beasts, the gunners with them, black with powder and grime! All
+saluted; but one, a very young, very ragged, very begrimed private at
+the guns, lingered a moment after his fellows, stood very straight at
+the salute and with an upward look, then with quickened step caught up
+with his gun and disappeared into the smoke ahead. Lee answered a glance
+of his chief of staff. "Yes. It was my youngest son. It was Rob."</p>
+
+<p>The Dunkard church! In this war it was strange how many and how ghastly
+battles surged about small country churches! The Prince of Peace, if he
+indwelled here, must have bowed his head and mourned. Sunrise struck
+upon its white walls; then came a shell and pierced them. The church
+became the core of the turmoil, the white, still reef against which beat
+the wild seas in storm.</p>
+
+<p>Fighting Joe Hooker came out of the North Wood. His battle flags were
+bright and he had drums and brazen horns. Loud and in time, regular as a
+beat in music, came the Huzzah! Huzzah! of his fourteen thousand men. He
+crossed the turnpike, he came down on the Dunkard church. "Yaii! Yaaaii!
+Yaaaaaaaaiihhh!" yelled t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_603" id="Page_603">[Pg 603]</a></span>he grey sea,&mdash;no time at all, only fierce
+determination. Sometimes a grey drum beat, or bugle called, but there
+was no other music, save the thunder of the guns and the long rattle,
+never ceasing, of the musketry. There were battle flags, squares of
+crimson with a starry Andrew's cross. They went forward, they shrank
+back. Standard-bearers were killed. Gaunt, powder-grimed hands caught at
+the staves, lifted them; the battle-flags went forward again.</p>
+
+<p>Doubleday struck and Ricketts. They charged against Stonewall Jackson
+and the narrow grey sea. All the ground was broken; alignment was lost;
+blue waves and grey went this way and that in a broken, tumultuous fray.
+But the blue waves were the heavier; in mass alone they outdid the grey.
+They pushed the grey sea back, back, back toward the dark wood about the
+Dunkard church! Then Stonewall Jackson came along the front, riding in a
+pelting, leaden rain. "Steady, men. Steady! God is over us!" His men
+received him with a cry of greeting and enthusiasm that was like a
+shriek, it was so wild and high. His power upon them had grown and
+grown. He was Stonewall Jackson! He was Stonewall Jackson! First, they
+would die for those battle-flags and the cause they represented; second,
+they would die for one another, comrades, brethren! third, they would
+die for Stonewall Jackson! They lifted their voices for him now, gaunt
+and ragged troops with burning eyes. <i>Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall
+Jackson! Virginia! Virginia! Virginia! the South! the South!</i> He turned
+his horse, standing in the whistling, leaden rain. "Forward, and drive
+them!"</p>
+
+<p>Lawton and D. H. Hill leaped against Meade. He was a staunch fighter,
+but he gave back. The wood about the Dunkard church appeared to writhe
+like Dante's wood, it was so full of groaning, of maimed men beside the
+tree trunks. The dead lay where they fell, and the living stepped upon
+them. Meade gave back, back&mdash;and then Mansfield came in thunder to
+reinforce the blue.</p>
+
+<p>The grey fought as even in this war they had hardly fought before. They
+were so gaunt, they were so ragged, they were so tired! But something
+ethnic was coming more and more rapidly to the front. They were near
+again to savage nature. The Maryland woods might have been thicker,
+darker, the small church might have been some boulder altar beside some
+early Old World river. They were a tribe again, and they were fighting
+another and mu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_604" id="Page_604">[Pg 604]</a></span>ch larger tribe whom they had reason, reason, reason to
+hate! Their existence was at stake and the existence of all that their
+hearts held dear. They fought with fury. About each were his
+tribesmen&mdash;all were brothers! Brother fought for brother, brother saw
+brother fall, brother sprang to avenge brother. Their lips were
+blackened from tearing cartridges; their eyes, large in their thin,
+bronzed faces, burned against the enemy; their fingers were quick, quick
+at the musket lock; the spirit was the spirit behind hurled stones of
+old, swung clubs, thrown javelins! They had a loved leader, a great
+strong head man who ruled them well and led them on to victory. They
+fought for him too, for his scant and curt praise, for his "Good, Good!"
+They fought for their own lives, each man for his own life, for their
+tribe, their possessions, for women at home and children, for their
+brethren, their leader, their cause. Something else, too, of the past
+was there in force&mdash;hatred of him who opposed. They fought for hate at
+Sharpsburg, as they fought for love. The great star drew, the iron thong
+fell. Led and driven, the tribe fought gigantically.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The battle became furious. Within the din of artillery and musketry
+human voices, loud, imperative, giving orders, shouting, wailing, died
+like a low murmur in the blast. Out of the wildly drifting smoke, now
+dark, now flame-lit, forms emerged, singly or in great bodies, then the
+smoke drew together, hiding the struggle. There was blackness and grime
+as from the ash of a volcano. The blood pounded behind the temples, the
+eyeballs started, the tongue was thick in the mouth, battle smell and
+battle taste, a red light, and time in crashes like an
+earthquake-toppling city! The inequalities of the ground became
+exaggerated. Mere hillocks changed into rocky islands. Seize them,
+fortify them, take them before the blue can! The tall maize grew
+gigantically taller. Break through these miles of cane as often before
+we have broken through them, the foemen crashing before us down to their
+boats! The narrow tongues of woods widened, widened. Take these deep
+forests, use them for shelter, from them send forth these new arrows of
+death&mdash;fight, fight! in the rolling murk, the red light and crying!</p>
+
+<p>Before the Dunkard church Starke, commanding Jackson's old division, was
+killed, Jones was wounded, Lawton wounded. Many field officers were
+down, many, many of lesser rank. Of the blue, Mansfield was killed,
+Hooker was wounded, and Hartsuff and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_605" id="Page_605">[Pg 605]</a></span> Crawford. The grey had pressed the
+blue back, back! Now in turn the blue drove the grey. The walls of the
+white church were splashed with blood, pocked with bullets. Dead men lay
+at the door; within were those of the wounded who could get there. But
+the shells came too, the shells pierced the roof and entered. War came
+in, ebon, blood-stained, and grinning. The Prince of Peace was crowded
+out.</p>
+
+<p>The artillery was deafening. In the midst of a tremendous burst of sound
+D. H. Hill flung in the remainder of his division. Sumner came through
+the smoke. The grey and blue closed in a death grapple. From toward the
+centre, beneath the howling storm rose a singing&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>The race is not to them that's got
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The longest legs to run.</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Hood's Texans! Hood's Texans!" cried the Stonewall and all the other
+brigades on the imperilled left. "Come on, Hood's Texans! Come on!
+Yaaaii! Yaaaaaiih!"</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Nor the battle to those people,
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That shoots the biggest gun.</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The Texans came to the Dunkard church. Stonewall Jackson launched a
+thunderbolt, grey as steel, all his men moving up as one, against the
+opposing, roaring sea. The sea gave back. Then Sumner called in
+Sedgwick's fresh troops.</p>
+
+<p>Allan Gold, fighting with the 65th, took the colours from the last of
+the colour guard. He was tall and strong and he swung them high. The
+glare from an exploding shell showed him and the battle flag. Gone was
+the quiet school-teacher, gone even the scout and woodsman. He stood a
+great Viking, with yellow hair, and the battle rage had come to him. He
+began to chant, unconscious as a harp through which strikes a strong
+wind. "Come on!" he chanted. "Come on!</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 9em;">"Sixty-fifth, come on!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Come on, the Stonewall!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Remember Manassas,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">The first and the second Manassas!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Remember McDowell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Remember Front Royal,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 9em;">Remember the battle of Winchester,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Remember Cross Keys,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Remember Port Republic,</span><br />
+The battle of Kernstown, and all our battles and skirmishes,<br />
+Our marches and forced marches, bivouacs, and camp-fires,<br />
+Brother's hand in brother's hand, and the battle to-morrow!<br />
+Remember the Seven Days, Seven Days, Seven Days!<br />
+Remember the Seven Days! Remember Cedar Run.<br />
+The Groveton Wood, and the Railroad cut at Manassas<br />
+Where you threw stones when your cartridges were gone, where you struck with the bayonet,<br />
+And the General spoke to you then, 'Steady, men, steady!'<br />
+Remember Chantilly, remember Loudoun and Maryland Heights.<br />
+Harper's Ferry was yesterday. Remember and strike them again!<br />
+Come on, 65th! Come on, the Stonewall!"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_606" id="Page_606">[Pg 606]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Back through the cornfield before the Dunkard church fell the blue. Dead
+and dying choked the cornfield as the dead and dying had choked the cane
+brake. Blade and stalks were beaten down, the shells tore up the earth.
+The blue reformed and came again, a resistless mass. Heavier and
+heavier, Fighting Joe Hooker, with Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts and
+Sumner, struck against Stonewall Jackson! Back came the grey to the
+little Dunkard church. All around it, wood and open filled with
+clangour. The blue pressed in&mdash;the grey were giving way, were giving
+way! An out-worn company raised a cry, "They're flanking us!" Something
+like a shiver passed over the thinning lines, then, grey and haggard,
+they tore another cartridge. Stonewall Jackson's voice came from behind
+a reef of smoke. "Stand fast, men! Stand fast. There are troops on the
+road from Harper's Ferry. It is General McLaws. Stand fast!"</p>
+
+<p>It was McLaws, with his black bullet head, his air of a Roman Consul! In
+he thundered with his twenty-five hundred men, tawny with the dust of
+the seventeen miles from Harper's Ferry. He struck Sedgwick full. For
+five minutes there was brazen clangour and shouting and an agony of
+effort, then the blue streamed back, past the Dunkard wood and church,
+back into the dreadful cornfield.</p>
+
+<p>Maury Stafford, sent with a statement to the commander-in-chief, crossed
+in one prolonged risk of life from the wild left to the only less
+stormed-against centre. Here a strong blue current, French and
+Richardson, strove against a staunch grey ledge&mdash;a part of D. H. Hill's
+line, with Anderson to support. Here was a sunken road, that, later, was
+given a descriptive name. Here was the Bloody Lane. Lee was found
+standing upon a knoll, calm and grand. "I ye<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_607" id="Page_607">[Pg 607]</a></span>t look for A. P. Hill," he
+said. "He has a talent for appearing at identically the right moment."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford gave his statement. All over the field the staff had suffered
+heavily. Some were dead, many were wounded. Those who were left did
+treble duty. Lee sent this officer on to Longstreet, holding the long
+ridge on the right.</p>
+
+<p>Stafford rode through the withering storm across that withered field.
+There seemed no light from the sky; the light was the glare from the
+guns. He marked, through a rift in the smoke, a battery where it stood
+upon a height, above felled trees. He thought it was Pelham's&mdash;the Horse
+Artillery. It stood for a moment, outlined against the orange-bosomed
+cloud, then, like an army of wraiths, the smoke came between and hid it.
+His horse frightened at a dead man in his path. The start and plunging
+were unusual, and the rider looked to see the reason. The soldier had
+drawn letters from his breast and had died with them in his hands. The
+unfolded, fluttering sheets stirred as though they had life. Stafford,
+riding on, found the right and found Longstreet looking sombrely, like
+an old eagle from his eyrie. "I told General Lee," he said "that we
+ought never to have divided. I don't see A. P. Hill. You tell General
+Lee that I've only got D. R. Jones and the knowledge that we fight like
+hell, and that Burnside is before me with fourteen thousand men."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford retraced his way. The ground beneath was burned and scarred,
+the battle cloud rolled dark, the minies sang beside his ear. Now he was
+in a barren place, tasting of powder, smelling of smoke, now lit, now
+darkened, but vacant of human life, and now he was in a press of men,
+grey forms advancing and retreating, or standing firing, and now he was
+where fighting had been and there was left a wrack of the dead and
+dying. He reached the centre and gave his message, then turned toward
+the left again. A few yards and his horse was killed under him. He
+disengaged himself and presently caught at the bridle and stayed
+another. There were many riderless horses on the field of Sharpsburg,
+but he had hardly mounted before this one, too, was killed. He went on
+afoot. He entered a sunken road, dropped between rough banks overhung by
+a few straggling trees. The road was filled with men lying down, all in
+shadow beneath the rolling battle smoke. Stafford thought it a regiment
+waiting for orders; then he saw that they were all dead men. He must go
+back to the Dunkard wood, and this seemed his shortest way. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_608" id="Page_608">[Pg 608]</a></span> entered
+the lane and went up it as quickly as he might for the forms that lay
+thick in the discoloured light. It looked as though the earth were
+bleeding, and all the people were fantastic about him. Some lay as
+straight as on a sculptured tomb, and some were hooped, and some lay
+like a cross, and some were headless. As he stepped with what care he
+might, a fierce yelling broke out on the side that was the grey side.
+There was a charge coming&mdash;already he saw the red squares tossing! He
+moved to the further side of the sunken road and braced himself against
+the bank, putting his arm about a twisted, protruding cedar. D. H.
+Hill's North Carolinians hung a moment, tall, gaunt, yelling, then
+swooped down into the sunken lane, passed over the dead, mounted the
+other ragged bank and went on. Stafford waited to hear the shock. It
+came; full against a deep blue wave. Richardson had been killed and
+Hancock commanded here. The blue wave was strong. The sound of the m&ecirc;l&eacute;e
+was frightful; then out of it burst a loud huzzahing. Stafford
+straightened himself. The grey were coming back, and after them the
+blue. Almost before he could unclasp his arm from the cedar, the first
+spray of gaunt, exhausted, bleeding men came over and down into the
+sunken lane. All the grey wave followed. At the moment there outburst a
+renewed and tremendous artillery battle. The smoke drifting across the
+Bloody Lane was like the fall of night, a night of cloud and storm.
+Orange flashes momentarily lit the scene, and the sullen thunders
+rolled. The grey, gaunt and haggard, but their colours with them,
+overpassed the dead and wounded, now choking the sunken road. Behind
+them were heard the blue, advancing and huzzahing. The grey wave
+remounted the bank down which it plunged fifteen minutes before. At the
+top it stayed a moment, thin and grey, spectral in the smoke pall, the
+battle flags like hovering, crimson birds. A line of flame leaped, one
+long crackle of musketry, then it resumed its retreat, falling back on
+the west wood. The blue, checked a moment by that last volley, now
+poured down into the sunken road, overpassed the thick ranks of the dead
+and wounded, mounted, and swept on in a counter charge.</p>
+
+<p>Maury Stafford had left the cedar and started across with the last
+broken line of the grey. Going down the crumbling bank his spur caught
+in a gnarled and sprawling root. The check was absolute,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_609" id="Page_609">[Pg 609]</a></span> and brought
+him violently to his knees. Before he could free himself the grey had
+reached the opposite crest, fired its volley, and gone on. He started to
+follow. He heard the blue coming, and it was expedient to get out of
+this trap. Before him, from the figures covering the earth like thrown
+jackstraws, an arm was suddenly lifted. The hand clutched at him,
+passing. He looked down. It was a boy of nineteen with a ghastly face.
+The voice came up: "Whoever you are, you're alive and well, and I'm
+dying. You'll take it and put a stamp on it and mail it, won't you? I'm
+dying. People ought to do things when the dying ask them to."</p>
+
+<p>Stafford looked behind him, then down again. "Do what? Quick! They're
+coming."</p>
+
+<p>The hand would not relax its clasp, but its fellow fumbled at the grey
+jacket. "It's my letter. They won't know if they don't get it. My side
+hurts, but it don't hurt like knowing they won't know ... that I was
+sorry." The face worked. "It's here but I can't&mdash;Please get it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You must let me go," said Stafford, and tried to unclasp the hand.
+"Stay any longer and I will be killed or taken."</p>
+
+<p>The hand closed desperately, both hands now. "For God's sake! I don't
+believe you've got so hard a heart. Take it and stamp it and mail it. If
+they don't know they'll never understand and I'll die knowing they'll
+never understand. For God's sake!"</p>
+
+<p>Stafford knelt beside him, opened the grey jacket, and took out the
+letter. Blood was upon it, but the address was legible. "Die easy. I'll
+stamp and mail it. I will send a word with it, too, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>A light came into the boy's face. "Tell them that I was like the
+prodigal son, but that I'm going home&mdash;I'm going home&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The arms fell, the breast ceased to heave, the head drew backward. Death
+came and stamped the light upon the face. Before Stafford could get to
+his feet, the blue wave had plunged into the trough. He remembered using
+his pistol, and he remembered a dizziness of being borne backward. He
+remembered that a phrase had gone through his mind "the instability of
+all material things." Then came a blank. He did not assume that he had
+lost consciousness, but simply he could not remember. He had been
+wrecked in a turbulent, hostile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_610" id="Page_610">[Pg 610]</a></span> ocean. It had made him and others
+captives, and now they were together at a place which he remembered was
+called the Roulette House. An hour might have passed, two hours; he
+really could not tell. There were a number of prisoners, most of them
+badly wounded. They lay in the back yard of the place, on the steps of
+out-houses, with blue soldiers for guards. A surgeon came through the
+yard, and helped a little the more agonizedly hurt. He glanced at
+Stafford's star and sash, came across and offered to bind up the cut
+across his forehead. "An awful field," he said. "This war is getting
+horrible. You're a Virginian, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Used to know a lot of Virginia doctors. Liked them first rate! Now we
+are enemies, and it seems to me a pity. Guess it's as Shakespeare says,
+'What fools these mortals be!' I know war's getting to seem to me an
+awful foolishness. That cornfield out there is sickening&mdash;Now! that
+bleeding's stopped&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>On the left, around and before the Dunkard church, the very fury of the
+storm brought about at last a sudden failing, a stillness and cessation
+that seemed like those of death. Sound enough there was undoubtedly, and
+in the centre the battle yet roared, but by comparison there seemed a
+dark and sultry calm. Far and near lay the fallen. It was now noon, and
+since dawn twelve thousand men had been killed or wounded on this left,
+attacked by Fighting Joe Hooker, held by Stonewall Jackson. Fifteen
+general officers were dead or disabled. Hardly a brigade, not many
+regiments, were officered as they had been when the sun rose. There was
+an exhaustion. Franklin had entered on the field, and one might have
+thought that the grey would yet be overpowered. But all the blue forces
+were broken, disorganized; there came an exhaustion, a lassitude.
+McClellan sent an order forbidding another attack. Cornfield and wood
+lay heavy, hot, and dark, and by comparison, still.</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson sat Little Sorrel near the Dunkard church. They
+brought him reports of the misery of the wounded and their great
+numbers. His medical director, of whom he was fond, came to him.
+"General, it is very bad! The field hospital looks as though all the
+fields of the world had given tribute. I know that you do not like
+hospitals&mdash;but would you come and look, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The general shook his head. "What is the use of looking? There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_611" id="Page_611">[Pg 611]</a></span> have to
+be wounded. Do the utmost that you can, doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought, sir, that, seeing the day is not ended, and they are so
+overwhelmingly in force, and the Potomac is not three miles in our
+rear&mdash;I have thought that we might manage to get the less badly hurt
+across. If they attack again and the day should end in defeat&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What have you got there?" asked Jackson. "Apples?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. I passed beneath a tree and gathered half a dozen. Would you
+like&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I breakfasted very early." He took the rosy fruit and began to
+eat. His eyes, just glinting under the forage cap, surveyed the scene
+before him,&mdash;trampled wood where the shells had cut through bough and
+branch, trampled cornfields where it seemed that a whirlwind had passed,
+his resting, shattered commands, the dead and the dying, the dead
+horses, the disabled guns, the drifting sulphurous smoke, and, across
+the turnpike, in the fields and by the east wood, the masses of blue,
+overcanopied also by sulphurous smoke. He finished the apple, took out a
+handkerchief, and wiped fingers and lips. "Dr. McGuire, they have done
+their worst. And never use the word defeat."</p>
+
+<p>He jerked his hand into the air. "Do your best for the wounded, doctor,
+do all that is humanly possible, but do it <i>here</i>! I am going now to the
+centre to see General Lee."</p>
+
+<p>Behind the wood, in a grassy hollow moderately sheltered from the
+artillery fire, at the edge of the ghastly field hospital, a young
+surgeon, sleeves rolled up and blood from head to foot, met the medical
+director. "Doctor, the Virginia Legion came on with General McLaws.
+They've just brought their colonel in&mdash;Fauquier Cary, you know. I wish
+you would look at his arm."</p>
+
+<p>The two looked. "There's but one thing, colonel."</p>
+
+<p>"Amputation? Very well, very well. Get it over with." He straightened
+himself on the boards where the men had laid him. "Sedgwick, too!
+Sedgwick and I striking at each other like two savages decked with beads
+and scalps! Fratricidal strife if ever there was fratricidal strife! All
+right, doctor. I had a great-uncle lost his arm at Yorktown. Can't
+remember him,&mdash;my father and mother loved to talk of him&mdash;old Uncle
+Edward. All right&mdash;it's all right."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_612" id="Page_612">[Pg 612]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The two doctors were talking together. "Only a few ounces left. Better
+use it here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes!&mdash;One minute longer, colonel. We've got a little chloroform."</p>
+
+<p>The bottle was brought. Cary eyed it. "Is that all you've got?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. We took a fair quantity at Manassas, but God only knows the amount
+we could use! Now."</p>
+
+<p>The man stretched on the boards motioned with the hand that had not been
+torn by the exploding shell. "No, no! I don't want it. Keep it for some
+one with a leg to cut off!" He smiled, a charming, twisted smile,
+shading into a grimace of pain. "No chloroform at Yorktown! I'll be as
+much of a man as was my great-uncle Edward! Yes, yes, I'm in earnest,
+doctor. Put it by for the next. All right; I'm ready."</p>
+
+<p>On the knoll by Sharpsburg Lee and Jackson stood and looked toward the
+right. McClellan had apparently chosen to launch three battles in one
+day; in the early morning against the Confederate left, at midday
+against its centre, now against its right. A message came from
+Longstreet. "Burnside is in motion. I've got D. R. Jones and twenty-five
+hundred men."</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that Burnside was in motion. With fourteen thousand men
+he came over the stone bridge across the Antietam. They were fresh
+troops; their flags were flying, their drums were beating, their bugles
+braying. The line moved with huzzahs toward the ridge held by
+Longstreet. From the left came tearing past the knoll the Confederate
+batteries. Lee was massing them in the centre, training them against the
+eastern foot of the ridge. There had been a lull in the storm, now
+Pelham opened with loud thunders. Other guns followed. The Federal
+batteries began to blaze; there broke out a madness of sound. In the
+midst of it D. R. Jones with his twenty-five hundred men clashed with
+Burnside's leading brigades.</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson pulled the forage cap lower, jerked his hand into the
+air. "Good! good! I will go, sir, and send in my freshest troops."</p>
+
+<p>"Look," said Lee. "Look, general! On the Harper's Ferry road."</p>
+
+<p>All upon the knoll turned and gazed. Air and light played with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_613" id="Page_613">[Pg 613]</a></span> the
+battle smoke, drove it somewhat to one side and showed for a few seconds
+a long and sunlit road, the road from Harper's Ferry. One of the staff
+began a low uncontrollable laughter. "By God! I see his red battle
+shirt! By God! I see his red battle shirt!"</p>
+
+<p>Lee with a glance checked the sound. He himself looked nobly lifted,
+grave and thankful. The battle smoke closed, obscuring the road, but the
+sound of marching men came along it, distinguishable even beneath the
+artillery fire. "Good, good!" said Jackson. "A. P. Hill is a good
+soldier."</p>
+
+<p>Tawny with the dust of the seventeen miles, at a double quick and
+yelling, the crimson battle flags slanting forward, in swung the Light
+Division! D. R. Jones rallied. Decimated, out-worn, but dangerous, the
+aiding regiments from the left did well. The grey guns worked with a
+certain swift and steadfast grimness. From all the ridges of the
+Antietam the blue cannon thundered, thundered. Blue and grey, the
+musketry rolled. Sound rose into terrific volume, the eddying smoke
+blotted out the day. Artillery Hell&mdash;Infantry Inferno&mdash;the field of
+Sharpsburg roared now upon the right.</p>
+
+<p>The Horse Artillery occupied a low ridge like a headland jutting into a
+grassy field. Below, above, behind, the smoke rolled; in front the flame
+leaped from their guns, the shells sped. There was a great background of
+battle cloud, lit every ten seconds by the glare from an opposing
+battery. John Pelham stood directing. Six guns were in fierce and
+continuous action. The men serving them were picked artillery men. To
+and fro they moved, down they stooped, up they stood, stepped backward
+from the gun at fire, moved forward at recoil, fell again to the loading
+with the precision of the drill ground. They were half naked, they were
+black with powder, glistening with sweat, some were bleeding. In the
+light from the guns all came boldly into relief; in the intermediate
+deep murk they sank from sight, became of the clouds, cloudy, mere
+shapes in the semi-darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson, returning to the Dunkard church and passing behind
+this headland, turned Little Sorrel's head and came upon the plateau.
+Pelham met him. "Yes, general, we're doing well. Yes, sir, it's holding
+out. Caissons were partly filled during the lull."</p>
+
+<p>"Good, good!" said Jackson. He dismounted and walked forward to the
+guns. Pelham followed. "I don't think you should be out here, general.
+They've got our range very accurately&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_614" id="Page_614">[Pg 614]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The other apparently did not notice the remark. He stood near one of the
+guns and turned his eyes upon the battle on the right. "Longstreet
+strikes a heavy blow. He and Hill will push them back. Colonel Pelham,
+train two guns upon that body of the enemy at the ford."</p>
+
+<p>Pelham moved toward the further guns. The howitzer nearest Jackson was
+fired, reloaded, fired again. The men beside it stood back. It blazed,
+thundered, recoiled. A great, black, cylindrical shell came with a
+demoniac shriek. At the moment the platform was lit with the battle
+glare. Its fall was seen. It fell, smoking, immediately beside Stonewall
+Jackson. Such was the concussion of the air that for a moment he was
+stunned. Involuntarily his arm went up before his eyes; he made a
+backward step. Pelham, returning from the further guns and still some
+yards away, gave a shout of warning and horror; from all the men who had
+seen the thing there burst a similar cry. With the motion almost of the
+shell itself, a man of the crew of the howitzer reached the torn earth
+and the cylinder. His body half naked, blackened, brushed, in passing,
+the general. He put his hands beneath the heated, smoking bottle of
+death, lifted it, and rushed on to the edge of the escarpment fifty feet
+away. Here he swung it with force, threw it from him with burned hands.
+Halfway to the field below it exploded.</p>
+
+<p>Pelham, very pale, protested with some sternness. "You can't stay here,
+general! My men can't work with you here. It doesn't matter about us,
+but it does matter about you. Please go, sir."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_615" id="Page_615">[Pg 615]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am going, colonel. I have seen what I wished to see. Who is the man
+who took up the shell?"</p>
+
+<p>Pelham turned to the howitzer. "Which of you was it?"</p>
+
+<p>Half a dozen voices were raised in answer. "Deaderick, sir. But he
+burned his hands badly and he asked the lieutenant if he could go to the
+rear&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good, good!" said Stonewall Jackson. "He did well. But there are many
+brave men in this army." He went back to Little Sorrel, where he stood
+cropping the dried grass, and stiffly mounted. As he turned from the
+platform and the guns, all lit again by the orange glare, there came
+from the right an accession of sound, then high, shrill, and triumphant
+the Confederate yell. A shout arose from the Horse Artillery. "They're
+breaking! they're breaking! Burnside, too, is breaking! Yaaaii!
+Yaaaaiiihh! Yaaaaaiiihhh!"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_616" id="Page_616">[Pg 616]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE OPEQUON</h3>
+
+
+<p>The battle of Sharpsburg was a triumph neither for blue nor grey, for
+North nor South. With the sinking of the sun ceased the bloody,
+prolonged, and indecisive struggle. Blue and grey, one hundred and
+thirty thousand men fought that battle. When the pale moon came up she
+looked on twenty-one thousand dead and wounded.</p>
+
+<p>The living ranks sank down and slept beside the dead. Lee on Traveller
+waited by the highroad until late night. Man by man his generals came to
+him and made their report&mdash;their ghastly report. "Very good, general.
+What is your opinion?"&mdash;"I think, sir, that we should cross the Potomac
+to-night."&mdash;"Very well, general. What is your opinion?"&mdash;"General Lee,
+we should cross the Potomac to-night."&mdash;"Yes, general, it has been our
+heaviest field. What is your advice?"&mdash;"General Lee, I am here to do
+what you tell me to do."</p>
+
+<p>Horse and rider, Traveller and Robert Edward Lee, stood in the pale
+light above the Antietam. "Gentlemen, we will not cross the Potomac
+to-night. If General McClellan wants to fight in the morning I will give
+him battle again.&mdash;And now we are all very tired. Good-night.
+Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>The sun came up, dim behind the mist. The mist rose, the morning
+advanced. The September sunshine lay like vital warmth upon the height
+and vale, upon the Dunkard church and the wood about it, upon the
+cornfields, and Burnside's bridge and the Bloody Lane, and upon all the
+dead men in the cornfields, in the woods, upon the heights, beside the
+stream, in the lane. The sunshine lay upon the dead, as the prophet upon
+the Shunamite's child, but it could not reanimate. Grey and blue, the
+living armies gazed at each other across the Antietam. Both were
+exhausted, both shattered, the blue yet double in numbers. The grey
+waited for McClellan's attack. It did not come. The ranks, lying down,
+began to talk. "He ain't going to attack! He's cautious."&mdash;"He's had
+enough."&mdash;"So've I. O God!"&mdash;"Never saw such a fight. Wish those
+buzzards would go away from that wood over there! They're so
+dismal."&mdash;"No, McClellan ain't going to attack!"&mdash;"Then why don't we
+attack?"&mdash;"Go away, Johnny! We're mighty few and powerfully
+tired."&mdash;"Well, <i>I</i> think so, too. We might just as well attack. Great
+big counter stroke! Crumple up Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts over
+there! Turn their right!"&mdash;"'T ain't impossible! Marse Robert and Old
+Jack could manage it."&mdash;"No, they couldn't!"&mdash;"Yes, they
+could!"&mdash;"You're a fool! Look at that position, stronger 'n Thunder Run
+Mountain, and Hooker's got troops he didn't have in yesterday! 'N those
+things like beehives in a row are Parrotts 'n Whitworths' 'n Blakeley's.
+'N then look at <i>us</i>. Oh, yes! we've got <i>spirit</i>, but spirit's got to
+have a body to rush those guns."&mdash;"Thar ain't anything Old Jack couldn't
+do if he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_617" id="Page_617">[Pg 617]</a></span> tried!"&mdash;"Yes, there is!" "Thar ain't! How <i>dast</i> you say
+that?"&mdash;"There is! He couldn't be a fool if he tried&mdash;and he ain't
+a-going to try!"</p>
+
+<p>The artillerist, Stephen D. Lee, came to headquarters on the knoll by
+Sharpsburg. "General Lee sent for me. Tell him, please, I am here." Lee
+appeared. "Good-morning, Colonel Lee. You are to go at once to General
+Jackson. Tell him that I sent you to report to him." The officer found
+Stonewall Jackson at the Dunkard church. "General, General Lee sent me
+to report to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Good, good! Colonel, I wish you to take a ride with me. We will go to
+the top of the hill yonder."</p>
+
+<p>They went up to the top of the hill, past dead men and horses, and much
+wreckage of caissons and gun wheels. "There are probably sharpshooters
+in that wood across the stream," said Jackson. "Do not expose yourself
+unnecessarily, colonel." Arrived at the level atop they took post in a
+little copse, wildly torn and blackened, a wood in Artillery Hell. "Take
+your glasses, colonel, and examine the enemy's line of battle."</p>
+
+<p>The other lifted the field-glass and with it swept the Antietam, and the
+fields and ridges beyond it. He looked at the Federal left, and he
+looked at the Federal centre, and he looked along the Federal right,
+which was opposite, then he lowered the glasses. "General, they have a
+very strong position, and they are in great force."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! I wish you to take fifty pieces of artillery and crush that
+force."</p>
+
+<p>Stephen D. Lee was a brave man. He said nothing now, but he stood a
+moment in silence, and then he took his field-glass and looked again. He
+looked now at the many and formidable Federal batteries clustered like
+dark fruit above the Antietam, and now at the masses of blue infantry,
+and now at the positions, under artillery and musketry fire, which the
+Confederate batteries must take. He put the glass down again. "Yes,
+general. Where shall I get the fifty guns?"</p>
+
+<p>"How many have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had thirty. Some were lost, a number disabled. I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_618" id="Page_618">[Pg 618]</a></span> twelve."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so. Well, colonel, I could give you a few, and General Lee tells
+me he can furnish some."</p>
+
+<p>The other fingered a button on his coat for a moment, then, "Yes,
+general. Shall I go for the guns?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not yet." Stonewall Jackson laid his large hands in their worn old
+brown gauntlets, one over the other, upon his saddle bow. He, too,
+looked at the Federal right and the guns on the heights like dark fruit.
+His eyes made just a glint of blue light below the forage cap. "Colonel
+Lee, can you crush the Federal right with fifty guns?"</p>
+
+<p>The artillerist drew a quick breath, let the button alone, and raised
+his head higher. "I can try, general. I can do it if any one can."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not what I asked you, sir. If I give you fifty guns can you
+crush the Federal right?"</p>
+
+<p>The other hesitated. "General, I don't know what you want of me. Is it
+my technical opinion as an artillery officer? or do you want to know if
+I will make the attempt? If you give me the order of course I will make
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, colonel. But I want your positive opinion, yes or no. Can you
+crush the Federal right with fifty guns?"</p>
+
+<p>The artillerist looked again, steadying arm and glass against a charred
+bough. "General, it cannot be done with fifty guns and the troops you
+have here."</p>
+
+<p>Hilltop and withered wood hung a moment silent in the air, sunny but yet
+with a taste of all the powder that had been burned. Then said Jackson,
+"Good! Let us ride back, colonel."</p>
+
+<p>They turned their horses, but Stephen Lee with some emotion began to put
+the case. "You forced me, general, to say what I did say. If you send
+the guns, I beg of you not to give them to another! I will fight them to
+the last extremity&mdash;" He looked to the other anxiously. To say to
+Stonewall Jackson that you must despair and die where he sent you in to
+conquer!</p>
+
+<p>But Jackson had no grimness of aspect. He looked quietly thoughtful. It
+was even with a smile of sweetness that he cut short the other's
+pleading. "It's all right, colonel, it's all right! Everyone knows that
+you are a brave officer and would fight the guns well." At the foot of
+the hill he checked Little Sorrel. "We'll part here, colonel. You go at
+once to General Lee. Tell him all that has happened since he sent you to
+me. Tell him that you exami<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_619" id="Page_619">[Pg 619]</a></span>ned the Federal position. Tell him that I
+forced you to give the technical opinion of an artillery officer, and
+tell him what that opinion is. That is all, colonel."</p>
+
+<p>The September day wore on. Grey and blue armies rested inactive save
+that they worked at burying the dead. Then, in the afternoon,
+information came to grey headquarters. Humphrey's division, pouring
+through the gaps of South Mountain, would in a few hours be at
+McClellan's service. Couch's division was at hand&mdash;there were troops
+assembling on the Pennsylvania border. At dark Lee issued his orders.
+During the night of the eighteenth the Army of Northern Virginia left
+the banks of the Antietam, wound silently down to the Potomac, and
+crossed to the Virginia shore.</p>
+
+<p>All night there fell a cold, fine, chilling rain. Through it the wagon
+trains crossed, the artillery with a sombre noise, the wounded who must
+be carried, the long column of infantry, the advance, the main, the
+rear. The corps of Stonewall Jackson was the last to ford the river. He
+sat on Little Sorrel, midway of the stream, and watched his troops go
+onward in the steady, chilling rain. Daybreak found him there,
+motionless as a figure in bronze, needing not to care for wind or sun or
+rain.</p>
+
+<p>The Army of Northern Virginia encamped on the road to Martinsburg.
+Thirty guns on the heights above Boteler's Ford guarded its rear, and
+Jeb Stuart and his cavalry watched from the northern bank at
+Williamsport. McClellan pushed out from Sharpsburg a heavy
+reconnoissance, and on his side of the river planted guns. Fitz John
+Porter, in command, crossed during the night a considerable body of
+troops. These advanced against Pendelton's guns, took four of them, and
+drove the others back on the Martinsburg road. Pendleton reported to
+General Lee; Lee sent an order to Stonewall Jackson. The courier found
+him upon the bank of the Potomac, gazing at the northern shore. "Good!"
+he said. "I have ordered up the Light Division." Seventy guns thundered
+from across the water. A. P. Hill in his red battle shirt advancing in
+that iron rain, took, front and flank, the Federal infantry. He drove
+them down from the bluff, he pushed them into the river; they showed
+black on the current. Those who got across, under the shelter of the
+guns, did not try again that passage. McClellan looked toward Virginia,
+but made no further effort, this September, to invade her. The Army of
+Northern Virginia waited another day above Boteler's Ford, then withdrew
+a few miles to the banks of the Opequon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_620" id="Page_620">[Pg 620]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Opequon, a clear and pleasing stream, meandered through the lower
+reaches of the great Valley, through a fertile, lovely country, as yet
+not greatly scored and blackened by war's torch and harrow. An easy ride
+to the westward and you arrived in Winchester, beloved of
+Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson and the 2d Army Corps. As the autumn
+advanced, the banks of the Opequon, the yet thick forests that stretched
+toward the Potomac, the great maples, and oaks and gums and hickories
+that rose, singly or in clusters, from the rolling farm lands, put on a
+most gorgeous colouring. The air was mellow and sunny. From the
+camp-fires, far and near, there came always a faint pungent smell of
+wood smoke. Curls of blue vapour rose from every glade. The land seemed
+bathed in Indian summer.</p>
+
+<p>Through it in the mellow sunlight, beneath the crimson of the gums, the
+lighter red of the maples, the yellow of the hickories, the 2d Army
+Corps found itself for weeks back on the drill ground. The old Army of
+the Valley crowed and clapped on the back the Light Division and D. H.
+Hill's troops. "Old times come again! Jest like we used to do at
+Winchester! Chirk up, you fellows! Your drill's improving every day. Old
+Jack'll let up on you after a while. Lord! it used to be <i>seven</i> hours a
+day!"</p>
+
+<p>Not only did the 2d Corps drill, it refitted. Mysteriously there came
+from Winchester a really fair amount of shoes and clothing. Only the
+fewest were now actually barefoot. In every regiment there went on, too,
+a careful cobbling. If by any means a shoe could be made to do, it was
+put in that position. Uniforms were patched and cleaned, and every day
+was washing day. All the hillsides were spread with soldiers' shirts.
+The red leaves drifting down on them looked like blood-stains, but the
+leaves could be brushed away. The men, standing in the Opequon, whistled
+as they rubbed and wrung. Every day the recovered from hospitals, and
+the footsore stragglers, and the men detached or furloughed, came home
+to camp. There came in recruits, too&mdash;men who last year were too old,
+boys who last year were not old enough. "Look here, boys! Thar goes
+Father Time!&mdash;No, it's Rip Van Winkle!"&mdash;"No, it's Santa Claus!&mdash;Anyhow,
+he's going to fight!" "Look here, boys! here comes another cradle. Good
+Lord, he's just a toddler! He don't see a razor in his dreams yet!
+Quartermaster's out of nursing-bottles!" "Shet up!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_621" id="Page_621">[Pg 621]</a></span> the way those
+children fight's a caution!"</p>
+
+<p>October drifted on, smooth as the Opequon. Red and yellow leaves drifted
+down, wood smoke arose, sound was wrapped as in fine wool, dulled
+everywhere to sweetness. Whirring insects, rippling water, the
+wood-chopper's axe, the whistling soldiers, the drum-beat, the
+bugle-call, all were swept into a smooth current, steady, almost
+droning, somewhat dream-like. The 2d Corps would have said that it was a
+long time on the Opequon, but that on the whole it found the place a
+pleasing land of drowsy-head.</p>
+
+<p>Visitors came to the Opequon; parties from Winchester, officers from the
+1st Corps commanded by Longstreet and encamped a few miles to the
+eastward, officers from the headquarters of the commander-in-chief.
+General Lee came himself on Traveller, and with Stonewall Jackson rode
+along the Opequon, under the scarlet maples. One day there appeared a
+cluster of Englishmen, Colonel the Honourable Garnet Wolseley; the
+Special Correspondent of the <i>Times</i>, the Honourable Francis Lawley, and
+the Special Correspondent of the <i>Illustrated London News</i>, Mr. Frank
+Vizetelly. General Lee had sent them over under the convoy of an
+officer, with a note to Stonewall Jackson.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear General</span>,&mdash;These gentlemen very especially wish to make your
+acquaintance. Yours,</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right">R. E. LEE.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>They made it, beneath a beautiful, tall, crimson gum tree, where on a
+floor of fallen leaves Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson's tent was
+pitched. A camp-stool, a wooden chair, and two boxes were placed. There
+was a respectful silence while the Opequon murmured by, then Garnet
+Wolseley spoke of the great interest which England&mdash;Virginia's mother
+country&mdash;was taking in this struggle.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said Jackson. "It would be natural for a mother to take an
+even greater interest."</p>
+
+<p>"And the admiration, general, with which we have watched your
+career&mdash;the career of genius, if I may say so! By Jove&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_622" id="Page_622">[Pg 622]</a></span> It is not my career. God has the matter in hand."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, He knows how to pick his lieutenants!&mdash;You have the most ideal
+place for a camp, general! But, I suppose, before these coloured leaves
+all fall you will be moving?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is an open secret, I suppose, sir," said the correspondent of the
+<i>Times</i>, "that when McClellan does see fit to cross you will meet him
+east of the Blue Ridge?"</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask, sir," said the correspondent of the <i>Illustrated News</i>,
+"what you think of this latest move on the political chess-board&mdash;I mean
+Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation?"</p>
+
+<p>"The leaves are," said Jackson, "a beautiful colour. I was in England
+one autumn, Colonel Wolseley, but I did not observe our autumn colours
+in your foliage. Climate, doubtless. But what was my admiration were
+your cathedrals."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general; wonderful, are they not? Music in stone. Should McClellan
+cross, would the Fredericksburg route&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good! good! Music in stone! Which of your great church structures do
+you prefer, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir, I might prefer Westminster Abbey. Would&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Westminster Abbey. A soldier's answer. I remember that I
+especially liked Durham. I liked the Galilee chapel and the tomb of the
+Venerable Bede. St. Cuthbert is buried there, too, is he not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't remember, sir. Is he, Mr. Lawley?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe so."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he is. You haven't got any cathedrals here, General Jackson, but
+you've got about the most interesting army on the globe. Will
+McClellan&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I like the solidity of the early Norman. The foundations were laid in
+1093, I believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very probably, general. Has General Lee&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It has a commanding situation&mdash;an advantage which all of your
+cathedrals do not possess. I liked the windows best at York. What do you
+think, colonel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that you are right, general. When your wars are over, I hope
+that you will visit England again. I suppose that you cannot say how
+soon that will be, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. Only Go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_623" id="Page_623">[Pg 623]</a></span>d can say that. I should like to see Ely and
+Canterbury." He rose. "Gentlemen, it has been pleasant to meet you. I
+hear the adjutant's call. If you would like to find out how my men
+<i>drill</i>, Colonel Johnson may take you to the parade-ground."</p>
+
+<p>Later, there arrived beneath the crimson gum four of Jeb Stuart's
+officers, gallantly mounted and equipped, young and fine. To-day their
+usual careless dash was tempered by something of important gravity; if
+their eyes danced, it was beneath half-closed lids; they did not smile
+outright, but their lips twitched. Behind them an orderly bore a long
+pasteboard box. The foremost officer was Major Heros von Borcke, of
+General Stuart's staff. All dismounted. Jackson came out of his tent.
+The air was golden warm; the earth was level before the tent, and on the
+carpet of small bright leaves was yet the table, the chair, the
+camp-stool, and the boxes. It made a fine, out-of-door room of audience.
+The cavalry saluted. Jackson touched the forage cap, and sat down. The
+staff officer, simple, big, and genuine, stood forward. "Major Von
+Borcke, is it not? Well, major, what is General Stuart about just now?"</p>
+
+<p>"General, he is watching his old schoolmate, General McClellan. My
+general, I come on a graceful errand, a little gift from General Stuart
+bearing. He has so great an esteem and friendship for you, general; he
+asks that you accept so slight a token of that esteem and friendship and
+he would say affection, and he does say reverence. He says that from
+Richmond he has for this sent&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Major Heros von Borcke made a signal. The orderly advanced and placed
+upon the pine table the box. The other cavalry officers stepped a little
+nearer; two or three of Stonewall Jackson's military family came also
+respectfully closer; the red gum leaves made a rustling underfoot.</p>
+
+<p>"General Stuart is extremely kind," said Jackson. "I have a high esteem
+for Jeb Stuart. You will tell him so, major."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, slowly, came off the lid. Slowly, slowly came away a layer of
+silver paper. Where on earth they got&mdash;in Richmond in 1862&mdash;the gay box,
+the silver paper, passes comprehension. The staff thought it looked
+Parisian, and nursed the idea that it had once held a ball gown. Slowly,
+slowly, out came the gift.</p>
+
+<p>A startled sound, immediately suppressed, was uttered by the military
+family. Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson merely looked a stone wall. The
+old servant Jim was now also upon the scene. "Fo'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_624" id="Page_624">[Pg 624]</a></span> de Lawd!" said Jim.
+"Er new nuniform!"</p>
+
+<p>Fine grey cadet cloth, gold lace, silken facings, beautiful bright
+buttons, sash, belt, gauntlets&mdash;the leaves rustled loudly, but a chuckle
+from Jim in the background and a murmured "Dat are sumpin' like!" was
+the only audible utterance. With empressement each article was lifted
+from the box by Major Heros von Borcke and laid upon the pine boards
+beneath Stonewall Jackson's eyes. The box emptied, Von Borcke, big,
+simple, manly, gravely beaming, stepped back from the table. "For
+General Jackson, with General Stuart's esteem and admiration!"</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson, big, too, and to appearance simple, looked under the
+forage cap, smiled, and with one lean brown finger touched almost
+timidly the beautiful, spotless cadet cloth. "Major von Borcke, you will
+give General Stuart my best thanks. He is, indeed, good. All this," he
+gravely indicated the loaded table, "is much too fine for the hard work
+I'd have to give it, and I shall have it put away for the present. But
+you tell General Stuart, major, that I will take the best care of his
+beautiful present, and that I will always prize it highly as a souvenir.
+It is, I think, about one o'clock. You will stay to dinner with me, I
+hope, major."</p>
+
+<p>But the banks of the Opequon uttered a protest. "Oh, general!"&mdash;"My
+general, you will hurt his feelings."&mdash;"General, just try it on, at
+least!" "Let us have our way, sir, just this once! We have been right
+good, haven't we? and we do so want to see you in it!"&mdash;"General Stuart
+will certainly want to know how it fits&mdash;" "Please, sir,"&mdash;"<i>Gineral,
+Miss Anna sholy would like ter see you in hit!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes elapsed while the Opequon rippled by and the crimson gum
+leaves drifted down, then somewhat bashfully from the tent came forth
+Stonewall Jackson metamorphosed. Triumph perched upon the helms of the
+staff and the visiting cavalry. "Oh!&mdash;Oh!&mdash;" "General Stuart will be so
+happy!" "General, the review this afternoon! General, won't you review
+us <i>that way</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>He did. At first the men did not know him, then there mounted a wild
+excitement. Suppressed with difficulty during the actual evolutions, it
+burst into flower when the ranks were broken. The sun was setting in a
+flood of gold; there hung a fairy light over the g<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_625" id="Page_625">[Pg 625]</a></span>reen fields and the
+Opequon and the vivid woods. The place rang to the frolic shouting. It
+had the most delighted sound. "Stonewall! Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall!
+Stonewall! Old Jack! Old Jack! Old Jack!"</p>
+
+<p>Old Jack touched his beautiful hat of a lieutenant-general. Little
+Sorrel beneath him moved with a jerk of the head and a distended
+nostril. The men noticed that, too. "He don't know him either! Oh, Lord!
+Oh, Lord! Ain't life worth while? Ain't it grand?&mdash;Stonewall!
+Stonewall!"</p>
+
+<p>On went the gold October, passing at last in a rain and drift of leaves
+into a russet November. The curls of wood smoke showed plainer down the
+glades, the crows were cawing, the migratory birds going south, but the
+days were yet mild and still, wrapped in a balm of pale sunshine, a
+faint, purplish, Indian summer haze. The 2d Corps was hale and soberly
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>It was the chaplain's season. There occurred in the Army of Northern
+Virginia a religious revival, a far-spread and lasting deepening of
+feeling. For many nights in many forest glades there were "meetings"
+with prayer and singing. "Old Hundred" floated through the air. From
+tents and huts of boughs came the soldiers. They sat upon the earth,
+thick carpeted now with the faded leaves, or upon gnarled, out-cropping
+roots of oak and beech. Above shone the moon; there was a touch of frost
+in the air. The chaplain had some improvised pulpit; a great fire, or
+perhaps a torch fastened to a bough, gave light whereby to read the
+Book. The sound of the voice, the sound of the singing, blended with the
+voice of the Opequon rushing&mdash;all rushing toward the great Sea.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Come, humble sinner, in whose breast<br />
+A thousand thoughts revolve&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>It made a low thunder, so many soldiers' voices. Always, on these
+nights, in some glade or meadow, with some regiment or other, there was
+found the commander of the 2d Corps. Beneath the cathedral roof of the
+forest, or beneath the stars in the open, sat Stonewall Jackson,
+worshipping the God of Battles. Undoubtedly he was really and deeply
+happy. His place is on the Judean hills, with Joab and David and Abner.
+Late in this November there came to him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_626" id="Page_626">[Pg 626]</a></span> another joy. In North Carolina,
+where his wife had gone, a child was born to him, his only child, a
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>In the first half of October had occurred Jeb Stuart's brilliant
+Monocacy raid, two days and a half within McClellan's lines. On the
+twenty-sixth McClellan began the passage of the Potomac. He crossed near
+Berlin, and Lee, assured now that the theatre of war would be east of
+the Blue Ridge, dispatched Longstreet with the 1st Corps to Culpeper. On
+the seventh of November McClellan was removed from the command of the
+Army of the Potomac. It was given over to Burnside, and he took the
+Fredericksburg route to Richmond.</p>
+
+<p>The Army of the Potomac numbered one hundred and twenty-five thousand
+men and officers and three hundred and twenty guns. At Washington were
+in addition eighty thousand men, and up and down the Potomac twenty
+thousand more. The Army of Northern Virginia in all, 1st and 2d Corps,
+had seventy-two thousand men and officers and two hundred and
+seventy-five guns. Lee called Stonewall Jackson to join Longstreet at
+Fredericksburg.</p>
+
+<p>On the twenty-second the 1st Corps quitted, amid smiles and tears, many
+a "God keep you!" and much cheering, Winchester the beloved. Out swung
+the long column upon the Valley pike. Advance and main and rear, horse
+and foot and guns, Stonewall Jackson and his twenty-five thousand took
+the old road. The men were happy. "Old road, old road, old road, howdy
+do! How's your health, old lady? Haven't you missed us? Haven't you
+missed us? We've missed <i>you</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Indian summer, violet, dream-like. By now there had been burning
+and harrowing in the Valley; war had laid his mailed hand upon the
+region. It was not yet the straining clutch of later days, but it was
+bad enough. The Indian summer wrapped with a soft touch of mourning
+purple much of desolation, much of untilled earth, and charred
+roof-tree, and broken walls. The air was soft and gentle, lying balmy
+and warm on the road and ragged fields, and the haze so hid the
+distances that the column thought not so much of how the land was
+scarred as of the memories that thronged on either side of the Valley
+pike. "Kernstown! The field of Kernstown. There's Fulkerson's wall.
+About five hundred years ago!"</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_627" id="Page_627">[Pg 627]</a></span>riding in the van, may be supposed to have had his
+memories, too. He did not express them. He was using expedition, and he
+sent back orders. "Press forward, men! Press forward." He rode quietly,
+forage cap pulled low; or, standing with Little Sorrel on some wayside
+knoll, he watched for a while his thousands passing. Stuart's gay
+present had taken the air but once. Here was the old familiar,
+weather-worn array, leaf brown from sun and wind and dust and rain,
+patched here and patched there, dull of buttons, and with the lace worn
+off. Here were the old boots, the sabre, the forage cap; here were the
+blue glint of the eye and the short "Good! good!" as the men passed. The
+marching men shouted for him. He nodded, and having noted whatever it
+was he had paused to note, shook Little Sorrel's bridle and stiffly
+galloped to the van again.</p>
+
+<p>Past Newtown, past Middletown, on to Strasburg&mdash;the Massanuttons loomed
+ahead, all softly coloured yet with reds and golds. "Massanutton!
+Massanutton!" said the troops. "We've seen you before, and you've seen
+us before! Front Royal's at your head and Port Republic's at your feet."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"In Virginia there's a Valley,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Valley, Valley!</span><br />
+Where all day the war drums beat,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Beat, Beat!</span><br />
+And the soldiers love the Valley<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Valley, Valley!</span><br />
+And the Valley loves the soldiers,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Soldiers, soldiers!"</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Past Strasburg, past Tom's Brook, past Rude's Hill&mdash;through the still
+November days, in the Indian summer weather, the old Army of the Valley,
+the old Ewell's Division, the Light Division, D. H. Hill's Division,
+moved up the Valley Pike. All were now the 2d Corps, Stonewall Jackson
+riding at its head. The people&mdash;the people were mostly women and
+children&mdash;flocked to the great highroad to bring the army things, to
+wave it onward, to say "God bless you!"&mdash;"God keep you!"&mdash;"God make you
+to conquer!"</p>
+
+<p>The 2d Corps passed Woodstock, and Edenburg, and Mt. Jackson, and came
+to New Market, and here it turned eastward. "Going to leave you,"
+chanted the troops. "Going to leave you, old road, old road! Take care
+of yourself till we come again!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_628" id="Page_628">[Pg 628]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Up and up and over Massanutton wound the 2d Corps. The air was still,
+not cold. The gold leaves drifted on the troops, and the red. From the
+top of the pass the view was magnificent. Down and down wound the column
+to the cold, swift Shenandoah. The men forded the stream. "Oh,
+Shenandoah! Oh, Shenandoah! when will we ford you again?"</p>
+
+<p>Up and up the steeps of the Blue Ridge to Fisher's Gap! All the air was
+dreamy, the sun sloping to the west, the crows cawing in the mountain
+clearings. The column was leaving the Valley, and a silence fell upon
+it. Stonewall Jackson rode ahead, on the mountain path, in the last gold
+light. At the summit of the pass there was a short halt. It went by in a
+strange quietness. The men turned and gazed. "The Valley of Virginia!
+The Valley of Virginia! <i>Which of us will not see you again?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The Alleghenies lay faint, faint, beneath the flooding light. The sun
+sent out great rays of purple and rose. Between the mountain ranges the
+vast landscape lay in shadow, though here and there a high hilltop, a
+mountain spur had a coronet of gold. The 2d Corps, twenty-five thousand
+men, high on the Blue Ridge, looked and looked. "Some of us will not see
+you again. Some of us will not see you again, O loved Valley of
+Virginia!" <i>Column Forward! Column Forward!</i></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_629" id="Page_629">[Pg 629]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LONE TREE HILL</h3>
+
+
+<p>The three beautiful Carys walked together from the road gate toward the
+house. Before them, crowning the low hill, showed the white pillars
+between oaks where the deep coloured leaves yet clung. The sun was down,
+the air violet, the negro children burning brush and leaves in the
+hollow behind the house quarter. Halfway to the pillars, there ran back
+from the drive a long double row of white chrysanthemums. The three
+sisters paused to gather some for the vases.</p>
+
+<p>Unity and Molly gathered them. Judith sat down on the bank by the road,
+thick with dead leaves. She drew her scarf about her. Molly came
+presently and sat beside her. "Dear Judith, dear Judith!" she said, in
+her soft little voice, and stroked her sister's dress.</p>
+
+<p>Judith put her arm about her, and drew her close. "Molly, isn't it as
+though the earth were dying? Just the kind of fading light and hush one
+thinks of going in&mdash;I don't know why, but I don't like chrysanthemums
+any more."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Molly, "there's a feel of mould in them, and of dead
+leaves and chilly nights. But the soldiers are so used to lying out of
+doors! I don't believe they mind it much, or they won't until the snow
+comes. Judith&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, honey."</p>
+
+<p>"The soldiers that I have dreadful dreams about are the soldiers in
+prison. Judith, I dreamed about Major Stafford the other night! He had
+blood upon his forehead and he was walking up and down, walking up and
+down in a place with a grating."</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't dream so, Molly.&mdash;Oh, yes, yes, yes! I'm sorry for him. On
+the land and on the sea and for them that are in prison&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Unity joined them, with her arm full of white bloom. "Oh, isn't there a
+dreadful hush? How gay we used to be, even at twilight! Judith, Judith,
+let us do something!"</p>
+
+<p>Judith looked at her with a twisted smile. "This morning, very early, we
+went with Aunt Lucy over the storeroom and the smoke-house, and then we
+went down to the quarter and got them all together, and told them how
+careful now we would all have to be with meal and bacon. And Susan's
+baby had died in the night, and we had to comfort Susan, and this
+afternoon we buried the baby. After breakfast we scraped almost the last
+of the tablecloths into lint, and Molly made envelopes, and Daddy Ben
+and I talked about shoes and how we could make them at home. Then Aunt
+Lucy and I went into town to the hospitals. There is a rumour of
+smallpox, but I am sure it is only a rumour. It has been a hard day. A
+number of sick were brought in from Fredericksburg. So much pneumonia!
+An old man and woman came up from North Carolina looking for their son.
+I took them through the wards. Oh, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_630" id="Page_630">[Pg 630]</a></span> was pitiful! No, he was not
+there. Probably he was killed. And Unity went to the sewing-rooms, and
+has been there sewing hard all day. And then we came home, and found
+Julius almost in tears, and Molly triumphant with the parlour carpet all
+up and ready to be cut into squares&mdash;soldiers sleeping in the snowy
+winter under tulips and roses. And then we read father's letter, and
+that was a comfort, a comfort! And then we took Susan's little baby and
+buried it, and did what we could for Susan; and then we walked down to
+the gate and stopped to gather chrysanthemums. And now we are going back
+to the house, and I dare say there'll be some work to do between now and
+bedtime. We're doing something pretty nearly all the time, Unity."</p>
+
+<p>Unity lifted with strength the mass of bloom above her head. "I know, I
+know! But it's in me to want a brass band to do it by! I want to see the
+flag waving! I want to hear the <i>sound</i> of our work. Oh, I know I am
+talking foolishness!" She took Judith by the hands, and lifted her to
+her feet. "Anyhow, you're brave enough, Judith, Judith darling! Come,
+let us race to the house."</p>
+
+<p>The three were country-bred, fleet of foot. They ran, swiftly, lightly,
+up the long drive. Twilight was around them, the leaves drifting down,
+the leaves crisp under foot. The tall white pillars gleamed before them;
+through the curtainless windows showed, jewel-like, the flame of a wood
+fire. They reached the steps almost together, soberly mounted them, and
+entered the hall. Miss Lucy called to them from the library. "The papers
+have come."</p>
+
+<p>The old room, quiet, grave, book-lined, stored with records of old
+struggles, lent itself with fitness to the papers nowadays. The
+Greenwood Carys sat about the wood fire, Judith in an old armchair,
+Unity on an old embroidered stool, Molly in the corner of a great old
+sofa. Miss Lucy pushed her chair into the ring of the lamplight and read
+aloud in her quick, low, vibrant voice. The army at Fredericksburg&mdash;that
+was what they thought of now, day and night. She read first of the army
+at Fredericksburg&mdash;of Lee on the southern side of the Rappahannock, and
+Burnside on the northern, and the cannon all planted, and of the women
+and children beginning to leave. She read all the official statements,
+all the rumours, all the guesses, all the prophecies of victory and the
+record of suffering. Then she read the news of elsewhere in the vast,
+beleaguered fortress&mdash;of the fighting on the Mississippi, in Louisiana,
+in Arkans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_631" id="Page_631">[Pg 631]</a></span>as, in the Carolinas; echoes from Cumberland Gap, echoes from
+Corinth. She read all the Richmond news&mdash;hot criticism, hot defence of
+the President, of the Secretary of War, of the Secretary of State;
+echoes from the House, from the Senate; determined optimism as to
+foreign intervention; disdain, as determined, of Burnside's "On to
+Richmond"; passionate devotion to the grey armies in the field&mdash;all the
+loud war song of the South, clear and defiant! She read everything in
+the paper. She read the market prices. Coffee $4 per lb. Tea $20 per lb.
+Wheat $5 per bushel. Corn $15 per barrel. Bacon $2 per lb. Sugar $50 per
+loaf. Chickens $10. Turkeys $50.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Molly. "We have chickens yet, beside what we send to the
+hospitals! And we have eggs and milk and butter, and I was looking at
+the turkeys to-day. I feel <i>wicked</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"A lot of the turkeys will die," said Unity consolingly. "They always
+do. I spoke to Sam about the ducks and the guinea-hens the other day. I
+told him we were going to send them to Fredericksburg. He didn't like
+it. 'Miss Unity, what fer you gwine ter send all dem critturs away lak
+dat? You sen' 'em from Greenwood, dey gwine die ob homesickness!' And we
+don't use many eggs ourselves, honey, and we've no way to send the
+milk."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Lucy having read the paper through, the Greenwood ladies went to
+supper. That frugal meal over, they came back to the library, the
+parlour looking somewhat desolate with the carpet up and rolled in one
+corner, waiting for the shears to-morrow. "The shepherds and
+shepherdesses look," said Unity, "as though they were shivering a
+little. I don't suppose they ever thought they'd live to see a Wilton
+carpet cut into blankets for Carys and other soldiers gone to war! It's
+impossible not to laugh when you think of Edward drawing one of those
+coverlets over him! Oh, me!"</p>
+
+<p>"If Edward gets a furlough this winter," said Judith suddenly, "we must
+give him a party. With the two companies in town, and some of the
+surgeons, there will be men enough. Then Virginia and Nancy and Deb and
+Maria and Betty and Agatha and all the refugeeing girls&mdash;we could have a
+real party once more&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Just leaving out the things to eat," said Unity; "and wearing very old
+clothes. We'll do it, won't we, Aunt Lucy?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_632" id="Page_632">[Pg 632]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Aunt Lucy thought it an excellent idea. "We mustn't get old before our
+time! We must keep brightness about the place. I have seen my mother
+laugh and look all the gayer out of her beautiful black eyes when other
+folk would have been weeping!&mdash;I hear company coming, now! It's Cousin
+William, I think."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin William it was, not gone to the war because of sixty-eight years
+and a rich inheritance of gout. He came in, ruddy as an apple, ridden
+over to cheer up the Greenwood folk and hear and tell news from the
+front. He had sons there himself, and a letter which he would read for
+the thirtieth time. When Judith had made him take the great armchair,
+and Miss Lucy had rung for Julius and a glass of wine, and Unity had
+trimmed the light, and Molly replenished the fire, he read, and as in
+these days no one ever read anything perfunctorily, the reading was more
+telling than an actor could have made it. In places Cousin William
+himself and his hearers laughed, and in places reader and listener
+brushed hand across eyes. "Your loving son," he read, and folded the
+sheets carefully, for they were becoming a little worn. "Now, what's
+your news, Lucy? Have you heard from Fauquier?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yesterday. He has reached Fredericksburg from Winchester. It is
+one of his old, dry, charming letters, only&mdash;only a little hard to make
+out in places, because he's not yet used to writing with his left hand."
+Miss Lucy's face worked for a moment; then she smiled again, with a
+certain high courage and sweetness, and taking the letter from her
+work-basket read it to Cousin William. He listened, nodding his head at
+intervals. "Yes, yes, to be sure, to be sure! You can't remember Uncle
+Edward Churchill, Lucy, but I can. He used to read Swift to me, though I
+didn't care for it much, except for Gulliver. Fauquier reminds me of him
+often, except that Uncle Edward was bitter&mdash;though it wasn't because of
+his empty sleeve; it was for other things.&mdash;Fredericksburg! There'll be
+another terrible battle. And Warwick?"</p>
+
+<p>"We heard from him to-day&mdash;a short letter, hurriedly written; but oh!
+like Warwick&mdash;like Warwick!"</p>
+
+<p>She read this, too. It was followed by a silence in the old Greenwood
+library. Then said Cousin William softly, "It is worth while to get such
+letters. There aren't many like Warwick Cary. He's the kind that proves
+the future&mdash;shows it isn't just a noble dream. And Edward?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_633" id="Page_633">[Pg 633]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A letter three days ago, just after you were here the last time."</p>
+
+<p>The room smiled. "It was what Edward calls a screed," said Molly; "there
+wasn't a thing about war in it."</p>
+
+<p>Unity stirred the fire, making the sparks go up chimney. "Five pages
+about Massanutton in her autumn robes, and a sonnet to the Shenandoah! I
+like Edward."</p>
+
+<p>At ten o'clock Cousin William rode away. The Greenwood women had
+prayers, and then, linked together, they went up the broad, old shallow
+stairs to the gallery above, and kissed one another good-night.</p>
+
+<p>In her own room Judith laid pine knots upon the brands. Up flared the
+light, and reddened all the pleasant chamber. She unclad herself,
+slipped on her dressing-gown, brushed and braided her dusky hair,
+rippling, long and thick, then fed again the fire, took letters from her
+rosewood box, and in the light from the hearth read them for the
+thousandth time. There was none from Richard Cleave after July, none,
+none! Sitting in a low chair that had been her mother's, she bowed
+herself over the June-time letters, over the May-time letters. There had
+been but two months of bliss, two months! She read them again, although
+she had them all by heart; she held her hand as though it held a pen and
+traced the words so that she might feel, "Here and so, his hand rested";
+she put the paper to her cheek, against her lips; she slipped to her
+knees, laid her arms along the seat of the chair and her head upon them,
+and prayed. "O God! my lover hast Thou put far from me.&mdash;O God! my lover
+hast Thou put far from me."</p>
+
+<p>She knelt there long; but at last she rose, laid the letters in the box,
+and took from another compartment Margaret Cleave's. These were since
+July, a letter every fortnight. Judith read again the later ones, the
+ones of the late summer. "Dear child&mdash;dearest child, I cannot tell you!
+Only be forever sure that wherever he is, at Three Oaks or elsewhere, he
+loves you, loves you! No; I do not know that his is the course that I
+should take, but then women are different. I do not think I would ever
+think of pride or of the world and the world's opinion. If you cried to
+me I would go, and the world should not hold me back. But men have been
+trained to uphold that kind of pride. I did not think that Richard had
+it, but I see now all his father in him. Darling child, I do not think
+that it will last, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_634" id="Page_634">[Pg 634]</a></span>but just now, oh, just now, you must possess your
+heart in patience!"</p>
+
+<p>The words blurred before Judith's eyes. She sunk her head upon her
+knees. "Possess my heart in patience&mdash;Possess my heart in patience&mdash;Oh,
+God, I am not old enough yet to do it!"</p>
+
+<p>She read another letter, one of later date. "Judith, I promised. I
+cannot tell you. But he is well, oh, believe that! and believe, too,
+that he is doing his work. He is not the kind to rest from work, he must
+work. And slowly, slowly that brings salvation. You are a noble woman.
+Be noble still&mdash;and wait awhile&mdash;and wait awhile! It <i>will</i> come right.
+Miriam is better. The woods about Three Oaks are gorgeous."</p>
+
+<p>She read another. "Child, he is not at Three Oaks. Now you must
+rest&mdash;rest and wait."</p>
+
+<p>Judith put the letters in the rosewood box. She arose, locked her hands
+behind her head and walked softly up and down the room. "Rest&mdash;rest and
+wait.
+Patience&mdash;quietude&mdash;tranquillity&mdash;strength&mdash;fortitude&mdash;endurance.&mdash;Rest&mdash;
+patience&mdash;calm quietude&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>It worked but partially. Presently, when she lay down it was to lie
+still enough, but sleepless. Late in the night she slept, but it was to
+dream again, much as she had dreamed during the Seven Days, great and
+tragic visions. Dawn waked her. She lay, staring at the white ceiling;
+then she arose. It was not cold. The earth lay still at this season, yet
+wrapped and warmed and softened with the memories of summer. Judith
+looked out of the window. There was a glow in the eastern sky, the trees
+were motionless, the brown path over the hills showed like a beckoning
+finger. She dressed, put a cloak about her, went softly downstairs and
+left the house.</p>
+
+<p>The path across the meadow, through the wood, up the lone tree hill&mdash;she
+would see the sunrise, she would get above the world. She walked
+quickly, lightly, through the dank stillness. There was mist in the
+meadow, above the little stream. The wood was shadowy; mist, like
+ghosts, between the trees. She passed through it and came out on the
+bare hillside, rising dome-like to the one tree with the bench around
+it. The eastern sky was burning gold. Judith stood still. There was a
+man seated upon the bench, on the side that overlooked Greenwood. He sat
+with his head buried in his hands. She could not yet tell, but she
+thought he was in uniform.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_635" id="Page_635">[Pg 635]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With the thought she moved onward. She never remembered afterwards,
+whether she recognized him then, or whether she thought, "A soldier
+sleeping through the night up here! Why did he not come to the house?"
+She made no noise on the bare, moist earth of the path. She was within
+thirty feet of the bench when Cleave lifted his head from his hands,
+rose, stood still a moment, then with a gesture, weary and determined,
+turned to descend the hill&mdash;on the side away from Greenwood, toward a
+cross-country road. She called to him. "Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>It was rapture&mdash;all beneath the rising sun forgotten save only this
+gold-lit hilltop, with its tree from Eden garden! But since it was
+earth, and Paradise not yet real, and there were checks and bars enough
+in their human lot, they came back from that seraph flight. This was the
+lone tree hill above Greenwood, and a November day, though gold-touched,
+and Philip Deaderick must get back to the section of Pelham's artillery
+refitting at Gordonsville.&mdash;"What do you mean? You are a soldier&mdash;you
+are back in the army?&mdash;but you have another name? Oh, Richard, I see, I
+see! Oh, I might have known! A gunner with Pelham. Oh, my gunner with
+Pelham, why did you not come before?"</p>
+
+<p>Cleave wrung her hands, clasped in his, then bent and kissed them.
+"Judith, I will speak to you as to a comrade, because you would be the
+truest comrade ever man had! What would you do&mdash;what would you have
+done&mdash;in my place? What would you do now, in my place, but say&mdash;but say,
+'I love you; let me go'?"</p>
+
+<p>"I?" said Judith. "What would I have done? I would have re&euml;ntered the
+army as you have re&euml;ntered it. I would serve again as you are serving
+again. If it were necessary&mdash;Oh, I see that it was necessary!&mdash;I would
+serve disguised as you are disguised. But&mdash;but&mdash;when it came to Judith
+Cary&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Judith, say that it was not you and I, but some other disgraced soldier
+and one of your sisters&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are not a disgraced soldier. The innocent cannot be disgraced."</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows that I was innocent? My mother, and you, Judith, know it; my
+kinspeople and certain friends believe it; but all the rest of the
+country&mdash;the army, the people&mdash;they don't beli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_636" id="Page_636">[Pg 636]</a></span>eve it. Let my name be
+known to-morrow, and by evening a rougher dismissal than before! Do you
+not see, do you not see, Judith?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see partly. I see that you must serve. I see that you walk with
+dangers. I see that&mdash;that you could not even write. I see that I must
+possess my soul in patience. I see that we must wait&mdash;Oh, God, it is all
+waiting, waiting, waiting! But I do not see&mdash;and I <i>refuse</i> to see,
+Richard&mdash;anything at the end of it all but love, happiness, union, home
+for you and me!"</p>
+
+<p>He held her close. "Judith, I do not know the right. I am not sure that
+I see the right, my soul is so tempest-tossed. That day at White Oak
+Swamp. If I could cleanse that day, bring it again into line with the
+other days of my life, poor and halting though they may have been,
+though they may be, if I could make all men say 'His life was a
+whole&mdash;one life, not two. He had no twin, a disobedient soldier, a liar
+and betrayer, as it was said he had.'&mdash;If I could do that, Judith! I do
+not see how I will do it, and yet it is my intention to do it. That
+done, then, darling, darling! I will make true love to you. If it is not
+done&mdash;but I will not think of that. Only&mdash;only&mdash;how to do it, how to do
+it! That maddens me at times&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it that? Then we must think of that. They are not all dead who could
+tell?&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Maury Stafford is not dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Maury Stafford!&mdash;What has he to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>Cleave laughed, a sound sufficiently grim. "What has he not to do with
+it?&mdash;with that order which he carried from General Jackson to General
+Winder, and from General Winder&mdash;not, before God! to me! Winder is dead,
+and the courier who could have told is dead, and others whom I might
+have called are dead&mdash;dead, I will avow, because of my choice of action,
+though still&mdash;given that false order&mdash;I justify that choice! And now we
+hear that Major Stafford was among those taken prisoner at Sharpsburg."</p>
+
+<p>Judith stood upright, her hand at her breast, her eyes narrowed. "Until
+this hour I never knew the name of that officer. I never thought to ask.
+I never thought of the mistake lying there. The mistake! All these
+months I have thought of it as a mistake&mdash;as one of those
+misunderstandings, mishappenings, accidental, incomprehensible, that
+wound and blister human life! I never saw it in a lightning flash for
+what it was till now!"</p>
+
+<p>She looked about her, still with an intent and narrowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_637" id="Page_637">[Pg 637]</a></span> gaze. "The lone
+tree hill. It is a good place to see it from. There is nothing to be
+done but to join this day to a day last June&mdash;the day of Port Republic."
+Raising her hands she pressed them to her eyes as though to shut out a
+veritable lightning glare, then dropped them. She stood very straight,
+young, slender, finely and strongly fibred. "He said he would do the
+worst he could, and he has done it. And I said, 'At your peril!' and at
+his peril it shall be! And the harm that he has done, he shall undo it!"
+She turned. "Richard! he shall undo it."</p>
+
+<p>Cleave stood beside her. "Love, love! how beautiful the light is over
+Greenwood! I thought, sitting here, 'I will not wait for the sunshine; I
+will go while all things are in shadow.' And I turned to go. And then
+came the sunshine. I must go now&mdash;away from the sunshine. I had but an
+hour, and half of it was gone before the sunshine came."</p>
+
+<p>"How shall I know," she said, "if you are living? There is a battle
+coming."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Judith, I will not write to you. Do not ask me; I will not. But
+after each battle I have managed somehow to get a line to my mother. She
+will tell you that I am living, well and living. I do not think that I
+shall die&mdash;no, not till Maury Stafford and I have met again!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is in prison. They say so many die there.... Oh, Richard, write to
+me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_638" id="Page_638">[Pg 638]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Cleave would not. "No! To do that is to say, 'All is as it was, and
+I let her take me with this stain!' I will not&mdash;I will not. Circumstance
+has betrayed us here this hour. We could not help it, and it has been a
+glory, a dream. That is it, a dream. I will not wake till I have said
+good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>They said good-bye, still in the dream, as lovers might, when one goes
+forth to battle and the other stays behind. He released her, turned
+short and sharp, and went down from the lone tree hill, down the side
+from Greenwood, to the country road. A piece of woods hid him from
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>Judith stood motionless for a time, then she sat down upon the bench.
+She sat like a sibyl, elbows on knees, chin in hands, her gaze narrowed
+and fixed. She spoke aloud, and her voice was strange in her own ears.
+"Maury Stafford in prison. Where, and how long?"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_639" id="Page_639">[Pg 639]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI</h2>
+
+<h3>FREDERICKSBURG</h3>
+
+
+<p>Snow lay deep on the banks of the Rappahannock, in the forest, up and
+down the river, on the plain about the little city, on the bold heights
+of the northern shore, on the hills of the southern, commanding the
+plain. The snow was deep, but somewhat milder weather had set in.
+December the eleventh dawned still and foggy.</p>
+
+<p>General Burnside with a hundred and twenty thousand blue troops
+appointed this day to pass the Rappahannock, a stream that flowed across
+the road to Richmond. He had been responsible for choosing this route to
+the keep of the fortress, and he must make good his reiterated, genial
+assurances of success. The Rappahannock, Fredericksburg, and a line of
+hills masked the onward-going road and its sign, <i>This way to Richmond</i>.
+"Well, the Rappahannock can be bridged! A brigade known to be occupying
+the town? Well, a hundred and forty guns admirably planted on Stafford
+Heights will drive out the rebel brigade! The line of hills, bleak and
+desolate with fir woods?&mdash;hares and snow birds are all the life over
+there! General Lee and Stonewall Jackson? Down the Rappahannock below
+Moss Neck. At least, undoubtedly, Stonewall Jackson's down there. The
+balloon people say so. General Lee's got an idea that Port Royal's our
+point of attack. The mass of his army's there. The gunboat people say
+so. Longstreet may be behind those hills. Well, we'll crush Longstreet!
+We'll build our bridges under cover of this fortunate fog, and go over
+and defeat Longstreet and be far down the road to Richmond before a man
+can say Jack Robinson!"</p>
+
+<p>"Jack Robinson!" said the brigade from McLaws's division&mdash;Barksdale's
+Mississippians&mdash;drawn up on the water edge of Fredericksburg. They were
+tall men&mdash;Barksdale's Mississippians&mdash;playful bear-hunters from the cane
+brakes, young and powerfully made, and deadly shots. "Old Barksdale"
+knew how to handle them, and together they were a handful for any enemy
+whatsoever. Sixteen hundred born hunters and fighters, they opened fire
+on the bridge-builders, trying to build four bridges, three above, one
+below the town. Barksdale's men were somewhat sheltered by the houses on
+the river brink; the blue had the favourable fog with which to cover
+operations. It did not wholly help; the Mississippians had keen eyes;
+the rifles blazed, blazed, blazed! Burnside's bridge-builders were
+gallant men; beaten back from the river they came again and again, but
+again and again the eyes of the swamp hunters ran along the gleaming
+barrels and a thousand bronzed fingers pulled a thousand triggers. Past
+the middle of the day the fog lifted. The town lay defined and helpless
+beneath a pallid sky.</p>
+
+<p>The artillery of the Army of the Potomac opened upon it. One hundred and
+forty heavy guns, set in tiers upon the heights to the north, fired each
+into Fredericksburg fifty rounds. Under that t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_640" id="Page_640">[Pg 640]</a></span>errible cover the blue
+began to cross on pontoons.</p>
+
+<p>A number of the women and children had been sent from the town during
+the preceding days. Not all, however, were gone. Many had no place to go
+to; some were ill and some were nursing the ill; many had husbands,
+sons, brothers, there at hand in the Army of Northern Virginia and would
+not go. Now with the beginning of the bombardment they must go. There
+were grey, imperative orders. "At once! at once! Go <i>where</i>? God knows!
+but go."</p>
+
+<p>They went, almost all, in the snow, beneath the pallid sky, with the
+shells shrieking behind them. They carried the children, they half
+carried the sick and the very old. They stumbled on, between the frozen
+hills by the dark pointed cedars, over the bare white fields. Behind
+them home was being destroyed; before them lay desolation, and all
+around was winter. They had perhaps thought it out, and were headed&mdash;the
+various forlorn lines&mdash;for this or that country house, but they looked
+lost, remnant of a world become glacial, whirled with suddenness into
+the sidereal cold, cold! and the loneliness of cold. The older children
+were very brave; but there were babes, too, and these wailed and wailed.
+Their wailing made a strange, futile sound beneath the thundering of the
+guns.</p>
+
+<p>One of these parties came through the snow to a swollen creek on which
+the ice cakes were floating. Cross!&mdash;yes, but how? The leaders consulted
+together, then went up the stream to find a possible ford, and came in
+sight of a grey battery, waiting among the hills. "Oh, soldiers!&mdash;oh,
+soldiers!&mdash;come and help!"</p>
+
+<p>Down hastened a detachment, eager, respectful, a lieutenant directing,
+the very battery horses looking anxious, responsible. A soldier in the
+saddle, a child in front, a child behind, the old steady horses planting
+their feet carefully in the icy rushing stream, over went the children.
+Then the women crossed, their hands resting on the grey-clad shoulders.
+All were over; all thanked the soldiers. The soldiers took off their
+caps, wished with all their hearts that they had at command fire-lit
+palaces and a banquet set! Having neither, being themselves without
+shelter or food and ordered not to build fires, they could only bare
+their heads and watch the other soldiers out of sight, carrying the
+children, half carrying the old and sick, stumbling through the snow, by
+the dark pointed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_641" id="Page_641">[Pg 641]</a></span> cedars, and presently lost to view among the frozen
+hills.</p>
+
+<p>The shells rained destruction into Fredericksburg. Houses were battered
+and broken; houses were set on fire. Through the smoke and uproar, the
+explosions and detonations and tongues of flame, the Mississippians beat
+back another attempt at the bridges and opened fire on boat after boat
+now pushing from the northern shore. But the boats came bravely on,
+bravely manned; hundreds might be driven from the bridge-building, but
+other hundreds sprang to take their places&mdash;and always from the heights
+came the rain of iron, smashing, shivering, setting afire, tearing up
+the streets, bringing down the walls, ruining, wounding, slaying! McLaws
+sent an order to Barksdale, Barksdale gave it to his brigade.
+"Evacuate!" said the Mississippians. "We're going to evacuate. What's
+that in English? 'Quit?'&mdash;What in hell should we quit for?"</p>
+
+<p>Orders being orders, the disgust of the bear-hunters did not count. "Old
+Barksdale" was fairly deprecating. "Men, I can't help it! General McLaws
+says, 'General Barksdale, withdraw your men to Marye's Hill.' Well, I've
+got to do it, haven't I? General McLaws knows, now doesn't
+he?&mdash;Yes,&mdash;just one more round. <i>Load! Kneel! Commence firing!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>In the late afternoon the town was evacuated, Barksdale drawing off in
+good order across the stormed-upon open. He disappeared&mdash;the Mississippi
+brigade disappeared&mdash;from the Federal vision. The blue column, the 28th
+Massachusetts leading, entered Fredericksburg. "We'll get them all
+to-morrow&mdash;Longstreet certainly! Stonewall Jackson's from twelve to
+eighteen miles down the river. Well! this time Lee will find that he's
+divided his army once too often!"</p>
+
+<p>By dark there were built six bridges, but the main army rested all night
+on the northern bank. December the twelfth dawned, another foggy day.
+The fog held hour after hour, very slow, still, muffled weather, through
+which, corps by corps, all day long, the army slowly crossed. In the
+afternoon there was a cavalry skirmish with Stuart, but nothing else
+happened. Thirty-six hours had been consumed in crossing and resting.
+The Rappahannock, however, <i>was</i> crossed, and the road to Richmond
+stretched plain between the hills.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_642" id="Page_642">[Pg 642]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the grey army was not divided. Certain divisions had been down the
+river, but they were no longer down the river. The Army of Northern
+Virginia, a vibrant unit, intense, concentrated, gaunt, bronzed, and
+highly efficient, waited behind the hills south and west of the town.
+There was a creek running through a ravine, called Deep Run. On one side
+of Deep Run stood Longstreet and the 1st Corps, on the other, almost at
+right angles, Stonewall Jackson and the 2d. Before both the heavily
+timbered ridge sank to the open plain. In the woods had been thrown up
+certain breastworks.</p>
+
+<p>Longstreet's left, Anderson's division, rested on the river. To
+Anderson's right were posted McLaws, Pickett, and Hood. He had his
+artillery on Marye's Hill and Willis Hill, and he had Ransom's infantry
+in line at the base of these hills behind a stone wall. Across Deep Run,
+on the wooded hills between the ravine and the Massaponax, was Stonewall
+Jackson. A. P. Hill's division with the brigades of Pender, Lane,
+Archer, Thomas, and Gregg made his first line of battle, the divisions
+of Taliaferro and Early his second, and D. H. Hill's division his
+reserve. His artillery held all favourable crests and headlands.
+Stuart's cavalry and Stuart's Horse Artillery were gathered by the
+Massaponax. Hills and forest hid them all, and over the plain and river
+rolled the fog.</p>
+
+<p>It hid the North as it hid the South. Burnside's great force rested the
+night of the twelfth in and immediately about Fredericksburg&mdash;Hooker and
+Sumner and Franklin, one hundred and thirteen thousand men. "The balloon
+people" now reported that the hills south and west were held by a
+considerable rebel force&mdash;Longstreet evidently, Lee probably with him.
+Burnside repeated the infatuation of Pope and considered that Stonewall
+Jackson was absent from the field of operations. Undoubtedly he had
+been, but the shortest of time before, down the river by Port Royal. No
+one had seen him move. Jackson away, there was then only
+Longstreet&mdash;strongly posted, no doubt. Well! Form a great line of
+battle, advance in overwhelming strength across the plain, the guns on
+Stafford Heights supporting, and take the hills, and Longstreet on them!
+It sounded simple.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 488px;">
+<img src="images/illus04.jpg" width="488" height="600" alt="THE VEDETTE" title="THE VEDETTE" />
+<span class="caption">THE VEDETTE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The fog, heavy, fleecy, white, persisted. The grey soldiers on the
+wooded hills, the grey artillery holding the bluff heads, t<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_643" id="Page_643">[Pg 643]</a></span>he grey
+skirmishers holding embankment and cut of the Richmond, Fredericksburg
+and Potomac Railroad, the grey cavalry by the Massaponax, all stared
+into the white sea and could discern nothing. The ear was of no avail.
+Sound came muffled, but still it came. "The long roll&mdash;hear the long
+roll! My Lord! How many drums have they got, anyway?"&mdash;"Listen! If you
+listen right hard you can hear them shouting orders! Hush up, you
+infantry, down there! We want to hear."&mdash;"They're moving guns, too! Wish
+there'd come a little sympathizing earthquake and help them&mdash;'specially
+those siege guns on the heights over there!"&mdash;"No, no! I want to fight
+them. Look! it's lifting a little! the fog's lifting a little! Look at
+the guns up in the air like that! It's closed again."&mdash;"Well, if that
+wasn't fantastic! Ten iron guns in a row, posted in space!"&mdash;"Hm! brass
+bands. My Lord! there must be one to a platoon!"&mdash;"Hear them marching!
+Saw lightning once run along the ground&mdash;now it's thunder. How many men
+has General Ambrose Everett Burnside got, anyhow?"&mdash;"Burnside's been to
+dances before in Fredericksburg! Some of the houses are burning now that
+he's danced in, and some of the women he has danced with are wandering
+over the snow. I hope he'll like the reel presently."&mdash;"He's a good
+fellow himself, though not much of a general! He can't help fighting
+here if he's put here to fight."&mdash;"I know that. I was just stating
+facts. Hear that music, music, music!"</p>
+
+<p>Up from Deep Run, a little in the rear of the grey centre, rose a bold
+hill. Here in the clinging mist waited Lee on Traveller, his staff
+behind him, in front an ocean of vapour. Longstreet came from the left,
+Stonewall Jackson from the right. Lee and his two lieutenants talked
+together, three mounted figures looming large on the hilltop above Deep
+Run. With suddenness the fog parted, was upgathered with swiftness by
+the great golden sun.</p>
+
+<p>That lifted curtain revealed a very great and martial picture,&mdash;War in a
+moment of vastness and grandeur, epic, sublime. The town was afire;
+smoke and flame went up to a sky not yet wholly azure, banded and barred
+with clouds from behind which the light came in rays fierce and bright,
+with an effect of threatening. There was a ruined house on a high hill.
+It gave the appearance of a grating in the firmament, a small dungeon
+grating. Beyond the burning town was the river, crossed now by six
+pontoon bridges. On each there were troops; one of the long sun rays
+caught the bayonets. From the river, to the north, rose the heights, and
+they had an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_644" id="Page_644">[Pg 644]</a></span> iron crown from which already came lightnings and thunders.
+There were paths leading down to the river and these showed blue, moving
+streams, bright points which were flags moving with them. That for the
+far side of the Rappahannock, but on this side, over the plain that
+stretched south and west of the smoke-wreathed town, there moved a blue
+sea indeed. Eighty thousand men were on that plain. They moved here,
+they moved there, into battle formation, and they moved to the crash of
+music, to the horn and to the drum. The long rays that the sun was
+sending made a dazzle of bayonet steel, thousands and thousands and
+thousands of bayonets. The gleaming lines went here, went there,
+crossed, recrossed, formed angles, made a vast and glittering net. Out
+of it soared the flags, bright hovering birds, bright giant blossoms in
+the air. Batteries moved across the plain. Officers, couriers, galloped
+on fiery horses; some general officer passed from end to end of a
+forming line and was cheered. The earth shook to marching feet. The
+great brazen horns blared, the drums beat, the bugles rang. The gleaming
+net folded back on itself, made three pleats, made three great lines of
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>The grey leaders on the hill to the south gazed in silence. Then said
+Lee, "It is well that war is so terrible. Were it not so, we should grow
+too fond of it." Longstreet, the "old war horse," stared at the
+tremendous pageant. "This wasn't a little quarrel. It's been brewing for
+seventy-five years&mdash;ever since the Bill-of-Rights day. Things that take
+so long in brewing can't be cooled by a breath. It's getting to be a
+huge war." Said Jackson, "Franklin holds their left. He seems to be
+advancing. I will return to Hamilton's Crossing, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The guns on the Stafford Heights which had been firing slowly and singly
+now opened mouth together. The tornado, overpassing river and plain,
+burst on the southern hills. In the midst of the tempest, Burnside
+ordered Franklin to advance a single division, its mission the seizing
+the <i>unoccupied</i> ridge east of Deep Run. Franklin sent Meade with
+forty-five hundred Pennsylvania troops.</p>
+
+<p>Meade's brigades advanced in three lines, skirmishers out, a band
+playing a quickstep, the stormy sunlight deepening the colours, making a
+gleaming of bayonets. His first line crossed the Richmond road. To the
+left was a tiny stream, beyond it a ragged bank topped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_645" id="Page_645">[Pg 645]</a></span> by brushwood.
+Suddenly, from this coppice, opened two of Pelham's guns.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath that flanking fire the first blue line faltered, gave ground.
+Meade brought up four batteries and sent for others. All these came
+fiercely into action. When they got his range, Pelham moved his two guns
+and began again a raking fire. Again the blue gunners found the range
+and again he moved with deliberate swiftness, and again he opened with a
+hot and raking fire. One gun was disabled; he fought with the other. He
+fought until the limber chests were empty and there came an imperious
+message from Jeb Stuart, "Get back from destruction, you infernal,
+gallant fool, John Pelham!"</p>
+
+<p>The guns across the river and the blue field batteries steadily shelled
+for half an hour the heavily timbered slopes beyond the railroad. Except
+for the crack and crash of severed boughs the wood gave no sign. At the
+end of this period Meade resumed his advance.</p>
+
+<p>On came the blue lines, staunch, determined troops, seasoned now as the
+grey were seasoned. They meant to take that empty line of hills,
+willy-nilly a few Confederate guns. That done, they would be in a
+position to flank Longstreet, already attacked in front by Sumner's
+Grand Division. On they came, with a martial front, steady, swinging.
+Uninterrupted, they marched to within a few hundred yards of Prospect
+Hill. Suddenly the woods that loomed before them so dark and quiet
+blazed and rang. Fifty guns were within that cover, and the fifty cast
+their thunderbolts full against the dark blue line. From either side the
+grey artillery burst the grey musketry, and above the crackling thunder
+rose the rebel yell. Stonewall Jackson was not down the river; Stonewall
+Jackson was here! Meade's Pennsylvanians were gallant fighters; but they
+broke beneath that withering fire,&mdash;they fell back in strong disorder.</p>
+
+<p>Grey and blue, North and South, there were gathered upon and above the
+field of Fredericksburg four hundred guns. All came into action. Where
+earlier, there had been fog over the plain, fog wreathing the hillsides,
+there was now smoke. Dark and rolling it invaded the ruined town, it
+mantled the flowing Rappahannock, it surmounted the hills. Red flashes
+pierced it, and over and under and through roared the enormous sound.
+There came reinforcements to Meade, division after division. In the
+meantime Sumner was hurling brigades against Marye's Hill and Longstreet
+was hurling them back again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_646" id="Page_646">[Pg 646]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The 2d Corps listened to the terrible musketry from this front. "Old
+Pete's surely giving them hell! There's a stone wall at the base of
+Marye's Hill. McLaws and Ransom are holding it&mdash;sorry for the Yanks in
+front."&mdash;"Never heard such hullabaloo as the great guns are
+making!"&mdash;"What're them Pennsylvanians down there doing? It's time for
+them to come on! They've got enough reinforcements&mdash;old friends, Gibbon
+and Doubleday."&mdash;"Good fighters."&mdash;"Yes, Lord! we're all good fighters
+now. Glad of it. Like to fight a good fighter. Feel real friendly toward
+him."&mdash;"A thirty-two-pounder Parrott in the battery on the hill over
+there exploded and raised hell. General Lee standing right by. He just
+spoke on, calm and imperturbable, and Traveller looked
+sideways."&mdash;"Look! Meade's moving. <i>Do you know, I think we ought to
+have occupied that tongue of land?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>So, in sooth, thought others presently. It was a marshy, dense, and
+tangled coppice projecting like a sabre tooth between the brigades of
+Lane and Archer. So thick was the growth, so boggy the earth, that at
+the last it had been pronounced impenetrable and left unrazed. Now the
+mistake was paid for&mdash;in bloody coin.</p>
+
+<p>Meade's line of battle rushed across the open, brushed the edge of the
+coppice, discovered that it was empty, and plunging in, found cover. The
+grey batteries could not reach them. Almost before the situation was
+realized, forth burst the blue from the thicket. Lane was flanked; in
+uproar and confusion the grey gave way. Meade sent in another brigade.
+It left the first to man-handle Lane, hurled itself on, and at the
+outskirt of the wood, struck Archer's left, taking Archer by surprise
+and creating a demi-rout. A third brigade entered on the path of the
+first and second. The latter, leaving Archer to this new strength,
+hurled itself across the military road and upon a thick and tall wood
+held by Maxey Gregg and his South Carolinians. Smoke, cloud, and forest
+growth&mdash;it was hard to distinguish colours, hard to tell just what was
+happening! Gregg thought that the smoke-wrapped line was Archer falling
+back. He withheld his fire. The line came on and in a moment, amid
+shouts, struck his right. A bullet brought down Gregg himself, mortally
+wounded. His troops broke, then rallied. A grey battery near Bernard's
+Cabin brought its guns to bear upon Gibbon, trying to follow the blue
+triumphant rush. Archer reformed. Stonewall Jackson, standing on
+Prospect Hill, sent orders to his third <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_647" id="Page_647">[Pg 647]</a></span>line. "Generals Taliaferro and
+Early, advance and clear the front with bayonets."</p>
+
+<p><i>Yaaaiih! Yaaaiiih! Yaaaaihh!</i> yelled Jubal Early's men, and did as they
+were bid. <i>Yaaaaiiih! Yaaiiihhh! Yaaaaiiihhhh!</i> yelled the Stonewall
+Brigade and the rest of Taliaferro's, and did as they were bid. Back,
+back were borne Meade's brigades. Darkness of smoke, denseness of forest
+growth, treachery of swampy soil!&mdash;all order was lost, and there came no
+support. Back went the blue&mdash;all who could go back. A. P. Hill's second
+line was upon them now; Gibbon was attacked. The grey came down the long
+slopes like a torrent loosed. Walker's guns joined in. The uproar was
+infernal. The blue fought well and desperately&mdash;but there was no
+support. Back they went, back across the Richmond Road&mdash;all who could
+get back. They left behind in the marshy coppice, and on the wooded
+slopes and by the embankment, four thousand dead and wounded. The Light
+Division, Taliaferro and Early, now held the railroad embankment. Before
+them was the open plain, and the backward surge to the river of the
+broken foe. It was three o'clock of the afternoon. Burnside sent an
+order to Franklin to attack again, but Franklin disobeyed.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the left Longstreet's battle now swelled to giant proportions.
+Marye's Hill, girdled by that stone wall, crowned by the Washington
+Artillery, loomed impregnable. Against it the North tossed to
+destruction division after division. They marched across the bare and
+sullen plain, they charged; the hill flashed into fire, a thunder
+rolled, the smoke cloud deepened. When it lifted the charge was seen to
+be broken, retreating, the plain was seen to be strewed with dead. The
+blue soldiers were staunch and steadfast. They saw that their case was
+hapless, yet on they came across the shelterless plain. Ordered to
+charge, they charged; charged very gallantly, receded with a stubborn
+slowness. They were good fighters, worthy foes, and the grey at
+Fredericksburg hailed them as such. Forty thousand men charged Marye's
+Hill&mdash;six great assaults&mdash;and forty thousand were repulsed. The winter
+day closed in. Twelve thousand men in blue lay dead or wounded at the
+foot of the southern hills, before Longstreet on the left and Stonewall
+Jackson on the right.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_648" id="Page_648">[Pg 648]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Five thousand was the grey loss. The Rockbridge Artillery had fought
+near the Horse Artillery by Hamilton's Crossing. All day the guns had
+been doggedly at work; horses and drivers and gunners and guns and
+caissons; there was death and wounds and wreckage. In the wintry, late
+afternoon, when the battle thunders were lessening, Major John Pelham
+came by and looked at Rockbridge. Much of Rockbridge lay on the ground,
+the rest stood at the guns. "Why, boys," said Pelham, "you stand killing
+better than any I ever saw!"</p>
+
+<p>They stood it well, both blue and grey. It was stern fighting at
+Fredericksburg, and grey and blue they fought it sternly and well. The
+afternoon closed in, cold and still, with a red sun yet veiled by drifts
+of crape-like smoke. The Army of the Potomac, torn, decimated, rested
+huddled in Fredericksburg and on the river banks. The Army of Northern
+Virginia rested with few or no camp-fires on the southern hills. Between
+the two foes stretched the freezing plain, and on the plain lay thick
+the Federal dead and wounded. They lay thick, thick, before the stone
+wall. At hand, full target for the fire of either force, was a small,
+white house. In the house lived Mrs. Martha Stevens. She would not leave
+before the battle, though warned and warned again to do so. She said she
+had an idea that she could help. She stayed, and wounded men dragged
+themselves or were dragged upon her little porch, and within her doors.
+General Cobb of Georgia died there; wherever a man could be laid there
+were stretched the ghastly wounded. Past the house shrieked the shells;
+bullets imbedded themselves in its walls. To and fro went Martha
+Stevens, doing what she could, bandaging hurts till the bandages gave
+out. She tore into strips what cloth there was in the little meagre
+house&mdash;her sheets, her towels, her tablecloths, her poor wardrobe. When
+all was gone she tore her calico dress. When she saw from the open door
+a man who could not drag himself that far, she went and helped him, with
+as little reck as may be conceived of shell or minie.</p>
+
+<p>The sun sank, a red ball, staining the snow with red. The dark came
+rapidly, a very cold dark night, with myriads of stars. The smoke slowly
+cleared. The great, opposed forces lay on their arms, the one closely
+drawn by the river, the other on the southern hills. Between was the
+plain, and the plain was a place of drear sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_649" id="Page_649">[Pg 649]</a></span>&mdash;oh, of drear sound!
+Neither army showed any lights; for all its antagonist knew either might
+be feverishly, in the darkness, preparing an attack. Grey and blue, the
+guns yet dominated that wide and mournful level over which, to leap upon
+the other, either foe must pass. Grey and blue, there was little
+sleeping. It was too cold, and there was need for watchfulness, and the
+plain was too unhappy&mdash;the plain was too unhappy.</p>
+
+<p>The smoke vanished slowly from the air. The night lay sublimely still,
+fearfully clear and cold. About ten o'clock Nature provided a spectacle.
+The grey troops, huddled upon the hillsides, drew a quickened breath. A
+Florida regiment showed alarm. "What's that? Look at that light in the
+sky! Great shafts of light streaming up&mdash;look! opening like a fan!
+What's that, chaplain, what's that?&mdash;Don't reckon the Lord's tired of
+fighting, and it's the Judgment Day?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, boys! It's an aurora borealis."</p>
+
+<p>"Say it over, please. Oh, northern lights! Well, we've heard of them
+before, but we never saw them. Having a lot of experiences here in
+Virginia!"&mdash;"Well, it's beautiful, any way, and I think it's terrible. I
+wish those northern lights would do something for the northern wounded
+down there. Nothing else that's northern seems likely to do it."&mdash;"Look
+at them&mdash;look at them! pale red, and dancing! I've heard them called
+'the merry dancers.' There's a shooting star! They say that every time a
+star shoots some one dies."&mdash;"That's not so. If it were, the whole sky
+would be full of falling stars to-night. Look at that red ray going up
+to the zenith. O God, make the plain stop groaning!"</p>
+
+<p>The display in the heavens continued, luminous rays, faintly
+rose-coloured, shifting from east to west, streaming upward until they
+were lost in the starry vault. Elsewhere the sky was dark, intensely
+clear, the winter stars like diamonds. There was no wind. The wide,
+unsheltered plain across which had stormed, across which had receded,
+the Federal charges, was sown thick with soldiers who had dropped from
+the ranks. Many and many lay still, dead and cold, their marchings and
+their tentings and their battles over. They had fought well; they had
+died; they lay here now stark and pale, but in the vast, pictured web of
+the whole their threads are strong and their colour holds. But on the
+plain of Fredericksburg man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_650" id="Page_650">[Pg 650]</a></span>y and many and many were not dead and
+resting. Hundreds and hundreds they lay, and could not rest for mortal
+anguish. They writhed and tossed, they dragged themselves a little way
+and fell again, they idly waved a hat or sword or empty hand for help,
+they cried for aid, they cried for water. Those who could not lift their
+voices moaned, moaned. Some had grown delirious, and upon that plain
+there was even laughter. All the various notes taken together blended
+into one long, dreary, weird, dull, and awful sound, steady as a wind in
+miles of frozen reeds. They were all blue soldiers, and they lay where
+they fell.</p>
+
+<p>There was a long fringe of them near the stone wall and near the railway
+embankment behind which now rested the Light Division and Taliaferro and
+Early. The wind here was loud, rattling a thicker growth of reeds.
+Above, the long, silent, flickering lights mocked with their rosy hue,
+and the glittering stars mocked, and the empty concave of the night
+mocked, and the sound of the Rappahannock mocked. A river moving by like
+the River of Death, and they could not even get to the river to drink,
+drink, drink....</p>
+
+<p>A figure kneeling by a wounded man, spoke in a guarded voice to an
+upright, approaching form. "This man could be saved. I have given him
+water. I went myself to the general, and he said that if we could get
+any into the hospital behind the hill we might do so. But I'm not strong
+enough to lift him."</p>
+
+<p>"I air," said Billy. He set down the bucket that he carried. "I jest
+filled it from the creek. It don't last any time, they air so thirsty!
+You take it, and I'll take him." He put his arms under the blue figure,
+lifted it like a child, and moved away, noiseless in the darkness.
+Corbin Wood took the bucket and dipper. Presently it must be refilled.
+By the creek he met an officer sent down from the hillside. "You twenty
+men out there have got to be very careful. If their sentries see or hear
+you moving you'll be thought a skirmish line with the whole of us
+behind, and every gun will be opening! Battle's decided on for
+to-morrow, not for to-night.&mdash;Now be careful, or we'll recall every
+damned life-in-your-hand blessed volunteer of you!&mdash;Oh, it's a fighting
+chaplain&mdash;I beg your pardon, I'm sure, sir! But you'd better all be very
+quiet. Old Jack would say that mercy's all right, but you mustn't alarm
+the foe."</p>
+
+<p>All through the night there streamed the boreal lights. The liv<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_651" id="Page_651">[Pg 651]</a></span>ing and
+the dying, the ruined town, the plain, the hills, the river lay beneath.
+The blue army slept and waked, the grey army slept and waked. The
+general officers of both made little or no pretence at sleeping. Plans
+must be made, plans must be made, plans must be made. Stonewall Jackson,
+in his tent, laid himself down indeed for two hours and slept, guarded
+by Jim, like a man who was dead. At the end of that time he rose and
+asked for his horse.</p>
+
+<p>It was near dawn. He rode beneath the fading streamers, before his
+lines, before the Light Division and Early and Taliaferro, before his
+old brigade&mdash;the Stonewall. The 65th lay in a pine wood, down-sloping to
+a little stream. Reveille was yet to sound. The men lay in an uneasy
+sleep, but some of the officers were astir, and had been so all night.
+These, as Jackson checked Little Sorrel, came forward and saluted. He
+spoke to the colonel. "Colonel Erskine, your regiment did well. I saw it
+at the Crossing."</p>
+
+<p>Erskine, a small, brave, fiery man, coloured with pleasure. "I'm very
+glad, sir. The regiment's all right, sir. The old stock wasn't quite cut
+down, and it's made the new like it&mdash;" He hesitated, then as the general
+with his "Good! good!" gathered up the reins he took heart of grace.
+"It's old colonel, sir&mdash;it's old colonel&mdash;" he stammered, then out it
+came: "Richard Cleave trained us so, sir, that we couldn't go back!"</p>
+
+<p>"See, sir," said Stonewall Jackson, "that you don't emulate him in all
+things." He looked sternly and he rode away with no other word. He rode
+from the pine wood, crossed the Mine Road, and presently the narrow
+Massaponax. The streamers were gone from the sky; there was everywhere
+the hush of dawn. The courier with him wondered where he was going. They
+passed John Pelham's guns, iron dark against the pallid sky. Presently
+they came to the Yerby House, where General Maxey Gregg, a gallant
+soldier and gentleman, lay dying.</p>
+
+<p>As Jackson dismounted Dr. Hunter McGuire came from the house. "I gave
+him your message, general. He is dying fast. It seemed to please him."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said Jackson. "General Gregg and I have had a disagreement. In
+life it might have continued, but death lifts us all from under earthly
+displeasure. Will you ask him, Doctor, if I m<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_652" id="Page_652">[Pg 652]</a></span>ay pay him a little
+visit?"</p>
+
+<p>The visit paid, he came gravely forth, mounted and turned back toward
+headquarters on Prospect Hill. In the east were red streaks, one above
+another. The day was coming up, clear and cold. Pelham's guns, crowning
+a little eminence, showed distinct against the colour. Stonewall Jackson
+rode by, and, with a face that was a study, a gunner named Deaderick
+watched him pass.</p>
+
+<p>All this day these two armies stood and faced each other. There was
+sharpshooting, there was skirmishing, but no full attack. Night came and
+passed, and another morning dawned. This day, forty-eight hours after
+battle, Burnside sent a flag of truce with a request that he be allowed
+to collect and bury his dead. There were few now alive upon that plain.
+The wind in the reeds had died to a ghostly hush.</p>
+
+<p>That night there came up a terrible storm, a howling wind driving a
+sleety rain. All night long, in cloud and blast and beating wet, the
+Army of the Potomac, grand division by grand division, recrossed the
+Rappahannock.</p>
+
+<p>The storm continued, the rain and snow swelled the river. The Army of
+the Potomac with Acquia creek at hand, Washington in touch, lay
+inactive, went into winter quarters. The Army of Northern Virginia,
+couched on the southern hills, followed its example. Between the two
+foes flowed the dark river. Sentries in blue paced the one bank,
+sentries in grey the other. A detail of grey soldiers, resting an hour
+opposite Falmouth, employed their leisure in raising a tall signpost,
+with a wide and long board for arms. In bold letters they painted upon
+it <span class="smcap">this way to richmond</span>. It rested there, month after month, in view of
+the blue army.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of January Burnside was superseded. The Army of the Potomac
+came under the command of Fighting Joe Hooker. In February Longstreet,
+with the divisions of Pickett and Hood, marched away from the
+Rappahannock to the south bank of the James. In mid-March was fought the
+cavalry battle of Kelly's Ford&mdash;Averell against Fitz Lee. Averell
+crossed, but when the battle rested, he was back upon the northern
+shore. At Kelly's Ford fell John Pelham, "the battle-cry on his lips,
+and the light of victory beaming from his eye."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_653" id="Page_653">[Pg 653]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>April came with soft skies and greening trees. North and south and east
+and west, there were now gathered against the fortress with the stars
+and bars above it some hundreds of thousands under arms. Likewise a
+great navy beat against the side which gave upon the sea. The fortress
+was under arms indeed, but she had no navy to speak of. Arkansas and
+Louisiana, Tennessee and North Carolina, vast lengths of the Mississippi
+River, Fortress Monroe in Virginia and Suffolk south of the
+James&mdash;entrance had been made into all these courts of the fortress.
+Blue forces held them stubbornly; smaller grey forces held as stubbornly
+the next bastion. On the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, within fifty
+miles of the imperilled Capital, were gathered by May one hundred and
+thirty thousand men in blue. Longstreet gone, there opposed them
+sixty-two thousand in grey.</p>
+
+<p>Late in April Fighting Joe Hooker put in motion "the finest army on the
+planet." There were various passes and feints. Sedgwick attempted a
+crossing below Fredericksburg. Stonewall Jackson sent an aide to Lee
+with the information. Lee received it with a smile. "I thought it was
+time for one of you lazy young fellows to come and tell me what that
+firing was about! Tell your good general that he knows what to do with
+the enemy just as well as I do."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_654" id="Page_654">[Pg 654]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Flourish and passado executed, Hooker, with suddenness, moved up the
+Rappahannock, crossed at Richard's Ford, moved up the Rapidan, crossed
+at Ely and Germanna Fords, turned east and south and came into the
+Wilderness. He meant to pass through and, with three great columns,
+checkmate Lee at Fredericksburg. Before he could do so Lee shook himself
+free, left to watch the Rappahannock, and Sedgwick, ten thousand pawns
+and an able knight, and himself crossed to the Wilderness.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_655" id="Page_655">[Pg 655]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE WILDERNESS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Fifteen by twenty miles stretched the Wilderness. Out of a thin soil
+grew pine trees and pine trees, scrub oak and scrub oak. The growth was
+of the densest, mile after mile of dense growth. A few slight farms and
+clearings appeared like islands; all around them was the sea, the sea of
+tree and bush. It stretched here, it stretched there, it touched all
+horizons, vanishing beyond them in an amethyst haze.</p>
+
+<p>Several forest tracks traversed it, but they were narrow and worn, and
+it was hard to guess their presence, or to find it when guessed. There
+were, however, two fair roads&mdash;the old Turnpike and the Plank Road.
+These also were sunken in the thick, thick growth. A traveller upon them
+saw little save the fact that he had entered the Wilderness. Near the
+turnpike stood a small white church, the Tabernacle church. A little
+south of the heart of the place lay an old, old, abandoned iron
+furnace&mdash;Catherine Furnace. As much to the north rose a large old
+house&mdash;Chancellorsville. To the westward was Dowdall's Tavern. Around
+all swept the pine and the scrub oak, just varied by other trees and
+blossoming shrubs. The ground was level, or only slightly rolling. Look
+where one might there was tree and bush, tree and bush, a sense of
+illimitable woodland, of far horizons, of a not unhappy sameness, of
+stillness, of beauty far removed from picturesqueness, of vague,
+diffused charm, of silence, of sadness not too sad, of mystery not too
+baffling, of sunshine very still and golden. A man knew he was in the
+Wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>Mayday here was softly bright enough, pure sunshine and pine odours, sky
+without clouds, gentle warmth, the wild azalea in bloom, here and there
+white stars of the dogwood showing, red birds singing, pine martens
+busy, too, with their courtship, pale butterflies flitting, the bee
+haunting the honeysuckle, the snake awakening. Beauty was everywhere,
+and in portions of the great forest, great as a principality, quiet. In
+these regions, indeed, the stillness might seem doubled, reinforced, for
+from other stretches of the Wilderness, specifically from those which
+had for neighbour the roads, quiet had fled.</p>
+
+<p>To right and left of the Tabernacle church were breastworks, Anderson
+holding them against Hooker's advance. In the early morning, through the
+dewy Wilderness, came from Fredericksburg way Stonewall Jackson and the
+2d Corps, in addition Lafayette McLaws with his able Roman air and
+troops in hand. At the church they rested until eleven o'clock, then,
+gathering up Anderson, they plunged more deeply yet into the Wilderness.
+They moved in two columns, McLaws leading by the turnpike, Anderson in
+advance on the Plank Road, Jackson himself with the main body following
+by the latter road.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_656" id="Page_656">[Pg 656]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Oh, bright-eyed, oh, bronzed and gaunt and ragged, oh, full of quips and
+cranks, of jest and song and courage, oh, endowed with all quaint
+humour, invested with all pathos, ennobled by vast struggle with vast
+adversity, oh, sufferers of all things, hero-fibred, grim fighters, oh,
+Army of Northern Virginia&mdash;all men and all women who have battled salute
+you, going into the Wilderness this May day with the red birds singing!</p>
+
+<p>On swing the two columns, long, easy, bayonets gleaming, accoutrements
+jingling, colours deep glowing in the sunshine. To either hand swept the
+Wilderness, great as a desert, green and jewelled. In the desert to-day
+were other bands, great and hostile blue-clad bands. Grey and
+blue,&mdash;there came presently a clash that shook the forest and sent
+Quiet, a fugitive, to those deeper, distant haunts. Three bands of blue,
+three grey attacks&mdash;the air rocked and swung, the pure sunlight changed
+to murk, the birds and the beasts scampered far, the Wilderness filled
+with shouting. The blue gave back&mdash;gave back somewhat too easily. The
+grey followed&mdash;would have followed at height of speed, keen and
+shouting, but there rode to the front a leader on a sorrel nag. "General
+Anderson, halt your men. Throw out skirmishers and flanking parties and
+advance with caution."</p>
+
+<p>McLaws on the turnpike had like orders. Through the Wilderness, through
+the gold afternoon, all went quietly. Sound of marching feet, beat of
+hoof, creak of leather, rumble of wheel, low-pitched orders were there,
+but no singing, laughing, talking. Skirmishers and flanking parties were
+alert, but the men in the main column moved dreamily, the spell of the
+place upon them. With flowering thorn and dogwood and the purple smear
+of the Judas tree, with the faint gilt of the sunshine, and with
+wandering gracious odours, with its tangled endlessness and feel as of
+old time, its taste of sadness, its hint of patience, it was such a
+seven-leagues of woodland as might have environed the
+hundred-years-asleep court, palace, and princess. The great dome of the
+sky sprung cloudless; there was no wind; all things seemed halted, as if
+they had been thus forever. The men almost nodded as they marched.</p>
+
+<p>Back, steadily, though slowly, gave the blue skirmishers before the grey
+skirmishers. So thickly grew the Wilderness that it was somewhat like
+Indian fighting, and no man saw a hundred yards in front of him.
+Stonewall Jackson's eyes glinted under the forag<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_657" id="Page_657">[Pg 657]</a></span>e cap; perhaps he saw
+more than a hundred yards ahead of him, but if so he saw with the eyes
+of the mind. He was moving very slowly, more like a tortoise than a
+thunderbolt. The men said that Old Jack had spring fever.</p>
+
+<p>Grey columns, grey artillery, grey flanking cavalry, all came under
+slant sunrays to within a mile or two of that old house called
+Chancellorsville set north of the pike, upon a low ridge in the
+Wilderness. "Open ground in front&mdash;open ground in front&mdash;open ground in
+front! Let Old Jack by&mdash;Let Old Jack by! Going to see&mdash;Going to see&mdash;"
+<i>Halt</i>!</p>
+
+<p>The beat of feet ceased. The column waited, sunken in the green and gold
+and misty Wilderness where the shadows were lengthening and the birds were
+at evensong. In a moment the evensong was hushed and the birds flew away.
+The same instant brought explanation of that "Don't-care.
+-On-the-whole-quite-ready-to-retreat.-Merely-following-instructions"
+attitude for the past two hours of the blue skirmish line. From
+Chancellorsville, from Hooker's great entrenchments on the high roll of
+ground, along the road, and on the plateau of Hazel Grove, burst a raking
+artillery fire. The shells shrieked across the open, plunged into the wood,
+and exploded before every road-head. Hooker had guns a-many; they commanded
+the Wilderness rolling on three sides of the formidable position he had
+seized; they commanded in iron force the clearing along his front. He had
+breastworks; he had abattis. He had the 12th Corps, the 2d, the 3d, the
+5th, the 7th, the 11th; he had in the Wilderness seventy thousand men. His
+left almost touched the Rappahannock, his right stretched two miles toward
+Germanna Ford. He was in great strength.</p>
+
+<p>Jeb Stuart with his cavalry, waiting impatiently near Catherine Furnace,
+found beside him General Jackson on Little Sorrel. "General Stuart, I
+wish you to ride with me to some point from which those guns can be
+enfiladed. Order Major Beckham forward with a battery."</p>
+
+<p>This was the heart of the Wilderness. Thick, thick grew the trees and
+the all-entangling underbrush. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson, staff
+behind them, pursued a span-wide bridle path, overarched by dogwood and
+Judas tree. It led at last to a rise of ground, cover<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_658" id="Page_658">[Pg 658]</a></span>ed by matted
+growth, towered above by a few pines. Four guns of the Horse Artillery
+strove, too, to reach the place. They made it at last, over and through
+the wild tangle, but so narrow was the clearing, made hurriedly to
+either side of the path, that but one gun at a time could be brought
+into position. Beckham, commanding now where Pelham had commanded, sent
+a shell singing against the not distant line of smoke and flame. The
+muzzle had hardly blazed when two masked batteries opened upon the rise
+of ground, the four guns, the artillerymen and artillery horses, and
+upon Stonewall Jackson, Stuart, and the staff.</p>
+
+<p>The great blue guns were firing at short range. A howling storm of shot
+and shell broke and continued. Through it came a curt order. "Major
+Beckham, get your guns back. General Stuart, gentlemen of the staff,
+push out of range through the underwood."</p>
+
+<p>The guns with their maddened horses strove to turn, but the place was
+narrow. Ere the movement could be made there was bitter loss. Horses
+reared and fell, dreadfully hurt; men were mown down, falling beside
+their pieces. It was a moment requiring action decisive, desperately
+gallant, heroically intelligent. The Horse Artillery drew off their
+guns, even got their wounded out of the intolerable zone of fire.
+Stonewall Jackson, with Stuart, watched them do it. He nodded, "Good!
+good!"</p>
+
+<p>Out of the raking fire, back in the scrub and pine, there came to a halt
+near him a gun, a Howitzer. He sat Little Sorrel in the last golden
+light, a light that bathed also the piece and its gunners. The Federal
+batteries were lessening fire. There was a sense of pause. The two foes
+had seen each other; now&mdash;Army of Northern Virginia, Army of the
+Potomac&mdash;they must draw breath a little before they struck, before they
+clenched. The sun was setting; the cannonade ceased.</p>
+
+<p>Jackson sat very still in the gold patch where, between two pines, the
+west showed clear. The aureate light, streaming on, beat full upon the
+howitzer and on the living and unwounded of its men. Stonewall Jackson
+spoke to an aide. "Tell the captain of the battery that I should like to
+speak to him."</p>
+
+<p>The captain came. "Captain, what is the name of the gunner there? The
+one by the limber with his head turned away."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_659" id="Page_659">[Pg 659]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The captain looked. "Deaderick, sir. Philip Deaderick."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Philip Deaderick</i>. When did he volunteer?"</p>
+
+<p>The other considered. "I think, general, it was just before
+Sharpsburg.&mdash;It was just after the battle of Groveton, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Sharpsburg!&mdash;I remember now. So he rejoined at Manassas."</p>
+
+<p>"He hadn't been in earlier, sir. He had an accident, he said. He's a
+fine soldier, but he's a silent kind of a man. He keeps to himself. He
+won't take promotion."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him to come here."</p>
+
+<p>Deaderick came. The gold in this open place, before the clear west, was
+very light and fine. It illuminated. Also the place was a little
+withdrawn, no one very near, and by comparison with the tornado which
+had raged, the stillness seemed complete. The gunner stood before the
+general, quiet, steady-eyed, broad-browed. Stonewall Jackson, his
+gauntleted hands folded over the saddle bow, gazed upon him fully and
+long. The gold light held, and the hush of the place; in the distance,
+in the Wilderness, the birds began again their singing. At last Jackson
+spoke. "The army will rest to-night. Headquarters will be yonder, by the
+road. Report to me there at ten o'clock. I will listen to what you have
+to say. That is all now."</p>
+
+<p>Night stole over the Wilderness, a night of large, mild stars, of
+vagrant airs, of balm and sweetness. Earth lay in a tender dream, all
+about her her wild flowers and her fresh-clad trees. The grey and the
+blue soldiers slept, too, and one dreamed of this and one dreamed of
+that. Alike they dreamed of home and country and cause, of loved women
+and loved children and of their comrades. Grey and blue, these two
+armies fought each for an idea, and they fought well, as people fight
+who fight for an idea. And that it was not a material thing for which
+they fought, but a concept, lifted from them something of the grossness
+of physical struggle, carried away as with a strong wind much of the
+pettiness of war, brought their strife upon the plane of heroes. There
+is a beauty and a strength in the thought of them, grey and blue,
+sleeping in the Wilderness, under the gleam of far-away worlds.</p>
+
+<p>The generals did not sleep. In the Chancellor house, north of the pike,
+Fighting Joe Hooker held council with his commanders of corps, with
+Meade and Sickles and Slocum and Howard and Couch. Out in the
+Wilderness, near the Plank Road, with the light from a camp-fire turning
+to bronze and wine-red the young oak leaves about them, there held
+council Robert Edward Lee and Stonewall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_660" id="Page_660">[Pg 660]</a></span> Jackson. Near them a war horse
+neighed; there came the tramp of the sentry, then quiet stole upon the
+scene. The staff was near at hand, but to-night staff and couriers held
+themselves stiller than still. There was something in the air of the
+Wilderness; they knew not what it was, but it was there.</p>
+
+<p>Lee and Jackson sat opposite each other, the one on a box, the other on
+a great fallen tree. On the earth between them lay an unrolled map, and
+now one took it up and pondered it, and now the other, and now they
+spoke together in quiet, low voices, their eyes on the map at their feet
+in the red light. Lee spoke. "I went myself and looked upon their left.
+It is very strong. An assault upon their centre? Well-nigh impossible! I
+sent Major Talcott and Captain Boswell again to reconnoitre. They report
+the front fairly impregnable, and I agree with them that it is so. The
+right&mdash;Here is General Stuart, now, to tell us something of that!"</p>
+
+<p>In fighting jacket and plume Jeb Stuart came into the light. He saluted.
+"General Lee, their right rests on the Brock road, and the Brock road is
+as clean of defences as if gunpowder had never been invented, nor
+breastworks thought of!" He knelt and took up the map. "Here, sir, is
+Hunting Creek, and here Dowdall's Tavern and the Wilderness church, and
+here, through the deep woods, runs the old Furnace road, intersecting
+with the Brock road&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lee and his great lieutenant looked and nodded, listening to his further
+report. "Thank you, General Stuart," said at last the
+commander-in-chief. "You bring news upon which I think we may act. A
+flanking movement by the Furnace and Brock roads. It must be made with
+secrecy and in great strength and with rapidity. General Jackson, will
+you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Turn his right and gain his rear. I shall have my entire
+command?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general. Generals McLaws and Anderson will remain with me,
+demonstrate against these people and divert their attention. When can
+you start?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will start at four, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Lee rose. "Very good! Then we had better try to get a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_661" id="Page_661">[Pg 661]</a></span> sleep. I
+see Tom spreading my blanket now.&mdash;The Wilderness! General, do you
+remember, in Mexico, the <i>Noche Triste</i> trees and their great scarlet
+flowers? They grew all about the Church of our Lady of Remedies.&mdash;I
+don't know why I think of them to-night.&mdash;Good-night! good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>A round of barren ground, towered over by pines, hedged in by the
+all-prevailing oak scrub, made the headquarters of the commander of the
+2d Corps. Jim had built a fire, for the night wind was strengthening,
+blowing cool. He had not spared the pine boughs. The flames leaped and
+made the place ruddy as a jewel. Jackson entered, an aide behind him.
+"Find out if a soldier named Deaderick is here."</p>
+
+<p>The soldier named Deaderick appeared. Jackson nodded to the aide who
+withdrew, then crossing to the fire, he seated himself upon a log. It
+was late; far and wide the troops lay sleeping. A pale moon looked down;
+somewhere off in the distance an owl hooted. The Wilderness lay still as
+the men, then roused itself and whispered a little, then sank again into
+deathlike quiet.</p>
+
+<p>The two men, general and disgraced soldier, held themselves for a moment
+quiet as the Wilderness. Cleave knew most aspects of the man sitting on
+the log, in the gleam of the fire. He saw that to-night there was not
+the steel-like mood, cold, convinced, and stubborn, the wintry
+harshness, the granite hardness which Stonewall Jackson chiefly used
+toward offenders. He did not know what it was, but he thought that his
+general had softened.</p>
+
+<p>With the perception there came a change in himself. He had entered this
+ring in the Wilderness with a constriction of the heart, a quick
+farewell to whatever in life he yet held dear, a farewell certainly to
+the soldier's life, to the army, to the guns, to the service of the
+country, an iron bracing of every nerve to meet an iron thrust. And now
+the thrust had not yet come, and the general looked at him quietly, as
+one well-meaning man looks at another who also means well. He had
+suffered much and long. Something rose into his throat, the muscles of
+his face worked slightly, he turned his head aside. Jackson waited
+another moment,&mdash;then, the other having recovered himself, spoke with
+quietness.</p>
+
+<p>"You did, at White Oak Swamp, take it upon yourself to act, although
+there existed in your mind a doubt as to whether your orders&mdash;the orders
+you say you received&mdash;would bear that construction?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_662" id="Page_662">[Pg 662]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And your action proved a wrong action?"</p>
+
+<p>"It proved a mistaken action, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the same thing. It entailed great loss with peril of greater."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general."</p>
+
+<p>"Had the brigade followed there might have ensued a general and
+disastrous engagement. The enemy were in force there&mdash;<i>as I knew</i>. Your
+action brought almost the destruction of your regiment. It brought the
+death of many brave men, and to a certain extent endangered the whole.
+That is so."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general. It is so."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! There was an order delivered to you. The man from whose lips you
+took it is dead. His reputation was that of a valiant, intelligent, and
+trustworthy man&mdash;hardly one to misrepeat an important order. That is
+so?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is entirely so, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! You say that he brought to you such and such an order, the order,
+in effect, which, even so, you improperly construed and improperly acted
+upon, an order, however, which was never sent by me. A soldier who was
+by testifies that it was that order. Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"That soldier, sir, was a known liar, with a known hatred to his
+officers."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He repeated the order, word for word, as I sent it. How did that
+happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"The officer to whom I gave the order, and who, wrongly enough,
+transferred it to another messenger, swears that he gave it thus and
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general. He swears it."</p>
+
+<p>A silence reigned in the fire-lit ring. The red light showed form and
+feature clearly. Jackson sitting on the log, his large hands resting on
+the sabre across his knees, was full within the glow. It beat even more
+strongly upon Cleave where he stood. "You believe," said Jackson, "that
+he swore falsely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_663" id="Page_663">[Pg 663]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is a question between your veracity and his?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general."</p>
+
+<p>"There was enmity between you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, general."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he now?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is somewhere in prison. He was taken at Sharpsburg."</p>
+
+<p>There fell another silence. The sentry's tread was heard, the crackle of
+the fire seizing upon pine cone and bough, a low, sighing wind in the
+wilderness. Jackson spoke briefly. "After this campaign, if matters so
+arrange themselves, if the officer returns, if you think you can provide
+new evidence or re-present the old, I will forward, approved, your
+appeal for a court of inquiry."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you, sir, with all my heart."</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson slightly changed his position on the log. Jim tiptoed
+into the ring and fed again the fire. There was a whinnying of some
+near-by battery horses, the sound of changing guard, then silence again
+in the Wilderness. Cleave stood, straight and still, beneath the other's
+pondering, long, and steady gaze. An aide appeared at an opening in the
+scrub. "General Fitzhugh Lee, sir." Jackson rose. "You will return to
+your battery, Deaderick.&mdash;Bring General Lee here, captain."</p>
+
+<p>The night passed, the dawn came, red bird and wren and robin began a
+cheeping in the Wilderness. A light mist was over the face of the earth;
+within it began a vast shadowy movement of shadowy troops. Silence was
+so strictly ordered that something approaching it was obtained. There
+was a certain eeriness in the hush in which the column was formed&mdash;the
+grey column in the grey dawn, in the Wilderness where the birds were
+cheeping, and the mist hung faint and cold. By the roadside, on a little
+knoll set round with flowering dogwood, sat General Lee on grey
+Traveller. A swirl of mist below the two detached them from the wide
+earth and marching troops, made them like a piece of sculpture seen
+against the morning sky. Below them moved the column, noiseless as might
+be, enwound with mist. In the van were Fitzhugh Lee and the First
+Virginia Cavalry. They saluted; the commander-in-chief lifted his hat;
+they vanished by the Furnace road into the heart of the Wilderness.
+Rodes's Division came next, Alabama troops. Rodes, a tall and handsome
+man, saluted; Alabama saluted. Regiment by regiment they passed into the
+flowering woods. Now came the Light Division beneath skies with a coral
+tinge. Ambrose Powell Hill saluted, and all his brigades, Virginia and
+South Carolina. The guns began to pass, quiet as was constitutionally
+possible. The very battery horses looked as though they understood that
+people who were going to turn the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_664" id="Page_664">[Pg 664]</a></span> flank of a gigantic army in a strong
+position proceed upon the business without noise. Up rose the sun while
+the iron fighting men were yet going by. The level rays gilded all
+metal, gilded Traveller's bit and bridle clasps, gilded the spur of Lee
+and his sword hilt and the stars upon his collar. The sun began to drink
+up the mist and all the birds sang loudly. The sky was cloudless, the
+low thick woodland divinely cool and sweet. Violet and bloodroot,
+dogwood and purple Judas tree were all bespangled, bespangled with dew.</p>
+
+<p>While the guns were yet quietly rumbling by Stonewall Jackson appeared
+upon the rising ground. He saluted. Lee put out his hand and clasped the
+other's. "General, I feel every confidence! I am sure that you are going
+forth to victory."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. I think that I am.&mdash;I will send a courier back every half
+hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is wise.&mdash;As soon as your wagons are by I will make
+disposition of the twelve thousand left with me. I propose a certain
+display of artillery and a line of battle so formed as to deceive&mdash;and
+deceive greatly&mdash;as to its strength. If necessary we will skirmish hotly
+throughout the day. I will create the impression that we are about to
+assault. It is imperative that they do not come between us and cut the
+army in two."</p>
+
+<p>"I will march as rapidly as may be, sir. The Furnace road, the Brock
+road, then turn eastward on the Plank road and strike their flank.
+Good!" He jerked his hand into the air. "I will go now, general."</p>
+
+<p>Lee bent across again. The two clasped hands. "God be with you, General
+Jackson!"</p>
+
+<p>"And with you, General Lee."</p>
+
+<p>Little Sorrel left the hillock. The staff came up. Stonewall Jackson
+turned in his saddle, and, the staff following his action, raised his
+hand in salute to the figure on grey Traveller, above them in the
+sunlight. Lee lifted his hat, held it so. The others filed by, turned
+sharply southward, and were lost in the jewelled Wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>The sun cleared the tallest pines; there set in a splendid day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_665" id="Page_665">[Pg 665]</a></span> The
+long, long column, cavalry, Rodes's Division, the Light Division, the
+artillery, ordnance wagons and ambulances, twenty-five thousand grey
+soldiers with Stonewall Jackson at their head&mdash;the long, long column
+wound through the Wilderness by narrow, hidden roads. Close came the
+scrub and pine and all the flowering trees of May. The horsemen put
+aside vine and bough, the pink honeysuckle brushed the gun wheels; long
+stretches of the road were grass-grown. Through the woods to the right,
+by paths nearer yet to the far-flung Federal front, paced ten guardian
+squadrons. All went silently, all went swiftly. In the Confederate
+service there were no automata. These thousands of lithe, bronzed,
+bright-eyed, tattered men knew that something, something, something was
+being done! Something important that they must all help Old Jack with.
+Forbidden to talk, they speculated inwardly. "South by west. 'T isn't a
+Thoroughfare Gap march. They're all here in the Wilderness. We're
+leaving their centre&mdash;their right's somewhere over there in the brush.
+Shouldn't wonder&mdash;Allan Gold, what's the Latin for 'to
+flank'?&mdash;Lieutenant, we were just whispering! Yes, sir.&mdash;All right, sir.
+We won't make no more noise than so many wet cartridges!"</p>
+
+<p>On they swung through the fairy forest, grey, steady, rapidly moving,
+the steel above their shoulders gleaming bright, the worn, shot-riddled
+colours like flowers amid the tender, all-enfolding green. The head of
+the column came to a dip in the Wilderness through which flowed a little
+creek. It was about nine o'clock in the morning. All the men looked to
+the right, for they could see the plateau of Hazel Grove and the great
+Federal intrenchments. "If those fellows look right hard they can see
+us, too! Can't help it&mdash;march fast and get past.&mdash;Oh, that's what the
+officers think, too! <i>Double quick</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The column crossed the tiny vale. Beyond it the narrow road of bends and
+turns plunged due south. Now, General Birney, stationed on the high
+level of Hazel Grove, observed, though somewhat faintly, that movement.
+He sent a courier to Hooker at Chancellorsville. "Rebel column seen to
+pass across my front. All arms and wagon train. It has turned to the
+southward."</p>
+
+<p>"To the south!" said Hooker. "Turned southward. Now what does that mean?
+It might mean that Sedgwick at Fredericksburg has seized and is holding
+the road to Richmond. It might mean that Lee contemplated an
+unobstructed retreat through this Wilderness section southward to
+Gordonsville, which is not far aw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_666" id="Page_666">[Pg 666]</a></span>ay. From Gordonsville, he would fall
+back on Richmond. Say that is what he planned. Then, finding me in
+strength across his path, he would naturally make some demonstration,
+and behind it inaugurate a forced march, southward out of this wild
+place. A retreat to Gordonsville. It's the most probable move. I will
+send General Sickles toward Catherine Furnace to find out exactly."</p>
+
+<p>Birney from Hazel Grove, Sickles from Chancellorsville, advanced. At
+Catherine Furnace they found the 23d Georgia, and on both sides of the
+Plank road discovered Anderson's division. Now began hot fighting in the
+Wilderness. The brigades of Anderson did gloriously. The 23d Georgia,
+surrounded at the Furnace, saw fall, in that square of the Wilderness,
+three hundred officers and men; but those Georgians who yet stood did
+well, did well! Full in the front of Chancellorsville, McLaws, with his
+able, Roman air, his high colour, short black beard and crisp speech,
+handled his troops like a rightly trusted captain of C&aelig;sar's. He kept
+the enemy's attention strained in his direction. Standing yet upon the
+little hillock, in the midst of the flowering dogwood, a greater than
+McLaws overlooked and directed all the grey pieces upon the board before
+Chancellorsville, played, all day, like a master, a skilfully
+complicated game.</p>
+
+<p>Far in the Wilderness, miles now to the westward, the rolling musketry
+came to the ears of Stonewall Jackson. He was riding with Rodes at the
+head of the column. "Good! good!" he said. "That musketry is at the
+Furnace. General Hooker will attempt to drive between me and General
+Lee."</p>
+
+<p>An aide of A. P. Hill's approached at a gallop. He saluted, gained
+breath and spoke. "They're cutting the 23d Georgia to pieces, sir!
+General Anderson is coming into action&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A deeper thunder rolling now through the Wilderness corroborated his
+words. "Good! good!" said Jackson imperturbably. "My compliments to
+General Hill, and he will detach Archer's and Thomas's brigades and a
+battalion of artillery. They are to co&ouml;perate with General Anderson and
+protect our rear. The remainder of the Light Division will continue the
+march."</p>
+
+<p>On past the noon point swung light and shadow. On through the languorous
+May warmth travelled westward the long column. It went with marked
+rapidity, emphatic e<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_667" id="Page_667">[Pg 667]</a></span>ven for the "foot cavalry," went without swerving,
+without straggling, went like a long, gleaming thunderbolt firmly held
+and swung. Behind it, sank in the distance the noise of battle. The Army
+of Northern Virginia knew itself divided, cut in two. Far back in the
+flowering woods before Chancellorsville, the man on the grey horse,
+directing here, directing there his twelve thousand men, played his
+master game with equanimity, trusting in Stonewall Jackson rushing
+toward the Federal right. Westward in the Wilderness, swiftly nearing
+the Brock road, the man on the sorrel nag travelled with no backward
+look. In his right hand was the thunderbolt, and near at hand the place
+from which to hurl it. He rode like incarnate Intention. The officer
+beside him said something as to that enormous peril in the rear, driving
+like a wedge between this hurrying column and the grey twelve thousand
+before Chancellorsville. "Yes, sir, yes!" said Jackson. "But I trust
+first in God, and then in General Lee."</p>
+
+<p>The infantry swung into the Brock road. It ran northward; it lay bare,
+sunny, sleepy, walled in by emerald leaves and white and purple bloom.
+The grey thunderbolt travelled fast, fast, and at three o'clock its head
+reached the Plank road. Far to the east, in the Wilderness, the noise of
+the battle yet rolled, but it came fainter, with a diminishing sound.
+Anderson, Thomas, and Archer had driven back Sickles. There was a pause
+by Chancellorsville and Catherine Furnace. Through it and all the while
+the man on grey Traveller kept with a skill so exquisite that it shaded
+into a grave simplicity those thousands and thousands and thousands of
+hostile eyes turned quite from their real danger, centred only on a
+finely painted mask of danger.</p>
+
+<p>At the intersection of the Brock and the Plank roads, Stonewall Jackson
+found massed the 1st Virginia cavalry. Upon the road and to either side
+in the flowering woods, roan and bay and black tossed their heads and
+moved their limbs amid silver dogwood and rose azalea. The horses
+chafed, the horsemen looked at once anxious and exultant. Fitzhugh Lee
+met the general in command. The latter spoke. "Three o'clock. Proceed at
+once, general, down the Plank road."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg, sir," said the other, "that you will ride with me to the top of
+this roll of ground in front of us. I can show you the strangest
+thing!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_668" id="Page_668">[Pg 668]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The two went, attended only by a courier. The slight eminence, all clad
+with scrub-oak, all carpeted with wild flowers, was reached. The
+horsemen turned and looked eastward, the breast-high scrub, the few
+tender-foliaged young trees sheltering them from view. They looked
+eastward, and in the distance they saw Dowdall's Tavern. But it was not
+Dowdall's Tavern that was the strangest thing. The strangest thing was
+nearer than Dowdall's; it was at no great distance at all. It was a long
+abattis, and behind the abattis long, well-builded breastworks. Behind
+the breastworks, overlooked by the little hill, and occupying an old
+clearing in the Wilderness, was a large encampment&mdash;the encampment, in
+short, of the 11th Army Corps, Howard commanding, twenty regiments, and
+six batteries. From the little hill where the violets purpled the
+ground, Stonewall Jackson and the cavalry leader looked and looked in
+silence. The blue soldiers lay at ease on the tender sward. It was
+<i>dolce far niente</i> in the Wilderness. The arms were stacked, the arms
+were stacked. There were cannon planted by the roadside, but where were
+the cannoneers? Not very near the guns, but asleep on the grass, or
+propped against trees smoking excellent tobacco, or in the square on the
+greensward playing cards with laughter! Battery horses were grazing
+where they would. Far and wide were scattered the infantry, squandered
+like plums on the grass. They lay or strolled about in the slant
+sunshine, in the balmy air, in the magic Wilderness&mdash;they never even
+glanced toward the stacked arms.</p>
+
+<p>On the flowery slope across the road, Stonewall Jackson sat Little
+Sorrel and gazed upon the pleasant, drowsy scene. His eyes had a glow,
+his cheek a warm colour beneath the bronze. Staff, and indeed the entire
+2d Corps, had remarked from time to time this spring upon Old Jack's
+evident good health. "Getting younger all the time! This war climate
+suits him. Time the peace articles are signed he'll be just a boy again!
+Arrived at&mdash;what do you call it? perennial youth." Now he and Little
+Sorrel stood upon the flowering hilltop, and his lips moved. "Old Jack's
+praying&mdash;Old Jack's praying!" thought the courier.</p>
+
+<p>Fitz Lee said something, but the general did not attend. In another
+moment, however, he spoke curt, decisive, final. He spoke to the
+courier. "Tell General Rodes to move <i>across</i> the Plank road. He is to
+halt at the turnpike. I will join him there. Move quietly."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_669" id="Page_669">[Pg 669]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The courier turned and went. Stonewall Jackson regarded again the scene
+before him&mdash;abattis and breastworks and rifle-pits untenanted, guns
+lonely in the slanting sunlight, lines of stacked arms, tents,
+fluttering flags, the horses straying at their will, cropping the tender
+grass, in a corner of a field men butchering beeves&mdash;regarded the German
+regiments, Schimmelpfennig and Krzyzancerski, regarded New York and
+Wisconsin, camped about the Wilderness church. Up from the clearing,
+across to the thick forest, floated an indescribable humming sound, a
+confused droning as from a giant race of bees. The shadows of the trees
+were growing long, the sun hung just above the pines of the Wilderness.
+"Good! good!" said Stonewall Jackson. His eyes, beneath the old, old
+forage cap, had a sapphire depth and gleam. A colour was in his cheek.
+"Good! good!" he said, and jerked his hand into the air. Suddenly
+turning Little Sorrel, he left the hill&mdash;riding fast, elbows out, and
+big feet, down into the woods, his sabre leaping as he rode.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_670" id="Page_670">[Pg 670]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RIVER</h3>
+
+
+<p>It yet lacked of six o'clock when the battle lines were finally formed.
+Only the treetops of the Wilderness now were in gold, below, in the
+thick wood, the brigades stood in shadow. In front were Rodes's
+skirmishers, and Rodes's brigades formed the first line. The troops of
+Raleigh Colston made the second line, A. P. Hill's men the third. A
+battery&mdash;four Napoleons&mdash;were advanced; the other guns were coming up.
+The cavalry, with Stonewall Brigade supporting, took the Plank road,
+masking the actual movement. On the old turnpike Stonewall Jackson sat
+his horse beside Rodes. At six o'clock he looked at his watch, closed
+it, and put it in his pocket. "Are you ready, General Rodes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You can go forward, sir."</p>
+
+<p>High over the darkening Wilderness rang a bugle-call. The sound soared,
+hung a moment poised, then, far and near, thronged the grey echoes,
+bugles, bugles, calling, calling! The sound passed away; there followed
+a rush of bodies through the Wilderness; in a moment was heard the
+crackling fire of the skirmishers. From ahead came a wild beating of
+Federal drums&mdash;the long roll, the long roll! <i>Boom!</i> Into action came
+the grey guns. Rodes's Alabamian's passed the abattis, touched the
+breastworks. Colston two hundred yards behind, A. P. Hill the third
+line. <i>Yaaai! Yaaaiiih! Yaaaaaiiihh!</i> rang the Wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>Several miles to the eastward the large old house of Chancellorsville,
+set upon rising ground, reflected the sun from its westerly windows. All
+about it rolled the Wilderness, shadowy beneath the vivid skies. It lay
+like a sea, touching all the horizon. On the deep porch of the house,
+tasting the evening coolness, sat Fighting Joe Hooker and several of his
+officers. Eastward there was firing, as there had been all day, but it,
+too, was decreased in volume, broken in continuity. The main rebel body,
+thought the Federal general, must be about ready to draw off, follow the
+rebel advance in its desperate attempt to get out of the Wilderness, to
+get off southward to Gordonsville. The 12th Corps was facing the "main
+body". The interchange of musketry, eastward there, had a desultory,
+waiting sound. From the south, several miles into the depth of the
+Wilderness, came a slow, uninterrupted booming of cannon. Pleasanton and
+Sickles were down there, somewhere beyond Catherine Furnace. Pleasanton
+and Sickles were giving chase to the rebel detachment,&mdash;whatever it was;
+Stonewall Jackson and a division probably&mdash;that was trying to get out of
+the Wilderness. At any rate, the rebel force was divided. When morning
+dawned it should be pounded small, piece by piece, by the blue impact!
+"We've got the men, and we've got the guns. We've got the finest army on
+the planet!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_671" id="Page_671">[Pg 671]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The sun dropped. The Wilderness rolled like a sea, hiding many things.
+The shaggy pile of the forest turned from green to violet. It swept to
+the pale northern skies, to the eastern, reflecting light from the
+opposite quarter, to the southern, to the splendid west. Wave after
+wave, purple-hued, velvet-soft, it passed into mist beneath the skies.
+There was a perception of a vastness not comprehended. One of the men
+upon the Chancellor's porch cleared his throat. "There's an awful
+feeling about this place! It's poetic, I suppose. Anyhow, it makes you
+feel that anything might happen&mdash;the stranger it was, the likelier to
+happen&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't feel that way. It's just a great big rolling plain with woods
+upon it&mdash;no mountains or water&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I always thought that if I were a great big thing going to happen
+I wouldn't choose a chopped up, picturesque place to happen in! I'd
+choose something like this. I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?"</p>
+
+<p><i>Boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom!</i></p>
+
+<p>Hooker, at the opposite end of the porch, sprang up and came across.
+"Due west!&mdash;Howard's guns?&mdash;What does that mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><i>Boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom!</i></p>
+
+<p>Fighting Joe Hooker ran down the steps. "Bring my horse, quick! Colonel,
+go down to the road and see&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My God! Here they come!"</p>
+
+<p>Down the Plank road, through the woods, back to Chancellorsville, rushed
+the routed 21st Corps. Soldiers and ambulances, wagons and cattle,
+gunners lacking their guns, companies out of regiments, squads out of
+companies, panic-struck and flying units, shouting officers brandishing
+swords, horsemen, colour-bearers without colours, others with colours
+desperately saved, musicians, sutlers, camp followers, ordnance wagons
+with tearing, maddened horses, soldiers and soldiers and soldiers&mdash;down,
+back to the centre at Chancellorsville, roared the blue wave, torn,
+churned to foam, lashed and shattered, broken against a stone wall&mdash;back
+on the centre roared and fell the flanked right! Down the Plank road,
+out of the dark woods of the Wilderness, out of the rolling musketry,
+behind it the cannon thunder, burst a sound, a sound, a known sound!
+<i>Yaaaai! Yaaaaaiih! Yaaiii! Yaaaaiiihhhhh!</i> It echoed, it echoed from
+the east of Chancellorsville! <i>Yaaih! Yaaaaiih! Yaaaaaaaiihh!</i> yelled
+the troops of McLaws and Anderson.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_672" id="Page_672">[Pg 672]</a></span> "Open fire!" said Lee to his
+artillery; and to McLaws, "Move up the turnpike and attack."</p>
+
+<p>The Wilderness of Spottsylvania laid aside her mantle of calm. She
+became a m&aelig;nad, intoxicated, furious, shrieking, a giantess in action, a
+wild handmaid drinking blood, a servant of Ares, a Titanic hostess
+spreading with lavish hands large ground for armies and battles, a
+Valkyrie gathering the dead, laying them in the woodland hollows amid
+bloodroot and violets! She chanted, she swayed, she cried aloud to the
+stars, and she shook her own madness upon the troops, very impartially,
+on grey and on blue.</p>
+
+<p>Down the Plank road, in the gathering night, the very fulness of the
+grey victory brought its difficulties. Brigades were far ahead,
+separated from their division commanders; regiments astray from their
+brigadiers, companies struggling in the dusk through the thickets,
+seeking the thread from which in the onset and uproar the beads had
+slipped. They lost themselves in the wild place; there came perforce a
+pause, a quest for organization and alignment, a drawing together, a
+compressing of the particles of the thunderbolt; then, then would it be
+hurled again, full against Chancellorsville!</p>
+
+<p>The moon was coming up. She silvered the Wilderness about Dowdall's
+Tavern. She made a pallor around the group of staff and field officers
+gathered beside the road. Her light glinted on Stonewall Jackson's
+sabre, and on the worn braid of the old forage cap. A body of cavalry
+passed on its way to Ely's Ford. Jeb Stuart rode at the head. He was
+singing. "<i>Old Joe Hooker, won't you come out of the Wilderness?</i>" he
+sang. An officer of Rodes came up. "General Rodes reports, sir, that he
+has taken a line of their entrenchments. He's less than a mile from
+Chancellorsville."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Tell him A. P. Hill will support. As you go, tell the troops that
+I wish them to get into line and preserve their order."</p>
+
+<p>The officer went. An aide of Colston's appeared, breathless from a
+struggle through the thickets. "From General Colston, sir. He's
+immediately behind General Rodes. There was a wide abattis. The troops
+are reforming beyond it. We see no Federals between us and
+Chancellorsville."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_673" id="Page_673">[Pg 673]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good! Tell General Colston to use expedition and get his men into line.
+Those guns are opening without orders!"</p>
+
+<p>Three grey cannon, planted within bowshot of the Chancellor House,
+opened, indeed, and with vigour,&mdash;opened against twenty-two guns in
+epaulements on the Chancellorsville ridge. The twenty-two answered in a
+roar of sound, overtowering the cannonade to the east of McLaws and
+Anderson. The Wilderness resounded; smoke began to rise like the smoke
+of strange sacrifices; the mood of the place changed to frenzy. She
+swung herself, she chanted.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Grey or blue,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">I care not, I!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Blue and grey</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Are here to die!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">This human brood</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Is stained with blood.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The armed man dies,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">See where he lies</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">In my arms asleep!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">On my breast asleep!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The babe of Time,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">A nestling fallen.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The nest a ruin,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The tree storm-snapped.</span><br />
+Lullaby, lullaby! sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep!"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>The smoke drifted toward the moon, the red gun-flashes showed the aisles
+of pine and oak. Jackson beckoned imperiously to an aide. "Go tell A. P.
+Hill to press forward."</p>
+
+<p>The thunder of the guns ceased suddenly. There was heard a trample of
+feet, A. P. Hill's brigades on the turnpike. "Who leads?" asked a voice.
+"Lane's North Carolinians," answered another. General Lane came by,
+young, an old V. M. I. cadet. He drew rein a moment, saluted. "Push
+right ahead, Lane! right ahead!" said Jackson.</p>
+
+<p>A. P. Hill, in his battle shirt, appeared, his staff behind him. "Your
+final order, general?"</p>
+
+<p>"Press them, Hill! Cut them off from the fords. Press them!"</p>
+
+<p>A. P. Hill went. From the east, the guns upon his own front now having
+quieted, rolled the thunder of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_674" id="Page_674">[Pg 674]</a></span>those with Lee. The clamour about
+Chancellorsville where, in hot haste, Hooker made dispositions, streamed
+east and west, meeting and blending with, westward, a like distraction
+of forming commands, of battle lines made in the darkness, among
+thickets. The moon was high, but not observed; the Wilderness fiercely
+chanting. Behind him was Captain Wilbourne of the Signal Corps, two
+aides and several couriers, Jackson rode along the Plank road.</p>
+
+<p>There was a regiment drawn across this way through the Wilderness, on
+the road and in the woods on either hand. In places in the Wilderness,
+the scrub that fearfully burned the next day and the next was even now
+afire, and gave, though uncertainly and dimly, a certain illumination.
+By it the regiment was perceived. It seemed composed of tall and shadowy
+men. "What troops are these?" asked the general.</p>
+
+<p>"Lane's North Carolinians, sir,&mdash;the 18th."</p>
+
+<p>As he passed, the regiment started to cheer. He shook his head. "Don't,
+men, we want quiet now!"</p>
+
+<p>A very few hundred yards from Chancellorsville he checked Little Sorrel.
+The horse stood, fore feet planted. Horse and rider, they stood and
+listened. Hooker's reserves were up. About the Chancellor House, on the
+Chancellorsville ridge, they were throwing up entrenchments. They were
+digging the earth with bayonets, they were heaping it up with their
+hands. There was a ringing of axes. They were cutting down the young
+spring growth; they were making an abattis. Tones of command could be
+heard. "Hurry, hurry&mdash;hurry! They mean to rush us. Hurry&mdash;hurry!" A dead
+creeper mantling a dead tree, caught by some flying spark, suddenly
+flared throughout its length, stood a pillar of fire, and showed redly
+the enemy's guns. Stonewall Jackson sat his horse and looked. "Cut them
+off from the ford," he said. "Never let them get out of Virginia." He
+jerked his hand into the air.</p>
+
+<p>Turning Little Sorrel, he rode back along the Plank road toward his own
+lines. The light of the burning brush had sunken. The cannon smoke
+floating in the air, the very thick woods, made all things obscure.</p>
+
+<p>"There are troops across the road in front," said an aide.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Lane's North Carolinians awaiting their signal."</p>
+
+<p>A little to the east and south broke out in the Wilderness a sudde<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_675" id="Page_675">[Pg 675]</a></span>n
+rattling fire, sinking, rising, sinking again, the blue and grey
+skirmishers now in touch. All through the vast, dark, tangled beating
+heart of the place, sprang into being a tension. The grey lines listened
+for the word <i>Advance</i>! The musket rested on the shoulder, the foot
+quivered, eyes front tried to pierce the darkness. Sound was unceasing;
+and yet the mind found a stillness, a lake of calm. It was the moment
+before the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Stonewall Jackson came toward the Carolinians. He rode quickly, past the
+dark shell of a house sunken among pines. There were with him seven or
+eight persons. The horses' hoofs made a trampling on the Plank road. The
+woods were deep, the obscurity great. Suddenly out of the brush rang a
+shot, an accidentally discharged rifle. Some grey soldier among Lane's
+tensely waiting ranks, dressed in the woods to the right of the road,
+spoke from the core of a fearful dream: "Yankee cavalry!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Fire!</i>" called an officer of the 18th North Carolina.</p>
+
+<p>The volley, striking diagonally across the road, emptied several
+saddles. Stonewall Jackson, the aides and Wilbourne, wheeled to the
+left, dug spur, and would have plunged into the wood. "<i>Fire!</i>" said the
+Carolinians, dressed to the left of the road, and fired.</p>
+
+<p>Little Sorrel, maddened, dashed into the wood. An oak bough struck his
+rider, almost bearing him from the saddle. With his right hand from
+which the blood was streaming, in which a bullet was imbedded, he caught
+the bridle, managed to turn the agonized brute into the road again.
+There seemed a wild sound, a confusion of voices. Some one had stopped
+the firing. "My God, men! You are firing into <i>us</i>!" In the road were
+the aides. They caught the rein, stopped the horse. Wilbourne put up his
+arms. "General, general! you are not hurt?&mdash;Hold
+there!&mdash;Morrison&mdash;Leigh!&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>They laid him on the ground beneath the pines and they fired the
+brushwood for a light. One rode off for Dr. McGuire, and another with a
+penknife cut away the sleeve from the left arm through which had gone
+two bullets. A mounted man came at a gallop and threw himself from his
+horse. It was A. P. Hill. "General, general! you are not much hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think I am," said Stonewall Jackson. "And my wounds are from my
+own men."</p>
+
+<p>Hill drew off the gauntlets that were all blood soaked, and with his
+handkerchief tried to bind up the arm, shattered and with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_676" id="Page_676">[Pg 676]</a></span> main
+artery cut. A courier came up. "Sir, sir! a body of the enemy is close
+at hand&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The aides lifted the wounded general. "No one," said Hill, "must tell
+the troops who was wounded." The other opened his eyes. "Tell them
+simply that you have a wounded officer. General Hill, you are in command
+now. Press right on."</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture of sorrow Hill went, returning to the front. The others
+rested at the edge of the road. At that moment the Federal batteries
+opened, a hissing storm of shot and shell, a tornado meant measurably to
+retard that anticipated, grey onrush. The range was high. Aides and
+couriers laid the wounded leader on the earth and made of their bodies a
+screen. The trees were cut, the earth was torn up; there was a howling
+as of unchained fiends. There passed what seemed an eternity and was but
+ten minutes. The great blue guns slightly changed the direction of their
+fire. The storm howled away from the group by the road, and the men
+again lifted Jackson. He stood now on his feet; and because troops were
+heard approaching, and because it must not be known that he was hurt,
+all moved into the darkness of the scrub. The troops upon the road came
+on&mdash;Pender's brigade. Pender, riding in advance, saw the group and asked
+who was wounded. "A field officer," answered one, but there came from
+some direction a glare of light and by it Pender knew. He sprang from
+his horse. "Don't say anything about it, General Pender," said Jackson.
+"Press on, sir, press on!"</p>
+
+<p>"General, they are using all their artillery. It is a very deadly fire.
+In the darkness it may disorganize&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The forage cap was gone. The blue eyes showed full and deep. "You must
+hold your ground, General Pender. You must hold out to the last, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I will, general, I will," said Pender.</p>
+
+<p>A litter was found and brought, and Stonewall Jackson was laid upon it.
+The little procession moved toward Dowdall's Tavern. A shot pierced the
+arm of one of the bearers, loosening his hold of the litter. It tilted.
+The general fell heavily to the ground, injuring afresh the wounded
+limb, striking and bruising his side. They raised him, pale, now, and
+silent, and at last they struggled through the wood to a little
+clearing, where they found an ambulance. Now, too, came the doctor, a
+man whom he l<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_677" id="Page_677">[Pg 677]</a></span>oved, and knelt beside him. "I hope that you are not badly
+hurt, general?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am, doctor. I am badly hurt. I fear that I am dying."</p>
+
+<p>In the ambulance lay also his chief of artillery, Colonel Crutchfield,
+painfully injured. Crutchfield pulled the doctor down to him. "He isn't
+badly hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Badly hurt."</p>
+
+<p>Crutchfield groaned. "Oh, my God!" Stonewall Jackson heard and made the
+ambulance stop. "You must do something for Colonel Crutchfield, doctor.
+Don't let him suffer."</p>
+
+<p>A. P. Hill, riding back to the front, was wounded by a piece of shell.
+Boswell, the chief engineer, to whom had been entrusted the guidance
+through the night of the advance upon the roads to the fords, was
+killed. That was a fatal cannonade from the ridge of Chancellorsville,
+fatal and fateful! It continued. The Wilderness chanted a battle chant
+indeed to the moon, the moon that was pale and wan as if wearied with
+silvering battlefields. Hill, lying in a litter, just back of his
+advanced line, dispatched couriers for Stuart. Stuart was far toward
+Ely's Ford, riding through the night in plume and fighting jacket. The
+straining horses, the recalling order, reached him.</p>
+
+<p>"General Jackson badly wounded! A. P. Hill badly wounded! I in command!
+My God, man! all changed like that? <i>Right about face! Forward! March!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>There was, that night, no grey assault. But the dawn broke clear and
+found the grey lines waiting. The sky was a glory, the Wilderness rolled
+in emerald waves, the redbirds sang. Lee and the 2d Corps were yet two
+miles apart. Between was Chancellorsville, and all the strong
+entrenchments and the great blue guns, and Hooker's courageous men.</p>
+
+<p>Now followed Jeb Stuart's fight. In the dawn, the 2nd Corps, swung from
+the right by a master hand, struck full against the Federal centre,
+struck full against Chancellorsville. In the clear May morning broke a
+thunderstorm of artillery. It raged loudly, peal on peal, crash on
+crash! The grey shells struck the Chancellor house. They set it on fire.
+It went up in flames. A fragment of shell struck and stunned Fighting
+Joe Hooker. He lay senseless for hours and Couch took command. The grey
+musketry, the blue musketry, rolled, rolled! The Wilderness was on fire.
+In places it was like a prairie. The flames licked their way through the
+scrub; the wounded perished. Ammunition began to fail; Stuart ord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_678" id="Page_678">[Pg 678]</a></span>ered
+the ground to be held with the bayonet. There was a great attack against
+his left. His three lines came into one and repulsed it. His right and
+Anderson's left now touched. The Army of Northern Virginia was again a
+unit.</p>
+
+<p>Stuart swung above his head the hat with the black feather. His
+beautiful horse danced along the grey lines, the lines that were very
+grimly determined, the lines that knew now that Stonewall Jackson was
+badly wounded. They meant, the grey lines, to make this day and this
+Wilderness remembered. "<i>Forward. Charge!</i>" cried Jeb Stuart. "Remember
+Jackson!" He swung his plumed hat. <i>Yaaaii! Yaaaaaaaiihhh! Yaaaaaii!
+Yaaaiiiihhh!</i> yelled the grey lines, and charged. Stuart went at their
+head, and as he went he raised in song his golden, ringing voice. "<i>Old
+Joe Hooker, won't you come out of the Wilderness?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>By ten o'clock the Chancellor ridge was taken, the blue guns silenced,
+Hooker beaten back toward the Rappahannock. The Wilderness, after all,
+was Virginian. She broke into a war song of triumph. Her flowers
+bloomed, her birds sang, and then came Lee to the front. Oh, the Army of
+Northern Virginia cheered him! "Men, men!" he said, "you have done well,
+you have done well! Where is General Jackson?"</p>
+
+<p>He was told. Presently he wrote a note and sent it to the field hospital
+near Dowdall's Tavern. "<i>General:&mdash;I cannot express my regret. Could I
+have directed events I should have chosen for the good of the country to
+be disabled in your stead. I congratulate you upon the victory, which is
+due to your skill and energy. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
+R. E. Lee.</i></p>
+
+<p>An aide read it to Stonewall Jackson where he lay, very quiet, in the
+deeps of the Wilderness. For a minute he did not speak, then he said,
+"General Lee is very kind, but he should give the praise to God."</p>
+
+<p>For four days yet they fought, in the Wilderness, at Salem church, at
+the Fords of the Rappahannock, again at Fredericksburg. Then they
+rested, the Army of the Potomac back on the northern side of the
+Rappahannock, the Army of Northern Virginia holding the southern shore
+and the road to Richmond&mdash;Richmond no nearer for McDowell, no nearer for
+McClellan, no nearer for Pope, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_679" id="Page_679">[Pg 679]</a></span> nearer for Burnside, no nearer for
+Hooker, no nearer after two years of war! In the Wilderness and
+thereabouts Hooker lost seventeen thousand men, thirteen guns, and
+fifteen hundred rounds of cannon ammunition, twenty thousand rifles,
+three hundred thousand rounds of infantry ammunition. The Army of
+Northern Virginia lost twelve thousand men.</p>
+
+<p>On the fifth of May Stonewall Jackson was carefully moved from the
+Wilderness to Guiney's Station. Here was a large old residence&mdash;the
+Chandler house&mdash;within a sweep of grass and trees; about it one or two
+small buildings. The great house was filled, crowded to its doors with
+wounded soldiers, so they laid Stonewall Jackson in a rude cabin among
+the trees. The left arm had been amputated in the field hospital. He was
+thought to be doing well, though at times he complained of the side
+which, in the fall from the litter, had been struck and bruised.</p>
+
+<p>At daylight on Thursday he had his physician called. "I am suffering
+great pain," he said. "See what is the matter with me." And presently,
+"Is it pneumonia?"</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon his wife came. He was roused to speak to her, greeted her
+with love, then sank into something like stupor. From time to time he
+awakened from this, but there were also times when he was slightly
+delirious. He gave orders in a shadow of the old voice. "You must hold
+out a little longer, men; you must hold out a little longer!... Press
+forward&mdash;press forward&mdash;press forward!... Give them canister, Major
+Pelham!"</p>
+
+<p>Friday went by, and Saturday. The afternoon of this day he asked for his
+chaplain, Mr. Lacy. Later, in the twilight, his wife sang to him, old
+hymns that he loved. "Sing the fifty-first psalm in verse," he said. She
+sang,&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>"Show pity, Lord! O Lord, forgive&mdash;"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The night passed and Sunday the tenth dawned. He lay quiet, his right
+hand on his breast. One of the staff came for a moment to his bedside.
+"Who is preaching at headquarters to-day?" He was told, and said, "Good!
+I wish I might be there."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_680" id="Page_680">[Pg 680]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The officer's voice broke. "General, general! the whole army is praying
+for you. There's a message from General Lee."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes. Give it."</p>
+
+<p>"He sends you his love. He says that you must recover; that you have
+lost your left arm, but that he would lose his right arm. He says tell
+you that he prayed for you last night as he had never prayed for
+himself. He repeats what he said in his note that for the good of
+Virginia and the South he could wish that he were lying here in your
+place&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The soldier on the bed smiled a little and shook his head. "Better ten
+Jacksons should lie here than one Lee."</p>
+
+<p>It was sunny weather, fair and sweet with all the bloom of May, the
+bright trees waving, the long grass rippling, waters flowing, the sky
+azure, bees about the flowers, the birds singing piercingly sweet,
+mother earth so beautiful, the sky down-bending, the light of the sun so
+gracious, warm, and vital!</p>
+
+<p>A little before noon, kneeling beside him, his wife told Stonewall
+Jackson that he would die. He smiled and laid his hand upon her bowed
+head. "You are frightened, my child! Death is not so near. I may yet get
+well."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor came to him. "Doctor, Anna tells me that I am to die to-day.
+Is it so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, general, general!&mdash;It is so."</p>
+
+<p>He lay silent a moment, then he said, "Very good, very good! It is all
+right."</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the day his mind was now clouded, now clear. In one of the
+latter times he said there was something he was trying to remember.
+There followed a half-hour of broken sleep and wandering, in the course
+of which he twice spoke a name, "Deaderick." Once he said "Horse
+Artillery," and once "White Oak Swamp."</p>
+
+<p>The alternate clear moments and the lapses into stupour or delirium were
+like the sinking or rising of a strong swimmer, exhausted at last, the
+prey at last of a shoreless sea. At times he came head and shoulders out
+of the sea. In such a moment he opened his grey-blue eyes full on one of
+his staff. All the staff was gathered in grief about the bed. "When
+Richard Cleave," he said, "asks for a court of enquiry let him have it.
+Tell General Lee&mdash;" The sea drew him under again.</p>
+
+<p>It hardly let him go any more; moment by moment now, it wore out the
+strong swimmer. The day drew on to afternoon. He lay straight upon the
+bed, silent for the most part, but now <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_681" id="Page_681">[Pg 681]</a></span>and then wandering a little. His
+wife bowed herself beside him; in a corner wept the old man, Jim.
+Outside the windows there seemed a hush as of death.</p>
+
+<p>"Pass the infantry to the front!" ordered Stonewall Jackson. "Tell A. P.
+Hill to prepare for action!" The voice sank; there came a long silence;
+there was only heard the old man crying in the corner. Then, for the
+last time in this phase of being, the great soldier opened his eyes. In
+a moment he spoke, in a very sweet and calm voice. "Let us cross over
+the river, and rest under the shade of the trees." He died.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The bells tolled, the bells tolled in Richmond, tolled from each of her
+seven hills! Sombre was the sound of the minute guns, shaking the heart
+of the city! Oh, this capital knew the Dead March in Saul as a child
+knows his lullaby! To-day it had a depth and a height and was a dirge
+indeed. To-day it wailed for a Chieftain, wailed through the streets
+where the rose and magnolia bloomed, wailed as may have wailed the
+trumpets when Priam brought Hector home. The great throng to either side
+the streets shivered beneath the wailing, beneath the low thunder of the
+drums. There was lacking no pomp of War, War who must have gauds with
+which to hide his naked horror. The guns boomed, the bells tolled, the
+muffled drums beat, beat! Regiments marched with reversed arms, with
+colours furled. There was mournful civic pomp, mournful official. There
+came a great black hearse drawn by four white horses. On it lay the body
+of Stonewall Jackson, and over it was drawn the deep blue flag with the
+arms of Virginia, and likewise the starry banner of the eleven
+Confederate States. Oh, heart-breaking were the minute guns, and the
+tolling, tolling bells, and the deep, slow, heroic music, and the
+sobbing of the people! It was a cloudless day and filled with grief.
+Behind the hearse trod Little Sorrel.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath arching trees, by houses of mellow red brick, houses of pale
+grey stucco, by old porches and ironwork balconies, by wistaria and
+climbing roses and magnolias with white chalices, the long procession
+bore Stonewall Jackson. By St. Paul's they bore him, by Washington and
+the great bronze men in his company, by Jefferson and Marshall, by Henry
+and Mason, by Lewis and Nelson. They bore him over the greensward to the
+Capitol steps, and there the hearse stopped. Six generals lifted the
+coffin, Longstreet go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_682" id="Page_682">[Pg 682]</a></span>ing before. The bells tolled and the Dead March
+rang, and all the people on the green slopes of the historic place
+uncovered their heads and wept. The coffin, high-borne, passed upward
+and between the great, white, Doric columns. It passed into the Capitol
+and into the Hall of the Lower House. Here it rested before the
+Speaker's Chair.</p>
+
+<p>All day Stonewall Jackson lay in state. Twenty thousand people, from the
+President of the Confederacy to the last poor wounded soldier who could
+creep hither, passed before the bier, looked upon the calm face, the
+flag-enshrouded form, lying among lilies before the Speaker's Chair, in
+the Virginia Hall of Delegates, in the Capitol of the Confederacy. All
+day the bells tolled, all day the minute guns were fired.</p>
+
+<p>A man of the Stonewall Brigade, pausing his moment before the dead
+leader, first bent, then lifted his head. He was a scout, a blonde
+soldier, tall and strong, with a quiet, studious face and sea-blue eyes.
+He looked now at the vaulted roof as though he saw instead the sky. He
+spoke in a controlled, determined voice. "What Stonewall Jackson always
+said was just this: <i>'Press forward!'</i>" He passed on.</p>
+
+<p>Presently in line came a private soldier of A. P. Hill's, a young man
+like a beautiful athlete from a frieze, an athlete who was also a
+philosopher. "Hail, great man of the past!" he said. "If to-day you
+consort with C&aelig;sar, tell him we still make war." He, too, went on.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_683" id="Page_683">[Pg 683]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Others passed, and then there came an artilleryman, a gunner of the
+Horse Artillery. Grey-eyed, broad-browed, he stood his moment and gazed
+upon the dead soldier among the lilies. "Hooker yet upon the
+Rappahannock," he said. "We must have him across the Potomac, and we
+must ourselves invade Pennsylvania."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_684" id="Page_684">[Pg 684]</a></span></p>
+
+<h4>The Riverside Press<br />
+CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS<br />
+U. S. A</h4>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_685" id="Page_685">[Pg 685]</a></span><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 383px;">
+<img src="images/705.png" width="383" height="600" alt="Book Advertisement for the Right Stuff" title="Book Advertisement" />
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_686" id="Page_686">[Pg 686]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 377px;">
+<img src="images/706.png" width="377" height="600" alt="Book Advertisement for John Winterbourne's Family" title="" />
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_687" id="Page_687">[Pg 687]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;">
+<img src="images/707.png" width="380" height="600" alt="Book Advertisement for Enchanted Ground" title="" />
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_688" id="Page_688">[Pg 688]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 383px;">
+<img src="images/708.png" width="383" height="600" alt="Book Advertisement for Lewis Rand" title="" />
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_689" id="Page_689">[Pg 689]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 405px;">
+<img src="images/709.png" width="405" height="600" alt="Book Advertisement for The Siege of the Seven Suitors" title="" />
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_690" id="Page_690">[Pg 690]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 393px;">
+<img src="images/710.png" width="393" height="600" alt="Book Advertisement for Human Bullets" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Long Roll, by Mary Johnston
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,28176 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Long Roll, by Mary Johnston
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Long Roll
+
+Author: Mary Johnston
+
+Release Date: July 13, 2007 [EBook #22066]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONG ROLL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+By Mary Johnston
+
+
+THE LONG ROLL. The first of two books dealing with the war between the
+States. With Illustrations in color by N. C. WYETH.
+
+LEWIS RAND. With Illustrations in color by F. C. YOHN.
+
+AUDREY. With Illustrations in color by F. C. YOHN.
+
+PRISONERS OF HOPE. With Frontispiece.
+
+TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. With 8 Illustrations by HOWARD PYLE, E. B.
+THOMPSON, A. W. BETTS, and EMLEN MCCONNELL.
+
+THE GODDESS OF REASON. _A Drama._
+
+
+  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+
+
+[Illustration: STONEWALL JACKSON]
+
+
+
+THE LONG ROLL
+
+BY MARY JOHNSTON
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+BY N. C. WYETH
+
+
+[Illustration: publishers icon]
+
+
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK:
+
+THE RIVERSIDE PRESS CAMBRIDGE
+
+1911
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY MARY JOHNSTON
+
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+_Published May 1911_
+
+
+
+To the Memory of
+
+JOHN WILLIAM JOHNSTON
+
+MAJOR OF ARTILLERY, C. S. A.
+
+AND OF
+
+JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON
+
+GENERAL, C. S. A.
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  I. THE BOTETOURT RESOLUTIONS
+
+  II. THE HILLTOP
+
+  III. THREE OAKS
+
+  IV. GREENWOOD
+
+  V. THUNDER RUN
+
+  VI. BY ASHBY'S GAP
+
+  VII. THE DOGS OF WAR
+
+  VIII. A CHRISTENING
+
+  IX. WINCHESTER
+
+  X. LIEUTENANT MCNEIL
+
+  XI. AS JOSEPH WAS A-WALKING
+
+  XII. "THE BATH AND ROMNEY TRIP"
+
+  XIII. FOOL TOM JACKSON
+
+  XIV. THE IRON-CLADS
+
+  XV. KERNSTOWN
+
+  XVI. RUDE'S HILL
+
+  XVII. CLEAVE AND JUDITH
+
+  XVIII. MCDOWELL
+
+  XIX. THE FLOWERING WOOD
+
+  XX. FRONT ROYAL
+
+  XXI. STEVEN DAGG
+
+  XXII. THE VALLEY PIKE
+
+  XXIII. MOTHER AND SON
+
+  XXIV. THE FOOT CAVALRY
+
+  XXV. ASHBY
+
+  XXVI. THE BRIDGE AT PORT REPUBLIC
+
+  XXVII. JUDITH AND STAFFORD
+
+  XXVIII. THE LONGEST WAY ROUND
+
+  XXIX. THE NINE-MILE ROAD
+
+  XXX. AT THE PRESIDENT'S
+
+  XXXI. THE FIRST OF THE SEVEN DAYS
+
+  XXXII. GAINES'S MILL
+
+  XXXIII. THE HEEL OF ACHILLES
+
+  XXXIV. THE RAILROAD GUN
+
+  XXXV. WHITE OAK SWAMP
+
+  XXXVI. MALVERN HILL
+
+  XXXVII. A WOMAN
+
+  XXXVIII. CEDAR RUN
+
+  XXXIX. THE FIELD OF MANASSAS
+
+  XL. A GUNNER OF PELHAM'S
+
+  XLI. THE TOLLGATE
+
+  XLII. SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 191
+
+  XLIII. SHARPSBURG
+
+  XLIV. BY THE OPEQUON
+
+  XLV. THE LONE TREE HILL
+
+  XLVI. FREDERICKSBURG
+
+  XLVII. THE WILDERNESS
+
+  XLVIII. THE RIVER
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  STONEWALL JACKSON       _Frontispiece_
+
+  THE LOVERS
+
+  THE BATTLE
+
+  THE VEDETTE
+
+From drawings by N. C. Wyeth.
+
+
+
+
+THE LONG ROLL
+
+
+
+
+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 value--whether 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 did--that 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 region--an 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-government--and it's inherent and
+inalienable!--We fought for it--when 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 nation--not 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 doctrine--bred in the
+bone--dyed in the weaving! Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Washington,
+Henry--further back yet, further back--back 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 mad--not 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 South_--an old storm centre!
+_Territorial Rights_--once 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 Race_--a 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 Party_--no 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 wrong--all 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
+thread--at the most we thought of it as a strong servant we had made
+between us, we thirteen artificers--a beautiful Talus to walk our coasts
+and cry 'All's well!' We thought so--by the gods, we think so yet! That
+_is_ our Union--the 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 Massachusetts--the years
+1803, 1811, and 1844 to the contrary--does regard herself as a county.
+Possibly Connecticut--for 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 counts--and 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 hero--worse 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 Texas--and 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 health--still 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 Kentucky--no better men in
+Homer, no better men! And there are others as soldierly--McClellan 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
+not--oh, we are not--ready to fight with each other! Brother against
+brother--comrade against comrade--friend against friend--to quarrel in
+the same tongue and to slay the man with whom you've faced a thousand
+dangers--no, 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 slow--go slow! The Right of the
+State--I grant it! I was bred in that doctrine, as were you all.
+Albemarle no whit behind Botetourt in that! The Botetourt
+Resolutions--amen 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 heard--as I
+know it will be heard--for 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 longing--having put on record what it thought of the present
+mischief and the makers of it--for 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 people--the people--the
+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 Conquest--not
+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 trade--passed 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
+wisdom--if 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 free--I'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 them--even 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 instance--never see one
+that he isn't laughing! And Tullius at Three Oaks,--_he'd_ say he
+couldn't possibly think of going--must 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 quarrel--not 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 him--that'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 Ridge--the Blue
+Ridge--and 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 river--the 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,
+Allan--to make one think--to 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.
+Only--only--before 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 often--as 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 Dandridge--Unity Dandridge."
+
+"I like him. It's like old wine and blue steel and a cavalier poet--that
+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
+all--he'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 army--Lee 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 be--whether
+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. Well--do you think she will give them?"
+
+Allan gave a short laugh. "No!"
+
+"That is what will happen. And then--and 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 beautiful--the three Greenwood Carys. But--Yes,
+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-light--enough
+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 him--"Richard!" 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
+spoke--many 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, peace--I 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 moment--Richard, 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 cousin--rather 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
+have--education, travel, wealth!--Why, Edward told me--and could I not
+see for myself? It was in the air of the place--not 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 sorry--sorry!"
+
+"I should never have gone to Greenwood last summer--never have spent
+there that unhappy week! Before that it was just a fancy--and 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 now--save those two--save 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
+late--since the summer--everything 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 Achilles--just 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 says--Old Jack says--that 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
+day--and Miriam, you should pray too--that 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 garden--you 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 destruction--and 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 by--and 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 die--and 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 Cary--Judith Cary--Judith Cary!_ He thought of Greenwood, of the
+garden there, of a week last summer, of Maury Stafford--Stafford 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 Cary--Judith Cary--Judith Cary._ He saw Stafford
+beside her--Stafford beside her--Stafford 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
+Cary--Judith 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 him--if she love
+him--" He determined that to-night at Lauderdale he would try to see her
+alone for a minute. He would find out--he must find out--if 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 him--a horseman, too, evidently riding beside
+it. Just ahead the road crossed a bridge--not 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 place--Judith in fur cap and cloak,
+her beautiful face just lit by the coach lamp. "It's not a message,
+Richard. I--I did not know that you were coming to Lauderdale to-night.
+Had I known it, I--Give 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 Cary--Judith Cary--There are other things in life
+than love--other things than love--other things than love.... Judith
+Cary--Judith 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
+his--dry 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 Jack--snow 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 expect--most likely hot shot, grape and canister with
+musketry fire thrown in--but 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 sometimes--though 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 poste_--in 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 kept--wait 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 Gazette_--_The Farmer's Magazine_--_The
+Literary Messenger_--My _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 Edward--one in young Beaufort Porcher's
+writing. Now we'll hear the Charleston version--probably 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 last--from
+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
+home--all 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 minds--the 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 sixteen--just like me."
+
+"Richard's a good brother."
+
+"She says that Richard has gone to Richmond--something 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. Stafford--and 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 it--Easter
+told me. And everybody thought that Judith was going to make him happy,
+only she doesn't seem to have done so--at 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 handsome--not like Edward, that
+is--only 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. Stafford--he 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 horse--like 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 silence--at opposite sides of the
+steps--nursing 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, no--it 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 now--and 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 thought--but 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. He--the North--demands 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 reserved--the 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 suffer--to 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 it--to
+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 druv--an' 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 you--one 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 over--it 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 hoped--the supply is dreadfully small--but 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 officers--and
+that's as pernicious a method of officering companies and regiments as
+can be imagined! 'They are volunteers, offering all--they 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 till--till 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 forgive--that tournament? You
+had both crowns, after all."
+
+"I do not know," said Judith, "what you mean."
+
+"Do you remember--do 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 question--I 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-night--Judith--"
+
+"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 me--a kindness she could afford. 'Do not go till morning--_dear
+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 war--the 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 forever--or 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 History--I'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
+school--no more school! And was father going--and 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 war--Well?"
+
+"'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
+men--all are gone. There is now but one party--_the 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-born--no, 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 Billy--I 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 ribbon--I'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 town--High 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
+smaller--but 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, and--and 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 again--thar'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 night--every 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-rate--though 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-masters--every 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 children--that 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 out--the 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 new--only 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 bright--he 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 coming--the uniforms--from
+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 buff--on 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 frontiersmen--whose lives had depended upon watchfulness--quickness
+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
+river--two 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 it--and 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 year--and 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. Gold--and 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
+events--no 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-servants--these
+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 Oaks--he 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
+asleep--he 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 sleep--even upon a
+sofa--the 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 swim--who
+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, heroes--adored, 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
+order--the order--the 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 arms--the 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 attached--the
+Rockbridge Artillery--occupied 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
+Confederacy--an 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 tree--an especially big tree--a 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 orders--down 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 said--in fact,
+they did say--that 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 dream--and 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 hot--"What'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 turnpike--and found its head turned toward the
+south! There was stupefaction, then tongues were loosed. "What's
+this--what's this, boys? Charlestown ain't in this direction. Old Joe's
+lost his bearings! Johnny Lemon, you go tell him so--go 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 do--maybe it's
+some roundabout way. Close up--close 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?
+Boys--boys--" The citizens, too, had their say. "Is Winchester to be
+left to Patterson? We've done our best by you--and you go marching
+away!" Several of the older women were weeping, the younger looked
+scornful. _Close up, men, close up--close 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 blanket--it was hot, hot,
+and every pound like ten! _To keep--to throw away? To keep--to 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 suit--a 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, men--close 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 passed--a 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 there--the 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 couriers--No! staff officers, the
+65th saw the gold lace--with some message or order from the commanding
+general, now well in advance with his guard of Black Horse. They were
+riding down the line--Old Jack was with them--the 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 hunt--it'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 gone--the other staff officers were gone--Old 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 in--fall 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 Winchester--but 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 in--fall 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 cars--ever 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
+cavalry--the latter having now come up--marched 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 artificial--these 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 slept--the 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 Run--on 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 scout--an 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
+Horse--I see them through the trees--gray slouch hats and no feathers in
+them! Infantry, too--more infantry than horse. Hampton, maybe--No, 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 you--I
+heard of you!"
+
+The other gave his smile, quick and magnetic. "And I of you, general.
+Magruder chanted your praises day and night--our 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
+wonder--I 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
+65th--yonder 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
+legend--this 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 got--and 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 pride--and, 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 revoir_--and 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 hot--they 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 you--that 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 home--ah, 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
+porches--Ah, 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 Run--and 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 right--that 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 gum--they'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 small--bundles 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
+ambulances--there seemed to be a table of planks on which the worst
+cases were laid--the 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 hilltop--froth and spume thrown from a
+great wave somewhere beyond that cover--men 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 cowards--cowards 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
+there--we've been in hell since daybreak--damned 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 bleeding--I saw him--but 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
+there--on the Mathews Hill--we 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 back--damned--blessed--if 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 battery--the
+Staunton Artillery--four smoothbore, brass six-pounders, guns, and
+caissons drawn by half the proper number of horses--the rest being
+killed--and 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 excuses--My 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 support--not a damned
+infantryman in sight for the last half hour! Alone down there by the
+Robinson House, and Ricketts and Griffin--Regulars 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 down--and 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 battery--no, 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 support--I 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 support--then 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
+house--the Henry House--in 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
+give--I will give--for 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 driven--we are overwhelmed! My God!
+only Evans and Bartow and I against the whole North and the Regulars! We
+are being pushed back--you must support.--In three minutes the battle
+will be upon this hill--Hunter and Heintzleman's divisions. They're hot
+and huzzaing--they think they've got us fast! They have, by God! if our
+troops don't come up!" He turned his horse. "But you'll support--we
+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 followed--another--then 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 ground--a 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 Ford--at 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'inters--here'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 firing--greatly to the
+excitement of Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New
+Orleans. The smoke slightly lifted. "What're they doing? They've got
+their horses--they'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 shells--shells
+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 regiments--Michigan
+and Minnesota this time--came up the hill. A grey-haired
+officer--Heintzleman--seated 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
+thirsty--oh, very, very thirsty! Time went in waves with hollows between
+of negation. A movement took hours--surely 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 din--we 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
+Hill--and 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 Carolina--each 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 be--_could 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 fiend--Munford--on the
+turnpike. Four hundred troopers between them? No! _Four thousand_--and
+each riding like the Headless Horseman with terror in his hand! There
+was Confederate infantry upon the turnpike--a couple of regiments, a
+legion, a battery--they 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. Centreville--Centreville
+first, and a little food--all the haversacks had been thrown
+away--but no stopping at Centreville! No! Beyond Centreville the
+Potomac--Washington--_home_! 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 column--they'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 Ford--to find no Miles or Richardson or
+Runyon for them to attack! It was a mistake and a confusion of identity.
+The crossing troops were Confederates--D. 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 we--heavy 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 kindred--we were all more or less
+akin--and 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 mild--it 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
+grey--of 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 myself--despite 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
+South--yes, 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 pleasure--and 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 place--dear 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 Will--Will 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 men--they'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 is--is--well, 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 other--all 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? Nothing--when 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 it--and 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 wall--without 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 again--Ah!"
+
+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 bewitched--and all by a stone wall in an
+old cadet cap!"
+
+Cleave laughed. "No, no! but it is, I think, apparent--You 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 Potomac--Maryland, 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 out--even 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 direction--and 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 books--the 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 canal--some 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 Hancock--say 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 force--perhaps
+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 division--perhaps fifteen thousand men--in 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 dam--Dam 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 sure--General 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 tents--long 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, sir_--the _It is due to my dignity, sir_--none 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 know--those 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 Wheeling--and
+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 now--Your 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 Pamunkey--and 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 picture--a 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 day--a storekeeper--a 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 Branch--the 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 of--of--of
+_masquerading_--and 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 successful--they
+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 troopers--nearly 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 subject--on 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
+cross--preparatory, say, to joining with General Kelly--Jackson 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 together--Very 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 Banks--a 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, Dun--Dandy!"
+
+"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 me--carried 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 France--and 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 England--where I haven't been of late years--and 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 live--and 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 talk--didn'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 Potomac--see, it's marked!
+Now, this man's from that locality."
+
+"H--m! 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, sir--The 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
+other--a Catholic priest--"
+
+"A Catholic--There 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 again--no light nor sound; again--only
+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 door--"Wait 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', gentlemen--or 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
+McNeill--or 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. H--m! 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--"
+
+"H--m!" 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 horse--not the
+black I rode yesterday--the 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 two--one 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 it--he 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 water--that'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, sir--a 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 shoulder--his 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. "Why--It 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 me--Regulars. 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
+interruption--not a long continued one, I trust--to 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 course--the 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 book--know it like I know my gun and dawg."--"Don't know any
+good of it--they-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
+did--but 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 wounded--the 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 wounded--he's sinking! No, by God, he ain't! Whar's the
+captain from Frederick! Thar he is--thar 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 pistols--it 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,
+Cuninghame--Colonel 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 morning--galloped 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 something--wish 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 Virginia--if
+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 somewhere--no 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. Breakfast--"at early
+dawn"--was 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 there--wherever "there" was--in 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 column--the 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 tortoises--but 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 humanity--to
+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 ice--and 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, men--close up--close 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
+past--but 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 summer--Greenwood and a quiet garden. That did not
+answer! Harassment, longing, sore desire, check and bitterness--unhappiness
+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 him--Yes, 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 up--close 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 it--I 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
+Resolutions_--hey, Richard! The world has moved since then! I wish
+Fincastle could see us now--or 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 flowers--we 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 madman--they 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 prettiest--and 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 voice--a
+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
+bath--apparently 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 man--not even a better born or educated man--than 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 corn--and 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 Bath--eight
+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 Loring--on 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 ahead--Bath 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 Jack--the men began with suddenness again to call him Old Jack--Old
+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-eyed--all 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, cigars--oh, 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
+scout--Allan Gold--brought 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 destination--Kelly'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 side--low 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 war--for
+one brief summer day! But ever since there was only marching, tenting,
+suffering, and fatigue--and fatigue--and 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 man--and he'll be
+good to Pluto. Pluto's almost worn out himself--he'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 war--and 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 again--a 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 comfortable--but 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 appeared--a 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 high--but 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 it--I wouldn't have a horse treated
+so! Just look at Flora--just 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. Rest--delicious 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 water--water 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
+vales--very 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 there--home, wife, child,
+mother--all 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 kitchen--but 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 sound--the
+artillery and the wagon train climbing Sleepy Creek Mountain. It was
+three o'clock in the afternoon--oh, 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,
+that--that--that--Richard 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 quarters--that'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 hats--Oh, Lord!"
+"Yes, and the clown--and 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 pedagogue--by God, he's the Falerian pedagogue who sold
+his pupils to the Romans! Oh, the lamb-like pupils, trooping after him
+through flowers and sunshine--straight 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 Hudibras--I 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 there--he 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!' Yaaah--Look 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 mad--our friend from Georgia, too--all 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 aide--a favourite with his general--had ventured to demur. "I
+don't think General Jackson likes me, sir. Would not some other--"
+Loring, the Old Blizzard of two years later--had 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 cower--by 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 coffee--worse 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 tyrant--a diseased mind--a
+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
+undoubtedly--the weight of the body being thrown forward--the 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 snow--two 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
+campaign--statements 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 deprecation--a 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! Well--I'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 graveyard--numberless 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 dog--a big, brown shepherd--lay 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 school--now 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 ye--and the fire go with ye--and 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 gone--only 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 forward--Press 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 snow--Kelly
+probably already at Cumberland, and Rosecrans beyond at
+Wheeling--hunger, cold, winter in the spurs of the Alleghenies, disease,
+stragglers, weariness, worn-out shoes, broken-down horses,
+disappointment, disillusion, a very, very strange commanding
+general--Suddenly 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 windows--four yards to a side--say 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 thoughtfully--"the 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
+counterpanes--no'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 get--and the armies--and 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?
+
+                    Knit--knit--knit--
+                    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 Fair--every 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 Roads--except 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 ships--and 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
+dream--no, not dream, see! I follow all the time--I follow with my mind
+the troops upon the march, and the ships on the sea. I do not hate the
+ships--they are beautiful, with the green waves about them and the
+sea-gulls with shining wings. And yet I wish that they would sink--down,
+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 lap--mammy 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 John--and
+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 Merrimac--You'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
+before--but 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
+Merrimac--though 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 you--dat'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 baby--Well,
+Julius, and how are you?"
+
+Within the parlour there were explanations, ejaculations, questions, and
+answers. "So short a furlough--when we have not seen you for almost a
+year! Never mind--of 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 mind--we'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 refugees--Fairfaxes
+and Fauntleroys. They've gone on to Richmond, and we're alone just now.
+We take turn about at the hospitals in Charlottesville--there are three
+hundred sick--and 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
+word--and 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 wait--Here's
+Julius with the wine! And your room's ready--fire 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 walls--with 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 River--infantry, 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
+fever--malarial--of 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 marshes--all 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
+places--marshes--with 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 Colorado--General Magruder, you know--gold 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 do--to 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 army--and 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 seamen--seamen at an emergency, anyhow!
+Anyhow, when it comes to an emergency Virginians and Louisianians are
+there to meet it--on sea or on land! Just now there is an emergency--the
+Virginia's got to have a crew. General Magruder, for all he's got only a
+small force with which to hold a long line--General 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 eighty--all 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, Edward--the Merrimac?"
+
+"It looks, Judith, like Hamlet's cloud. Sometimes there is an appearance
+of a barn with everything but the roof submerged--or 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
+another--and 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 up--and, 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 News--and the workmen
+rivetted the last plates--and smoke began to come out of the
+smokestack--and suddenly Commodore Buchanan, with his lieutenants behind
+him, appeared between us and the Merrimac--or 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 blue--blue and still. There were
+sea-gulls, I remember, flying overhead, screaming as they flew--and 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 Judith--Judith!"
+
+"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 went--the 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
+swarm--men 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
+Roads--ah, 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
+water--seventy 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 excitement--an excitement--an 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 Congress--very 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
+her--stand 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 lifted--and 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 rowboat--funny! 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 exploded--a 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 flying--the 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 eagerly--from 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 spirits--poor 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 shingle--and 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 scene--a _deus
+ex machina_, indeed, dropped from the clouds between us and our prey. In
+a moment we knew it for the Ericsson--the 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 guns--11-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 sure--there is no
+denying the drama of the Monitor's appearance--and 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
+Guilbert--the 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 Cumberland--we could only ram with the blunt prow. The Minnesota,
+as we passed, gave us all her broadside guns--a 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
+there--the dear and ugly warship, the first of the iron-clads--we 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
+Winchester--poor, 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 letters--they 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, 'Never--oh, 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
+misinformed--more than we thought--Shields 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
+music--the 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 daisy--jest as
+though we hadn't tramped them thirty-six miles from New Market since
+yesterday daybreak! My Lord! wish I had your staying qualities--_Au
+re-vo-ree!_"
+
+Stone fences bordered the pike. The infantry, moving in double column,
+climbed them and entered another strip of springtime woods. The
+artillery--McLaughlin's, Carpenter's, and Waters's batteries--found 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
+right--Shields'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 are--How many men have they got? Oh, about nine
+thousand.--There goes the artillery now--there 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 off--clean 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 enough--blue 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 Winchester--the 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 yet--and 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 yet--and 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 march--to march northward, back
+along the pike, back toward Winchester.
+
+He was cheered now as he rode quietly to and fro, forming his line of
+battle--Fulkerson'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! _Zoon--Zoon--Zoon!_ 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, men--toward 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 wall--hours
+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's--Sandy Pendleton it was said--leaped 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 general--Fulkerson 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 colour--the 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 quit--I 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, another--a spent ball coming from the
+hillside--struck 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 while--I 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 well--dear 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 shouts--a 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 road--they went by
+another; natives described the beauties of the village before which they
+were sure to break ranks--at 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 week--two 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 Valley--so 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
+proceedings--amazing enough to the professional soldier--put 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 obey--and 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
+lieutenant--and what was the use in changing, anyhow? Lieutenant Coffin
+was all right. Hadn't he been as brave as a lion at Kernstown--and any
+man is liable to lose his temper at times--and 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
+feast--special 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 bird--Listen to the mocking bird....
+       The mocking bird still singing o'er her grave.
+       Listen to the mocking bird--Listen 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 September--September--September,
+       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
+first--Sergeant 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 eat--or 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 com--commanding 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 novelty--a 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 novelty--what
+promises to be as old as the hills before we have done with it--what our
+grandchildren's grandchildren may sing with pride--what 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
+books--the 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 love--the 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 her--Mrs. 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 now--the one in grey and white! He's a son, you
+know, of Zachary--Old 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 patriot--and 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 Valley--fighting,
+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 understood--though 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! Now--now--It is like a wonderful home-coming ... and
+yet you are still there, above the mountains, beckoning, drawing--There
+and here, here in my arms!... Judith--What 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 Gordonsville--It would be sweet to stay!"
+
+"When will you come again?"
+
+"I do not know. There will be battles--many battles, perhaps--up 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-fires--"Lord 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
+woods--Virginian to the backbone. Trimble's got a fine lot--Georgians
+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 stallions--the 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
+Louisiana--Acadians I've heard them called--and 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 Parlavoos--name of
+their county, I reckon.--He's got Wheat's Battalion, too. Sorrow a bit
+of a Frenchman there--they'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 wait--Jim, 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, Major--Major 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 beauties--his 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, but--it'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 church--Presbyterian." 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 Valley--come
+east--cross 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 band--playing some Frenchy thing or
+other! Cavalry's over there--I know you've got Ashby, but Flournoy and
+Munford are right wicked, too!"
+
+"The--Virginia is with you, sir?"
+
+"Yes. Fine regiment. You know it?"
+
+"I know one of its officers--Major 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'll--I'll--I'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 hands--Cleave, 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.
+
+The--Virginia 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 information--or misinformation? Who was at the pains to
+persuade you--no 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 her--You are happy?"
+
+"Yes, I am happy."
+
+"She loves you--She 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 I--as you phrase it--lied 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 _Duty_--_Duty_--_Duty_--! 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
+threats--threatened 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 motion--was marching,
+nineteen thousand strong, up the Valley--had 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 back--was 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,
+commissary--van, 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 sound--D'ye reckon they're ghosts, sir?"
+
+"No. They're the Army of the Valley--There! 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
+Valley--damn it all! Train to Richmond by night, I reckon. We've left
+Fourth of July, Christmas, and New Year behind us--Banks 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
+up--no, 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 boy--Will. It was pretty to watch him at
+Kernstown--V. 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 know--he said that Mr. Rat wanted to know--all 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 responsible--it
+isn't in the least like his usual conduct! Old Jack backing away from
+cannons and such--quitting 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 another--saving always battle days. Riding
+with his steadfast grey-blue eyes level before him, he communed with
+himself or with Heaven--certainly 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 Ridge--you 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 land--Valley 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
+eend--Mebbe, 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 instance--he 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 cracker--Edward 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 way--never played any game, chess for instance. He said,
+'Not at all--which 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 now--besides 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 strained--poor
+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 capo_--stuck 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,
+Williams--all 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 fish--how
+wonderful a piece of His handiwork! I have always wished to see it--the
+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. Says--Here's Old Jack, boys! going to lead us himself back to
+Goshen! One cheer ain't enough--_three 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 melancholy--desperately 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 Jack--or Major-General T. J.
+Jackson--or 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 morning--no drill, and light
+camp duties--coffee, hot biscuits, good smoke--general Sunday
+atmosphere--bugler getting ready to sound "Church!"--regimental
+chaplains moving toward chosen groves--"Old 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 camp--Break camp!_
+
+The regiments, marching down to Meechum's Station, were of one mind.
+_Old Jack was losing his religion._ Manassas on Sunday--Kernstown on
+Sunday--forced marches on Sunday--Sunday 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.
+
+"2d--4th--5th--65th--Jerusalem! the whole brigade's going on this train!
+Another's coming right behind--why 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 road--nice 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 soldiers--part 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
+Richmond--Richmond 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
+shout--anyhow, 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
+mountains--Staunton 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 Valley--had 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
+gone--Ashby with him. There was not a Confederate vedette between the
+town and Banks at Harrisonburg--the latter was probably moving down the
+pike this very night, in the dark of the moon. Soldiers of Edward
+Johnson--tall Georgians and 44th Virginians--had 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. Banks--Fremont--Milroy--three
+armies, forty thousand men--all 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
+filled--chiefly 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
+Peninsula--at 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-morrow--Banks was coming down the turnpike--Fremont 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 vigour--"What's
+that? Train due?"--"No. Not due for an hour--always 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 cars--_cars with men atop_! They were all in grey--they were
+all yelling--the 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, shouting--no! 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 rider--watching 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 you--but 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 breakfast--and if the army passes
+I've got enough for one or two besides. Good-bye--God 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 one--one--"
+
+"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 progress--more 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
+arithmetic--"If 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 guardhouse--how many men are in Company A?"--"If"--this
+was Billy's--"if 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
+wanted--a 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
+hoeing--far 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' hoofs--a 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 stragglers--curse of this service--civilians 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, sir--I 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 Valley--by God, it's lovely!--and reinforce Jackson? Damn it,
+gentlemen, I'm a major-general on a seesaw! Richmond in danger--Valley
+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
+cook--and everything was good and savoury--and the trio was very hungry.
+Ewell had cigars, and smoked them like a Spaniard--generous, too--giving
+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 know--all the country was keen-set to know--eye-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 best--and 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 them--poor 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
+theirs--firing the forest! Everywhere a great murk with tongues of
+flame--smoke in nostril and eyes and the wind blowing fast. It looked
+like the end of the world. Old Jack--beg pardon, sir, General
+Jackson--General 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 trees--in one place a mile of
+them--and 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 say--you know him, Major Stafford--Major Cleave--I'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 them--but 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 drink--Well, 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
+there--the 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--
+
+Well--we 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 know--and 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-thewed--in 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 he--isn'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 up--if he's an officer--before 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 Romney--and 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 matter--rank 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 censures--not 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 tragic--a 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 you--and 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 it--Stonewall 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 lieutenant--"dear 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 across--rode across--I 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 opinion--following 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 Richmond--we 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 Lee--and if they are of the tenour I
+expect--you 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 courier--the 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 gather--and I do not wish to excite alarm
+  unnecessarily--I 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,
+sir--infantry--scattered 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!--Commence--Firing!_ 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 Fork--about
+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 village--Ewell was behind--Jackson 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
+noting--Stafford'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 Stafford--Maury Stafford! Cleave's hand
+struck the sun-warmed stone impatiently. He was not fond of deep
+unhappiness--no, 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 go--let 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
+battery--Atwell's--strongly posted and throwing canister from
+ten-pounder Parrotts--might have laughed had there not been--had 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 fields--the 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 earth--and 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, Buckton--was 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, sir--Ashby, I reckon, or the devil himself--on
+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 man--an
+officer--drew 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
+boxes--shoes as I am a Christian man!--And all the wall tents--like
+'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 it--they'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 regiment--the 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
+out--the 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 escape--or 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
+not--poor 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
+encouragement--soft 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
+nothing--at 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-sweet--fall 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 feverishness--if 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 night--if 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.
+One--two--three--six 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 him--anyhow, 't war not Sergeant Coffin--"
+
+"Is the infantry deploying?"
+
+"They air still in column--black as flies in the road. They air tearing
+down the fence, so they can get into the fields."
+
+"Look behind--toward the river."
+
+Billy obediently turned upon the branch. "We air coming on in five
+lines--like the bean patch at home. I love them Lou-is-iana Tigers!
+What's that?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"An awful cloud of dust--and a trumpet out of it! The First Maryland's
+getting out of the way--Now 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
+hoofs--a 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 horse--others 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 shock--then, 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 over--"sorry 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 Valley--never 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
+that--sh!--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 shoes--through 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 it--mere 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
+again--into 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 liquid--to 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 water--a 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 road--and 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 willows--yes,
+they are!--running cross field, through the blur! Whoever's toting the
+water bucket, get it ready!"
+
+The halt came--Jackson'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 him--voices 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, too--gentlemen 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 woman--she was hardly more than a girl--hesitated. 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
+Newtown--the 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 Steve--namely, 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, baby--bye, bye!"
+
+A hand tried the door. "What's the matter here? Open!"
+
+"It's locked, sir. Come round to the window--Bye, baby, bye!"
+
+The dismounted cavalryman--an officer--appeared 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 sorry--If 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 knew--and I just as innocent as her baby--she
+up and turned my own musket against me--"
+
+"Who locked the door?"
+
+"Why--why--"
+
+"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 pike--hung 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
+sorry--but 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 happened--there 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 crash--He 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 dream--like 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 not--only excitedly shouted each at the other--he
+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 guns--they've strung thousands of men
+behind stone fences--they'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
+behind--Here 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 hope--or 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 Bedford--Whoa, 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 leg--damn 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 men--all those three!" He began to cry, though
+noiselessly. "They hadn't ought to cut at me like that--shooting, 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 Reb--Hey, 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
+melee--Ashby jousting with Hatch's convoying cavalry--the Louisiana
+troops firing in a long battle line, from behind the stone fences--a
+horrible jam of wagons, overturned or overturning, panic-stricken mules,
+drivers raving out oaths, using mercilessly long, snaky, black
+whips--heat, 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 company--Company 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 Artillery--with Ashby, the darlint!"
+
+Ashby stopped before the stone house to the right. "There are men in
+here--officers 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 know--just thinks so. Thinks he heard a cry when the Yanks
+broke in--Ah!--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 Troy--the 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 distant--gallop 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 own--such 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 sardines--a comestible he had never seen
+before and did not like when he tasted it--and 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' impedimenta--knapsacks,
+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 them--a small man on a tall horse--indulged 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 fallen--fell this morning!
+Yes, it did! News certain. Rebellion's over and Jack Ketch's waiting for
+you--waiting 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
+battery--There 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 little--what 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
+had--all that could be obtained from the far corners of haversacks and
+all that, with abounding willingness, the neighbouring farmhouses could
+scrape together--but 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 dream--black 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 halt--a company deployed--the foe dispersed, streaming off into the
+darkness--the hurt laid to one side for the ambulances--_Column 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 sleep--to 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, men--if
+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 pike--there's the old ridge. Griffin
+tearing up his cards--and Griffin's dead at McDowell."
+
+"That was Fulkerson's wall--that 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 sleep--Kernstown
+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
+deserting--I 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 shoe--what 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 tired--hungry and thirsty--and my
+head swimming--I 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, too--sending 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 well--very 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 away--a 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 asleep--half 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 A--that 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 us--rolls
+and waffles and broiled chicken and poached eggs and coffee--and 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 war--talking 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 quick--and a lot of things don't grow at all.
+There goes the 4th--long 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 comrades--Sergeant Coffin was looking straight at him
+with his melancholy, bad-tempered eyes--he 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 clutched--his 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 wall--he 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 running--running 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
+burst--burst 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 wandered--not 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 cannon--three 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 sound--zzzz-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 narrow--too 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 any--tear somebody's shirt. Number 1! Number 2! Look out!
+look out--Give them hell. Good Heaven! here's Old Jack. General, we hope
+you'll go away from here! We'll stay it out--give 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 now--a 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 stay--Told 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 follow--to 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 through--Ewell 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 dead--and 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 that--and 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 Will"--Will, somewhere on the Martinsburg pike, battling
+in heat and dust, battling for the Confederacy, driving the foe out of
+Virginia, back across the Potomac--Will 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 anybody--for 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 together--the
+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 sang--oh, the most sentimental of
+ditties! Miriam had liked him very well--they had read together--"The
+Pilgrims of the Rhine"--Goldsmith--Bernardin de Saint Pierre. He had a
+trick of serenading--danced well. She put her cheek down to his hand.
+"My poor, poor boy! My poor, brave boy!"
+
+The lieutenant smiled at her--rather 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 two--riders 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 him--but
+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 course--our 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 away--said 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 nothing--I 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 repassing--the 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 morrow--the 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 service--a
+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 heart--only 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 Virginia--prisoners 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,
+Richard--the 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 forged--more 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
+generals--and, 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 need--yet he
+is earnest, disinterested, able, a patriot. And Congress does its
+best--is 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, Meminger--they are all good men. And
+the railroad men and the engineers and the chemists and the
+mechanics--all so wonderfully and pathetically ingenious, labouring day
+and night, working miracles without material, making bricks without
+straw. Arsenals, foundries, powder-mills, workshop, manufactories--all
+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 kind--a 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 ports--and
+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 him--and 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 you--and 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
+weeks--reason 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, sir--the usual thing--incidents 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 companies--every 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 me--not much, and spilt in a good cause. As you see, I am
+    writing with my left hand--the other arm's in a sling. The army's in
+    the highest spirits--South 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 Washington--Always 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
+    large--not 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
+grey--sixty-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 West--one hundred and ten thousand
+in blue, eighty thousand in grey, Halleck and Beauregard--listened 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 Jackson--the Anaconda
+Scheme--and 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,
+Arizona--at 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
+below--the 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
+news--Richmond fallen, fallen, fallen, the Confederacy vanquished, suing
+for peace--Richmond 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 pay--grind 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
+brigadiers--Taylor, Trimble, Elzey, Scott, and the Maryland Line. The
+old Army of the Valley came next in column--all 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
+salvers--the 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 breakfast--big 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
+minuet--reconnoissance 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's--his army's three miles over
+there in the woods. Old Dick's with General Taylor. Don't need your
+help, boys--thank you all the same! Fremont won't attack in force. Old
+Jack says so--sitting 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
+Taylor--tell 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
+plenty--dashes 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 breath--Stonewall 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. "No--we'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 Richmond--at 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 front--Wyndham, 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 night--probably longer. Nice for us
+all!"
+
+"It has been a remarkable campaign."
+
+"'Remarkable'! Tell you what it's like, Stafford. It's like
+1796--Napoleon'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 own--eh?"
+
+"Perhaps you are not altogether wrong. Such things happen sometimes."
+
+"Yes, they do. But I think it a pity! This war"--he jerked his head
+toward the environing night--"is 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 things--barring disease--which can so split the
+brain in two--send 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
+cavalry--Fremont'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 front--Ashby's men.
+
+The pickets had their tale to tell. "Burst out of the wood--the damned
+Briton again, sir, with his squadrons from New Jersey! Rode us
+down--John Ferrar killed--Gilbert captured--You can see from the hilltop
+there. They are forming for a charge. There's infantry behind--Blinker'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
+camped--Captain 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 far--Besides, 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 trumps--Damn 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, butterflies--large 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 Jersey--plenty of infantry--Pennsylvania
+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 coming--the 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 cortege--soldiers 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 65th--twenty 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 James"--"No, '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't--was 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 bridge--told you 'twas--Ain'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 Maydew--suck 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 was--and 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 you--sir."
+
+"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 sure--I 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 ahead--and 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
+well--and 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 powdered--and the man put me down
+and got up, and everybody else before the tavern got up--and 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
+horse--Little 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,
+gentlemen--the 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 departments--an 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-day--Sunday
+dinner--fresh 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 Boswell--Ah, 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 bugles--headquarters 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! Eh--what!"
+
+"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 it--I 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 charge--but
+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 goes--up 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 village--ordnance 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 up--damned creeping snails!"--"Yes, we
+could cross, but when we got to the other side, what then?--No, don't
+dare to burn the bridge--don'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 gun--Speak 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 ford--What's that off there?"
+
+"That" was a sharp sputter of musketry. "Firing! Who are they firing at?
+There aren't any rebels--we took them all prisoners--"
+
+"There's fighting, anyway--wagon 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 him--Jim Watts--even 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 town--to 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 town--they 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 together--Mathew 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 yourself--like a--like 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 along--I 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.
+_Fire--load, fire--load!_ 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 himself--_Fire, load--Fire, load--One, 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
+cheered--they cheered--when 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, Carter--Jack!
+Grown up and moved away. Judge Allen, sir!--Mr. Boyd!--would you just
+give a hand? Here I am, under Purgatory Mountain. Darling--take this
+thing away! Darling--Darling! Men!--Colonel Cleave!--Boys--boys--" 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 them--we'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 him--he 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 here--oh,
+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
+way--get 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 boys--Wait--I 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 town--futile 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 hurt--and 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 in--box 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. "God--this Thy
+servant! God--this 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 Lucy--of 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. No--we 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 now--I 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 Stafford--Captain Howard--Go 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 hill--a 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 on--if 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 growth--feeling breaks its
+banks--custom 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 Mountains--War 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 flocks--hear 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 self--yet 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 October--that day we rode to the old mill--I 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, Judith--I 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 happiness--before you wrote. I learned it from one
+nearly concerned. I--I--" 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 Gordonsville--under 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 love--at 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 one--I do not wish to be
+angry. If you choose we will talk like friends--like 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, Judith--I 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 still--the elm
+tops dreaming! And beyond that gold sky and the mountains all the
+fighting! Let us go through the graveyard. It is so still--and 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
+town--and 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 soul--If 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 Staunton--telegram to the
+colonel in Charlottesville. '_Big fighting at Port Republic. Jackson
+whipped Shields. Stonewall Brigade suffered heavily._'--No'm--That was
+all. We won't hear details till to-morrow.--My boy John's in the
+Stonewall, you know--but Lord! John always was a keerful fellow! I
+reckon he's safe enough--but 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--"
+
+"Molly--Molly--"
+
+"She did! You know how Edward looks when he's white-hot angry--still 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 Hate--North and
+South--and 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 miles--dark 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 took--the old charcoal kiln where the guns had been
+planted, the ground around, the side of the ravine--these made an ugly
+sight between eyelid and ball! So many dead horses!--eighty of them in
+one place--one 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 guessed--bothering
+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
+thin--nothing 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 batteries--gorgeous troops--Hood's Texans--thousands of
+Georgians--all 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 yet--but
+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 he--the
+deserter--being 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
+Division--it'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 South--they 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
+bloodshed--that 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 right--if he wins through I'll applaud, too--but, 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 Washington--sixty 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 day--twenty-five--even 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
+hilltops--that 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 prevailed--Heaven knows how or why--that
+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 see--no, 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 be--it 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't--O 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
+joke--and I was just fooling. Of course, sir, I don't mean that it has
+gotten to be a joke--only 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, why--why--why 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 in--only 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 horses--one 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 another--not 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 when--He 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 him--Richmond? No, 't wasn't Richmond. After Manassas,
+when I went to look for Hugh? Rappahannock? No, 't wasn't there.
+Lexington? Good God! That was Stonewall Jackson!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE NINE-MILE ROAD
+
+
+In the golden afternoon light of the twenty-third of June, the city of
+Richmond, forty thousand souls, lay, fevered enough, on her seven hills.
+Over her floated the stars and bars. In her streets rolled the drum.
+Here it beat quick and bright, marking the passage of some regiment from
+the defences east or south to the defences north. There it beat deep
+and slow, a muffled drum, a Dead March--some officer killed in a
+skirmish, or dying in a hospital, borne now to Hollywood. Elsewhere,
+quick and bright again, it meant Home Guards going to drill. From the
+outskirts of the town might be heard the cavalry bugles blowing,--from
+the Brook turnpike and the Deep Run turnpike, from Meadow Bridge road
+and Mechanicsville road, from Nine-Mile and Darbytown and Williamsburg
+stage roads and Osborne's old turnpike, and across the river from the
+road to Fort Darling. From the hilltops, from the portico or the roof of
+the Capitol, might be seen the camp-fires of Lee's fifty thousand
+men--the Confederate Army of the Potomac, the Army of the Rappahannock,
+the Army of Norfolk, the Army of the Peninsula--four armies waiting for
+the arrival of the Army of the Valley to coalesce and become the Army of
+Northern Virginia. The curls of smoke went up, straight, white, and
+feathery. With a glass might be seen at various points the crimson flag,
+with the blue St. Andrew's cross and the stars, eleven stars, a star for
+each great State of the Confederacy. By the size you knew the arm--four
+feet square for infantry, three feet square for artillery, two and a
+half by two and a half for cavalry.
+
+The light lay warm on the Richmond houses--on mellow red brick, on pale
+grey stucco. It touched old ironwork balconies and ivy-topped walls, and
+it gilded the many sycamore trees, and lay in pools on the heavy leaves
+of the magnolias. Below the pillared Capitol, in the green up and down
+of the Capitol Square, in Main Street, in Grace Street by St. Paul's,
+before the Exchange, the Ballard House, the Spotswood, on Shockoe Hill
+by the President's House, through all the leafy streets there was vivid
+movement. In this time and place Life was so near to Death; the ocean of
+pain and ruin so evidently beat against its shores, that from very
+contrast and threatened doom Life took a higher light, a deeper
+splendour. All its notes resounded, nor did it easily relinquish the
+major key.
+
+In the town were many hospitals. These were being cleaned, aired, and
+put in order against the impending battles. The wounded in them now,
+chiefly men from the field of Seven Pines, looked on and hoped for the
+best. Taking them by and large, the wounded were a cheerful set. Many
+could sit by the windows, in the perfumed air, and watch the women of
+the South, in their soft, full gowns, going about their country's
+business. Many of the gowns were black.
+
+About the hotels, the President's House, the governor's mansion, and the
+Capitol, the movement was of the official world. Here were handsome men
+in broadcloth, grown somewhat thin, somewhat rusty, but carefully
+preserved and brushed. Some were of the old school and still affected
+stocks and ruffled shirts. As a rule they were slender and tall, and as
+a rule wore their hair a little long. Many were good Latinists, most
+were good speakers. One and all they served their states as best they
+knew how, overworked and anxious, facing privation here in Richmond with
+the knowledge that things were going badly at home, sitting long hours
+in Congress, in the Hall of Delegates, in courts or offices, struggling
+there with Herculean difficulties, rising to go out and listen to
+telegrams or to read bulletins. Sons, brothers, kinsmen, and friends
+were in the field.
+
+This golden afternoon, certain of the latter had ridden in from the
+lines upon this or that business connected with their commands. They
+were not many, for all the world knew there would be a deadly fighting
+presently, deadly and prolonged. Men and officers must stay within
+drum-beat. Those who were for an hour in Richmond, in their worn grey
+uniforms, with the gold lace grown tarnished (impossible of
+replacement!), with their swords not tarnished, their netted silk
+sashes, their clear bright eyes and keen thin faces, found friends
+enough as they went to and fro--more eager questioners and eager
+listeners than they could well attend to. One, a general officer, a man
+of twenty-nine, in a hat with a long black plume, with the most charming
+blue eyes, and a long bronze, silky, rippling beard which he constantly
+stroked, could hardly move for the throng about him. Finally, in the
+Capitol Square, he backed his horse against the railing about the great
+equestrian Washington. The horse, a noble animal, arched his neck. There
+was around it a wreath of bright flowers. The rider spoke in an
+enchanting voice. "Now if I tell you in three words how it was and what
+we did, will you let me go? I've got to ride this afternoon to Yellow
+Tavern."
+
+"Yes, yes! Tell us, General Stuart."
+
+"My dear people, it was the simplest thing in the world! A man in the
+First has made a song about it, and Sweeney has set it to the banjo--if
+you'll come out to the camp after the battle you shall hear it! General
+Lee wanted to know certain things about the country behind McClellan.
+Now the only way to know a thing is to go and look at it. He ordered a
+reconnoissance in force. I took twelve hundred cavalrymen and two guns
+of the horse artillery and made the reconnoissance. Is there anything
+else that you want to know?"
+
+"Be good, general, and tell us what you did."
+
+"I am always good--just born so! I rode round McClellan's army--Don't
+cheer like that! The town'll think it's Jackson, come from the Valley!"
+
+"Tell us, general, how you did it!"
+
+"Gentlemen, I haven't time. If you like, I'll repeat the man in the
+First's verses, and then I'm going. You'll excuse the metre? A poor,
+rough, unlearned cavalryman did it.
+
+        "Fitz Lee, Roony Lee, Breathed and Stuart,
+          Martin to help, and Heros von Borcke,
+        First Virginia, Fourth, Ninth, two guns and a Legion--
+          From Hungary Run to Laurel Hill Fork,
+
+        "By Ashland, Winston, Hanover, Cash Corner,
+          Enon Church, Salem Church, Totopotomoy, Old Church,
+
+"You observe that we are trotting.
+
+        "By Hamstead, Garlick, Tunstall Station, Talleyville,
+          Forge Mill, Chickahominy, Sycamore, White Birch.
+
+"Here we change gait.
+
+        "By Hopewell and Christian, Wilcox and Westover,
+          Turkey Bridge, Malvern Hill, Deep Bottom and Balls
+        Four days, forty leagues, we rode round McClellan
+          As Jeremiah paced round Jericho's walls.--"
+
+"It wasn't Jeremiah, general! It was Joshua."
+
+"Is that so? I'll tell Sweeney. Anyhow, the walls fell.
+
+        "Halt! Advance! Firing! Engagement at Hanover.
+          Skirmish at Taliaferro's. Skirmish at Hawes.
+        Tragic was Totopotomoy, for there we lost Latane
+          Hampden-like, noble, dead for his Cause.
+
+        "At Old Church broke up meeting. Faith! 'twas a pity
+          But indigo azure was pulpit and pew!
+        Fitz Lee did the job. Sent his love to Fitz Porter.
+          Good Lord! Of Mac's Army the noble review!
+
+"There isn't anything our horses can't do.
+
+      "Tunstall Station was all bubbly white with wagons.
+        We fired those trains, those stores, those sheltering sheds!
+      And then we burned three transports on Pamunkey
+        And shook the troops at White House from their beds!
+
+      "Loud roars across our path the swollen Chickahominy
+        'Plunge in, Confeds! you were not born to drown.'
+      We danced past White Oak swamp, we danced past Fighting Joseph
+              Hooker!
+        We rode round McClellan from his sole to his crown!
+
+      "There are strange, strange folk who like the Infantry!
+      Men have been found to love Artillery.
+      McClellan's quoted thus 'In every family
+      There should exist a gunboat'--ah, but we,
+      Whom all arms else do heap with calumny,
+      Saying, 'Daily those damned centaurs put us up a tree!'
+      We insist upon the virtues of the Cavalry!
+
+"Now, friends, I'm going! It was a beautiful raid! I always liked Little
+Mac. He's a gentleman, and he's got a fine army. Except for poor Latane
+we did not lose a man. But I left a general behind me."
+
+"A general? General who--"
+
+Stuart gave his golden laugh. "General Consternation."
+
+The sun slipped lower. Two horsemen came in by the Deep Run road and
+passed rapidly eastward through the town. The afternoon was warm, but
+the foremost wore a great horseman's cloak. It made all outlines
+indefinite and hid any insignia of rank. There was a hat or cap, too,
+pulled low. It was dusty; he rode fast and in a cloud, and there came no
+recognition. Out of the town, on the Nine-Mile road, he showed the
+officer of the guard who stopped him a pass signed "R. E. Lee" and
+entered the Confederate lines. "General Lee's headquarters?" They were
+pointed out, an old house shaded by oaks. He rode hither, gave his horse
+to the courier with him, and spoke to the aide who appeared. "Tell
+General Lee, some one from the Valley."
+
+The aide shot a quick glance, then opened a door to the left. "General
+Lee will be at leisure presently. Will you wait here, sir?"
+
+He from the Valley entered. It was a large, simply furnished room, with
+steel engravings on the walls,--the 1619 House of Burgesses, Spotswood
+on the Crest of the Blue Ridge with his Golden Horseshoe Knights,
+Patrick Henry in Old St. John's, Jefferson writing the Declaration of
+Independence, Washington receiving the Sword of Cornwallis. The windows
+were open to the afternoon breeze and the birds were singing in a
+rosebush outside. There were three men in the room. One having a large
+frame and a somewhat heavy face kept the chair beside the table with a
+kind of granite and stubborn air. He rested like a boulder on a mountain
+slope; marked with old scars, only waiting to be set in motion again to
+grind matters small. The second man, younger, slender, with a short red
+beard, leaned against the window, smelled the roses, and listened to the
+birds. The third, a man of forty, with a gentle manner and very honest
+and kindly eyes, studied the engravings. All three wore the stars of
+major-generals.
+
+The man from the Valley, entering, dropped his cloak and showed the same
+insignia. D. H. Hill, leaving the engravings, came forward and took him
+by both hands. The two had married sisters; moreover each was possessed
+of fiery religious convictions; and Hill, though without the genius of
+the other, was a cool, intelligent, and determined fighter. The two had
+not met since Jackson's fame had come upon him.
+
+It clothed him now like a mantle. The man sitting by the table got
+ponderously to his feet; the one by the window left the contemplation of
+the rosebush. "You know one another by name only, I believe, gentlemen?"
+said D. H. Hill. "General Jackson--General Longstreet, General Ambrose
+Powell Hill."
+
+The four sat down, Jackson resting his sabre across his knees. He had
+upon him the dust of three counties; he was all one neutral hue like a
+faded leaf, save that his eyes showed through, grey-blue, intense
+enough, though quiet. He was worn to spareness.
+
+Longstreet spoke in his heavy voice. "Well, general, Fate is making of
+your Valley the Flanders of this war."
+
+"God made it a highway, sir. We must take it as we find it."
+
+"Well," said A. P. Hill, smiling, "since we have a Marlborough for that
+Flanders--"
+
+Jackson shifted the sabre a little. "Marlborough is not my _beau ideal_.
+He had circumstances too much with him."
+
+An inner door opened. "The artillery near Cold Harbour--" said a voice,
+cadenced and manly. In a moment Lee entered. The four rose. He went
+straight to Stonewall Jackson, laid one hand on his shoulder, the other
+on his breast. The two had met, perhaps, in Mexico; not since. Now they
+looked each other in the eyes. Both were tall men, though Lee was the
+tallest; both in grey, both thin from the fatigue of the field. Here the
+resemblance ended. Lee was a model of manly beauty. His form, like his
+character, was justly proportioned; he had a great head, grandly based,
+a face of noble sweetness, a step light and dauntless. There breathed
+about him something knightly, something kingly, an antique glamour,
+sunny shreds of the Golden Age. "You are welcome, General Jackson," he
+said; "very welcome! You left Frederickshall--?"
+
+"Last night, sir."
+
+"The army is there?"
+
+"It is there, sir."
+
+"You have become a name to conjure with, general! I think that your
+Valley will never forget you." He took a chair beside the table. "Sit
+down, gentlemen. I have called this council, and now the sun is sinking
+and General Jackson has far to ride, and we must hasten. Here are the
+maps."
+
+The major-generals drew about the table. Lee pinned down a map with the
+small objects upon the board, then leaned back in his chair. "This is
+our first council with General Jackson. We wait but for the Army of the
+Valley to precipitate certainly one great battle, perhaps many battles.
+I think that the fighting about Richmond will be heavier than all that
+has gone before." An aide entered noiselessly with a paper in his hand.
+"From the President, sir," he said. Lee rose and took the note to the
+window. The four at table spoke together in low tones.
+
+"It is the most difficult ground in the world," said A. P. Hill. "You'll
+have another guess-time of it than in your Valley, general! No broad
+pike through the marshes of the Chickahominy!"
+
+"Are there good maps?"
+
+"No," said Longstreet; "damned bad."
+
+Jackson stiffened. D. H. Hill came in hastily. "It's rather difficult to
+draw them accurately with a hundred and ten thousand Yankees lying
+around loose. They should have been made last year."
+
+Lee returned. "Yes, the next ten days will write a page in blood." He
+sighed. "I do not like war, gentlemen. Now, to begin again! We are
+agreed that to defend Richmond is imperative. When Richmond falls the
+Confederacy falls. It is our capital and seat of government. Here only
+have we railroad communications with the far South. Here are our
+arsenals and military manufactories, our depots of supply, our treasury,
+our hospitals, our refugee women and children. The place is our heart,
+and arm and brain must guard it. Leave Richmond and we must withdraw
+from Virginia. Abandon Virginia, and we can on our part no longer
+threaten the northern capital. Then General Jackson cannot create a
+panic every other day, nor will Stanton then withdraw on every fresh
+alarm a division from McClellan."
+
+He leaned his head on his hand, while with the firm fingers of the other
+he measured the edge of the table. "No! It is the game of the two
+capitals, and the board is the stretch of country between. To the end
+they will attempt to reach Richmond. To the end we must prevent that
+mate. Let us see their possible roads. Last year McDowell tried it by
+Manassas, and he failed. It is a strategic point,--Manassas. There may
+well be fighting there again. The road by Fredericksburg ... they have
+not tried that yet, and yet it has a value. Now the road that McClellan
+has taken,--by sea to Fortress Monroe, and so here before us by the
+York, seeing that the Merrimac kept him from the James. It is the best
+way yet, though with a modification it would be better! There is a key
+position which I trust he'll not discover--"
+
+"He won't," said D. H. Hill succinctly. "The fairies at his cradle
+didn't give him intuition, and they made him extremely cautious. He's a
+good fellow, though!"
+
+Lee nodded. "I have very genuine respect for General McClellan. He is a
+gentleman, a gallant soldier, and a good general." He pushed the map
+before him away, and took another. "Of late Richmond's strongest defence
+has been General Jackson in the Valley. Well! McDowell and Fremont and
+Banks may be left awhile to guard that capital which is so very certain
+it is in danger. I propose now to bring General Jackson suddenly upon
+McClellan's right--"
+
+Jackson, who had been holding himself with the rigidity of a warrior on
+a tomb, slightly shifted the sabre and drew his chair an inch nearer the
+commander-in-chief. "His right is on the north bank of the
+Chickahominy--"
+
+"Yes. General Stuart brought me much information that I desired. Fitz
+John Porter commands there--the 5th Army Corps--twenty-five thousand
+men. I propose, general, that you bring your troops as rapidly as
+possible from Frederickshall to Ashland, that from Ashland you march by
+the Ashcake road and Merry Oaks Church to the Totopotomoy Creek road and
+that, moving by this to Beaver Dam Creek, you proceed to turn and
+dislodge Porter and his twenty-five thousand, crumpling them back upon
+McClellan's centre--here." He pointed with a quill which he took from
+the ink-well.
+
+"Good! good! And the frontal attack?"
+
+"General A. P. Hill and his division will make that. The batteries on
+the Chickahominy will cover his passage of the bridge. General
+Longstreet will support him. General Magruder with General Huger and the
+reserve artillery will be left before Richmond. They will so demonstrate
+as to distract General McClellan's attention from the city and from his
+right and General Porter. General Stuart will take position on your line
+of march from Ashland, and General D. H. Hill will support you."
+
+"Good! good! This is the afternoon of the twenty-third."
+
+"Yes. Frederickshall is forty miles from this point--" He touched the
+map again. "Now, general, when can you be here?"
+
+"Thursday morning, the twenty-sixth, sir."
+
+"That is very soon."
+
+"Time is everything in war, sir."
+
+"That is perfectly true. But the time is short and the manoeuvre
+delicate. You and your troops are at the close of a campaign as arduous
+as it is amazing. The fatigue and the strain must be great. You and
+General Hill are far apart and the country between is rough and
+unmapped. Yet victory depends on the simultaneous blow."
+
+Jackson sat rigid again, his hand stiffly placed upon the sabre. "It is
+not given to man to say with positiveness what he can do, sir. But it
+is necessary that this right be turned before McClellan is aware of his
+danger. Each day makes it more difficult to conceal the absence of my
+army from the Valley. Between the danger of forced marching and the
+obvious danger that lies in delay, I should choose the forced marching.
+Better lose one man in marching than five in a battle not of our
+selecting. A straw may bring failure as a straw may bring victory. I may
+fail, but the risk should be taken. Napoleon failed at Eylau, but his
+plan was correct."
+
+"Very well," said Lee. "Then the morning of the twenty-sixth be it!
+Final orders shall await you at Ashland."
+
+Jackson rose. "Good! good! By now my horses will have been changed. I
+will get back. The army was to advance this morning to Beaver Dam
+Station."
+
+He rode hard through the country all night, it being the second he had
+spent in the saddle. Beaver Dam Station and the bivouacking Army of the
+Valley saw him on Tuesday morning the twenty-fourth. "Old Jack's back
+from wherever he's been!" went the rumour. Headquarters was established
+in a hut or two near the ruined railroad. Arriving here, he summoned his
+staff and sent for Ewell. While the former gathered he read a report,
+forwarded from Munford in the rear. "Scout Gold and Jarrow in from the
+Valley. Fremont still fortifying at Strasburg--thinks you may be at
+Front Royal. Shields at Luray considers that you may have gone to
+Richmond, but that Ewell remains in the Valley with forty thousand men.
+Banks at Winchester thinks you may have gone against Shields at Luray,
+or King at Catlett's, or Doubleday at Fredericksburg, or gone to
+Richmond--but that Ewell is moving west on Moorefield!"
+
+"Good! good!" said Jackson. Staff arrived, and he proceeded to issue
+rapid and precise orders. All given, staff hurried off, and the general
+spoke to Jim. "Call me when General Ewell comes." He stretched himself
+on a bench in the hut. "I am suffering," he said, "from fever and a
+feeling of debility." He drew his cloak about him and closed his eyes.
+It was but half an hour, however, that he slept or did not sleep, for
+Ewell was fiery prompt.
+
+The Army of the Valley entered upon a forced march through country both
+difficult and strange. It had been of late in the possession of the
+enemy, and the enemy had stretched felled trees across forest roads and
+burned the bridges spanning deep and sluggish creeks. Guides were at
+fault, cross-roads directions most uncertain. The wood grew intolerably
+thick, and the dust of the roads was atrocious; the air cut away by the
+tall green walls on either hand; the sun like a furnace seven times
+heated. Provisions had not come up in time at Beaver Dam Station and the
+troops marched upon half-rations. Gone were the mountains and the
+mountain air, present was the languorous breath of the low country. It
+had an upas quality, dulling the brain, retarding the step. The men were
+very tired, it was hot, and a low fever hung in the air.
+
+They marched until late of a night without a moon, and the bugles waked
+them long ere dawn. A mist hung over all the levels, presaging heat.
+_Column Forward!_ To-day was a repetition of yesterday, only accented.
+The sun girded himself with greater strength, the dust grew more
+stifling, the water was bad, gnats and mosquitoes made a painful cloud,
+the feet in the ragged shoes were more stiff, more swollen, more
+abraded. The moisture in the atmosphere weakened like a vapour bath. The
+entire army, "foot cavalry" and all, marched with a dreadful slowness.
+_Press Forward--Press Forward--Press Forward--Press Forward!_ It grew to
+be like the humming insects on either hand, a mere noise to be expected.
+"Going to Richmond--Going to Richmond--Yes, of course we're going to
+Richmond--unless, indeed, we're going a roundabout way against McDowell
+at Fredericksburg! Richmond will keep. It has kept a long time--ever
+since William Byrd founded it. General Lee is there--and so it is all
+right--and we can't go any faster. War isn't all it's cracked up to be.
+Oh, hot, hot, hot! and skeetery! and General Humidity lives down this
+way. _Press Forward--Press Forward--Press Forward. If that noise don't
+stop I'll up with my musket butt and beat somebody's brains out!_"
+
+Ashland was not reached until the late evening of this day. The men fell
+upon the earth. Even under the bronze there could be seen dark circles
+under their eyes, and their lips were without colour. Jackson rode along
+the lines and looked. There were circles beneath his own eyes, and his
+lips shut thin and grey. "Let them rest," he said imperturbably, "until
+dawn." There rode beside him an officer from Lee. He had now the
+latter's General Order, and he was almost a day behind.
+
+Somewhat later, in the house which he occupied, his chief of staff,
+Ewell and the brigadiers gone, the old man, Jim, appeared before him.
+"Des you lis'en ter me er minute, gineral! Ob my sartain circumspection
+I knows you didn't go ter bed las' night--nurr de night befo'--nurr de
+night befo' dat--'n' I don' see no preperation for yo' gwine ter bed
+dish-yer night! Now, dat ain' right. W'at Miss Anna gwine say w'en she
+heah erbout hit? She gwine say you 'stress her too much. She gwine say
+you'll git dar quicker, 'n' fight de battle better, ef you lie down
+erwhile 'n' let Jim bring you somethin' ter eat--"
+
+"I have eaten. I am going to walk in the garden for awhile."
+
+He went, all in bronze, with a blue gleam in his eye. Jim looked after
+him with a troubled countenance. "Gwine talk wif de Lawd--talk all night
+long! Hit ain' healthy. Pray an' pray 'n' look up ter de sky 'twel he
+gits paralysis! De gineral better le' me tek his boots off, 'n' go ter
+bed 'n' dream ob Miss Anna!"
+
+At three the bugles blew. Again there was incalculable delay. The sun
+was up ere the Army of the Valley left Ashland. It was marching now in
+double column, Jackson by the Ashcake road and Merry Oaks Church, Ewell
+striking across country, the rendezvous Pole Green Church, a little
+north and east of Mechanicsville and the Federal right. The distance
+that each must travel was something like sixteen miles.
+
+The spell of yesterday persisted and became the spell of to-day. Sixteen
+miles would have been nothing in the Valley; in these green and glamoury
+lowlands they became like fifty. Stuart's cavalry began to appear,
+patrols here, patrols there, vedettes rising stark from the broom sedge,
+or looming double, horsemen and shadow, above and within some piece of
+water, dark, still, and clear. Time was when the Army of the Valley
+would have been curious and excited enough over Jeb Stuart's troopers,
+but now it regarded them indifferently with eyes glazed with fatigue. At
+nine the army crossed the ruined line of the Virginia Central, Hood's
+Texans leading. An hour later it turned southward, Stuart on the long
+column's left flank, screening it from observation, and skirmishing
+hotly through the hours that ensued. The army crossed Crump's Creek,
+passed Taliaferro's Mill, crossed other creeks, crept southward through
+hot, thick woods. Mid-day came and passed. The head of the column turned
+east, and came shortly to a cross-roads. Here, awaiting it, was Stuart
+himself, in his fighting jacket. Jackson drew up Little Sorrel beside
+him. "Good-morning, general."
+
+"Good-morning, general--or rather, good-afternoon. I had hoped to see
+you many hours ago."
+
+"My men are not superhuman, sir. There have occurred delays. But God is
+over us still."
+
+He rode on. Stuart, looking after him, raised his brows. "In my opinion
+A. P. Hill is waiting for a man in a trance!"
+
+The army turned southward again, marching now toward Totopotomoy Creek,
+the head of the column approaching it at three o'clock. Smoke before the
+men, thick, pungent, told a tale to which they were used. "Bridge on
+fire!" It was, and on the far side of the creek appeared a party in blue
+engaged in obstructing the road. Hood's Texans gave a faint cheer and
+dashed across, disappearing in flame, emerging from it and falling upon
+the blue working party. Reilly's battery was brought up; a shell or two
+fired. The blue left the field, and the grey pioneers somehow fought the
+flames and rebuilt the bridge. An hour was gone before the advance could
+cross on a trembling structure. Over at last, the troops went on,
+southward still, to Hundley Corner. Here Ewell's division joined them,
+and here to the vague surprise of an exhausted army came the order to
+halt. The Army of the Valley went into bivouac three miles north of that
+right which, hours before, it was to have turned. It was near sunset. As
+the troops stacked arms, to the south of them, on the other side of
+Beaver Dam Creek, burst out an appalling cannonade. Trimble, a veteran
+warrior, was near Jackson. "That has the sound of a general engagement,
+sir! Shall we advance?"
+
+Jackson looked at him with a curious serenity. "It is the batteries on
+the Chickahominy covering General Hill's passage of the stream. He will
+bivouac over there, and to-morrow will see the battle--Have you ever
+given much attention, general, to the subject of growth in grace?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+AT THE PRESIDENT'S
+
+
+A large warehouse on Main Street in Richmond had been converted into a
+hospital. Conveniently situated, it had received many of the more
+desperately wounded from Williamsburg and Seven Pines and from the
+skirmishes about the Chickahominy and up and down the Peninsula. Typhoid
+and malarial cases, sent in from the lines, were also here in
+abundance. To a great extent, as June wore on, the wounded from
+Williamsburg and Seven Pines had died and been buried, or recovered and
+returned to their regiments, or, in case of amputations, been carried
+away after awhile by their relatives. Typhoid and malaria could hardly
+be said to decrease, but yet, two days before the battle of
+Mechanicsville, the warehouse seemed, comparatively speaking, a cool and
+empty place.
+
+It was being prepared against the battles for which the beleaguered city
+waited--waited heartsick and aghast or lifted and fevered, as the case
+might be. On the whole, the tragic mask was not worn; the city
+determinedly smiled. The three floors of the warehouse, roughly divided
+into wards, smelled of strong soap and water and home-made
+disinfectants. The windows were wide; swish, swish! went the mops upon
+the floors. A soldier, with his bandaged leg stretched on a chair before
+him, took to scolding: "Women certainly are funny! What's the sense of
+wiping down walls and letting James River run over the floors? Might be
+some sense in doing it _after_ the battle! Here, Sukey, don't splash
+that water this a-way!--Won't keep the blood from the floor when they
+all come piling in here to-morrow, and makes all of us damned
+uncomfortable to-day!--Beg your pardon, Mrs. Randolph! Didn't see you,
+ma'am.--Yes, I should like a game of checkers--if we can find an island
+to play on!"
+
+The day wore on in the hospital. Floors and walls were all scrubbed,
+window-panes glistening, a Sunday freshness everywhere. The men agreed
+that housecleaning was all right--after it was over. The remnant of the
+wounded occupied the lower floor; typhoid, malaria, and other ills were
+upstairs. Stores were being brought in, packages of clothing and lint
+received at the door. A favorite surgeon made his rounds. He was cool
+and jaunty, his hands in his pockets, a rose in his buttonhole. "What
+are you malingerers doing here, anyhow? You're eating your white bread,
+with honey on it--you are! Propped up and walking around--Mrs. McGuire
+reading to you--Mrs. Randolph smilingly letting you beat her at her own
+game--Miss Cooper writing beautiful letters for you--Miss Cary leaving
+really ill people upstairs just because one of you is an Albemarle man
+and might recognize a home face! Well! eat the whole slice up to-day,
+honey and all! for most of you are going home to-morrow. Yes, yes!
+you're well enough--and we want all the room we can get."
+
+He went on, Judith Cary with him. "Whew! we must be going to have a
+fight!" said the men. "Bigger'n Seven Pines."
+
+"Seven Pines was big enough!"
+
+"That was what I thought--facing Casey's guns!--Your move, Mrs.
+Randolph."
+
+The surgeon and nurse went on through cool, almost empty spaces. "This
+is going," said the surgeon crisply, "to be an awful big war. I
+shouldn't be surprised if it makes a Napoleonic thunder down the
+ages--becomes a mighty legend like Greece and Troy! And, do you know,
+Miss Cary, the keystone of the arch, as far as we are concerned, is a
+composition of three,--the armies in the field, the women of the South,
+and the servants."
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"I mean that the conduct of the negroes everywhere is an everlasting
+refutation of much of the bitter stuff which is said by the other side.
+This war would crumble like that, if, with all the white men gone, there
+were on the plantations faithlessness to trust, hatred, violence,
+outrage--if there were among us, in Virginia alone, half a million
+incendiaries! There aren't, thank God! Instead we owe a great debt of
+gratitude to a dark foster-brother. The world knows pretty well what are
+the armies in the field. But for the women, Miss Cary, I doubt if the
+world knows that the women keep plantations, servants, armies, and
+Confederacy going!"
+
+"I think," said Judith, "that the surgeons should have a noble statue."
+
+"Even if we do cut off limbs that might have been saved--hey? God knows,
+they often might! and that there's haste and waste enough!--Here's Sam,
+bringing in a visitor. A general, too--looks like a Titian I saw once."
+
+"It is my father," said Judith. "He told me he would come for me."
+
+A little later, father and daughter, moving through the ward, found the
+man from Albemarle--not one of those who would go away to-morrow. He lay
+gaunt and shattered, with strained eyes and fingers picking at the
+sheet. "Don't you know me, Mocket?"
+
+Mocket roused himself for one moment. "Course I know you, general! Crops
+mighty fine this year! Never saw such wheat!" The light sank in his
+eyes; his face grew as it was before, and his fingers picked at the
+sheet. He spoke in a monotone. "We've had such a hard time since we left
+home--We've had such a hard time since we left home--We've had such a
+hard time since we left home--We--"
+
+Judith dashed her hand across her eyes. "Come away! He says just that
+all the time!"
+
+They moved through the ward, Warwick Cary speaking to all. "No, men! I
+can't tell you just when will be the battle, but we must look for it
+soon--for one or for many. Almost any day now. No, I cannot tell you if
+General Jackson is coming. It is not impossible. 'Washington Artillery?'
+That's a command to be proud of. Let me see your Tiger Head." He looked
+at the badge with its motto _Try Us_, and gave it back smilingly. "Well,
+we do try you, do we not?--on every possible occasion!--Fifth North
+Carolina? Wounded at Williamsburg!--King William Artillery?--Did you
+hear what General D. H. Hill said at Seven Pines? He said that he would
+rather be captain of the King William Artillery than President of the
+Confederate States.--Barksdale's Mississippians? Why, men, you are all
+by-words!"
+
+The men agreed with him happily. "You've got pretty gallant fellows
+yourself, general!" The King William man cleared his throat. "He's got a
+daughter, too, that I'd like to--I'd like to _cheer_!"
+
+"That's so, general!" said the men. "That's so! She's a chip of the old
+block."
+
+Father and daughter laughed and went on--out of this ward and into
+another, quite empty. The two stood by the door and looked, and that
+sadly enough. "All the cots, all the pallets," said Cary, in a low
+voice. "And out in the lines, they who will lie upon them! And they
+cannot see them stretching across their path. I do not know which place
+seems now the most ghostly, here or there."
+
+"It was hard to get mattresses enough. So many hospitals--and every one
+has given and given--and beds must be kept for those who will be taken
+to private houses. So, at last, some one thought of pew cushions. They
+have been taken from every church in town. See! sewed together, they do
+very well."
+
+They passed into a room where a number of tables were placed, and from
+this into another where several women were arranging articles on broad
+wooden shelves. "If you will wait here, I will go slip on my outdoor
+dress." One of the women turned. "Judith!--Cousin Cary!--come look at
+these quilts which have been sent from over in Chesterfield!" She was
+half laughing, half crying. "Rising Suns and Morning Stars and Jonah's
+Gourds! Oh me! oh me! I can see the poor souls wrapped in them! The
+worst of it is, they'll all be used, and we'll be thankful for them, and
+wish for more! Look at this pile, too, from town! Tarletan dresses cut
+into nets, and these surgeons' aprons made from damask tablecloths! And
+the last fringed towels that somebody was saving, with the monogram so
+beautifully done!" She opened a closet door. "Look! I'll scrape lint in
+my sleep every night for a hundred years! The young girls rolled all
+these bandages--" Another called her attention. "Will you give me the
+storeroom key? Mrs. Haxall has just sent thirty loaves of bread, and
+says she'll bake again to-morrow. There's more wine, too, from
+Laburnum."
+
+The first came back. "The room seems full of things, and yet we have
+seen how short a way will go what seems so much! And every home gets
+barer and barer! The merchants are as good as gold. They send and send,
+but the stores are getting bare, too! Kent and Paine gave bales and
+bales of cotton goods. We made them up into these--" She ran her hand
+over great piles of nightshirts and drawers. "But now we see that we
+have nothing like enough, and the store has given as much again, and in
+every lecture room in town we are sewing hard to get more and yet more
+done in time. The country people are so good! They have sent in
+quantities of bar soap--and we needed it more than almost anything!--and
+candles, and coarse towelling, and meal and bacon--and hard enough to
+spare I don't doubt it all is! And look here, Cousin Cary!" She
+indicated a pair of crutches, worn smooth with use. To one a slip of
+paper was tied with a thread. Her kinsman bent forward and read it: "_I
+kin mannedge with a stick_."
+
+Judith returned, in her last year's muslin, soft and full, in the shady
+Eugenie hat which had been sent her from Paris two years ago. It went
+well with the oval face, the heavy bands of soft dark hair, the mouth of
+sweetness and strength, the grave and beautiful eyes. Father and
+daughter, out they stepped into the golden, late afternoon.
+
+Main Street was crowded. A battery, four guns, each with six horses,
+came up it with a heavy and jarring sound over the cobblestones. Behind
+rode a squad or two of troopers. The people on the sidewalk called to
+the cannoneers cheerful greetings and inquiries, and the cannoneers and
+the troopers returned them in kind. The whole rumbled and clattered by,
+then turned into Ninth Street. "Ordered out on Mechanicsville
+pike--that's all they know," said a man.
+
+The two Carys, freeing themselves from the throng, mounted toward the
+Capitol Square, entered it, and walked slowly through the terraced,
+green, and leafy place. There was passing and repassing, but on the
+whole the place was quiet. "I return to the lines to-morrow," said
+Warwick Cary. "The battle cannot be long postponed. I know that you will
+not repeat what I say, and so I tell you that I am sure General Jackson
+is on his way from the Valley. Any moment he may arrive."
+
+"And then there will be terrible fighting?"
+
+"Yes; terrible fighting--Look at the squirrels on the grass!"
+
+As always in the square, there were squirrels in the great old trees,
+and on the ground below, and as always there were negro nurses, bright
+turbaned, aproned, ample formed, and capable. With them were their
+charges, in perambulators, or, if older, flitting like white butterflies
+over the slopes of grass. A child of three, in her hand a nut for the
+squirrel, started to cross the path, tripped and fell. General Cary
+picked her up, and, kneeling, brushed the dust from her frock, wooing
+her to smiles with a face and voice there was no resisting. She
+presently fell in love with the stars on his collar, then transferred
+her affection to his sword hilt. Her mammy came hurrying. "Ef I des'
+tuhn my haid, sumpin' bound ter happen, 'n' happen dat minute! Dar now!
+You ain' hut er mite, honey, 'n' you's still got de goober fer de
+squirl. Come mek yo' manners to de gineral!"
+
+Released, the two went on. "Have you seen Edward?"
+
+"Yes. Three days ago--pagan, insouciant, and happy! The men adore him.
+Fauquier is here to-day."
+
+"Oh!--I have not seen him for so long--"
+
+"He will be at the President's to-night. I think you had best go with
+me--"
+
+"If you think so, father--"
+
+"I know, dear child!--That poor brave boy in his cadet grey and
+white.--But Richard is a brave man--and their mother is heroic. It is of
+the living we must think, and this cause of ours. We are on the eve of
+something terrible, Judith. When Jackson comes General Lee will have
+eighty-five thousand men. Without reinforcements, with McDowell still
+away, McClellan must number an hundred and ten thousand. North and
+South, we are going to grapple, in swamp, and poisoned field, and dark
+forest. We are gladiators stripped, and which will conquer the gods
+alone can tell! But we ourselves can tell that we are determined--that
+each side is determined--and that the grapple will be of giants. Well!
+to-night, I think the officers who chance to be in town will go to the
+President's House with these thoughts in mind. To-morrow we return to
+the lines; and a great battle chant will be written before we tread
+these streets again. For us it may be a paean or it may be a dirge, and
+only the gods know which! We salute our flag to-night--the government
+that may last as lasted Greece or Rome, or the government which may
+perish, not two years old! I think that General Lee will be there for a
+short time. It is something like a recognition of the moment--a
+libation; and whether to life or to death, to an oak that shall live a
+thousand years or to a dead child among nations, there is not one living
+soul that knows!"
+
+"I will go, father, of course. Will you come for me?"
+
+"I or Fauquier. I am going to leave you here, at the gates. There is
+something I wish to see the governor about, at the mansion."
+
+He kissed her and let her go; stood watching her out of the square and
+across the street, then with a sigh turned away to the mansion. Judith,
+now on the pavement by St. Paul's, hesitated a moment. There was an
+afternoon service. Women whom she knew, and women whom she did not know,
+were going in, silent, or speaking each to each in subdued voices. Men,
+too, were entering, though not many. A few were in uniform; others as
+they came from the Capitol or from office or department. Judith, too,
+mounted the steps. She was very tired, and her religion was an
+out-of-door one, but there came upon her a craving for the quiet within
+St. Paul's and for the beautiful, old, sonorous words. She entered,
+found a shadowy pew beneath the gallery, and knelt a moment. As she rose
+another, having perhaps marked her as she entered, paused at the door of
+the pew. She saw who it was, put out a hand and drew her in. Margaret
+Cleave, in her black dress, smiled, touched the younger woman's forehead
+with her lips, and sat beside her. The church was not half filled; there
+were no people very near them, and when presently there was singing, the
+sweet, old-world lines beat distantly on the shores of their
+consciousness. They sat hand in hand, each thinking of battlefields; the
+one with a constant vision of Port Republic, the other of some
+to-morrow's vast, melancholy, smoke-laden plain.
+
+As was not infrequently the case in the afternoon, an army chaplain read
+the service. One stood now before the lectern. "Mr. Corbin Wood,"
+whispered Judith. Margaret nodded. "I know. We nursed him last winter in
+Winchester. He came to see me yesterday. He knew about Will. He told me
+little things about him--dear things! It seems they were together in an
+ambulance on the Romney march."
+
+Her whisper died. She sat pale and smiling, her beautiful hands lightly
+folded in her lap. For all the years between them, she was in many ways
+no older than Judith herself. Sometimes the latter called her "Cousin
+Margaret," sometimes simply "Margaret." Corbin Wood read in a mellow
+voice that made the words a part of the late sunlight, slanting in the
+windows. He raised his arm in an occasional gesture, and the sunbeams
+showed the grey uniform beneath the robe, and made the bright buttons
+brighter. _Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye
+children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday
+when it is past, and as a watch in the night._
+
+The hour passed, and men and women left St. Paul's. The two beneath the
+gallery waited until well-nigh all were gone, then they themselves
+passed into the sunset street. "I will walk home with you," said Judith.
+"How is Miriam?"
+
+"She is beginning to learn," answered the other; "just beginning, poor,
+darling child! It is fearful to be young, and to meet the beginning! But
+she is rousing herself--she will be brave at last."
+
+Judith softly took the hand beside her and lifted it to her lips. "I
+don't see how your children could help being brave. You are well cared
+for where you are?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. Though if my old friend had not taken us in, I do not know
+what we should have done. The city is fearfully crowded."
+
+"I walked from the hospital with father. He says that the battle will be
+very soon."
+
+"I know. The cannon grow louder every night. I feel an assurance, too,
+that the army is coming from the Valley."
+
+"Sometimes," said Judith, "I say to myself, 'This is a dream--all but
+one thing! Now it is time to wake up--only remembering that the one
+thing is true.' But the dream goes on, and it gets heavier and more
+painful."
+
+"Yes," said Margaret. "But there are great flashes of light through it,
+Judith."
+
+They were walking beneath linden trees, fragrant, and filled with
+murmurous sound. The street here was quiet; only a few passing people.
+As the two approached the corner there turned it a slight figure, a girl
+dressed in homespun with a blue sunbonnet. In her hands was a cheap
+carpet-bag, covered with roses and pansies. She looked tired and
+discouraged, and she set the carpet-bag down on the worn brick pavement
+and waited until the two ladies came near. "Please, could you tell me--"
+she began in a soft, drawling voice, which broke suddenly. "Oh, it's
+Mrs. Cleave! it's Mrs. Cleave!--Oh! oh!"
+
+"Christianna Maydew!--Why, Christianna!"
+
+Christianna was crying, though evidently they were joyful tears. "I--I
+was so frightened in this lonely place!--an'--an' Thunder Run's so far
+away--an'--an' Billy an' Pap an' Dave aren't here, after all--an' I
+never saw so many strange people--an' then I saw _you_--oh! oh!"
+
+So brushed aside in this war city were all unnecessary conventions, that
+the three sat down quite naturally upon a wide church step. An old and
+wrinkled nurse, in a turban like a red tulip, made room for them, moving
+aside a perambulator holding a sleeping babe. "F'om de mountains, ain'
+she, ma'am? She oughter stayed up dar close ter Hebben!"
+
+Christianna dried her eyes. Her sunbonnet had fallen back. She looked
+like a wild rose dashed with dew. "I am such a fool to cry!" said
+Christianna. "I ought to be laughin' an' clappin' my hands. I reckon
+I'm tired. Streets are so hard an' straight, an' there's such a terrible
+number of houses."
+
+"How did you come, Christianna, and when, and why?"
+
+"It was this a-way," began Christianna, with the long mountain day
+before her. "It air so lonesome on Thunder Run, with Pap gone, an' Dave
+gone, an' Billy gone, an'--an' Billy gone. An' the one next to me, she's
+grown up quick this year, an' she helps mother a lot. She planted," said
+Christianna, with soft pride, "she planted the steep hillside with corn
+this spring--yes, Violetta did that!"
+
+"And so you thought--"
+
+"An' Pap has--had--a cousin in Richmond. Nanny Pine is her name. An' she
+used to live on Thunder Run, long ago, an' she wasn't like the rest of
+the Maydews, but had lots of sense, an' she up one mahnin', mother says,
+an' took her foot in her hand, an' the people gave her lifts through the
+country, an' she came to Richmond an' learned millinery--"
+
+"Millinery!"
+
+"Yes'm. To put roses an' ribbons on bonnets. An' she married here, a man
+named Oak, an' she wrote back to Thunder Run, to mother, a real pretty
+letter, an' mother took it to Mr. Cole at the tollgate (it was long ago,
+before we children went to school) an' Mr. Cole read it to her, an' it
+said that she had now a shop of her own, an' if ever any Thunder Run
+people came to Richmond to come right straight to her. An' so--"
+
+"And you couldn't find her?"
+
+"An' so, last week, I was spinning. An' I walked up an' down, an' the
+sun was shining, clear and steady, an' I could see out of the door, an'
+there wasn't a sound, an' there wa'n't anything moved. An' it was as
+though God Almighty had made a ball of gold with green trees on it and
+had thrown it away, away! higher than the moon, an' had left it there
+with nothin' on it but a dronin', dronin' wheel. An' it was like the
+world was where the armies are. An' it was like I had to get there
+somehow, an' see Pap again an' Dave an' Billy an'--an' see Billy. There
+wa'n't no help for it; it was like I had to go. An' I stopped the wheel,
+an' I said to mother, 'I am going where the armies are.' An' she says to
+me, she says, 'You don't know where they are.' An' I says to her, I
+says, 'I'll find out.' An' I took my sunbonnet, an' I went down the
+mountain to the tollgate and asked Mr. Cole. An' he had a letter
+from--from Mr. Gold--"
+
+"Oh!" thought Margaret. "It is Allan Gold!"
+
+"An' he read it to me, an' it said that not a man knew, but that he
+thought the army was goin' to Richmond an' that there would be terrible
+fightin' if it did. An' I went back up the mountain, an' I said to
+mother, 'Violetta can do most as much as I can now, an' I am goin' to
+Richmond where the army's goin'. I am goin' to see Pap an' Dave an'--an'
+Billy, an' I am goin' to stay with Cousin Nanny Pine.' An' mother says,
+says she, 'Her name is Oak now, but I reckon you'll know her house by
+the bonnets in the window.' Mother was always like that," said
+Christianna, again, with soft pride. "Always quick-minded! She sees the
+squirrel in the tree quicker'n any of us--'ceptin' it's Billy. An' she
+says, 'How're you goin' to get thar, Christianna--less'n you walk?' An'
+I says, 'I'll walk.'"
+
+"Oh, poor child!" cried Judith! "Did you?"
+
+"No, ma'am; only a real little part of the way. It's a hundred and fifty
+miles, an' we ain't trained to march, an' it would have taken me so
+long. No, ma'am. Mrs. Cole heard about my goin' an' she sent a boy to
+tell me to come see her, an' I went, an' she gave me a dollar (I surely
+am goin' to pay it back, with interest) an' a lot of advice, an' she
+couldn't tell me how to find Pap an' Dave an' Billy, but she said a deal
+of people would know about Allan Gold, for he was a great scout, an' she
+gave me messages for him; an' anyhow the name of the regiment was the
+65th, an' the colonel was your son, ma'am, an' he would find the others
+for me. An' she got a man to take me in his wagon, twenty miles toward
+Lynchburg, for nothin'. An' I thanked him, an' asked him to have some of
+the dinner mother an' Violetta had put in a bundle for me; but he said
+no, he wasn't hungry. An' that night I slept at a farmhouse, an' they
+wouldn't take any pay. An' the next day and the next I walked to
+Lynchburg, an' there I took the train." Her voice gathered firmness. "I
+had never seen one before, but I took it all right. I asked if it was
+goin' to Richmond, an' I climbed on. An' a man came along an' asked me
+for my ticket, an' I said that I didn't have one, but that I wanted to
+pay if it wasn't more than a dollar. An' he asked me if it was a gold
+dollar or a Confederate dollar. An' there were soldiers on the train,
+an' one came up an' took off his hat an' asked me where I was goin', an'
+I told him an' why, an' he said it didn't matter whether it was gold or
+Confederate, and that the conductor didn't want it anyhow. An' the
+conductor--that was what the first man was called--said he didn't
+reckon I'd take up much room, an' that the road was so dog-goned tired
+that one more couldn't make it any tireder, an' the soldier made me sit
+down on one of the benches, an' the train started." She shut her eyes
+tightly. "I don't like train travel. I like to go slower--"
+
+"But it brought you to Richmond--"
+
+Christianna opened her eyes. "Yes, ma'am, we ran an' ran all day, making
+a lot of noise, an' it was so dirty; an' then last night we got
+here--an' I slept on a bench in the house where we got out--only I
+didn't sleep much, for soldiers an' men an' women were going in and out
+all night long--an' then in the mahnin' a coloured woman there gave me a
+glass of milk an' showed me where I could wash my face--an' then I came
+out into the street an' began to look for Cousin Nanny Pine--"
+
+"And you couldn't find her?"
+
+"She isn't here, ma'am. I walked all mahnin', looking, but I couldn't
+find her, an' nobody that I asked knew. An' they all said that the army
+from the Valley hadn't come yet, an' they didn't even know if it was
+coming. An' I was tired an' frightened, an' then at last I saw a window
+with two bonnets in it, and I said, 'Oh, thank the Lord!' an' I went an'
+knocked. An' it wasn't Cousin Nanny Pine. It was another milliner. 'Mrs.
+Oak?' she says, says she. 'Mrs. Oak's in Williamsburg! Daniel Oak got
+his leg cut off in the battle, an' she boarded up her windows an' went
+to Williamsburg to nurse him--an' God knows I might as well board up
+mine, for there's nothin' doin' in millinery!' An' she gave me my
+dinner, an' she told me that the army hadn't come yet from the Valley,
+an' she said she would let me stay there with her, only she had three
+cousins' wives an' their children, refugeein' from Alexandria way an'
+stayin' with her, an' there wasn't a morsel of room. An' so I rested for
+an hour, an' then I came out to look for some place to stay. An' it's
+mortal hard to find." Her soft voice died. She wiped her eyes with the
+cape of her sunbonnet.
+
+"She had best come with me," said Margaret to Judith. "Yes, there is
+room--we will make room--and it will not be bad for Miriam to have some
+one.... Are we not all looking for that army? And her people are in
+Richard's regiment." She rose. "Christianna, child, neighbours must
+help one another out! So come with me, and we shall manage somehow!"
+
+Hospitality rode well forward in the Thunder Run creed. Christianna
+accepted with simplicity what, had their places been changed, she would
+as simply have given. She began to look fair and happy, a wild rose in
+sunshine. She was in Richmond, and she had found a friend, and the army
+was surely coming! As the three rose from the church step, there passed
+a knot of mounted soldiers. It chanced to be the President's staff, with
+several of Stuart's captains, and the plumage of these was yet bright.
+The Confederate uniform was a handsome one; these who wore it were young
+and handsome men. From spur to hat and plume they exercised a charm.
+Somewhere, in the distance, a band was playing, and their noble, mettled
+horses pranced to the music. As they passed they raised their hats. One,
+who recognized Judith, swept his aside with a gesture appropriate to a
+minuet. With sword and spur, with horses stepping to music, by they
+went. Christianna looked after them with dazzled eyes. She drew a
+fluttering breath. "I didn't know things like that were in the world!"
+
+A little later the three reached the gate of the house which sheltered
+Margaret and Miriam. "I won't go in," said Judith. "It is growing
+late.... Margaret, I am going to the President's to-night. Father wishes
+me to go with him. He says that we are on the eve of a great battle, and
+that it is right--" Margaret smiled upon her. "It _is_ right. Of course
+you must go, dear and darling child! Do not think that I shall ever
+misunderstand you, Judith!"
+
+The other kissed her, clinging for a moment to her. "Oh, mother,
+mother!... I hear the cannon, too, louder and louder!" She broke away.
+"I must _not_ cry to-night. To-night we must all have large bright
+eyes--like the women in Brussels when 'There was revelry by
+night'--Isn't it fortunate that the heart doesn't show?"
+
+The town was all soft dusk when she came to the kinsman's house which
+had opened to her. Crowded though it was with refugee kindred, with
+soldier sons coming and going, it had managed to give her a small quiet
+niche, a little room, white-walled, white-curtained, in the very arms
+of a great old tulip tree. The window opened to the east, and the view
+was obstructed only by the boughs of the tree. Beyond them, through
+leafy openings, night by night she watched a red glare on the eastern
+horizon--McClellan's five-mile-distant camp-fires. Entering presently
+this room, she lit two candles, placed them on the dressing table, and
+proceeded to make her toilette for the President's House.
+
+Through the window came the sound of the restless city. It was like the
+beating of a distant sea, with a ground swell presaging storm. The wind,
+blowing from the south, brought, too, the voice of the river, passionate
+over its myriad rocks, around its thousand islets. There were odours of
+flowers; somewhere there was jasmine. White moths came in at the window,
+and Judith, rising, put glass candle-shades over the candles. She sat
+brushing her long hair; fevered with the city's fever, she saw not
+herself in the glass, but all the stress that had been and the stress
+that was to be. Cleave's latest letter had rested in the bosom of her
+dress; now the thin oblong of bluish paper lay before her on the
+dressing table. The river grew louder, the wind from the south stirred
+the masses of her hair, the jasmine odour deepened. She bent forward,
+spreading her white arms over the dark and smooth mahogany, drooped her
+head upon them, rested lip and cheek against the paper. The sound of the
+warrior city, the river and the wind, beat out a rhythm in the
+white-walled room. _Love--Death! Love--Death! Dear Love--Dark
+Death--Eternal Love_--She rose, laid the letter with others from him in
+an old sandalwood box, coiled her hair and quickly dressed. A little
+later, descending, she found awaiting her, in the old, formal, quaint
+parlour, Fauquier Cary.
+
+The two met with warm affection. Younger by much than was the master of
+Greenwood, he was to the latter's children like one of their own
+generation, an elder brother only. He held her from him and looked at
+her. "You are a lovely woman, Judith! Did it run the blockade?"
+
+Judith laughed: "No! I wear nothing that comes that way. It is an old
+dress, and it is fortunate that Easter darns so exquisitely!"
+
+"Warwick will meet us at the house. We both ride back before dawn. Why,
+I have not seen you since last summer!"
+
+"No. Just before Manassas!"
+
+They went out. "I should have brought a carriage for you. But they are
+hard to get--"
+
+"I would rather walk. It is not far. You look for the battle to-morrow?"
+
+"That depends, I imagine, on Jackson. Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps the
+next day. It will be bloody fighting when it comes--Heigho!"
+
+"The bricks of the pavement know that," said Judith. "Sometimes,
+Fauquier, you can see horror on the faces of these houses--just as
+plain! and at night I hear the river reading the bulletin!"
+
+"Poor child!--Yes, we make all nature a partner. Judith, I was glad to
+hear of Richard Cleave's happiness--as glad as I was surprised. Why, I
+hardly know, and yet I had it firmly in mind that it was Maury
+Stafford--"
+
+Judith spoke in a pained voice. "I cannot imagine why so many people
+should have thought that. Yes, and Richard himself. It never was; and I
+know I am no coquette!"
+
+"No. You are not a coquette. Ideas like that arrive, one never knows
+how--like thistledown in the air--and suddenly they are planted and hard
+to uproot. Stafford himself breathed it somehow. That offends you,
+naturally; but I should say there was never a man more horribly in love!
+It was perhaps a fixed idea with him that he would win you, and others
+misread it. Well, I am sorry for him! But I like Richard best, and he
+will make you happier."
+
+He talked on, in his dry, attractive voice, moving beside her slender,
+wiry, resolute, trained muscle and nerve, from head to foot. "I was at
+the Officer's Hospital this morning to see Carewe. He was wounded at
+Port Republic, and his son and an old servant got him here somehow. He
+was talking about Richard. He knew his father. He says he'll be a
+brigadier the first vacancy, and that, if the war lasts, he won't stop
+there. He'll go very high. You know Carewe?--how he talks? 'Yes, by God,
+sir, Dick Cleave's son's got the stuff in him! Always was a kind of
+dumb, heroic race. Lot of iron ore in that soil, some gold, too. Only
+needed the prospector, Big Public Interest, to come along. Shouldn't
+wonder if he carved his name pretty high on the cliff.'--Now, Judith, I
+have stopped beneath this lamp just to see you look the transfigured
+lover--happier at praise of him than at garlands and garlands for
+yourself!--Hm! Drawn to the life. Now we'll go on to the President's
+House."
+
+The President's House on Shockoe Hill was all alight, men and women
+entering between white pillars, from the long windows music floating.
+Beyond the magnolias and the garden the ground dropped suddenly. Far and
+wide, a vast horizon, there showed the eastern sky, and far and wide,
+below the summer stars, there flared along it a reddish light--the
+camp-fires of two armies, the grey the nearer, the blue beyond. Faint,
+faint, you could hear the bugles. It was a dark night; no moon, only the
+flicker of fireflies in magnolias and roses and the gush of light from
+the tall, white-pillared house. The violins within were playing
+"Trovatore." Warwick Cary, an aide with him, came from the direction of
+the Capitol and joined his daughter and brother. The three entered
+together.
+
+There was little formality in these gatherings at the White House of the
+Confederacy. The times were too menacing, the city too conversant with
+alarm bells, sudden shattering bugle notes, thunderclaps of cannon, men
+and women too close companions of great and stern presences, for the
+exhibition of much care for the minuter social embroidery. No necessary
+and fitting tracery was neglected, but life moved now in a very intense
+white light, so deep and intense that it drowned many things which in
+other days had had their place in the field of vision. There was an old
+butler at the President's door, and a coloured maid hovered near to help
+with scarf or flounce if needed. In the hall were found two volunteer
+aides, young, handsome, gay, known to all, striking at once the note of
+welcome. Close within the drawing-room door stood a member of the
+President's Staff, Colonel Ives, and beside him his wife, a young,
+graceful, and accomplished woman. These smilingly greeted the coming or
+said farewell to the parting guest.
+
+The large drawing-room was fitted for conversation. Damask-covered sofas
+with carved rosewood backs, flanked and faced by claw-foot chairs, were
+found in corners and along the walls; an adjoining room, not so brightly
+lit, afforded further harbourage, while without was the pillared
+portico, with roses and fireflies and a view of the flare upon the
+horizon. From some hidden nook the violins played Italian opera. On the
+mantles and on one or two tables, midsummer flowers bloomed in Parian
+vases.
+
+Scattered in groups, through the large room, were men in uniform and
+civilians in broadcloth and fine linen. So peculiarly constituted were
+the Confederate armies that it was usual to find here a goodly number of
+private soldiers mingling with old schoolmates, friends, kindred wearing
+the bars and stars of lieutenants, captains, majors, colonels, and
+brigadiers. But to-night all privates and all company officers were with
+their regiments; there were not many even of field and staff. It was
+known to be the eve of a fight, a very great fight; passes into town
+were not easy to obtain. Those in uniform who were here counted; they
+were high in rank. Mingling with them were men of the civil
+government,--cabinet officers, senators, congressmen, judges, heads of
+bureaus; and with these, men of other affairs: hardly a man but was
+formally serving the South. If he were not in the field he was of her
+legislatures; if not there, then doing his duty in some civil office; if
+not there, wrestling with the management of worn-out railways; or, cool
+and keen, concerned in blockade running, bringing in arms and
+ammunition, or in the Engineer Bureau, or the Bureau of Ordnance or the
+Medical Department, or in the service of the Post, or at the Treasury
+issuing beautiful Promises to Pay, or at the Tredegar moulding cannon,
+or in the newspaper offices wrestling with the problem of worn-out type
+and wondering where the next roll of paper was to come from, or in the
+telegraph service shaking his head over the latest raid, the latest cut
+wires; or he was experimenting with native medicinal plants, with
+balloons, with explosives, torpedoes, submarine batteries; or thinking
+of probable nitre caves, of the possible gathering of copper from old
+distilleries, of the scraping saltpetre from cellars, of how to get tin,
+of how to get chlorate of potassium, of how to get gutta-percha, of how
+to get paper, of how to get salt for the country at large; or he was
+running sawmills, building tanneries, felling oak and gum for artillery
+carriages, working old iron furnaces, working lead mines, busy with
+foundry and powder mill.... If he was old he was enlisted in the City
+Guard, a member of the Ambulance Committee, a giver of his worldly
+substance. All the South was at work, and at work with a courage to
+which were added a certain colour and _elan_ not without value on her
+page of history. The men, not in uniform, here to-night were doing their
+part, and it was recognized that they were doing it. The women, no less;
+of whom there were a number at the President's House this evening. With
+soft, Southern voices, with flowers banded in their hair, with bare
+throat and arms, with wide, filmy, effective all-things-but-new dresses,
+they moved through the rooms, or sat on the rosewood sofas, or walking
+on the portico above the roses looked out to the flare in the east. Some
+had come from the hospitals,--from the Officer's, from Chimborazo,
+Robinson's, Gilland's, the St. Charles, the Soldier's Rest, the South
+Carolina, the Alabama,--some from the sewing-rooms, where they cut and
+sewed uniforms, shirts, and underclothing, scraped lint, rolled
+bandages; several from the Nitre and Mining Bureau, where they made
+gunpowder; several from the Arsenal, where they made cartridges and
+filled shells. These last would be refugee women, fleeing from the
+counties overrun by the enemy, all their worldly wealth swept away, bent
+on earning something for mother or father or child. One and all had come
+from work, and they were here now in the lights and flowers, not so much
+for their own pleasure as that there might be cheer, music, light,
+laughter, flowers, praise, and sweetness for the men who were going to
+battle. Men and women, all did not come or go at once; they passed in
+and out of the President's House, some tarrying throughout the evening,
+others but for a moment. The violins left "Il Trovatore," began upon
+"Les Huguenots."
+
+The President stood between the windows, talking with a little group of
+men,--Judge Campbell, R. M. T. Hunter, Randolph the Secretary of War,
+General Wade Hampton, General Jeb Stuart. Very straight and tall, thin,
+with a clear-cut, clean-shaven, distinguished face, with a look half
+military man, half student, with a demeanour to all of perfect if
+somewhat chilly courtesy, by temperament a theorist, able with the
+ability of the field marshal or the scholar in the study, not with that
+of the reader and master of men, the hardest of workers, devoted,
+honourable, single-minded, a figure on which a fierce light has beaten,
+a man not perfect, not always just, nor always wise, bound in the toils
+of his own personality, but yet an able man who suffered and gave all,
+believed in himself, and in his cause, and to the height of his power
+laboured for it day and night--Mr. Davis stood speaking of Indian
+affairs and of the defences of the Western waters.
+
+Warwick Cary, his daughter on his arm, spoke to the President's wife, a
+comely, able woman, with a group about her of strangers whom she was
+putting at their ease, then moved with Judith to the windows. The
+President stepped a little forward to meet them. "Ah, General Cary, I
+wish you could bring with you a wind from the Blue Ridge this stifling
+night! We must make this good news from the Mississippi refresh us
+instead! I saw your troops on the Nine-Mile road to-day. They cheered
+me, but I felt like cheering them! Miss Cary, I have overheard six
+officers ask to-night if Miss Cary had yet come."
+
+Warwick began to talk with Judge Campbell. Judith laughed. "It was not
+of me they were asking, Mr. President! There is Hetty Cary entering now,
+and behind her Constance, and there are your six officers! I am but a
+leaf blown from the Blue Ridge."
+
+"Gold leaf," said Wade Hampton.
+
+The President used toward all women a stately deference. "I hope," he
+said, "that, having come once to rest in this room, you will often let a
+good wind blow you here--" Other guests claimed his attention. "Ah, Mrs.
+Stanard--Mrs. Enders--Ha, Wigfall! I saw your Texans this afternoon--"
+Judith found General Stuart beside her. "Miss Cary, a man of the Black
+Troop came back to camp yesterday. Says he, 'They've got an angel in the
+Stonewall Hospital! She came from Albemarle, and her name is Judith. If
+I were Holofernes and a Judith like that wanted my head, by George, I'd
+cut it off myself to please her!'--Yes, yes, my friend!--Miss Cary, may
+I present my Chief of Staff, Major the Baron Heros von Borcke? Talk
+poetry with him, won't you?--Ha, Fauquier! that was a pretty dash you
+made yesterday! Rather rash, I thought--"
+
+The other withered him with a look. "That was a carefully planned,
+cautiously executed manoeuvre; modelled it after our old
+reconnoissance at Cerro Gordo. You to talk of rashness!--Here's A. P.
+Hill."
+
+Judith, with her Prussian soldier of fortune, a man gentle, intelligent,
+and brave, crossed the room to one of the groups of men and women. Those
+of the former who were seated rose, and one of the latter put out an arm
+and claimed her with a caressing touch. "You are late, child! So am I.
+They brought in a bad case of fever, and I waited for the night nurse.
+Sit here with us! Mrs. Fitzgerald's harp has been sent for and she is
+going to sing--"
+
+Judith greeted the circle. A gentleman pushed forward a chair. "Thank
+you, Mr. Soule. My father and I stay but a little while, Mrs. Randolph,
+but it must be long enough to hear Mrs. Fitzgerald sing--Yes, he is
+here, Colonel Gordon--there, speaking with Judge Campbell and General
+Hill.--How is the general to-day, Mrs. Johnston?"
+
+"Better, dear, or I should not be here. I am here but for a moment. He
+made me come--lying there on Church Hill, staring at that light in the
+sky!--Here is the harp."
+
+Its entrance, borne by two servants, was noted. The violins were hushed,
+the groups turned, tended to merge one into another. A voice was heard
+speaking with a strong French accent--Colonel the Count Camille de
+Polignac, tall, gaunt, looking like a Knight of Malta--begging that the
+harp might be placed in the middle of the room. It was put there. Jeb
+Stuart led to it the lovely Louisianian. Mrs. Fitzgerald drew off her
+gloves and gave them to General Magruder to hold, relinquished her fan
+to Mr. Jules de Saint Martin, her bouquet to Mr. Francis Lawley of the
+London _Times_, and swept her white hand across the strings. She was a
+mistress of the harp, and she sang to it in a rich, throbbingly sweet
+voice, song after song as they were demanded. Conversation through the
+large room did not cease, but voices were lowered, and now and then came
+a complete lull in which all listened. She sang old Creole ditties and
+then Scotch and Irish ballads.
+
+Judith found beside her chair the Vice-President. "Ah, Miss Cary, when
+you are as old as I am, and have read as much, you will notice how
+emphatic is the testimony to song and dance and gaiety on the eve of
+events which are to change the world! The flower grows where in an hour
+the volcano will burst forth; the bird sings in the tree which the
+earthquake will presently uproot; the pearly shell gleams where will
+pass the tidal wave--" He looked around the room. "Beauty, zeal, love,
+devotion--and to-morrow the smoke will roll, the cannon thunder, and the
+brute emerge all the same--just as he always does--just as he always
+does--stamping the flower into the mire, wringing the bird's neck,
+crushing the shell! Well, well, let's stop moralizing. What's she
+singing now? Hm! 'Kathleen Mavourneen.' Ha, Benjamin! What's the news
+with you?"
+
+Judith, turning a little aside, dreamily listened now to the singer, now
+to phrases of the Vice-President and the Secretary of State. "After
+this, if we beat them now, a treaty surely.... Palmerston--The
+Emperour--The Queen of Spain--Mason says ... Inefficiency of the
+blockade--Cotton obligations--Arms and munitions...." Still talking,
+they moved away. A strident voice reached her from the end of the
+room--L. Q. C. Lamar, here to-night despite physicians. "The fight had
+to come. We are men, not women. The quarrel had lasted long enough. We
+hate each other, so the struggle had to come. Even Homer's heroes, after
+they had stormed and scolded long enough, fought like brave men, long
+and well--"
+
+              "Ye banks and braes and streams around
+                The castle o' Montgomery--"
+
+sang Mrs. Fitzgerald.
+
+There was in the room that slow movement which imperceptibly changes a
+well-filled stage, places a figure now here, now there, shifts the
+grouping and the lights. Now Judith was one of a knot of younger women.
+In the phraseology of the period, all were "belles"; Hetty and Constance
+Cary, Mary Triplett, Turner MacFarland, Jenny Pegram, the three Fishers,
+Evelyn Cabell, and others. About them came the "beaux,"--the younger
+officers who were here to-night, the aides, the unwedded legislators.
+Judith listened, talked, played her part. She had a personal success in
+Richmond. Her name, her beauty, the at times quite divine expression of
+her face, made the eye follow, after which a certain greatness of mind
+was felt and the attention became riveted. The pictures moved again,
+Mrs. Fitzgerald singing "positively, this time, the last!" Some of the
+"belles," attended by the "beaux," drifted toward the portico, several
+toward the smaller room and its softly lowered lights. A very young man,
+an artillerist, tall and fair, lingered beside Judith. "'Auld lang
+Syne!' I do not think that she ought to sing that to-night! I have
+noticed that when you hear music just before battle the strain is apt to
+run persistently in your mind. She ought to sing us 'Scots wha hae--'"
+
+A gentleman standing near laughed. "That's good, or my name isn't Ran
+Tucker! Mrs. Fitzgerald, Captain Pelham does not wish to be left in such
+'a weavin' way.' He says that song is like an April shower on a bag of
+powder. The inference is that it will make the horse artillery
+chicken-hearted. I move that you give John Pelham and the assemblage
+'Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled'--"
+
+The singing ended, there was a wider movement through the room. Judith,
+with Pelham still beside her, walked on the portico, in the warm,
+rose-laden air. There was no moon, and the light in the east was very
+marked. "If we strike McClellan's right," said the artillerist, "all
+this hill and the ground to the north of it will be the place from which
+to watch the battle. If it lasts after nightfall, you will see the
+exploding shells beautifully." They stood at the eastern end, Judith
+leaning against one of the pillars. Here a poet and editor of the
+_Southern Literary Messenger_ joined them; with him a young man, a
+sculptor, Alexander Galt. A third, Washington the painter, came, too.
+The violins had begun again--Mozart now--"The Magic Flute." "Oh, smell
+the roses!" said the poet. "To-night the roses, to-morrow the
+thorns--but roses, too, among the thorns, deep and sweet! There will
+still be roses, will there not, Miss Cary?"
+
+"Yes, still," said Judith. "If I could paint, Mr. Washington, I would
+take that gleam on the horizon."
+
+"Yes, is it not fine? It is a subject, however, for a mystic. I have an
+idea myself for a picture, if I can get the tent-cloth to paint it on,
+and if some brushes and tubes I sent for ever get through the block."
+
+"If I had a tent I certainly would give it to you," said Pelham. "What
+would you paint?"
+
+"A thing that happened ten days ago. The burial of Latane. The women
+buried him, you know. At Summer Hill.--Mrs. Brockenborough, and her
+daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Somebody read me a letter about
+it--so simple it wrung your heart! 'By God,' I said, 'what Roman things
+happen still!' And I thought I'd like to paint the picture."
+
+"I read the letter, too," said the poet. "I am making some verses about
+it--see if you like them--
+
+            "For woman's voice, in accents soft and low,
+             Trembling with pity, touched with pathos, read
+             O'er his hallowed dust the ritual for the dead:
+
+            "'Tis sown in weakness, it is raised in power'--
+             Softly the promise floated on the air,
+             While the low breathings of the sunset hour
+             Came back responsive to the mourner's prayer.
+             Gently they laid him underneath the sod
+             And left him with his fame, his country and his God!"
+
+"Yes," said Judith, sweetly and gravely. "How can we but like them? And
+I hope that you will find the tent-cloth, Mr. Washington."
+
+Reentering, presently, the large room, they found a vague stir, people
+beginning to say good-night, and yet lingering. "It is growing late,"
+said some one, "and yet I think that he will come." Her father came up
+to her and drew her hand through his arm. "Here is General Lee now. We
+will wait a moment longer, then go."
+
+They stood in the shadow of the curtains watching the Commander-in-Chief
+just pausing to greet such and such an one in his progress toward the
+President. An aide or two came behind; the grand head and form moved on,
+simple and kingly. Judith drew quicker breath. "Oh, he looks so great a
+man!"
+
+"He looks what he is," said Warwick Cary. "Now let us go, too, and say
+good-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE FIRST OF THE SEVEN DAYS
+
+
+Miriam and Christianna sat at the window, watching. The day was
+parching, the sky hot blue steel, the wind that blew the dust through
+the streets like a breath from the sun himself. People went by, all
+kinds of people, lacking only soldiers. There seemed no soldiers in
+town. Miriam, alternately listless and feverishly animated, explained
+matters to the mountain girl. "When there's to be a battle, every one
+goes to the colours.--Look at that old, old, old man, hobbling on his
+stick. You'd think that death was right beside him, wouldn't you?--ready
+to tap him on the shoulder and say, 'Fall, fall, old leaf! But it isn't
+so; death is on the battlefield looking for young men. Listen to his
+stick--tap, tap, tap, tap, tap--"
+
+Christianna rose, looked at the clock, which was about to strike noon,
+left the room and returned with a glass of milk. "Mrs. Cleave said you
+was to drink this--Yes, Miss Miriam, do!--There now! Don't you want to
+lie down?"
+
+"No, no!" said Miriam. "I don't want to do anything but sit here and
+watch.--Look at that old, old woman with the basket on her arm! I know
+what is in it--Things for her son; bread and a little meat and shirts
+she has been making him--There's another helping her, as old as she is.
+I mean to die young."
+
+The people went by like figures on a frieze come to life. The room in
+which the two girls sat was on the ground floor of a small,
+old-fashioned house. Outside the window was a tiny balcony, with a
+graceful ironwork railing, and heavy ropes and twists of wistaria shaded
+this and the window. The old brick sidewalk was almost immediately
+below. For the most part the people who passed went by silently, but
+when there was talking the two behind the wistaria could hear. A nurse
+girl with her charges came by. "What's a 'cisive battle, honey? Yo'd
+better ask yo' pa that. Reckon it's where won't neither side let go. Why
+won't they? Now you tell me an' then I'll tell you! All I knows is,
+they're gwine have a turrible rumpus presently, an' yo' ma said tek you
+to yo' gran'ma kaze she gwine out ter git jes' ez near the battle an'
+yo' pa ez she kin git!" Nurse and children passed, and there came by an
+elderly man, stout and amiable-looking. His face was pale, his eyes
+troubled; he took off his straw hat, and wiped his forehead with a large
+white handkerchief. Appearing from the opposite direction, a young man,
+a case of surgeon's instruments in his hand, met him, and in passing
+said good-day. The elder stopped him a moment, on the hot brick pavement
+before the wistaria. "Well, doctor, they're all out Mechanicsville way!
+I reckon we may expect to hear the cannon any moment now. I saw you at
+Gilland's, didn't I, yesterday?"
+
+"Yes, I am there--"
+
+"Well, if by ill luck my boy is wounded and brought there, you'll look
+out for him, eh? Youngest boy, you know--Blue eyes, brown hair. I'm on
+the Ambulance Committee. We've got a string of wagons ready on the
+Nine-Mile road. You look out for him if he's brought in--"
+
+The surgeon promised and each went his way. Three women passed the
+window. One was knitting as she walked, one was in deep black, and a
+third, a girl, carried a great silver pitcher filled with iced drink for
+some near-by convalescent. Two men came next. A negro followed, bearing
+a spade. One of the two was in broadcloth, with a high silk hat. "I told
+them," he was saying, "better bury her this morning, poor little thing,
+before the fighting begins. _She_ won't mind, and it will be hard to
+arrange it then--" "Yes, yes," said the second, "better so! Leave
+to-morrow for the Dead March from 'Saul.'"
+
+They passed. A church bell began to ring. Miriam moved restlessly. "Is
+not mother coming back? She ought to have let me go with her. I can't
+knit any more,--the needles are red hot when I touch them,--but I can
+sew. I could help her.--If I knew which sewing-room she went to--"
+
+Christianna's hand timidly caressed her. "Better stay here, Miss Miriam.
+I'm going to give you another glass of milk now, directly--There's a
+soldier passing now."
+
+It proved but a battered soldier--thin and hollow-eyed, arm in a sling,
+and a halt in his walk. He came on slowly, and he leaned for rest
+against a sycamore at the edge of the pavement. Miriam bent out from the
+frame of wistaria. "Oh, soldier! don't you want a glass of milk?"
+
+"Oh, soldier" looked nothing loath. He came over to the little balcony,
+and Miriam took the glass from Christianna and, leaning over, gave it to
+him. "Oh, but that's nectar!" he said, and drank it. "Yes--just out of
+hospital. Said I might go and snuff the battle from afar. Needed my
+pallet for some other poor devil. Glad I'm through with it, and sorry he
+isn't!--Yes, I've got some friends down the street. Going there now and
+get out of this sun. Reckon the battle'll begin presently. Hope the
+Accomac Invincibles will give them hell--begging your pardon, I'm sure.
+That milk certainly was good. Thank you, and good-bye, Hebe--two Hebes."
+He wavered on down the street. Christianna looked after him critically.
+"They oughtn't to let that thar man out so soon! Clay white, an' thin as
+a bean pole, an' calling things an' people out of their names--"
+
+Men and women continued to pass, the church bell to ring, the hot wind
+to blow the dust, the sun to blaze down, the sycamore leaves to rustle.
+A negro boy brought a note. It was from Margaret Cleave. "_Dearest:
+There is so much to do. I will not come home to dinner nor will Cousin
+Harriet neither. She says tell Sarindy to give you two just what you
+like best. Christianna must look after you. I will come when I can._"
+
+Sarindy gave them thin crisp toast, and a pitcher of cool milk, and a
+custard sweetened with brown sugar. Sarindy was excited. "Yaas, Lawd,
+dar's sho' gwine ter be doin's this day! What you reckon, Miss Miriam?
+Dar's er lady from South Callina stayin' cross't de street, 'n' she's
+got er maid what's got de impidence ob sin! What you reckon dat yaller
+gal say ter me? She say dat South Callina does de most ob de fightin'
+'n' de bes' ob it, too! She say Virginia pretty good, but dat South
+Callina tek de cake. She say South Callina mek 'em run ebery time!
+Yaas'm! 'n' I gits up 'n' I meks her er curtsy, 'n' I say ter her,
+'Dat's er pretty way ter talk when you're visitin' in Virginia, 'n' ef
+dat's South Callina manners I'se glad I wuz born in Virginia!' Yaas'm.
+'N' I curtsy agin, 'n' I say, 'Ain' nobody or nothin' ever lay over
+Virginia fer fightin' 'n' never will! 'N' ef Virginia don' mek 'em run
+ebery time, South Callina needn't hope ter!' 'N' I asks her how come she
+never hear ob Gineral Stonewall Jackson? Yaas'm. 'N' I curtsy ter her
+ebery time--lak dis! 'N' ain' she never hear ob Gineral Lee? An' I ain'
+er doubtin' dat Gineral Wade Hampton is a mighty fine man--'deed I knows
+he is--but ain' she never heard ob Gineral Johnston? 'N' how erbout
+Gineral Stuart--Yaas'm! 'n' the Black Troop, 'n' the Crenshaw Battery,
+'n' the Purcell Battery. Yaas'm! 'n' the Howitzers, 'n' the Richmon'
+Blues--Yaas'm! I sho' did mek her shet her mouf!--Braggin' ter er
+Virginia woman ob South Callina!"
+
+The two went back to the large room. The air was scorching. Miriam
+undressed, slipped her thin, girlish arms into a muslin sacque, and lay
+down. Christianna drew the blinds together, took a palm-leaf fan and sat
+beside her. "I'll fan you, jest as easy," she said, in her sweet,
+drawling voice. "An' I can't truly sing, but I can croon. Don't you
+want me to croon you 'Shining River'?"
+
+Miriam lay with closed eyes. A fly buzzed in the darkened room. The fan
+went monotonously to and fro. Christianna crooned "Shining River" and
+then "Shady Grove." Outside, on the brick pavement, the sound of feet
+went by in a slender stream.
+
+                  "Shady Grove! Shady Grove--
+                  Going to Church in Shady Grove--"
+
+The stream without grew wide and deep, then hurrying. Christianna looked
+over her shoulder, then at Miriam. The latter's long lashes lay on her
+cheek. Beneath them glistened a tear, but her slight, girlish bosom rose
+and fell regularly. Christianna crooned on,
+
+                  "Shady Grove! Shady Grove--
+                  Children love my Shady Grove--"
+
+_Boom! Boom!--Boom, Boom! Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!_
+
+Miriam started up with a cry. Outside the window a hoarse and loud voice
+called to some one across the street. "That's beyond Meadow Bridge! D'
+ye know what I believe? I believe it's Stonewall Jackson!" The name came
+back like an echo from the opposite pavement. "Stonewall Jackson!
+Stonewall Jackson! He thinks maybe it's Stonewall Jackson!"
+
+_Boom--Boom--Boom--Boom, Boom!_
+
+Miriam rose, threw off the muslin sacque and began to dress. Her eyes
+were narrowed, her fingers rapid and steady. Christianna opened the
+window-blinds. The sound of the hurrying feet came strongly in, and with
+it voices. "The top of the Capitol!--see best from there--I think the
+hills toward the almshouse--Can you get out on the Brook turnpike?--No;
+it is picketed--The hill by the President's House--try it!" Christianna,
+turning, found Miriam taking a hat from the closet shelf. "Oh, Miss
+Miriam, you mustn't go--"
+
+Miriam, a changed creature, steady and sure as a fine rapier, turned
+upon her. "Yes, I am going, Christianna. If you like, you may come with
+me. Yes, I am well enough.--No, mother wouldn't keep me back. She would
+understand. If I lay there and listened, I should go mad. Get your
+bonnet and come."
+
+The cannon shook the air. Christianna got her sunbonnet and tied the
+strings with trembling fingers. All the wild rose had fled from her
+cheeks, her lips looked pinched, her eyes large and startled. Miriam
+glanced her way, then came and kissed her. "I forgot it was your first
+battle. I got used to them in Winchester. Don't be afraid."
+
+They went out into the hot sunshine. By now the greater part of the
+stream had hurried by. They saw that it flowed eastward, and they
+followed. The sun blazed down, the pavement burned their feet. The
+mountain girl walked like a piece of thistledown; Miriam, light and
+quick in all her actions, moved beside her almost as easily. It was as
+though the hot wind, rushing down the street behind them, carried them
+on with the dust and loosened leaves. There were other women, with
+children clinging to their hands. One or two had babes in their arms.
+There were old men, too, and several cripples. The lighter-limbed and
+unencumbered were blown ahead. The dull sound rocked the air. This was a
+residence portion of the city, and the houses looked lifeless. The doors
+were wide, the inmates gone. Only where there was illness, were there
+faces at the window, looking out, pale and anxious, asking questions of
+the hurrying pale and anxious folk below. The cannonading was not yet
+continuous. It spoke rather in sullen thunders, with spaces between in
+which the heart began to grow quiet. Then it thundered again, and the
+heart beat to suffocation.
+
+The wind blew Miriam and Christianna toward the President's House. Tall,
+austere, white-pillared, it stood a little coldly in the heat. Before
+the door were five saddle horses, with a groom or two. The staff came
+from the house, then the President in grey Confederate cloth and soft
+hat. He spoke to one of the officers in his clear, incisive voice, then
+mounted his grey Arab. A child waved to him from an upper window. He
+waved back, lifted his hat to the two girls as they passed, then, his
+staff behind him, rode rapidly off toward the sound of the firing.
+
+Miriam and Christianna, turning a little northward, found themselves on
+a hillside thronged with people. It was like a section of an
+amphitheatre, and it commanded a great stretch of lowland broken here
+and there by slight elevations. Much of the plain was in forest, but in
+some places the waist-deep corn was waving, and in others the wheat
+stood in shocks. There were marshes and boggy green meadows and old
+fields of pine and broom sedge. Several roads could be seen. They all
+ran into a long and low cloud of smoke. It veiled the northern horizon,
+and out of it came the thunder. First appeared dull orange flashes,
+then, above the low-lying thickness, the small white expanding cloud
+made by the bursting shell, then to the ear rushed the thunder. On the
+plain, from the defences which rimmed the city northward to the battle
+cloud, numbers of grey troops were visible, some motionless, some
+marching. They looked like toy soldiers. The sun heightened red splashes
+that were known to be battle-flags. Horsemen could be seen galloping
+from point to point. In the intervals between the thunders the hillside
+heard the tap of drum and the bugles blowing. The moving soldiers were
+going toward the cloud.
+
+Miriam and Christianna sank down beneath a little tree. They were on a
+facet of the hill not quite so advantageous as others. The crowded
+slopes were beyond. However, one could see the smoke cloud and hear the
+cannon, and that was all that could be done anyhow. There were men and
+women about them, children, boys. The women were the most silent,--pale
+and silent; the men uttered low exclamations or soliloquies, or talked
+together. The boys were all but gleeful--save when they looked at the
+grown people, and then they tried for solemnity. Some of the children
+went to sleep. A mother nursed her babe. Near the foot of this hill,
+through a hollow, there ran a branch,--Bacon Quarter Branch. Here, in
+the seventeenth century, had occurred an Indian massacre. The heavy,
+primeval woods had rung to the whoop of the savage, the groan of the
+settler, the scream of English woman and child. To-day the woods had
+been long cut, and the red man was gone. War remained--he had only
+changed his war paint and cry and weapons.
+
+Miriam clasped her thin brown hands about her knee, rested her chin on
+them, and fastened her great brown eyes on the distant battle cloud.
+Christianna, her sunbonnet pushed back, looked too, with limpid,
+awe-struck gaze. Were Pap and Dave and Billy fighting in that cloud? It
+was thicker than the morning mist in the hollow below Thunder Run
+Mountain, and it was not fleecy, pure, and white. It was yellowish,
+fierce, and ugly, and the sound that came from it made her heart beat
+thick and hard. Was he there--Was Allan Gold there in the cloud? She
+felt that she could not sit still; she wished to walk toward it. That
+being impossible, she began to make a little moaning sound. A woman in
+black, sitting on the grass near her, looked across. "Don't!" she said.
+"If you do that, all of us will do it. We've got to keep calm. If we let
+go, it would be like Rachel weeping. Try to be quiet."
+
+Christianna, who had moaned as she crooned, hardly knowing it, at once
+fell silent. Another woman spoke to her. "Would you mind holding my
+baby? My head aches so. I must lie down here on the grass, just a
+minute." Christianna took the baby. She handled it skilfully, and it was
+presently cooing against her breast. Were Pap and Dave over there,
+shooting and cutting? And Billy--Billy with a gun now instead of the
+spear the blacksmith had made him? And Allan Gold was not teaching in
+the schoolhouse on Thunder Run....
+
+The woman took the baby back. The sun blazed down, there came a louder
+burst of sound. A man with a field-glass, standing near, uttered a
+"Tchk!" of despair. "Impenetrable curtain! The ancients managed things
+better--they did not fight in a fog!"
+
+He seemed a person having authority, and the people immediately about
+him appealed for information. He looked through the glass and gave it,
+and was good, too, about lending the glass. "It's A. P. Hill, I'm
+sure--with Longstreet to support him. It's A. P. Hill's brigades that
+are moving into the smoke. Most of that firing is from our batteries
+along the Chickahominy. We are going undoubtedly to cross to the north
+bank--Yes. McClellan's right wing--Fitz John Porter--A good soldier--Oh,
+he'll have about twenty-five thousand men."
+
+A boy, breathing excitement from top to toe, sent up a shrill voice.
+"Isn't Jackson coming, sir? Aren't they looking for Jackson?"
+
+The soldier who had drunk the milk was discovered by Miriam and
+Christianna, near their tree. He gave his voice. "Surely! He'll have
+come down from Ashland and A. P. Hill is crossing here. That's an army
+north, and a big lot of troops south, and Fitz John Porter is between
+like a nut in a nut cracker. The cracker has only to work all right, and
+crush goes the filbert!" He raised himself and peered under puckered
+brows at the smoke-draped horizon. "Yes, he's surely over
+there--Stonewall.--Going to flank Fitz John Porter--Then we'll hear a
+hell of a fuss."
+
+"There's a battery galloping to the front," said the man with the glass.
+"Look, one of you! Wipe the glass; it gets misty. If it's the Purcell,
+I've got two sons--"
+
+The soldier took the glass, turning it deftly with one hand. "Yes, think
+it is the Purcell. Don't you worry, sir! They're all right. Artillerymen
+are hard to kill--That's Pender's brigade going now--"
+
+Christianna clutched Miriam. "Look! look! Oh, what is it?"
+
+It soared into the blue, above the smoke. The sunlight struck it and it
+became a beautiful iridescent bubble, large as the moon. "Oh, oh!" cried
+the boy. "Look at the balloon!"
+
+The hillside kept silence for a moment while it gazed, then--"Is it
+ours?--No; it is theirs!--It is going up from the hill behind Beaver Dam
+Creek.--Oh, it is lovely!--Lovely! No, no, it is horrible!--Look, look!
+there is another!"
+
+A young man, a mechanic, with sleeves rolled up, began to expatiate on
+"ours." "We haven't got but one--it was made in Savannah by Dr. Langon
+Cheves. Maybe they'll send it up to-day, maybe not. I've seen it. It's
+like Joseph's coat in the Bible. They say the ladies gave their silk
+dresses for it. Here'll be a strip of purple and here one of white with
+roses on it, and here it is black, and here it is yellow as gold. They
+melted rubber car-springs in naphtha and varnished it with that, and
+they're going to fill it with city gas at the gas works--"
+
+The bubbles floated in the clear air, above and beyond the zone of
+smoke. It was now between four and five in the afternoon. The slant rays
+of the sun struck them and turned them mother-of-pearl. An old man
+lifted a dry, thin voice like a grasshopper's. "Once I went to Niagara,
+and there was a balloon ascension. Everybody held their breath when the
+fellow went up, and he got into some trouble, I don't remember just what
+it was, and we almost died of anxiety until he came down; and when he
+landed we almost cried we were so glad, and we patted him on the back
+and hurrahed--and he was a Yankee, too! And now it's war time, and
+there's nothing I 'd like better than to empty a revolver into that fine
+windbag!"
+
+The sound in the air became heavier. A man on horseback spurred along
+the base of the hill. The people nearest stopped him. "Tell you? I
+can't tell you! Nobody ever knows anything about a battle till it's
+over, and not much then. Is Jackson over there? I don't know. He ought
+to be, so I reckon he is! If he isn't, it's A. P. Hill's battle, all
+alone."
+
+He was gone. "I don't believe it's much more than long-range firing
+yet," said the soldier. "Our batteries on the Chickahominy--and they are
+answering from somewhere beyond Beaver Dam Creek. No musketry. Hello!
+The tune's changing!"
+
+It changed with such violence that after a moment's exclamation the
+people sat or stood in silence, pale and awed. Speculation ceased. The
+plunging torrent of sound whelmed the mind and stilled the tongue. The
+soldier held out a moment. "Close range now. The North's always going to
+beat us when it comes to metal soldiers. I wonder how many they've got
+over there, anyhow!" Then he, too, fell silent.
+
+The deep and heavy booming shook air and earth. It came no longer in
+distinct shocks but with a continuous roar. The smoke screen grew denser
+and taller, mounting toward the balloons. There was no seeing for that
+curtain; it could only be noted that bodies of grey troops moved toward
+it, went behind it. A thin, elderly man, a school-teacher, borrowed the
+glass, fixed it, but could see nothing. He gave it back with a shake of
+the head, sat down again on the parched grass, and veiled his eyes with
+his hand. "'Hell is murky,'" he said.
+
+No lull occurred in the firing. The sun as it sank reddened the battle
+cloud that by now had blotted out the balloons. "When it is dark," said
+the soldier, "it will be like fireworks." An hour later the man with the
+glass discovered a string of wagons on one of the roads. It was coming
+citywards. "Ambulances!" he said, in a shaking voice.
+
+"Ambulances--ambulances--" The word went through the crowd like a sigh.
+It broke the spell. Most on the hillside might have an interest there.
+Parents, wives, brothers, sisters, children, they rose, they went away
+in the twilight like blown leaves. The air was rocking; orange and red
+lights began to show as the shells exploded. Christianna put her hand on
+Miriam's. "Miss Miriam--Miss Miriam! Mrs. Cleave'll say I didn't take
+care of you. Let's go--let's go. They're bringing back the wounded. Pap
+might be there or Dave or Billy or--Miss Miriam, Miss Miriam, your
+brother might be there."
+
+The long June dusk melted into night, and still the city shook to the
+furious cannonading. With the dark it saw, as it had not seen in the
+sunshine. As the soldier said, it was like fireworks.
+
+Beginning at twilight, the wagons with the wounded came all night long.
+Ambulances, farm wagons, carts, family carriages, heavy-laden, they
+rumbled over the cobblestones with the sound of the tumbrels in the
+Terror. It was stated that a number of the wounded were in the field
+hospitals. In the morning the knowledge was general that very many had
+lain, crying for water, all night in the slashing before Beaver Dam
+Creek.
+
+All the houses in Richmond were lighted. Through the streets poured a
+tide of fevered life. News--News--News!--demanded from chance couriers,
+from civilian spectators of the battle arriving pale and exhausted, from
+the drivers of wagon, cart, and carriage, from the less badly
+wounded--"Ours the victory--is it not? is it not?--Who led?--who
+fought?--who is fighting now? Jackson came? Jackson certainly came? We
+are winning--are we not? are we not?" Suspense hung palpable in the hot
+summer night, suspense, exaltation, fever. It breathed in the hot wind,
+it flickered in the lights, it sounded in the voice of the river. For
+many there sounded woe as well--woe and wailing for the dead. For
+others, for many, many others, there was a misery of searching, a
+heart-breaking going from hospital to hospital. "Is he here?--Are they
+here?" The cannon stopped at nine o'clock.
+
+The Stonewall Hospital was poorly lighted. In ward number 23 the oil
+lamps, stuck in brackets along the walls, smoked. At one end, where two
+pine tables were placed, the air from the open window blew the flames
+distractingly. A surgeon, half dead with fatigue, strained well-nigh to
+the point of tears, exclaimed upon it. "That damned wind! Shut the
+window, Miss Cary. Yes, tight! It's hell anyhow, and that's what you do
+in hell--burn up!"
+
+Judith closed the window. As she did so she looked once at the light on
+the northern horizon. The firing shook the window-pane. The flame of the
+lamp now stood straight. She turned the wick higher, then lifted a
+pitcher and poured water into a basin, and when the surgeon had washed
+his hands took away the reddened stuff. Two negroes laid a man on the
+table--a gaunt North Carolinian, his hand clutching a shirt all
+stiffened blood. Between his eyelids showed a gleam of white, his breath
+came with a whistling sound. Judith bent the rigid fingers open, drew
+the hand aside, and cut away the shirt. The surgeon looked. "Humph!
+Well, a body can but try. Now, my man, you lie right still, and I won't
+hurt you much. Come this side, Miss Cary--No, wait a moment!--It's no
+use. He's dying."
+
+The North Carolinian died. The negroes lifted him from the table and put
+another in his place. "Amputation," said the surgeon. "Hold it firmly,
+Miss Cary; just there." He turned to the adjoining table where a younger
+man was sewing up a forearm, ripped from wrist to elbow by a piece of
+shell. "Lend me your saw, will you, Martin?--Yes, I know the heat's
+fearful! but I can't work by a lamp that has Saint Vitus!" He turned
+back to his table. "Now, my lad, you just clench your teeth. Miss Cary
+and I aren't going to hurt you any more than we can help. Yes, above the
+knee." The younger surgeon, having finished the cut, wiped away with a
+towel the sweat that blinded him. "The next.--Hm! Doctor, will you look
+here a moment?--Oh, I see you can't! It's no use, Mrs. Opie. Better have
+him taken back. He'll die in an hour.--The next."
+
+The ward was long, low ceiled, with brown walls and rafters. Between the
+patches of lamplight the shadows lay wide and heavy. The cots, the
+pallets, the pew cushions sewed together, were placed each close by
+each. A narrow aisle ran between the rows; by each low bed there was
+just standing room. The beds were all filled, and the wagons bringing
+more rumbled on the cobblestones without. All the long place was
+reekingly hot, with a strong smell of human effluvia, of sweat-dampened
+clothing, of blood and powder grime. There was not much crying aloud;
+only when a man was brought in raving, or when there came a sharp scream
+from some form under the surgeon's knife. But the place seemed one
+groan, a sound that swelled or sank, but never ceased. The shadows on
+the wall, fantastically dancing, mocked this with nods and becks and
+waving arms,--mocked the groaning, mocked the heat, mocked the smell,
+mocked the thirst, mocked nausea, agony, delirium, and the rattle in the
+throat, mocked the helpers and the helped, mocked the night and the
+world and the dying and the dead. At dawn the cannon began again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+GAINES'S MILL
+
+
+Dawn broke cold and pure, the melancholy ashen seas slowly, slowly
+turning to chill ethereal meads of violets, the violet more slowly yet
+giving place to Adonis gardens of rose and daffodil. The forests stood
+dew-drenched and shadowy, solemn enough, deep and tangled woodlands that
+they were, under the mysterious light, in the realm of the hour whose
+finger is at her lips. The dawn made them seem still, and yet they were
+not still. They and the old fields and the marshes and the wild and
+tangled banks of sluggish water-courses, and the narrow, hidden roads,
+and the low pine-covered hilltops, and all the vast, overgrown, and
+sombre lowland were filled with the breathing of two armies. In the cold
+glory of the dawn there faced each other one hundred and eighty thousand
+men bent on mutual destruction.
+
+A body of grey troops, marching toward Cold Harbour, was brought to a
+halt within a taller, deeper belt than usual. Oak and sycamore, pine and
+elm, beech, ash, birch and walnut, all towered toward the violet meads.
+A light mist garlanded their tops, and a graceful, close-set underbrush
+pressed against their immemorial trunks. It was dank and still, dim and
+solemn within such a forest cavern. Minutes passed. The men sat down on
+the wet, black earth. The officers questioned knew only that Fitz John
+Porter was falling back from Beaver Dam Creek, presumably on his next
+line of intrenchments, and that, presumably, we were following. "Has
+Jackson joined?" "Can't tell you that. If he hasn't, well, we'll beat
+them anyhow!"
+
+This body of troops had done hard fighting the evening before and was
+tired enough to rest. Some of the men lay down, pillowing their heads on
+their arms, dozing, dozing in the underbrush, in the misty light,
+beneath the tall treetops where the birds were cheeping. In the meantime
+a Federal balloon, mounting into the amethyst air, discovered that
+this stretch of woodland was thronged with grey soldiers, and signalled
+as much to Fitz John Porter, falling back with steadiness to his second
+line at Gaines's Mill. He posted several batteries, and ordered them to
+shell the wood.
+
+In the purple light the guns began. The men in grey had to take the
+storm; they were in the wood and orders had not come to leave it. They
+took it in various ways, some sullenly, some contemptuously, some with
+nervous twitchings of head and body, many with dry humour and a
+quizzical front. The Confederate soldier was fast developing a
+characteristic which stayed with him to the end. He joked with death and
+gave a careless hand to suffering. A few of the more imaginative and
+aesthetically minded lost themselves in open-mouthed contemplation of the
+bestormed forest and its behaviour.
+
+The cannonade was furious, and though not many of the grey soldiers
+suffered, the grey trees did. Great and small branches were lopped off.
+In the dim light they came tumbling down. They were borne sideways,
+tearing through the groves and coverts, or, caught by an exploding shell
+and torn twig from twig, they fell in a shower of slivers, or, chopped
+clean from the trunk, down they crashed from leafy level to level till
+they reached the forest floor. Beneath them rose shouts of warning, came
+a scattering of grey mortals. Younger trees were cut short off. Their
+woodland race was run; down they rushed with their festoons of vines,
+crushing the undergrowth of laurel and hazel. Other shells struck the
+red brown resinous bodies of pines, set loose dangerous mists of bark
+and splinter. As by a whirlwind the air was filled with torn and flying
+growth, with the dull crash and leafy fall of the forest non-combatants.
+The light was no longer pure; it was murky here as elsewhere. The violet
+fields and the vermeil gardens were blotted out, and in the shrieking of
+the shells the birds could not have been heard to sing even were they
+there. They were not there; they were all flown far away. It was dark in
+the wood, dark and full of sound and of moving bodies charged with
+danger. The whirlwind swept it, the treetops snapped off. "_Attention!_"
+The grey soldiers were glad to hear the word. "_Forward! March!_" They
+were blithe to hear the order and to leave the wood.
+
+They moved out into old fields, grown with sedge and sassafras, here and
+there dwarf pines. Apparently the cannon had lost them; at any rate for
+a time the firing ceased. The east was now pink, the air here very pure
+and cool and still, each feather of broom sedge holding its row of
+diamond dewdrops. The earth was much cut up. "Batteries been along
+here," said the men. "Ours, too. Know the wheel marks. Hello! What you
+got, Carter?"
+
+"Somebody's dropped his photograph album."
+
+The man in front and the man behind and the man on the other side all
+looked. "One of those folding things! Pretty children! one, two, three,
+four, and their mother.--Keep it for him, Henry. Think the Crenshaw
+battery, or Braxton's, or the King William, or the Dixie was over this
+way."
+
+Beyond the poisoned field were more woods, dipping to one of the
+innumerable sluggish creeks of the region. There was a bridge--weak and
+shaken, but still a bridge. This crossed at last, the troops climbed a
+slippery bank, beneath a wild tangle of shrub and vine, and came
+suddenly into view of a line of breastworks, three hundred yards away.
+There was a halt; skirmishers were thrown forward. These returned
+without a trigger having been pulled. "Deserted, sir. They've fallen
+back, guns and all. But there's a meadow between us and the earthworks,
+sir, that--that--that--"
+
+The column began to move across the meadow--not a wide meadow, a little
+green, boggy place commanded by the breastworks. Apparently grey troops
+had made a charge here, the evening before. The trees that fringed the
+small, irregular oval, and the great birds that sat in the trees, and
+the column whose coming had made the birds to rise, looked upon a meadow
+set as thick with dead men as it should have been with daisies. They lay
+thick, thick, two hundred and fifty of them, perhaps, heart pierced,
+temple pierced by minie balls, or all the body shockingly torn by grape
+and canister. The wounded had been taken away. Only the dead were here,
+watched by the great birds, the treetops and the dawn. They lay
+fantastically, some rounded into a ball, some spread eagle, some with
+their arms over their eyes, some in the posture of easy sleep. At one
+side was a swampy place, and on the edge of this a man, sunk to the
+thigh, kept upright. The living men thought him living, too. More than
+one started out of line toward him, but then they saw that half his head
+was blown away.
+
+They left the meadow and took a road that skirted another great piece of
+forest. The sun came up, drank off the vagrant wreaths of mist and dried
+the dew from the sedge. There was promise of a hot, fierce, dazzling
+day. Another halt. "What's the matter this time?" asked the men. "God! I
+want to march on--into something happening!" Rumour came back. "Woods in
+front of us full of something. Don't know yet whether it's buzzards or
+Yankees. Get ready to open fire, anyway." All ready, the men waited
+until she came again. "It's men, anyhow. Woods just full of bayonets
+gleaming. Better throw your muskets forward."
+
+The column moved on, but cautiously, with a strong feeling that it, in
+its turn, was being watched--with muskets thrown forward. Then suddenly
+came recognition. "Grey--grey!--See the flag! They're ours! See--"
+Rumour broke into jubilant shouting. "It's the head of Jackson's column!
+It's the Valley men! Hurrah! Hurrah! Stonewall! Stonewall Jackson!
+Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihhhh!--'Hello, boys! You've been doing pretty well up
+there in the blessed old Valley!' 'Hello, boys! If you don't look out
+you'll be getting your names in the papers!' 'Hello, boys! come to help
+us kill mosquitoes? Haven't got any quinine handy, have you?' 'Hello,
+boys! Hello Kernstown, McDowell, Front Royal, Winchester, Harper's
+Ferry, Cross Keys, Port Republic! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihh!' 'Hello, you damned
+Cohees! Are you the foot cavalry?'--65th Virginia, Stonewall Brigade?
+Glad to see you, 65th! Welcome to these here parts. What made you late?
+We surely did hone for you yesterday evening. Oh, shucks! the best
+gun'll miss fire once in a lifetime. Who's your colonel? Richard Cleave?
+Oh, yes, I remember! read his name in the reports. We've got a good one,
+too,--real proud of him. Well, we surely are glad to see you fellows in
+the flesh!--Oh, we're going to halt. You halted, too?--Regular love
+feast, by jiminy! Got any tobacco?"
+
+A particularly ragged private, having gained permission from his
+officer, came up to the sycamore beneath which his own colonel and the
+colonel of the 65th were exchanging courtesies. The former glanced his
+way. "Oh, Cary! Oh, yes, you two are kin--I remember. Well, colonel, I'm
+waiting for orders, as you are. Morally sure we're in for an awful
+scrap. Got a real respect for Fitz John Porter. McClellan's got this
+army trained, too, till it isn't any more like the rabble at Manassas
+than a grub's like a butterfly! Mighty fine fighting machine now. Fitz
+John's got our old friend Sykes and the Regulars. That doesn't mean what
+it did at Manassas--eh? We're all Regulars now, ourselves.--Yes, Cold
+Harbour, I reckon, or maybe a little this way--Gaines's Mill. That's
+their second line. Wonderful breastworks. Mac's a master engineer!--Now
+I'll clear out and let you and Cary talk."
+
+The two cousins sat down on the grass beneath the sycamore. For a little
+they eyed each other in silence. Edward Cary was more beautiful than
+ever, and apparently happy, though one of his shoes was nothing more
+than a sandal, and he was innocent of a collar, and his sleeve demanded
+a patch. He was thin, bright-eyed, and bronzed, and he handled his rifle
+with lazy expertness, and he looked at his cousin with a genuine respect
+and liking. "Richard, I heard about Will. I know you were like a father
+to the boy. I am very sorry."
+
+"I know that you are, Edward. I would rather not talk about it, please.
+When the country bleeds, one must put away private grief."
+
+He sat in the shade of the tree, thin and bronzed and bright-eyed like
+his cousin, though not ragged. Dundee grazed at hand, and scattered upon
+the edge of the wood, beneath the little dogwood trees, lay like acorns
+his men, fraternizing with the "Tuckahoe" regiment. "Your father and
+Fauquier--?"
+
+"Both somewhere in this No-man's Land. What a wilderness of creeks and
+woods it is! I slept last night in a swamp, and at reveille a beautiful
+moccasin lay on a log and looked at me. I don't think either father or
+Fauquier were engaged last evening. Pender and Ripley bore the brunt of
+it. Judith is in Richmond."
+
+"Yes. I had a letter from her before we left the Valley."
+
+"I am glad, Richard, it is you. We were all strangely at sea,
+somehow--She is a noble woman. When I look at her I always feel
+reassured as to the meaning and goal of humanity."
+
+"I know--I love her dearly, dearly. If I outlive this battle I will try
+to get to see her--"
+
+Off somewhere, on the left, a solitary cannon boomed. The grey soldiers
+turned their heads. "A signal somewhere! We're spread over all creation.
+Crossing here and crossing there, and every half-hour losing your way!
+It's like the maze we used to read about--this bottomless, mountainless,
+creeky, swampy, feverish, damned lowland--"
+
+The two beneath the sycamore smiled. "'Back to our mountains,' eh?" said
+Edward. Cleave regarded the forest somewhat frowningly. "We are not," he
+said, "in a very good humour this morning. Yesterday was a day in which
+things went wrong."
+
+"It was a sickening disappointment," acknowledged Edward. "We listened
+and listened. He's got a tremendous reputation, you know--Jackson.
+Foreordained and predestined to be at the crucial point at the critical
+moment! Backed alike by Calvin and God! So we looked for a comet to
+strike Fitz John Porter, and instead we were treated to an eclipse. It
+was a frightful slaughter. I saw General Lee afterwards--magnanimous,
+calm, and grand! What was really the reason?"
+
+Cleave moved restlessly. "I cannot say. Perhaps I might hazard a guess,
+but it's no use talking of guesswork. To-day I hope for a change."
+
+"You consider him a great general?"
+
+"A very great one. But he's sprung from earth--ascended like the rest of
+us. For him, as for you and me, there's the heel undipped and the
+unlucky day."
+
+The officers of the first grey regiment began to bestir themselves.
+_Fall in--Fall in--Fall in!_ Edward rose. "Well, we shall see what we
+shall see. Good-bye, Richard!" The two shook hands warmly; Cary ran to
+his place in the line; the "Tuckahoe" regiment, cheered by the 65th,
+swung from the forest road into a track leading across an expanse of
+broom sedge. It went rapidly. The dew was dried, the mist lifted, the
+sun blazing with all his might. During the night the withdrawing
+Federals had also travelled this road. It was cut by gun-wheels, it was
+strewn with abandoned wagons, ambulances, accoutrements of all kinds.
+There were a number of dead horses. They lay across the road, or to
+either hand in the melancholy fields of sedge. From some dead trees the
+buzzards watched. One horse, far out in the yellow sedge, lifted his
+head and piteously neighed.
+
+The troops came into the neighbourhood of Gaines's Mill. Through grille
+after grille of woven twig and bamboo vine they descended to another
+creek, sleeping and shadowed, crossed it somehow, and came up into
+forest again. Before them, through the trees, was visible a great open
+space, hundreds of acres. Here and there it rose into knolls, and on
+these were planted grey batteries. Beyond the open there showed a
+horseshoe of a creek, fringed with swamp growth, a wild and tangled
+woodland; beyond this again a precipitous slope, almost a cliff,
+mounting to a wide plateau. All the side of the ascent was occupied by
+admirable breastworks, triple lines, one above the other, while at the
+base between hill and creek, within the enshadowing forest, was planted
+a great abattis of logs and felled trees. Behind the breastwork and on
+the plateau rested Fitz John Porter, reinforced during the night by
+Slocum, and now commanding thirty-five thousand disciplined and
+courageous troops. Twenty-two batteries frowned upon the plain below.
+The Federal drums were beating--beating--beating. The grey soldiers lay
+down in the woods and awaited orders. They felt, rather than saw, that
+other troops were all about them,--A. P. Hill--Longstreet--couched in
+the wide woods, strung in the brush that bordered creek and swamp,
+massed in the shelter of the few low knolls.
+
+They waited long. The sun blazed high and higher. Then a grey battery,
+just in front of this strip of woods, opened with a howitzer. The shell
+went singing on its errand, exploded before one of the triple tiers. The
+plateau answered with a hundred-pounder. The missile came toward the
+battery, overpassed it, and exploded above the wood. It looked as large
+as a beehive; it came with an awful sound, and when it burst the
+atmosphere seemed to rock. The men lying on the earth beneath jerked
+back their heads, threw an arm over their eyes, made a dry, clicking
+sound with their tongue against their teeth. The howitzer and this shell
+opened the battle--again A. P. Hill's battle.
+
+Over in the forest on the left, near Cold Harbour, where Stonewall
+Jackson had his four divisions, his own, D. H. Hill's, Ewell's, and
+Whiting's, there was long, long waiting. The men had all the rest they
+wanted, and more besides. They fretted, they grew querulous. "Oh, good
+God, why don't we move? There's firing--heavy firing--on the right. Are
+we going to lie here in these swamps and fight mosquitoes all day?
+Thought we were brought here to fight Yankees! The general walking in
+the forest and saying his prayers?--Oh, go to hell!"
+
+A battery, far over on the edge of a swamp, broke loose, tearing the
+sultry air with shell after shell tossed against a Federal breastwork on
+the other side of the marsh. The Stonewall Brigade grew vividly
+interested. "That's D. H. Hill over there! D. H. Hill is a fighter from
+way back! O Lord, why don't we fight too? Holy Moses, what a racket!"
+The blazing noon filled with crash and roar. Ten of Fitz John Porter's
+guns opened, full-mouthed, on the adventurous battery.
+
+It had nerve, _elan_, sheer grit enough for a dozen, but it was
+out-metalled. One by one its guns were silenced,--most of the horses
+down, most of the cannoneers. Hill recalled it. A little later he
+received an order from Jackson. "General Hill will withdraw his troops
+to the left of the road, in rear of his present position, where he will
+await further orders." Hill went, with shut lips. One o'clock--two
+o'clock--half-past two. "O God, have mercy! _Is_ this the Army of the
+Valley?"
+
+Allan Gold, detached at dawn on scout duty, found himself about this
+time nearer to the Confederate centre than to his own base of operations
+at the left. He had been marking the windings of creeks, observing where
+there were bridges and where there were none, the depth of channels and
+the infirmness of marshes. He had noted the Federal positions and the
+amount of stores abandoned, set on fire, good rice and meat, good shoes,
+blankets, harness, tents, smouldering and smoking in glade and thicket.
+He had come upon dead men and horses and upon wounded men and horses. He
+had given the wounded drink. He had killed with the butt of his rifle a
+hissing and coiled snake. He had turned his eyes away from the black and
+winged covering of a dead horse and rider. Kneeling at last to drink at
+a narrow, hidden creek, slumbering between vine-laden trees, he had
+raised his eyes, and on the other side marked a blue scout looking,
+startled, out of a hazel bush. There was a click from two muskets; then
+Allan said, "Don't fire! I won't. Why should we? Drink and forget." The
+blue scout signified acquiescence. "All right, Reb. I'm tired fighting,
+anyway! Was brought up a Quaker, and wouldn't mind if I had stayed one!
+Got anything to mix with the water?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, let's take it just dry so." Both drank, then settled back on
+their heels for a moment's conversation. "Awful weather," said the blue
+scout. "Didn't know there could be such withering heat! And
+malaria--lying out of nights in swamps, with owls hooting and
+jack-o'-lanterns round your bed! Ain't you folks most beat yet?"
+
+"No," said the grey scout. "Don't you think you've about worn your
+welcome out and had better go home?--Look out there! Your gun's slipping
+into the water."
+
+The blue recovered it. "It's give out this morning that Stonewall
+Jackson's arrived on the scene."
+
+"Yes, he has."
+
+"Well, he's a one-er! Good many of you we wish would desert.--No; we
+ain't going home till we go through Richmond."
+
+"Well," said Allan politely, "first and last, a good many folk have
+settled hereabouts since Captain John Smith traded on the Chickahominy
+with the Indians. There's family graveyards all through these woods. I
+hope you'll like the country."
+
+The other drank again of the brown water. "It wasn't so bad in the
+spring time. We thought it was awful lovely at first, all spangled with
+flowers and birds.--Are you married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Neither am I. But I'm going to be, when I get back to where I belong.
+Her name's Flora."
+
+"That's a pretty name."
+
+"Yes, and she's pretty, too--" He half closed his eyes and smiled
+blissfully, then rose from the laurels. "Well, I must be trotting along,
+away from Cold Harbour. Funniest names! What does it mean?"
+
+"It was an inn, long ago, where you got only cold fare. Shouldn't wonder
+if history isn't going to repeat itself--" He rose, also, tall and
+blonde. "Well, I must be travelling, too--"
+
+"Rations getting pretty low, aren't they? How about coffee?"
+
+"Oh, one day," said Allan, "we're going to drink a lot of it! No, I
+don't know that they are especially low."
+
+The blue scout dipped a hand into his pocket. "Well, I've got a packet
+of it, and there's plenty more where that came from.--Catch, Reb!"
+
+Allan caught it. "You're very good, Yank. Thank you."
+
+"Have you got any quinine?"
+
+"No."
+
+The blue scout tossed across a small box. "There's for you! No, I don't
+want it. We've got plenty.--Well, good-bye."
+
+"I hope you'll get back safe," said Allan, "and have a beautiful
+wedding."
+
+The blue vanished in the underbrush, the grey went on his way through
+the heavy forest. He was moving now toward sound, heavy, increasing,
+presaging a realm of jarred air and ringing ear-drums. Ahead, he saw a
+column of swiftly moving troops. Half running, he overtook the rear
+file. "Scout?"--"Yes--Stonewall Brigade--" "All right! all right! This
+is A. P. Hill's division.--Going into battle. Come on, if you want to."
+
+Through the thinning woods showed a great open plain, with knolls where
+batteries were planted. The regiment to which Allan had attached himself
+lay down on the edge of the wood, near one of the cannon-crowned
+eminences. Allan stretched himself beneath a black gum at the side of
+the road. Everywhere was a rolling smoke, everywhere terrific sound. A
+battery thundered by at a gallop, six horses to each gun, straining,
+red-nostrilled, fiery-eyed. It struck across a corner of the plain. Over
+it burst the shells, twelve-pounders--twenty-pounders. A horse went
+down--the drivers cut the traces. A caisson was struck, exploded with
+frightful glare and sound. About it, when the smoke cleared, writhed men
+and horses, but the gun was dragged off. Through the rain of shells the
+battery gained a lift of ground, toiled up it, placed the guns,
+unlimbered and began to fire. A South Carolina brigade started with a
+yell from the woods to the right, tore in a dust cloud across the old
+fields, furrowed with gullies, and was swallowed in the forest about the
+creek which laved the base of the Federal position. This rose from the
+level like a Gibraltar, and about it now beat a wild shouting and rattle
+of musketry. Allan rose to his knees, then to his feet, then, drawn as
+by a magnet, crept through a finger of sumach and sassafras,
+outstretched from the wood, to a better vantage point just in rear of
+the battery.
+
+Behind him, through the woods, came a clatter of horses' hoofs. It was
+met and followed by cheering. Turning his head, he saw a general and his
+staff, and though he had never seen Lee he knew that this was Lee, and
+himself began to cheer. The commander-in-chief lifted his grey hat, came
+down the dim, overarched, aisle-like road, between the cheering troops.
+With his staff he left the wood for the open, riding beneath the shelter
+by the finger of sumach and sassafras, toward the battery. He saw Allan,
+and reined up iron-grey Traveller. "You do not belong to this
+regiment.--A scout? General Jackson's?--Ah, well, I expect General
+Jackson to strike those people on the right any moment now!" He rode up
+to the battery. The shells were raining, bursting above, around. In the
+shelter of the hill the battery horses had at first, veteran,
+undisturbed, cropped the parched grass, but now one was wounded and now
+another. An arm was torn from a gunner. A second, stooping over a limber
+chest, was struck between the shoulders, crushed, flesh and bone, into
+pulp. The artillery captain came up to the general-in-chief. "General
+Lee, won't you go away? Gentlemen, won't you tell him that there's
+danger?"
+
+The staff reinforced the statement, but without avail. General Lee shook
+his head, and with his field-glasses continued to gaze toward the left,
+whence should arise the dust, the smoke, the sound of Jackson's flanking
+movement. There was no sign on the left, but here, in the centre, the
+noise from the woods beyond the creek was growing infernal. He lowered
+the glass. "Captain Chamberlayne, will you go tell General Longstreet--"
+
+Out of the thunder-filled woods, back from creek and swamp and briar and
+slashing, from abattis of bough and log, from the shadow of that bluff
+head with its earthworks one above the other, from the scorching flame
+of twenty batteries and the wild singing of the minies, rushed the South
+Carolina troops. The brigadier--Maxey Gregg--the regimental, the company
+officers, with shouts, with appeals, with waved swords, strove to stop
+the rout. The command rallied, then broke again. Hell was in the wood,
+and the men's faces were grey and drawn. "We must rally those troops!"
+said Lee, and galloped forward. He came into the midst of the disordered
+throng. "Men, men! Remember your State--Do your duty!" They recognized
+him, rallied, formed on the colours, swept past him with a cheer and
+reentered the deep and fatal wood.
+
+The battery in front of Allan began to suffer dreadfully. The horses
+grew infected with the terror of the plain. They jerked their heads
+back; they neighed mournfully; some left the grass and began to gallop
+aimlessly across the field. The shells came in a stream, great, hurtling
+missiles. Where they struck flesh or ploughed into the earth, it was
+with a deadened sound; when they burst in air, it was like crackling
+thunder. The blue sky was gone. A battle pall wrapped the thousands and
+thousands of men, the guns, the horses, forest, swamp, creeks, old
+fields; the great strength of the Federal position, the grey brigades
+dashing against it, hurled back like Atlantic combers. It should be
+about three o'clock, Allan thought, but he did not know. Every nerve was
+tingling, the blood pounding in his veins. Time and space behaved like
+waves charged with strange driftwood. He felt a mad excitement, was sure
+that if he stood upright or tried to walk he would stagger. An order ran
+down the line of the brigade he had adopted. _Attention!_
+
+[Illustration: THE BATTLE]
+
+He found himself on his feet and in line, steady, clear of head as
+though he trod the path by Thunder Run. _Forward! March!_ The brigade
+cleared the wood, and in line of battle passed the exhausted battery.
+Allan noted a soldier beneath a horse, a contorted, purple, frozen face
+held between the brute's fore-legs. The air was filled with whistling
+shells; the broom sedge was on fire. _Right shoulder. Shift Arms!
+Charge!_
+
+Somewhere, about halfway over the plain, he became convinced that his
+right leg from the hip down was gone to sleep. He had an idea that he
+was not keeping up. A line passed him--another; he mustn't let the
+others get ahead! and for a minute he ran quite rapidly. There was a
+yellow, rain-washed gulley before him; the charge swept down one side
+and up the other. This crack in the earth was two thirds of the way
+across the open; beyond were the wood, the creek, the abattis, the
+climbing lines of breastworks, the thirty-five thousand in blue, and the
+tremendous guns. The grey charge was yelling high and clear, preparing
+to deliver its first fire; the air a roar of sound and a glaring light.
+Allan went down one side of the gulley with some ease, but it was
+another thing to climb the other. However, up he got, almost to the
+top--and then pitched forward, clutching at the growth of sedge along
+the crest. It held him steady, and he settled into a rut of yellow earth
+and tried to think it over. Endeavouring to draw himself a little
+higher, a minie ball went through his shoulder. The grey charge passed
+him, roaring on to the shadowy wood.
+
+He helped himself as best he could, staunched some blood, drew his own
+conclusions as to his wounds. He was not suffering much; not over much.
+By nature he matched increasing danger with increasing coolness. All
+that he especially wanted was for that charge to succeed--for the grey
+to succeed. His position here, on the rim of the gully, was an admirable
+one for witnessing all that the shifting smoke might allow to be
+witnessed. It was true that a keening minie or one of the monstrous
+shells might in an instant shear his thread of life, probably would do
+so; all the probabilities lay that way. But he was cool and courageous,
+and had kept himself ready to go. An absorbing interest in the field of
+Gaines's Mill, a passionate desire that Victory should wear grey,
+dominated all other feeling. Half in the seam of the gully, half in the
+sedge at the top, he made himself as easy as he could and rested a
+spectator.
+
+The battle smoke, now heavily settling, now drifting like clouds before
+a wind, now torn asunder and lifting from the scene, made the great
+field to come and go in flashes, or like visions of the night. He saw
+that A. P. Hill was sending in his brigades, brigade after brigade. He
+looked to the left whence should come Jackson, but over there, just seen
+through the smoke, the forest stood sultry and still. Behind him,
+however, in the wood at the base of the armed hill, there rose a clamour
+and deep thunder as of Armageddon. Like a grey wave broken against an
+iron shore, the troops with whom he had charged streamed back
+disordered, out of the shadowy wood into the open, where in the gold
+sedge lay many a dead man and many a wounded. Allan saw the crimson flag
+with the blue cross shaken, held on high, heard the officers crying,
+"Back, men, back! Virginians, do your duty!" The wave formed again. He
+tried to rise so that he might go with it, but could not. It returned
+into the wood. Before him, racing toward the gully, came another
+wave--Branch's brigade, yelling as it charged. He saw it a moment like a
+grey wall, with the colours tossing, then it poured down into the gully
+and up and past him. He put up his arms to shield his face, but the men
+swerved a little and did not trample him. The worn shoes, digging into
+the loose earth covered him with dust. The moving grey cloth, the smell
+of sweat-drenched bodies, of powder, of leather, of hot metal, the
+panting breath, the creak and swing, the sudden darkening, heat and
+pressure--the passage of that wave took his own breath from him, left
+him white and sick. Branch went on. He looked across the gully and saw
+another wave coming--Pender, this time. Pender came without yelling,
+grim and grey and close-mouthed. Pender had suffered before Beaver Dam
+Creek; to-day there was not much more than half a brigade. It, too,
+passed, a determined wave. Allan saw Field in the distance coming up. He
+was tormented with thirst. Three yards from the gully lay stretched the
+trunk of a man, the legs blown away. He was almost sure he caught the
+glint of a canteen. He lay flat in the sedge and dragged himself to the
+corpse. There was the canteen, indeed; marked with a great U. S., spoil
+taken perhaps at Williamsburg or at Seven Pines. It was empty, drained
+dry as a bone. There was another man near. Allan dragged himself on. He
+thought this one dead, too, but when he reached him he opened large blue
+eyes and breathed, "Water!" Allan sorrowfully shook his head. The blue
+eyes did not wink nor close, they glazed and stayed open. The scout
+dropped beside the body, exhausted. Field's charge passed over him. When
+he opened his eyes, this portion of the plain was like a sea between
+cross winds. All the broken waves were wildly tossing. Here they
+recoiled, fled, even across the gully; here they seethed, inchoate;
+there, regathering form and might, they readvanced to the echoing hill,
+with its three breastworks and its eighty cannon. Death gorged himself
+in the tangled slashing, on the treacherous banks of the slow-moving
+creek. A. P. Hill was a superb fighter. He sent in his brigades. They
+returned, broken; he sent them in again. They went. The 16th and 22d
+North Carolina passed the three lines of blazing rifles, got to the head
+of the cliff, found themselves among the guns. In vain. Morrell's
+artillerymen, Morrell's infantry, pushed them back and down, down the
+hillside, back into the slashing. The 35th Georgia launched itself like
+a thunderbolt and pierced the lines, but it, too, was hurled down.
+Gregg's South Carolinians and Sykes Regulars locked and swayed. Archer
+and Pender, Field and Branch, charged and were repelled, to charge
+again. Save in marksmanship, the Confederate batteries could not match
+the Federal; strength was with the great, blue rifled guns, and yet the
+grey cannoneers wrought havoc on the plateau and amid the breastworks.
+The sound was enormous, a complex tumult that crashed and echoed in the
+head. The whole of the field existed in the throbbing, expanded
+brain--all battlefields, all life, all the world and other worlds, all
+problems solved and insoluble. The wide-flung grey battlefront was now
+sickle-shaped, convex to the foe. The rolling dense smoke flushed
+momently with a lurid glare. In places the forest was afire, in others
+the stubble of the field. From horn to horn of the sickle galloped the
+riderless horses. Now and again a wounded one among them screamed
+fearfully.
+
+Allan dragged himself back to the gully. It was safer there, because the
+charging lines must lessen speed, break ranks a little; they would not
+be so resistlessly borne on and over him. He was not light-headed, or he
+thought he was not. He lay on the rim of the gully that was now trampled
+into a mere trough of dust, and he looked at the red light on the
+rolling vapour. Where it lifted he saw, as in a pageant, war in
+mid-career. Sound, too, had organized. He could have beaten time to the
+gigantic rhythm. It rose and sank; it was made up of groaning, shouting,
+breathing of men, gasping, and the sounds that horses make, with louder
+and louder the thunder of the inanimate, the congregated sound of the
+allies man had devised,--the saltpetre he had digged, the powder he had
+made, the rifles he had manufactured, the cannon he had moulded, the
+solid shot, grape, canister, shrapnel, minie balls. The shells were
+fearful, Allan was fain to acknowledge. They passed like whistling
+winds. They filled the air like great rocks from a blasting. The
+staunchest troops blanched a little, jerked the head sidewise as the
+shells burst and showered ruin. There came into Allan's mind a picture
+in the old geography,--rocks thrown up by Vesuvius. He thought he was
+speaking to the geography class. "I'll show you how they look. I was
+lying, you see, at the edge of the crater, and they were all overhead."
+The picture passed away, and he began to think that the minies'
+unearthly shriek was much like the winter wind round Thunder Run
+Mountain--Sairy and Tom--Was Sairy baking gingerbread?--Of course not;
+they didn't have gingerbread now. Besides, you didn't want gingerbread
+when you were thirsty.... _Oh, water, water, water, water!..._ Tom might
+be taking the toll--if there was anybody to pay it, and if they kept the
+roads up. Roses in bloom, and the bees in them and over the pansies....
+The wrens sang, and Christianna came down the road. Roses and pansies,
+with their funny little faces, and Sairy's blue gingham apron and the
+blue sky. The water-bucket on the porch, with the gourd. He began to
+mutter a little. "Time to take in, children--didn't you hear the bell? I
+rang it loudly. I am ringing it now. Listen! Loud, loud--like church
+bells--and cannons. The old lesson.... Curtius and the gulf."
+
+In the next onrush a man stumbled and came to his knees beside him. Not
+badly hurt, he was about to rise. Allan caught his arm. "For God's
+sake--if you've got any water--" The man, a tall Alabamian, looked down,
+nodded, jerked loose another U. S. canteen, and dropped it into the
+other's hand. "All right, all right--not at all--not at all--" He ran
+on, joining the hoar and shouting wave. Allan, the flask set to his
+lips, found not water, but a little cold and weak coffee. It was
+nectar--it was happiness--it was life--though he could have drunk ten
+times the amount!
+
+The cool draught and the strength that was in it revived him, drew his
+wandering mind back from Thunder Run to Gaines's Mill. Again he wished
+to know where was the Army of the Valley. It might be over there, in the
+smoke pall, turning Fitz John Porter's right ... but he did not believe
+it. Brigade after brigade had swept past him, had been broken, had
+reformed, had again swept by into the wood that was so thick with the
+dead. A. P. Hill continued to hurl them in, standing, magnificent
+fighter! his eyes on the dark and bristling stronghold. On the hill,
+behind the climbing breastworks and the iron giants atop, Fitz John
+Porter, good and skilful soldier, withdrew from the triple lines his
+decimated regiments, put others in their places, scoured with the hail
+of his twenty-two batteries the plain of the Confederate centre. All the
+attack was here--all the attack was here--and the grey brigades were
+thinning like mist wreaths. The dead and wounded choked field and gully
+and wood and swamp. Allan struck his hands together. What had
+happened--what was the matter? How long had he lain here? Two hours, at
+the least--and always it was A. P. Hill's battle, and always the grey
+brigades with a master courage dashed themselves against the slope of
+fire, and always the guns repelled them. It was growing late. The sun
+could not be seen. Plain and woods were darkening, darkening and filled
+with groaning. It was about him like a melancholy wind, the groaning. He
+raised himself on his hands and saw how many indeed were scattered in
+the sedge, or in the bottom of the yellow gully, or slanted along its
+sides. He had not before so loudly heard the complaining that they made,
+and for a moment the brain wondered why. Then he was aware that the air
+was less filled with missiles, that the long musketry rattle and the
+baying of the war dogs was a little hushed. Even as he marked this the
+lull grew more and more perceptible. He heard the moaning of the
+wounded, because now the ear could take cognizance.
+
+The shadow deepened. A horse, with a blood-stained saddle, unhurt
+himself, approached him, stood nickering for a moment, then panic-struck
+again, lashed out with his heels and fled. All the plain, the sedge
+below, the rolling canopy above, was tinged with reddish umber. The
+sighing wind continued, but the noise of firing died and died. For all
+the moaning of the wounded, there seemed to fall a ghastly silence.
+
+Over Allan came a feeling as of a pendulum forever stopped, as of Time
+but a wreck on the shore of Space, and Space a deserted coast, an
+experiment of some Power who found it ineffective and tossed it away.
+The Now and Here, petrified forever, desolate forever, an obscure bubble
+in the sea of being, a faint tracing on the eternal Mind to be overlaid
+and forgotten--here it rested, and would rest. The field would stay and
+the actors would stay, both forever as they were, standing, lying, in
+motion or at rest, suffering, thirsting, tasting the sulphur and feeling
+the heat, held here forever in a vise, grey shadows suffering like
+substance, knowing the lost battle.... A deadly weakness and horror came
+over him. "O God!--Let us die--"
+
+From the rear, to A. P. Hill's right, where was Longstreet, broke a faint
+yelling. It grew clearer, came nearer. From another direction--from the
+left--burst a like sound, increasing likewise, high, wild, and clear. Like
+a breath over the field went the conviction--_Jackson--Jackson at last!_
+Allan dropped in the broom sedge, his arm beneath his head. The grey sleeve
+was wet with tears. The pendulum was swinging; he was home in the dear and
+dread world.
+
+The sound increased; the earth began to shake with the tread of men; the
+tremendous guns began again their bellowing. Longstreet swung into
+action, with the brigades of Kemper, Anderson, Pickett, Willcox, Pryor,
+and Featherstone. On the left, with his own division, with Ewell's, with
+D. H. Hill's, Jackson struck at last like Jackson. Whiting, with two
+brigades, should have been with Jackson, but, missing his way in the
+wood, came instead to Longstreet, and with him entered the battle. The
+day was descending. All the plain was smoky or luridly lit; a vast
+Shield of Mars, with War in action. With Longstreet and with Jackson up
+at last, Lee put forth his full strength. Fifty thousand men in grey,
+thirty-five thousand men in blue, were at once engaged--in three hundred
+years there had been in the Western Hemisphere no battle so heavy as
+this one. The artillery jarred even the distant atmosphere, and the high
+mounting clouds were tinged with red. Six miles away, Richmond listened
+aghast.
+
+Allan forgot his wounds, forgot his thirst, forgot the terror, sick and
+cold, of the minute past. He no longer heard the groaning. The storm of
+sound swept it away. He was a fighter with the grey; all his soul was in
+the prayer. "Let them come! Let them conquer!" He thought, _Let the war
+bleed and the mighty die_. He saw a charge approaching. Willingly would
+he have been stamped into the earth would it further the feet on their
+way. The grey line hung an instant, poised on the further rim of the
+gully, then swept across and onward. Until the men were by him, it was
+thick night, thick and stifling. They passed. He heard the yelling as
+they charged the slope, the prolonged tremendous rattle of musketry, the
+shouts, the foiled assault, and the breaking of the wave. Another came,
+a wall of darkness in the closing day. Over it hung a long cloud,
+red-stained. Allan prayed aloud. "O God of Battles--O God of Battles--"
+
+The wave came on. It resolved itself into a moving frieze, a wide battle
+line of tall men, led by a tall, gaunt general, with blue eyes and
+flowing, tawny hair. In front was the battle-flag, red ground and blue
+cross. Beside it dipped and rose a blue flag with a single star. The
+smoke rolled above, about the line. Bursting overhead, a great shell lit
+all with a fiery glare. The frieze began to sing.
+
+                  "The race is not to them that's got
+                    The longest legs to run,
+                  Nor the battle to that people
+                    That shoots the biggest gun--"
+
+Allan propped himself upon his hands. "Fourth Texas! Fourth
+Texas!--Fourth--"
+
+The frieze rushed down the slope of the gully, up again, and on. A foot
+came hard on Allan's hand. He did not care. He had a vision of keen,
+bronze faces, hands on gun-locks. The long, grey legs went by him with a
+mighty stride. Gun-barrel and bayonet gleamed like moon on water. The
+battle-flag with the cross, the flag with the single star, spread red
+and blue wings. Past him they sped, gigantic, great ensigns of desperate
+valour, war goddesses, valkyries, ... rather the great South herself,
+the eleven States, Rio Grande to Chesapeake, Potomac to the Gulf! All
+the shells were bursting, all the drums were thundering--
+
+The Texans passed, he sank prone on the earth. Other waves he knew were
+following--all the waves! Jackson with Ewell, Longstreet, the two Hills.
+He thought he saw his own brigade--saw the Stonewall. But it was in
+another quarter of the field, and he could not call to it. All the earth
+was rocking like a cradle, blindly swinging in some concussion and
+conflagration as of world systems.
+
+As dusk descended, the Federal lines were pierced and broken. The Texans
+made the breach, but behind them stormed the other waves,--D. H. Hill,
+Ewell, the Stonewall Brigade, troops of Longstreet. They blotted out the
+triple breastworks; from north, west, and south they mounted in thunder
+upon the plateau. They gathered to themselves here twenty-two guns, ten
+thousand small arms, twenty-eight hundred prisoners. They took the
+plateau. Stubbornly fighting, Fitz John Porter drew off his exhausted
+brigades, plunged downward through the forest, toward the Chickahominy.
+Across that river, all day long McClellan, with sixty-five thousand men,
+had rested behind earthworks, bewildered by Magruder, demonstrating in
+front of Richmond with twenty-eight thousand. Now, at the twelfth hour,
+he sent two brigades, French and Meagher.
+
+Night fell, black as pitch. The forest sprang dense, from miry soil. The
+region was one where Nature set traps. In the darkness it was not easy
+to tell friend from foe. Grey fired on grey, blue on blue. The blue
+still pressed, here in disorder, here with a steady front, toward the
+grapevine bridge across the Chickahominy. French and Meagher arrived to
+form a strong rearguard. Behind, on the plateau, the grey advance
+paused, uncertain in the darkness and in its mortal fatigue. Here, and
+about the marshy creek and on the vast dim field beyond, beneath the
+still hanging battle cloud, lay, of the grey and the blue, fourteen
+thousand dead and wounded. The sound of their suffering rose like a
+monotonous wind of the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE HEEL OF ACHILLES
+
+
+The Stonewall Brigade, a unit in Jackson's advance, halted on the
+plateau near the McGehee house. All was dark, all was confused. In the
+final and general charge, regiments had become separated from brigades,
+companies from regiments. Fragments of many commands were on the
+plateau,--Whiting, Ewell, D. H. Hill, Jackson's own division, portions
+of Longstreet's brigades, even a number of A. P. Hill's broken,
+exhausted fighters. Many an officer lay silent or moaning, on the
+scarped slope, in the terrific tangle about the creek, or on the
+melancholy plain beyond. Captains shouted orders in the colonels'
+places; lieutenants or sergeants in the captains'. Here, on the plateau,
+where for hours the blue guns had thundered, the stars were seen but
+dimly through the smoke. Bodies of men, and men singly or in twos and
+threes, wandered like ghosts in Hades. "This way, Second Virginia!"
+"Fall in here, Hood's Texans!"--"Hampton's men, over here!"--"Fifteenth
+Alabama! Fifteenth Alabama!"--"I'm looking for the Milledgeville
+Hornets."--"Iverson's men! Iverson's men!"--"Fall in here, Cary's
+Legion!"--"First Maryland!"--"Fifth Virginia over here!"--"Where in hell
+is the Eleventh Mississippi!"--"Lawton! Lawton!"--"Sixty-fifth Virginia,
+fall in here!"
+
+East and south, sloping toward the Chickahominy, ran several miles of
+heavy forest. It was filled with sound,--the hoofs of horses, the
+rumbling of wheels, the breaking through undergrowth of masses of
+men,--sound that was dying in volume, rolling toward the Chickahominy.
+On the trampled brow of the plateau, beneath shot-riddled trees, General
+D. H. Hill, coming from the northern face, found General Winder of the
+First Brigade standing with several of his officers, trying to pierce
+the murk toward the river. "You rank here, General Winder?" said Hill.
+
+"I think so, general. Such a confusion of troops I have never seen! They
+have been reporting to me. It is yours now to command."
+
+"Have you seen General Jackson?"
+
+"No. Not lately."
+
+D. H. Hill looked toward the Chickahominy. "I don't deny it's
+temptatious! And yet.... Very dark. Thick woods. Don't know what
+obstructions. Men exhausted. Our centre and right not come up. Artillery
+still across the swamp--What's that cheering toward the river?"
+
+"I don't know. McClellan may have sent reinforcements."
+
+"Have you pickets out?"
+
+"Yes. What do you think, Cleave?"
+
+"I think, sir, the rout outweighs the reinforcements. I think we should
+press on at once."
+
+"If we had cavalry!" said Winder impatiently. "However, General Stuart
+has swept down toward the Pamunkey. That will be their line of
+retreat--to the White House."
+
+"There is the chance," said Cleave, "that General McClellan will abandon
+that line, and make instead for the James and the gunboats at Harrison's
+Landing."
+
+Hill nodded. "Yes, it's a possibility. General Lee is aware of it. He'll
+not unmask Richmond and come altogether on this side the Chickahominy
+until he knows. All that crowd down there may set to and cross
+to-night--"
+
+"How many bridges?" asked Lawton.
+
+"Alexander's and Grapevine. Woodbury's higher up."
+
+"I do not believe that there are three, sir. There is a report that two
+are burned. I believe that the Grapevine is their only road--"
+
+"You believe, colonel, but you do not know. What do you think, General
+Winder?"
+
+"I think, sir, with Colonel Cleave, that we should push down through the
+woods to the right of the Grapevine Bridge. They, too, are exhausted,
+their horses jaded, their ammunition spent. We could gather a little
+artillery--Poague's battery is here. They are crushed together, in great
+masses. If we could fall upon them, cause a great panic there at the
+water, much might come of it."
+
+Hill looked with troubled eyes about the plateau. "And two or three
+thousand men, perhaps, be swallowed up and lost! A grand charge that
+took this plateau--yes! and a grand charge at Beaver Dam Creek yesterday
+at dark, and a grand charge when Albert Sidney Johnston was killed, and
+a grand charge when Ashby was killed, and on a number of other
+occasions, and now a grand night-time charge with worn-out troops. All
+grand--just the kind of grandeur the South cannot afford!... An army yet
+of blue troops and fresh, shouting brigades, and our centre and right on
+the other side of the creek.... I don't dare do it, gentlemen!--not on
+my own responsibility. What do you think, General Lawton?"
+
+"I think you are right, sir."
+
+"More and more troops are coming upon the plateau," said Winder.
+"General Hill, if you will order us to go we will see to it that you do
+not repent--"
+
+"They are defeated and retreating, sir," said Cleave. "If they are
+crossing the river, it is at least in the realm of probability that they
+have but the one path. No one knows better than you what resolute
+pressure might now accomplish. Every moment that we wait they gain in
+steadiness, and other reserves will come up. Make their junction with
+their centre, and to-morrow we fight a terrific battle where to-night a
+lesser struggle might secure a greater victory."
+
+"Speaking largely, that is true," said Hill. "But--I wish General
+Jackson were here! I think you know, gentlemen, that, personally, I
+could wish, at this minute, to be down there in the woods, beside the
+Grapevine Bridge. But with the knowledge that the enemy is bringing up
+reserves, with the darkness so thick, with no great force, and that
+exhausted, and with no artillery, I cannot take the responsibility of
+the advance. If General Jackson were here--"
+
+"May I send in search of him, sir?"
+
+"Yes, General Winder, you may do that. And if he says, 'Go!' there won't
+one of you be happier than I."
+
+"We know that, general.--Cleave, I am going to send you. You're far the
+likeliest. We want him to come and lead us to the completest victory. By
+God, we want Front Royal and Port Republic again!"
+
+Cleave, turning, disappeared into the darkness. "See to your men,
+General Winder. Get them ready," said Hill. "I'm going a little way into
+the woods to see what I can see myself." He went, Lawton with him.
+Before many minutes had passed they were back. "Nearly walked into their
+lines! Strung across the Grapevine road. Massed thick between us and the
+Chickahominy. Scattered like acorns through the woods. Pretty miserable,
+I gather. Passed party hunting water. Speech bewrayeth the man, so
+didn't say anything. Heard the pickets talking. 'Twas Meagher and French
+came up. They're building great fires by the water. Looks as though they
+meant to cross. Nothing of General Jackson yet?"
+
+"No, sir. Not yet."
+
+"Well, I'm going into the house for a morsel of food. Send for me the
+moment you hear anything. I wish the artillery were up. Who's this?
+Colonel Fauquier Cary? In the darkness, couldn't tell. Yes, General
+Winder thinks so, too. We've sent to ask General Jackson. Come with me,
+Cary, to the house. Faugh! this stifling heat! And that was Sykes we
+were fighting against--George Sykes! Remember he was my roommate at the
+Point?"
+
+The short path to McGehee's house was not trodden without difficulty.
+All the great plateau was cumbered with debris of the struggle. On the
+cut and furrowed ground one stumbled upon abandoned stores and arms.
+There were overturned wagons and ambulances with dead horses; there were
+ruined gun-carriages; there were wrecked litters, fallen tents, dead men
+and the wounded. Here, and on the plain below, the lanterns of the
+surgeons and their helpers moved like glowworms. They gathered the
+wounded, blue and grey. "Treat the whole field alike," had said Lee.
+Everywhere were troops seeking their commands, hoarsely calling, joining
+at last their comrades. Fires had been kindled. Dim, dim, in the
+southwestern sky beyond the yet rolling vapour, showed a gleaming where
+was Richmond. D. H. Hill and Fauquier Cary went indoors. An aide managed
+to find some biscuits, and there was water from the well. "I haven't
+touched food since daybreak," said the general.
+
+"Nor I. Much as I like him, I am loath to let Fitz John Porter strike
+down the York River line to-night, if that's his road, or cross the
+Chickahominy if that's the road! We have a victory. Press it home and
+fix it there."
+
+"I believe that you are right. Surely Jackson will see it so."
+
+"Where is General Jackson?"
+
+"God knows!--Thank you, Reid. Poor fare, Cary, but familiar. Come, Reid,
+get your share."
+
+They ate the hard biscuits and drank the well-water. The air was still
+and sultry; through the windows they heard, afar off, the bugles--their
+own and those of the foe.
+
+              "High, over all the melancholy bugle grieves."
+
+Moths came in to the candle. With his hand Cary warned them away. One
+lit on his sleeve. "I wonder what you think of it," he said, and put him
+out of window. There was a stir at the door. A sergeant appeared. "We're
+gathering up the wounded, general--and we found a Yankee officer under
+the trees just here--and he said you'd know him--but he's fainted dead
+away--" He moved aside. "Litters gave out long ago, so we're taking U.
+S. blankets--"
+
+Four men, carrying by the corners a blanket with an unconscious man upon
+it, came into the room. The Confederate officers looked. "No, I don't
+know him. Why, wait--Yes, I do! It's Clitz--Clitz that was so young and
+red-cheeked and our pet at the Point!... Yes, and one day in Mexico his
+regiment filed past, going into a fight, and he looked so like a gallant
+boy that I prayed to God that Clitz might not be hurt!... Reid, have him
+put in a room here! See that Dr. Mott sees him at once.--O God, Cary,
+this fratricidal war! Fighting George Sykes all day, and now this boy--"
+
+"Yes," said Cary. "Once to-day I was opposed to Fitz John Porter. He
+looked at me out of a cloud, and I looked at him out of one, and the
+battle roared between. I always liked him." He walked across the room,
+looked out of the window upon the battlefield, and came back. "But," he
+said grimly, "it is a war of invasion. What do you think is wrong with
+Jackson?"
+
+The other looked at him with his fine, kindly eyes. "Why, let me tell
+you, Cary,--since it won't go any further,--I am as good a Presbyterian
+as he is, but I think he has prayed too much."
+
+"I see!" said Cary. "Well, I would be willing to put up a petition of my
+own just now.--Delay! Delay! We have set opportunity against a wall and
+called out the firing party." He rose. "Thanks for the biscuits. I feel
+another man. I'll go now and look after my wounded. There are enough of
+them, poor souls!"
+
+Another stir occurred at the door. The aide appeared. "They've taken
+some prisoners in the wood at the foot of the hill, sir. One of them
+says he's General Reynolds--"
+
+"Reynolds! Good God, Reynolds! Bring him in--"
+
+General Reynolds came in. "Reynolds!"--"Hill!"--"How are you,
+Reynolds?"--"Good Lord, it's Fauquier Cary!"
+
+The aide put a chair. The prisoner sank into it and covered his face
+with his hands. Presently he let them drop. "Hill, we ought not to be
+enemies! Messmates and tent-mates for a year!... It's ghastly."
+
+"I'll agree with you there, Reynolds. It's ghastlier than ghastly.--You
+aren't hurt?"
+
+Outside, over the great hilltop upon which Richard Cleave was moving,
+the darkness might be felt. The air smelled strongly of burned powder,
+was yet thickened by smoke. Where fires had been kindled, the ruddy
+light went up like pillars to sustain a cloudy roof. There were
+treetops, burnished, high in air; then all the land fell to the swampy
+shores of the creek, and beyond to the vast and sombre battle plain,
+where the shells had rained. The masses of grey troops upon it, resting
+on their arms, could be divined by the red points of camp-fires.
+Lanterns, also, were wandering like marsh lights, up and down and to and
+fro. Here, on the plateau, it was the same. They danced like giant
+fireflies. He passed a blazing log about which were gathered a dozen
+men. Some wag of the mess had said something jocular; to a man they were
+laughing convulsively. Had they been blamed, they would perhaps have
+answered that it was better to laugh than to cry. Cleave passed them
+with no inclination to blame, and came to where, under the trees, the
+65th was gathered. Here, too, there were fires; his men were dropped
+like acorns on the ground, making a little "coosh," frying a little
+bacon, attending to slight hurts, cognizant of the missing but not
+referring to them loudly, glad of victory, burying all loss, with a wide
+swing of courage making the best of it in the darkness. When they saw
+Cleave they suspended all other operations long enough to cheer him. He
+smiled, waved his hand, spoke a short word to Hairston Breckinridge, and
+hurried on. He passed the 2d Virginia, mourning its colonel--Colonel
+Allen--fallen in the front of the charge. He passed other bivouacs--men
+of Rodes's, of Garland's, of Trimble's. "Where is General
+Jackson?"--"Can't tell you, sir--" "Here is General Ewell."
+
+"Old Dick" squatted by a camp-fire, was broiling a bit of bacon, head on
+one side, as he looked up with bright round eyes at Cleave, whom he
+liked. "That you, Richard Cleave? By God, sir, if I were as excellent a
+major-general as I am a cook!--Have a bit?--Well, we wolloped them! They
+fought like men, and we fought like men, and by God, I can't get the
+cannon out of my ears! General Jackson?--I thought he was in front with
+D. H. Hill. Going to do anything more to-night? It's pretty late, but
+I'm ready."
+
+"Nothing--without General Jackson," said Cleave. "Thank you, general--if
+I might have a mouthful of coffee? I haven't the least idea when I have
+eaten."
+
+Ewell handed him the tin cup. He drank hastily and went on. Now it was
+by a field hospital, ghastly sights and ghastly sounds, pine boughs set
+for torches. He shut his eyes in a moment's faintness. It looked a
+demoniac place, a smoke-wreathed platform in some Inferno circle. He met
+a staff officer coming up from the plain. "General Lee has ridden to the
+right. He is watching for McClellan's next move. There's a rumour that
+everything's in motion toward the James. If it's true, there's a chase
+before us to-morrow, eh?--A. P. Hill suffered dreadfully. 'Prince John'
+kept McClellan beautifully amused.--General Jackson? On the slope of the
+hill by the breastworks."
+
+A red light proclaimed the place as Cleave approached it. It seemed a
+solitary flame, night around it and a sweep of scarped earth. Cleave,
+coming into the glow, found only the old negro Jim, squat beside it like
+a gnome, his eyes upon the jewelled hollows, his lips working. Jim rose.
+"De gineral, sah? De gineral done sont de staff away ter res'. Fo' de
+Lawd, de gineral bettah follah dat 'zample! Yaas, sah,--ober dar in de
+big woods."
+
+Cleave descended the embankment and entered a heavy wood. A voice
+spoke--Jackson's--very curtly. "Who is it, and what is your business?"
+
+"It is the colonel of the 65th Virginia, sir. General Winder sends me,
+with the approval of General D. H. Hill, from the advance by the McGehee
+house."
+
+A part of the shadow detached itself and came forward as Jackson. It
+stalked past Cleave out of the belt of trees and over the bare red earth
+to the fire. The other man followed, and in the glare faced the general
+again. The leaping flame showed Jackson's bronzed face, with the brows
+drawn down, the eyes looking inward, and the lips closed as though no
+force could part them. Cleave knew the look, and inwardly set his own
+lips. At last the other spoke. "Well, sir?"
+
+"The enemy is cramped between us and the Chickahominy, sir. Our pickets
+are almost in touch of theirs. If we are scattered and disorganized,
+they are more so,--confused--distressed. We are the victors, and the
+troops still feel the glow of victory."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"There might be a completer victory. We need only you to lead us, sir."
+
+"You are mistaken. The men are wearied. They worked very hard in the
+Valley. They need not do it all."
+
+"They are not so wearied, sir. There is comment, I think, on what the
+Army of the Valley has not done in the last two days. We have our chance
+to refute it all to-night."
+
+"General Lee is the commander-in-chief. General Lee will give orders."
+
+"General Lee has said to himself: 'He did so wonderfully in the Valley,
+I do not doubt he will do as wonderfully here. I leave him free. He'll
+strike when it is time.'--It is time now, sir."
+
+"Sir, you are forgetting yourself."
+
+"Sir, I wish to rouse you."
+
+Jackson walked past the fire to a fallen tree, sat himself down and
+looked across to the other man. The low flame more deeply bronzed his
+face. His eyes looked preternaturally sunken. He sat, characteristically
+rigid, a figure in grey stone. There was about him a momentary air of an
+Indian, he looked so ruthless. If it was not that, thought Cleave, then
+it was that he looked fanatic. Whichever it might be, he perceived that
+he himself stood in arctic air. He had been liked, he knew; now he saw
+the mist of disfavour rise. Jackson's voice came gratingly. "Who sent
+you?"
+
+"General Winder and General D. H. Hill."
+
+"You will tell General Hill that I shall make no further attack
+to-night. I have other important duties to perform."
+
+"I know what I risk," said Cleave, "and I do not risk it lightly. Have
+you thought of how you fell on them at Front Royal and at Winchester?
+Here, too, they are confused, retreating--a greater force to strike, a
+greater result to win, a greater service to do for the country, a
+greater name to make for yourself. To-morrow morning all the world may
+say, 'So struck Napoleon--'"
+
+"Napoleon's confidence in his star was pagan. Only God rules."
+
+"And the man who accepts opportunity--is he not His servant? May we not,
+sir, may we not make the attack?"
+
+"No, sir; not to-night. We have marred too many Sundays--"
+
+"It is not Sunday!"
+
+Jackson looked across with an iron countenance. "So little the fighter
+knows! See, what war does! But I will keep, in part at least, the
+Sabbath. You may go, sir."
+
+"General Jackson, this is Friday evening."
+
+"Colonel Cleave, did you hear my order? Go, sir!--and think yourself
+fortunate that you do not go under arrest."
+
+"Sir--Sir--"
+
+Jackson rose. "One other word, and I take your sword. It occurs to me
+that I have indulged you in a freedom that--Go!"
+
+Cleave turned with sharp precision and obeyed. Three paces took him out
+of the firelight into the overhanging shadow. He made a gesture of
+sorrow and anger. "Who says that magic's dead? Now, how long will that
+potion hold him?" He stumbled in the loose, bare earth, swamp and creek
+below him. He looked down into that trough of death. "I gained nothing,
+and I have done for myself! If I know him--Ugh!"
+
+He shook himself, went on through the sultry, smoky night, alternate
+lantern-slides of glare and darkness, to the eastern face of the
+plateau. Here he found Winder, reported, and with him encountered D. H.
+Hill coming with Fauquier Cary from the McGehee house. "What's that?"
+said Hill. "He won't pursue to-night? Very well, that settles it! Maybe
+they'll be there in the morning, maybe not. Look here, Winder!
+Reynolds's taken--you remember Reynolds?"
+
+Cary and Cleave had a moment apart. "All well, Fauquier? The
+general?--Edward?"
+
+"I think so. I saw Warwick for a moment. A minie had hurt his hand--not
+serious, he said. Edward I have not seen."
+
+"I had a glimpse of him this morning.--This morning!"
+
+"Yes--long ago, is it not? You'll get your brigade after this."
+
+The other looked at him oddly. "Will I? I strongly doubt it. Well, it
+seems not a large thing to-night."
+
+Beyond the main battlefield where A. P. Hill's and Longstreet's
+shattered brigades lay on their arms, beyond the small farmhouse where
+Lee waked and watched, beyond the Chickahominy and its swamps, beyond
+forest and farm land, lay Richmond under the stars. Eastwardly, within
+and without its girdling earthworks, that brilliant and histrionic
+general, John Bankhead Magruder, El Capitan Colorado, with a lisping
+tongue, a blade like Bayard's, and a talent for drama and strategy, kept
+General McClellan under the impression, confirmed by the whole Pinkerton
+force, that "at least eighty thousand men" had remained to guard
+Richmond, when Lee with "at least eighty thousand men" had crossed the
+Chickahominy. Richmond knew better, but Richmond was stoically calm as
+to the possibility of a storming. What it had been hard to be calm over
+was the sound, this Friday, of the guns beyond the Chickahominy.
+Mechanicsville, yesterday, was bad enough, but this was frightful.
+Heavy, continuous, it took away the breath and held the heart in an iron
+grip. All the loved ones there--all the loved ones there!--and heavier
+and heavier toward night grew the fearful sound.... Then began the
+coming of the wounded. In the long dusk of the summer evening, the
+cannonading ceased. A little after nine arrived couriers, announcing the
+victory. The church bells of Richmond, not yet melted into cannon, began
+to ring. "It was a victory--it was a victory," said the people to one
+another.... But the wounded continued to come in, ambulance, cart, and
+wagon rolling like tumbrels over the stones. To many a mother was
+brought tidings of the death of her son, and many a wife must say, "I am
+widowed," and many children cried that night for their father. The heat
+was frightful. The city tossed and moaned, without sleep, or nursed, or
+watched, or wandered fevered through the streets. The noise of the James
+around its rocky islands was like the groaning of the distant
+battlefield. The odour of the June flowers made the city like a chamber
+of death. All windows were open wide to the air, most houses lighted.
+Sometimes from these there came forth a sharp cry; sometimes womens'
+forms, restless in the night, searching again the hospitals. "He might
+be here."--"He might be at this one." Sometimes, before such or such a
+house, cart or carriage or wagon stopped. "Oh, God! wounded or--?" All
+night long fared the processions from the field of Gaines's Mill to the
+hospitals. Toward dawn it began to be "No room. Try Robinson's--try the
+De Sales."--"Impossible here! We can hardly step between the rows. The
+beds gave out long ago. Take him to Miss Sally Tompkins."--"No room. Oh,
+the pity of it! Take him to the St. Charles or into the first private
+house. They are all thrown open."
+
+Judith, kept at the Stonewall all the night before, had gone home,
+bathed, drawn the shutters of her small room, lain down and resolutely
+closed her eyes. She must sleep, she knew,--must gather strength for the
+afternoon and night. The house was quiet. Last night the eldest son had
+been brought in wounded. The mother, her cousin, had him in her chamber;
+she and his mammy and the old family doctor. His sister, a young wife,
+was possessed by the idea that her husband might be in one of the
+hospitals, delirious, unable to tell where he belonged, calling upon
+her, and no one understanding. She was gone, in the feverish heat, upon
+her search. There came no sounds from below. After the thunder which had
+been in the ear, after the sounds of the hospital, all the world seemed
+as silent as a cavern or as the depth of the sea. Judith closed her
+eyes, determinedly stilled her heart, drew regular breath, put herself
+out of Richmond back in a certain cool and green forest recess which she
+loved, and there wooed sleep. It came at last, with a not unhappy dream.
+She thought she was walking on the hills back of Greenwood with her Aunt
+Lucy. The two said they were tired and would rest, and entered the
+graveyard and sat down upon the bank of ivy beside Ludwell Cary's grave.
+That was all natural enough; a thing they had done many times. They were
+taught at Greenwood that there was nothing mournful there. Shells lay
+about them, beneath the earth, but the beneficent activities had
+escaped, and were active still, beneficent still.... The word "shells"
+in the dream turned the page. She was upon a great sea beach and quite
+alone. She sat and looked at the waves coming rolling in, and presently
+one laid Richard at her feet. She bandaged the cut upon his forehead,
+and called him by his name, and he looked at her and smiled. "Out of the
+ocean, into the ocean," he said. "All of us. A going forth and a
+returning." She felt herself, in the dream, in his arms, and found it
+sweet. The waves were beneath them; they lay now on the crests, now in
+the hollows, and there seemed no port. This endured a long while, until
+she thought she heard the sea-fairies singing. Then there came a booming
+sound, and she thought, "This is the port, or perhaps it is an island
+that we are passing." She asked Richard which it was, but he did not
+answer, and she turned upon the wave and found that he was not there....
+It was seaweed about her arms. The booming grew louder, rattled the
+window-glass. She opened her eyes, pushed her dark loosened hair from
+her arms and bosom, and sat up. "The cannon again!"
+
+She looked at her watch. It was two o'clock. Rising, she put on her
+dark, thin muslin, and took her shady hat. The room seemed to throb to
+the booming guns. All the birds had flown from the tulip tree outside.
+She went downstairs and tapped at her cousin's door. "How is
+he?"--"Conscious now, thank God, my dear! The doctor says he will be
+spared. How the house shakes! And Walter and Ronald out there. You are
+going back?"
+
+"Yes. Do not look for me to-night. There will be so much to be done--"
+
+"Yes, yes, my dear. Louder and louder! And Ronald is so reckless! You
+must have something to eat."
+
+"Shirley will give me a glass of milk. Tell Rob to get well. Good-bye."
+
+She kissed her cousin, drank her glass of milk in the dining-room where
+the silver was jingling on the sideboard, and went out into the hot,
+sound-filled air. At three she was at her post in the hospital.
+
+The intermittent thunder, heavier than any on the continent before, was
+stilled at last,--at nine, as had happened the night before. The mazed
+city shook the mist from before its eyes, and settled to the hot night's
+work, with the wagons, bringing the dead and the wounded, dull on the
+cobblestones to the ear, but loud, loud to the heart. All that night the
+Stonewall Hospital was a grisly place. By the next morning every
+hospital in town was choked with the wounded, and few houses but had
+their quota. The surgeons looked like wraiths, the nursing women had
+dark rings beneath their eyes, set burningly in pale faces, the negroes
+who valiantly helped had a greyish look. More emotional than the whites,
+they burst now and then into a half wail, half chant. So heavy was the
+burden, so inadequate the small, beleaguered city's provision for the
+weight of helpless anguish, that at first there was a moment of
+paralysis. As easy to strive with the tornado as with this wind of pain
+and death! Then the people rallied and somewhat outstripped a people's
+best.
+
+From the troops immediately about the city came the funeral escorts. All
+day the Dead March from "Saul" wailed through the streets, out to
+Hollywood. The churches stayed open; old and young, every man in the
+city, white or black, did his part, and so did all the women. The need
+was so great that the very young girls, heretofore spared, found place
+now in hospital or house, beside the beds, the pallets, the mere
+blanket, or no blanket, on the floor. They could keep away the
+tormenting flies, drawn by the heat, the glare, the blood and effluvia,
+could give the parched lips water, could watch by the less terrifically
+hurt. All the city laboured; putting aside the personal anguish, the
+private loss known, suspected, or but fearfully dreaded. Glad of the
+victory but with only calamity beneath its eyes, the city wrestled with
+crowding pain, death, and grief.
+
+Margaret Cleave was at one of the great hospitals. An hour later came,
+too, Miriam and Christianna. "Yes, you can help. Miriam, you are used to
+it. Hold this bandage so, until the doctor comes. If it grows
+blood-soaked--like this one--call some one at once. Christianna, you are
+strong.--Mrs. Preston, let her have the bucket of water. Go up and down,
+between the rows, and give water to those who want it. If they cannot
+lift themselves, help them--so!"
+
+Christianna took the wooden bucket and the tin dipper. For all she
+looked like a wild rose she was strong, and she had a certain mountain
+skill and light certainty of movement. She went down the long room,
+giving water to all who moaned for it. They lay very thick, the wounded,
+side by side in the heat, the glare of the room, where all the light
+possible must be had. Some lay outstretched and rigid, some much
+contorted. Some were delirious, others writhed and groaned, some were
+most pathetically silent and patient. Nearly all were thirsty; clutched
+the dipper with burning fingers, drank, with their hollow eyes now on
+the girl who held it, now on mere space. Some could not help themselves.
+She knelt beside these, raised the head with one hand, put water to the
+lips with the other. She gained her mountain steadiness and did well,
+crooning directions in her calm, drawling voice. This bucket emptied,
+she found where to fill it again, and pursued her task, stepping lightly
+between the huddled, painful rows, among the hurrying forms of nurses
+and surgeons and coloured helpers.
+
+At the very end of the long lane, she came upon a blanket spread on the
+blood-stained floor. On it lay a man, blond and straight, closed eyes
+with a line between them, hand across his breast touching his shirt
+where it was stiff with dried blood. "Air you thirsty?" began
+Christianna, then set the bucket suddenly down.
+
+Allan opened his eyes. "Very thirsty.... I reckon I am light-headed. I'm
+not on Thunder Run, am I?"
+
+The frightful day wore on to late afternoon. No guns shook the air in
+these hours. Richmond understood that, out beyond the entrenchments,
+there was a pause in the storm. McClellan was leaving his own wonderful
+earthworks. But would he retreat down the Peninsula by the way he had
+come, or would he strike across and down the James to his gunboats by
+Westover? The city gathered that General Lee was waiting to find out. In
+the meantime the day that was set to the Dead March in "Saul" passed
+somehow, in the June heat and the odour of flowers and blood.
+
+Toward five o'clock Judith left the Stonewall Hospital. She had not
+quitted it for twenty-four hours, and she came now into the light and
+air like a form emerging from Hades, very palely smiling, with the grey
+of the underworld, its breath and its terror still about her. There was
+hardly yet a consciousness of fatigue. Twelve hours before she had
+thought, "If I do not rest a little, I shall fall." But she had not been
+able to rest, and the feeling had died. For the last twelve she had
+moved like an automaton, swift, sure, without a thought of herself. It
+was as though her will stood somewhere far above and swayed her body
+like a wand. Even now she was going home, because the will said she
+must; must rest two hours, and come back fresher for the night.
+
+As she came out into the golden light, Cleave left the group of young
+and old about the door and met her. In the plane along which life now
+moved, nothing was unnatural; certainly Richmond did not find it so,
+that a lover and his beloved should thus encounter in the street, a
+moment between battles. Her dark eyes and his grey ones met. To find him
+there seemed as natural as it had been in her dream; the street was no
+more to her than the lonely beach. They crossed it, went up toward the
+Capitol Square, and, entering, found a green dip of earth with a bench
+beneath a linden tree. Behind them rose the terraced slope to the
+pillared Capitol; as always, in this square children's voices were heard
+with their answering nurses, and the squirrels ran along the grass or
+upon the boughs above. But the voices were somewhat distant and the
+squirrels did not disturb; it was a leafy, quiet nook. The few men or
+women who passed, pale, distrait, hurrying from one quarter of the city
+to another, heeded as little as they were heeded. Lovers'
+meetings--lovers' partings--soldiers--women who loved them--faces pale
+and grave, yet raised, hands in hands, low voices in leafy places--man
+and woman together in the golden light, in the breathing space before
+the cannon should begin again--Richmond was growing used to that. All
+life was now in public. For the most part a clear altruism swayed the
+place and time, and in the glow smallness of comment or of thought was
+drowned. Certainly, it mattered not to Cleave and Judith that it was the
+Capitol Square, and that people went up and down.
+
+"I have but the shortest while," he said. "I came this morning with
+Allen's body--the colonel of the 2d. I ride back directly. I hope that
+we will move to-night."
+
+"Following McClellan?"
+
+"To get across his path, if possible."
+
+"There will be another battle?"
+
+"Yes. More than one, perhaps."
+
+"I have believed that you were safe. I do not see that I could have
+lived else."
+
+"Many have fallen; many are hurt. I found Allan Gold in the hospital. He
+will not die, however.... Judith, how often do I see your face beside
+the flag!"
+
+"When I was asleep I dreamed of you. We were drifting together, far out
+at sea--your arm here--" She lifted his hand, drew his arm about her,
+rested her head on his breast. "I love you--I love you--I love you."
+
+They stayed in the leafy place and the red-gold light for half an hour,
+speaking little, sitting sometimes with closed eyes, but hand in hand.
+It was much as though they were drifting together at sea, understanding
+perfectly, but weary from battling, and with great issues towering to
+the inner vision. They would have been less nobly minded had their own
+passion inexorably claimed them. All about them were suffering and death
+and the peril of their cause. For one half-hour they drew happiness from
+the darkly gigantic background, but it was a quiet and lofty form,
+though sweet, sweet! with whom they companioned. When the time was
+passed the two rose, and Cleave held her in his arms. "Love--Love--"
+
+When he was gone she waited awhile beneath the trees, then slowly
+crossed the Capitol Square and moved toward the small room behind the
+tulip tree. The streets were flooded with a sunset glow. Into Franklin
+from Main came marching feet, then, dull, dull! the muffled drums.
+Soldiers and furled colours and the coffin, atop it the dead man's cap
+and gauntlets and sword; behind, pacing slowly, his war horse, stirrups
+crossed over saddle. Soldiers, soldiers, and the drums beating like
+breaking hearts. She moved back to a doorstep and let the Dead March
+from "Saul" go by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE RAILROAD GUN
+
+
+The troops, moving at dawn to the Chickahominy, over a road and through
+woods which testified in many ways of the blue retreat, found the
+Grapevine Bridge a wreck, the sleepers hacked apart, framework and
+middle structure cast into the water. Fitz John Porter and the 5th Army
+Corps were across, somewhere between the river and Savage Station,
+leaving only, in the thick wood above the stream, a party of
+sharpshooters and a battery. When the grey pioneers advanced to their
+work, these opened fire. The bridge must be rebuilt, and the grey worked
+on, but with delays and difficulties. D. H. Hill, leading Jackson's
+advance, brought up two batteries and shelled the opposite side. The
+blue guns and riflemen moved to another position and continued, at short
+intervals, to fire on the pioneers. It was Sunday the twenty-ninth;
+fearfully hot by the McGehee house, and on Turkey Hill, and in the dense
+midsummer woods, and in the mosquito-breeding bogs and swamps through
+which meandered the Chickahominy. The river spread out as many arms as
+Briareus; short, stubby creeks, slow waters prone to overflow and creep,
+between high knotted roots of live-oak and cypress, into thickets of bog
+myrtle. The soil hereabouts was black and wet, further back light and
+sandy. The Valley troops drew the most uncomplimentary comparisons. To a
+man they preferred mountains, firm rolling champaign, clean rivers with
+rocky bottoms, sound roads, and a different vegetation. They were not in
+a good humour, anyhow.
+
+Ewell was at Dispatch Station, seven miles below, guarding Bottom's
+Bridge and tearing up the York River Railroad. Stuart was before him,
+sweeping down on the White House, burning McClellan's stations and
+stores, making that line of retreat difficult enough for an encumbered
+army. But McClellan had definitely abandoned any idea of return upon
+Yorktown. The head of his column was set for the James, for Harrison's
+Landing and the gunboats. There were twenty-five difficult miles to go.
+He had something like a hundred thousand men. He had five thousand
+wagons, heavy artillery trains, enormous stores, a rabble of camp
+followers, a vast, melancholy freight of sick and wounded. He left his
+camps and burned his depots, and plunged into the heavy, still, and
+torrid forest. This Sunday morning, the twenty-ninth, the entrenchments
+before Richmond, skilful, elaborate pieces of engineering, were found by
+Magruder's and Huger's scouts deserted by all but the dead and a few
+score of sick and wounded, too far gone to be moved. Later, columns of
+smoke, rising from various quarters of the forest, betrayed other
+burning camps or depots. This was followed by tidings which served to
+make his destination certain. He was striking down toward White Oak
+Swamp. There the defeated right, coming from the Chickahominy, would
+join him, and the entire great force move toward the James. Lee issued
+his orders. Magruder with Huger pursued by the Williamsburg road. A. P.
+Hill and Longstreet, leaving the battlefield of the twenty-seventh,
+crossed the Chickahominy by the New Bridge, passed behind Magruder, and
+took the Darbytown road. A courier, dispatched to Ewell, ordered him to
+rejoin Jackson. The latter was directed to cross the Chickahominy with
+all his force by the Grapevine Bridge, and to pursue with eagerness. He
+had the directest, shortest road; immediately before him the corps which
+had been defeated at Gaines's Mill. With D. H. Hill, with Whiting and
+Lawton, he had now fourteen brigades--say twenty thousand men.
+
+The hours passed in languid sunshine on the north bank of the
+Chickahominy. The troops were under arms, but the bridge was not
+finished. The smoke and sound of the rival batteries, the crack of the
+hidden rifles on the southern side, concerned only those immediately at
+issue and the doggedly working pioneers. Mere casual cannonading,
+amusement of sharpshooters, no longer possessed the slightest tang of
+novelty. Where the operation was petty, and a man in no extreme personal
+danger, he could not be expected to be much interested. The troops
+yawned; some of the men slept; others fretted. "Why can't we swim the
+damned old trough? They'll get away! Thank the Lord, I wasn't born in
+Tidewater Virginia! Oh, I'd like to see the Shenandoah!"
+
+The 65th Virginia occupied a rise of sandy ground covered with hazel
+bushes. Company A had the brink of it, looking out toward the enormously
+tall trees towering erect from the river's margin of swamp. The hazel
+bushes gave little shade and kept off the air, the blue above was
+intense, the buzzards sailing. Muskets were stacked, the men sprawling
+at ease. A private, who at home was a Sunday School superintendent, read
+his Bible; another, a lawyer, tickled a hop toad with a spear of grass;
+another, a blacksmith, rebound the injured ankle of a schoolboy. Some
+slept, snoring in the scanty shade; some compared diaries or related,
+scrappily enough, battle experiences. "Yes, and Robinson was scouting,
+and he was close to Garland's line, and, gosh! he said it was short
+enough! And Garland rode along it, and he said, said he, 'Boys, you are
+not many, but you are a noble few.'" Some listened to the booming of the
+sparring batteries; two or three who had lost close friends or kinsmen
+moped aside. The frank sympathy of all for these made itself apparent.
+The shadiest hazel bushes unobtrusively came into their possession;
+there was an evident intention of seeing that they got the best fare
+when dinner was called; a collection of tobacco had been taken and
+quietly pushed their way. Some examined knapsack and haversacks, good
+oilcloths, belts, rolled blankets, canteens, cartridge-boxes and
+cartridges, picked up upon the road. Others seriously did incline to
+search for certain intruders along the seams of shirt and trousers;
+others merely lay on their backs and looked up into Heaven. Billy Maydew
+was one of these, and Steve Dagg overturned the contents of a knapsack.
+
+It was well filled, but with things Steve did not want. "O Gawd! picters
+and pincushions and Testaments with United States flags in them--I never
+did have any luck, anyhow!--in this here war nor on Thunder Run
+neither!"
+
+Dave Maydew rolled over. "Steve says Thunder Run didn't like him--Gosh!
+what's a-going to happen ef Steve takes to telling the truth?"
+
+Sergeant Coffin turned from contemplation of a bursting shell above the
+Grapevine crossing. "If anybody finds any letter-paper and doesn't want
+it--"
+
+A chorus arose. "Sorry we haven't got any!"--"I have got some--lovely!
+But I've got a girl, too."--"Sorry, sergeant, but it isn't pale blue,
+scented with forget-me-nots."--"Just _think_ her a letter--think it out
+loud! Wait, I'll show you how. _Darling Chloe_--Don't get angry! He's
+most gotten over getting angry and it becomes him beautifully--_Darling
+Chloe_--What're _you_ coming into it for, Billy Maydew? 'Don't tease
+him!'--My son, he loves to be teased. All lovers love to be teased.
+_Darling Chloe._ It is Sunday morning. The swans are warbling your name
+and so are half a dozen pesky Yankee Parrotts. The gentle zephyrs speak
+of thee, and so does the hot simoom that blows from Chickahominy,
+bringing an inordinate number of mosquitoes. I behold thy sinuous grace
+in the curls of smoke from Reilly's battery, and also in the slide and
+swoop of black buzzards over a multitude of dead horses in the woods.
+Darling Chloe, we are stranded on an ant heap which down here they call
+a hill, and why in hell we don't swim the river is more than at the
+moment I can tell you. It's rumoured that Old Jack's attending church in
+the neighbourhood, but we are left outside to praise God from whom all
+blessings flow. Darling Chloe, this company is not so unpopular with me
+as once it was. War is teaching it a damned lot, good temper and pretty
+ways and what not--It is teaching it! Who says it is not?--Darling
+Chloe, if you could see how long and lean and brown we are and how
+ragged we are and how lousy--Of course, of course, sergeant, you're not!
+Only the high private in the rear rank is, and even he says he's
+not--Darling Chloe, if I could rise like one of those damned crows down
+there and sail over these damned flats and drop at your feet in God's
+country beyond the mountains, you wouldn't walk to church to-day with
+me. You'd turn up your pretty little nose, and accept the arm of some
+damned bombproof--Look out! What's the matter here? 'The last straw!
+shan't slander her!'--I'm not slandering her. I don't believe either
+she'd do it. Needn't all of you look so glum! I'll take it back. We
+know, God bless every last woman of them, that they don't do it! They
+haven't got any more use for a bombproof than we have!--I can't retract
+handsomer than that!--Darling Chloe, the Company's grown amiable, but it
+don't think much so far of its part in this campaign. Heretofore in
+tableaux and amateur theatricals it has had a star role, and in this
+damned Richmond play it's nothing but a walking shadow! Darling Chloe,
+we want somebody to whoop things up. We demand the centre of the
+stage--"
+
+It was so hot on the little sandy hill that there was much straggling
+down through the woods to some one of the mesh of water-courses. The men
+nearest Steve were all turned toward the discourser to Chloe, who sat on
+a lift of sand, cross-legged like an Eastern scribe. Mathew Coffin, near
+him, looked half pleased, half sulky at the teasing. Since Port Republic
+he was a better-liked non-commissioned officer. Billy Maydew, again flat
+on his back, stared at the blue sky. Steve stole a tin cup and slipped
+quietly off through the hazel bushes.
+
+He found a muddy runlet straying off from the river and quenched his
+thirst, then, turning, surveyed through the trees the hump of earth he
+had left and the company upon it. Beyond it were other companies, the
+regiment, the brigade. Out there it was hot and glaring, in here there
+was black, cool, miry loam, shade and water. Steve was a Sybarite born,
+and he lingered here. He didn't mean to straggle, for he was afraid of
+this country and afraid now of his colonel; he merely lingered and
+roamed about a little, beneath the immensely tall trees and in the thick
+undergrowth. In doing this he presently came, over quaking soil and
+between the knees of cypresses, flush with the Chickahominy itself. He
+sat down, took his own knees in his arms and looked at it. It was not so
+wide, but it looked stiller than the sky, and bottomless. The banks were
+so low that the least rain lifted it over. It strayed now, here and
+there, between tree roots. There was no such word as "sinister" in
+Steve's vocabulary. He only said, "Gawd! I wouldn't live here for
+choice!" The country across the stream engaged his attention. Seen from
+this bank it appeared all forest clad, but where his own existence from
+moment to moment was in question Steve could read the signboards as well
+as another. Certain distant, southward moving, yellowish streaks he
+pronounced dust clouds. There were roads beneath, and moving troops and
+wagon trains. He counted four columns of smoke of varying thickness. The
+heavier meant a cluster of buildings, holding stores probably, the
+thinner some farmhouse or barn or mill. From other signs he divined that
+there were clearings over there, and that the blue troops were burning
+hayricks and fences as well as buildings. Sound, too--it seemed deathly
+still here on the brim of this dead water, and yet there was sound--the
+batteries, of course, down the stream where they built the bridge, but
+also a dull, low, dreary murmur from across,--from the thick forest and
+the lost roads, and the swamps through which guns were dragged; from the
+clearings, the corn and wheat fields, the burning depots and encampments
+and houses of the people--the sound of a hostile army rising from the
+country where two months before it had settled. All was blended; there
+came simply a whirring murmur out of the forest beyond the Chickahominy.
+
+Steve rose, yawned, and began again to prowl. Every rood of this region
+had been in possession of that humming army over there. All manner of
+desirable articles were being picked up. Orders were strict. Weapons,
+even injured weapons, ammunition, even half-spoiled ammunition,
+gun-barrels, ramrods, bayonets, cartridge-boxes, belts--all these must
+be turned in to the field ordnance officer. The South gleaned her
+battlefields of every ounce of lead or iron, every weapon or part of a
+weapon, every manufactured article of war. This done, the men might
+appropriate or themselves distribute apparel, food, or other matters.
+Steve, wandering now, his eyes on earth, saw nothing. The black wet
+soil, the gnarled roots, the gloomy meanders of the stream, looked
+terribly lonely. "Gawd! even the water-rats don't come here!" thought
+Steve, and on his way back to the hill entered a thicket of low bushes
+with shiny green leaves. Here he all but stumbled over a dead soldier in
+a blue uniform. He lay on his face, arms out, hands clutching at some
+reed-like grass. His rifle was beside him, haversack--all undisturbed.
+"Picket," said Steve. "O Gawd, ain't war glorious?"
+
+Not at all without imagination, he had no fondness for touching dead
+men, but there were several things about this one that he wanted. He saw
+that the shoes wouldn't fit, and so he left them alone. His own rifle
+was back there, stacked with the others on the hot hillside, and he had
+no intention of bothering with this one. If the ordnance officer wanted
+it, let him come himself and get it! He exchanged cartridge-boxes, and
+took the other's rolled oilcloth, and then he looked into the haversack.
+
+Rising to his feet, he glanced about him with quick, furtive,
+squirrel-like motions of his head. Cool shade, stillness, a creepy
+loneliness. Taking the haversack, he left the thicket and went back to
+the brink of Chickahominy. Here he sat down between the cypress knees
+and drew out of the haversack the prize of prizes. It fixed a grin upon
+his lean, narrow face, the sight and smell of it, the black, squat
+bottle. He held it up to the light; it was three quarters full. The cork
+came out easily; he put it to his lips and drank. "Gawd! it ain't so
+damned lonely, after all!"
+
+The sun climbed to the meridian. The pioneers wrought as best they might
+on the Grapevine Bridge. The blue battery and the blue sharpshooters
+persisted in their hindering, and the grey battery continued to
+interfere with the blue. In the woods and over the low hills back of the
+Chickahominy the grey brigades of Stonewall Jackson rested, impatiently
+wondering, staring at the river, staring at the smoke of conflagrations
+on the other side and the dust streaks moving southward. Down on the
+swampy bank, squat between the cypress knees, Steve drank again, and
+then again,--in fact, emptied the squat, black bottle. The stuff filled
+him with a tremendous courage, and conferred upon him great fluency of
+thought. He waxed eloquent to the cypress roots upon the conduct of the
+war. "Gawd! if they'd listen ter me I'd te--tell them how!--I'd
+bui--build a bridge for the whole rotten army to cross on! Ef it broke
+I'd bui--build another. Yah! They don't 'pre--'preciate a man when they
+see him. Gawd! they're damn slow, and ain't a man over here got anything
+to drink! It's all over there." He wept a little. "O Gawd, make them
+hurry up, so's I kin git across." He put the bottle to his lips and
+jerked his head far back, but there was not a drop left to trickle
+forth. He flung it savagely far out into the water. "Ef I thought there
+was another like you over there--" His courage continued to mount as he
+went further from himself. He stood up and felt a giant; stretched out
+his arm and admired the muscle, kicked a clod of black earth into the
+stream and rejoiced in the swing of his leg. Then he smiled, a
+satyr-like grin wrinkling the cheek to the ear; then he took off his
+grey jacket, letting it drop upon the cypress roots; then he waded into
+the Chickahominy and began to swim to the further shore. The stream was
+deep but not swift; he was lank and lean but strong, and there was on
+the other side a pied piper piping of bestial sweetnesses. Several times
+arms and legs refused to cooperate and there was some likelihood of a
+death by drowning, but each time instinct asserted herself, righted
+matters, and on he went. She pulled him out at last, on the southern
+bank, and he lay gasping among the tree roots, somewhat sobered by the
+drenching, but still on the whole a courageous giant. He triumphed.
+"Yah! I got across! Goo'--goo-'bye, ye darned fools squattin' on the
+hillside!"
+
+He left the Chickahominy and moved through the woods. He went quite at
+random and with a peculiar gait, his eyes on the ground, looking for
+another haversack. But just hereabouts there showed nothing of the kind;
+it was a solemn wood of pines and cedars, not overtrampled as yet by
+war. Steve shivered, found a small opening where the sun streamed in,
+planted himself in the middle of the warmth, and presently toppled over
+on the pine needles and went to sleep. He slept an hour or more, when he
+was waked by a party of officers riding through the wood. They stopped.
+Steve sat up and blinked. The foremost, a florid, side-whiskered,
+magnificently soldierly personage, wearing a very fine grey uniform and
+the stars of a major-general, addressed him. "What are you doing here,
+thir? Thraggling?--Anther me!"
+
+Steve saluted. "I ain't the straggling kind, sir. Any man that says I
+straggle is a liar--exceptin' the colonel, and he's mistaken. I'm one of
+Stonewall's men."
+
+"Thtonewall! Ith Jackthon acwoss?"
+
+"They're building a bridge. I don't know if they air across yet. I
+swum."
+
+"What did you thwim for? Where'th your jacket? What's your
+wegiment?--'65th Virginia?'--Well, 65th Virginia, you appear to me a
+detherter--"
+
+Steve began to whine. "Gawd, general, I ain't no deserter. If you'll
+jest have patience and listen, I kin explain--"
+
+"Time'th lacking, thir. You get up behind one of my couriers, and if
+Jackthon's crothed I'll return you to your colonel. Take him up,
+O'Brien."
+
+"General Magruder, sor, can't I make him trot before me face like any
+other water-spaniel? He's wet and dhirty, sor."
+
+"All wight, all wight, O'Brien. Come on, Gwiffith. Nine-Mile road and
+Thavage Thation!"
+
+The officers rode on. The courier regarded with disfavour the unlucky
+Steve. "Forward march, dhirty, desartin', weak-kneed crayture that ye
+be! Thrott!"
+
+Beyond the pine wood the two came into an area which had been
+overtrampled. Indescribably dreary under the hot sun looked the
+smouldering heaps and mounds of foodstuffs, the wrecked wagons, the
+abandoned picks and spades and shovels, the smashed camp equipage,
+broken kettles, pots and pans, the blankets, bedding, overcoats, torn
+and trampled in the mire, or piled together and a dull red fire slow
+creeping through the mass. Medicine-chests had been split by a blow of
+the axe, the vials shivered, and a black mire made by the liquids.
+Ruined weapons glinted in the sun between the furrows of a ruined
+cornfield; bags of powder, boxes of cartridges, great chests of shot and
+shell showed, half submerged in a tortuous creek. At the edge of the
+field, there was a cannon spiked and overturned. Here, too, were dead
+horses, and here, too, were the black, ill-omened birds. There was a
+trench as well, a long trench just filled, with two or three little head
+boards bearing some legend. "Holy Virgin!" said the courier, "if I was a
+horse, a child, or a woman, I'd hate war with a holy hathred!"
+
+Steve whined at his stirrup. "Look a-here, sir, I can't keep up! My
+foot's awful sore. Gawd don't look my way, if it ain't! I ain't
+desertin'. Who'd I desert to? They've all gone. I wanted a bath an' I
+swum the river. The regiment'll be over directly an' I'll rejoin. Take
+my oath, I will!"
+
+"You trot along out of this plundering mess," ordered the courier. "I'm
+thinking I'll drop you soon, but it won't be just here! Step lively
+now!"
+
+The two went on through the blazing afternoon sunshine, and in a
+straggling wood came upon a deserted field hospital. It was a ghastly
+place. The courier whistled reflectively, while the imaginative Steve
+felt a sudden sinking at the pit of the stomach, together with a cold
+dizziness and perspiration on the backs of his hands. The mind of the
+courier, striking out vigorously for some kind of a stimulant, laid hold
+of anger as the nearest efficient. "Bedad," he cried, "ye desartin',
+dhirty hound! it's right here I'll be afther lavin' ye, with the naked
+dead and the piles of arms and legs! Let go of my bridle or I'll strike
+you with my pistol butt! Ughrrrrr!--Get out of this, Peggy!"
+
+They left, mare and man, in a cloud of pine needles and parched earth.
+Steve uttered something like a howl and went too, running without regard
+to an in truth not mythical sore foot. He ran after the disappearing
+courier, and when presently he reached a vast patch of whitened
+raspberry bushes giving on a not wide and very dusty road and halted
+panting, it was settled forever that he couldn't go back to the
+plundering possibilities or to his original station by the Chickahominy,
+since to do so would be to pass again the abandoned field hospital. He
+kept his face turned from the river and somewhat to the east, and
+straggled on. A signpost told him that the dusty ribbon was the
+Nine-Mile road. Presently, among the berry bushes, he came upon a grey
+artilleryman sitting winding a strip of cloth around a wound in his leg.
+The artilleryman gave him further information. "Magruder's moving this
+way. I was ahead with my battery,--Griffith's brigade,--and some
+stinking sharpshooters sitting with the buzzards in the trees let fly at
+us! Result, I've got to hobble in at the end of the parade!--What's the
+matter with you?"
+
+"Captain," said Steve, "asked for a volunteer to swim the river (we're
+on the other side) and find out 'bout the currents. I swam it, and Gawd!
+jest then a Yankee battery opened and I couldn't get back! Regiment'll
+be over after awhile I reckon."
+
+The two sat down among the berry bushes. The road was visible, and upon
+it a great approaching pillar of dust. "Head of our column," said the
+artilleryman. "Four roads and four pursuing forces, and if we can only
+all strike Mac at once there'll be a battle that'll lay over Friday's,
+and if he gets to his gunboats at all it will be in a damaged condition.
+Magruder's bearing toward Savage Station, and if Jackson's across the
+Chickahominy we might do for Fitz John Porter--eh?"
+
+"We might," agreed Steve. "I'll lie a little flatter, because the sun
+and the wetting has made my head ache. They're fine troops."
+
+The grey regiments went by, long swinging tread and jingling
+accoutrements. A major-general, riding at the head of the column, had
+the air of a Roman consul, round, strong, bullet head, which he had
+bared to the breeze that was springing up, close-cropped black hair,
+short black beard, high nose, bold eyes, a red in his cheeks. "That's
+General Lafayette McLaws," volunteered the artilleryman. "That's General
+Kershaw with him. It's Kershaw's brigade. See the palmetto on the
+flags."
+
+Kershaw's went by. Behind came another high and thick dust cloud. "Cobb
+and Toombs and Barksdale and Kemper and Semmes," said the artilleryman.
+"Suppose we canter on? I'll break a staff from those little heaven trees
+there. We might get to see the show, after all. York River Railroad's
+just over there."
+
+They went on, first to the ailanthus bushes, then, leaving the road to
+the troops, they struck across a ruined cornfield. Stalk and blade and
+tassel, and the intertwining small, pale-blue morning-glory, all were
+down. Gun-wheels, horses' hoofs, feet of men had made of naught the
+sower's pains. The rail fence all around was burning. In a furrow the
+two found a knapsack, and in it biscuit and jerked beef. "My Aunt Eliza!
+I was hungry!" said the artilleryman. "Know how the Israelites felt when
+they gathered manna off the ground!" Out of the cornfield they passed
+into a shaggy finger of forest. Suddenly firing broke out ahead. Steve
+started like a squirrel. "That's close to us!"
+
+"There's the railroad!" said the other. "There's Fair Oaks Station. They
+had entrenchments there, but the scouts say they evacuated them this
+morning. If they make a stand, reckon it'll be at Savage Station. That
+musketry popping's down the line! Come on! I can go pretty fast!"
+
+He plied his staff. They came into another ragged field, narrow and
+sloping to a stretch of railroad track and the smoking ruins of a wooden
+station. Around were numerous earthworks, all abandoned. Beyond the
+station, on either side the road, grey troops were massing. The firing
+ahead was as yet desultory. "Just skirmishers passing the time of day!"
+said the artilleryman. "Hello! What're they doing on the railroad track?
+Well, I should think so!"
+
+Across the track, immediately below them, had been thrown by the
+retreating army a very considerable barricade. Broken wagons, felled
+trees, logs and a great mass of earth spanned it like a landslide. Over
+and about it worked a grey company detailed to clear the way. From the
+edge of a wood, not many yards up the track, came an impatient chorus.
+"Hurry up, boys! hurry up! hurry up! We want to get by--want to get
+by--"
+
+                "A railroad gun on a flat car placed--"
+
+The artilleryman began to crow. "It's Lieutenant Barry and the railroad
+gun! Siege piece run on a car. Iron penthouse over it, muzzle sticking
+out--engine behind--"
+
+                "The Yankees skedaddle as though in haste
+                But this thirty-two pounder howitzer imp
+                It makes them halt and it makes them limp,
+                This railroad gun on a flat car placed."
+
+"Hurry up there! Hurry up! Hurry! Steam's up! Coal's precious! Can't
+stay here burning diamonds like this all day!"
+
+"Come on!" said the artilleryman. "I can sit down and dig. We've got to
+clear that thing away in a hurry." A shell from a hidden blue battery
+burst over the working party. Steve held back. "Gawd, man, we can't do
+no good! We're both lame men. If we got back a little into the wood we
+could see fine. That's better than fighting--when you're all used up
+like us--"
+
+The artilleryman regarded him. "No, it isn't better than fighting. I've
+been suspicioning you for some time, and I've stopped liking the company
+I'm in. All the same, I'm not going to drop it. Now you trot along in
+front. Being artillery I haven't a gun any more than you have, but I've
+a stick, and there isn't anything in the world the matter with my arm.
+It's used to handling a sponge staff. Forward! trot!"
+
+On the other side the ruined station, on the edge of an old field,
+Magruder, with him McLaws, waited for the return of a staff officer whom
+he had sent to the Grapevine Bridge three miles away. The shell which
+had burst over the party clearing the railroad track was but the first
+of many. Concealed by the heavy woods, the guns of the Federal rearguard
+opened on the grey brigades. Kershaw and Griffith, to the right of the
+road, suffered most. Stephen D. Lee sent forward Carlton's battery, and
+Kemper's guns came to its aid. They took position in front of the centre
+and began to answer the blue guns. A courier arrived from the
+skirmishers thrown out toward the dense wood. "Enemy in force and
+advancing, sir. Sumner and Franklin's corps, say the scouts."
+
+"All wight!" said Magruder. "Now if Jackthon's over, we'll cwush them
+like a filbert."
+
+The staff officer returned. "Well, thir, well, thir? Ith General
+Jackthon acroth? Will he take them in the rear while I thrike
+here?--Bryan, you look intolerably thober! What ith it?"
+
+"The bridge will not be finished for two hours, sir. Two or three
+infantry companies have crossed by hook or crook, but I should say it
+would be morning before the whole force is over."
+
+"Damn! Well--"
+
+"I left my horse and got across myself, sir, and saw General Jackson--"
+
+"Well, well, well--"
+
+"He says, sir! 'Tell General Magruder that I have other important duties
+to perform'"--
+
+There was a dead silence. Then McLaws spoke with Roman directness. "In
+my opinion there are two Jacksons. The one that came down here left the
+other one in the Valley."
+
+A great shell came with a shriek and exploded, a fragment mortally
+wounding General Griffith at the head of the Mississippi brigade. The
+Mississippians uttered a loud cry of anger. Carleton's battery thundered
+defiantly. Magruder drew a long breath. "Well, gentlemen; philothophy to
+the rethcue! If we can't bag the whole rearguard, we'll bag what we can.
+General advanthe and drive them!"
+
+Back on the railroad, in the long shadows of the late afternoon, the
+working party cleared away the last layer of earth and log and stood
+back happy. "Come on, you old railroad gun, and stop your blaspheming!
+Should think the engine'd blush for you!"
+
+The railroad gun puffed up, cannoneers picturesquely draped where there
+was hold for foot or hand. There was a momentary pause, filled with an
+interchange of affectionate oaths and criticism. The lame artilleryman
+laid hold of the flat car. "Take me along, won't you, and shuck me at my
+battery! Kemper's, you know. Can't I go, lieutenant?"
+
+"Yes, yes, climb on!"
+
+"And can't my friend here go, too? He's infantry, but he means well. He
+volunteered to swim the Chickahominy, and now he wants to get back so's
+he can report to Stonewall Jackson. Sh! don't deny it now. You're too
+modest. Can't he go, too, lieutenant?"
+
+"Yes, yes. Climb on! All right, Brown! Let her go!"
+
+Kershaw, Griffith, and Semmes' brigades, advancing in line through light
+and shadow, wood and clearing, came presently into touch with the enemy.
+There followed a running fight, the Federals slowly retreating.
+Everywhere, through wood and clearing, appeared McClellan's earthworks.
+Behind these the blue made stand, but at last from line to line the grey
+pressed them back. A deep cut appeared, over which ran a railroad
+bridge; then woods, fields, a second ruined railroad station, beside
+which were burning cars filled with quartermaster's stores; beyond these
+a farmhouse, a peach orchard, and a field crossed by long rows of
+hospital tents. Before the farmhouse appeared a strong Federal line of
+battle, and from every little eminence the blue cannon blazed. Kershaw
+charged furiously; the two lines clashed and clanged. Semmes' brigade
+came into action on the right, Kemper's battery supporting. Griffith's,
+now Barksdale's--joined battle with a yell, the Mississippians bent on
+avenging Griffith. The air filled with smoke, the roar of guns and the
+rattle of musketry. There occurred, in the late afternoon, a bloody
+fight between forces not large, and fairly matched.
+
+The engine pushing the railroad gun alternately puffed and shrieked
+through dark woodland and sunset-flooded clearing. A courier appeared,
+signalling with his hat. "General Magruder's there by the bridge over
+the cut! Says, 'Come on!' Says, 'Cross the bridge and get into battery
+in the field beyond,' Says, 'Hurry up!'"
+
+The siege-piece and the engine hurried. With a wild rattle and roar, the
+crew all yelling, black smoke everywhere, and the whistle screaming like
+a new kind of shell, the whole came out of the wood upon the railroad
+bridge. Instantly there burst from the blue batteries a tremendous,
+raking fire. Shot and shell struck the engine, the iron penthouse roof
+over the siege-piece, the flat car, the bridge itself. From the car and
+the bridge slivers were torn and hurled through the air. A man was
+killed, two others wounded, but engine and gun roared across. They
+passed Magruder standing on the bank. "Here we are, general, here we
+are! Yaaih! Yaaaih!"
+
+"Th' you are. Don't thop here! Move down the track a little. Other
+Richmond howitthers coming."
+
+The other howitzers, four pieces, six horses to each, all in a gallop,
+captain ahead, men following in a mad run, whips crackling, drivers
+shouting, came all in thunder on the bridge and across. The blue shells
+flew like harpies, screaming, swooping, scattering ruin. A red gleam
+from the declining sun bathed the wild train. In a roar of sound the
+whole cleared the bridge and plunged from the track to the level field.
+_Forward into battery, left oblique, march!_
+
+McLaws on the right, hard pressed, sent to Magruder for reinforcements.
+The 13th and 21st Mississippi answered. Kershaw, supported by Semmes and
+Kemper, advancing under an iron hail by deserted camp and earthwork,
+ordered the 2d, 3d and 7th South Carolina to charge. They did so, with a
+high, ringing cry, through the sunset wood into the fields, by the farm
+and the peach orchard, where they and the blue lines stubbornly engaged.
+On both sides, the artillery came furiously into action.
+
+The long twilight faded, the stars began to show. The firing slackened,
+died to occasional sullen outbursts, then to silence. On both sides the
+loss was heavy; the action remained indecisive. The grey rested on the
+field; the blue presently took up again their line of retreat toward
+White Oak Swamp. They left in the hands of the grey their dead, several
+hundred prisoners, and twenty-five hundred men in hospital. In the hot
+and sultry night, dark, with presage of a storm, through a ruined
+country, by the light of their own burning stores, the blue column
+wound slowly on by the single road toward White Oak Swamp and its single
+bridge. The grey brigades lit their small camp-fires, gathered up the
+wounded, grey and blue, dug trenches for the dead, found food where they
+might and went hungry where there was none, answered to roll call and
+listened to the silence after many names, then lay down in field and
+wood beneath the gathering clouds.
+
+Some time between sunset and the first star Steve Dagg found himself, he
+hardly knew how, crouching in a line of pawpaw bushes bordering a
+shallow ravine. The clay upon his shirt and trousers made it seem
+probable that he had rolled down the embankment from the railroad gun to
+the level below. That he was out of breath, panting in hard painful
+gasps, might indicate that he had run like a hare across the field. He
+could not remember; anyhow here he was, a little out of hell, just
+fringing it as it were. Lying close to earth, between the smooth pawpaw
+stems, the large leaves making a night-time for him, Steve felt deadly
+sick. "O Gawd! why'd I volunteer in, seein' I can't volunteer out?"
+Behind him he heard the roaring of the guns, the singing of the minies.
+A chance shell went over his head, dug itself into the soil at the
+bottom of the ravine, and exploded. The earth came pattering upon the
+pawpaw leaves. Steve curled up like a hedgehog. "O Gawd! I ain't got a
+friend in the world. Why didn't I stay on Thunder Run and marry Lucinda
+Heard?"
+
+At dark the guns ceased. In the silence his nausea lessened and the
+chill sweat dried upon him. He lay quiet for awhile, and then he parted
+the pawpaw bushes and crept out. He looked over his shoulder at the
+field of battle. "I ain't going that-a-way and meet that gunner
+again--damn him to everlasting hell!" He looked across the ravine toward
+the west, but a vision came to him of the hospital in the wood, and of
+how the naked dead men and the severed legs and arms might stir at
+night. He shivered and grew sick again. Southward? There was a glare
+upon all that horizon and a sound of distant explosions. The Yankees
+were sweeping through the woods that way, and they might kill him on
+sight without waiting for him to explain. A grey army was also over
+there,--Lee and Longstreet and A. P. Hill. He was as afraid of the grey
+as of the blue; after the railroad gun he was afraid of a shadow.
+Finally, he turned northward toward the Chickahominy again.
+
+The night, so dark and hot, presently became darker by reason of masses
+of clouds rising swiftly from the horizon and blotting out the stars.
+They hung low, they pressed heavily, beneath them a sulphur-tainted and
+breathless air. Lightnings began to flash, thunder to mutter. "Yah!"
+whimpered Steve. "I'm going to get wet again! It's true. Everything's
+agin me."
+
+He came again upon the swampy margin of the Chickahominy. It was wide,
+threaded by motionless waters, barred and banded with low-growing swamp
+shrubs, set with enormously tall and solemn trees. Steve, creeping
+between protruding roots, heard a screech owl in the distance. It cried
+and cried, but then the thunder rolled more loudly and drowned its
+hooting. He came flush with the dark stretch of the river. "Gawd, do I
+want to get across, or do I want to stay here? I wish I was dead--no, I
+don't!" He faced the lightning. "Gawd, that was jes' a mistake--don't
+take any notice of it, please.--Yaaah!" He had set his foot on a log,
+which gave beneath it and sank into deep water. With a screech like the
+owl's he drew back and squeezed himself, trembling, between the roots of
+a live-oak. He concluded that he would stay here until the dawn.
+
+The storm drew nearer, with long lightnings and thunder that crashed and
+rolled through the swamp. A vivid flash, holding a second or more,
+showed the stretch of the river, and several hundred yards above Steve's
+nook a part of a high railroad bridge. The gaunt trestle ran out past
+midstream, then stopped, all the portion toward the northern shore
+burned away. It stood against the intensely lit sky and stream like the
+skeleton of some antediluvian monster, then vanished into Stygian
+darkness. The thunder crashed at once, an ear-splitting clap followed by
+long reverberations. As these died, in the span of silence before should
+come the next flash and crash, Steve became conscious of another sound,
+dull and distant at first, then nearer and rushingly loud. "Train on the
+track down there! What in hell--It can't cross!" He stood up, held by a
+sapling, and craned his neck to look up the river. A great flash showed
+the bridge again. "Must be Yankees still about here--last of the
+rearguard we've been fighting. What they doing with the train? They must
+have burned the bridge themselves! Gawd!"
+
+A wildly vivid orange flash lit water, wood and sky, and the gaunt half
+of a bridge, stopping dead short in the middle of the Chickahominy. The
+thunder crashed and rolled, then out of that sound grew another--the
+noise of a rushing train. Something huge and dark roared from the wooded
+banks out upon the bridge. It belched black smoke mingled with sparks;
+behind it were cars, and these were burning. The whole came full upon
+the broken bridge. It swayed beneath the weight; but before it could
+fall, and before the roaring engine reached the gap, the flames of the
+kindled cars touched the huge stores of ammunition sent thus to
+destruction by the retreating column. In the night, over the
+Chickahominy, occurred a rending and awful explosion.... Steve, coming
+to himself, rose to his knees in the black mire. The lightning flashed,
+and he stared with a contorted face. The bridge, too, was gone. There
+was only the churned water, filled with scantlings and torn branches of
+trees. The rain was falling, a great hissing sweep of rain, and the wind
+howled beneath the thunder. Steve turned blindly; he did not know where
+he was going, but he had a conviction that the river was rising and
+would come after him. A hundred yards from the water, in the midnight
+wood, as he hurried over earth that the rain was fast turning into
+morass, he stumbled over some obstacle and fell. Putting out his hands,
+they came flat against a dead man's face. He rose and fled with a
+screech, southwardly now, in the direction of White Oak Swamp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+WHITE OAK SWAMP
+
+
+The Grapevine Bridge being at last rebuilt, Stonewall Jackson's fourteen
+brigades crossed the Chickahominy, the movement occupying a great part
+of the night. Dawn of the thirtieth found the advance at Savage Station.
+
+The storm in the night had swelled the myriad creeks, and extended all
+morasses. The roads were mud, the wild tangles of underwood held water
+like a sponge. But the dawn was glorious, with carmine and purple towers
+and the coolest fresh-washed purity of air and light. Major-General
+Richard Ewell, riding at the head of his division, opined that it was as
+clear as the plains. A reconnoitring party brought him news about
+something or other to the eastward. He jerked his head, swore
+reflectively, and asked where was "Old Jackson."
+
+"He rode ahead, sir, to speak to General Magruder."
+
+"Well, you go, Nelson, and tell him--No, you go, Major Stafford."
+
+Stafford went, riding through the cool, high glory of the morning. He
+found Jackson and Magruder at the edge of the peach orchard. All around
+were Magruder's troops, and every man's head was turned toward the stark
+and dust-hued figure on the dust-hued nag. The first had come from the
+Valley with a towering reputation, nor indeed did the last lack bards to
+sing of him. Whatever tarn cap the one had worn during the past three
+days, however bewildering had been his inaction, his reputation held.
+This was Jackson.... There must have been some good reason ... this was
+Stonewall Jackson. Magruder's brigades cheered him vehemently, and he
+looked at them unsmiling, with a mere motion of his hand toward the
+rusty old cadet cap. Magruder, magnificently soldierly, with much of
+manner and rich colour, magnanimously forgetful this morning of "other
+important duties" and affably debonair though his eyelids dropped for
+want of sleep, came gradually to halt in his fluent speech.--"Weally,
+you can't talk forever to a potht! If thilenthe be golden he ith the
+heavietht weight of hith time."--Jackson gathered up his reins, nodded
+and rode off, the troops cheering as he went by.
+
+Stafford, coming up with him, saluted and gave his message. Jackson
+received it with impassivity and rode on. Conceiving it to be his duty
+to attend an answer, the staff officer accompanied him, though a little
+in the rear. Here were an aide and a courier, and the three rode
+silently behind their silent chief. At the Williamsburg road there came
+a halt. Jackson checked Little Sorrel, and sat looking toward Richmond.
+Down the road, in the sunrise light, came at a canter a knot of horsemen
+handsomely mounted and equipped, the one in front tall and riding an
+iron-grey. Stafford recognized the commander-in-chief. Jackson sat very
+still, beneath a honey locust. The night before, in a wood hard by, the
+17th Mississippi had run into a Federal brigade. The latter had fired,
+at point blank, a withering volley. Many a tall Mississippian had
+fallen. Now in the early light their fellow soldiers had gone seeking
+them in the wood, drawn them forth, and laid them in a row in the wet
+sedge beside the road. Nearly every man had been shot through the brain.
+They lay ghastly, open-eyed, wet with rain, staring at the cool and pure
+concave of the sky. Two or three soldiers were moving slowly up and down
+the line, bent on identifications. Presumably Jackson was aware of that
+company of the dead, but their presence could not be said to disturb
+him. He sat with his large hands folded over the saddle-bow, with the
+forage cap cutting all but one blue-grey gleam of his eyes, still as
+stone wall or mountain or the dead across the way. As the horsemen came
+nearer his lips parted. "That is General Lee?"
+
+"Yes, general."
+
+"Good!"
+
+Lee's staff halted; Lee himself came on, checked the iron-grey,
+dismounted, and walked toward the honey locust. Jackson swung himself
+stiffly out of the saddle and stepped forward. The two met. Lee
+stretched out his hand, said something in his gracious voice. The
+piteous row of dead men, with their open eyes, caught his glance. He
+drew his brows together, pressed his lips hard, parted them in a sigh
+and went on with his speech. The two men, so different in aspect, talked
+not long together. The staff could not hear what was said, but Lee spoke
+the most and very earnestly. Jackson nodded, said, "Good!" several
+times, and once, "It is in God's hands, General Lee!"
+
+The courier holding Traveller brought him up. Lee mounted, tarried, a
+great and gallant figure, a moment longer, then rode toward Magruder at
+the peach orchard. His staff followed, saluting Stonewall Jackson as
+they passed. He, too, remounted in his stiff and awkward fashion, and
+turned Little Sorrel's head down the Williamsburg road. Behind him now,
+in the clear bright morning, could be heard the tramp of his brigades.
+Stafford pushed his horse level with the sorrel. "Your pardon, general,
+but may I ask if there's any order for General Ewell--"
+
+"There is none, sir."
+
+"Then shall I return?"
+
+"No, you will wait, sir. From the cross-roads I may send directions."
+
+They rode on by wood and field. Overhead was a clear, high, azure sky;
+no clouds, but many black sailing specks. Around, on the sandy road, and
+in the shaggy, bordering growth, were witnesses enough to the Federal
+retreat--a confused medley of abandoned objects. Broken and half-burned
+wagons appeared, like wreckage from a storm. There did not lack dead or
+dying horses, nor, here and there, dead or wounded men. In the thicker
+woods or wandering through the ruined fields appeared, forlornly,
+stragglers from the Federal column. D. H. Hill, leading the grey
+advance, swept up hundreds of these. From every direction spirals of
+smoke rose into the crystal air,--barns and farmhouses, mills, fences,
+hayricks, and monster heaps of Federal stores set on fire in that
+memorable "change of base." For all the sunshine of the June morning,
+the rain-washed air, the singing birds in the jewelled green of the
+forest, there was something in the time and place inexpressibly sinister
+and sad.
+
+Or so thought Maury Stafford, riding silently with the aide and the
+courier. At Gaines's Mill he had won emphatic praise for a cool and
+daring ride across the battlefield, and for the quick rallying and
+leading into action of a command whose officers were all down. With
+Ewell at Dispatch Station, he had volunteered for duty at the crossing
+of the Chickahominy, and in a hand-to-hand fight with a retiring Federal
+regiment he and his detachment had acquitted themselves supremely well.
+As far as this warfare went, he had reason to be satisfied. But he was
+not so, and as he rode he thought the morning scene of a twilight
+dreariness. He had no enthusiasm for war. In every aspect of life, save
+one, that he dealt with, he carried a cool and level head, and he
+thought war barbarous and its waste a great tragedy. Martial music and
+earth-shaking charges moved him for a moment, as they moved others for
+an hour or a day. The old, instinctive response passed with swiftness,
+and he settled to the base of a steadfast conclusion that humanity
+turned aside to the jungle many times too often in a century. That,
+individually, he had turned into a certain other allied jungle, he was
+conscious--not sardonically conscious, for here all his judgment was
+warped, but conscious. His mind ranged in this jungle with an unhappy
+fury hardly modern.
+
+As he rode he looked toward Richmond. He knew, though he scarcely knew
+how he knew, that Judith Cary was there. He had himself meant to ride to
+Richmond that idle twenty-eighth. Then had come the necessity of
+accompanying Ewell to Dispatch Station, and his chance was gone. The
+Stonewall Brigade had been idle enough.... Perhaps, the colonel of the
+65th had gone.... It was a thick and bitter jungle, and he gathered
+every thorn within it to himself and smelled of every poisonous flower.
+
+The small, silent cavalcade came to a cross-roads. Jackson stopped,
+sitting Little Sorrel beneath a tall, gaunt, lightning-blackened pine.
+The three with him waited a few feet off. Behind them they heard the
+on-coming column; D. H. Hill leading, then Jackson's own division. The
+sun was above the treetops, the sky cloudless, all the forest
+glistening. The minutes passed. Jackson sat like a stone. At last, from
+the heavy wood pierced by the cross-road, came a rapid clatter of hoofs.
+Munford appeared, behind him fifty of his cavalry. The fifty checked
+their horses; the leader came on and saluted. Jackson spoke in the
+peculiar voice he used when displeased. "Colonel Munford, I ordered you
+to be here at sunrise."
+
+Munford explained. "The men were much scattered, sir. They don't know
+the country, and in the storm last night and the thick wood they
+couldn't see their horses' ears. They had nothing to eat and--"
+
+He came to a pause. No amount of good reasons ever for long rolled
+fluently off the tongue before Jackson. He spoke now, still in the
+concentrated monotony of his voice of displeasure. "Yes, sir. But,
+colonel, I ordered you to be here at sunrise. Move on with your men. If
+you meet the enemy drive in his pickets, and if you want artillery
+Colonel Crutchfield will furnish you."
+
+Munford moved on, his body of horse increasing in size as the lost
+troopers emerged in twos and threes or singly from the forest and turned
+down the road to join the command. The proceeding gave an effect of
+disordered ranks. Jackson beckoned the courier. "Go tell Colonel Munford
+that his men are straggling badly."
+
+The courier went, and presently returned. Munford was with him.
+"General, I thought I had best come myself and explain--they aren't
+straggling. We were all separated in the dark night and--"
+
+"Yes, sir. But I ordered you to be here at sunrise. Move on now, and
+drive in the enemy's pickets, and if you want artillery Colonel
+Crutchfield will furnish you."
+
+Munford and the 2d Virginia went on, disappearing around a bend in the
+road. The sound of the artillery coming up was now loud in the clear
+air. Jackson listened a moment, then left the shadow of the pine, and
+with the two attending officers and the courier resumed the way to White
+Oak Swamp.
+
+Brigade by brigade, twenty-five thousand men in grey passed Savage
+Station and followed Stonewall Jackson. The air was fresh, the troops in
+spirits. Nobody was going to let McClellan get to the James, after all!
+The brigades broke into song. They laughed, they joked, they cheered
+every popular field officer as he passed, they genially discussed the
+heretofore difficulties of the campaign and the roseate promise of the
+day. They knew it was the crucial day; that McClellan must be stopped
+before sunset or he would reach the shelter of his gunboats. They were
+in a Fourth of July humour; they meant to make the day remembered. Life
+seemed bright again and much worth while. They even grudgingly agreed
+that there was a curious kind of attractiveness about all this flat
+country, and the still waters, and the very tall trees, and labyrinthine
+vivid green undergrowth. Intermittent fevers had begun to appear, but,
+one and all, the invalids declared that this was their good day.
+"Shucks! What's a little ague? Anyhow, it'll go away when we get back to
+the Valley. Going back to the Valley? Well, we should think so! This
+country's got an eerie kind of good looks, and it raises sweet potatoes
+all right, but for steady company give us mountains! We'll drop
+McClellan in one of these swamps, and we'll have a review at the fair
+grounds at Richmond so's all the ladies can see us, and then we'll go
+back to the Valley pike and Massanutton and Mr. Commissary Banks! They
+must be missing us awful. Somebody sing something,--
+
+                "Old Grimes is dead, that good old man,
+                  Whom we shall see no more!
+                He wore a grey Confederate coat
+                  All buttoned down before--"
+
+"Don't like it that way? All right--"
+
+                "He wore a blue damn-Yankee coat
+                  All buttoned down before--"
+
+The Stonewall Brigade passed a new-made grave in a small graveyard, from
+which the fence had been burned. A little further on they came to a
+burned smithy; the blacksmith's house beside it also a ruin, black and
+charred. On a stone, between two lilac-bushes, sat a very old man.
+Beside him stood a girl, a handsome creature, dark and bright-cheeked.
+"Send them to hell, boys, send them to hell!" quavered the old man. The
+girl raised a sweet and vibrant voice: "Send them to hell, men, send
+them to hell!"
+
+"We'll do our best, ma'am, we'll do our best!" answered the Stonewall.
+
+The sun mounted high. They were moving now through thick woods, broken
+by deep creeks and bits of swamp. All about were evidences enough that
+an army had travelled before them, and that that army was exceedingly
+careless of its belongings. All manner of impediments lay squandered;
+waste and ruin were everywhere. Sometimes the men caught an odour of
+burning meat, of rice and breadstuffs. In a marshy meadow a number of
+wrecked, canvas-topped wagons showed like a patch of mushrooms, giant
+and dingy. In a forest glade rested like a Siegfried smithy an abandoned
+travelling forge. Camp-kettles hacked in two were met with, and boxes of
+sutlers' wares smashed to fragments. The dead horses were many, and
+there was disgust with the buzzards, they rose or settled in such
+clouds. The troops, stooping to drink from the creeks, complained that
+the water was foul.
+
+Very deep woods appeared on the horizon. "Guide says that's White Oak
+Swamp!--Guide says that's White Oak Swamp!" Firing broke out ahead.
+"Cavalry rumpus!--Hello! Artillery butting in, too!--everybody but us!
+Well, boys, I always did think infantry a mighty no-'count, undependable
+arm--infantry of the Army of the Valley, anyway! God knows the moss has
+been growing on us for a week!"
+
+Munford sent back a courier to Jackson, riding well before the head of
+the column. "Bridge is burned, sir. They're in strong force on the other
+side--"
+
+"Good!" said Jackson. "Tell Colonel Crutchfield to bring up the guns."
+
+He rode on, the aide, the courier, and Maury Stafford yet with him. They
+passed a deserted Federal camp and hospital, and came between tall trees
+and through dense swamp undergrowth to a small stream with many arms. It
+lay still beneath the blue sky, overhung by many a graceful, vine-draped
+tree. The swamp growth stretched for some distance on either side, and
+through openings in the foliage the blue glint of the arms could be
+seen. To the right there was some cleared ground. In front the road
+stopped short. The one bridge had been burned by the retreating Federal
+rearguard. Two blue divisions, three batteries--in all over twenty
+thousand men--now waited on the southern bank to dispute the White Oak
+Crossing.
+
+Stafford again pushed his horse beside Jackson's. "Well, sir?"
+
+"I hunted once through this swamp, general. There is an old crossing
+near the bridge--"
+
+"Passable for cavalry, sir?"
+
+"Passable by cavalry and infantry, sir. Even the guns might somehow be
+gotten across."
+
+"I asked, sir, if it was passable for cavalry."
+
+"It is, sir."
+
+Jackson turned to his aide. "Go tell Colonel Crutchfield I want to see
+him."
+
+Crutchfield appeared. "Where are your guns, colonel?"
+
+"General, their batteries on the ridge over there command the road, and
+the thick woods below their guns are filled with sharpshooters. I want
+to get the guns behind the crest of the hill on this side, and I am
+opening a road through the wood over there. They'll be up
+directly--seven batteries, Carter's, Hardaway's, Nelson's, Rhett's,
+Reilly's, and Balthis'. We'll open then at a thousand yards, and we'll
+take them, I think, by surprise."
+
+"Very good, colonel. That is all."
+
+The infantry began to arrive. Brigade by brigade, as it came up, turned
+to right or to left, standing under arms in the wood above the White Oak
+Swamp. As the Stonewall Brigade came, under tall trees and over earth
+that gave beneath the feet, flush with the stream itself, the grey
+guns, now in place upon the low ridge to the right, opened, thirty-one
+of them, with simultaneous thunder. Crutchfield's manoeuvre had not
+been observed. The thirty-one guns blazed without warning, and the blue
+artillery fell into confusion. The Parrotts blazed in turn, four times,
+then they limbered up in haste and left the ridge. Crutchfield sent
+Wooding's battery tearing down the slope to the road immediately in
+front of the burned bridge. Wooding opened fire and drove out the
+infantry support from the opposite forest. Jackson, riding toward the
+stream, encountered Munford. "Colonel, move your men over the creek and
+take those guns."
+
+Munford looked. "I don't know that we can cross it, sir."
+
+"Yes, you can cross it, colonel. Try."
+
+Munford and a part of the 2d Virginia dashed in. The stream was in truth
+narrow enough, and though it was deep here, with a shifting bottom, and
+though the debris from the ruined bridge made it full of snares, the
+horsemen got across and pushed up the shore toward the guns. A thick and
+leafy wood to the right leaped fire--another and unsuspected body of
+blue infantry. The echoes were yet ringing when, from above, an unseen
+battery opened on the luckless cavalry. The blue rifles cracked again,
+the horses began to rear and plunge, several men were hit. There was
+nothing to do but to get somehow back to the north bank. Munford and his
+men pushed out of the rain of iron, through the wood for some distance
+down the stream, and there recrossed, not without difficulty.
+
+The thirty-one guns shelled the wood which had last spoken, and drove
+out the skirmishers with whom it was filled. These took refuge in
+another deep and leafy belt still commanding the stream and the ruined
+causeway. A party of grey pioneers fell to work to rebuild the bridge.
+From the crest on the southern side behind the deep foliage two Federal
+batteries, before unnoted, opened on the grey cannoneers. Wooding, on
+the road before the bridge, had to fall back. Under cover of the guns
+the blue infantry swarmed again into the wood. Shell and bullet hissed
+and pattered into the water by the abutments of the ruined bridge. The
+working party drew back. "Damnation! They mustn't fling them minies
+round loose like that!"
+
+Wright's brigade of Huger's division came up. Wright made his report.
+"We tried Brackett's ford a mile up stream, sir. Couldn't manage it. Got
+two companies over by the skin of our teeth. They drove in some pickets
+on the other side. Road through the swamp over there covered by felled
+trees. Beyond is a small meadow and beyond that rising ground, almost
+free of trees. There are Yankee batteries on the crest, and a large
+force of infantry lying along the side of the ridge. They command the
+meadow and the swamp."
+
+So tall were the trees, so thick the undergrowth, so full the midsummer
+foliage that the guns, thundering at each other across the narrow
+stream, never saw their antagonists. Sharpshooters and skirmishers were
+as hidden. Except as regarded the pioneers striving with the bridge,
+neither side could see the damage that was done. The noise was
+tremendous, echoing loudly from the opposing low ridges and rolling
+through the swamp. The hollow filled with smoke; above the treetops a
+dull saffron veil was drawn across the sky. The firing was without
+intermission, a monotonous thunder, beneath which the working party
+strove spasmodically at the bridge, the cavalry chafed to and fro, and
+the infantry, filling all the woods and the little clearings to the
+rear, began to swear. "Is it the Red Sea down there? Why can't we cross
+without a bridge? Nobody's going to get drowned! Ain't more'n a hundred
+men been drowned since this war began! O Great Day in the Morning! I'm
+tired of doing nothing!"
+
+General Wade Hampton of D. H. Hill's division, leaving his brigade in a
+pine wood, went with his son and with an aide, Rawlins Lowndes, on a
+reconnoitring expedition of his own. He was a woodsman and hunter, with
+experience of swamps and bayous. Returning, he sought out Jackson, and
+found him sitting on a fallen pine by the roadside near the slowly,
+slowly mending bridge. Hampton dismounted and made his report. "We got
+over, three of us, general, a short way above. It wasn't difficult. The
+stream's clear of obstructions there and has a sandy bottom. We could
+see through the trees on the other side. There's a bit of level, and a
+hillside covered with troops--a strong position. But we got across the
+stream, sir."
+
+"Yes. Can you make a bridge there?"
+
+"I can make one for infantry, sir. Not, I think, for the artillery.
+Cutting a road would expose our position."
+
+"Very good. Make the bridge, general."
+
+Hampton's men cut saplings and threw a rude foot-bridge across the
+stream where he had traversed it. He returned and reported. "They are
+quiet and unsuspecting beyond, sir. The crossing would be slow, and
+there may be an accident, but cross we certainly can."
+
+Jackson, still seated on the fallen pine, sat as though he had been
+there through eternity, and would remain through eternity. The gun
+thundered, the minies sang. One of the latter struck a tree above his
+head and severed a leafy twig. It came floating down, touched his
+shoulder like an accolade and rested on the pine needles by his foot. He
+gave it no attention, sitting like a graven image with clasped hands,
+listening to the South Carolinian's report. Hampton ceased to speak and
+waited. It was the height of the afternoon. He stood three minutes in
+silence, perhaps, then glanced toward the man on the log. Jackson's eyes
+were closed, his head slightly lifted. "Praying?" thought the South
+Carolinian. "Well, there's a time for everything--" Jackson opened his
+eyes, drew the forage cap far down over them, and rose from the pine.
+The other looked for him to speak, but he said nothing. He walked a
+little way down the road and stood among the whistling minies, looking
+at the slowly, slowly building bridge.
+
+Hampton did as Wright and Munford had done before him--went back to his
+men. D. H. Hill, after an interview of his own, had retired to the
+artillery. "Yes, yes, Rhett, go ahead! Do something--make a noise--do
+something! Infantry's kept home from school to-day--measles, I reckon,
+or maybe it's lockjaw!"
+
+About three o'clock there was caught from the southward, between the
+loud wrangling of the batteries above White Oak, another sound,--first
+two or three detonations occurring singly, then a prolonged and
+continuous roar. The batteries above White Oak Swamp, the sharpshooters
+and skirmishers, the grey chafing cavalry, the grey masses of unemployed
+infantry, all held breath and listened. The sound was not three miles
+away, and it was the sound of the crash of long battle-lines. There was
+a curious movement among the men nearest the grey general-commanding.
+With their bodies bent forward, they looked his way, expecting short,
+quick orders. He rested immobile, his eyes just gleaming beneath the
+down-drawn cap, Little Sorrel cropping the marsh grass beside him.
+Munford, coming up, ventured a remark. "General Longstreet or General A.
+P. Hill has joined with their centre, I suppose, general? The firing is
+very heavy."
+
+"Yes. The troops that have been lying before Richmond. General Lee will
+see that they do what is right."
+
+Stafford, near him, spoke again. "The sound comes, I think, sir, from a
+place called Glendale--Glendale or Frayser's Farm."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Jackson; "very probably."
+
+The thunder never lessened. Artillery and infantry, Franklin's corps on
+the south bank of White Oak, began again to pour an iron hail against
+the opposing guns and the working party at the bridge, but in every
+interval between the explosions from these cannon there rolled louder
+and louder the thunder from Frayser's Farm. A sound like a grating wind
+in a winter forest ran through the idle grey brigades. "It's A. P.
+Hill's battle again!--A. P. Hill or Longstreet! Magruder and Huger and
+Holmes and A. P. Hill and Longstreet--and we out of it again, on the
+wrong side of White Oak Swamp! And they're looking for us to help--_Wish
+I was dead!_"
+
+The 65th Virginia had its place some distance up the stream, in a
+tangled wood by the water. Facing southward, it held the extreme right;
+beyond it only morass, tall trees, swaying masses of vine. On the left
+an arm of the creek, thickly screened by tree and bush, divided it from
+the remainder of the brigade. It rested in semi-isolation, and its ten
+companies stared in anger at the narrow stream and the deep woods
+beyond, listening to the thunder of Longstreet and A. P. Hill's
+unsupported attack and the answering roar of the Federal 3d Army Corps.
+It was a sullen noise, deep and unintermittent. The 65th, waiting for
+orders, could have wept as the orders did not come. "Get across? Well,
+if General Jackson would just give us leave to try!--Oh, hell! listen to
+that!--Colonel, can't you do something for us?--Where's the colonel
+gone?"
+
+Cleave was beyond their vision. He had rounded a little point of land
+and now, Dundee's hoofs in water, stood gazing at the darkly wooded
+opposite shore. He stood a moment thus, then spoke to the horse, and
+they entered the stream. It was not deep, and though there were
+obstructions, old stakes and drowned brushwood, Cleave and Dundee
+crossed. The air was full of booming sound, but there was no motion in
+the wood into which they rose from the water. All its floor was marshy,
+water in pools and threads, a slight growth of cane, and above, the tall
+and solemn trees. Cleave saw that there was open meadow beyond.
+Dismounting, he went noiselessly to the edge of the swamp. An open
+space, covered with some low growth; beyond it a hillside. Wood and
+meadow and hill, all lay quiet and lonely in the late sunlight.
+
+He went back to Dundee, remounted, passed again through the sombre wood,
+over the boggy earth, entered the water and recrossed. Turning the
+little point of the swamp, he rode before his regiment on his way to
+find Winder. His men greeted him. "Colonel, if you could just get us
+over there we'd do anything in the world for you! This weeping-willow
+place is getting awful hard to bear! Look at Dundee! Even he's drooping
+his head. You know we'd follow you through hell, sir; and if you could
+just manage it so's we could follow you through White Oak Swamp--"
+
+Cleave passed the arm of the creek separating the 65th from the rest of
+the brigade, and asked of Winder from the first troops beyond the screen
+of trees. "General Winder has ridden down to the bridge to see General
+Jackson."
+
+Cleave, following, found his leader indeed before Jackson, just
+finishing his representations whatever they were, and somewhat perturbed
+by the commanding general's highly developed silence. This continuing
+unbroken, Winder, after an awkward minute of waiting, fell a little
+back, a flush on his cheeks and his lips hard together. The action
+disclosed Cleave, just come up, his hand checking Dundee, his grey eyes
+earnestly upon Jackson. When the latter spoke, it was not to the
+brigadier but to the colonel of the 65th. "Why are you not with your
+regiment, sir?"
+
+"I left it but a moment ago, sir, to bring information I thought it my
+duty to bring."
+
+"What information?"
+
+"The 65th is on General Winder's extreme right, sir. The stream before
+it is fordable."
+
+"How do you know, sir?"
+
+"I forded it. The infantry could cross without much difficulty. The 65th
+would be happy, sir, to lead the way."
+
+Winder opened his lips. "The whole Stonewall Brigade is ready, sir."
+
+Jackson, without regarding, continued to address himself to Cleave. His
+tone had been heard before by the latter--in his own case on the night
+of the twenty-seventh as well as once before, and in the case of others
+where there had been what was construed as remonstrance or negligence or
+disobedience. He had heard him speak so to Garnett after Kernstown. The
+words were simple enough--they always were. "You will return to your
+duty, sir. It lies where your regiment is, and that is not here. Go!"
+
+Cleave obeyed. The ford was there. His regiment might have crossed, the
+rest of the Stonewall following. Together they might traverse the swamp
+and the bit of open, pass the hillside, and strike Franklin upon the
+flank, while, brigade by brigade, the rest of the division followed by
+that ford. Rout Franklin, and push forward to help A. P. Hill. It had
+appeared his duty to give the information he was possessed of. He had
+given it, and his skirts were cleared. There was anger in him as he
+turned away; he had a compressed lip, a sparkling eye. Not till he
+turned did he see Stafford, sitting his horse in the shadow behind
+Jackson. The two men stared full at each other for a perceptible moment.
+But Stafford's face was in the shadow, and as for Cleave his mind was
+full of anger for the tragedy of the inaction. At the moment he gave
+small attention to his own life, its heights or depths, past or future.
+He saw Stafford, but he could not be said to consider him at all. He
+turned from the road into the wood, and pushed the great bay over spongy
+ground toward the isolated 65th. Stafford saw that he gave him no
+thought, and it angered him. On the highroad of his life it would not
+have done so, but he had left the road and was lost in the jungle. There
+were few things that Richard Cleave might do which would not now work
+like madness on the mind astray in that place.
+
+The cannonading over White Oak Swamp continued, and the sound of the
+battle of Frayser's Farm continued. On a difficult and broken ground
+Longstreet attacked, driving back McCall's division. McCall was
+reinforced and Longstreet hard pressed. Lee loosed A. P. Hill, and the
+battle became furious. He looked for Jackson, but Jackson was at White
+Oak Swamp; for Huger, but a road covered with felled trees delayed
+Huger; for Magruder, but in the tangle of wood and swamp Magruder, too,
+went astray; for Holmes, but Fitz John Porter held Holmes in check.
+Longstreet and A. P. Hill strove unsupported, fifty thousand grey troops
+in hearing of their guns. The battle swayed to and fro, long, loud, and
+sanguinary, with much hand-to-hand work, much use of bayonets, and,
+over all, a shriek of grape and canister.
+
+Back on White Oak Swamp, Franklin on the southern side, Jackson on the
+northern, blue and grey alike caught the noise of battle. They
+themselves were cannonading loudly and continuously. One Federal battery
+used fifteen hundred rounds. The grey were hardly less lavish. Not much
+damage was done except to the trees. The trough through which crept the
+sluggish water was filled with smoke. It drifted through the swamp and
+the woods and along the opposing hillsides. It drifted over and about
+the idle infantry, until one command was hidden from another.
+
+Stonewall Jackson, seated on the stump of a felled oak, his sabre across
+his knees, his hands rigid upon it, his great booted feet squarely
+planted, his cap drawn low, sent the aide beside him with some order to
+the working party at the bridge. A moment later the courier went, too,
+to D. H. Hill, with a query about prisoners. The thunders continued, the
+smoke drifted heavily, veiling all movements. Jackson spoke without
+turning. "Whoever is there--"
+
+No one was there at the moment but Maury Stafford. He came forward. "You
+will find the 1st Brigade," said Jackson. "Tell General Winder to move
+it nearer the stream. Tell him to cross from his right, with caution, a
+small reconnoitring party. Let it find out the dispositions of the
+enemy, return and report."
+
+Stafford went, riding westward through the smoke-filled forest, and came
+presently to the Stonewall Brigade and to Winder, walking up and down
+disconsolately. "An order from General Jackson, sir. You will move your
+brigade nearer the stream. Also you will cross, from your right, with
+caution, a small reconnoitring party. It will discover the dispositions
+of the enemy, return and report."
+
+"Very good," said Winder. "I'll move at once. The 65th is already on the
+brink--there to the right, beyond the swamp. Perhaps, you'll take the
+order on to Colonel Cleave?--Very good! Tell him to send a picked squad
+quietly across and find out what he can. I hope to God there'll come
+another order for us all to cross at its heels!"
+
+Stafford, riding on, presently found himself in a strip of bog and
+thicket and tall trees masking a narrow, sluggish piece of water. The
+brigade behind him was hidden, the regiment in front not yet visible.
+Despite the booming of the guns, there was here an effect of stillness.
+It seemed a lonely place. Stafford, traversing it slowly because the
+ground gave beneath his horse's feet, became aware of a slight movement
+in a laurel thicket and of two eyes gleaming behind the leaves. He
+reined in his horse. "What are you doing in there? Straggling or
+deserting? Come out!" There was a pause; then Steve Dagg emerged.
+"Major, I ain't either stragglin' or desertin'. I was just seperated--I
+got seperated last night. The regiment's jes' down there--I crept down
+an' saw it jes' now. I'm goin' back an' join right away--send me to hell
+if I ain't!--though Gawd knows my foot's awful sore--"
+
+Stafford regarded him closely. "I've seen you before. Ah, I remember! On
+the Valley pike, moving toward Winchester.... Poor scoundrel!"
+
+Steve, his back against a swamp magnolia, undertook to show that he,
+too, remembered, and that gratefully. "Yes, sir. You saved me from
+markin' time on a barrel-head, major--an' my foot _was_ sore--an' I
+wasn't desertin' that time any more'n this time--an' I was as obleeged
+to you as I could be. The colonel's awful hard on the men."
+
+"Is he?" said Stafford gratingly. "They seem to like him."
+
+He sat his horse before the laurel thicket and despised himself for
+holding conference with this poor thief; or, rather, some fibre in his
+brain told him that, out of this jungle, if ever he came out of it, he
+would despise himself. Had he really done so now, he would have turned
+away. He did not so; he sat in the heart of the jungle and compared
+hatreds with Steve.
+
+The latter glanced upward a moment with his ferret eyes, then turned his
+head aside and spat. "If there's any of my way of thinkin' they don't
+like him--But they're all fools! Crept down through the swamp a little
+ago an' heard it! 'Colonel, get us across, somehow, won't you? We'll
+fight like hell!' 'I can't, men. I haven't any orders.' Yaah! I wish
+he'd take the regiment over without them, and then be court-martialled
+and shot for doing it!" Steve spat again. "I seed long ago that you
+didn't like him either, major. He gets along too fast--all the prizes
+come his way."
+
+"Yes," said Stafford, from the heart of the jungle. "They come his
+way.... And he's standing there at the edge of the water, hoping for
+orders to cross."
+
+Steve, beneath the swamp magnolia, had a widening of the lips. "Luck's
+turned agin him one way, though. He's out of favour with Old Jack. The
+regiment don't know why, but it saw it mighty plain day before
+yesterday, after the big battle! Gawd knows I'd like to see him so deep
+in trouble he'd never get out--and so would you, major. Prizes would
+stop coming his way then, and he might lose those he has--"
+
+"If I entertain a devil," said Stafford, "I'll not be hypocrite enough
+to object to his conversation. Nor, if I take his suggestion, is there
+any sense in covering him with reprobation. So go your way, miserable
+imp! while I go mine!"
+
+But Steve kept up with him, half-running at his stirrup. "I got to
+rejoin, 'cause it's jest off one battlefield on to another, and there
+ain't nowhere else to go! This world's a sickenin' place for men like
+me. So I've got to rejoin. Ef there's ever anything I kin do for you,
+major--"
+
+At the head of the dividing arm of the creek they heard behind them a
+horseman, and waited for a courier to come up. "You are going on to the
+65th?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I belong there. I was kept by General Winder for some special
+duty, and I'm just through it--"
+
+"I have an order," said Stafford, "from General Winder to Colonel
+Cleave. There are others to carry and time presses. I'll entrust it to
+you. Listen now, and get it straight."
+
+He gave an order. The courier listened, nodded energetically, repeated
+it after him, and gathered up the reins. "I am powerfully glad to carry
+that order, sir! It means 'Cross,' doesn't it?"
+
+He rode off, southward to the stream, in which direction Steve had
+already shambled. Stafford returned, through wood and swamp, to the road
+by the bridge. Above and around the deep inner jungle his intellect
+worked. He knew that he had done a villainy; knew it and did not repent.
+A nature, fine enough in many ways, lay bound hand and foot, deep in
+miasmas and primal heat, captive to a master and consuming passion. To
+create a solitude where he alone might reach one woman's figure, he
+would have set a world afire. He rode back now, through the woods, to a
+general commanding who never forgave nor listened overmuch to
+explanations, and he rode with quietude, the very picture of a gallant
+soldier.
+
+Back on the edge of White Oak Swamp, Richard Cleave considered the order
+he had received. He found an ambiguity in the wording, a choice of
+constructions. He half turned to send the courier again to Winder, to
+make absolutely sure that the construction which he strongly preferred
+was correct. As he did so, though he could not see the brigade beyond
+the belt of trees, he heard it in motion, _coming down through the woods
+to cross the stream in the rear of the 65th_. He looked at the ford and
+the silent woods beyond. From Frayser's Farm, so short a distance away,
+came a deeper roll of thunder. It had a solemn and a pleading sound,
+_How long are we to wait for any help?_ Cleave knit his brows; then,
+with a decisive gesture of his hand, he dismissed the doubt and stepped
+in front of his colour company. _Attention! Into column. Forward!_
+
+On the road leading down to the bridge Stafford met his own division
+general, riding Rifle back to his command. "Hello, Major Stafford!" said
+Old Dick. "I thought I had lost you."
+
+"General Jackson detained me, general."
+
+"Yes, yes, you aren't the only one! But let me tell you, major, he's
+coming out of his spell!"
+
+"You think it was a spell, then, sir?"
+
+"Sure of it! Old Jackson simply hasn't been here at all. D. H. Hill
+thinks he's been broken down and ill--and somebody else is poetical and
+says his star never shines when another's is above it, which is
+nonsense--and somebody else thinks he thought we did enough in the
+Valley, which is damned nonsense--eh?"
+
+"Of course, sir. Damned nonsense."
+
+Ewell jerked his head. "Yes, sir. No man's his real self all the
+time--whether he's a Presbyterian or not. Old Jackson simply hasn't been
+in this cursed low country at all! But ----! I've been trying to give
+advice down there, and, by God, sir, he's approaching! If it was a
+spell, it's lifting! That bridge'll be built pretty soon, I reckon, and
+when we cross at last we'll cross with Stonewall Jackson going on
+before!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+MALVERN HILL
+
+
+Star by star the heavens paled. The dawn came faintly and mournfully up
+from the east. Beneath it the battlefield of Frayser's Farm lay hushed
+and motionless, like the sad canvas of a painter, the tragic dream of a
+poet. It was far flung over broken ground and strewn with wrecks of war.
+Dead men and dying--very many of them, for the fighting had been
+heavy--lay stretched in the ghostly light, and beside them dead and
+dying horses. Eighteen Federal guns had been taken. They rested on
+ridged earth, black against the cold, grey sky. Stark and silent, far
+and wide, rolled the field beneath the cold, mysterious, changing light.
+Beside the dead men there were sleeping troops, regiments lying on their
+arms, fallen last night where they were halted, slumbering heavily
+through the dew-drenched summer night. As the sky grew purple and the
+last star went out, the bugles began to blow. The living men rose. If
+the others heard a reveille, it was in far countries.
+
+Edward Cary, lying down in the darkness near one of the guns, had put
+out a hand and touched a bedfellow. The soldier seemed asleep, and
+Edward slept too, weary enough to have slept in Hades. Now, as the
+bugles called, he sat up and looked at his companion--who did not rise.
+"I thought you lay very still," said Edward. He sat a moment, on the
+dank earth, beside the still, grey figure. The gun stood a little above
+him; through a wheel as through a rose window he saw the flush of dawn.
+The dead soldier's eyes were open; they, too, stared through the
+gun-wheel at the dawn. Edward closed them. "I never could take death
+seriously," he said; "which is fortunate, I suppose."
+
+Two hours later his regiment, moving down the Quaker road, came to a
+halt before a small, pillared, country church. A group of officers sat
+their horses near the portico. Lee was in front, quiet and grand. Out of
+the cluster Warwick Cary pushed his horse across to the halted regiment.
+Father and son were presently holding converse beneath a dusty roadside
+cedar. "I am thankful to see you!" said Edward. "We heard of the great
+charge you made. Please take better care of yourself, father!"
+
+"The past week has been like a dream," answered the other; "one of those
+dreams in which, over and over, some undertaking, vital to you and
+tremendous, is about to march. Then, over and over, comes some pettiest
+obstacle, and the whole vast matter is turned awry."
+
+"Yesterday should have been ours."
+
+"Yes. General Lee had planned as he always plans. We should have crushed
+McClellan. Instead, we fought alone--and we lost four thousand men; and
+though we made the enemy lose as many, he has again drawn himself out
+of our grasp and is before us. I think that to-day we will have a
+fearful fight."
+
+"Jackson is over at last."
+
+"Yes, close behind us. Whiting is leading; I saw him a moment. There's a
+report that one of the Stonewall regiments crossed and was cut in pieces
+late yesterday afternoon--"
+
+"I hope it wasn't Richard's!"
+
+"I hope not. I have a curious, boding feeling about it.--There beat your
+drums! Good-bye, again--"
+
+He leaned from his saddle and kissed his son, then backed his horse
+across the road to the generals by the pillared church. The regiment
+marched away, and as it passed it cheered General Lee. He lifted his
+hat. "Thank you, men. Do your best to-day--do your best."
+
+"We'll mind you, Marse Robert, we'll mind you!" cried the troops, and
+went by shouting.
+
+Somewhere down the Quaker Road the word "Malvern Hill" seemed to drop
+from the skies. "Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill. They're all massed on
+Malvern Hill. Three hundred and forty guns. And on the James the
+gunboats. Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill."
+
+A man in line with Edward described the place. "My last year at William
+and Mary I spent Christmas at Westover. We hunted over all Malvern Hill.
+It rises one hundred and fifty feet, and the top's a mile across. About
+the base there are thick forests and swamps, and Turkey Creek goes
+winding, winding to the James. You see the James--the wide, old, yellow
+river, with the birds going screaming overhead. There were no gunboats
+on it that day, no Monitors, or Galenas, or Maritanzas, and if you'd
+told us up there on Malvern Hill that the next time we climbed it--! At
+Westover, after supper, they told Indian stories and stories of
+Tarleton's troopers, and in the night we listened for the tap of Evelyn
+Byrd's slipper on the stair. We said we heard it--anyhow, we didn't hear
+gunboats and three hundred thirty-two pounders!"
+
+      "'When only Beauty's eyes did rake us fore and aft,
+      When only Beaux used powder, and Cupid's was the shaft--'"
+
+sang Edward,
+
+      "'Most fatal was the war and pleasant to be slain--'"
+
+_Malvern Hill_, beat out the marching feet. _Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill.
+Malvern Hill._
+
+There was a deep wood, out from which ran like spurs shallow ravines,
+clad with briar and bush and young trees; there was a stretch of rail
+fence; and there was a wheat field, where the grain stood in shocks.
+Because of the smoke, however, nothing could be seen plainly; and
+because of the most awful sound, few orders were distinctly heard.
+Evidently officers were shouting; in the rents of the veil one saw waved
+arms, open mouths, gesticulations with swords. But the loud-mouthed guns
+spoke by the score, and the blast bore the human voice away. The
+regiment in which was Edward Cary divined an order and ceased firing,
+lying flat in sedge and sassafras, while a brigade from the rear roared
+by. Edward looked at his fingers. "Barrel burn them?" asked a neighbour.
+"Reckon they use red-hot muskets in hell? Wish you could see your lips,
+Edward! Round black O. Biting cartridges for a living--and it used to be
+when you read Plutarch that you were all for the peaceful heroes! You
+haven't a lady-love that would look at you now!
+
+                "'Take, oh, take those lips away
+                That so blackly are enshrined--'
+
+Here comes a lamp-post--a lamp-post--a lamp-post!"
+
+The gunboats on the river threw the "lamp-posts." The long and horrible
+shells arrived with a noise that was indescribable. A thousand shrieking
+rockets, perhaps, with at the end an explosion and a rain of fragments
+like rocks from Vesuvius. They had a peculiar faculty for getting on the
+nerves. The men watched their coming with something like shrinking, with
+raised arms and narrowed eyes. "Look out for the lamp-post--look out for
+the lamp-post--look out--Aaahhhh!"
+
+Before long the regiment was moved a hundred yards nearer the
+wheat-field. Here it became entangled in the ebb of a charge--the
+brigade which had rushed by coming back, piecemeal, broken and driven by
+an iron flail. It would reform and charge again, but now there was
+confusion. All the field was confused, dismal and dreadful, beneath the
+orange-tinted smoke. The smoke rolled and billowed, a curtain of strange
+texture, now parting, now closing, and when it parted disclosing
+immemorial Death and Wounds with some attendant martial pageantry. The
+commands were split as by wedges, the uneven ground driving them
+asunder, and the belching guns. They went up to hell mouth, brigade by
+brigade, even regiment by regiment, and in the breaking and reforming
+and twilight of the smoke, through the falling of officers and the
+surging to and fro, the troops became interwoven, warp of one division,
+woof of another. The sound was shocking; when, now and then there fell a
+briefest interval it was as though the world had stopped, had fallen
+into a gulf of silence.
+
+Edward Cary found beside him a man from another regiment, a small,
+slight fellow, young and simple. A shock of wheat gave both a moment's
+protection. "Hot work!" said Edward, with his fine camaraderie. "You
+made a beautiful charge. We almost thought you would take them."
+
+The other looked at him vacantly. "I added up figures in the old
+warehouse," he said, in a high, thin voice. "I added up figures in the
+old warehouse, and when I went home at night I used to read plays. I
+added up figures in the old warehouse--Don't you remember Hotspur? I
+always liked him, and that part--
+
+        'To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon;
+        Or dive into the bottom of the deep--'"
+
+He stood up. Edward rose to his knees and put out a hand to draw him
+down. "It's enough to make you crazy, I'll confess--but you mustn't
+stand up like that!"
+
+The downward drawing hand was too late. There were blue sharpshooters in
+a wood in front. A ball entered the clerk's breast and he sank down
+behind the wheat. "I added up figures in the old warehouse," he again
+told Cary, "and when I went home at night I read plays--"
+
+The figure stiffened in Edward's grasp. He laid it down, and from behind
+the wheat shock watched a grey battery in process of being knocked to
+pieces. It had arrived in this quarter of the field in a wild gallop,
+and with a happy insouciance had unlimbered and run up the guns back of
+a little crest topped with sumach, taking pains meanwhile to assure the
+infantry that now it was safe. The infantry had grinned. "Like you
+first-rate, artillery! Willing to bet on the gunners, but the guns are a
+_leetle_ small and few. Don't know that we feel so _awful_ safe!"
+
+The grey began. Four shells flew up the long slope and burst among the
+iron rows that made a great triple crown for Malvern Hill. The grey
+gunners cheered, and the appreciative infantry cheered, and the first
+began to reload while the second, flat in scrub and behind the wheat,
+condescended to praise. "Artillery does just about as well as can be
+expected! Awful old-fashioned arm--but well-meaning.... Look
+out--look... Eeehhh!"
+
+The iron crown that had been blazing toward other points of the compass
+now blazed toward this. Adversity came to the insouciant grey battery,
+adversity quickening to disaster. The first thunder blast thickened to a
+howling storm of shrapnel, grape, and canister.
+
+At the first gun gunner No. 1, ramming home a charge, was blown into
+fragments; at the second the arm holding the sponge staff was severed
+from gunner No. 3's shoulder. A great shell, bursting directly over the
+third, killed two men and horribly mangled others; the carriage of the
+fourth was crushed and set on fire. This in the beginning of the storm;
+as it swelled, total destruction threatened from the murk. The captain
+went up and down. "Try it a little longer, men. Try it a little longer,
+men. We've got to make up in quality, you know. We've got to make up in
+quality, you know. Marse Robert's looking--I see him over there! Try it
+a little longer--try it a little longer."
+
+An aide arrived. "For God's sake, take what you've got left away! Yes,
+it's an order. Your being massacred won't help. Look out--Look--"
+
+No one in battle ever took account of time or saw any especial reason
+for being, now here, and now in quite a different place, or ever knew
+exactly how the places had been exchanged. Edward was practically
+certain that he had taken part in a charge, that his brigade had driven
+a body of blue infantry from a piece of woods. At any rate they were no
+longer in the wheat field, but in a shady wood, where severed twigs and
+branches floated pleasantly down. Lying flat, chin on hand, he watched a
+regiment storm and take a thick abattis--felled trees filled with
+sharpshooters--masking a hastily thrown up earthwork. The regiment was
+reserving its fire and losing heavily. An elderly man led it, riding a
+large old steady horse. "That's Ex-Governor Smith," said the regiment in
+the wood. "That's Extra Billy! He's a corker! Next time he runs he's
+going to get all the votes--"
+
+The regiment tried twice to pass the abattis, but each time fell back.
+The brigadier had ordered it not to fire until it was past the trees; it
+obeyed, but sulkily enough. Men were dropping; the colour-bearer went
+down. There was an outcry. "Colonel! we can't stand this! We'll all get
+killed before we fire a shot! The general don't know how we're fixed--"
+Extra Billy agreed with them. He rose in his stirrups, turned and nodded
+vigorous assent. "Of course you can't stand it, boys! You oughtn't to be
+expected to. It's all this infernal tactics and West P'int tomfoolery!
+Damn it, fire! and flush the game!"
+
+Edward laughed. From the fuss it was apparent that the abattis and
+earthwork had succumbed. At any rate, the old governor and his regiment
+were gone. He was of the colour-guard, and all the colour-guard were
+laughing. "Didn't you ever see him go into battle with his old blue
+umbrella up! Trotting along same as to a caucus--whole constituency
+following! Fine old political Roman! Look out, Yedward! Whole pine tree
+coming down."
+
+The scene changed again, and it was the side of a ravine, with a fine
+view of the river and with Morell and Couch blazing somewhere above. The
+shells went overhead, bellowing monsters charging a grey battery on a
+hillock and a distant line of troops. "That's Pegram--that battery,"
+said some one. "He does well." "Has any one any idea of the time?" asked
+another. "Sun's so hidden there's no guessing. Don't believe we'll ever
+see his blessed light again."
+
+A fisherman from the Eastern Shore stated that it was nearly five
+o'clock. "Fogs can't fool me. Day's drawing down, and tide's going
+out--"
+
+The lieutenant-colonel appeared. "Somebody with an order has been shot,
+coming through the cornfield toward us. Three volunteers to bring him
+in!"
+
+Edward and the Eastern Shore man and a lean and dry and middle-aged
+lawyer from King and Queen bent their heads beneath their shoulders and
+plunged into the corn. All the field was like a miniature abattis,
+stalk and blade shot down and crossed and recrossed in the wildest
+tangle. To make way over it was difficult enough, and before the three
+had gone ten feet the minies took a hand. The wounded courier lay
+beneath his horse, and the horse screamed twice, the sound rising above
+the roar of the guns. A ball pierced Edward's cap, another drew blood
+from the lawyer's hand. The fisherman was a tall and wiry man; as he ran
+he swayed like a mast in storm. The three reached the courier, dragged
+him from beneath the horse, and found both legs crushed. He looked at
+them with lustreless eyes. "You can't do anything for me, boys. The
+general says please try to take those three guns up there. He's going to
+charge the line beyond, and they are in the way."
+
+"All right, we will," said the lawyer. "Now you put one arm round Cary's
+neck and one round mine--"
+
+But the courier shook his head. "You leave me here. I'm awful tired. You
+go take the guns instead. Ain't no use, I tell you. I'd like to see the
+children, but--"
+
+In the act of speaking, as they lifted him, a ball went through his
+throat. The three laid the body down, and, heads bent between shoulders,
+ran over and through the corn toward the ravine. Two thirds of the way
+across, the fisherman was shot. He came to his knees and, in falling,
+clutched Edward. "Mast's overboard," he cried, in a rattling voice. "Cut
+her loose, damn you!--I'll take the helm--" He, too, died. Cary and the
+lawyer got back to the gully and gave the order.
+
+The taking of those guns was no simple matter. It resembled child's play
+only in the single-mindedness and close attention which went to its
+accomplishment. The regiment that reached them at last and took them, and
+took what was left of the blue gunners, was not much more than half a
+regiment. The murk up here on this semi-height was thick to choking; the
+odour and taste of the battle poisoned brass on the tongue, the colour that
+of a sand storm, the heat like that of a battleship in action, and all the
+place shook from the thunder and recoil of the tiers of great guns beyond,
+untaken, not to be taken. A regiment rushed out of the rolling smoke, by
+the half regiment. "Mississippi! Mississippi!--Well, even Mississippi isn't
+going to do the impossible!" As the line went by, tall and swinging and
+yelling itself hoarse, the colonel was wounded and fell. The charge went on
+while the officer--he was an old man, very stately looking--dragged himself
+aside, and sitting in the sedge tied a large bright handkerchief above a
+wound in his leg. The charge dashed itself against the hillside, and the
+tier of guns flamed a death's sickle and mowed it down. Breathless, broken,
+the regiment fell back. When it reached the old man with the bright
+handkerchief, it would have lifted him and carried him with it to the rear.
+He would not go. He said, "Tell the 21st they can't get me till they take
+those guns!"
+
+The 21st mended its gaps and charged again. The old man set his hat on
+his sword, waved it in the air, and cheered his men as they passed. They
+passed him but to return. To go up against those lines of bellowing guns
+was mere heroic madness. Bleeding, exhausted, the men put out their
+hands for the old man. He drew his revolver. "I'll shoot anybody who
+touches me! Tell the 21st they can't get their colonel till they take
+those guns!"
+
+The 21st charged a third time, in vain. It came back--a part of it came
+back. The old man had fainted, and his men lifted and bore him away.
+
+From the platform where he lay in the shadow of the three guns Edward
+Cary looked out over Malvern Hill, the encompassing lowland, marsh and
+forest and fields, the winding Turkey Creek and Western Creek, and to
+the south the James. A wind had sprung up and was blowing the battle
+smoke hither and yon. Here it hung heavily, and here a long lane was
+opened. The sun was low and red behind a filmy veil, dark and ragged
+like torn crape. He saw four gunboats on the river; they were throwing
+the long, howling shells. The Monitor was there, an old foe--the cheese
+box on a shingle. Edward shut his eyes and saw again Hampton Roads, and
+how the Monitor had looked, darting from behind the Minnesota. The old
+turtle, the old Merrimac ... and now she lay, a charred hull, far, far
+beneath the James, by Craney Island.
+
+The private on his right was a learned man. Edward addressed him. "Have
+you ever thought, doctor, how fearfully dramatic is this world?"
+
+"Yes. It's one of those facts that are too colossal to be seen.
+Shakespeare says all the world's a stage. That's only a half-truth. The
+world's a player, like the rest of us."
+
+Below this niche stretched the grey battle-lines; above it, on the
+hilltop, by the cannon and over half the slope beneath, spread the blue.
+A forest stood behind the grey; out of it came the troops to the charge,
+the flags tossing in front. The upward reaching fingers of coppice and
+brush had their occupants, fragments of commands under cover, bands of
+sharpshooters. And everywhere over the open, raked by the guns, were
+dead and dying men. They lay thickly. Now and again the noise of the
+torment of the wounded made itself heard--a most doleful and ghostly
+sound coming up like a wail from the Inferno. There were, too, many dead
+or dying horses. Others, still unhurt, galloped from end to end of the
+field of death. In the wheat-field there were several of the old,
+four-footed warriors, who stood and ate of the shocked grain. There
+arrived a hush over the battlefield, one of those pauses which occur
+between exhaustion and renewed effort, effort at its height. The guns
+fell silent, the musketry died away, the gunboats ceased to throw those
+great shells. By contrast with the clangour that had prevailed, the
+stillness seemed that of a desert waste, a dead world. Over toward a
+cross-road there could be made out three figures on horseback. The
+captain of Edward's company was an old college mate; lying down with his
+men, he now drew himself over the ground and loaned Cary his
+field-glass. "It's General Lee and General Jackson and General D. H.
+Hill."
+
+A body of grey troops came to occupy a finger of woods below the three
+captured guns. "That's Cary's Legion," said the captain. "Here comes the
+colonel now!"
+
+The two commands were but a few yards apart. Fauquier Cary, dismounting,
+walked up the sedgy slope and asked to speak to his nephew. The latter
+left the ranks, and the two found a trampled space beside one of the
+great thirty-two pounders. A dead man or two lay in the parched grass,
+but there was nothing else to disturb. The quiet yet held over North and
+South and the earth that gave them standing room. "I have but a moment,"
+said the elder man. "This is but the hush before the final storm. We
+came by Jackson's troops, and one of his officers whom I knew at the
+Point rode beside me a little way. They all crossed White Oak Swamp by
+starlight this morning, and apparently Jackson is again the Jackson of
+the Valley. It was a curious eclipse. The force of the man is such that,
+while his officers acknowledge the eclipse, it makes no difference to
+them. He is Stonewall Jackson--and that suffices. But that is not what
+I have to tell--"
+
+"I saw father a moment this morning. He said there was a rumour about
+one of the Stonewall regiments--"
+
+"Yes. It was the 65th."
+
+"Cut to pieces?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Richard--Richard was not killed?"
+
+"No. But many were. Hairston Breckinridge was killed--and some of the
+Thunder Run men--and very many others. Almost destroyed, Carlton said.
+They crossed at sunset. There were a swamp and a wood and a hollow
+commanded by hills. The enemy was in force behind the hill, and there
+was beside a considerable command in ambush, concealed in the woods by
+the swamp. These had a gun or two. All opened on the 65th. It was cut to
+pieces in the swamp and in a little marshy meadow. Only a remnant got
+back to the northern side of the creek. Richard is under arrest."
+
+"He was acting under orders!"
+
+"So Carlton says he says. But General Jackson says there was no such
+order; that he disobeyed the order that was given, and now tries to
+screen himself. Carlton says Jackson is more steel-like than usual, and
+we know how it fared with Garnett and with others. There will be a
+court-martial. I am very anxious."
+
+"I am not," said Edward stoutly. "There will be an honourable acquittal.
+We must write and tell Judith that she's not to worry! Richard Cleave
+did nothing that he should not have done."
+
+"Of course, we know that. But Carlton says that, on the face of it, it's
+an ugly affair. And General Jackson--Well, we can only await
+developments."
+
+"Poor Judith!--and his sister and mother.... Poor women!"
+
+The other made a gesture of assent and sorrow. "Well, I must go back.
+Take care of yourself, Edward. There will be the devil's own work
+presently."
+
+He went, and Edward returned to his fellows. The silence yet held over
+the field; the westering sun glowed dull red behind the smoke; the
+three figures rested still by the cross-roads; the mass of frowning
+metal topped Malvern Hill like a giant, smoke-wreathed _chevaux de
+frise_. Out of the brushwood to the left of the regiment, straight by
+it, upward towards the guns, and then at a tangent off through the
+fields to the woods, sped a rabbit. Legs to earth, it hurried with all
+its might. The regiment was glad of a diversion--the waiting was growing
+so intolerable. The men cheered the rabbit. "Go it, Molly
+Cottontail!--Go it, Molly!--Go it, Molly!--Hi! Don't go that-away!
+Them's Yankees! They'll cut your head off! Go t'other way--that's it! Go
+it, Molly! Damn! If't wasn't for my character, I'd go with you!"
+
+The rabbit disappeared. The regiment settled back to waiting, a very
+intolerable employment. The sun dipped lower and lower. The hush grew
+portentous. The guns looked old, mailed, dead warriors; the gunboats
+sleeping forms; the grey troops battle-lines in a great war picture, the
+three horsemen by the cross-roads a significant group in the same; the
+dead and wounded over all the fields, upon the slope, in the woods, by
+the marshes, the jetsam, still and heavy, of war at its worst. For a
+moment longer the wide and dreary stretch rested so, then with a wild
+suddenness sound and furious motion rushed upon the scene. The gunboats
+recommenced with their long and horrible shells. A grey battery opened
+on Berdan's sharpshooters strung in a line of trees below the great
+crown of guns. The crown flamed toward the battery, scorched and mangled
+it. By the cross-roads the three figures separated, going in different
+directions. Presently galloping horses--aides, couriers--crossed the
+plane of vision. They went from D. H. Hill in the centre to Jackson's
+brigades on the left and Magruder's on the right. They had a mile of
+open to cross, and the iron crown and the sharpshooters flamed against
+them. Some galloped on and gave the orders. Some threw up their arms and
+fell, or, crashing to earth with a wounded horse, disentangled
+themselves and stumbled on through the iron rain. The sun drew close to
+the vast and melancholy forests across the river. Through a rift in the
+smoke, there came a long and crimson shaft. It reddened the river, then
+struck across the shallows to Malvern Hill, suffused with a bloody tinge
+wood and field and the marshes by the creeks, then splintered against
+the hilltop and made a hundred guns to gleam. The wind heightened,
+lifting the smoke and driving it northward. It bared to the last red
+light the wild and dreary battlefield.
+
+From the centre rose the Confederate yell. Rodes's brigade, led by
+Gordon, charged. It had half a mile of open to cross, and it was caught
+at once in the storm that howled from the crest of Malvern Hill. Every
+regiment suffered great loss; the 3d Alabama saw half its number slain
+or wounded. The men yelled again, and sprang on in the teeth of the
+storm. They reached the slope, almost below the guns. Gordon looked
+behind for the supporting troops which Hill had promised. They were
+coming, that grim fighter leading them, but they were coming far off,
+under clanging difficulties, through a hell of shrapnel. Rodes's brigade
+alone could not wrest that triple crown from the hilltop--no, not if the
+men had been giants, sons of Anak! They were halted; they lay down, put
+muskets to shoulder and fired steadily and fired again on the blue
+infantry.
+
+It grew darker on the plain. Brigades were coming from the left, the
+right, the centre. There had been orders for a general advance. Perhaps
+the aides carrying them were among the slain, perhaps this, perhaps
+that. The event was that brigades charged singly--sometimes even
+regiments crossed, with a cry, the twilight, groaning plain and charged
+Malvern Hill unsupported. The place flamed death and destruction. Hill's
+ten thousand men pressed forward with the order of a review. The shot
+and shell met them like a tornado. The men fell by hundreds. The lines
+closed, rushed on. The Federal infantry joined the artillery. Musketry
+and cannon, the din became a prolonged and fearful roar of battle.
+
+The sun disappeared. There sprang out in the western sky three long red
+bands of clouds. On the darkening slope and plain Hill was crushed back,
+before and among his lines a horror of exploding shells. Jackson threw
+forward Lawton and Whiting, Winder and the Louisiana troops, while on
+the right, brigade after brigade, Magruder hurled across the plain nine
+brigades. After Hill, Magruder's troops bore the brunt of the last
+fearful fighting.
+
+They stormed across the plain in twilight that was lit by the red
+flashes from the guns. The clouds of smoke were red-bosomed; the red
+bars stayed in the west. The guns never ceased their thundering, the
+musketry to roll. Death swung a wide scythe in the twilight of that
+first day of July. Anderson and Armistead, Barksdale, Semmes and
+Kershaw, Wright and Toombs and Mahone, rushed along the slope of
+Malvern Hill, as Ripley and Garland and Gordon and all the brigadiers of
+D. H. Hill had rushed before them. Death, issuing from that great power
+of artillery, laid the soldiers in swathes. The ranks closed, again and
+again the ranks closed; with diminished numbers but no slackening of
+courage, the grey soldiers again dashed themselves against Malvern Hill.
+The red bars in the west faded slowly to a deep purple; above them, in a
+clear space of sky, showed the silver Venus. Upon her cooling globe, in
+a day to come, intelligent life might rend itself as here--the old
+horror, the old tragedy, the old stained sublimity over again! All the
+drifting smoke was now red lit, and beneath it lay in their blood
+elderly men, and men in their prime, and young men--very many, oh, very
+many young men! As the night deepened there sprang, beneath the thunder,
+over all the field a sound like wind in reeds. It was a sighing sound, a
+low and grievous sound. The blue lost heavily, for the charges were
+wildly heroic; but the guns were never disabled, and the loss of the
+grey was the heaviest. Brigade by brigade, the grey faced the storm and
+were beaten back, only again to reel forward upon the slope where Death
+stood and swung his scythe. The last light dwelt on their colours, on
+the deep red of their battle-flags; then the western sky became no
+warmer than the eastern. The stars were out in troops; the battle
+stopped.
+
+D. H. Hill, an iron fighter with a mania for personal valour, standing
+where he had been standing for an hour, in a pleasantly exposed spot,
+clapped on his hat and beckoned for his horse. The ground about him
+showed furrowed as for planting, and a neighbouring oak tree was so
+riddled with bullets that the weight of a man might have sent it
+crashing down. D. H. Hill, drawing long breath, spoke half to his staff,
+half to the stars: "Give me Federal artillery and Confederate infantry,
+and I'd whip the world!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+A WOMAN
+
+
+Allan Gold, lying in a corner of the Stonewall Hospital, turned his
+head toward the high window. It showed him little, merely a long strip
+of blue sky above housetops. The window was open, and the noises of the
+street came in. He knew them, checked them off in his mind. He was doing
+well. A body, superbly healthful, might stand out boldly against a
+minie ball or two, just as calm nerves, courage and serene judgement
+were of service in a war hospital such as this. If he was restless now,
+it was because he was wondering about Christianna. It was an hour past
+her time for coming.
+
+The ward was fearfully crowded. This, however, was the end by the stair,
+and he had a little cut-off place to himself. Many in the ward yet lay
+on the floor, on a blanket as he had done that first morning. In the
+afternoon of that day a wide bench had been brought into his corner, a
+thin flock mattress laid upon it, and he himself lifted from the floor.
+He had protested that others needed a bed much more, that he was used to
+lying on the earth--but Christianna had been firm. He wondered why she
+did not come.
+
+Chickahominy, Gaines's Mill, Garnett's and Golding's farms, Peach
+Orchard, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Frayser's Farm, Malvern
+Hill--dire echoes of the Seven Days' fighting had thronged into this
+hospital as into all others, as into the houses of citizens and the
+public buildings and the streets! All manner of wounded soldiers told
+the story--ever so many soldiers and ever so many variants of the story.
+The dead bore witness, and the wailing of women which was now and then
+heard in the streets; not often, for the women were mostly silent, with
+pressed lips. And the ambulances jolting by--and the sound of
+funerals--and the church bells tolling, tolling--all these bore witness.
+And day and night there was the thunder of the cannon. From
+Mechanicsville and Gaines's Mill it had rolled near and loud, from
+Savage Station somewhat less so; White Oak Swamp and Frayser's Farm had
+carried the sound yet further off, and from Malvern Hill it came but
+distantly. But loud or low, near or far, day by day and into each night,
+Richmond heard the cannon. At first the vibration played on the town's
+heart, like a giant hand on giant strings. But at last the tune grew old
+and the town went about its business. There was so much to do! One could
+not stop to listen to cannon. Richmond was a vast hospital; pain and
+fever in all places, and, around, the shadow of death. Hardly a house
+but mourned a kinsman or kinsmen; early and late the dirges wailed
+through the streets. So breathlessly filled were the days, that often
+the dead were buried at night. The weather was hot--days and nights hot,
+close and still. Men and women went swiftly through them, swift and
+direct as weavers' shuttles. Privation, early comrade of the South, was
+here; scant room, scant supplies, not too much of wholesome food for the
+crowded town, few medicines or alleviatives, much to be done and done
+at once with the inadequatest means. There was little time in which to
+think in general terms; all effort must go toward getting done the
+immediate thing. The lift and tension of the time sloughed off the
+immaterial weak act or thought. There were present a heroic simplicity,
+a naked verity, a full cup of service, a high and noble altruism. The
+plane was epic, and the people did well.
+
+The sky within Allan's range of vision was deep blue; the old brick
+gable-ends of houses, mellow and old, against it. A soldier with a
+broken leg and a great sabre cut over the head, just brought into the
+ward, brought with him the latest news. He talked loudly, and all down
+the long room, crowded to suffocation, the less desperately wounded
+raised themselves on their elbows to hear. Others, shot through stomach
+or bowels, or fearfully torn by shells, or with the stumps of amputated
+limbs not doing well, raved on in delirium or kept up their pitiful
+moaning. The soldier raised his voice higher, and those leaning on
+elbows listened with avidity. "Evelington Heights? Where's Evelington
+Heights?"--"Between Westover and Rawling's millpond, near Malvern
+Hill!"--"Malvern Hill! That was ghastly!"--"Go on, sergeant-major! We're
+been pining for a newspaper."
+
+"Were any of you boys at Malvern Hill?"
+
+"Yes,--only those who were there ain't in a fix to tell about it! That
+man over there--and that one--and that one--oh, a middling lot! They're
+pretty badly off--poor boys!"
+
+From a pallet came a hollow voice. "I was at Malvern Hill, and I ain't
+never going there again--I ain't never going there again--I ain't
+never.... Who's that singing? I kin sing, too--
+
+            'The years creep slowly by, Lorena;
+              The snow is on the grass again;
+            The sun's low down the sky, Lorena;
+              The frost gleams where the flowers have been--'"
+
+"Don't mind him," said the soldiers on elbows. "Poor fellow! he ain't
+got any voice anyhow. We know about Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill was
+pretty bad. And we heard there'd been a cavalry rumpus--Jeb Stuart and
+Sweeney playing their tricks! We didn't know the name of the place.
+Evelington Heights! Pretty name."
+
+The sergeant-major would not be cheated of Malvern Hill. "'Pretty bad!'
+I should say 'twas pretty bad! Malvern Hill was _awful_. If anything
+could induce me to be a damn Yankee 'twould be them guns of their'n!
+Yes, sirree, bob! we fought and fought, and ten o'clock came and there
+wasn't any moon, and we stopped. And in the night-time the damn Yankees
+continued to retreat away. There was an awful noise of gun-wheels all
+the night long--so the sentries said, and the surgeons and the wounded
+and, I reckon, the generals. The rest of us, we were asleep. I don't
+reckon there ever was men any more tired. Malvern Hill was--I can't
+swear because there are ladies nursing us, but Malvern Hill was--Well,
+dawn blew at reveille--No, doctor, I ain't getting light-headed. I just
+get my words a little twisted. Reveille blew at dawn, and there were
+sheets of cold pouring rain, and everywhere there were dead men, dead
+men, dead men lying there in the wet, and the ambulances were wandering
+round like ghosts of wagons, and the wood was too dripping to make a
+fire, and three men out of my mess were killed, and one was a boy that
+we'd all adopted, and it was awful discouraging. Yes, we were right
+tired, damn Yankees and all of us.... Doctor, if I was you I wouldn't
+bother about that leg. It's all right as it is, and you might hurt
+me.... Oh, all right! Kin I smoke?... Yuugh! Well, boys, the damn
+Yankees continued their retreat to Harrison's Landing, where their
+hell-fire gunboats could stand picket for them.... Say, ma'am, would you
+kindly tell me why that four-post bed over there is all hung with
+wreaths of roses?--'Isn't any bed there?' But there is! I see it....
+Evelington Heights--and Stuart dropping shells into the damn Yankees'
+camp.... They _are_ roses, the old Giants of Battle by the beehive....
+Evelington Heights. Eveling--Well, the damn Yankees dragged their guns
+up there, too.... If the beehive's there, then the apple tree's
+here--Grandma, if you'll ask him not to whip me I'll never take them
+again, and I'll hold your yarn every time you want me to--"
+
+The ward heard no more about Evelington Heights. It knew, however, that
+it had been no great affair; it knew that McClellan with his exhausted
+army, less many thousand dead, wounded, and prisoners, less fifty-two
+guns and thirty-five thousand small arms, less enormous stores captured
+or destroyed, less some confidence at Washington, rested down the James
+by Westover, in the shadow of gunboats. The ward guessed that, for a
+time at least, Richmond was freed from the Northern embrace. It knew
+that Lee and his exhausted army, less even more of dead and wounded than
+had fallen on the other side, rested between that enemy and Richmond.
+Lee was watching; the enemy would come no nearer for this while. For all
+its pain, for all the heat, the blood, the fever, thirst and woe, the
+ward, the hospital, all the hospitals, experienced to-day a sense of
+triumph. It was so with the whole city. Allan knew this, lying, looking
+with sea-blue eyes at the blue summer sky and the old and mellow roofs.
+The city mourned, but also it rejoiced. There stretched the black
+thread, but twisted with it was the gold. A paean sounded as well as a
+dirge. Seven days and nights of smoke and glare upon the horizon, of the
+heart-shaking cannon roar, of the pouring in of the wounded, of
+processions to Hollywood, of anguish, ceaseless labour, sick waiting,
+dizzy hope, descending despair.... Now, at last, above it all the bells
+rang for victory. A young girl, coming through the ward, had an armful
+of flowers,--white lilies, citron aloes, mignonette, and phlox--She gave
+her posies to all who stretched out a hand, and went out with her
+smiling face. Allan held a great stalk of garden phlox, white and sweet.
+It carried him back to the tollgate and to the log schoolhouse by
+Thunder Run.... Twelve o'clock. Was not Christianna coming at all?
+
+This was not Judith Cary's ward, but now she entered it. Allan, watching
+the narrow path between the wounded, saw her coming from the far door.
+He did not know who she was; he only looked from the flower in his hand
+and had a sense of strength and sweetness, of something noble
+approaching nearer. She paused to ask a question of one of the women;
+answered, she came straight on. He saw that she was coming to the
+cut-off corner by the stair, and instinctively he straightened a little
+the covering over him. In a moment she was standing beside him, in her
+cool hospital dress, with her dark hair knotted low, with a flower at
+her breast. "You are Allan Gold?" she said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"My name is Judith Cary. Perhaps you have heard of me. I have been to
+Lauderdale and to Three Oaks."
+
+"Yes," said Allan. "I have heard of you. I--"
+
+There was an empty box beside the wall. Judith drew it nearer to his bed
+and sat down. "You have been looking for Christianna? I came to tell you
+about poor little Christianna--and--and other things. Christianna's
+father has been killed."
+
+Allan uttered an exclamation. "Isham Maydew! I never thought of his
+going!... Poor child!"
+
+"So she thought she ought not to come to-day. Had there been strong
+reason, many people dependent upon her, she would have come."
+
+"Poor Christianna--poor wild rose!... It's ghastly, this war! There is
+nothing too small and harmless for its grist."
+
+"I agree with you. Nothing too great; nothing too small. Nothing too
+base, as there is nothing too noble."
+
+"Isham Maydew! He was lean and tough and still, like Death in a picture.
+Where was he killed?"
+
+"It was at White Oak Swamp. At White Oak Swamp, the day before Malvern
+Hill."
+
+Allan looked at her. There was more in her voice than the non-coming of
+Christianna, than the death of Isham Maydew. She had spoken in a clear,
+low, bell-like tone that held somehow the ache of the world. He was
+simple and direct, and he spoke at once out of his thought. He knew that
+all the men of her house were at the front. "You have had a loss of your
+own?--"
+
+She shook her head. "I? No. I have had no loss."
+
+"Now," thought Allan, "there's something proud in it." He looked at her
+with his kindly, sea-blue eyes. In some chamber of the brain there
+flashed out a picture--the day of the Botetourt Resolutions, winter dusk
+after winter sunset and Cleave and himself going homeward over the long
+hilltop--with talk, among other things, of visitors at Lauderdale. This
+was "the beautiful one." He remembered the lift of Cleave's head and his
+voice. Judith's large dark eyes had been raised; transparent, showing
+always the soul within as did his own, they now met Allan's. "The 65th,"
+she said, "was cut to pieces."
+
+The words, dragged out as they were, left a shocked silence. Here, in
+the corner by the stair, the arch of wood partially obscuring the ward,
+with the still blue sky and the still brick gables, they seemed for the
+moment cut away from the world, met on desert sands to tell and hear a
+dreadful thing. "Cut to pieces," breathed Allan. "The 65th cut to
+pieces!"
+
+The movement which he made displaced the bandage about his shoulder. She
+left the box, kneeled by him and straightened matters, then went back to
+her seat. "It was this way," she said,--and told him the story as she
+had heard it from her father and from Fauquier Cary. She spoke with
+simplicity, in the low, bell-like tone that held the ache of the world.
+Allan listened, with his hand over his eyes. His regiment that he
+loved!... all the old, familiar faces.
+
+"Yes, he was killed--Hairston Breckinridge was killed, fighting
+gallantly. He died, they say, before he knew the trap they were caught
+in. And Christianna's father was killed, and others of the Thunder Run
+men, and very many from the county and from other counties. I do not
+know how many. Fauquier called it slaughter, said no worse thing has
+happened to any single command. Richard got what was left back across
+the swamp."
+
+Allan groaned. "The 65th! General Jackson himself called it 'the
+fighting 65th!' Just a remnant of it left--left of the 65th!"
+
+"Yes. The roll was called, and so many did not answer. They say other
+Stonewall regiments wept."
+
+Allan raised himself upon the bench. She started forward. "Don't do
+that!" and with her hand pressed him gently down again. "I knew," she
+said, "that you were here, and I have heard Richard speak of you and say
+how good and likable you were. And I have worked hard all the morning,
+and just now I thought, 'I must speak to some one who knows and loves
+him or I will die.' And so I came. I knew that the ward might hear of
+the 65th any moment now and begin to talk of it, so I was not afraid of
+hurting you. But you must lie quiet."
+
+"Very well, I will. I want to know about Richard Cleave--about my
+colonel."
+
+Her dark eyes met the sea-blue ones fully. "He is under arrest," she
+said. "General Jackson has preferred charges against him."
+
+"Charges of what?"
+
+"Of disobedience to orders--of sacrificing the regiment--of--of
+retreating at last when he should not have done so and leaving his men
+to perish--of--of--. I have seen a copy of the charge. _Whereas the said
+colonel of the 65th did shamefully_--"
+
+Her voice broke. "Oh, if I were God--"
+
+There was a moment's silence--silence here in the corner by the stair,
+though none beyond in the painful, moaning ward. A bird sailed across
+the strip of blue sky; the stalk of phlox on the soldier's narrow bed
+lay withering in the light. Allan spoke. "General Jackson is very stern
+with failure. He may believe that charge. I don't see how he can; but if
+he made it he believes it. But you--you don't believe it?--"
+
+"Believe it?" she said. "No more than God believes it! The question is
+now, how to help Richard."
+
+"Have you heard from him?"
+
+She took from her dress a folded leaf torn from a pocket-book. "You are
+his friend. You may read it. Wait, I will hold it." She laid it before
+him, holding it in her slight, fine, strong fingers.
+
+He read. _Judith: You will hear of the fate of the 65th. How it happened
+I do not yet understand. It is like death on my heart. You will hear,
+too, of my own trouble. As to me, believe only that I could sit beside
+you and talk to-day as we talked awhile ago, in the sunset. Richard._
+
+She refolded the paper and put it back. "The evidence will clear him,"
+said Allan. "It must. The very doubt is absurd."
+
+Her face lightened. "General Jackson will see that he was hasty--unjust.
+I can understand such anger at first, but later, when he
+reflects--Richard will be declared innocent--"
+
+"Yes. An honourable acquittal. It will surely be so."
+
+"I am glad I came. You have always known him and been his friend."
+
+"Let me tell you the kind of things I know of Richard Cleave. No, it
+doesn't hurt me to talk."
+
+"I can stay a little longer. Yes, tell me."
+
+Allan spoke at some length, in his frank, quiet voice. She sat beside
+him, with her cheek on her hand, the blue sky and old house roofs above
+her. When he ceased her eyes were full of tears. She would not let them
+fall. "If I began to cry I should never stop," she said, and smiled them
+away. Presently she rose. "I must go now. Christianna will be back
+to-morrow."
+
+She went away, passing up the narrow path between the wounded and out at
+the further door. Allan watched her going, then turned a little on the
+flock bed, and lifting his unbandaged arm laid it across his eyes. _The
+65th cut to pieces--The 65th cut to pieces--_
+
+At sunset Judith went home. The small room up in the branches of the
+tulip tree--she hardly knew how many months or years she had inhabited
+it. There had passed, of course, only weeks--but Time had widened its
+measure. To all intents and purposes she had been a long while in
+Richmond. This high, quiet niche was familiar, familiar! familiar the
+old, slender, inlaid dressing-table and the long, thin curtains and the
+engraving of Charlotte Corday; familiar the cool, green tree without the
+window and the nest upon a bough; familiar the far view and wide
+horizon, by day smoke-veiled, by night red-lit. The smoke was lifted
+now; the eye saw further than it had seen for days. The room seemed as
+quiet as a tomb. For a moment the silence oppressed her, and then she
+remembered that it was because the cannon had stopped.
+
+She sat beside the window, through the dusk, until the stars came out;
+then went downstairs and took her part at the table, about which the
+soldier sons of the house were gathering. They brought comrades with
+them. The wounded eldest son was doing well, the army was victorious,
+the siege was lifted, the house must be made gay for "the boys." No
+house was ever less bright for Judith. Now she smiled and listened, and
+the young men thought she did not realize the seriousness of the army
+talk about the 65th. They themselves were careful not to mention the
+matter. They talked of a thousand heroisms, a thousand incidents of the
+Seven Days; but they turned the talk--if any one, unwary, drew it that
+way--from White Oak Swamp. They mistook her feeling; she would rather
+they had spoken out. Her comfort was when, afterwards, she went for a
+moment into the "chamber" to see the wounded eldest. He was a
+warm-hearted, rough diamond, fond of his cousin.
+
+"What's this damned stuff I hear about Richard Cleave and a
+court-martial? What--nonsense! I beg your pardon, Judith." Judith kissed
+him, and finding "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" face down on the counterpane
+offered to read to him.
+
+"You would rather talk about Richard," he said. "I know you would. So
+should I. It's all the damnedest nonsense! Such a charge as that!--Tell
+you what, Judith. D'ye remember 'Woodstock' and Cromwell in it? Well,
+Stonewall Jackson's like Cromwell--of course, a better man, and a
+greater general, and a nobler cause, but still he's like him! Don't you
+fret! Cromwell had to listen to the truth. He did it, and so will
+Stonewall Jackson. Such damned stuff and nonsense! It hurts me worse
+than that old bayonet jab ever could! I'd like to hear what Edward
+says."
+
+"He says, 'Duck your head and let it go by. The grass'll grow as green
+to-morrow.'"
+
+"You aren't crying, are you, Judith?--I thought not. You aren't the
+crying kind. Don't do it. War's the stupidest beast."
+
+"Yes, it is."
+
+"Cousin Margaret's with Richard, isn't she?"
+
+"Not with him--that couldn't be, they said. But she and Miriam have gone
+to Merry Mount. It's in the lines. I have had a note from her."
+
+"What did she say?--You don't mind, Judith?"
+
+"No, Rob, I don't mind. It was just a verse from a psalm. She said, _I
+had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the
+land of the living.... Be of good courage and He shall strengthen thy
+heart._"
+
+Later, in her room again, she sat by the window through the greater part
+of the night. The stars were large and soft, the airs faint, the jasmine
+in the garden below smelled sweet. The hospital day stretched before
+her; she must sleep so that she could work. She never thought--in that
+city and time no woman thought--of ceasing from service because of
+private grief. Moreover, work was her salvation. She would be betimes at
+the hospital to-morrow, and she would leave it late. She bent once more
+a long look upon the east, where were the camp-fires of Lee and
+Stonewall Jackson. In imagination she passed the sentries; she moved
+among the sleeping brigades. She found one tent, or perhaps it would be
+instead a rude cabin.... She stretched her arms upon the window-sill,
+and they and her thick fallen hair were wet at last with her tears.
+
+Three days passed. On the third afternoon she left the hospital early
+and went to St. Paul's. She chose again the dusk beneath the gallery,
+and she prayed dumbly, fiercely, "O God.... O God--"
+
+The church was fairly filled. The grey army was now but a little way
+without the city; it had come back to the seven hills after the seven
+days. It had come back the hero, the darling. Richmond took the cypress
+from her doors; put off the purple pall and tragic mask. Last July
+Richmond was to fall, and this July Richmond was to fall, and lo! she
+sat secure on her seven hills and her sons did her honour, and for them
+she would have made herself a waste place. She yet toiled and watched,
+yet mourned for the dead and hung over the beds of the wounded, and more
+and more she wondered whence were to appear the next day's yard of cloth
+and measure of flour. But in these days she overlaid her life with
+gladness and made her house pleasant for her sons. The service at St.
+Paul's this afternoon was one of thankfulness; the hymns rang
+triumphantly. There were many soldiers. Two officers came in together.
+Judith knew General Lee, but the other?... in a moment she saw that it
+was General Jackson. Her heart beat to suffocation. She sank down in the
+gold dusk of her corner. "O God, let him see the truth. O God, let him
+see the truth--"
+
+Outside, as she went homeward in the red sunset, she paused for a moment
+to speak to an old free negro who was begging for alms. She gave him
+something, and when he had shambled on she stood still a moment here at
+the corner of the street, with her eyes upon the beautiful rosy west.
+There was a garden wall behind her and a tall crape myrtle. As she
+stood, with the light upon her face, Maury Stafford rode by. He saw her
+as she saw him. His brooding face flushed; he made as if to check his
+horse, but did not so. He lifted his hat high and rode on, out of the
+town, back to the encamped army. Judith had made no answering motion;
+she stood with lifted face and unchanged look, the rosy light flooding
+her, the rosy tree behind her. When he was gone she shivered a little.
+"It is not Happiness that hates; it is Misery," she thought. "When I was
+happy I never felt like this. I hate him. He is _glad_ of Richard's
+peril."
+
+That night she did not sleep at all but sat bowed together in the
+window, her arms about her knees, her forehead upon them, and her dark
+hair loose about her. She sat like a sibyl till the dawn, then rose and
+bathed and dressed, and was at the hospital earliest of all the workers
+of that day. In the evening again, just at dusk, she reentered the room,
+and presently again took her seat by the window. The red light of the
+camp-fires was beginning to show.
+
+There was a knock at the door. Judith rose and opened to a turbaned
+coloured girl. "Yes, Dilsey?"
+
+"Miss Judith, de gin'ral air downstairs. He say, ax you kin he come up
+to yo' room?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Dilsey! Tell him to come."
+
+When her father came he found her standing against the wall, her hands,
+outstretched behind her, resting on it. The last soft bloom of day was
+upon her; indefinably, with her hands so, the wall behind her and her
+lifted head, she looked a soldier facing a firing party. "Tell me
+quickly," she said, "the exact truth."
+
+Warwick Gary closed the door behind him and came toward her. "The court
+found him guilty, Judith."
+
+As she still stood, the light from without upon her face, he took her in
+his arms, drew her from the wall and made her sit in the chair by the
+window, then placed himself beside her, and leaning over took her hands
+in his strong clasp. "Many a court has found many a man guilty, Judith,
+whom his own soul cleared."
+
+"That is true," she answered. "Your own judgment has not changed?"
+
+"No, Judith, no."
+
+She lifted his hand and kissed it. "Just a moment, and then you'll tell
+me--"
+
+They sat still in the soft summer air. The stars were coming out. Off to
+the east showed the long red light where was the army. Judith's eyes
+rested here. He saw it, and saw, presently, courage lift into her face.
+It came steady, with a deathless look. "Now," she said, and loosed her
+hands.
+
+"It is very bad," he answered slowly. "The evidence was more adverse
+than I could have dreamed. Only on the last count was there acquittal."
+
+"The last count?--"
+
+"The charge of personal cowardice."
+
+Her eyelids trembled a little. "I am glad," she said, "that they had a
+gleam of reason."
+
+The other uttered a short laugh, proud and troubled. "Yes. It would not
+have occurred to me--just that accusation.... Well, he stood cleared of
+that. But the other charges, Judith, the others--" He rested his hands
+on his sword hilt and gazed broodingly into the deepening night. "The
+court could only find as it did. I myself, sitting there, listening to
+that testimony.... It is inexplicable!"
+
+"Tell me all."
+
+"General Jackson's order was plain. A staff officer carried it to
+General Winder with perfect correctness. Winder repeated it to the
+court, and word for word Jackson corroborated it. The same officer,
+carrying it on from Winder to the 65th came up with a courier belonging
+to the regiment. To this man, an educated, reliable, trusted soldier, he
+gave the order."
+
+"He should not have done so?"
+
+"It is easy to say that--to blame because this time there's a snarl to
+unravel! The thing is done often enough. It should not be done, but it
+is. Staff service with us is far too irregular. The officer stands to
+receive a severe reprimand--but there is no reason to believe that he
+did not give the order to the courier with all the accuracy with which
+he had already delivered it to Winder. He testified that he did so give
+it, repeated it word for word to the court. He entrusted it to the
+courier, taking the precaution to make the latter say it over to him,
+and then he returned to General Jackson, down the stream, before the
+bridge they were building. That closed his testimony. He received the
+censure of the court, but what he did has been done before."
+
+"The courier testified--"
+
+"No. That is the link that drops out. The courier was killed. A Thunder
+Run man--Steven Dagg--testified that he had been separated from the
+regiment. Returning to it along the wooded bank of the creek, he arrived
+just behind the courier. He heard him give the order to the colonel.
+'Could he repeat it?' 'Yes.' He did so, and it was, accurately,
+Jackson's order."
+
+"Richard--what did Richard say?"
+
+"He said the man lied."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"The courier fell before the first volley from the troops in the woods.
+He died almost at once, but two men testified as to the only thing he
+had said. It was, 'We ought never all of us to have crossed. Tell Old
+Jack I carried the order straight.'"
+
+He rose and with a restless sigh began to pace the little room. "I see a
+tangle--something not understood--some stumbling-block laid by laws
+beyond our vision. We cannot even define it, cannot even find its edges.
+We do not know its nature. Things happen so sometimes in this strange
+world. I do not think that Richard himself understands how the thing
+chanced. He testified--"
+
+"Yes, oh, yes--"
+
+"He repeated to the court the order he had received. It was not the
+order that Jackson had given and that Winder had sent on to him, though
+it differed in only two points. And neither--and there, Judith, there is
+a trouble!--neither was it with entire explicitness an order to do that
+which he did do. He acknowledged that, quite simply. He had found at the
+time an ambiguity--he had thought of sending again for confirmation to
+Winder. And then--unfortunate man! something happened to strengthen the
+interpretation which, when all is said, he preferred to receive, and
+upon which he acted. Time pressed. He took the risk, if there was a
+risk, and crossed the stream."
+
+"Father, do you blame him?"
+
+"He blames himself, Judith, somewhat cruelly. But I think it is because,
+just now, of the agony of memory. He loved his regiment.--No. What sense
+in blaming where, had there followed success, you would have praised?
+Then it would have been proper daring; now--I could say that he had been
+wiser to wait, but I do not know that in his place I should have waited.
+He was rash, perhaps, but who is there to tell? Had he chosen another
+interpretation and delayed, and been mistaken, then, too, commination
+would have fallen. No. I blame him less than he blames himself, Judith.
+But the fact remains. Even by his own showing there was a doubt. Even
+accepting his statement of the order he received, he took it upon
+himself to decide."
+
+"They did not accept his statement--"
+
+"No, Judith. They judged that he had received General Jackson's order
+and had disobeyed it.--I know--I know! To us it is monstrous. But the
+court must judge by the evidence--and the verdict was to be expected. It
+was his sole word, and where his own safety was at stake. 'Had not the
+dead courier a reputation for reliability, for accuracy?' 'He had, and
+he would not lay the blame there, besmirching a brave man's name.'
+'Where then?' 'He did not know. It was so that he had received the
+order'--Judith, Judith! I have rarely seen truth so helpless as in this
+case."
+
+She drew a difficult breath. "No help. And they said--"
+
+"He was pronounced guilty of the first charge. That carried with it the
+verdict as to the second--the sacrifice of the regiment. There,
+too--guilty. Only the third there was no sustaining. The loss was
+fearful, but there were men enough left to clear him from that charge.
+He struggled with desperation to retrieve his error, if error it were;
+he escaped death himself as by a miracle, and he brought off a remnant
+of the command which, in weaker hands, might have been utterly swallowed
+up. On that count he is clear. But on the others--guilty, and without
+mitigation."
+
+He came back to the woman by the window. "Judith, I would rather put the
+sword in my own heart than put it thus in yours. War is a key, child,
+that unlocks to all dreadful things, to all mistakes, to every sorrow!"
+
+"I want every worst drop of it," she said. "Afterward I'll look for
+comfort. Do not be afraid for me; I feel as strong as the hills, the
+air, the sea--anything. What is the sentence?"
+
+"Dismissal from the army."
+
+Judith rose and, with her hands on the window-sill, leaned out into the
+night. Her gaze went straight to the red light in the eastern sky. There
+was an effect as though the force, impalpable, real, which was herself,
+had gone too, flown from the window straight toward that horizon,
+leaving here but a fair ivory shell. It was but momentary; the chains
+held and she turned back to the shadowed room. "You have seen him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How--"
+
+"He has much of his mother in him, Judith. Eventually he will, I think,
+take it that way. But now it is his father that shows. He is very
+silent--grey and hard and silent."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"At present yet under guard. To-morrow it will all be over."
+
+"He will be free, you mean?"
+
+"Yes, he will be free."
+
+She came and put her arm around her father's neck. "Father, you know
+what I want to do then? To do just as soon as I shall have seen him and
+made him realize that it is for my happiness. I want to marry him....
+Ah, don't look at me so, saying nothing!" She withdrew herself a little,
+standing with her clasped hands against his breast. "You expected that,
+did you not? Why, what else.... Father, I am not afraid of you. You will
+let me do it."
+
+He regarded her with a grave, compassionate face. "No. You need not fear
+me, Judith. It is hardly father and child with you and me. It is soul
+and soul, and I trust your soul with its own concerns. Moreover, if it
+is pain to consider what you would do, the pang would be greater to find
+you not capable.... Yes, I would let you do it. But I do not think that
+Richard will."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+CEDAR RUN
+
+
+The Seven Days brought a sterner temper into this war. The two sides
+grew to know each other better; each saw how determined was the other,
+and either foe, to match the other, raised the bronze in himself to
+iron. The great army, still under McClellan, at Harrison's Landing,
+became the Army of the Potomac. The great army guarding Richmond under
+Lee, became the Army of Northern Virginia. President Lincoln called
+upon the Governors of the Northern States for three hundred thousand
+men, and offered bounties. President Davis called upon the Governors of
+the Southern States for conscripts, and obtained no great number, for
+the mass of the men had volunteered. The world at large looked on, now
+and henceforth, with an absorbed regard. The struggle promised to be
+Homeric, memorable. The South was a fortress beleaguered; seven hundred
+thousand square miles of territory lost and inland as the steppes of
+Tartary, for all her ports were blocked by Northern men-of-war. Little
+news from the fortress escaped; the world had a sense of gigantic grey
+figures moving here and there behind a great battle veil, of a push
+against the fortress, a push from all sides, with approved battering
+rams, scaling ladders, hooks, grapples, mines, of blue figures, all
+known and described in heroic terms by the Northern public prints, a
+push repelled by the voiceless, printless, dimly-discerned grey figures.
+Not that the grey, too, were not described to the nations in the prints
+above. They were. The wonder was that the creatures could fight--even,
+it appeared, fight to effect. Around and over the wide-flung fortress
+the battle smoke rolled and eddied. Drums were distantly heard, now
+rallying, now muffled. A red flag with a blue cross rose and fell and
+rose again; grey names emerged, floated, wraith-like, over the sea, not
+to be stopped by blue men-of-war, names and picturesque nicknames, loved
+of soldiers. It grew to be allowed that there must be courage in the
+fortress, and a gift of leadership. All was seen confusedly, but with a
+mounting, mounting interest. The world gaped at the far-borne clang and
+smoke and roar. Military men in clubs demonstrated to a nicety just how
+long the fortress might hold out, and just how it must be taken at last.
+Schoolboys fought over again in the schoolyards the battles with the
+heathenish names. The Emperor of the French and the King of Prussia and
+the Queen of Spain and the Queen of England and the Czar and the Sultan
+and the Pope at Rome asked each morning for the war news, and so did
+gaunt cotton-spinners staring in mill towns at tall smokeless chimneys.
+
+Early in June Halleck was appointed commander-in-chief of all the armies
+of the United States. What to do with McClellan, at present summering on
+the James twenty-five miles below Richmond, came upon the board.
+McClellan claimed, quite rightly, that here and now, with his army on
+both sides of the James, he held the key position, and that with
+sufficient reinforcements he could force the evacuation of Richmond.
+Only give him reinforcements with which to face Lee's "not less than two
+hundred thousand!" Recall the Army of the Potomac, and it might be some
+time before it again saw Richmond! Halleck deliberated. General Pope had
+come out of the west to take concentrated command of the old forces of
+Banks, Sigel, Fremont, and McDowell. He had an attitude, had Pope, at
+the head of his forty thousand men behind the Rappahannock! The armies
+were too widely separated, McClellan's location notoriously unhealthy.
+Impossible to furnish reinforcements to the tune asked for, Washington
+might, at any moment, be in peril. It was understood that Stonewall
+Jackson had left Richmond on the thirteenth, marching toward
+Gordonsville.
+
+The James River might be somewhat unhealthy for strangers that summer,
+and Stonewall Jackson had marched toward Gordonsville. The desire at the
+moment most at the heart of General Robert Edward Lee was that General
+McClellan should be recalled. Therefore he guarded Richmond with
+something less than sixty thousand men, and he made rumours to spread of
+gunboats building, and he sent Major-General T. J. Jackson northward
+with twelve thousand men.
+
+In this July month there was an effect of suspense. The fortress was
+taking muster, telling its strength, soldering its flag to the staff and
+the staff to the keep. The besiegers were gathering; the world was
+watching, expectant of the grimmer struggle. There came a roar and clang
+from the outer walls, from the Mississippi above Vicksburg, from the
+Georgian coast, from Murfreesboro in Tennessee, from Arkansas, from
+Morgan's raids in Kentucky. There was fire and sound enough, but the
+battles that were to tell were looked for on Virginia soil. Hot and
+still were the July days, hot and still was the air, and charged with a
+certain sentiment. Thunderbolts were forging; all concerned knew that,
+and very subtly life and death and the blue sky and the green leaves
+came freshlier across the senses. Jackson, arriving at Gordonsville the
+nineteenth of July, found Pope before him with forty-seven thousand men.
+He asked for reinforcements and Lee, detaching yet another twelve
+thousand from the army at Richmond, sent him A. P. Hill and the Light
+Division. Hill arrived on the second of August, splendid fighter, in his
+hunting shirt, with his red beard! That evening in Jackson's quarters,
+some one showed him a captured copy of Pope's Orders, numbers 12 and 75.
+He read, crumpled the papers and tossed them aside, then turned to
+Jackson sitting sucking a lemon. "Well, general, here's a new candidate
+for your attention!"
+
+Jackson looked up. "Yes, sir. By God's blessing he shall have it." He
+sucked on, studying a map of the country between Slaughter Mountain and
+Manassas which Hotchkiss had made him. In a letter to his wife from
+Richmond he had spoken of "fever and debility" attending him during his
+stay in that section of the country. If it were so he had apparently
+left them in the rear when he came up here. He sat now tranquil as a
+stone wall, in sight of the mountains, sucking his lemon and studying
+his maps.
+
+This was the second. On the sixth of August Pope began to cross the
+Rappahannock. On the afternoon of the seventh the grey army was in
+motion. All the eighth it was in column, the heat intense, the dust
+stifling, an entanglement of trains and a misunderstanding of orders on
+the part of Hill and Ewell resulting in a confused and retarded march.
+Night fell, hot and breathless. Twenty-three thousand grey soldiers,
+moving toward Orange Court House, made the dark road vocal with
+statements as to the reeking heat, the dust, the condition of their
+shoes and the impertinence of the cavalry. The latter was more
+irritating than were the flapping soles, the dust in the throat, and the
+sweat pouring into the eyes. The infantry swore, swerving again and
+again to one side of the narrow road to let small bodies of horsemen go
+by. It was dark, the road going through an interminable hot, close wood.
+Officers and men were liberal in their vituperation. "Thank the Lord, it
+ain't my arm!"--"Here you fellows--damn you! look where you are going!
+Trampling innocent bystanders that way!--Why in hell didn't you stay
+back where you belong?"--"Of course if you've positively got to get to
+the front and can't find any other road it's our place to give you this
+one!--Just wait a moment and we'll ask the colonel if we can't _lie
+down_. It'll be easier to ride over us that way.--Oh, go to hell!"
+
+The parties passed, the ranks of the infantry straightened out again on
+the dark road, the column wound on through the hot, midnight wood. More
+hoof-beats--another party of cavalry to be let by! They passed the
+infantry in the darkness, pushing the broken line into the ditch and
+scrub. In the pitchy blackness an impatient command lost at this
+juncture its temper. The men swore, an officer called out to the
+horsemen a savage "Halt!" The party pressed on. The officer furious,
+caught a bridle rein. "Halt, damn you! Stop them, men! Now you cavalry
+have got to learn a thing or two! One is, that the infantry is the
+important thing in war! It's the aristocracy, damn you! The other is
+that we were on this road first anyhow! Now you just turn out into the
+woods yourself, and the next time I tell you to halt, damn you, halt!"
+
+"This, sir," said a voice, "is General Jackson and his staff."
+
+The officer stammered forth apologies. "It is all right, sir," said the
+voice in the darkness. "The cavalry must be more careful, but colonel,
+true aristocrats do not curse and swear."
+
+An hour later the column halted in open country. A pleasant farmhouse
+with a cool, grassy yard surrounded by an ornamental fence, white paling
+gleaming in the waved lights, flung wide its doors to Stonewall Jackson.
+The troops bivouacked around, in field and meadow. A rain came up, a
+chilly downpour. An aide appeared before the brigade encamped
+immediately about the farmhouse. "The general says, sir, that the men
+may take the rail fence over there, but the regimental officers are to
+see that under no circumstances is the fence about Mrs. Wilson's yard to
+be touched."
+
+The night passed. Officers had had a hard day; they slept perhaps
+somewhat soundly, wrapped in their oilcloths, in the chilly rain, by the
+smallest of sputtering camp-fires. The rain stopped at three o'clock;
+the August dawn came up gloriously with a cool freshness. Reveille
+sounded. Stonewall Jackson came from the farmhouse, looked about him and
+then walked across the grassy yard. A little later five colonels of five
+regiments found themselves ordered to report to the general commanding
+the brigade.
+
+"Gentlemen, as you came by did you notice the condition of the
+ornamental fence about the yard?"
+
+"Not especially, sir."
+
+"I did, sir. One panel is gone. I suppose the men were tempted. It was a
+confounded cold rain."
+
+The brigadier pursed his lips. "Well, colonel, you heard the order. All
+of you heard the order. I regret to say, so did I. Dog-gone tiredness
+and profound slumber are no excuse. You ought--we ought--to have heard
+them at the palings. General Jackson has ordered you all under arrest."
+
+"Five of us, sir?"
+
+"Five of you. Damn it, sir, six of us!"
+
+The five colonels looked at one another and looked at their brigadier.
+"What would you advise, sir?"
+
+The brigadier was very red. "I have sent one of my staff to Mrs. Wilson,
+gentlemen, to enquire the cost of the entire ornamental fence! I'd
+advise that we pay, and--if we've got any--pay in gold."
+
+By eight o'clock the column was in motion--a fair day and a fair
+country, with all the harvest fields and the deep wooded hills and the
+August sky. After the rain the roads were just pleasantly wet; dewdrops
+hung on the corn blades, blackberries were ripening, ox-eye daisies
+fringed the banks of red earth. The head of the column, coming to a
+by-road, found awaiting it there an old, plain country woman in a faded
+sunbonnet and faded check apron. She had a basket on her arm, and she
+stepped into the middle of the road before Little Sorrel. "Air this
+General Jackson?"
+
+Stonewall Jackson checked the horse. The staff and a division general or
+two stopped likewise. Behind them came on the infantry advance, long and
+jingling. "Yes, madam, I am General Jackson. What can I do for you?"
+
+The old woman put down her basket and wiped her hands on her apron.
+"General, my son John air in your company. An' I've brought him some
+socks an' two shirts an' a chicken, an' a pot of apple butter. An' ef
+you'll call John I'll be obleeged to you, sir."
+
+A young man in the group of horsemen laughed, but stopped abruptly as
+Jackson looked round. The latter turned to the old woman with the
+gentlest blue eyes, and the kindliest slow smile. "I've got a great many
+companies, ma'am. They are all along the road from Gordonsville. I don't
+believe I know your son."
+
+But the old woman would not have that. "My lan', general! I reckon you
+all know John! I reckon John wuz the first man to jine the army. He wuz
+chopping down the big gum by the crick, an' the news come, an' he
+chopped on twel the gum wuz down, an' he says, says he, 'I'll cut it up
+for you, Maw, an' then I'm goin'.' An' he went.--He's about your make
+an' he has light hair an' eyes an' he wuz wearing butternut--"
+
+"What is his last name, ma'am?"
+
+"His middle name's Henry an' his last name's Simpson."
+
+"In whose brigade is he, and in what regiment?"
+
+But the old woman shook her head. She knew only that he was in General
+Jackson's company. "We never larned to write, John an' me. He wuz
+powerful good to me--en I reckon he's been in all the battles 'cause he
+wuz born that way. Some socks, and two shirts an' something to eat--an'
+he hez a scar over his eye where a setting hen pecked him when he was
+little--an' won't you please find him for me, sir?" The old voice
+quavered toward tears.
+
+Stonewall Jackson dismounted, and looked toward the on-coming column.
+The advance was now but a few hundred yards away; the whole army to the
+last wagon train had its orders for expedition. He sent for his
+adjutant. "Companies from Orange County, sir? Yes, there are a number in
+different regiments and brigades."
+
+"Well, you will go, colonel, and halt the advance. See if there is an
+Orange company and a private named John Simpson."
+
+There was not. The woman with the basket was old and tired. She sat down
+on the earth beneath a sign post and threw her apron over her head.
+Jackson sent an aide back three miles to the main body. "Captain, find
+the Orange companies and a private named John Simpson. Bring him here.
+Tall, light-haired, light eyes, with a scar over one eye. If he is not
+in the main column go on to the rear."
+
+The aide spurred his horse. Jackson explained matters. "You'll have to
+wait a while, Mrs. Simpson. If your son's in the army he'll be brought
+to you. I'll leave one of my aides with you!" He spoke to Little Sorrel
+and put his hand on the saddle bow. Mrs. Simpson's apron came down.
+"Please, general, don't you go! Please, sir, you stay! They won't know
+him like you will! They'll just come back an' say they can't find
+him!--An' I got to see John--I just got to!--Don't go, please, sir! Ef
+'t was your mother--"
+
+Stonewall Jackson and his army waited for half an hour while John
+Simpson was looked for. At the end of that time the cross roads saw him
+coming, riding behind the aide. Tall and lank, in butternut still, and
+red as a beet, he slipped from the horse, and saluted the general, then,
+almost crying, gathered up the checked apron and the sunbonnet and the
+basket and the old woman. "Maw, Maw! jes' look what you have done!
+Danged ef you haven't stopped the whole army! Everybody cryin' out 'John
+Simpson'!"
+
+On went the column through the bright August forenoon. The day grew hot
+and the dust whirled up, and the cavalry skirmished at intervals with
+detached blue clouds of horsemen. On the horizon appeared at some
+distance a conical mountain. "What's that sugar loaf over there?"
+"That's Slaughter's Mountain south of Culpeper. Cedar Run's beyond."
+
+The day wore on. Slaughter Mountain grew larger. The country between was
+lovely, green and rolling; despite the heat and the dust and the delay
+the troops were in spirits. They were going against Major-General John
+Pope and they liked the job. The old Army of the Valley, now a part of
+the Army of Northern Virginia, rather admired Shields, had no especial
+objection to McDowell, and felt a real gratitude toward Mr. Commissary
+Banks, but it was prepared to fight Pope with a vigour born of
+detestation. A man of the old Army, marching with Ewell, began to
+sing:--
+
+                "Pope told a flattering tale
+                  Which proved to be bravado,
+                About the streams that spout like ale
+                  On the Llano Estacado!
+
+"That's the Staked Plains, you know. Awful hot out there! Pretty
+hot here, too. Look at them lovely roasting ears! Can't touch 'em.
+Old Jack says so. Pope may live on the country, but we mayn't."
+"That mountain is getting pretty big." "Hello! Just a cavalry
+scrimmage--Hello! hello! Artillery's more serious!" "Boys, boys!
+we've struck Headquarters-in-the-saddle!--What's that awful
+noise?--Old Jack's coming--Old Jack's coming to the front!--Mercy!
+didn't know even we could cheer like that!--Yaaaih! Yaaaaaaihhh!
+Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Yaaaaaaiiiihhh!"
+
+As the day declined the battle swelled in smoke and thunder. The blue
+batteries were well placed, and against them thundered twenty-six grey
+rifled guns: two Parrotts of Rockbridge with a gun of Carpenter's
+appeared at the top of the hill, tore down the long slope and came into
+battery in an open field, skirted by a wood. Behind was the Stonewall
+Brigade in column of regiments. The guns were placed _en echelon_, the
+horses taken away, the ball opened with canister. Immediately the
+Federal guns answered, got the range of the grey, and began to do deadly
+mischief. All around young trees were cut off short. The shells came,
+thick, black, and screaming. The place proved fatal to officers.
+Carpenter was struck in the head by a piece of shell--mortally wounded.
+The chief of artillery, Major Snowden Andrews fell, desperately injured,
+then Captain Caskie was hurt, then Lieutenant Graham. The gunners worked
+like mad. The guns thundered, recoiled, thundered again. The blue shells
+arrived in a deadly stream. All was smoke, whistling limbs of trees,
+glare and roar. General Winder came up on foot. Standing by a grey
+Parrott he tried with his field glass to make out the Federal batteries.
+Lowering the glass he shouted some direction to the men about the gun
+below him. The noise was hideous, deafening. Seeing that he was not
+understood he raised his arm and hollowed his hand above his mouth. A
+shell passed beneath his arm, through his side. He fell stiffly back,
+mangled and dying.
+
+There was a thick piece of woods, deep and dark, stretching westward.
+The left of Jackson's division rested here. Ewell's brigades and
+batteries were on the mountain slope; the Light Division, A. P. Hill in
+his red battle shirt at its head, not yet up; Jubal Early forming a line
+of battle in the rolling fields. An aide came to "Old Jube." "General
+Jackson's compliments to General Early, and he says you will advance on
+the enemy, and General Winder's troops will support you." Early had a
+thin, high, drawling voice. "My compliments to General Jackson, and tell
+him I will do it."
+
+The Stonewall Brigade, drawn up in the rear of the Artillery, stood
+waiting its orders from Winder. There came a rumor. "The general is
+killed! General Winder is killed!" The Stonewall chose to be
+incredulous. "It is not so! We don't believe it."
+
+The 65th, cut to pieces at White Oak Swamp, had renewed itself.
+Recruits--boys and elderly men--a few melancholy conscripts, a number of
+transferals from full commands had closed its ranks. The 65th, smaller
+now, of diluted quality, but even so, dogged and promising well,--the
+65th, waiting on the edge of a wheat field, looked across it to
+Taliaferro's and Campbell's brigades and the dark wood in front. Billy
+Maydew was sergeant now and Matthew Coffin was first lieutenant of
+Company A. The two had some talk under a big walnut tree.
+
+"Artillery's been shouting for two hours," said Coffin. "They've got a
+hell lot of cavalry, too, but if there's any infantry I can't see it."
+
+"There air a message gone to Campbell and Taliaferro. I heard Old Jack
+send it. 'Look well to your left,' he says, says he. That thar wood's
+the left," said Billy. "It looks lonesomer than lonesome, but thar! when
+lonesome things do blaze out they blaze out the worst!"
+
+The colonel of the 65th--Colonel Erskine--came along the front. "It's
+too true, men. We've lost General Winder. Well, we'll avenge him!--Look!
+there is Jubal Early advancing!"
+
+Early's line of battle was a beautiful sight. It moved through the
+fields and up a gentle hillside, and pushed before it bright clusters of
+Federal cavalry. When the grey lines came to the hilltop the Federal
+batteries opened fiercely. Early posted Dement and Brown and loudly
+answered. To the left rolled great wheat fields, the yellow grain
+standing in shocks. Here gathered the beautiful blue cavalry, many and
+gallant. Ewell with Trimble's South Carolinians and Harry Hayes's
+Louisianians held the slope of the mountain, and from these heights
+bellowed Latimer's guns. Over hill and vale the Light Division was seen
+coming, ten thousand men in grey led by A. P. Hill.
+
+"It surely air a sight to see," said Billy. "I never even dreamed it,
+back thar on Thunder Run."
+
+"There the Yankees come!" cried Coffin. "There! a stream of them--up
+that narrow valley!--Now--now--now Early has touched them!--Damn you,
+Billy! What's the matter?"
+
+"It's the wood," answered Billy. "Thar's something coming out of the
+lonesome wood."
+
+On the left the 1st and 42d Virginia were the advance regiments. Out of
+the forest, startling, unexpected, burst a long blue battle line. Banks,
+a brave man if not a wise one, interpreted Pope's orders somewhat to
+suit himself, and attacked without waiting for Sigel or McDowell. In
+this instance valor seemed likely to prove the better part of
+discretion. Of the grey generals, Hill was not up, Early was hotly
+engaged, the artillery fire, grey and blue alike, sweeping the defile
+before Ewell kept him on the mountain side. Bayonets fixed, bright
+colours tossing, skirmishers advanced, on with verve and determination
+came Banks's attack. As it crossed the yellow stubble field Taliaferro
+and Campbell, startled by the apparition but steady, poured in a
+withering fire. But the blue came on, swung its right and partly
+surrounded the 1st Virginia. Amid a hell of shots, bayonet work, shouts,
+and cries 1st Virginia broke; fell back upon the 42d, that in its turn
+was overwhelmed. Down came the blue wave on Taliaferro's flank. The
+wheat field filled with uproar. Taliaferro broke, Campbell broke.
+
+The Stonewall stirred like leaves in autumn. Ronald, colonel of the 2d,
+commanding in Winder's place, made with despatch a line of battle. The
+smoke was everywhere, rolling and thick. Out of it came abruptly a
+voice. "I have always depended upon this brigade. Forward!"
+
+Billy had an impression of wheat stubble beneath his feet, wheat stubble
+thick strewn with men, silent or lamentably crying out, and about his
+ears a whistling storm of minies. There was, too, a whirl of grey forms.
+There was no alignment--regiments were dashed to pieces--everybody was
+mixed up. It was like an overturned beehive. Then in the swirling smoke,
+in the swarm and shouting and grey rout, he saw Little Sorrel, and
+Stonewall Jackson standing in his stirrups. He had drawn his sabre; it
+flashed above his head like a gleam from the sinking sun. Billy spoke
+aloud. "I've been with him from the first, and this air the first time I
+ever saw him do that." As he spoke he caught hold of a fleeing grey
+soldier. "Stand still and fight! Thar ain't nothing in the rear but
+damned safety!"
+
+The grey surge hung poised, the tide one moment between ebb and flow.
+The noise was hellish; sounds of triumph, sounds of panic, of anger,
+encouragement, appeal, despair, woe and pain, with the callous roar of
+musketry and the loud indifference of the guns. Above it all the man on
+the quaint war horse made himself heard. From the blue line of steel
+above his head, from the eyes below the forage cap, from the bearded
+lips, from the whole man there poured a magic control. He shouted and
+his voice mastered the storm. "Rally, brave men! Rally and follow me! I
+will lead you. Jackson will lead you. Rally! Rally!"
+
+Billy saw the 21st Virginia, what was left of it, swing suddenly around,
+give the Confederate yell, and dash itself against the blue. Taliaferro
+rallied, Campbell rallied, the Stonewall itself under Ronald rallied.
+The first of the Light Division, Branch's North Carolinians came on with
+a shout, and Thomas's Georgians and Lane and Archer and Pender. Early
+was up, Ewell sweeping down from the mountain. Jackson came along the
+restored front. The soldiers greeted him with a shout that tore the
+welkin. He touched the forage cap. "Give them the bayonet! Give them the
+bayonet! _Forward, and drive them!_"
+
+The cavalry with Banks was fine and staunch. At this moment it undertook
+a charge useless but magnificent. With clarion sound, with tossing
+colours, with huzzas and waving sabres, a glorious and fearful sight,
+the cavalry rushed diagonally across the trampled field, its flank
+exposed to the North Carolinians. These opened a blasting fire while
+Taliaferro's brigade met it full, and the 13th Virginia, couched behind
+a grey zigzag of fence, gave volley after volley. Little more than half
+of those horsemen returned.
+
+Dusk fell and the blue were in full retreat. After them swept the
+grey--the Light Division, Jubal Early, Ewell, Jackson's own. In the corn
+fields, in the wheat fields, in the forest thick, thick! lay the dead
+and wounded, three thousand men, grey and blue, fallen in that fight of
+an hour and a half. The blue crossed Cedar Run, the grey crossed it
+after them. The moon, just past the full, rose above the hilltops. On
+the whole the summer night was light enough. Stonewall Jackson brought
+up two fresh brigades and with Pegram's battery pressed on by moonlight.
+That dauntless artillerist, a boy in years, an old wise man in command,
+found the general on Little Sorrel pounding beside him for some time
+through the moonlit night. Jackson spoke but once. "Delightful
+excitement," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE FIELD OF MANASSAS
+
+
+The column, after an extraordinary march attended by skirmishes, most
+wearily winding through a pitch black night, heard the "Halt!" with
+rejoicing. "Old Jack be thanked! So we ain't turning on our tail and
+going back through Thoroughfare Gap after all! See anything of Marse
+Robert?--Go away! he ain't any nearer than White Plains. He and
+Longstreet won't get through Thoroughfare until to-morrow--_Break
+ranks!_ Oh Lord, yes! with pleasure."
+
+Under foot there was rough, somewhat rolling ground. In the dark night
+men dropped down without particularity as to couch or bedchamber. Nature
+and the time combined to spread for them a long and echoing series of
+sleeping rooms, carpeted and tapestried according to Nature's whim,
+vaulted with whistling storm or drift of clouds or pageantry of stars.
+The troops took the quarters indicated sometimes with, sometimes without
+remark. To-night there was little speech of any kind before falling into
+dreamless slumber. "O hell! Hungry as a dog!"--"Me, too!"--"Can't you
+just _see_ Manassas Junction and Stuart's and Trimble's fellows gorging
+themselves? Biscuit and cake and pickles and 'desecrated' vegetables and
+canned peaches and sardines and jam and coffee!--freight cars and wagons
+and storehouses just filled with jam and coffee and canned peaches and
+cigars and--" "I wish that fool would hush! I wasn't hungry
+before!"--"and nice cozy fires, and rashers of bacon broiling, and
+plenty of coffee, and all around just like daisies in the field, clean
+new shirts, and drawers and socks, and handkerchiefs and shoes and
+writing paper and soap."--"Will you go to hell and stop talking as you
+go?"--"Seems somehow an awful lonely place, boys!--dark and a wind. Hear
+that whippoorwill? Just twenty thousand men sloshin' round--and Pope may
+be right over there by the whippoorwill. Jarrow says that with McCall
+and Heintzelman and Fitz John Porter, there are seventy thousand of
+them. Well? They've got Headquarters-in-the-saddle and we've got
+Stonewall Jackson--That's so! that's so! Good-night."
+
+Dawn came calmly up, dawn of the twenty-eighth of August. The ghostly
+trumpets blew--the grey soldiers stirred and rose. In the sky were yet a
+star or two and a pale quarter moon. These slowly faded and the faintest
+coral tinge overspread that far and cold eastern heaven. The men were
+busied about breakfast, but now this group and presently that suspended
+operations. "What's there about this place anyhow? It has an awful,
+familiar look. The stream and the stone bridge and the woods and the
+hill--the Henry Hill. Good God! it's the field of Manassas!"
+
+The field of Manassas, in the half light, somehow inspired a faint awe,
+a creeping horror. "God! how young we were that day! It seems so long
+ago, and yet it comes back. Do you remember how we crashed together at
+the Stone Bridge? There's the Mathews Hill where we first met Sykes and
+Ricketts--seen them often since. The Henry Hill--there's the house--Mrs.
+Henry was killed. Hampton and Cary came along there and Beauregard with
+his sword out and Old Joe swinging the colours high, restoring the
+battle!--and Kirby Smith, just in time--just in time, and the yell his
+column gave! Next day we thought the war was over."--"I didn't."--"Yes,
+you did! You said, 'Well, boys, we're going back to every day, but by
+jiminy! we've got something to tell our grandchildren!' The ravine
+running up there--that was where Bee was killed! Bee! I can see him now.
+Then we were over there." "Yes, on the hilltop by the pine wood.
+'Jackson standing like a stone wall.' Look, the light's touching it.
+Boys, I could cry, just as easy--"
+
+The August morning strengthened. "Our guns were over there by the
+charred trees. There's where we charged, there's where we came down on
+Griffin and Ricketts!--the 33d, the 65th. The 65th made its fight there.
+Richard Cleave--" "Don't!"--"Well, that's where we came down on Griffin
+and Ricketts. Manassas! Reckon Old Jack and Marse Robert want a _second_
+battle of Manassas?"
+
+The light grew full. "Ewell's over there--A. P. Hill's over there. All
+together, north of the Warrenton turnpike. Where's Marse Robert and
+Longstreet?"
+
+Colonel Fauquier Cary, riding by, heard the last remark and answered it.
+"Marse Robert and Longstreet are marching by the road we've marched
+before them. To-night, perhaps, we'll be again a united family."
+
+"Colonel, are we going to have a battle?"
+
+"I wasn't at the council, friends, but I can tell you what I think."
+
+"Yes, yes! We think that you think pretty straight--"
+
+"McCall and Heintzelman and Fitz John Porter have joined General Pope."
+
+"Yes. So we hear."
+
+"And others of the Army of the Potomac are on the way."
+
+"Yes, undoubtedly."
+
+"But are not here yet."
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, then, I think that the thing above all others that General Lee
+wants is an immediate battle."
+
+He rode on. The men to whom he had been speaking looked after him
+approvingly. "He's a fine piece of steel! Always liked that whole
+family--Isn't he a cousin of ----? Yes. Wonder what he thinks about that
+matter! Heigho! Look at the stealing light and the grey shadows!
+Manassas!"
+
+Cary, riding by Ewell's lines, came upon Maury Stafford lying stretched
+beneath an oak, studying, too, the old battlefield. The sun was up; the
+morning cool, fresh, and pure. Dismounting, Cary seated himself beside
+the other. "You were not in the battle here? On the Peninsula, were you
+not?"
+
+"Yes, with Magruder. Look at that shaft of light."
+
+"Yes. It strikes the crest of the hill--just where was the Stonewall
+Brigade."
+
+Silence fell. The two sat, brooding over the scene, each with his own
+thoughts. "This field will be red again," said Stafford at last.
+
+"No doubt. Yes, red again. I look for heavy fighting."
+
+"I saw you when you came in with A. P. Hill on the second. But we have
+not spoken together, I think, since Richmond."
+
+"No," said Cary. "Not since Richmond."
+
+"One of your men told me that, coming up, you stopped in Albemarle."
+
+"Yes, I went home for a few hours."
+
+"All at Greenwood are well and--happy?"
+
+"All at Greenwood are well. Southern women are not precisely happy. They
+are, however, extremely courageous."
+
+"May I ask if Miss Cary is at Greenwood?"
+
+"She remained at her work in Richmond through July. Then the need at the
+hospital lessening, she went home. Yes, she is at Greenwood."
+
+"Thank you. I am going to ask another question. Answer it or not as you
+see fit. Does she know that--most unfortunately--it was I who carried
+that order from General Jackson to General Winder?"
+
+"I do not think that she knows it." He rose. "The bugles are sounding. I
+must get back to Hill. General Lee will be up, I hope, to-night. Until
+he comes we are rather in the lion's mouth. Happily John Pope is hardly
+the desert king." He mounted his horse, and went. Stafford laid himself
+down beneath the oak, looked sideways a moment at Bull Run and the hills
+and the woods, then flung his arm upward and across his eyes, and went
+in mind to Greenwood.
+
+The day passed in a certain still and steely watchfulness. In the August
+afternoon, Jeb Stuart, feather in hat, around his horse's neck a garland
+of purple ironweed and yarrow, rode into the lines and spoke for ten
+minutes with General Jackson, then spurred away to the Warrenton
+turnpike. Almost immediately Ewell's and Taliaferro's divisions were
+under arms and moving north.
+
+Near Groveton they struck the force they were going against--King's
+division of McDowell's corps moving tranquilly toward Centreville. The
+long blue column--Doubleday, Patrick, Gibbon, and Hatch's
+brigades--showed its flank. It moved steadily, with jingle and creak of
+accoutrements, with soldier chat and laughter, with a band playing a
+quickstep, with the rays of the declining sun bright on gun-stock and
+bayonet, and with the deep rumble of the accompanying batteries. The
+head of the column came in the gold light to a farmhouse and an apple
+orchard. Out of the peace and repose of the scene burst a roar of grey
+artillery.
+
+The fight was fierce and bloody, and marked by a certain savage
+picturesqueness. Gibbon and Doubleday somehow deployed and seized a
+portion of the orchard. The grey held the farmhouse and the larger part
+of the fair, fruit-bearing slopes. The blue brought their artillery into
+action. The grey batteries, posted high, threw their shot and shell over
+the heads of the grey skirmishers into the opposing ranks: Wooding,
+Poague, and Carpenter did well; and then, thundering through the woods,
+came John Pelham of Stuart's Horse Artillery, and he, too, did well.
+
+As for the infantry, grey and blue, they were seasoned troops. There was
+no charging this golden afternoon. They merely stood, blue and grey, one
+hundred yards apart, in the sunset-flooded apple orchard, and then in a
+twilight apple orchard, and then in an apple orchard with the stars
+conceivably shining above the roof of smoke, and directed each against
+the other a great storm of musketry, round shot, and canister.
+
+It lasted two and a half hours, that tornado, and it never relaxed in
+intensity. It was a bitter fight, and there was bitter loss. Doubleday
+and Gibbon suffered fearfully, and Ewell and Taliaferro suffered. Grey
+and blue, they stood grimly, and the tornado raged. The ghosts of the
+quiet husbandmen who had planted the orchard, of the lovers who may have
+walked there, of the children who must have played beneath the
+trees--these were scared far, far from the old peaceful haunt. It was a
+bitter fight.
+
+Stafford was beside Ewell when the latter fell, a shell dreadfully
+shattering his leg. The younger man caught him, drew him quite from poor
+old Rifle, and with the help of the men about got him behind the slight,
+slight shelter of one of the little curtsying trees. Old Dick's face
+twitched, but he could speak. "Of course I've lost that
+leg! ----! ---- ----! Old Jackson isn't around, is he? Never mind! Occasion
+must excuse. Go along, gentlemen. Need you all there. Doctors and
+chaplains and the teamsters, and Dick Ewell will forgather all
+right ----! ----! Damn you, Maury, I don't want you to stay! What's that
+that man says? Taliaferro badly wounded ----! ---- ----! Gentlemen, one
+and all you are ordered back to your posts. I've lost a leg, but I'm not
+going to lose this battle!"
+
+Night came with each stark battle line engaged in giving and receiving
+as deadly a bombardment as might well be conceived. The orchard grew a
+place tawny and red and roaring with sound. And then at nine o'clock the
+sound dwindled and the light sank. The blue withdrew in good order,
+taking with them their wounded. The battle was drawn, the grey rested on
+the field, the loss of both was heavy.
+
+Back of the apple orchard, on the long natural terrace where he had
+posted his six guns, that tall, blond, very youthful officer whom, a
+little later, Stuart called "the heroic chivalric Pelham," whom Lee
+called "the gallant Pelham," of whom Stonewall Jackson said, "Every army
+should have a Pelham on each flank"--Major John Pelham surveyed the
+havoc among his men and horses. Then like a good and able leader, he
+brought matters shipshape, and later announced that the Horse Artillery
+would stay where it was for the night.
+
+The farmhouse in the orchard had been turned into a field hospital.
+Thither Pelham's wounded were borne. Of the hurt horses those that
+might be saved were carefully tended, the others shot. The pickets were
+placed. Fires were kindled, and from a supply wagon somewhere in the
+rear scanty rations brought. An embassy went to the farmhouse. "Ma'am,
+the major--Major Pelham--says kin we please have a few roasting ears?"
+The embassy returned. "She says, sir, just to help ourselves. Corn,
+apples--anything we want, and she wishes it were more!"
+
+The six guns gleamed red in the light of the kindled fires. The men sat
+or lay between them, tasting rest after battle. Below this platform, in
+the orchard and on the turnpike and in the woods beyond, showed also
+fires and moving lights. The air was yet smoky, the night close and
+warm. There were no tents nor roofs of any nature. Officers and men
+rested in the open beneath the August stars. Pelham had a log beneath a
+Lombardy poplar, with a wide outlook toward the old field of Manassas.
+Here he talked with one of his captains. "Too many men lost! I feel it
+through and through that there is going to be heavy fighting. We'll have
+to fill up somehow."
+
+"Everybody from this region's in already. We might get some
+fifteen-year-olds or some sixty-five-year-olds, though, or we might ask
+the department for conscripts--"
+
+"Don't like the latter material. Prefer the first. Well, we'll think
+about it to-morrow--It's late, late, Haralson! Good-night."
+
+"Wait," said Haralson. "Here's a man wants to speak to you."
+
+Running up the hillside, from the platform where were the guns to a
+little line of woods dark against the starlit sky, was a
+cornfield--between it and the log and the poplar only a little grassy
+depression. A man had come out of the cornfield. He stood ten feet
+away--a countryman apparently, poorly dressed.
+
+"Well, who are you?" demanded Pelham, "and how did you get in my lines?"
+
+"I've been," said the man, "tramping it over from the mountains. And
+when I got into this county I found it chock full of armies. I didn't
+want to be taken up by the Yankees, and so I've been mostly travelling
+by night. I was in that wood up there while you all were fighting. I had
+a good view of the battle. When it was over I said to myself, 'After
+all they're my folk,' and I came down through the corn. I was lying
+there between the stalks; I heard you say you needed gunners. I said to
+myself, 'I might as well join now as later. We've all got to join one
+way or another, that's clear,' and so I thought, sir, I'd join you--"
+
+"Why haven't you 'joined,' as you call it, before?"
+
+"I've been right sick for a year or more, sir. I got a blow on the head
+in a saw mill on Briony Creek and it made me just as useless as a bit of
+pith. The doctor says I am all right now, sir. I got tired of staying on
+Briony--"
+
+"Do you know anything about guns?"
+
+"I know all about a shotgun. I could learn the other."
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"Philip Deaderick."
+
+"Well, come into the firelight, Deaderick, so that I can see you."
+
+Deaderick came, showed a powerful figure, and a steady bearded face.
+"Well," said the Alabamian, "the blow on your head doesn't seem to have
+put you out of the running! I'll try you, Deaderick."
+
+"I am much obliged to you, sir."
+
+"I haven't any awkward squad into which to put you. You'll have to
+learn, and learn quickly, by watching the others. Take him and enroll
+him, Haralson, and turn him over to Dreux and the Howitzer. Now,
+Deaderick, the Horse Artillery is heaven to a good man who does his
+duty, and it's hell to the other kind. I advise you to try for heaven.
+That's all. Good-night."
+
+Day broke over the field of Groveton, over the plains of Manassas.
+Stonewall Jackson moved in force westward from the old battle-ground.
+South of Bull Run, between Young's Branch and Stony Ridge, ran an
+unfinished railroad. It was bordered by woods and rolling fields. There
+were alternate embankments and deep railroad cuts. Behind was the long
+ridge and Catharpin Run, in front, sloping gently to the little stream,
+green fields broken to the north by one deep wood. Stonewall Jackson
+laid his hand on the railroad with those deep cuts and on the rough and
+rising ground beyond. In the red dawn there stretched a battle front of
+nearly two miles. A. P. Hill had the left. Trimble and Lawton of Ewell's
+had the centre, Jackson's own division the right, Jubal Early and Forno
+of Ewell's a detached force on this wing. There were forty guns, and
+they were ranged along the rocky ridge behind the infantry. Jeb Stuart
+guarded the flanks.
+
+The chill moisture of the morning, the dew-drenched earth, the quiet
+woods, the rose light in the sky--the troops moving here and there to
+their assigned positions, exchanged opinions. "Ain't it like the
+twenty-first of July, 1861?"--"It air and it ain't--mostly
+ain't!"--"That's true! Hello! they are going to give us the railroad
+cut! God bless the Manassas Railroad Company! If we'd dug a whole day we
+couldn't have dug such a ditch as that!"--"Look at the boys behind the
+embankment! Well, if that isn't the jim-dandiest breastwork! 'N look at
+the forty guns up there against the sky!"--"Better tear those vines away
+from the edge. Pretty, aren't they? All the blue morning glories.
+Regiment's swung off toward Manassas Junction! Now if Longstreet should
+come up!"--"Maybe he will. Wouldn't it be exciting? Come up with a yell
+same as Kirby Smith did last year! Wonder where the Yankees are?"
+"Somewhere in the woods, the whole hell lot of them."--"Some of them
+aren't a hell lot. Some of them are right fine. Down on the Chickahominy
+I acquired a real respect for the Army of the Potomac--and a lot of
+it'll be here to-day. Yes, sir, I like Fitz John Porter and Sykes and
+Reynolds and a lot of them first rate! They can't help being commanded
+by The-Man-without-a-Rear. That's Washington's fault, not
+theirs."--"Yes, sir, Ricketts and Meade and Kearney and a lot of them
+are all right."--"Good Lord, what a shout! That's either Old Jack or a
+rabbit."--"It's Old Jack! It's Old Jack! He's coming along the front.
+Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! He's passed. O
+God! I wish that Bee and Bartow and all that fell here could see him and
+us now."--"There's Stuart passing through the fields. What guns are
+those going up Stony Ridge?--Pelham and the Horse Artillery."--"Listen!
+Bugles! There they come! There they come! Over the Henry Hill."
+_Attention!_
+
+About the middle of the morning the cannonading ceased. "There's a
+movement this way," said A. P. Hill on the left. "They mean to turn us.
+They have ploughed this wood with shells, and now they're coming to sow
+it. All right, men! General Jackson's looking!--and General Lee will be
+here to-night to tell the story to. I suppose you'd like Marse Robert to
+say, 'Well done!' All right, then, do well!--I don't think we're any too
+rich, Garrett, in ammunition. Better go tell General Jackson so."
+
+The men talked, Hill's men and Ewell's men on Hill's right--not volubly,
+but with slow appreciation. "Reynolds? Like Reynolds all right. Milroy?
+Don't care for the gentleman. Sigel--Schurz--Schenck--Steinwehr? _Nein.
+Nein!_ Wonder if they remember Cross Keys?"--"They've got a powerful
+long line. There isn't but one thing I envy them and that's those
+beautiful batteries. I don't envy them their good food, and their good,
+whole clothes or anything but the guns."--"H'm, I don't envy them
+anything--our batteries are doing all right! We've got a lot of their
+guns, and to-night we'll have more. Artillery's done fine to-day."--"So
+it has! so it has!"--"Listen, they're opening again. That's Pelham--now
+Pegram--now Washington Artillery--now Rockbridge!"--"Yes sir, yes sir!
+We're all right. We're ready. Music! They always come on with music.
+Funny! but they've got the bands. What are they playing? Never heard it
+before. Think it's 'What are the Wild Waves Saying?'"--"I think it's
+'When this Cruel War is Over.'"--"Go 'way, you boys weren't in the
+Valley! We've heard it several times. It's 'Der Wacht am Rhein.'"--"All
+right, sir! All right. Now!"
+
+Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, after the third great blue
+charge, Edward Cary, lips blackened from tearing cartridges, lock and
+barrel of his rifle hot within his hands, his cap shot away, his sleeve
+torn to ribbons where he had bared and bandaged a flesh wound in the
+arm, Edward Cary straightened himself and wiped away the sweat and
+powder grime which blinded him. An officer's voice came out of the murk.
+"The general asks for volunteers to strip the field of cartridges."
+
+There were four men lying together, killed by the same shell. The head
+of one was gone, the legs of another; the third was disembowelled, the
+fourth had his breast crushed in. Their cartridge boxes when opened were
+found to be half full. Edward emptied them into the haversack he carried
+and went on to the next. This was a boy of sixteen, not dead yet,
+moaning like a wounded hound. Edward gave him the little water that was
+in his canteen, took four cartridges from his box, and crept on. A minie
+sang by him, struck a yard away, full in the forehead of the dead man
+toward whom he was making. The dead man had a smile upon his lips; it
+was as though he mocked the bullet. All the field running back from the
+railroad cuts and embankment was overstormed by shot and shell, and
+everywhere from the field rose groans and cries for water. The word
+"water" never ceased from use. _Water!--Water, Water!--Water!--Water!_
+On it went, mournfully, like a wind.--_Water!--Water!_ Edward gathered
+cartridges steadily. All manner of things were wont to come into his
+mind. Just now it was a certain field behind Greenwood covered with
+blackberry bushes--and the hot August sunshine--and he and Easter's Jim
+gathering blackberries while Mammy watched from beneath a tree. He heard
+again the little thud of the berries into the bucket. He took the
+cartridges from two young men--brothers from the resemblance and from
+the fact that, falling together, one, the younger, had pillowed his head
+on the other's breast, while the elder's arm was around him. They lay
+like children in sleep. The next man was elderly, a lonely,
+rugged-looking person with a face slightly contorted and a great hole in
+his breast. The next that Edward came to was badly hurt, but not too
+badly to take an interest. "Cartridges?--yes, five. I'm awful
+thirsty!--Well, never mind. Maybe it will rain. Who's charging now?
+Heintzelman, Kearney, and Reno--Got 'em all? You can draw one from my
+gun, too. I was just loading when I got hit. Well, sorry you got to go!
+It's mighty lonely lying here."
+
+Edward returned to the front, gave up his haversack, and got another. As
+he turned to resume the cartridge quest there arose a cry. "Steady, men!
+steady! Hooker hasn't had enough!" Edward, too, saw the blue wall coming
+through the woods on the other side of the railroad. He took a musket
+from a dead man near by and with all the other grey soldiers lay flat in
+the grass above the cut. Hooker came within range--within close range.
+The long grey front sprang to its feet and fired, dropped and loaded,
+rose and fired. A leaden storm visited the wood across the track. The
+August grass was long and dry. Sparks set it afire. Flames arose and
+caught the oak scrub. Through it all and through the storm of bullets
+the blue line burst. It came down on the unfinished track, it crossed,
+it leaped up the ten-foot bank of earth, it clanged against the grey
+line atop. The grey gave back, the colours fell and rose; the air
+rocked, so loud was the din. Stonewall Jackson appeared. "General Hill,
+order in your second line." Field's Virginians, Thomas's Georgians
+charged forward. They yelled, all their rifles flashed at once, they
+drove Hooker down into the cut, across the track, up into the burning
+brushwood and the smoke-filled woods. But the blue were staunch and
+seasoned troops; they reformed, they cheered. Hooker brought up a fresh
+brigade. They charged again. Down from the woods plunged the blue wave,
+through the fire, down the bank, across and up. Again din and smoke and
+flame, all invading, monstrous. Jackson's voice rose higher. "General
+Hill, order in General Pender."
+
+North Carolina was, first and last, a stark fighter. Together with Gregg
+and Field and Thomas, Pender drove Hooker again down the red escarpment,
+across the railroad, through the burning brush, into the wood; even
+drove him out of the wood, took a battery and dashed into the open
+beyond. Then from the hills the blue artillery opened and from the
+plains below volleyed fresh infantry. Pender was borne back through the
+wood, across the railroad, up the red side of the cut.
+
+Hooker had a brigade in column behind a tree-clad hill. Screened from
+sight it now moved forward, swift and silent, then with suddenness broke
+from the wood in a splendid charge. With a gleam of bayonets, with a
+flash of colours, with a loud hurrah, with a staggering volley its
+regiments plunged into the cut, swarmed up the red side and fell upon A.
+P. Hill's weakened lines. The grey wavered. Stonewall Jackson's voice
+was heard again. "General Hill, I have ordered up Forno from the right
+and a regiment of Lawton's." He jerked his hand into the air. "Here they
+are. Colonel Forno, give them the bayonet!"
+
+Louisiana and Georgia swept forward, Tennessee, Alabama, and Virginia
+supporting. They swept Grover's brigade down and back. There was bitter
+fighting, hand-to-hand, horrible work: the dead lay in the railroad cut
+thick as fallen leaves. The dead lay thick on either bank and thick in
+the grass that was afire and thick in the smoky wood. The blue gave way,
+went back; the grey returned to their lines.
+
+Edward went again for cartridges. He was beside Gregg's South
+Carolinians when a courier came up. "General Jackson wishes to know each
+brigade's amount of ammunition," and he heard Gregg's answer, "Tell
+General Jackson that this brigade has one round to the man, but I'll
+hold the position with the bayonet." Edward gleaned steadily. "Water!
+water! water!" cried the field. "O God! water!"
+
+It was growing late, the long, hot day declining. There had been nine
+hours of fighting. "Nine hours--ninety hours--ninety minutes?" thought
+Edward. "Time's plastic like everything else. Double it, fold it back on
+itself, stretch it out, do anything with it--" He took the cartridges
+from a trunk of a man, crept on to a soldier shot through the hip. The
+latter clutched him with a blackened hand. "Has Marse Robert come? Has
+General Lee come?"
+
+"They say he has. Over there on Stuart's Hill, holding Reynolds and
+McDowell and Fitz John Porter in check."
+
+The man fell back. "Oh, then it is all right. Stonewall Jackson and
+Robert Edward Lee. It's all right--" He spoke drowsily. "It's all right.
+I'll go to sleep."
+
+Edward looking sideways toward Stony Ridge saw the forty guns black
+against the sun. As he looked they blazed and thundered. He turned his
+eyes. Kearney and Reno, five brigades, were coming at a double across
+the open. As he looked they broke into the charge. With his bag of
+cartridges he made for the nearest grey line. The blue came on, a
+formidable wave indeed. Stonewall Jackson rode along the grey front.
+
+"Men, General Early and two regiments of Lawton's are on their way. You
+must stand it till they come. If you have only one cartridge, save it
+until they are up from the cut. Then fire, and use your bayonets. Don't
+cheer! It makes your hand less steady."
+
+The blue wave plunged into the railroad cut. "I think," said a grey
+soldier, "that I hear Jubal Early yelling." The blue wave mounted to the
+level. "_Yaaaiih! Yaaaaiih!_" came out of the distance. "We know that we
+do," said the men. "Now, our friend, the enemy, you go back!" Out of the
+dun cloud and roar came a deep "Steady, men! You've got your bayonets
+yet. Stand it for five minutes. General Early's coming. This is
+Manassas--Manassas--Manassas! God is over us! Stand it for five
+minutes--for three minutes.--General Early, drive them with the
+bayonet."
+
+Late that night on the banks of Bull Run the general "from the West,
+where we have always seen the backs of our enemy" sent a remarkable
+telegram to Halleck at Washington. _"We fought a terrific battle here
+yesterday with the combined forces of the enemy, which lasted with
+continuous fury from daylight until dark, by which time the enemy was
+driven from the field which we now occupy. The enemy is still in our
+front, but badly used up. We lost not less than eight thousand men
+killed and wounded, but from the appearance of the field the enemy lost
+two to one. The news has just reached me from the front that the enemy
+is retreating toward the mountains."_
+
+The delusion holding, he, at noon of the thirtieth, ordered a general
+advance. "The troops to be immediately thrown forward in pursuit of the
+enemy and to press him vigorously." One of his officers undertook a
+comment. "By the Lord Harry, it will be the shortest pursuit that even
+he ever saw! Why, damn it all! they're still here! I tell you the place
+is unlucky!"
+
+Twenty thousand blue soldiers formed the front that came down from the
+hills and moved toward the Groveton wood and the railroad track. Behind
+them were supporting masses, forty thousand strong. On every slope
+gleamed the great blue guns. The guns opened; they shelled with
+vehemence the wood, the railroad cut, and embankment, the field
+immediately beyond. A line of grey pickets was seen to leave the wood
+and make across the track and into cover. Pope at the Stone House saw
+these with his field glass. "The last of their rear guard," he said.
+
+One of his generals spoke. "Their guns are undoubtedly yet on that
+ridge, sir."
+
+"I am perfectly well aware of that, sir. But they will not be there long
+after our line has crossed the track. Either we will gloriously take
+them, or they will limber up and scamper after Jackson. He, I take it,
+is well on his way to Thoroughfare Gap. All that we need is expedition.
+Crush him, and then when Longstreet is up, crush _him_."
+
+"And those troops on Stuart Hill?"
+
+"Give you my word they are nothing, general! A rebel regiment, at the
+most a brigade, thrown out from Jackson's right. I have positive
+information. Fitz John Porter is mistaken--arrogantly mistaken.--Ah, the
+rebel guns are going to indulge in a little bravado."
+
+The twenty thousand gleaming bayonets passed the turnpike, passed
+Dogan's house, moved on toward the wood. It rose torn and thin and black
+from yesterday's handling. Immediately beyond was the railroad cut. On
+the other side of the railroad ran a stretch of field and scrub,
+mounting to Stony Ridge, that rose from the base of the woods. Stony
+Ridge looked grey itself and formidable, and all about it was the smoke
+of the forty grey guns. The twenty thousand bayonets pressed on.
+
+There came a blare of bugles. Loud and high they rang--the bugles of the
+Light Division, of Ewell's, of Jackson's own. They pierced the thunder
+of the guns, they came from the wood at the base of Stony Ridge. There
+was a change in the heart-beat below the twenty thousand bayonets.
+Porter and Ricketts and Hatch stared, and saw start from the wood a
+downward moving wall. It moved fast; it approached with a certain
+impetuous steadiness. Behind it were shorter lines, detached masses.
+Together all came down from Stony Ridge like an avalanche. The avalanche
+came to and took the field of yesterday, and stood revealed,--Stonewall
+Jackson holding the railroad cut. "I thought as much," said Fitz John
+Porter. "Go ask him to give us Reynolds."
+
+After the third charge the 65th and another regiment of the Stonewall
+Brigade, finding their ammunition exhausted, armed themselves with
+stones. Those of the Thunder Run men who had not fallen at White Oak
+Swamp proved themselves expert. Broken rock lay in heaps by the railroad
+bed. They brought these into the lines, swung and threw them. With
+stones and bayonets they held the line. Morell and Sykes were great
+fighters; the grey men recognized worthy foes. The battle grew Titanic.
+Stonewall Jackson signalled to Lee on the Warrenton turnpike, "Hill hard
+pressed. Every brigade engaged. Would like more guns."
+
+Lee sent two batteries, and Stephen D. Lee placed them. There arose a
+terrific noise, and presently a wild yelling. Lee signalled:--
+
+_General Jackson. Do you still need reinforcements? Lee._
+
+The signal officer on the knoll behind the Stonewall wigwagged back.
+
+_No. The enemy are giving way. Jackson._
+
+They gave way, indeed. The forty guns upon the ridge, the eight that Lee
+had sent, strewed the green field beyond the Groveton wood with shot and
+shrapnel. Morell fell back, Hatch fell back; the guns became deadly,
+mowing down the blue lines. Stonewall Jackson rode along the front.
+
+"General Hill, it is time for the counterstroke. Forward, and drive
+them!"
+
+The signaller wigwagged to the Warrenton turnpike:--
+
+_General Lee. I am driving them. Jackson._
+
+The signaller on the turnpike signalled back:--
+
+_General Jackson. General Longstreet is advancing. Look out for and
+protect his left flank. Lee._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lee's great battle was over and won. Every division, brigade, regiment,
+battery, fifty thousand infantry and cavalry brought by the great leader
+into simultaneous action, the Army of Northern Virginia moved as in a
+vast parade over plain and hill. Four miles in length, swept the first
+wave with, in the centre, seven grey waves behind it. It was late. The
+grey sea moved in the red and purple of a great sunset. From Stony Ridge
+the forty guns thundered like grey breakers, while the guns of
+Longstreet galloped toward the front. Horses and men and guns were at
+the martial height of passion. To the right Jeb Stuart appeared,
+magnificent. On swept the resistless sea. A master mind sent it over
+those Manassas hills and plains, here diverting a portion of its waves,
+here curbing a too rapid onslaught, here harking the great mass forward,
+surmounting barriers, overwhelming a stubborn opposition, crumbling and
+breaking to pieces. Wave on wave, rapid, continuous, unremitting,
+thundered the assault, in the red sunset of the thirtieth of August.
+Pope's Army fought bravely, but in the dusk it melted away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+A GUNNER OF PELHAM'S
+
+
+Major John Pelham looked at the clouds boiling up above Bull Run
+Mountains.
+
+                    "Rain, rain go away,
+                    Come again another day!--"
+
+he said. "What's the house they've burned over there?"
+
+"Chantilly, sir."
+
+Ruined wall and chimney, fallen roof-tree, gaping holes where windows
+had been, the old mansion stood against the turmoil of the sky. It
+looked a desolation, a poignant gloom, an unrelieved sorrow. A courier
+appeared. "The enemy's rearguard is near Ox Hill, sir. They've driven in
+some of our patrols. The main body is moving steady toward Fairfax Court
+House. General Jackson has sent the Light Division forward. General
+Stuart's going, too. He says, 'Come on.'"
+
+The clouds mounted high and dark, thunder began to mutter; by the time a
+part of the Light Division and a brigade of Ewell's came into touch with
+Reno and Kearney, the afternoon, already advanced, was of the hue of
+twilight. Presently there set in a violent storm of thunder and
+lightning, wind and rain. The trees writhed like wounded soldiers, the
+rain came level against the face, stinging and blinding, the artillery
+of the skies out-thundered man's inventions. It grew darker and darker,
+save for the superb, far-showing lightning flashes. Beneath these the
+blue and the grey plunged into an engagement at short range.
+
+What with the howling of the storm, the wind that took voices and
+whirled them high and away, the thunder above and the volleying musketry
+below, to hear an order was about the most difficult feat imaginable.
+Stafford gathered, however, that Lawton, commanding since Ewell's wound,
+was sending him to Jackson with a statement as to affairs on this wing.
+He went, riding hard against the slanting rain, and found Jackson
+standing in the middle of the road, a piece of bronze played round by
+lightning. One of the brigadiers was speaking to him. "The cartridges
+are soaking wet, sir. I do not know that I can hold my position."
+Jackson's voice came deep and curt. "Yes, sir, you can. If your muskets
+won't go off, neither will the enemy's. You are to hold it, whether you
+can or not. Go and do it."
+
+The brigadier went. Stafford gave his information, and received an
+order. "Go back along the road until you find the horse artillery. Tell
+Major Pelham to bring his guns to the knoll yonder with the blasted
+tree."
+
+Stafford turned his horse and started. The rain and wind were now at his
+back--a hundred paces, and the road, lonely save for stragglers, the
+grey troops, the battle in front, was all sheeted and shrouded in the
+darkly drifting storm. The fitful bursts of musketry were lost beneath
+the artillery of the clouds. He travelled a mile, found Pelham and gave
+his order, then stood aside under the tossing pines while the horse
+artillery went by. It went by in the dusk of the storm, in the long howl
+of the wind and the dash of the rain, like the iron chariots of Pluto,
+the horses galloping, the gunners clinging wherever they might place
+hand or foot, the officers and mounted men spurring alongside. Stafford
+let them all turn a bend in the road, then followed.
+
+All this stretch of road and field and wood had been skirmished over,
+Stuart and the blue cavalry having been in touch through the earlier
+part of the day. The road was level, with the mournful boggy fields,
+with the wild bending woods. In the fields and in the woods there were
+dark objects, which might be mounds of turf or huge twisted roots, or
+which might be dead men and horses. Stafford, riding through wind and
+rain, had no sooner thought this than he saw, indeed, what seemed a mere
+hummock beneath a clump of cedars undoubtedly move. He looked as closely
+as he might for the war of water, air, and fire, and made out a horse
+outstretched and stark, and a man pinned beneath. The man spoke. "Hello,
+upon the road there! Come and do a Christian turn!"
+
+Stafford left his horse and, stepping through a quagmire of watery turf,
+came into the ring of cedars. The man who had called upon him, a tall,
+long-moustached person in blue, one arm and booted leg painfully caught
+beneath the dead steed, spoke in a voice curt with suffering. "Grey,
+aren't you? Don't care. Can't help it. Get this infernal weight off me,
+won't you?"
+
+The other bent to the task, and at last managed to free the blue
+soldier. "There! That position must have been no joke! How long--"
+
+The blue cavalryman proceeded to feel bone and flesh, slowly and
+cautiously to move the imprisoned limbs. He drew a breath of relief.
+"Nothing broken!--How long? Well, to reckon by one's feeling I should
+say about a week. Say, however, since about noon. We drove against a
+party under Stuart. He got the best of us, and poor Caliph got a bullet.
+I could see the road. Everything grey--grey as the sea."
+
+"Why didn't you call before? Any one would have helped you."
+
+The other continued to rub his arm and leg. "You haven't got a drop of
+brandy--eh?"
+
+"Yes, I have. I should have thought of that before." He gave the other a
+small flask. The cavalryman drank. "Ah! in '55, when I was with Walker
+in Nicaragua, I got pinned like that beneath a falling cottonwood." He
+gave the flask back. "You are the kind of Samaritan I like to meet. I
+feel a new man. Thanks awfully."
+
+"It was foolish of you to lie there for hours--"
+
+The other leaned his back against a cedar. "Well, I thought I might hold
+out, perhaps, until we beat you and I was again in the house of my
+friends. I don't, however, object to acknowledging that you're hard to
+beat. Couldn't manage it. Growing cold and faint--head ringing. Waited
+as long as I could, then called. They say your prisons are very bad."
+
+"They are no worse than yours."
+
+"That may be. Any of them are bad."
+
+"We are a ravaged and blockaded country. It is with some difficulty that
+we feed and clothe our armies in the field. As for medicines with which
+to fight disease, you will not let them pass, not for our women and
+children and sick at home, and not for your own men in prison. And, for
+all our representations, you will not exchange prisoners. If there is
+undue suffering, I think you must share the blame."
+
+"Yes, yes, it is all hellish enough!--Well, on one side of the dice,
+prisoner of war; on the other, death here under poor Caliph. Might
+escape from prison, no escape from death. By Jove, what a thunderclap!
+It's Stonewall Jackson pursuing us, eh?"
+
+"Yes. I hear Pelham's guns--You are an Englishman?"
+
+"Yes. Francis Marchmont, at your service; colonel of the Marchmont"--he
+laughed--"Invincibles."
+
+"I am Maury Stafford, serving on General Ewell's staff.--Yes, that's
+Pelham."
+
+He straightened himself. "I must be getting back to the front. It is
+hard to hear for the wind and rain and thunder, but I think the musketry
+is recommencing." He looked about him. "We came through these woods
+this morning. Stuart has patrols everywhere, but I think that dip
+between the hills may be clear. You are pretty pale yet. You had better
+keep the brandy flask. Are you sure that you can walk?"
+
+"Walk beside you into your lines, you mean?"
+
+"No. I mean try a way out between the hills."
+
+"I am not your prisoner?"
+
+"No."
+
+Marchmont pulled at his moustaches. "Yes. I think I can walk. I won't
+deprive you of your flask--but if I might have another mouthful--Thank
+you." He rose stiffly. "If at any time I can serve you, I trust that you
+will remember my name--Francis Marchmont, colonel Marchmont Invincibles.
+Send me a slip of paper, a word, anything. _Ox Hill_ will do--and you
+will find me at your service. Yes, the firing is beginning again--"
+
+Stafford, once more upon the road, travelled northward in an unabated
+storm. Tree and bush, weed, flower and grass, writhed and shrank beneath
+the anger of the air; the rain hissed and beat, the lightning glared,
+the thunder crashed. Between the flashes all was dusk. Before him the
+rattle of musketry, the booming of the guns grew louder. He saw to the
+right, on a bare rise of ground, Pelham's guns.
+
+There came an attempted flanking movement of the blue--a dash of cavalry
+met by Stuart and followed by a movement of two of Hill's brigades. The
+action barred the road and fields before Stafford. He watched it a
+moment, then turned aside and mounted the rise of ground to Pelham's
+guns. A great lightning-flash lit them, ranged above him. All their wet
+metal gleamed; about them moved the gunners; a man with a lifted sponge
+staff looked an unearthly figure against the fantastic castles and
+battlements, the peaks and abysses of the boiling clouds. The light
+vanished; Stafford came level with the guns in the dusk.
+
+Pelham welcomed him. "'Trust in God and keep your powder dry,' eh,
+major? It's the kind of storm you read about--Hello! they've brought up
+another battery--"
+
+Stafford dismounted. One of the guns had the vent so burned and enlarged
+that it was useless. It rested cold and silent beside its bellowing
+fellows. Stafford seated himself on the limber, and watched the double
+storm. It raged above the little hill, with its chain lightnings, with
+wind, with reverberations of thunder; and it raged below, between some
+thousands of grey and blue figures, small, small, in the dusk, shadowy
+manikins sending from metal tubes glow-worm flashes! He sat, with his
+chin in his hand, pondering the scene.
+
+Pelham came heavily into action. There was a blue battery on the
+opposite hill. The two spoke in whispers beneath the storm. The gunners,
+now in darkness, now in the vivid lightning, moved about the guns. Now
+they bent low, now they stood upright. The officer gestured to them and
+they to each other. Several were killed or wounded; and as now this
+section, now that, was more deeply engaged, there was some shifting
+among the men, occasional changes of place. The dusk increased; it was
+evident that soon night and the storm would put an end to the battle.
+Stafford, watching, made out that even now the blue and grey forms in
+the tossing woods and boggy meadows were showing less and less their
+glow-worm fires, were beginning to move apart. The guns above them
+boomed more slowly, with intervals between their speech. The thunder
+came now, not in ear-splitting cracks but with long rolling peals, with
+spaces between filled only by the wind and the rain. The human voice
+might be heard, and the officers shouted, not gestured their orders. The
+twilight deepened. The men about the gun nearest Stafford looked but
+shadows, bending, leaning across, rising upright. They talked, however,
+and the words were now audible. "Yes, if you could handle
+lightning--take one of them zigzags and turn it loose on blue
+people!"--"That battery is tired; it's going home! Right tired myself.
+Reckon we're all tired but Old Jack. He don't never get tired. This is a
+pretty behaving gun--" "That's so! and she's got good men. They do
+first-rate."--"That's so! Even the new one's good"--"Good! He learned
+that gun same as though they _grew_ artillery wherever he came from.
+Briery Creek--No, Briony Creek--hey, Deaderick?"
+
+"Briony Creek."
+
+Stafford dropped his hand. "Who spoke?"
+
+The question had been breathed, not loudly uttered. No one answered. The
+gunners continued their movements about the guns, stooping, handling,
+lifting themselves upright. It was all but night, the lightning less and
+less violent, revealing little beyond mere shape and action. Stafford
+sank back. "Storm within and storm without. They breed delusions!"
+
+The blue battery opposite limbered up and went away. The musketry fire
+in the hollows between the hills grew desultory. A slow crackle of shots
+would be followed by silence; then might come with fierce energy a
+sudden volley; silence followed it, too,--or what, by comparison, seemed
+silence. The thunder rolled more and more distantly, the wind lashed the
+trees, the rain beat upon the guns. Officers and men of the horse
+artillery were too tired, too wet, and too busy for much conversation,
+but still human voices came and went in the lessening blast, in the
+semi-darkness and the streaming rain.
+
+There was a gunner near Stafford who worked in silence and rested from
+his work in silence. Stafford became conscious of him during one of the
+latter periods--a silent man, leaning against his gun. He was not ten
+feet away, but the twilight was now deep, and he rested indistinct, a
+shadow against a shadow. Once there came a pale lightning flash, but his
+arm was raised as if to shield his eyes, and there was seen but a
+strongly made gunner with a sponge staff. Darkness came again at once.
+The impression that remained with Stafford was that the gunner's face
+was turned toward him, that he had, indeed, when the flash came, been
+regarding him somewhat closely. That was nothing--a man not of the
+battery, a staff officer sitting on a disabled gun, waiting till he
+could make his way back to his chief--a moment's curiosity on an
+artilleryman's part, exhibited in a lull between fighting. Stafford had
+a certain psychic development. A thinker, he was adventurous in that
+world; to him, the true world of action. The passion that had seized and
+bound him had come with the force of an invader, of a barbaric horde,
+from a world that he ordinarily ignored. It held him helpless, an
+enslaved spirit, but around it vaguely worked the old habits of mind.
+Now it interested him--though only to a certain degree--that, in some
+subtle fashion and for some reason which he could not explain, the
+gunner with the sponge staff could so make himself felt across space. He
+wondered a little about this man; and then, insensibly, he began to
+review the past. He had resolution enough, and he did not always choose
+to review the past. To-night it was perhaps the atmosphere, the
+commotion of the elements, the harp of the wind, the scourging rain--at
+any rate, he reviewed it and fully. When the circle was completed and
+his attention touched again the storm and the twilight hill near
+Chantilly, and he lifted his eyes from the soaked and trodden ground, it
+was to find the double shadow still before him. He felt that the eyes
+of the gunner with the sponge staff were on him, had been on him for
+some time. Quite involuntarily he moved, with a sudden gesture, as
+though he evaded a blow. A sergeant's voice came through the twilight,
+the wind and the rain. "Deaderick!"
+
+The man by the gun moved, took up the sponge staff that had rested
+beside him, turned in the darkness and went away.
+
+A little later Stafford left the hilltop. The cannon had ceased their
+booming, except for here and there a fitful burst; the musketry fire had
+ceased. Pope's rearguard, Lee's advance, the two drew off and the
+engagement rested indecisive. Blue and grey, a thousand or two men
+suffered death or wounding. They lay upon the miry earth, beneath the
+pelting storm. Among the blue, Kearney and Stevens were killed. Through
+the darkness that wrapped the scene, Stafford found at last his way to
+his general. He found him with Stuart, who was reporting to Stonewall
+Jackson. "They're retreating pretty rapidly, sir. They'll reach Fairfax
+Court House presently."
+
+"Yes. They won't stop there. We'll bivouac on the field, general."
+
+"And to-morrow, sir?"
+
+"To-morrow, sir, we will follow them out of Virginia."
+
+September the second dawned bright and clear. From Fairfax Court House
+Pope telegraphed to Halleck. "There is undoubted purpose on the part of
+the enemy to keep on slowly turning my position so as to come in on the
+right. The forces under my command are unable to prevent his doing so.
+Telegraph what to do."
+
+Halleck telegraphed to fall back to the fortifications of Alexandria and
+Washington.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+THE TOLLGATE
+
+
+On Thunder Run Mountain faint reds and yellows were beginning to show in
+the maple leaves, while the gum trees dwelling in the hollows had a
+deeper tinge of crimson. But the mass of the forest was yet green. The
+September sun was like balm, amber days, at once alert and dream-like.
+The September nights were chilly. But the war, that pinched and starved
+and took away on all hands, left the forest and the wood for fires. On
+Thunder Run the women cut the wood, and the children gathered dead
+boughs and pine cones.
+
+The road over the mountain was in a bad condition. It had not been
+worked for a year. That mattered the less perhaps, that it was now so
+little travelled. All day and every day Tom Cole sat in the sunshine on
+the toll gate porch, the box for the toll beside him, and listened for
+wheels or horses' hoofs. It was an event now when he could hobble out to
+the gate, take the toll and pass the time of day. He grew querulous over
+the state of the road. "There'd surely be more travel if 't warn't so
+bad! Oh, yes, I know there aren't many left hereabouts to travel, and
+what there are, haven't got the means. But there surely would be more
+going over the mountain if the road wan't so bad!" He had a touch of
+fever, and he babbled about the road all night, and how hard it was not
+to see or talk to anybody! He said that he wished that he had died when
+he fell out of Nofsinger's hayloft. The first day that he was well
+enough to be left, Sairy went round to the Thunder Run women, beginning
+with Christianna Maydew's mother. Several days afterward, Tom hobbling
+out on the porch was most happily welcomed by the noise of wheels. "Thar
+now!" said Sairy, "ain't it a real picnic feeling to get back to
+business?" Tom went out to the gate with the tobacco box. A road wagon,
+and a sulky and a man on horseback! The old man's eyes glistened.
+"Mornin', gentlemen!" "Mornin', Mr. Cole! County's mended your road
+fine! Big hole down there filled up and the bridge that was just a
+mantrap new floored! The news? Well, Stonewall Jackson's after them!"
+
+But despite the filled-up holes travel was slight, slight! To-day from
+dawn until eleven, no one had passed. Tom sat in the sun on the porch,
+and the big yellow cat slept beside him, and the china asters bloomed in
+the tiny yard. Sairy was drying apples. She had them spread on boards in
+the sun. Now and then she came from the kitchen to look at them, and
+with a peach bough to drive the bees away. The close of summer found, as
+ever, Thunder Run shrunken to something like old age; but even so his
+murmur was always there like a wind in the trees. This morning there was
+a fleet of clouds in the September sky. Their shadows drove across the
+great landscape, the ridges and levels of the earth, out upon which
+Thunder Run Mountain looked so steadily.
+
+A woman, a neighbour living a mile beyond the schoolhouse, came by.
+Sairy went over to the little picket fence and the two talked. "How is
+she?"--"She's dead."--"Sho! You don't say so! Poor thing, poor thing! I
+reckon I thought of her mor'n I slept last night.--'N the child?"
+
+"Born dead."
+
+Sairy struck her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Sho! War killin'
+'em even thar!"
+
+The mountain woman spoke on in the slow mountain voice. "She had awful
+dreams. Somebody was fool enough to tell her 'bout how dreadful thirsty
+wounded folk get, lyin' thar all round the clock an' no one comin'! An'
+some other fool read her out of an old newspaper 'bout Malvern Hill down
+thar at Richmond. Mrs. Cole, she thought she was a soldier. An' when she
+begun to suffer she thought she was wounded. She thought she was all
+mangled and torn by a cannon ball. Yes'm, it was pitiful. An' she said
+thar was a high hill. It was five miles high, she said. An' she said
+thar was water at the top, which was foolish, but she couldn't help
+that, an' God knows women go through enough to make them foolish! An'
+she said thar was jest one path, an' thar was two children playing on
+it, an' she couldn't make them understand. She begged us all night to
+tell the children thar was a wounded soldier wantin' to get by. An' at
+dawn she said the water was cold an' died."
+
+The woman went on up Thunder Run Mountain. Sairy turned again the drying
+apples, then brought her patching out upon the porch and sat down in a
+low split-bottomed chair opposite Tom. The yellow cat at her feet
+yawned, stretched, and went back to sleep. The china asters bloomed; the
+sun drew out the odours of thyme and rue and tansy. Tom read a last
+week's newspaper. _General Lee crosses the Potomac._
+
+Christianna came down the road and unlatched the gate. "Come in, come
+in, Christianna!" said Tom. "Come in and take a cheer! Letter came
+yesterday--"
+
+Christianna sat down on the edge of the porch, her back against the
+pillar. She took off her sunbonnet. "Violetta learned to do a heap of
+things while I was down t' Richmond. I took a heap of them back, too,
+but somehow I've got more time than I used to have. Somehow I jest
+wander round--"
+
+Tom took a tin box from beside the tobacco box. "'T would be awful if
+the letter didn't come once't every ten days or two weeks! Reckon I'd go
+plumb crazy, an' so would Sairy--"
+
+Sairy turned the garment she was patching. "Sho! I wouldn't go crazy.
+What's the use when it's happening all the time? I ain't denying that
+most of the light would go out of things. Stop imaginin' an' read
+Christianna what he says about furin' parts."
+
+"After Gaines's Mill it was twelve days," said Tom, "an' the twelfth day
+we didn't say a word, only Sairy read the Bible. An' now he's well and
+rejoined at Leesburg."
+
+He cleared his throat. "DEAR AUNT SAIRY AND TOM:--It's fine to get back
+to the Army! It's an Army that you can love. I do love it. But I love
+Thunder Run and the School House and Tom and Sairy Cole, too, and
+sometimes I miss them dreadfully! I rejoined at Leesburg. The 65th--I
+can't speak of the 65th--you know why. It breaks my heart. But it's
+reorganized. The boys were glad to see me, and I was glad to see them.
+Tell Christianna that Billy's all right. He's sergeant now, and he does
+fine. And Dave's all right, too, and the rest of the Thunder Run men.
+The War's done a heap for Mathew Coffin. It's made a real man of him.
+Tom, I wish you could have seen us fording the Potomac. It was like a
+picture book. All a pretty silver morning, with grey plovers wheeling
+overhead, and the Maryland shore green and sweet, and the water cool to
+your waist, and the men laughing and calling and singing 'Maryland, my
+Maryland!' Fitzhugh Lee was ahead with the cavalry. It was pretty to see
+the horses go over, and the blessed guns that we know and love, every
+iron man of them, and all the white covered wagons. Our division crossed
+last, Old Jack at the head. When we came up from the river into Maryland
+we turned toward Frederick. The country's much like our own and the
+people pleasant enough. You know we've got the Maryland Line, and a
+number besides. They're fine men, a little dashing, but mighty steady,
+too. They've expressed themselves straight along as positively certain
+that all Maryland would rise and join us. There's a line of the song,
+you know:--
+
+                "Huzzah! huzzah!
+        She breathes, she burns, she'll come, she'll come,
+          Maryland! my Maryland!"
+
+"She hasn't come yet. The people evidently don't dislike us, and as a
+matter of course we aren't giving them any reason to. But their farms
+are all nice and green and well tilled, and we haven't seen a burned
+house or mill, and the children are going to school, and the stock is
+all sleek and well fed--and if they haven't seen they've heard of the
+desolation on our side of the river. They've got a pretty good idea of
+what War is and they're where more people would be if they had that idea
+beforehand. They are willing to keep out of it.--So they're respectful,
+and friendly, and they crowd around to try to get a glimpse of General
+Lee and General Jackson, but they don't volunteer--not in shoals as the
+Marylanders said they would! The Maryland Line looks disdain at them.
+Mathew Coffin is dreadfully fretted about the way we're dressed. He says
+that's the reason Maryland won't come. But the mess laughs at him. It
+says that if Virginia doesn't mind, Maryland needn't. I wish you could
+see us, Aunt Sairy. When I think of how I went away from you and Tom
+with that trunk full of lovely clean things!--Now we are gaunt and
+ragged and shoeless and dirty--" Tom stopped to wipe his spectacles.
+
+Sairy threaded a needle. "All that's less lasting than some other
+things, they air. I reckon they'll leave a brighter streak than a deal
+of folk who aren't gaunt an' ragged an' shoeless an' dirty."
+
+"I don't ever see them so," said Christianna, in her soft drawling
+voice. "I see them just like a piece we had in a book of reading pieces
+at school. It was a hard piece but, I learned it.
+
+                    "All furnished, all in arms,
+            All plumed like estridges that with the wind
+            Bated--like eagles having lightly bathed,
+            Glittering in golden coats like images."
+
+"No. I reckon if Virginia don't mind, Maryland needn't."
+
+Tom began again. "We've got a lovely camp here, and it's good to lie and
+rest on the green grass. The Army has had hard fighting and hard
+marching. Second Manassas was a big battle. It's in the air that we'll
+have another soon. Don't you worry about me. I'll come out all right.
+And if I don't, never forget that you did everything in the world for
+me and that I loved you and thought of you at the very last. Is living
+getting hard on Thunder Run? I fear so sometimes, for it's getting hard
+everywhere, and you can't see the end--I wish I had some pay to send
+you, but we aren't getting any now. This war's going to be fought
+without food or pay. Tell me, Aunt Sairy, just right honestly how you
+are getting on. It's getting toward winter. When I say my prayers I pray
+now that it won't be a hard winter. A lot of us are praying that. It's
+right pitiful, the men with wives and children at home, and the country
+growing to look like a desert.--But that's gloomy talk, and if there's
+one thing more than another we've got to avoid it's being gloomy!--Tell
+me everything when you write. Write to Winchester--that's our base of
+supplies and rendezvous now. Tell me about everybody on Thunder Run, but
+most of all tell me about yourselves. Give my very best regards to
+Christianna. She surely was good to me in Richmond. I don't know what I
+would have done without her. At first, before I--"
+
+Sairy put out her hand. "Give it to me, Tom. I'll read the rest. You're
+tired."
+
+"No, I'm not," said Tom.--"At first, before I came up with the Army, I
+missed her dreadfully."
+
+Sairy rose, stepped from the porch, and turned the drying apples. Coming
+back, she touched the girl on the shoulder--very gently. "They're all
+fools, Christianna. Once I met a woman who did not know her thimble
+finger. I thought that beat all! But it's hard to match the men."
+
+"You've put me out!" said Tom. "Where was I? Oh--At first, before I came
+up with the Army, I missed her dreadfully. Billy reminds me of her at
+times.--It's near roll call, and I must stop. God bless you both.
+Allan."
+
+Tom folded the letter with trembling hands, laid it carefully atop of
+the others in the tin box, and took off and wiped his glasses. "Yes, if
+a letter didn't come every two weeks I'd go plumb crazy! I've got to
+hear him say 'dear Tom' that often, anyhow--"
+
+Christianna rose, pulling her sunbonnet over her eyes. "Thank you, Mrs.
+Cole an' Mr. Cole. I thought I'd like to hear. Now I'll be going back up
+the mountain. Violetta an' Rosalinda are pulling fodder and mother is
+ploughing for wheat. I do the spinning mostly. You've got lovely china
+asters, Mrs. Cole. They have a flower they called magnolia down 't
+Richmond--like a great sweet white cup, an' they had pink crape
+myrtles. I liked it in Richmond, for all the death an' mourning. Thunder
+Run's so far away. Good mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good mahnin', Mr. Cole."
+
+The slight homespun figure disappeared around the bend of the road.
+Sairy sewed in silence. Tom went back to the newspaper. The yellow cat
+slept on, the bees buzzed and droned, the sweet mountain air brushed
+through the trees, a robin sang. Half an hour passed. Tom raised his
+head. "I hear some one coming!" He reached for the tobacco box.
+
+It proved to be an old well-loved country doctor, on a white horse, with
+his saddle bags before him. Sairy hurried out, too, to the gate.
+"Doctor, I want to ask you something about Tom--" "Psha, I'm all right,"
+said Tom. "Won't you get down and set a little, doctor?"
+
+The doctor would and did, and after he had prescribed for the tollgate
+keeper a two hours' nap every day and not to get too excited over war
+news, Tom read him Allan's letter, and they got into a hot discussion of
+the next battle. Sairy turned the drying apples, brushed away the bees,
+and brought fresh water from the well, then sat down again with her
+mending. "Doctor, how's the girl at Three Oaks?"
+
+The doctor came back from Maryland to his own county and to the fold
+which he tended without sleep, without rest, and with little pay save in
+loving hearts. "Miriam Cleave? She's better, Mrs. Cole, she's better!"
+
+"I'm mighty glad to hear it," said Sairy. "'T ain't a decline, then?"
+
+"No, no! Just shock on shock coming to a delicate child. Her mother will
+bring her through. And there's a great woman."
+
+"That's so, that's so!" assented Tom cordially. "A great woman."
+
+Sairy nodded, drawing her thread across a bit of beeswax. "For once you
+are both right. He isn't there now, doctor?"
+
+"No. He wasn't there but a week or two."
+
+"You don't--"
+
+"No, Tom. I don't know where he has gone. They have some land in the far
+south, down somewhere on the Gulf. He may have gone there."
+
+"I reckon," said Tom, "he couldn't stand it in Virginia. All the earth
+beginnin' to tremble under marchin' feet and everybody askin', 'Where's
+the army to-day?' I reckon he couldn't stand it. I couldn't. Allan don't
+believe he did it, an' I don't believe it either."
+
+"Nor I," said Sairy.
+
+"He came up here," said Tom, "just as quiet an' grave an' simple as you
+or me. An' he sat there in his lawyer's clothes, with his back to that
+thar pillar, an' he told Sairy an' me all about Allan. He told us how
+good he was an' how all the men loved him an' how valuable he was to the
+service. An' he said that the wound he got at Gaines's Mill wasn't so
+bad after all as it might have been, and that Allan would soon be
+rejoining. An' he said that being a scout wasn't as glorious, maybe, but
+it was just as necessary as being a general. An' that he had always
+loved Allan an' always would. An' he told us about something Allan did
+at McDowell and then again at Kernstown--an' Sairy cried an' so did I--"
+
+Sairy folded her work. "I wasn't crying so much for Allan--"
+
+"An' then he asked for a drink of water 'n we talked a little about the
+crops, 'n he went down the mountain. An' Sairy an' I don't believe he
+did it."
+
+The doctor drew his hand downward over mouth and white beard. "Well,
+Mrs. Cole, I don't either. The decisions of courts and judges don't
+always decide. There's always a chance of an important witness called
+Truth having been absent. I didn't see Richard Cleave but once while he
+was at Three Oaks. He looked and acted then just like Richard
+Cleave,--only older and graver. It was beautiful to see him and his
+mother together." The doctor rose. "But I reckon it's as Tom says and he
+couldn't stand it, and has gone where he doesn't hear 'the army--the
+army--the army'--all day long. Mrs. Cleave hasn't said anything, and I
+wouldn't ask. The last time I saw her--and I think he had just gone--she
+looked like a woman a great artist might have met in a dream."
+
+The doctor gazed out over the autumn sea of mountains and up at the pure
+serene of the heavens, and then at his old, patient white horse with the
+saddle bags across the saddle. "Mrs. Cole, all you've got to do is to
+keep Tom from getting excited. I'll be back this way the first of the
+week and I'll stop again--"
+
+Tom cleared his throat. "I don't know when Sairy an' me can pay you,
+doctor. I never realized till it came how war stops business. I'd about
+as well be keeping toll gate in the desert of Sahary."
+
+"I'm not doing it for pay," said the doctor. "It's just the place to
+stop and rest and talk, and as for giving you a bit of opinion and
+advice, Lord! I'm not so poor that I can't do that. If you want to give
+me something in return I certainly could use three pounds of dried
+apples."
+
+The doctor rode on down the mountain. Tom and Sairy had a frugal dinner.
+Then the former lay down to take the prescribed nap, and the latter set
+her washtub on a box in the yard beneath the peach trees. Tom didn't
+sleep long; he said every time he was about to drop off he thought he
+heard wheels. He came back to his split-bottomed chair on the porch, the
+tobacco box for the toll, the tin box with Allan's letters, and the view
+across the china asters of the road. The afternoon was past its height,
+but bright yet, with the undersong of the wind and of Thunder Run. The
+yellow cat had had his dinner, too, and after sauntering around the
+yard, and observing the robin on the locust tree again curled himself on
+the porch and slept.
+
+Sairy straightened herself from the washtub. "Somebody's comin' up the
+road. It's a man!" She came toward the porch, wiping her hands, white
+and crinkled, upon her apron. "He's a soldier, Tom! Maybe one of the
+boys air come back--"
+
+Tom rose too, quickly. He staggered and had to catch at the sapling that
+made the pillar. "Maybe it's--"
+
+"No, no! no, no! Don't you think that, an' have a set-back when you find
+it ain't! It ain't tall enough for Allan, an' it ain't him anyhow. It
+_couldn't_ be."
+
+"No, I reckon it couldn't," said Tom. "But anyhow it's one of the boys."
+He was half way to the gate, Sairy after him, and they were the first to
+welcome Steve Dagg back to Thunder Run.
+
+Tom Cole forgot that he had no opinion of Steve anyway. Sairy pursed her
+lips, but a soldier was a soldier. Steve came and sat down on the edge
+of the porch, beside the china asters, "Gawd! don't Thunder Run sound
+natural! Yass'm, I walked from Buford's, an' 't was awful hard to do,
+cause my foot is all sore an' gangrened. I've got a furlough till it
+gets well. It's awful sore. Gawd! ef Thunder Run had seen what I've
+seen, an' heard what I've heard, an' done what I've done, an' been
+through what I've been through--"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 191
+
+
+In Lee's tent, pitched in a grove a mile from Frederick, was held a
+council of war,--Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet, Jeb Stuart. Lee sat
+beside the table, Jackson faced him, sabre across knees, Longstreet had
+his place a little to one side, and Stuart stood, his shoulder against
+the tent pole. The last-named had been speaking. He now ended with "I
+think I may say, sir, that hardly a rabbit has gotten past my pickets.
+He's a fine fellow, Little Mac is! but he's mighty cautious, and you
+couldn't exactly call him swift as lightning. He's still a score of
+miles to the east of us, and he knows mighty little what we are about."
+
+Jackson spoke. "General McClellan does not know if the whole army has
+crossed or only part of it has crossed. He does not know whether we are
+going to move against Washington, or move against Baltimore, or invade
+Pennsylvania. Always mystify, mislead, and deceive the enemy as far as
+possible."
+
+Longstreet spoke. "Well, by the time he makes those twenty miles the
+troops should be rested and in condition. We'll have another battle and
+another victory."
+
+Lee spoke, addressing Stuart. "You have done your work most skilfully,
+general. It is not every army that has a Jeb Stuart!" He paused, then
+spoke to all. "McClellan will not be up for several days. Across the
+river, in Virginia, are yet fourteen thousand of the enemy. I had hoped
+that, scattered as they are, Washington would withdraw them when it
+heard of our crossing. It has not done so, however. It is not well to
+have in our rear that entrenched camp at Harper's Ferry. It is my idea,
+gentlemen, that it might be possible to repeat the manoeuvre of Second
+Manassas."
+
+Stonewall Jackson hitched his chair closer. Stuart chuckled joyously.
+Longstreet looked dubious. "Do you mean, general, that you would again
+divide the army?"
+
+Lee rested his crossed hands on the table before him. "Gentlemen, did I
+have the Northern generals' numbers, I, too, might be cautious. Having
+only Robert E. Lee's numbers, I advance another policy. It is my idea
+again to divide the army."
+
+"In the enemy's country? We have not fifty-five thousand fighting
+strength."
+
+"Yes, in the enemy's country. And I know that we have not fifty-five
+thousand fighting strength. My plan is this, gentlemen. General Stuart
+has proved his ability to hold all roads and mask all movements. We will
+form two columns, and behind the screen which his cavalry provides, one
+column will move north and one column will move south. By advancing
+toward Hagerstown the first will create the impression that Pennsylvania
+is to be invaded. Moreover Catoctin and South Mountain are strong
+defensive positions. The other column will move with expedition.
+Recrossing the Potomac, it will invest and capture Harper's Ferry. That
+done, it will return at once into Maryland, rejoining me before
+McClellan is up."
+
+Longstreet swore. "By God, that is a bold plan!--What if McClellan
+should learn it?"
+
+"As against that, we must trust in General Stuart. These people must be
+driven out of Harper's Ferry. All our communications are threatened."
+
+Longstreet was blunt. "Well, sir, I think it is madness. Pray don't send
+me on any such errand!"
+
+Lee smiled. "General Jackson, what is your opinion?"
+
+Jackson spoke with brevity. "I might prefer, sir, to attack McClellan
+first and then turn upon Harper's Ferry. But I see no madness in the
+other plan--if the movement is rapid. Sometimes to be bold is the sanest
+thing you can do. It is necessary of course that the enemy should be
+kept in darkness."
+
+"Then, general, you will undertake the reduction of Harper's Ferry?"
+
+"If you order me to do it, sir, I will do it."
+
+"Very good. You will start at dawn. Besides your own you shall have
+McLaws's and Anderson's divisions. The remainder of the army will leave
+Frederick an hour or two later. Colonel Chilton will at once issue the
+order of march." He drew a piece of paper toward him and with a pencil
+made a memorandum--SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 191.
+
+The remainder of the ninth of September passed. The tenth of September
+passed, and the eleventh, mild, balmy and extremely still. The twelfth
+found the landscape for miles around Frederick still dozing. At noon,
+however, upon this day things changed. McClellan's strong cavalry
+advance came into touch with Jeb Stuart a league or two to the east.
+There ensued a skirmish approaching in dignity to an engagement. Finally
+the grey drew off, though not, to the Federal surprise, in the direction
+of Frederick. Instead they galloped north.
+
+The blue advance trotted on, sabre to hand, ready for the dash into
+Frederick. Pierced at last was the grey, movable screen! Now with the
+infantry close behind, with the magnificent artillery rumbling up, with
+McClellan grim from the Seven Days--now for the impact which should
+wipe out the memory of the defeat of a fortnight ago, of the second Bull
+Run, an impact that should grind rebellion small! They came to Frederick
+and found a quiet shell. There was no one there to sabre.
+
+Information abounded. McClellan, riding in with his staff toward
+evening, found himself in a sandstorm of news, through which nothing
+could be distinctly observed. Prominent citizens were brought before
+him. "Yes, general; they undoubtedly went north. Yes, sir, the morning
+of the tenth. Two columns, but starting one just after the other and on
+the same road. Yes, sir, some of our younger men did follow on horseback
+after an hour or two. They could just see the columns still moving
+north. Then they ran against Stuart's cordon and they had to turn back.
+Frederick's been just like a desert island--nobody coming and nobody
+getting away. For all he's as frisky as a puppy, Jeb Stuart's a mighty
+good watch dog!"
+
+McClellan laughed. "'Beauty' Stuart!--I wish I had him here." He grew
+grave again. "I am obliged to you, sir. Who's this, Ames?"
+
+"It is a priest, sir, that's much looked up to. He says he has a
+collection of maps--Father Tierney, will you speak to the general?"
+
+"Faith, and that I will, my son!" said Father Tierney. "Good avenin',
+general, and the best of fortunes!"
+
+"Good evening, Father. What has your collection to do with it?"
+
+"Faith," said Father Tierney, "and that's for you to judge, general. It
+was the avenin' of the eighth, and I was sittin' in my parlour after
+Judy O'Flaherty's funeral, and having just parted with Father Lavalle at
+the Noviciate. And there came a rap, and an aide of Stonewall
+Jackson's--But whisht! maybe I am taking up your time, general, with
+things you already know?"
+
+"Go on, go on! 'An aide of Stonewall Jackson's--'"
+
+"'Holy powers!' thinks I, 'no rest even afther a funeral!' but 'Come in,
+come in, my son!' I said, and in he comes. 'My name is Jarrow, Father,'
+says he, 'and General Jackson has heard that you have a foine collection
+of maps.'
+
+"'And that's thrue enough,' says I, 'and what then, my son?' Whereupon
+he lays down his sword and cap and says, 'May I look at thim?'"
+
+Father Tierney coughed. "There's a number of gentlemen waiting in the
+entrry. Maybe, general, you'd be afther learning of the movement of the
+ribils with more accuracy from thim. And I could finish about the maps
+another time. You aren't under any obligation to be listenin' to me."
+
+"Shut the door, Ames," said the general. "Now Father.--'May I look at
+them,' he said."
+
+"'Why, av course,' said I, 'far be it from Benedict Tierney to put a
+lock on knowledge!' and I got thim down. 'There's one that was made for
+Leonard Calvert in 1643'--says I, 'and there's another showing St.
+Mary's about the time of the Indian massacre, and there's a very rare
+one of the Chesapeake--'
+
+"'Extremely interesting' he says, 'but for General Jackson's purposes
+1862 will answer. You have recent maps also?'
+
+"'Yes, I have,' I said, and I got thim down, rather disappointed, having
+thought him interested in Colonial Maryland and maybe in the location of
+missions. 'What do you wish?' said I, still polite, though I had lost
+interest. 'A map of Pennsylvania,' said he--"
+
+"A map of Pennsylvania!--Ames, get your notebook there."
+
+"And I unrolled it and he looked at it hard. 'Good road to Waynesboro?'
+he said, and says I, 'Fair, my son, fair!' And says he, 'I may take this
+map to General Jackson?' 'Yes,' said I, 'but I hope you'll soon be so
+good as to return it.' 'I will,' said he. 'Bedad,' said I, 'you ribils
+are right good at returning things! I'll say that for you!' said I--and
+he rolled up the map and put it under his arm."
+
+The general drew a long breath. "Pennsylvania invaded by way of
+Waynesboro. I am much obliged, Father--"
+
+"Wait, wait, my son, I'm not done, yet! And thin, says he, 'General
+Jackson wants a map of the country due east from here, one,' says he,
+'that shows the roads to Baltimore.'"
+
+"Baltimore!--"
+
+"'Have you got that one?' says he. 'Yis,' says I, and unrolled it, and
+he looked at it carefully and long. 'I see,' says he, 'that by going
+north from Frederick to Double Pipe Creek you would strike there the
+turnpike running east. Thank you, Father! May I take this one, too?'
+And he rolled it up and put it under his arm--"
+
+"Baltimore," said McClellan, "Baltimore--"
+
+"'And now, Father,' says he, 'have you one of the region between here
+and Washington?'... Don't be afther apologizing, general! There are
+times when I want a strong word meself. So I got that map, too, and he
+looked at it steadily. 'I understand,' says he, 'that going west by
+north you would strike a road that leads you south again?'--'And that's
+thrue,' said I. And he looked at the map long and steadily again, and he
+asked what was the precise distance from Point of Rocks to Washington--"
+
+"Point of Rocks! Good Lord! Ames, get ready to take these telegrams--"
+
+"And thin he said, 'May I have this, too, Father?' and he rolled it up,
+and said General Jackson would certainly be obliged and would return
+thim in good order. (Which he did.) And thin he took up his cap and
+sword and said good avenin' and went. That's all that I know of the
+matter, general, saving and excepting, that the ribil columns certainly
+_started_ next morning with their faces toward the great State of
+Pennsylvania. Don't mention it, general!--though if you are interested
+in good works, and I'm not doubting the same, there's an orphan asylum
+here--"
+
+Having arrived at a cross-roads without a signpost McClellan
+characteristically hesitated. The activity of the next twelve hours was
+principally electrical and travelled by wire from Frederick to
+Washington and Washington to Frederick. The cavalry, indeed was pushed
+forward toward Boonsboro, but for the remainder of the army, as it came
+up, corps by corps, the night passed in inaction, and morning dawned on
+inaction. March north toward Pennsylvania, and leave Washington to be
+bombarded!--turn south and east toward Washington and hear a cry of
+protest and anger from an invaded state!--turn due east to Baltimore and
+be awakened by the enemy's cannon thundering against the other sides of
+the figure!--leave Baltimore out of the calculation and lose, perhaps,
+the whole of Maryland! McClellan was disturbed enough. And then, in the
+great drama of real life there occurred an incident.
+
+An aide appeared in the doorway of the room in which were gathered
+McClellan and several of his generals. The discussion had been a heated
+one; all the men looked haggard, disturbed. "What is it?" asked
+McClellan sharply.
+
+The aide held something in his hand. "This has just been found, sir. It
+seems to have been dropped at a street corner. Leaves and rubbish had
+been blown over it. The soldier who found it brought it here. He thought
+it important--and I think it is, sir."
+
+He crossed the floor and gave it to the general. "Three cigars wrapped
+in a piece of paper! Why, what--A piece of paper wrapped around three
+cigars. Open the shutters more widely, Ames!"
+
+                        HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,
+
+                                               _September 9, 1862._
+
+                       SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 191
+
+    The army will resume its march to-morrow, taking the Hagerstown
+    road. General Jackson's command will form the advance, and after
+    passing Middletown with such portion as he may select, take the
+    route toward Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac at the most convenient
+    point, and by Friday morning take possession of the Baltimore and
+    Ohio Railroad, capture such of the enemy as may be at Martinsburg,
+    and intercept such as may attempt to escape from Harper's Ferry.
+
+    General Longstreet's command will pursue the main road as far as
+    Boonsborough, where it will halt with reserve, supply, and baggage
+    trains of the army.
+
+    General McLaws, with his own division and that of General R. H.
+    Anderson, will follow General Longstreet. On reaching Middletown he
+    will take the route to Harper's Ferry, and by Friday morning possess
+    himself of the Maryland Heights and endeavour to capture the enemy
+    at Harper's Ferry and vicinity.
+
+    General Walker with his division, after accomplishing the object in
+    which he is now engaged, will cross the Potomac at Cheek's Ford,
+    ascend its right bank to Lovettesville, take possession of Loudoun
+    Heights, if practicable, by Friday morning, Key's Ford on his left,
+    and the road between the end of the mountain and the Potomac on his
+    right. He will as far as possible cooperate with generals McLaws and
+    Jackson and intercept the retreat of the enemy.
+
+    General D. H. Hill's division will form the rearguard of the Army,
+    pursuing the road taken by the main body. The reserve artillery,
+    ordnance and supply trains, etc., will precede General Hill.
+
+    General Stuart will detach a squadron of cavalry to accompany the
+    commands of generals Longstreet, Jackson, and McLaws, and, with the
+    main body of the cavalry, will cover the route of the army, bringing
+    up all stragglers that may have been left behind.
+
+    The commands of Generals Jackson, McLaws, and Walker, after
+    accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will
+    join the main body of the army at Boonsboro or Hagerstown.
+
+                   By command of General R. E. Lee,
+
+                                              R. H. CHILTON.,
+                                            Assistant Adjutant-General.
+
+In the room at Frederick there was a silence that might have been felt.
+At last McClellan rose, and stepping softly to the window, leaned his
+hands upon the sill, and looked out at the bright blue sky. He turned
+presently. "Gentlemen, the longer I live, the more firmly I believe that
+old saying, 'Truth is stranger than fiction!'--By the Hagerstown
+Road--General Hooker, General Reno--"
+
+On the morning of the tenth Stonewall Jackson, leaving Frederick,
+marched west by the Boonsboro Road. Ahead, Stuart's squadrons stopped
+all traffic. The peaceful Maryland villages were entered without warning
+and quitted before the inhabitants recovered from their surprise.
+Cavalry in the rear swept together all stragglers. The detachment,
+twenty-five thousand men, almost half of Lee's army, drove, a swift,
+clean-cut body, between the autumn fields and woods that were beginning
+to turn. In the fields were farmers ploughing, in the orchards gathering
+apples. They stopped and stared. "Well, ain't that a sight?--And half of
+them barefoot!--and their clothes fit for nothing but scarecrows. Well,
+they ain't robbers. No--and their guns are mighty bright!"
+
+South Mountain was crossed at Turner's Gap. It was near sunset when the
+bugles rang halt. Brigade by brigade Stonewall Jackson's command left
+the road, stacked arms, broke ranks in fair, rolling autumn fields and
+woods. A mile or two ahead was the village of Boonsboro. Jackson sent
+forward to make enquiries Major Kyd Douglas of his staff. That officer
+took a cavalryman with him and trotted off.
+
+The little place looked like a Sweet Auburn of the vale, so tranquilly
+innocent did it lie beneath the rosy west. The two officers commented
+upon it, and the next moment ran into a Federal cavalry company sent to
+Sweet Auburn from Hancock for forage or recruits or some such matter.
+The blue troopers set up a huzzah, and charged. The two in grey turned
+and dug spur,--past ran the fields, past ran the woods! The thundering
+pursuit fired its revolvers; the grey turned in saddle and emptied
+theirs, then bent head to horse's neck and plied the spur. Before them
+the road mounted. "Pass the hill and we are safe!--Pass the hill and we
+are safe!" thought the grey, and the spur drew blood. Behind came the
+blue--a dozen troopers. "Stop there, you damned rebels, stop there! If
+you don't, when we catch you we'll cut you to pieces!" Almost at the
+hilltop one of the grey uttered a cry. "Good God! the general!"
+
+Stonewall Jackson was coming toward them. He was walking apparently in
+deep thought, and leading Little Sorrel. He was quite alone. The two
+officers shouted. They saw him look up, take in the situation, and put
+his hand on the saddle bow. Then, to give him time, the two turned.
+"Yaaiih! Yaaaaiiahh!" they yelled, and charged the enemy.
+
+The blue, taken by surprise, misinterpreted the first shout and the
+ensuing action. There must, of course, be coming over the hill a grey
+force detached on some reconnoissance or other from the rebel horde
+known to be reposing at Frederick. Presumably it would be cavalry--and
+coming at a gallop! To stop to cut down these two yelling grey devils
+might be to invite destruction. The blue troopers first emptied their
+revolvers, then wheeled horse, and retired to Sweet Auburn, out of which
+a little later the grey cavalry did indeed drive them.
+
+In the last of the rosy light the two officers, now again at the
+hilltop, saw the camp outspread below it and coming at a double quick
+the regiment which Jackson had sent to the rescue. One checked his
+horse. "What's that?" asked the other.
+
+"The general's gloves. He dropped them when he mounted."
+
+He stooped from his horse and gathered them up. Later, back in camp, he
+went to headquarters. Jackson was talking ammunition with his chief of
+ordnance, an aide of A. P. Hill's standing near, waiting his turn.
+"Well, Major Douglas?"
+
+"Your gloves, general. You dropped them on the hilltop."
+
+"Good! put them there, major, if you please.--Colonel Crutchfield, the
+ordnance train will cross first. As the batteries come up from the river
+see that every caisson is filled. That is all. Now, Captain
+Scarborough--"
+
+"General Hill very earnestly asks, sir, that he may be permitted to
+speak to you."
+
+"Where is General Hill? Is he here?"
+
+"Yes, sir, he is outside the tent."
+
+"Tell him to come in. You have a very good fast horse, Major Douglas.
+There is nothing more, I think, to-night. Good-night."
+
+A. P. Hill entered alone, without his sword. "Good-evening, General
+Hill," said Jackson.
+
+Hill stood very straight, his red beard just gleaming a little in the
+dusky tent. "I am come to prefer a request, sir."
+
+"Yes. What is it?"
+
+"A week ago, upon the crossing of the Potomac, you placed me under
+arrest for what you conceived--for disobedience to orders. Since then
+General Branch has commanded the Light Division."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I feel certain, sir, that battle is imminent. General Branch is a good
+and brave soldier, but--but--I am come to beg, sir, that I may be
+released from arrest till the battle is over."
+
+Stonewall Jackson, sitting stiffly, looked at the other standing, tense,
+energetic, before him. Something stole into his face that without being
+a smile was like a smile. It gave a strange effect of mildness,
+tenderness. It was gone almost as soon as it had come, but it had been
+there. "I can understand your feeling, sir," he said. "A battle _is_
+imminent. Until it is over you are restored to your command."
+
+The detachment of the Army of Northern Virginia going against Harper's
+Ferry crossed the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal at Williamsport and forded
+the Potomac a few hundred yards below the ferry. A. P. Hill, McLaws,
+Walker, Jackson's own, the long column overpassed the silver reaches,
+from the willows and sycamores of the Maryland shore to the tall and
+dreamy woods against the Virginia sky. "We know this place," said the
+old Army of the Valley. "Dam No. 5's just above there!" Regiment by
+regiment, as it dipped into the water, the column broke into song.
+"Carry me back to Old Virginny!" sang the soldiers.
+
+At Martinsburg were thirty-five hundred blue troops. Stonewall Jackson
+sent A. P. Hill down by the turnpike; he himself made a detour and came
+upon the town from the west. The thirty-five hundred blue troops could
+retire southward, a thing hardly to their liking, or they could hasten
+eastward and throw themselves into Harper's Ferry. As was anticipated,
+they chose the latter course.
+
+Stonewall Jackson entered Martinsburg amid acclaim. Here he rested his
+troops a few hours, then in the afternoon swung eastward and bivouacked
+upon the Opequon. "At early dawn," he marched again. Ahead rode his
+cavalry, and they kept the roads on two sides of Harper's Ferry. A
+dispatch came from General Lafayette McLaws. _General Jackson:--After
+some fighting I have got the Maryland Heights. Loudoun Heights in
+possession of General Walker. Enemy cut off north and east._
+
+"Good! good!" said Jackson. "North, east, south, and west."
+
+On the Maryland side of the Potomac, some miles to the north of Harper's
+Ferry, Lee likewise received a report--brought in haste by a courier of
+Stuart's. _General:--The enemy seems to have waked up. McClellan
+reported moving toward South Mountain with some rapidity. I am holding
+Crampton and Turner's Gaps. What are my orders?_
+
+Lee looked eastward toward South Mountain and southward to Harper's
+Ferry. "General McClellan can only be guessing. We must gain time for
+General Jackson at Harper's Ferry." He sent word to Stuart. "D. H.
+Hill's division returning to South Mountain General Longstreet ordered
+back from Hagerstown. We must gain time for General Jackson. Hold the
+gaps."
+
+D. H. Hill and Stuart held them. High above the valleys ran the
+roads--and all the slopes were boulder-strewn, crested moreover by
+broken stone walls. Hooker and Reno with the First and Ninth corps
+attacked Turner's Gap, Franklin's corps attacked Crampton's Gap. High
+above the country side, bloody and determined, eight thousand against
+thirty thousand, raged the battle.
+
+Stonewall Jackson, closely investing Harper's Ferry, posting his
+batteries on both sides of the river, on the Maryland Heights and
+Loudoun Heights, heard the firing to the northward. He knit his brows.
+He knew that McClellan had occupied Frederick, but he knew nothing of
+the copy of an order found wrapped around three cigars. "What do you
+think of it, general?" ventured one of his brigadiers.
+
+"I think, sir, it may be a cavalry engagement. Pleasanton came into
+touch with General Stuart and the Horse Artillery."
+
+"It could not be McClellan in force?"
+
+"I think not, sir. Not unless to his other high abilities were added
+energy and a knowledge of our plans.--Captain Page, this order to
+General McLaws: _General:--You will attack so as to sweep with your
+artillery the ground occupied by the enemy, take his batteries in
+reverse, and otherwise operate against him as circumstances may
+justify._ Lieutenant Byrd, this to General Walker: _General:--You will
+take in reverse the battery on the turnpike and sweep with your
+artillery the ground occupied by the enemy, and silence the batteries on
+the island of the Shenandoah._ Lieutenant Daingerfield, this to General
+A. P. Hill: _General:--You will move along the left bank of the
+Shenandoah, and thus turn the enemy's flank and enter Harper's Ferry._"
+
+This was Sunday. From every hilltop blazed the grey batteries, and down
+upon the fourteen thousand blue soldiers cooped in Harper's Ferry they
+sent an iron death. All afternoon they thundered, and the dusk knew no
+cessation. Harper's Ferry was flame-ringed, there were flames among the
+stars. The air rocked and rang, the river shivered and hurried by. Deep
+night came and a half silence. There was a feeling as if the earth were
+panting for breath. All the air tasted powder.
+
+A. P. Hill, struggling over ground supposed impassable, was in line of
+battle behind Bolivar Heights. Lawton and Jones were yet further
+advanced. All the grey guns were ready--at early dawn they opened. Iron
+death, iron death!--they rained it down on Harper's Ferry and the
+fourteen thousand in garrison there. They silenced the blue guns. Then
+the bugles blew loudly, and Hill assaulted. There were lines of
+breastworks and before them an abattis. The Light Division tore through
+the latter, struck against the first. From the height behind thundered
+the grey artillery.
+
+For a day and a night the blue defence had been stubborn. It was over.
+Out from the eddying smoke, high from the hilltop within the town, there
+was shaken a white flag. A. P. Hill received the place's surrender, and
+Stonewall Jackson rode to Bolivar Heights and then into the town.
+Twelve thousand prisoners, thirteen thousand stands of arms,
+seventy-three guns, a great prize of stores, horses, and wagons came
+into his hand with Harper's Ferry.
+
+On the Bolivar turnpike the Federal General White and his staff met the
+conqueror. The first, general and staff, were handsomely mounted, finely
+equipped, sparklingly clean and whole. The last was all leaf brown--dust
+and rain and wear and tear, scarfed and stained huge boots, and shabby
+forage cap. The surrender was unconditional. Formalities over, there
+followed some talk, a hint on the side of the grey of generous terms,
+some expression on the side of the blue of admiration for great
+fighters, some regret from both for the mortal wound of Miles, the
+officer in command. Stonewall Jackson rode into the town with the
+Federal general. The streets were lined with blue soldiers crowding,
+staring. "That's him, boys! That's Jackson! That's him! _Well!_"
+
+Later A. P. Hill came to the lower room in a stone house where the
+general commanding sat writing a dispatch to Lee. Jackson finished the
+thing in hand, then looked up. "General Hill, the Light Division did
+well. I move almost at once, but I shall leave you here in command until
+the prisoners and public property are disposed of. You will use
+expedition."
+
+"I am not, then, sir, to relinquish the command to General Branch?"
+
+"You are not, sir. Battle will follow battle, and you will lead the
+Light Division. Be more careful hereafter of my orders."
+
+"I will try, sir."
+
+"Good! good!--What is it, colonel?"
+
+"A courier, sir, from General Lee."
+
+The courier entered, saluted, and gave the dispatch. Jackson read it,
+then read it aloud, figure, mien, and voice as quiet as if he were
+repeating some every-day communication.
+
+                             ON THE MARCH, _September 14th_.
+
+    GENERAL,--I regret to say that McClellan has, in some unaccountable
+    fashion, discovered the division of the army as well as its objectives.
+    We have had hard fighting to-day on South Mountain, D. H. Hill and
+    Longstreet both suffering heavily. The troops fought with great
+    determination and held the passes until dusk. We are now falling back
+    on Sharpsburg. Use all possible speed in joining me there.
+
+                                                             LEE.
+
+Stonewall Jackson rose. "General Hill, arrange your matters as rapidly
+as possible. Sharpsburg on the Antietam. Seventeen miles."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+SHARPSBURG
+
+
+"Sharpsburg!" said long afterwards Stephen D. Lee. "Sharpsburg was
+Artillery Hell!"
+
+"Sharpsburg," said the infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia.
+"Sharpsburg! That was the field where an infantryman knew that he stood
+on the most dangerous spot on the earth!"
+
+Through the passes of the South Mountain, over Red Hill, out upon the
+broken ground east of the Antietam poured the blue torrent--McClellan
+and his eighty-seven thousand. Lee met it with a narrow grey sea--not
+thirty thousand men, for A. P. Hill was yet upon the road from Harper's
+Ferry. In Berserker madness, torrent and uproar, clashed the two
+colours.
+
+There was a small white Dunkard church with a background of dark woods.
+It was north of Sharpsburg, near the Hagerstown turnpike, and it marked
+the Confederate left. Stonewall Jackson held the left. Before him was
+Fighting Joe Hooker with Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts.
+
+From a knoll behind Sharpsburg the commander-in-chief looked from
+Longstreet on the right to D. H. Hill, and from Hill to Jackson. He
+looked to the Harper's Ferry Road, but he did not see what he wished to
+see--A. P. Hill's red battle shirt. "Artillery Hell" had begun. There
+was enormous thunder, enormous drifting murk. All the country side, all
+the little Maryland villages and farmhouses blenched beneath that sound.
+Lee put down his field glass. He stood, calm and grand, the smoke and
+uproar at his feet. The Rockbridge Guns came by, going to some indicated
+quarter of the field. In thunder they passed below the knoll, the iron
+war-beasts, the gunners with them, black with powder and grime! All
+saluted; but one, a very young, very ragged, very begrimed private at
+the guns, lingered a moment after his fellows, stood very straight at
+the salute and with an upward look, then with quickened step caught up
+with his gun and disappeared into the smoke ahead. Lee answered a glance
+of his chief of staff. "Yes. It was my youngest son. It was Rob."
+
+The Dunkard church! In this war it was strange how many and how ghastly
+battles surged about small country churches! The Prince of Peace, if he
+indwelled here, must have bowed his head and mourned. Sunrise struck
+upon its white walls; then came a shell and pierced them. The church
+became the core of the turmoil, the white, still reef against which beat
+the wild seas in storm.
+
+Fighting Joe Hooker came out of the North Wood. His battle flags were
+bright and he had drums and brazen horns. Loud and in time, regular as a
+beat in music, came the Huzzah! Huzzah! of his fourteen thousand men. He
+crossed the turnpike, he came down on the Dunkard church. "Yaii! Yaaaii!
+Yaaaaaaaaiihhh!" yelled the grey sea,--no time at all, only fierce
+determination. Sometimes a grey drum beat, or bugle called, but there
+was no other music, save the thunder of the guns and the long rattle,
+never ceasing, of the musketry. There were battle flags, squares of
+crimson with a starry Andrew's cross. They went forward, they shrank
+back. Standard-bearers were killed. Gaunt, powder-grimed hands caught at
+the staves, lifted them; the battle-flags went forward again.
+
+Doubleday struck and Ricketts. They charged against Stonewall Jackson
+and the narrow grey sea. All the ground was broken; alignment was lost;
+blue waves and grey went this way and that in a broken, tumultuous fray.
+But the blue waves were the heavier; in mass alone they outdid the grey.
+They pushed the grey sea back, back, back toward the dark wood about the
+Dunkard church! Then Stonewall Jackson came along the front, riding in a
+pelting, leaden rain. "Steady, men. Steady! God is over us!" His men
+received him with a cry of greeting and enthusiasm that was like a
+shriek, it was so wild and high. His power upon them had grown and
+grown. He was Stonewall Jackson! He was Stonewall Jackson! First, they
+would die for those battle-flags and the cause they represented; second,
+they would die for one another, comrades, brethren! third, they would
+die for Stonewall Jackson! They lifted their voices for him now, gaunt
+and ragged troops with burning eyes. _Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall
+Jackson! Virginia! Virginia! Virginia! the South! the South!_ He turned
+his horse, standing in the whistling, leaden rain. "Forward, and drive
+them!"
+
+Lawton and D. H. Hill leaped against Meade. He was a staunch fighter,
+but he gave back. The wood about the Dunkard church appeared to writhe
+like Dante's wood, it was so full of groaning, of maimed men beside the
+tree trunks. The dead lay where they fell, and the living stepped upon
+them. Meade gave back, back--and then Mansfield came in thunder to
+reinforce the blue.
+
+The grey fought as even in this war they had hardly fought before. They
+were so gaunt, they were so ragged, they were so tired! But something
+ethnic was coming more and more rapidly to the front. They were near
+again to savage nature. The Maryland woods might have been thicker,
+darker, the small church might have been some boulder altar beside some
+early Old World river. They were a tribe again, and they were fighting
+another and much larger tribe whom they had reason, reason, reason to
+hate! Their existence was at stake and the existence of all that their
+hearts held dear. They fought with fury. About each were his
+tribesmen--all were brothers! Brother fought for brother, brother saw
+brother fall, brother sprang to avenge brother. Their lips were
+blackened from tearing cartridges; their eyes, large in their thin,
+bronzed faces, burned against the enemy; their fingers were quick, quick
+at the musket lock; the spirit was the spirit behind hurled stones of
+old, swung clubs, thrown javelins! They had a loved leader, a great
+strong head man who ruled them well and led them on to victory. They
+fought for him too, for his scant and curt praise, for his "Good, Good!"
+They fought for their own lives, each man for his own life, for their
+tribe, their possessions, for women at home and children, for their
+brethren, their leader, their cause. Something else, too, of the past
+was there in force--hatred of him who opposed. They fought for hate at
+Sharpsburg, as they fought for love. The great star drew, the iron thong
+fell. Led and driven, the tribe fought gigantically.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The battle became furious. Within the din of artillery and musketry human
+voices, loud, imperative, giving orders, shouting, wailing, died like a low
+murmur in the blast. Out of the wildly drifting smoke, now dark, now
+flame-lit, forms emerged, singly or in great bodies, then the smoke drew
+together, hiding the struggle. There was blackness and grime as from the
+ash of a volcano. The blood pounded behind the temples, the eyeballs
+started, the tongue was thick in the mouth, battle smell and battle taste,
+a red light, and time in crashes like an earthquake-toppling city! The
+inequalities of the ground became exaggerated. Mere hillocks changed into
+rocky islands. Seize them, fortify them, take them before the blue can! The
+tall maize grew gigantically taller. Break through these miles of cane as
+often before we have broken through them, the foemen crashing before us
+down to their boats! The narrow tongues of woods widened, widened. Take
+these deep forests, use them for shelter, from them send forth these new
+arrows of death--fight, fight! in the rolling murk, the red light and
+crying!
+
+Before the Dunkard church Starke, commanding Jackson's old division, was
+killed, Jones was wounded, Lawton wounded. Many field officers were
+down, many, many of lesser rank. Of the blue, Mansfield was killed,
+Hooker was wounded, and Hartsuff and Crawford. The grey had pressed the
+blue back, back! Now in turn the blue drove the grey. The walls of the
+white church were splashed with blood, pocked with bullets. Dead men lay
+at the door; within were those of the wounded who could get there. But
+the shells came too, the shells pierced the roof and entered. War came
+in, ebon, blood-stained, and grinning. The Prince of Peace was crowded
+out.
+
+The artillery was deafening. In the midst of a tremendous burst of sound
+D. H. Hill flung in the remainder of his division. Sumner came through
+the smoke. The grey and blue closed in a death grapple. From toward the
+centre, beneath the howling storm rose a singing--
+
+                  The race is not to them that's got
+                    The longest legs to run.
+
+"Hood's Texans! Hood's Texans!" cried the Stonewall and all the other
+brigades on the imperilled left. "Come on, Hood's Texans! Come on!
+Yaaaii! Yaaaaaiih!"
+
+                  Nor the battle to those people,
+                    That shoots the biggest gun.
+
+The Texans came to the Dunkard church. Stonewall Jackson launched a
+thunderbolt, grey as steel, all his men moving up as one, against the
+opposing, roaring sea. The sea gave back. Then Sumner called in
+Sedgwick's fresh troops.
+
+Allan Gold, fighting with the 65th, took the colours from the last of
+the colour guard. He was tall and strong and he swung them high. The
+glare from an exploding shell showed him and the battle flag. Gone was
+the quiet school-teacher, gone even the scout and woodsman. He stood a
+great Viking, with yellow hair, and the battle rage had come to him. He
+began to chant, unconscious as a harp through which strikes a strong
+wind. "Come on!" he chanted. "Come on!
+
+                  "Sixty-fifth, come on!
+                    Come on, the Stonewall!
+                  Remember Manassas,
+                    The first and the second Manassas!
+                  Remember McDowell,
+                    Remember Front Royal,
+                  Remember the battle of Winchester,
+                    Remember Cross Keys,
+                  Remember Port Republic,
+    The battle of Kernstown, and all our battles and skirmishes,
+    Our marches and forced marches, bivouacs, and camp-fires,
+    Brother's hand in brother's hand, and the battle to-morrow!
+    Remember the Seven Days, Seven Days, Seven Days!
+    Remember the Seven Days! Remember Cedar Run.
+    The Groveton Wood, and the Railroad cut at Manassas
+    Where you threw stones when your cartridges were gone, where you
+      struck with the bayonet,
+    And the General spoke to you then, 'Steady, men, steady!'
+    Remember Chantilly, remember Loudoun and Maryland Heights.
+    Harper's Ferry was yesterday. Remember and strike them again!
+    Come on, 65th! Come on, the Stonewall!"
+
+Back through the cornfield before the Dunkard church fell the blue. Dead
+and dying choked the cornfield as the dead and dying had choked the cane
+brake. Blade and stalks were beaten down, the shells tore up the earth.
+The blue reformed and came again, a resistless mass. Heavier and
+heavier, Fighting Joe Hooker, with Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts and
+Sumner, struck against Stonewall Jackson! Back came the grey to the
+little Dunkard church. All around it, wood and open filled with
+clangour. The blue pressed in--the grey were giving way, were giving
+way! An out-worn company raised a cry, "They're flanking us!" Something
+like a shiver passed over the thinning lines, then, grey and haggard,
+they tore another cartridge. Stonewall Jackson's voice came from behind
+a reef of smoke. "Stand fast, men! Stand fast. There are troops on the
+road from Harper's Ferry. It is General McLaws. Stand fast!"
+
+It was McLaws, with his black bullet head, his air of a Roman Consul! In
+he thundered with his twenty-five hundred men, tawny with the dust of
+the seventeen miles from Harper's Ferry. He struck Sedgwick full. For
+five minutes there was brazen clangour and shouting and an agony of
+effort, then the blue streamed back, past the Dunkard wood and church,
+back into the dreadful cornfield.
+
+Maury Stafford, sent with a statement to the commander-in-chief, crossed
+in one prolonged risk of life from the wild left to the only less
+stormed-against centre. Here a strong blue current, French and
+Richardson, strove against a staunch grey ledge--a part of D. H. Hill's
+line, with Anderson to support. Here was a sunken road, that, later, was
+given a descriptive name. Here was the Bloody Lane. Lee was found
+standing upon a knoll, calm and grand. "I yet look for A. P. Hill," he
+said. "He has a talent for appearing at identically the right moment."
+
+Stafford gave his statement. All over the field the staff had suffered
+heavily. Some were dead, many were wounded. Those who were left did
+treble duty. Lee sent this officer on to Longstreet, holding the long
+ridge on the right.
+
+Stafford rode through the withering storm across that withered field.
+There seemed no light from the sky; the light was the glare from the
+guns. He marked, through a rift in the smoke, a battery where it stood
+upon a height, above felled trees. He thought it was Pelham's--the Horse
+Artillery. It stood for a moment, outlined against the orange-bosomed
+cloud, then, like an army of wraiths, the smoke came between and hid it.
+His horse frightened at a dead man in his path. The start and plunging
+were unusual, and the rider looked to see the reason. The soldier had
+drawn letters from his breast and had died with them in his hands. The
+unfolded, fluttering sheets stirred as though they had life. Stafford,
+riding on, found the right and found Longstreet looking sombrely, like
+an old eagle from his eyrie. "I told General Lee," he said "that we
+ought never to have divided. I don't see A. P. Hill. You tell General
+Lee that I've only got D. R. Jones and the knowledge that we fight like
+hell, and that Burnside is before me with fourteen thousand men."
+
+Stafford retraced his way. The ground beneath was burned and scarred,
+the battle cloud rolled dark, the minies sang beside his ear. Now he was
+in a barren place, tasting of powder, smelling of smoke, now lit, now
+darkened, but vacant of human life, and now he was in a press of men,
+grey forms advancing and retreating, or standing firing, and now he was
+where fighting had been and there was left a wrack of the dead and
+dying. He reached the centre and gave his message, then turned toward
+the left again. A few yards and his horse was killed under him. He
+disengaged himself and presently caught at the bridle and stayed
+another. There were many riderless horses on the field of Sharpsburg,
+but he had hardly mounted before this one, too, was killed. He went on
+afoot. He entered a sunken road, dropped between rough banks overhung by
+a few straggling trees. The road was filled with men lying down, all in
+shadow beneath the rolling battle smoke. Stafford thought it a regiment
+waiting for orders; then he saw that they were all dead men. He must go
+back to the Dunkard wood, and this seemed his shortest way. He entered
+the lane and went up it as quickly as he might for the forms that lay
+thick in the discoloured light. It looked as though the earth were
+bleeding, and all the people were fantastic about him. Some lay as
+straight as on a sculptured tomb, and some were hooped, and some lay
+like a cross, and some were headless. As he stepped with what care he
+might, a fierce yelling broke out on the side that was the grey side.
+There was a charge coming--already he saw the red squares tossing! He
+moved to the further side of the sunken road and braced himself against
+the bank, putting his arm about a twisted, protruding cedar. D. H.
+Hill's North Carolinians hung a moment, tall, gaunt, yelling, then
+swooped down into the sunken lane, passed over the dead, mounted the
+other ragged bank and went on. Stafford waited to hear the shock. It
+came; full against a deep blue wave. Richardson had been killed and
+Hancock commanded here. The blue wave was strong. The sound of the melee
+was frightful; then out of it burst a loud huzzahing. Stafford
+straightened himself. The grey were coming back, and after them the
+blue. Almost before he could unclasp his arm from the cedar, the first
+spray of gaunt, exhausted, bleeding men came over and down into the
+sunken lane. All the grey wave followed. At the moment there outburst a
+renewed and tremendous artillery battle. The smoke drifting across the
+Bloody Lane was like the fall of night, a night of cloud and storm.
+Orange flashes momentarily lit the scene, and the sullen thunders
+rolled. The grey, gaunt and haggard, but their colours with them,
+overpassed the dead and wounded, now choking the sunken road. Behind
+them were heard the blue, advancing and huzzahing. The grey wave
+remounted the bank down which it plunged fifteen minutes before. At the
+top it stayed a moment, thin and grey, spectral in the smoke pall, the
+battle flags like hovering, crimson birds. A line of flame leaped, one
+long crackle of musketry, then it resumed its retreat, falling back on
+the west wood. The blue, checked a moment by that last volley, now
+poured down into the sunken road, overpassed the thick ranks of the dead
+and wounded, mounted, and swept on in a counter charge.
+
+Maury Stafford had left the cedar and started across with the last
+broken line of the grey. Going down the crumbling bank his spur caught
+in a gnarled and sprawling root. The check was absolute, and brought
+him violently to his knees. Before he could free himself the grey had
+reached the opposite crest, fired its volley, and gone on. He started to
+follow. He heard the blue coming, and it was expedient to get out of
+this trap. Before him, from the figures covering the earth like thrown
+jackstraws, an arm was suddenly lifted. The hand clutched at him,
+passing. He looked down. It was a boy of nineteen with a ghastly face.
+The voice came up: "Whoever you are, you're alive and well, and I'm
+dying. You'll take it and put a stamp on it and mail it, won't you? I'm
+dying. People ought to do things when the dying ask them to."
+
+Stafford looked behind him, then down again. "Do what? Quick! They're
+coming."
+
+The hand would not relax its clasp, but its fellow fumbled at the grey
+jacket. "It's my letter. They won't know if they don't get it. My side
+hurts, but it don't hurt like knowing they won't know ... that I was
+sorry." The face worked. "It's here but I can't--Please get it--"
+
+"You must let me go," said Stafford, and tried to unclasp the hand.
+"Stay any longer and I will be killed or taken."
+
+The hand closed desperately, both hands now. "For God's sake! I don't
+believe you've got so hard a heart. Take it and stamp it and mail it. If
+they don't know they'll never understand and I'll die knowing they'll
+never understand. For God's sake!"
+
+Stafford knelt beside him, opened the grey jacket, and took out the
+letter. Blood was upon it, but the address was legible. "Die easy. I'll
+stamp and mail it. I will send a word with it, too, if you like."
+
+A light came into the boy's face. "Tell them that I was like the
+prodigal son, but that I'm going home--I'm going home--"
+
+The arms fell, the breast ceased to heave, the head drew backward. Death
+came and stamped the light upon the face. Before Stafford could get to
+his feet, the blue wave had plunged into the trough. He remembered using
+his pistol, and he remembered a dizziness of being borne backward. He
+remembered that a phrase had gone through his mind "the instability of
+all material things." Then came a blank. He did not assume that he had
+lost consciousness, but simply he could not remember. He had been
+wrecked in a turbulent, hostile ocean. It had made him and others
+captives, and now they were together at a place which he remembered was
+called the Roulette House. An hour might have passed, two hours; he
+really could not tell. There were a number of prisoners, most of them
+badly wounded. They lay in the back yard of the place, on the steps of
+out-houses, with blue soldiers for guards. A surgeon came through the
+yard, and helped a little the more agonizedly hurt. He glanced at
+Stafford's star and sash, came across and offered to bind up the cut
+across his forehead. "An awful field," he said. "This war is getting
+horrible. You're a Virginian, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Used to know a lot of Virginia doctors. Liked them first rate! Now we
+are enemies, and it seems to me a pity. Guess it's as Shakespeare says,
+'What fools these mortals be!' I know war's getting to seem to me an
+awful foolishness. That cornfield out there is sickening--Now! that
+bleeding's stopped--"
+
+On the left, around and before the Dunkard church, the very fury of the
+storm brought about at last a sudden failing, a stillness and cessation
+that seemed like those of death. Sound enough there was undoubtedly, and
+in the centre the battle yet roared, but by comparison there seemed a
+dark and sultry calm. Far and near lay the fallen. It was now noon, and
+since dawn twelve thousand men had been killed or wounded on this left,
+attacked by Fighting Joe Hooker, held by Stonewall Jackson. Fifteen
+general officers were dead or disabled. Hardly a brigade, not many
+regiments, were officered as they had been when the sun rose. There was
+an exhaustion. Franklin had entered on the field, and one might have
+thought that the grey would yet be overpowered. But all the blue forces
+were broken, disorganized; there came an exhaustion, a lassitude.
+McClellan sent an order forbidding another attack. Cornfield and wood
+lay heavy, hot, and dark, and by comparison, still.
+
+Stonewall Jackson sat Little Sorrel near the Dunkard church. They
+brought him reports of the misery of the wounded and their great
+numbers. His medical director, of whom he was fond, came to him.
+"General, it is very bad! The field hospital looks as though all the
+fields of the world had given tribute. I know that you do not like
+hospitals--but would you come and look, sir?"
+
+The general shook his head. "What is the use of looking? There have to
+be wounded. Do the utmost that you can, doctor."
+
+"I have thought, sir, that, seeing the day is not ended, and they are so
+overwhelmingly in force, and the Potomac is not three miles in our
+rear--I have thought that we might manage to get the less badly hurt
+across. If they attack again and the day should end in defeat--"
+
+"What have you got there?" asked Jackson. "Apples?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I passed beneath a tree and gathered half a dozen. Would you
+like--"
+
+"Yes. I breakfasted very early." He took the rosy fruit and began to
+eat. His eyes, just glinting under the forage cap, surveyed the scene
+before him,--trampled wood where the shells had cut through bough and
+branch, trampled cornfields where it seemed that a whirlwind had passed,
+his resting, shattered commands, the dead and the dying, the dead
+horses, the disabled guns, the drifting sulphurous smoke, and, across
+the turnpike, in the fields and by the east wood, the masses of blue,
+overcanopied also by sulphurous smoke. He finished the apple, took out a
+handkerchief, and wiped fingers and lips. "Dr. McGuire, they have done
+their worst. And never use the word defeat."
+
+He jerked his hand into the air. "Do your best for the wounded, doctor,
+do all that is humanly possible, but do it _here_! I am going now to the
+centre to see General Lee."
+
+Behind the wood, in a grassy hollow moderately sheltered from the
+artillery fire, at the edge of the ghastly field hospital, a young
+surgeon, sleeves rolled up and blood from head to foot, met the medical
+director. "Doctor, the Virginia Legion came on with General McLaws.
+They've just brought their colonel in--Fauquier Cary, you know. I wish
+you would look at his arm."
+
+The two looked. "There's but one thing, colonel."
+
+"Amputation? Very well, very well. Get it over with." He straightened
+himself on the boards where the men had laid him. "Sedgwick, too!
+Sedgwick and I striking at each other like two savages decked with beads
+and scalps! Fratricidal strife if ever there was fratricidal strife! All
+right, doctor. I had a great-uncle lost his arm at Yorktown. Can't
+remember him,--my father and mother loved to talk of him--old Uncle
+Edward. All right--it's all right."
+
+The two doctors were talking together. "Only a few ounces left. Better
+use it here?"
+
+"Yes, yes!--One minute longer, colonel. We've got a little chloroform."
+
+The bottle was brought. Cary eyed it. "Is that all you've got?"
+
+"Yes. We took a fair quantity at Manassas, but God only knows the amount
+we could use! Now."
+
+The man stretched on the boards motioned with the hand that had not been
+torn by the exploding shell. "No, no! I don't want it. Keep it for some
+one with a leg to cut off!" He smiled, a charming, twisted smile,
+shading into a grimace of pain. "No chloroform at Yorktown! I'll be as
+much of a man as was my great-uncle Edward! Yes, yes, I'm in earnest,
+doctor. Put it by for the next. All right; I'm ready."
+
+On the knoll by Sharpsburg Lee and Jackson stood and looked toward the
+right. McClellan had apparently chosen to launch three battles in one
+day; in the early morning against the Confederate left, at midday
+against its centre, now against its right. A message came from
+Longstreet. "Burnside is in motion. I've got D. R. Jones and twenty-five
+hundred men."
+
+It was evident that Burnside was in motion. With fourteen thousand men
+he came over the stone bridge across the Antietam. They were fresh
+troops; their flags were flying, their drums were beating, their bugles
+braying. The line moved with huzzahs toward the ridge held by
+Longstreet. From the left came tearing past the knoll the Confederate
+batteries. Lee was massing them in the centre, training them against the
+eastern foot of the ridge. There had been a lull in the storm, now
+Pelham opened with loud thunders. Other guns followed. The Federal
+batteries began to blaze; there broke out a madness of sound. In the
+midst of it D. R. Jones with his twenty-five hundred men clashed with
+Burnside's leading brigades.
+
+Stonewall Jackson pulled the forage cap lower, jerked his hand into the
+air. "Good! good! I will go, sir, and send in my freshest troops."
+
+"Look," said Lee. "Look, general! On the Harper's Ferry road."
+
+All upon the knoll turned and gazed. Air and light played with the
+battle smoke, drove it somewhat to one side and showed for a few seconds
+a long and sunlit road, the road from Harper's Ferry. One of the staff
+began a low uncontrollable laughter. "By God! I see his red battle
+shirt! By God! I see his red battle shirt!"
+
+Lee with a glance checked the sound. He himself looked nobly lifted,
+grave and thankful. The battle smoke closed, obscuring the road, but the
+sound of marching men came along it, distinguishable even beneath the
+artillery fire. "Good, good!" said Jackson. "A. P. Hill is a good
+soldier."
+
+Tawny with the dust of the seventeen miles, at a double quick and
+yelling, the crimson battle flags slanting forward, in swung the Light
+Division! D. R. Jones rallied. Decimated, out-worn, but dangerous, the
+aiding regiments from the left did well. The grey guns worked with a
+certain swift and steadfast grimness. From all the ridges of the
+Antietam the blue cannon thundered, thundered. Blue and grey, the
+musketry rolled. Sound rose into terrific volume, the eddying smoke
+blotted out the day. Artillery Hell--Infantry Inferno--the field of
+Sharpsburg roared now upon the right.
+
+The Horse Artillery occupied a low ridge like a headland jutting into a
+grassy field. Below, above, behind, the smoke rolled; in front the flame
+leaped from their guns, the shells sped. There was a great background of
+battle cloud, lit every ten seconds by the glare from an opposing
+battery. John Pelham stood directing. Six guns were in fierce and
+continuous action. The men serving them were picked artillery men. To
+and fro they moved, down they stooped, up they stood, stepped backward
+from the gun at fire, moved forward at recoil, fell again to the loading
+with the precision of the drill ground. They were half naked, they were
+black with powder, glistening with sweat, some were bleeding. In the
+light from the guns all came boldly into relief; in the intermediate
+deep murk they sank from sight, became of the clouds, cloudy, mere
+shapes in the semi-darkness.
+
+Stonewall Jackson, returning to the Dunkard church and passing behind
+this headland, turned Little Sorrel's head and came upon the plateau.
+Pelham met him. "Yes, general, we're doing well. Yes, sir, it's holding
+out. Caissons were partly filled during the lull."
+
+"Good, good!" said Jackson. He dismounted and walked forward to the
+guns. Pelham followed. "I don't think you should be out here, general.
+They've got our range very accurately--"
+
+The other apparently did not notice the remark. He stood near one of the
+guns and turned his eyes upon the battle on the right. "Longstreet
+strikes a heavy blow. He and Hill will push them back. Colonel Pelham,
+train two guns upon that body of the enemy at the ford."
+
+Pelham moved toward the further guns. The howitzer nearest Jackson was
+fired, reloaded, fired again. The men beside it stood back. It blazed,
+thundered, recoiled. A great, black, cylindrical shell came with a
+demoniac shriek. At the moment the platform was lit with the battle
+glare. Its fall was seen. It fell, smoking, immediately beside Stonewall
+Jackson. Such was the concussion of the air that for a moment he was
+stunned. Involuntarily his arm went up before his eyes; he made a
+backward step. Pelham, returning from the further guns and still some
+yards away, gave a shout of warning and horror; from all the men who had
+seen the thing there burst a similar cry. With the motion almost of the
+shell itself, a man of the crew of the howitzer reached the torn earth
+and the cylinder. His body half naked, blackened, brushed, in passing,
+the general. He put his hands beneath the heated, smoking bottle of
+death, lifted it, and rushed on to the edge of the escarpment fifty feet
+away. Here he swung it with force, threw it from him with burned hands.
+Halfway to the field below it exploded.
+
+Pelham, very pale, protested with some sternness. "You can't stay here,
+general! My men can't work with you here. It doesn't matter about us,
+but it does matter about you. Please go, sir."
+
+"I am going, colonel. I have seen what I wished to see. Who is the man
+who took up the shell?"
+
+Pelham turned to the howitzer. "Which of you was it?"
+
+Half a dozen voices were raised in answer. "Deaderick, sir. But he
+burned his hands badly and he asked the lieutenant if he could go to the
+rear--"
+
+"Good, good!" said Stonewall Jackson. "He did well. But there are many
+brave men in this army." He went back to Little Sorrel, where he stood
+cropping the dried grass, and stiffly mounted. As he turned from the
+platform and the guns, all lit again by the orange glare, there came
+from the right an accession of sound, then high, shrill, and triumphant
+the Confederate yell. A shout arose from the Horse Artillery. "They're
+breaking! they're breaking! Burnside, too, is breaking! Yaaaii!
+Yaaaaiiihh! Yaaaaaiiihhh!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+BY THE OPEQUON
+
+
+The battle of Sharpsburg was a triumph neither for blue nor grey, for
+North nor South. With the sinking of the sun ceased the bloody,
+prolonged, and indecisive struggle. Blue and grey, one hundred and
+thirty thousand men fought that battle. When the pale moon came up she
+looked on twenty-one thousand dead and wounded.
+
+The living ranks sank down and slept beside the dead. Lee on Traveller
+waited by the highroad until late night. Man by man his generals came to
+him and made their report--their ghastly report. "Very good, general.
+What is your opinion?"--"I think, sir, that we should cross the Potomac
+to-night."--"Very well, general. What is your opinion?"--"General Lee,
+we should cross the Potomac to-night."--"Yes, general, it has been our
+heaviest field. What is your advice?"--"General Lee, I am here to do
+what you tell me to do."
+
+Horse and rider, Traveller and Robert Edward Lee, stood in the pale
+light above the Antietam. "Gentlemen, we will not cross the Potomac
+to-night. If General McClellan wants to fight in the morning I will give
+him battle again.--And now we are all very tired. Good-night.
+Good-night!"
+
+The sun came up, dim behind the mist. The mist rose, the morning
+advanced. The September sunshine lay like vital warmth upon the height
+and vale, upon the Dunkard church and the wood about it, upon the
+cornfields, and Burnside's bridge and the Bloody Lane, and upon all the
+dead men in the cornfields, in the woods, upon the heights, beside the
+stream, in the lane. The sunshine lay upon the dead, as the prophet upon
+the Shunamite's child, but it could not reanimate. Grey and blue, the
+living armies gazed at each other across the Antietam. Both were
+exhausted, both shattered, the blue yet double in numbers. The grey
+waited for McClellan's attack. It did not come. The ranks, lying down,
+began to talk. "He ain't going to attack! He's cautious."--"He's had
+enough."--"So've I. O God!"--"Never saw such a fight. Wish those
+buzzards would go away from that wood over there! They're so
+dismal."--"No, McClellan ain't going to attack!"--"Then why don't we
+attack?"--"Go away, Johnny! We're mighty few and powerfully
+tired."--"Well, _I_ think so, too. We might just as well attack. Great
+big counter stroke! Crumple up Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts over
+there! Turn their right!"--"'T ain't impossible! Marse Robert and Old
+Jack could manage it."--"No, they couldn't!"--"Yes, they
+could!"--"You're a fool! Look at that position, stronger 'n Thunder Run
+Mountain, and Hooker's got troops he didn't have in yesterday! 'N those
+things like beehives in a row are Parrotts 'n Whitworths' 'n Blakeley's.
+'N then look at _us_. Oh, yes! we've got _spirit_, but spirit's got to
+have a body to rush those guns."--"Thar ain't anything Old Jack couldn't
+do if he tried!"--"Yes, there is!" "Thar ain't! How _dast_ you say
+that?"--"There is! He couldn't be a fool if he tried--and he ain't
+a-going to try!"
+
+The artillerist, Stephen D. Lee, came to headquarters on the knoll by
+Sharpsburg. "General Lee sent for me. Tell him, please, I am here." Lee
+appeared. "Good-morning, Colonel Lee. You are to go at once to General
+Jackson. Tell him that I sent you to report to him." The officer found
+Stonewall Jackson at the Dunkard church. "General, General Lee sent me
+to report to you."
+
+"Good, good! Colonel, I wish you to take a ride with me. We will go to
+the top of the hill yonder."
+
+They went up to the top of the hill, past dead men and horses, and much
+wreckage of caissons and gun wheels. "There are probably sharpshooters
+in that wood across the stream," said Jackson. "Do not expose yourself
+unnecessarily, colonel." Arrived at the level atop they took post in a
+little copse, wildly torn and blackened, a wood in Artillery Hell. "Take
+your glasses, colonel, and examine the enemy's line of battle."
+
+The other lifted the field-glass and with it swept the Antietam, and the
+fields and ridges beyond it. He looked at the Federal left, and he
+looked at the Federal centre, and he looked along the Federal right,
+which was opposite, then he lowered the glasses. "General, they have a
+very strong position, and they are in great force."
+
+"Good! I wish you to take fifty pieces of artillery and crush that
+force."
+
+Stephen D. Lee was a brave man. He said nothing now, but he stood a
+moment in silence, and then he took his field-glass and looked again. He
+looked now at the many and formidable Federal batteries clustered like
+dark fruit above the Antietam, and now at the masses of blue infantry,
+and now at the positions, under artillery and musketry fire, which the
+Confederate batteries must take. He put the glass down again. "Yes,
+general. Where shall I get the fifty guns?"
+
+"How many have you?"
+
+"I had thirty. Some were lost, a number disabled. I have twelve."
+
+"Just so. Well, colonel, I could give you a few, and General Lee tells
+me he can furnish some."
+
+The other fingered a button on his coat for a moment, then, "Yes,
+general. Shall I go for the guns?"
+
+"No, not yet." Stonewall Jackson laid his large hands in their worn old
+brown gauntlets, one over the other, upon his saddle bow. He, too,
+looked at the Federal right and the guns on the heights like dark fruit.
+His eyes made just a glint of blue light below the forage cap. "Colonel
+Lee, can you crush the Federal right with fifty guns?"
+
+The artillerist drew a quick breath, let the button alone, and raised
+his head higher. "I can try, general. I can do it if any one can."
+
+"That is not what I asked you, sir. If I give you fifty guns can you
+crush the Federal right?"
+
+The other hesitated. "General, I don't know what you want of me. Is it
+my technical opinion as an artillery officer? or do you want to know if
+I will make the attempt? If you give me the order of course I will make
+it!"
+
+"Yes, colonel. But I want your positive opinion, yes or no. Can you
+crush the Federal right with fifty guns?"
+
+The artillerist looked again, steadying arm and glass against a charred
+bough. "General, it cannot be done with fifty guns and the troops you
+have here."
+
+Hilltop and withered wood hung a moment silent in the air, sunny but yet
+with a taste of all the powder that had been burned. Then said Jackson,
+"Good! Let us ride back, colonel."
+
+They turned their horses, but Stephen Lee with some emotion began to put
+the case. "You forced me, general, to say what I did say. If you send
+the guns, I beg of you not to give them to another! I will fight them to
+the last extremity--" He looked to the other anxiously. To say to
+Stonewall Jackson that you must despair and die where he sent you in to
+conquer!
+
+But Jackson had no grimness of aspect. He looked quietly thoughtful. It
+was even with a smile of sweetness that he cut short the other's
+pleading. "It's all right, colonel, it's all right! Everyone knows that
+you are a brave officer and would fight the guns well." At the foot of
+the hill he checked Little Sorrel. "We'll part here, colonel. You go at
+once to General Lee. Tell him all that has happened since he sent you to
+me. Tell him that you examined the Federal position. Tell him that I
+forced you to give the technical opinion of an artillery officer, and
+tell him what that opinion is. That is all, colonel."
+
+The September day wore on. Grey and blue armies rested inactive save
+that they worked at burying the dead. Then, in the afternoon,
+information came to grey headquarters. Humphrey's division, pouring
+through the gaps of South Mountain, would in a few hours be at
+McClellan's service. Couch's division was at hand--there were troops
+assembling on the Pennsylvania border. At dark Lee issued his orders.
+During the night of the eighteenth the Army of Northern Virginia left
+the banks of the Antietam, wound silently down to the Potomac, and
+crossed to the Virginia shore.
+
+All night there fell a cold, fine, chilling rain. Through it the wagon
+trains crossed, the artillery with a sombre noise, the wounded who must
+be carried, the long column of infantry, the advance, the main, the
+rear. The corps of Stonewall Jackson was the last to ford the river. He
+sat on Little Sorrel, midway of the stream, and watched his troops go
+onward in the steady, chilling rain. Daybreak found him there,
+motionless as a figure in bronze, needing not to care for wind or sun or
+rain.
+
+The Army of Northern Virginia encamped on the road to Martinsburg.
+Thirty guns on the heights above Boteler's Ford guarded its rear, and
+Jeb Stuart and his cavalry watched from the northern bank at
+Williamsport. McClellan pushed out from Sharpsburg a heavy
+reconnoissance, and on his side of the river planted guns. Fitz John
+Porter, in command, crossed during the night a considerable body of
+troops. These advanced against Pendelton's guns, took four of them, and
+drove the others back on the Martinsburg road. Pendleton reported to
+General Lee; Lee sent an order to Stonewall Jackson. The courier found
+him upon the bank of the Potomac, gazing at the northern shore. "Good!"
+he said. "I have ordered up the Light Division." Seventy guns thundered
+from across the water. A. P. Hill in his red battle shirt advancing in
+that iron rain, took, front and flank, the Federal infantry. He drove
+them down from the bluff, he pushed them into the river; they showed
+black on the current. Those who got across, under the shelter of the
+guns, did not try again that passage. McClellan looked toward Virginia,
+but made no further effort, this September, to invade her. The Army of
+Northern Virginia waited another day above Boteler's Ford, then withdrew
+a few miles to the banks of the Opequon.
+
+The Opequon, a clear and pleasing stream, meandered through the lower
+reaches of the great Valley, through a fertile, lovely country, as yet
+not greatly scored and blackened by war's torch and harrow. An easy ride
+to the westward and you arrived in Winchester, beloved of
+Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson and the 2d Army Corps. As the autumn
+advanced, the banks of the Opequon, the yet thick forests that stretched
+toward the Potomac, the great maples, and oaks and gums and hickories
+that rose, singly or in clusters, from the rolling farm lands, put on a
+most gorgeous colouring. The air was mellow and sunny. From the
+camp-fires, far and near, there came always a faint pungent smell of
+wood smoke. Curls of blue vapour rose from every glade. The land seemed
+bathed in Indian summer.
+
+Through it in the mellow sunlight, beneath the crimson of the gums, the
+lighter red of the maples, the yellow of the hickories, the 2d Army
+Corps found itself for weeks back on the drill ground. The old Army of
+the Valley crowed and clapped on the back the Light Division and D. H.
+Hill's troops. "Old times come again! Jest like we used to do at
+Winchester! Chirk up, you fellows! Your drill's improving every day. Old
+Jack'll let up on you after a while. Lord! it used to be _seven_ hours a
+day!"
+
+Not only did the 2d Corps drill, it refitted. Mysteriously there came
+from Winchester a really fair amount of shoes and clothing. Only the
+fewest were now actually barefoot. In every regiment there went on, too,
+a careful cobbling. If by any means a shoe could be made to do, it was
+put in that position. Uniforms were patched and cleaned, and every day
+was washing day. All the hillsides were spread with soldiers' shirts.
+The red leaves drifting down on them looked like blood-stains, but the
+leaves could be brushed away. The men, standing in the Opequon, whistled
+as they rubbed and wrung. Every day the recovered from hospitals, and
+the footsore stragglers, and the men detached or furloughed, came home
+to camp. There came in recruits, too--men who last year were too old,
+boys who last year were not old enough. "Look here, boys! Thar goes
+Father Time!--No, it's Rip Van Winkle!"--"No, it's Santa Claus!--Anyhow,
+he's going to fight!" "Look here, boys! here comes another cradle. Good
+Lord, he's just a toddler! He don't see a razor in his dreams yet!
+Quartermaster's out of nursing-bottles!" "Shet up! the way those
+children fight's a caution!"
+
+October drifted on, smooth as the Opequon. Red and yellow leaves drifted
+down, wood smoke arose, sound was wrapped as in fine wool, dulled
+everywhere to sweetness. Whirring insects, rippling water, the
+wood-chopper's axe, the whistling soldiers, the drum-beat, the
+bugle-call, all were swept into a smooth current, steady, almost
+droning, somewhat dream-like. The 2d Corps would have said that it was a
+long time on the Opequon, but that on the whole it found the place a
+pleasing land of drowsy-head.
+
+Visitors came to the Opequon; parties from Winchester, officers from the
+1st Corps commanded by Longstreet and encamped a few miles to the
+eastward, officers from the headquarters of the commander-in-chief.
+General Lee came himself on Traveller, and with Stonewall Jackson rode
+along the Opequon, under the scarlet maples. One day there appeared a
+cluster of Englishmen, Colonel the Honourable Garnet Wolseley; the
+Special Correspondent of the _Times_, the Honourable Francis Lawley, and
+the Special Correspondent of the _Illustrated London News_, Mr. Frank
+Vizetelly. General Lee had sent them over under the convoy of an
+officer, with a note to Stonewall Jackson.
+
+MY DEAR GENERAL,--These gentlemen very especially wish to make your
+acquaintance. Yours,
+
+R. E. LEE.
+
+They made it, beneath a beautiful, tall, crimson gum tree, where on a
+floor of fallen leaves Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson's tent was
+pitched. A camp-stool, a wooden chair, and two boxes were placed. There
+was a respectful silence while the Opequon murmured by, then Garnet
+Wolseley spoke of the great interest which England--Virginia's mother
+country--was taking in this struggle.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Jackson. "It would be natural for a mother to take an
+even greater interest."
+
+"And the admiration, general, with which we have watched your
+career--the career of genius, if I may say so! By Jove--"
+
+"Yes, sir. It is not my career. God has the matter in hand."
+
+"Well, He knows how to pick his lieutenants!--You have the most ideal
+place for a camp, general! But, I suppose, before these coloured leaves
+all fall you will be moving?"
+
+"It is an open secret, I suppose, sir," said the correspondent of the
+_Times_, "that when McClellan does see fit to cross you will meet him
+east of the Blue Ridge?"
+
+"May I ask, sir," said the correspondent of the _Illustrated News_,
+"what you think of this latest move on the political chess-board--I mean
+Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation?"
+
+"The leaves are," said Jackson, "a beautiful colour. I was in England
+one autumn, Colonel Wolseley, but I did not observe our autumn colours
+in your foliage. Climate, doubtless. But what was my admiration were
+your cathedrals."
+
+"Yes, general; wonderful, are they not? Music in stone. Should McClellan
+cross, would the Fredericksburg route--"
+
+"Good! good! Music in stone! Which of your great church structures do
+you prefer, sir?"
+
+"Why, sir, I might prefer Westminster Abbey. Would--"
+
+"Good! Westminster Abbey. A soldier's answer. I remember that I
+especially liked Durham. I liked the Galilee chapel and the tomb of the
+Venerable Bede. St. Cuthbert is buried there, too, is he not?"
+
+"I really don't remember, sir. Is he, Mr. Lawley?"
+
+"I believe so."
+
+"Yes, he is. You haven't got any cathedrals here, General Jackson, but
+you've got about the most interesting army on the globe. Will
+McClellan--"
+
+"I like the solidity of the early Norman. The foundations were laid in
+1093, I believe?"
+
+"Very probably, general. Has General Lee--"
+
+"It has a commanding situation--an advantage which all of your
+cathedrals do not possess. I liked the windows best at York. What do you
+think, colonel?"
+
+"I think that you are right, general. When your wars are over, I hope
+that you will visit England again. I suppose that you cannot say how
+soon that will be, sir?"
+
+"No, sir. Only God can say that. I should like to see Ely and
+Canterbury." He rose. "Gentlemen, it has been pleasant to meet you. I
+hear the adjutant's call. If you would like to find out how my men
+_drill_, Colonel Johnson may take you to the parade-ground."
+
+Later, there arrived beneath the crimson gum four of Jeb Stuart's
+officers, gallantly mounted and equipped, young and fine. To-day their
+usual careless dash was tempered by something of important gravity; if
+their eyes danced, it was beneath half-closed lids; they did not smile
+outright, but their lips twitched. Behind them an orderly bore a long
+pasteboard box. The foremost officer was Major Heros von Borcke, of
+General Stuart's staff. All dismounted. Jackson came out of his tent.
+The air was golden warm; the earth was level before the tent, and on the
+carpet of small bright leaves was yet the table, the chair, the
+camp-stool, and the boxes. It made a fine, out-of-door room of audience.
+The cavalry saluted. Jackson touched the forage cap, and sat down. The
+staff officer, simple, big, and genuine, stood forward. "Major Von
+Borcke, is it not? Well, major, what is General Stuart about just now?"
+
+"General, he is watching his old schoolmate, General McClellan. My
+general, I come on a graceful errand, a little gift from General Stuart
+bearing. He has so great an esteem and friendship for you, general; he
+asks that you accept so slight a token of that esteem and friendship and
+he would say affection, and he does say reverence. He says that from
+Richmond he has for this sent--"
+
+Major Heros von Borcke made a signal. The orderly advanced and placed
+upon the pine table the box. The other cavalry officers stepped a little
+nearer; two or three of Stonewall Jackson's military family came also
+respectfully closer; the red gum leaves made a rustling underfoot.
+
+"General Stuart is extremely kind," said Jackson. "I have a high esteem
+for Jeb Stuart. You will tell him so, major."
+
+Slowly, slowly, came off the lid. Slowly, slowly came away a layer of
+silver paper. Where on earth they got--in Richmond in 1862--the gay box,
+the silver paper, passes comprehension. The staff thought it looked
+Parisian, and nursed the idea that it had once held a ball gown. Slowly,
+slowly, out came the gift.
+
+A startled sound, immediately suppressed, was uttered by the military
+family. Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson merely looked a stone wall. The
+old servant Jim was now also upon the scene. "Fo' de Lawd!" said Jim.
+"Er new nuniform!"
+
+Fine grey cadet cloth, gold lace, silken facings, beautiful bright
+buttons, sash, belt, gauntlets--the leaves rustled loudly, but a chuckle
+from Jim in the background and a murmured "Dat are sumpin' like!" was
+the only audible utterance. With empressement each article was lifted
+from the box by Major Heros von Borcke and laid upon the pine boards
+beneath Stonewall Jackson's eyes. The box emptied, Von Borcke, big,
+simple, manly, gravely beaming, stepped back from the table. "For
+General Jackson, with General Stuart's esteem and admiration!"
+
+Stonewall Jackson, big, too, and to appearance simple, looked under the
+forage cap, smiled, and with one lean brown finger touched almost
+timidly the beautiful, spotless cadet cloth. "Major von Borcke, you will
+give General Stuart my best thanks. He is, indeed, good. All this," he
+gravely indicated the loaded table, "is much too fine for the hard work
+I'd have to give it, and I shall have it put away for the present. But
+you tell General Stuart, major, that I will take the best care of his
+beautiful present, and that I will always prize it highly as a souvenir.
+It is, I think, about one o'clock. You will stay to dinner with me, I
+hope, major."
+
+But the banks of the Opequon uttered a protest. "Oh, general!"--"My
+general, you will hurt his feelings."--"General, just try it on, at
+least!" "Let us have our way, sir, just this once! We have been right
+good, haven't we? and we do so want to see you in it!"--"General Stuart
+will certainly want to know how it fits--" "Please, sir,"--"_Gineral,
+Miss Anna sholy would like ter see you in hit!_"
+
+Ten minutes elapsed while the Opequon rippled by and the crimson gum
+leaves drifted down, then somewhat bashfully from the tent came forth
+Stonewall Jackson metamorphosed. Triumph perched upon the helms of the
+staff and the visiting cavalry. "Oh!--Oh!--" "General Stuart will be so
+happy!" "General, the review this afternoon! General, won't you review
+us _that way_?"
+
+He did. At first the men did not know him, then there mounted a wild
+excitement. Suppressed with difficulty during the actual evolutions, it
+burst into flower when the ranks were broken. The sun was setting in a
+flood of gold; there hung a fairy light over the green fields and the
+Opequon and the vivid woods. The place rang to the frolic shouting. It
+had the most delighted sound. "Stonewall! Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall!
+Stonewall! Old Jack! Old Jack! Old Jack!"
+
+Old Jack touched his beautiful hat of a lieutenant-general. Little
+Sorrel beneath him moved with a jerk of the head and a distended
+nostril. The men noticed that, too. "He don't know him either! Oh, Lord!
+Oh, Lord! Ain't life worth while? Ain't it grand?--Stonewall!
+Stonewall!"
+
+On went the gold October, passing at last in a rain and drift of leaves
+into a russet November. The curls of wood smoke showed plainer down the
+glades, the crows were cawing, the migratory birds going south, but the
+days were yet mild and still, wrapped in a balm of pale sunshine, a
+faint, purplish, Indian summer haze. The 2d Corps was hale and soberly
+happy.
+
+It was the chaplain's season. There occurred in the Army of Northern
+Virginia a religious revival, a far-spread and lasting deepening of
+feeling. For many nights in many forest glades there were "meetings"
+with prayer and singing. "Old Hundred" floated through the air. From
+tents and huts of boughs came the soldiers. They sat upon the earth,
+thick carpeted now with the faded leaves, or upon gnarled, out-cropping
+roots of oak and beech. Above shone the moon; there was a touch of frost
+in the air. The chaplain had some improvised pulpit; a great fire, or
+perhaps a torch fastened to a bough, gave light whereby to read the
+Book. The sound of the voice, the sound of the singing, blended with the
+voice of the Opequon rushing--all rushing toward the great Sea.
+
+                "Come, humble sinner, in whose breast
+                A thousand thoughts revolve--"
+
+It made a low thunder, so many soldiers' voices. Always, on these
+nights, in some glade or meadow, with some regiment or other, there was
+found the commander of the 2d Corps. Beneath the cathedral roof of the
+forest, or beneath the stars in the open, sat Stonewall Jackson,
+worshipping the God of Battles. Undoubtedly he was really and deeply
+happy. His place is on the Judean hills, with Joab and David and Abner.
+Late in this November there came to him another joy. In North Carolina,
+where his wife had gone, a child was born to him, his only child, a
+daughter.
+
+In the first half of October had occurred Jeb Stuart's brilliant
+Monocacy raid, two days and a half within McClellan's lines. On the
+twenty-sixth McClellan began the passage of the Potomac. He crossed near
+Berlin, and Lee, assured now that the theatre of war would be east of
+the Blue Ridge, dispatched Longstreet with the 1st Corps to Culpeper. On
+the seventh of November McClellan was removed from the command of the
+Army of the Potomac. It was given over to Burnside, and he took the
+Fredericksburg route to Richmond.
+
+The Army of the Potomac numbered one hundred and twenty-five thousand
+men and officers and three hundred and twenty guns. At Washington were
+in addition eighty thousand men, and up and down the Potomac twenty
+thousand more. The Army of Northern Virginia in all, 1st and 2d Corps,
+had seventy-two thousand men and officers and two hundred and
+seventy-five guns. Lee called Stonewall Jackson to join Longstreet at
+Fredericksburg.
+
+On the twenty-second the 1st Corps quitted, amid smiles and tears, many
+a "God keep you!" and much cheering, Winchester the beloved. Out swung
+the long column upon the Valley pike. Advance and main and rear, horse
+and foot and guns, Stonewall Jackson and his twenty-five thousand took
+the old road. The men were happy. "Old road, old road, old road, howdy
+do! How's your health, old lady? Haven't you missed us? Haven't you
+missed us? We've missed _you_!"
+
+It was Indian summer, violet, dream-like. By now there had been burning
+and harrowing in the Valley; war had laid his mailed hand upon the
+region. It was not yet the straining clutch of later days, but it was
+bad enough. The Indian summer wrapped with a soft touch of mourning
+purple much of desolation, much of untilled earth, and charred
+roof-tree, and broken walls. The air was soft and gentle, lying balmy
+and warm on the road and ragged fields, and the haze so hid the
+distances that the column thought not so much of how the land was
+scarred as of the memories that thronged on either side of the Valley
+pike. "Kernstown! The field of Kernstown. There's Fulkerson's wall.
+About five hundred years ago!"
+
+Stonewall Jackson, riding in the van, may be supposed to have had his
+memories, too. He did not express them. He was using expedition, and he
+sent back orders. "Press forward, men! Press forward." He rode quietly,
+forage cap pulled low; or, standing with Little Sorrel on some wayside
+knoll, he watched for a while his thousands passing. Stuart's gay
+present had taken the air but once. Here was the old familiar,
+weather-worn array, leaf brown from sun and wind and dust and rain,
+patched here and patched there, dull of buttons, and with the lace worn
+off. Here were the old boots, the sabre, the forage cap; here were the
+blue glint of the eye and the short "Good! good!" as the men passed. The
+marching men shouted for him. He nodded, and having noted whatever it
+was he had paused to note, shook Little Sorrel's bridle and stiffly
+galloped to the van again.
+
+Past Newtown, past Middletown, on to Strasburg--the Massanuttons loomed
+ahead, all softly coloured yet with reds and golds. "Massanutton!
+Massanutton!" said the troops. "We've seen you before, and you've seen
+us before! Front Royal's at your head and Port Republic's at your feet."
+
+                    "In Virginia there's a Valley,
+                        Valley, Valley!
+                    Where all day the war drums beat,
+                        Beat, Beat!
+                    And the soldiers love the Valley
+                        Valley, Valley!
+                    And the Valley loves the soldiers,
+                        Soldiers, soldiers!"
+
+Past Strasburg, past Tom's Brook, past Rude's Hill--through the still
+November days, in the Indian summer weather, the old Army of the Valley,
+the old Ewell's Division, the Light Division, D. H. Hill's Division,
+moved up the Valley Pike. All were now the 2d Corps, Stonewall Jackson
+riding at its head. The people--the people were mostly women and
+children--flocked to the great highroad to bring the army things, to
+wave it onward, to say "God bless you!"--"God keep you!"--"God make you
+to conquer!"
+
+The 2d Corps passed Woodstock, and Edenburg, and Mt. Jackson, and came
+to New Market, and here it turned eastward. "Going to leave you,"
+chanted the troops. "Going to leave you, old road, old road! Take care
+of yourself till we come again!"
+
+Up and up and over Massanutton wound the 2d Corps. The air was still,
+not cold. The gold leaves drifted on the troops, and the red. From the
+top of the pass the view was magnificent. Down and down wound the column
+to the cold, swift Shenandoah. The men forded the stream. "Oh,
+Shenandoah! Oh, Shenandoah! when will we ford you again?"
+
+Up and up the steeps of the Blue Ridge to Fisher's Gap! All the air was
+dreamy, the sun sloping to the west, the crows cawing in the mountain
+clearings. The column was leaving the Valley, and a silence fell upon
+it. Stonewall Jackson rode ahead, on the mountain path, in the last gold
+light. At the summit of the pass there was a short halt. It went by in a
+strange quietness. The men turned and gazed. "The Valley of Virginia!
+The Valley of Virginia! _Which of us will not see you again?_"
+
+The Alleghenies lay faint, faint, beneath the flooding light. The sun
+sent out great rays of purple and rose. Between the mountain ranges the
+vast landscape lay in shadow, though here and there a high hilltop, a
+mountain spur had a coronet of gold. The 2d Corps, twenty-five thousand
+men, high on the Blue Ridge, looked and looked. "Some of us will not see
+you again. Some of us will not see you again, O loved Valley of
+Virginia!" _Column Forward! Column Forward!_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+THE LONE TREE HILL
+
+
+The three beautiful Carys walked together from the road gate toward the
+house. Before them, crowning the low hill, showed the white pillars
+between oaks where the deep coloured leaves yet clung. The sun was down,
+the air violet, the negro children burning brush and leaves in the
+hollow behind the house quarter. Halfway to the pillars, there ran back
+from the drive a long double row of white chrysanthemums. The three
+sisters paused to gather some for the vases.
+
+Unity and Molly gathered them. Judith sat down on the bank by the road,
+thick with dead leaves. She drew her scarf about her. Molly came
+presently and sat beside her. "Dear Judith, dear Judith!" she said, in
+her soft little voice, and stroked her sister's dress.
+
+Judith put her arm about her, and drew her close. "Molly, isn't it as
+though the earth were dying? Just the kind of fading light and hush one
+thinks of going in--I don't know why, but I don't like chrysanthemums
+any more."
+
+"I know," said Molly, "there's a feel of mould in them, and of dead
+leaves and chilly nights. But the soldiers are so used to lying out of
+doors! I don't believe they mind it much, or they won't until the snow
+comes. Judith--"
+
+"Yes, honey."
+
+"The soldiers that I have dreadful dreams about are the soldiers in
+prison. Judith, I dreamed about Major Stafford the other night! He had
+blood upon his forehead and he was walking up and down, walking up and
+down in a place with a grating."
+
+"You mustn't dream so, Molly.--Oh, yes, yes, yes! I'm sorry for him. On
+the land and on the sea and for them that are in prison--"
+
+Unity joined them, with her arm full of white bloom. "Oh, isn't there a
+dreadful hush? How gay we used to be, even at twilight! Judith, Judith,
+let us do something!"
+
+Judith looked at her with a twisted smile. "This morning, very early, we
+went with Aunt Lucy over the storeroom and the smoke-house, and then we
+went down to the quarter and got them all together, and told them how
+careful now we would all have to be with meal and bacon. And Susan's
+baby had died in the night, and we had to comfort Susan, and this
+afternoon we buried the baby. After breakfast we scraped almost the last
+of the tablecloths into lint, and Molly made envelopes, and Daddy Ben
+and I talked about shoes and how we could make them at home. Then Aunt
+Lucy and I went into town to the hospitals. There is a rumour of
+smallpox, but I am sure it is only a rumour. It has been a hard day. A
+number of sick were brought in from Fredericksburg. So much pneumonia!
+An old man and woman came up from North Carolina looking for their son.
+I took them through the wards. Oh, it was pitiful! No, he was not
+there. Probably he was killed. And Unity went to the sewing-rooms, and
+has been there sewing hard all day. And then we came home, and found
+Julius almost in tears, and Molly triumphant with the parlour carpet all
+up and ready to be cut into squares--soldiers sleeping in the snowy
+winter under tulips and roses. And then we read father's letter, and
+that was a comfort, a comfort! And then we took Susan's little baby and
+buried it, and did what we could for Susan; and then we walked down to
+the gate and stopped to gather chrysanthemums. And now we are going back
+to the house, and I dare say there'll be some work to do between now and
+bedtime. We're doing something pretty nearly all the time, Unity."
+
+Unity lifted with strength the mass of bloom above her head. "I know, I
+know! But it's in me to want a brass band to do it by! I want to see the
+flag waving! I want to hear the _sound_ of our work. Oh, I know I am
+talking foolishness!" She took Judith by the hands, and lifted her to
+her feet. "Anyhow, you're brave enough, Judith, Judith darling! Come,
+let us race to the house."
+
+The three were country-bred, fleet of foot. They ran, swiftly, lightly,
+up the long drive. Twilight was around them, the leaves drifting down,
+the leaves crisp under foot. The tall white pillars gleamed before them;
+through the curtainless windows showed, jewel-like, the flame of a wood
+fire. They reached the steps almost together, soberly mounted them, and
+entered the hall. Miss Lucy called to them from the library. "The papers
+have come."
+
+The old room, quiet, grave, book-lined, stored with records of old
+struggles, lent itself with fitness to the papers nowadays. The
+Greenwood Carys sat about the wood fire, Judith in an old armchair,
+Unity on an old embroidered stool, Molly in the corner of a great old
+sofa. Miss Lucy pushed her chair into the ring of the lamplight and read
+aloud in her quick, low, vibrant voice. The army at Fredericksburg--that
+was what they thought of now, day and night. She read first of the army
+at Fredericksburg--of Lee on the southern side of the Rappahannock, and
+Burnside on the northern, and the cannon all planted, and of the women
+and children beginning to leave. She read all the official statements,
+all the rumours, all the guesses, all the prophecies of victory and the
+record of suffering. Then she read the news of elsewhere in the vast,
+beleaguered fortress--of the fighting on the Mississippi, in Louisiana,
+in Arkansas, in the Carolinas; echoes from Cumberland Gap, echoes from
+Corinth. She read all the Richmond news--hot criticism, hot defence of
+the President, of the Secretary of War, of the Secretary of State;
+echoes from the House, from the Senate; determined optimism as to
+foreign intervention; disdain, as determined, of Burnside's "On to
+Richmond"; passionate devotion to the grey armies in the field--all the
+loud war song of the South, clear and defiant! She read everything in
+the paper. She read the market prices. Coffee $4 per lb. Tea $20 per lb.
+Wheat $5 per bushel. Corn $15 per barrel. Bacon $2 per lb. Sugar $50 per
+loaf. Chickens $10. Turkeys $50.
+
+"Oh," cried Molly. "We have chickens yet, beside what we send to the
+hospitals! And we have eggs and milk and butter, and I was looking at
+the turkeys to-day. I feel _wicked_!"
+
+"A lot of the turkeys will die," said Unity consolingly. "They always
+do. I spoke to Sam about the ducks and the guinea-hens the other day. I
+told him we were going to send them to Fredericksburg. He didn't like
+it. 'Miss Unity, what fer you gwine ter send all dem critturs away lak
+dat? You sen' 'em from Greenwood, dey gwine die ob homesickness!' And we
+don't use many eggs ourselves, honey, and we've no way to send the
+milk."
+
+Miss Lucy having read the paper through, the Greenwood ladies went to
+supper. That frugal meal over, they came back to the library, the
+parlour looking somewhat desolate with the carpet up and rolled in one
+corner, waiting for the shears to-morrow. "The shepherds and
+shepherdesses look," said Unity, "as though they were shivering a
+little. I don't suppose they ever thought they'd live to see a Wilton
+carpet cut into blankets for Carys and other soldiers gone to war! It's
+impossible not to laugh when you think of Edward drawing one of those
+coverlets over him! Oh, me!"
+
+"If Edward gets a furlough this winter," said Judith suddenly, "we must
+give him a party. With the two companies in town, and some of the
+surgeons, there will be men enough. Then Virginia and Nancy and Deb and
+Maria and Betty and Agatha and all the refugeeing girls--we could have a
+real party once more--"
+
+"Just leaving out the things to eat," said Unity; "and wearing very old
+clothes. We'll do it, won't we, Aunt Lucy?"
+
+Aunt Lucy thought it an excellent idea. "We mustn't get old before our
+time! We must keep brightness about the place. I have seen my mother
+laugh and look all the gayer out of her beautiful black eyes when other
+folk would have been weeping!--I hear company coming, now! It's Cousin
+William, I think."
+
+Cousin William it was, not gone to the war because of sixty-eight years
+and a rich inheritance of gout. He came in, ruddy as an apple, ridden
+over to cheer up the Greenwood folk and hear and tell news from the
+front. He had sons there himself, and a letter which he would read for
+the thirtieth time. When Judith had made him take the great armchair,
+and Miss Lucy had rung for Julius and a glass of wine, and Unity had
+trimmed the light, and Molly replenished the fire, he read, and as in
+these days no one ever read anything perfunctorily, the reading was more
+telling than an actor could have made it. In places Cousin William
+himself and his hearers laughed, and in places reader and listener
+brushed hand across eyes. "Your loving son," he read, and folded the
+sheets carefully, for they were becoming a little worn. "Now, what's
+your news, Lucy? Have you heard from Fauquier?"
+
+"Yes, yesterday. He has reached Fredericksburg from Winchester. It is
+one of his old, dry, charming letters, only--only a little hard to make
+out in places, because he's not yet used to writing with his left hand."
+Miss Lucy's face worked for a moment; then she smiled again, with a
+certain high courage and sweetness, and taking the letter from her
+work-basket read it to Cousin William. He listened, nodding his head at
+intervals. "Yes, yes, to be sure, to be sure! You can't remember Uncle
+Edward Churchill, Lucy, but I can. He used to read Swift to me, though I
+didn't care for it much, except for Gulliver. Fauquier reminds me of him
+often, except that Uncle Edward was bitter--though it wasn't because of
+his empty sleeve; it was for other things.--Fredericksburg! There'll be
+another terrible battle. And Warwick?"
+
+"We heard from him to-day--a short letter, hurriedly written; but oh!
+like Warwick--like Warwick!"
+
+She read this, too. It was followed by a silence in the old Greenwood
+library. Then said Cousin William softly, "It is worth while to get such
+letters. There aren't many like Warwick Cary. He's the kind that proves
+the future--shows it isn't just a noble dream. And Edward?"
+
+"A letter three days ago, just after you were here the last time."
+
+The room smiled. "It was what Edward calls a screed," said Molly; "there
+wasn't a thing about war in it."
+
+Unity stirred the fire, making the sparks go up chimney. "Five pages
+about Massanutton in her autumn robes, and a sonnet to the Shenandoah! I
+like Edward."
+
+At ten o'clock Cousin William rode away. The Greenwood women had
+prayers, and then, linked together, they went up the broad, old shallow
+stairs to the gallery above, and kissed one another good-night.
+
+In her own room Judith laid pine knots upon the brands. Up flared the
+light, and reddened all the pleasant chamber. She unclad herself,
+slipped on her dressing-gown, brushed and braided her dusky hair,
+rippling, long and thick, then fed again the fire, took letters from her
+rosewood box, and in the light from the hearth read them for the
+thousandth time. There was none from Richard Cleave after July, none,
+none! Sitting in a low chair that had been her mother's, she bowed
+herself over the June-time letters, over the May-time letters. There had
+been but two months of bliss, two months! She read them again, although
+she had them all by heart; she held her hand as though it held a pen and
+traced the words so that she might feel, "Here and so, his hand rested";
+she put the paper to her cheek, against her lips; she slipped to her
+knees, laid her arms along the seat of the chair and her head upon them,
+and prayed. "O God! my lover hast Thou put far from me.--O God! my lover
+hast Thou put far from me."
+
+She knelt there long; but at last she rose, laid the letters in the box,
+and took from another compartment Margaret Cleave's. These were since
+July, a letter every fortnight. Judith read again the later ones, the
+ones of the late summer. "Dear child--dearest child, I cannot tell you!
+Only be forever sure that wherever he is, at Three Oaks or elsewhere, he
+loves you, loves you! No; I do not know that his is the course that I
+should take, but then women are different. I do not think I would ever
+think of pride or of the world and the world's opinion. If you cried to
+me I would go, and the world should not hold me back. But men have been
+trained to uphold that kind of pride. I did not think that Richard had
+it, but I see now all his father in him. Darling child, I do not think
+that it will last, but just now, oh, just now, you must possess your
+heart in patience!"
+
+The words blurred before Judith's eyes. She sunk her head upon her
+knees. "Possess my heart in patience--Possess my heart in patience--Oh,
+God, I am not old enough yet to do it!"
+
+She read another letter, one of later date. "Judith, I promised. I
+cannot tell you. But he is well, oh, believe that! and believe, too,
+that he is doing his work. He is not the kind to rest from work, he must
+work. And slowly, slowly that brings salvation. You are a noble woman.
+Be noble still--and wait awhile--and wait awhile! It _will_ come right.
+Miriam is better. The woods about Three Oaks are gorgeous."
+
+She read another. "Child, he is not at Three Oaks. Now you must
+rest--rest and wait."
+
+Judith put the letters in the rosewood box. She arose, locked her hands
+behind her head and walked softly up and down the room. "Rest--rest and
+wait. Patience--quietude--tranquillity--strength--fortitude--endurance.
+--Rest--patience--calm quietude--"
+
+It worked but partially. Presently, when she lay down it was to lie
+still enough, but sleepless. Late in the night she slept, but it was to
+dream again, much as she had dreamed during the Seven Days, great and
+tragic visions. Dawn waked her. She lay, staring at the white ceiling;
+then she arose. It was not cold. The earth lay still at this season, yet
+wrapped and warmed and softened with the memories of summer. Judith
+looked out of the window. There was a glow in the eastern sky, the trees
+were motionless, the brown path over the hills showed like a beckoning
+finger. She dressed, put a cloak about her, went softly downstairs and
+left the house.
+
+The path across the meadow, through the wood, up the lone tree hill--she
+would see the sunrise, she would get above the world. She walked
+quickly, lightly, through the dank stillness. There was mist in the
+meadow, above the little stream. The wood was shadowy; mist, like
+ghosts, between the trees. She passed through it and came out on the
+bare hillside, rising dome-like to the one tree with the bench around
+it. The eastern sky was burning gold. Judith stood still. There was a
+man seated upon the bench, on the side that overlooked Greenwood. He sat
+with his head buried in his hands. She could not yet tell, but she
+thought he was in uniform.
+
+With the thought she moved onward. She never remembered afterwards,
+whether she recognized him then, or whether she thought, "A soldier
+sleeping through the night up here! Why did he not come to the house?"
+She made no noise on the bare, moist earth of the path. She was within
+thirty feet of the bench when Cleave lifted his head from his hands,
+rose, stood still a moment, then with a gesture, weary and determined,
+turned to descend the hill--on the side away from Greenwood, toward a
+cross-country road. She called to him. "Richard!"
+
+It was rapture--all beneath the rising sun forgotten save only this
+gold-lit hilltop, with its tree from Eden garden! But since it was
+earth, and Paradise not yet real, and there were checks and bars enough
+in their human lot, they came back from that seraph flight. This was the
+lone tree hill above Greenwood, and a November day, though gold-touched,
+and Philip Deaderick must get back to the section of Pelham's artillery
+refitting at Gordonsville.--"What do you mean? You are a soldier--you
+are back in the army?--but you have another name? Oh, Richard, I see, I
+see! Oh, I might have known! A gunner with Pelham. Oh, my gunner with
+Pelham, why did you not come before?"
+
+Cleave wrung her hands, clasped in his, then bent and kissed them.
+"Judith, I will speak to you as to a comrade, because you would be the
+truest comrade ever man had! What would you do--what would you have
+done--in my place? What would you do now, in my place, but say--but say,
+'I love you; let me go'?"
+
+"I?" said Judith. "What would I have done? I would have reentered the
+army as you have reentered it. I would serve again as you are serving
+again. If it were necessary--Oh, I see that it was necessary!--I would
+serve disguised as you are disguised. But--but--when it came to Judith
+Cary--"
+
+"Judith, say that it was not you and I, but some other disgraced soldier
+and one of your sisters--"
+
+"You are not a disgraced soldier. The innocent cannot be disgraced."
+
+"Who knows that I was innocent? My mother, and you, Judith, know it; my
+kinspeople and certain friends believe it; but all the rest of the
+country--the army, the people--they don't believe it. Let my name be
+known to-morrow, and by evening a rougher dismissal than before! Do you
+not see, do you not see, Judith?"
+
+"I see partly. I see that you must serve. I see that you walk with
+dangers. I see that--that you could not even write. I see that I must
+possess my soul in patience. I see that we must wait--Oh, God, it is all
+waiting, waiting, waiting! But I do not see--and I _refuse_ to see,
+Richard--anything at the end of it all but love, happiness, union, home
+for you and me!"
+
+He held her close. "Judith, I do not know the right. I am not sure that
+I see the right, my soul is so tempest-tossed. That day at White Oak
+Swamp. If I could cleanse that day, bring it again into line with the
+other days of my life, poor and halting though they may have been,
+though they may be, if I could make all men say 'His life was a
+whole--one life, not two. He had no twin, a disobedient soldier, a liar
+and betrayer, as it was said he had.'--If I could do that, Judith! I do
+not see how I will do it, and yet it is my intention to do it. That
+done, then, darling, darling! I will make true love to you. If it is not
+done--but I will not think of that. Only--only--how to do it, how to do
+it! That maddens me at times--"
+
+"Is it that? Then we must think of that. They are not all dead who could
+tell?--"
+
+"Maury Stafford is not dead."
+
+"Maury Stafford!--What has he to do with it?"
+
+Cleave laughed, a sound sufficiently grim. "What has he not to do with
+it?--with that order which he carried from General Jackson to General
+Winder, and from General Winder--not, before God! to me! Winder is dead,
+and the courier who could have told is dead, and others whom I might
+have called are dead--dead, I will avow, because of my choice of action,
+though still--given that false order--I justify that choice! And now we
+hear that Major Stafford was among those taken prisoner at Sharpsburg."
+
+Judith stood upright, her hand at her breast, her eyes narrowed. "Until
+this hour I never knew the name of that officer. I never thought to ask.
+I never thought of the mistake lying there. The mistake! All these
+months I have thought of it as a mistake--as one of those
+misunderstandings, mishappenings, accidental, incomprehensible, that
+wound and blister human life! I never saw it in a lightning flash for
+what it was till now!"
+
+She looked about her, still with an intent and narrowed gaze. "The lone
+tree hill. It is a good place to see it from. There is nothing to be
+done but to join this day to a day last June--the day of Port Republic."
+Raising her hands she pressed them to her eyes as though to shut out a
+veritable lightning glare, then dropped them. She stood very straight,
+young, slender, finely and strongly fibred. "He said he would do the
+worst he could, and he has done it. And I said, 'At your peril!' and at
+his peril it shall be! And the harm that he has done, he shall undo it!"
+She turned. "Richard! he shall undo it."
+
+Cleave stood beside her. "Love, love! how beautiful the light is over
+Greenwood! I thought, sitting here, 'I will not wait for the sunshine; I
+will go while all things are in shadow.' And I turned to go. And then
+came the sunshine. I must go now--away from the sunshine. I had but an
+hour, and half of it was gone before the sunshine came."
+
+"How shall I know," she said, "if you are living? There is a battle
+coming."
+
+"Yes. Judith, I will not write to you. Do not ask me; I will not. But
+after each battle I have managed somehow to get a line to my mother. She
+will tell you that I am living, well and living. I do not think that I
+shall die--no, not till Maury Stafford and I have met again!"
+
+"He is in prison. They say so many die there.... Oh, Richard, write to
+me--"
+
+But Cleave would not. "No! To do that is to say, 'All is as it was, and
+I let her take me with this stain!' I will not--I will not. Circumstance
+has betrayed us here this hour. We could not help it, and it has been a
+glory, a dream. That is it, a dream. I will not wake till I have said
+good-bye!"
+
+They said good-bye, still in the dream, as lovers might, when one goes
+forth to battle and the other stays behind. He released her, turned
+short and sharp, and went down from the lone tree hill, down the side
+from Greenwood, to the country road. A piece of woods hid him from
+sight.
+
+Judith stood motionless for a time, then she sat down upon the bench.
+She sat like a sibyl, elbows on knees, chin in hands, her gaze narrowed
+and fixed. She spoke aloud, and her voice was strange in her own ears.
+"Maury Stafford in prison. Where, and how long?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+FREDERICKSBURG
+
+
+Snow lay deep on the banks of the Rappahannock, in the forest, up and
+down the river, on the plain about the little city, on the bold heights
+of the northern shore, on the hills of the southern, commanding the
+plain. The snow was deep, but somewhat milder weather had set in.
+December the eleventh dawned still and foggy.
+
+General Burnside with a hundred and twenty thousand blue troops
+appointed this day to pass the Rappahannock, a stream that flowed across
+the road to Richmond. He had been responsible for choosing this route to
+the keep of the fortress, and he must make good his reiterated, genial
+assurances of success. The Rappahannock, Fredericksburg, and a line of
+hills masked the onward-going road and its sign, _This way to Richmond_.
+"Well, the Rappahannock can be bridged! A brigade known to be occupying
+the town? Well, a hundred and forty guns admirably planted on Stafford
+Heights will drive out the rebel brigade! The line of hills, bleak and
+desolate with fir woods?--hares and snow birds are all the life over
+there! General Lee and Stonewall Jackson? Down the Rappahannock below
+Moss Neck. At least, undoubtedly, Stonewall Jackson's down there. The
+balloon people say so. General Lee's got an idea that Port Royal's our
+point of attack. The mass of his army's there. The gunboat people say
+so. Longstreet may be behind those hills. Well, we'll crush Longstreet!
+We'll build our bridges under cover of this fortunate fog, and go over
+and defeat Longstreet and be far down the road to Richmond before a man
+can say Jack Robinson!"
+
+"Jack Robinson!" said the brigade from McLaws's division--Barksdale's
+Mississippians--drawn up on the water edge of Fredericksburg. They were
+tall men--Barksdale's Mississippians--playful bear-hunters from the cane
+brakes, young and powerfully made, and deadly shots. "Old Barksdale"
+knew how to handle them, and together they were a handful for any enemy
+whatsoever. Sixteen hundred born hunters and fighters, they opened fire
+on the bridge-builders, trying to build four bridges, three above, one
+below the town. Barksdale's men were somewhat sheltered by the houses on
+the river brink; the blue had the favourable fog with which to cover
+operations. It did not wholly help; the Mississippians had keen eyes;
+the rifles blazed, blazed, blazed! Burnside's bridge-builders were
+gallant men; beaten back from the river they came again and again, but
+again and again the eyes of the swamp hunters ran along the gleaming
+barrels and a thousand bronzed fingers pulled a thousand triggers. Past
+the middle of the day the fog lifted. The town lay defined and helpless
+beneath a pallid sky.
+
+The artillery of the Army of the Potomac opened upon it. One hundred and
+forty heavy guns, set in tiers upon the heights to the north, fired each
+into Fredericksburg fifty rounds. Under that terrible cover the blue
+began to cross on pontoons.
+
+A number of the women and children had been sent from the town during
+the preceding days. Not all, however, were gone. Many had no place to go
+to; some were ill and some were nursing the ill; many had husbands,
+sons, brothers, there at hand in the Army of Northern Virginia and would
+not go. Now with the beginning of the bombardment they must go. There
+were grey, imperative orders. "At once! at once! Go _where_? God knows!
+but go."
+
+They went, almost all, in the snow, beneath the pallid sky, with the
+shells shrieking behind them. They carried the children, they half
+carried the sick and the very old. They stumbled on, between the frozen
+hills by the dark pointed cedars, over the bare white fields. Behind
+them home was being destroyed; before them lay desolation, and all
+around was winter. They had perhaps thought it out, and were headed--the
+various forlorn lines--for this or that country house, but they looked
+lost, remnant of a world become glacial, whirled with suddenness into
+the sidereal cold, cold! and the loneliness of cold. The older children
+were very brave; but there were babes, too, and these wailed and wailed.
+Their wailing made a strange, futile sound beneath the thundering of the
+guns.
+
+One of these parties came through the snow to a swollen creek on which
+the ice cakes were floating. Cross!--yes, but how? The leaders consulted
+together, then went up the stream to find a possible ford, and came in
+sight of a grey battery, waiting among the hills. "Oh, soldiers!--oh,
+soldiers!--come and help!"
+
+Down hastened a detachment, eager, respectful, a lieutenant directing,
+the very battery horses looking anxious, responsible. A soldier in the
+saddle, a child in front, a child behind, the old steady horses planting
+their feet carefully in the icy rushing stream, over went the children.
+Then the women crossed, their hands resting on the grey-clad shoulders.
+All were over; all thanked the soldiers. The soldiers took off their
+caps, wished with all their hearts that they had at command fire-lit
+palaces and a banquet set! Having neither, being themselves without
+shelter or food and ordered not to build fires, they could only bare
+their heads and watch the other soldiers out of sight, carrying the
+children, half carrying the old and sick, stumbling through the snow, by
+the dark pointed cedars, and presently lost to view among the frozen
+hills.
+
+The shells rained destruction into Fredericksburg. Houses were battered
+and broken; houses were set on fire. Through the smoke and uproar, the
+explosions and detonations and tongues of flame, the Mississippians beat
+back another attempt at the bridges and opened fire on boat after boat
+now pushing from the northern shore. But the boats came bravely on,
+bravely manned; hundreds might be driven from the bridge-building, but
+other hundreds sprang to take their places--and always from the heights
+came the rain of iron, smashing, shivering, setting afire, tearing up
+the streets, bringing down the walls, ruining, wounding, slaying! McLaws
+sent an order to Barksdale, Barksdale gave it to his brigade.
+"Evacuate!" said the Mississippians. "We're going to evacuate. What's
+that in English? 'Quit?'--What in hell should we quit for?"
+
+Orders being orders, the disgust of the bear-hunters did not count. "Old
+Barksdale" was fairly deprecating. "Men, I can't help it! General McLaws
+says, 'General Barksdale, withdraw your men to Marye's Hill.' Well, I've
+got to do it, haven't I? General McLaws knows, now doesn't
+he?--Yes,--just one more round. _Load! Kneel! Commence firing!_"
+
+In the late afternoon the town was evacuated, Barksdale drawing off in
+good order across the stormed-upon open. He disappeared--the Mississippi
+brigade disappeared--from the Federal vision. The blue column, the 28th
+Massachusetts leading, entered Fredericksburg. "We'll get them all
+to-morrow--Longstreet certainly! Stonewall Jackson's from twelve to
+eighteen miles down the river. Well! this time Lee will find that he's
+divided his army once too often!"
+
+By dark there were built six bridges, but the main army rested all night
+on the northern bank. December the twelfth dawned, another foggy day.
+The fog held hour after hour, very slow, still, muffled weather, through
+which, corps by corps, all day long, the army slowly crossed. In the
+afternoon there was a cavalry skirmish with Stuart, but nothing else
+happened. Thirty-six hours had been consumed in crossing and resting.
+The Rappahannock, however, _was_ crossed, and the road to Richmond
+stretched plain between the hills.
+
+But the grey army was not divided. Certain divisions had been down the
+river, but they were no longer down the river. The Army of Northern
+Virginia, a vibrant unit, intense, concentrated, gaunt, bronzed, and
+highly efficient, waited behind the hills south and west of the town.
+There was a creek running through a ravine, called Deep Run. On one side
+of Deep Run stood Longstreet and the 1st Corps, on the other, almost at
+right angles, Stonewall Jackson and the 2d. Before both the heavily
+timbered ridge sank to the open plain. In the woods had been thrown up
+certain breastworks.
+
+Longstreet's left, Anderson's division, rested on the river. To
+Anderson's right were posted McLaws, Pickett, and Hood. He had his
+artillery on Marye's Hill and Willis Hill, and he had Ransom's infantry
+in line at the base of these hills behind a stone wall. Across Deep Run,
+on the wooded hills between the ravine and the Massaponax, was Stonewall
+Jackson. A. P. Hill's division with the brigades of Pender, Lane,
+Archer, Thomas, and Gregg made his first line of battle, the divisions
+of Taliaferro and Early his second, and D. H. Hill's division his
+reserve. His artillery held all favourable crests and headlands.
+Stuart's cavalry and Stuart's Horse Artillery were gathered by the
+Massaponax. Hills and forest hid them all, and over the plain and river
+rolled the fog.
+
+It hid the North as it hid the South. Burnside's great force rested the
+night of the twelfth in and immediately about Fredericksburg--Hooker and
+Sumner and Franklin, one hundred and thirteen thousand men. "The balloon
+people" now reported that the hills south and west were held by a
+considerable rebel force--Longstreet evidently, Lee probably with him.
+Burnside repeated the infatuation of Pope and considered that Stonewall
+Jackson was absent from the field of operations. Undoubtedly he had
+been, but the shortest of time before, down the river by Port Royal. No
+one had seen him move. Jackson away, there was then only
+Longstreet--strongly posted, no doubt. Well! Form a great line of
+battle, advance in overwhelming strength across the plain, the guns on
+Stafford Heights supporting, and take the hills, and Longstreet on them!
+It sounded simple.
+
+[Illustration: THE VEDETTE]
+
+The fog, heavy, fleecy, white, persisted. The grey soldiers on the
+wooded hills, the grey artillery holding the bluff heads, the grey
+skirmishers holding embankment and cut of the Richmond, Fredericksburg
+and Potomac Railroad, the grey cavalry by the Massaponax, all stared
+into the white sea and could discern nothing. The ear was of no avail.
+Sound came muffled, but still it came. "The long roll--hear the long
+roll! My Lord! How many drums have they got, anyway?"--"Listen! If you
+listen right hard you can hear them shouting orders! Hush up, you
+infantry, down there! We want to hear."--"They're moving guns, too! Wish
+there'd come a little sympathizing earthquake and help them--'specially
+those siege guns on the heights over there!"--"No, no! I want to fight
+them. Look! it's lifting a little! the fog's lifting a little! Look at
+the guns up in the air like that! It's closed again."--"Well, if that
+wasn't fantastic! Ten iron guns in a row, posted in space!"--"Hm! brass
+bands. My Lord! there must be one to a platoon!"--"Hear them marching!
+Saw lightning once run along the ground--now it's thunder. How many men
+has General Ambrose Everett Burnside got, anyhow?"--"Burnside's been to
+dances before in Fredericksburg! Some of the houses are burning now that
+he's danced in, and some of the women he has danced with are wandering
+over the snow. I hope he'll like the reel presently."--"He's a good
+fellow himself, though not much of a general! He can't help fighting
+here if he's put here to fight."--"I know that. I was just stating
+facts. Hear that music, music, music!"
+
+Up from Deep Run, a little in the rear of the grey centre, rose a bold
+hill. Here in the clinging mist waited Lee on Traveller, his staff
+behind him, in front an ocean of vapour. Longstreet came from the left,
+Stonewall Jackson from the right. Lee and his two lieutenants talked
+together, three mounted figures looming large on the hilltop above Deep
+Run. With suddenness the fog parted, was upgathered with swiftness by
+the great golden sun.
+
+That lifted curtain revealed a very great and martial picture,--War in a
+moment of vastness and grandeur, epic, sublime. The town was afire;
+smoke and flame went up to a sky not yet wholly azure, banded and barred
+with clouds from behind which the light came in rays fierce and bright,
+with an effect of threatening. There was a ruined house on a high hill.
+It gave the appearance of a grating in the firmament, a small dungeon
+grating. Beyond the burning town was the river, crossed now by six
+pontoon bridges. On each there were troops; one of the long sun rays
+caught the bayonets. From the river, to the north, rose the heights, and
+they had an iron crown from which already came lightnings and thunders.
+There were paths leading down to the river and these showed blue, moving
+streams, bright points which were flags moving with them. That for the
+far side of the Rappahannock, but on this side, over the plain that
+stretched south and west of the smoke-wreathed town, there moved a blue
+sea indeed. Eighty thousand men were on that plain. They moved here,
+they moved there, into battle formation, and they moved to the crash of
+music, to the horn and to the drum. The long rays that the sun was
+sending made a dazzle of bayonet steel, thousands and thousands and
+thousands of bayonets. The gleaming lines went here, went there,
+crossed, recrossed, formed angles, made a vast and glittering net. Out
+of it soared the flags, bright hovering birds, bright giant blossoms in
+the air. Batteries moved across the plain. Officers, couriers, galloped
+on fiery horses; some general officer passed from end to end of a
+forming line and was cheered. The earth shook to marching feet. The
+great brazen horns blared, the drums beat, the bugles rang. The gleaming
+net folded back on itself, made three pleats, made three great lines of
+battle.
+
+The grey leaders on the hill to the south gazed in silence. Then said
+Lee, "It is well that war is so terrible. Were it not so, we should grow
+too fond of it." Longstreet, the "old war horse," stared at the
+tremendous pageant. "This wasn't a little quarrel. It's been brewing for
+seventy-five years--ever since the Bill-of-Rights day. Things that take
+so long in brewing can't be cooled by a breath. It's getting to be a
+huge war." Said Jackson, "Franklin holds their left. He seems to be
+advancing. I will return to Hamilton's Crossing, sir."
+
+The guns on the Stafford Heights which had been firing slowly and singly
+now opened mouth together. The tornado, overpassing river and plain,
+burst on the southern hills. In the midst of the tempest, Burnside
+ordered Franklin to advance a single division, its mission the seizing
+the _unoccupied_ ridge east of Deep Run. Franklin sent Meade with
+forty-five hundred Pennsylvania troops.
+
+Meade's brigades advanced in three lines, skirmishers out, a band
+playing a quickstep, the stormy sunlight deepening the colours, making a
+gleaming of bayonets. His first line crossed the Richmond road. To the
+left was a tiny stream, beyond it a ragged bank topped by brushwood.
+Suddenly, from this coppice, opened two of Pelham's guns.
+
+Beneath that flanking fire the first blue line faltered, gave ground.
+Meade brought up four batteries and sent for others. All these came
+fiercely into action. When they got his range, Pelham moved his two guns
+and began again a raking fire. Again the blue gunners found the range
+and again he moved with deliberate swiftness, and again he opened with a
+hot and raking fire. One gun was disabled; he fought with the other. He
+fought until the limber chests were empty and there came an imperious
+message from Jeb Stuart, "Get back from destruction, you infernal,
+gallant fool, John Pelham!"
+
+The guns across the river and the blue field batteries steadily shelled
+for half an hour the heavily timbered slopes beyond the railroad. Except
+for the crack and crash of severed boughs the wood gave no sign. At the
+end of this period Meade resumed his advance.
+
+On came the blue lines, staunch, determined troops, seasoned now as the
+grey were seasoned. They meant to take that empty line of hills,
+willy-nilly a few Confederate guns. That done, they would be in a
+position to flank Longstreet, already attacked in front by Sumner's
+Grand Division. On they came, with a martial front, steady, swinging.
+Uninterrupted, they marched to within a few hundred yards of Prospect
+Hill. Suddenly the woods that loomed before them so dark and quiet
+blazed and rang. Fifty guns were within that cover, and the fifty cast
+their thunderbolts full against the dark blue line. From either side the
+grey artillery burst the grey musketry, and above the crackling thunder
+rose the rebel yell. Stonewall Jackson was not down the river; Stonewall
+Jackson was here! Meade's Pennsylvanians were gallant fighters; but they
+broke beneath that withering fire,--they fell back in strong disorder.
+
+Grey and blue, North and South, there were gathered upon and above the
+field of Fredericksburg four hundred guns. All came into action. Where
+earlier, there had been fog over the plain, fog wreathing the hillsides,
+there was now smoke. Dark and rolling it invaded the ruined town, it
+mantled the flowing Rappahannock, it surmounted the hills. Red flashes
+pierced it, and over and under and through roared the enormous sound.
+There came reinforcements to Meade, division after division. In the
+meantime Sumner was hurling brigades against Marye's Hill and Longstreet
+was hurling them back again.
+
+The 2d Corps listened to the terrible musketry from this front. "Old Pete's
+surely giving them hell! There's a stone wall at the base of Marye's Hill.
+McLaws and Ransom are holding it--sorry for the Yanks in front."--"Never
+heard such hullabaloo as the great guns are making!"--"What're them
+Pennsylvanians down there doing? It's time for them to come on! They've got
+enough reinforcements--old friends, Gibbon and Doubleday."--"Good
+fighters."--"Yes, Lord! we're all good fighters now. Glad of it. Like to
+fight a good fighter. Feel real friendly toward him."--"A
+thirty-two-pounder Parrott in the battery on the hill over there exploded
+and raised hell. General Lee standing right by. He just spoke on, calm and
+imperturbable, and Traveller looked sideways."--"Look! Meade's moving. _Do
+you know, I think we ought to have occupied that tongue of land?_"
+
+So, in sooth, thought others presently. It was a marshy, dense, and
+tangled coppice projecting like a sabre tooth between the brigades of
+Lane and Archer. So thick was the growth, so boggy the earth, that at
+the last it had been pronounced impenetrable and left unrazed. Now the
+mistake was paid for--in bloody coin.
+
+Meade's line of battle rushed across the open, brushed the edge of the
+coppice, discovered that it was empty, and plunging in, found cover. The
+grey batteries could not reach them. Almost before the situation was
+realized, forth burst the blue from the thicket. Lane was flanked; in
+uproar and confusion the grey gave way. Meade sent in another brigade.
+It left the first to man-handle Lane, hurled itself on, and at the
+outskirt of the wood, struck Archer's left, taking Archer by surprise
+and creating a demi-rout. A third brigade entered on the path of the
+first and second. The latter, leaving Archer to this new strength,
+hurled itself across the military road and upon a thick and tall wood
+held by Maxey Gregg and his South Carolinians. Smoke, cloud, and forest
+growth--it was hard to distinguish colours, hard to tell just what was
+happening! Gregg thought that the smoke-wrapped line was Archer falling
+back. He withheld his fire. The line came on and in a moment, amid
+shouts, struck his right. A bullet brought down Gregg himself, mortally
+wounded. His troops broke, then rallied. A grey battery near Bernard's
+Cabin brought its guns to bear upon Gibbon, trying to follow the blue
+triumphant rush. Archer reformed. Stonewall Jackson, standing on
+Prospect Hill, sent orders to his third line. "Generals Taliaferro and
+Early, advance and clear the front with bayonets."
+
+_Yaaaiih! Yaaaiiih! Yaaaaihh!_ yelled Jubal Early's men, and did as they
+were bid. _Yaaaaiiih! Yaaiiihhh! Yaaaaiiihhhh!_ yelled the Stonewall
+Brigade and the rest of Taliaferro's, and did as they were bid. Back,
+back were borne Meade's brigades. Darkness of smoke, denseness of forest
+growth, treachery of swampy soil!--all order was lost, and there came no
+support. Back went the blue--all who could go back. A. P. Hill's second
+line was upon them now; Gibbon was attacked. The grey came down the long
+slopes like a torrent loosed. Walker's guns joined in. The uproar was
+infernal. The blue fought well and desperately--but there was no
+support. Back they went, back across the Richmond Road--all who could
+get back. They left behind in the marshy coppice, and on the wooded
+slopes and by the embankment, four thousand dead and wounded. The Light
+Division, Taliaferro and Early, now held the railroad embankment. Before
+them was the open plain, and the backward surge to the river of the
+broken foe. It was three o'clock of the afternoon. Burnside sent an
+order to Franklin to attack again, but Franklin disobeyed.
+
+Upon the left Longstreet's battle now swelled to giant proportions.
+Marye's Hill, girdled by that stone wall, crowned by the Washington
+Artillery, loomed impregnable. Against it the North tossed to
+destruction division after division. They marched across the bare and
+sullen plain, they charged; the hill flashed into fire, a thunder
+rolled, the smoke cloud deepened. When it lifted the charge was seen to
+be broken, retreating, the plain was seen to be strewed with dead. The
+blue soldiers were staunch and steadfast. They saw that their case was
+hapless, yet on they came across the shelterless plain. Ordered to
+charge, they charged; charged very gallantly, receded with a stubborn
+slowness. They were good fighters, worthy foes, and the grey at
+Fredericksburg hailed them as such. Forty thousand men charged Marye's
+Hill--six great assaults--and forty thousand were repulsed. The winter
+day closed in. Twelve thousand men in blue lay dead or wounded at the
+foot of the southern hills, before Longstreet on the left and Stonewall
+Jackson on the right.
+
+Five thousand was the grey loss. The Rockbridge Artillery had fought
+near the Horse Artillery by Hamilton's Crossing. All day the guns had
+been doggedly at work; horses and drivers and gunners and guns and
+caissons; there was death and wounds and wreckage. In the wintry, late
+afternoon, when the battle thunders were lessening, Major John Pelham
+came by and looked at Rockbridge. Much of Rockbridge lay on the ground,
+the rest stood at the guns. "Why, boys," said Pelham, "you stand killing
+better than any I ever saw!"
+
+They stood it well, both blue and grey. It was stern fighting at
+Fredericksburg, and grey and blue they fought it sternly and well. The
+afternoon closed in, cold and still, with a red sun yet veiled by drifts
+of crape-like smoke. The Army of the Potomac, torn, decimated, rested
+huddled in Fredericksburg and on the river banks. The Army of Northern
+Virginia rested with few or no camp-fires on the southern hills. Between
+the two foes stretched the freezing plain, and on the plain lay thick
+the Federal dead and wounded. They lay thick, thick, before the stone
+wall. At hand, full target for the fire of either force, was a small,
+white house. In the house lived Mrs. Martha Stevens. She would not leave
+before the battle, though warned and warned again to do so. She said she
+had an idea that she could help. She stayed, and wounded men dragged
+themselves or were dragged upon her little porch, and within her doors.
+General Cobb of Georgia died there; wherever a man could be laid there
+were stretched the ghastly wounded. Past the house shrieked the shells;
+bullets imbedded themselves in its walls. To and fro went Martha
+Stevens, doing what she could, bandaging hurts till the bandages gave
+out. She tore into strips what cloth there was in the little meagre
+house--her sheets, her towels, her tablecloths, her poor wardrobe. When
+all was gone she tore her calico dress. When she saw from the open door
+a man who could not drag himself that far, she went and helped him, with
+as little reck as may be conceived of shell or minie.
+
+The sun sank, a red ball, staining the snow with red. The dark came
+rapidly, a very cold dark night, with myriads of stars. The smoke slowly
+cleared. The great, opposed forces lay on their arms, the one closely
+drawn by the river, the other on the southern hills. Between was the
+plain, and the plain was a place of drear sound--oh, of drear sound!
+Neither army showed any lights; for all its antagonist knew either might
+be feverishly, in the darkness, preparing an attack. Grey and blue, the
+guns yet dominated that wide and mournful level over which, to leap upon
+the other, either foe must pass. Grey and blue, there was little
+sleeping. It was too cold, and there was need for watchfulness, and the
+plain was too unhappy--the plain was too unhappy.
+
+The smoke vanished slowly from the air. The night lay sublimely still,
+fearfully clear and cold. About ten o'clock Nature provided a spectacle.
+The grey troops, huddled upon the hillsides, drew a quickened breath. A
+Florida regiment showed alarm. "What's that? Look at that light in the
+sky! Great shafts of light streaming up--look! opening like a fan!
+What's that, chaplain, what's that?--Don't reckon the Lord's tired of
+fighting, and it's the Judgment Day?"
+
+"No, no, boys! It's an aurora borealis."
+
+"Say it over, please. Oh, northern lights! Well, we've heard of them
+before, but we never saw them. Having a lot of experiences here in
+Virginia!"--"Well, it's beautiful, any way, and I think it's terrible. I
+wish those northern lights would do something for the northern wounded
+down there. Nothing else that's northern seems likely to do it."--"Look
+at them--look at them! pale red, and dancing! I've heard them called
+'the merry dancers.' There's a shooting star! They say that every time a
+star shoots some one dies."--"That's not so. If it were, the whole sky
+would be full of falling stars to-night. Look at that red ray going up
+to the zenith. O God, make the plain stop groaning!"
+
+The display in the heavens continued, luminous rays, faintly
+rose-coloured, shifting from east to west, streaming upward until they
+were lost in the starry vault. Elsewhere the sky was dark, intensely
+clear, the winter stars like diamonds. There was no wind. The wide,
+unsheltered plain across which had stormed, across which had receded,
+the Federal charges, was sown thick with soldiers who had dropped from
+the ranks. Many and many lay still, dead and cold, their marchings and
+their tentings and their battles over. They had fought well; they had
+died; they lay here now stark and pale, but in the vast, pictured web of
+the whole their threads are strong and their colour holds. But on the
+plain of Fredericksburg many and many and many were not dead and
+resting. Hundreds and hundreds they lay, and could not rest for mortal
+anguish. They writhed and tossed, they dragged themselves a little way
+and fell again, they idly waved a hat or sword or empty hand for help,
+they cried for aid, they cried for water. Those who could not lift their
+voices moaned, moaned. Some had grown delirious, and upon that plain
+there was even laughter. All the various notes taken together blended
+into one long, dreary, weird, dull, and awful sound, steady as a wind in
+miles of frozen reeds. They were all blue soldiers, and they lay where
+they fell.
+
+There was a long fringe of them near the stone wall and near the railway
+embankment behind which now rested the Light Division and Taliaferro and
+Early. The wind here was loud, rattling a thicker growth of reeds.
+Above, the long, silent, flickering lights mocked with their rosy hue,
+and the glittering stars mocked, and the empty concave of the night
+mocked, and the sound of the Rappahannock mocked. A river moving by like
+the River of Death, and they could not even get to the river to drink,
+drink, drink....
+
+A figure kneeling by a wounded man, spoke in a guarded voice to an
+upright, approaching form. "This man could be saved. I have given him
+water. I went myself to the general, and he said that if we could get
+any into the hospital behind the hill we might do so. But I'm not strong
+enough to lift him."
+
+"I air," said Billy. He set down the bucket that he carried. "I jest
+filled it from the creek. It don't last any time, they air so thirsty!
+You take it, and I'll take him." He put his arms under the blue figure,
+lifted it like a child, and moved away, noiseless in the darkness.
+Corbin Wood took the bucket and dipper. Presently it must be refilled.
+By the creek he met an officer sent down from the hillside. "You twenty
+men out there have got to be very careful. If their sentries see or hear
+you moving you'll be thought a skirmish line with the whole of us
+behind, and every gun will be opening! Battle's decided on for
+to-morrow, not for to-night.--Now be careful, or we'll recall every
+damned life-in-your-hand blessed volunteer of you!--Oh, it's a fighting
+chaplain--I beg your pardon, I'm sure, sir! But you'd better all be very
+quiet. Old Jack would say that mercy's all right, but you mustn't alarm
+the foe."
+
+All through the night there streamed the boreal lights. The living and
+the dying, the ruined town, the plain, the hills, the river lay beneath.
+The blue army slept and waked, the grey army slept and waked. The
+general officers of both made little or no pretence at sleeping. Plans
+must be made, plans must be made, plans must be made. Stonewall Jackson,
+in his tent, laid himself down indeed for two hours and slept, guarded
+by Jim, like a man who was dead. At the end of that time he rose and
+asked for his horse.
+
+It was near dawn. He rode beneath the fading streamers, before his
+lines, before the Light Division and Early and Taliaferro, before his
+old brigade--the Stonewall. The 65th lay in a pine wood, down-sloping to
+a little stream. Reveille was yet to sound. The men lay in an uneasy
+sleep, but some of the officers were astir, and had been so all night.
+These, as Jackson checked Little Sorrel, came forward and saluted. He
+spoke to the colonel. "Colonel Erskine, your regiment did well. I saw it
+at the Crossing."
+
+Erskine, a small, brave, fiery man, coloured with pleasure. "I'm very
+glad, sir. The regiment's all right, sir. The old stock wasn't quite cut
+down, and it's made the new like it--" He hesitated, then as the general
+with his "Good! good!" gathered up the reins he took heart of grace.
+"It's old colonel, sir--it's old colonel--" he stammered, then out it
+came: "Richard Cleave trained us so, sir, that we couldn't go back!"
+
+"See, sir," said Stonewall Jackson, "that you don't emulate him in all
+things." He looked sternly and he rode away with no other word. He rode
+from the pine wood, crossed the Mine Road, and presently the narrow
+Massaponax. The streamers were gone from the sky; there was everywhere
+the hush of dawn. The courier with him wondered where he was going. They
+passed John Pelham's guns, iron dark against the pallid sky. Presently
+they came to the Yerby House, where General Maxey Gregg, a gallant
+soldier and gentleman, lay dying.
+
+As Jackson dismounted Dr. Hunter McGuire came from the house. "I gave
+him your message, general. He is dying fast. It seemed to please him."
+
+"Good!" said Jackson. "General Gregg and I have had a disagreement. In
+life it might have continued, but death lifts us all from under earthly
+displeasure. Will you ask him, Doctor, if I may pay him a little
+visit?"
+
+The visit paid, he came gravely forth, mounted and turned back toward
+headquarters on Prospect Hill. In the east were red streaks, one above
+another. The day was coming up, clear and cold. Pelham's guns, crowning
+a little eminence, showed distinct against the colour. Stonewall Jackson
+rode by, and, with a face that was a study, a gunner named Deaderick
+watched him pass.
+
+All this day these two armies stood and faced each other. There was
+sharpshooting, there was skirmishing, but no full attack. Night came and
+passed, and another morning dawned. This day, forty-eight hours after
+battle, Burnside sent a flag of truce with a request that he be allowed
+to collect and bury his dead. There were few now alive upon that plain.
+The wind in the reeds had died to a ghostly hush.
+
+That night there came up a terrible storm, a howling wind driving a
+sleety rain. All night long, in cloud and blast and beating wet, the
+Army of the Potomac, grand division by grand division, recrossed the
+Rappahannock.
+
+The storm continued, the rain and snow swelled the river. The Army of
+the Potomac with Acquia creek at hand, Washington in touch, lay
+inactive, went into winter quarters. The Army of Northern Virginia,
+couched on the southern hills, followed its example. Between the two
+foes flowed the dark river. Sentries in blue paced the one bank,
+sentries in grey the other. A detail of grey soldiers, resting an hour
+opposite Falmouth, employed their leisure in raising a tall signpost,
+with a wide and long board for arms. In bold letters they painted upon
+it THIS WAY TO RICHMOND. It rested there, month after month, in view of
+the blue army.
+
+At the end of January Burnside was superseded. The Army of the Potomac
+came under the command of Fighting Joe Hooker. In February Longstreet,
+with the divisions of Pickett and Hood, marched away from the
+Rappahannock to the south bank of the James. In mid-March was fought the
+cavalry battle of Kelly's Ford--Averell against Fitz Lee. Averell
+crossed, but when the battle rested, he was back upon the northern
+shore. At Kelly's Ford fell John Pelham, "the battle-cry on his lips,
+and the light of victory beaming from his eye."
+
+April came with soft skies and greening trees. North and south and east
+and west, there were now gathered against the fortress with the stars
+and bars above it some hundreds of thousands under arms. Likewise a
+great navy beat against the side which gave upon the sea. The fortress
+was under arms indeed, but she had no navy to speak of. Arkansas and
+Louisiana, Tennessee and North Carolina, vast lengths of the Mississippi
+River, Fortress Monroe in Virginia and Suffolk south of the
+James--entrance had been made into all these courts of the fortress.
+Blue forces held them stubbornly; smaller grey forces held as stubbornly
+the next bastion. On the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, within fifty
+miles of the imperilled Capital, were gathered by May one hundred and
+thirty thousand men in blue. Longstreet gone, there opposed them
+sixty-two thousand in grey.
+
+Late in April Fighting Joe Hooker put in motion "the finest army on the
+planet." There were various passes and feints. Sedgwick attempted a
+crossing below Fredericksburg. Stonewall Jackson sent an aide to Lee
+with the information. Lee received it with a smile. "I thought it was
+time for one of you lazy young fellows to come and tell me what that
+firing was about! Tell your good general that he knows what to do with
+the enemy just as well as I do."
+
+Flourish and passado executed, Hooker, with suddenness, moved up the
+Rappahannock, crossed at Richard's Ford, moved up the Rapidan, crossed
+at Ely and Germanna Fords, turned east and south and came into the
+Wilderness. He meant to pass through and, with three great columns,
+checkmate Lee at Fredericksburg. Before he could do so Lee shook himself
+free, left to watch the Rappahannock, and Sedgwick, ten thousand pawns
+and an able knight, and himself crossed to the Wilderness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+THE WILDERNESS
+
+
+Fifteen by twenty miles stretched the Wilderness. Out of a thin soil
+grew pine trees and pine trees, scrub oak and scrub oak. The growth was
+of the densest, mile after mile of dense growth. A few slight farms and
+clearings appeared like islands; all around them was the sea, the sea of
+tree and bush. It stretched here, it stretched there, it touched all
+horizons, vanishing beyond them in an amethyst haze.
+
+Several forest tracks traversed it, but they were narrow and worn, and
+it was hard to guess their presence, or to find it when guessed. There
+were, however, two fair roads--the old Turnpike and the Plank Road.
+These also were sunken in the thick, thick growth. A traveller upon them
+saw little save the fact that he had entered the Wilderness. Near the
+turnpike stood a small white church, the Tabernacle church. A little
+south of the heart of the place lay an old, old, abandoned iron
+furnace--Catherine Furnace. As much to the north rose a large old
+house--Chancellorsville. To the westward was Dowdall's Tavern. Around
+all swept the pine and the scrub oak, just varied by other trees and
+blossoming shrubs. The ground was level, or only slightly rolling. Look
+where one might there was tree and bush, tree and bush, a sense of
+illimitable woodland, of far horizons, of a not unhappy sameness, of
+stillness, of beauty far removed from picturesqueness, of vague,
+diffused charm, of silence, of sadness not too sad, of mystery not too
+baffling, of sunshine very still and golden. A man knew he was in the
+Wilderness.
+
+Mayday here was softly bright enough, pure sunshine and pine odours, sky
+without clouds, gentle warmth, the wild azalea in bloom, here and there
+white stars of the dogwood showing, red birds singing, pine martens
+busy, too, with their courtship, pale butterflies flitting, the bee
+haunting the honeysuckle, the snake awakening. Beauty was everywhere,
+and in portions of the great forest, great as a principality, quiet. In
+these regions, indeed, the stillness might seem doubled, reinforced, for
+from other stretches of the Wilderness, specifically from those which
+had for neighbour the roads, quiet had fled.
+
+To right and left of the Tabernacle church were breastworks, Anderson
+holding them against Hooker's advance. In the early morning, through the
+dewy Wilderness, came from Fredericksburg way Stonewall Jackson and the
+2d Corps, in addition Lafayette McLaws with his able Roman air and
+troops in hand. At the church they rested until eleven o'clock, then,
+gathering up Anderson, they plunged more deeply yet into the Wilderness.
+They moved in two columns, McLaws leading by the turnpike, Anderson in
+advance on the Plank Road, Jackson himself with the main body following
+by the latter road.
+
+Oh, bright-eyed, oh, bronzed and gaunt and ragged, oh, full of quips and
+cranks, of jest and song and courage, oh, endowed with all quaint
+humour, invested with all pathos, ennobled by vast struggle with vast
+adversity, oh, sufferers of all things, hero-fibred, grim fighters, oh,
+Army of Northern Virginia--all men and all women who have battled salute
+you, going into the Wilderness this May day with the red birds singing!
+
+On swing the two columns, long, easy, bayonets gleaming, accoutrements
+jingling, colours deep glowing in the sunshine. To either hand swept the
+Wilderness, great as a desert, green and jewelled. In the desert to-day
+were other bands, great and hostile blue-clad bands. Grey and
+blue,--there came presently a clash that shook the forest and sent
+Quiet, a fugitive, to those deeper, distant haunts. Three bands of blue,
+three grey attacks--the air rocked and swung, the pure sunlight changed
+to murk, the birds and the beasts scampered far, the Wilderness filled
+with shouting. The blue gave back--gave back somewhat too easily. The
+grey followed--would have followed at height of speed, keen and
+shouting, but there rode to the front a leader on a sorrel nag. "General
+Anderson, halt your men. Throw out skirmishers and flanking parties and
+advance with caution."
+
+McLaws on the turnpike had like orders. Through the Wilderness, through the
+gold afternoon, all went quietly. Sound of marching feet, beat of hoof,
+creak of leather, rumble of wheel, low-pitched orders were there, but no
+singing, laughing, talking. Skirmishers and flanking parties were alert,
+but the men in the main column moved dreamily, the spell of the place upon
+them. With flowering thorn and dogwood and the purple smear of the Judas
+tree, with the faint gilt of the sunshine, and with wandering gracious
+odours, with its tangled endlessness and feel as of old time, its taste of
+sadness, its hint of patience, it was such a seven-leagues of woodland as
+might have environed the hundred-years-asleep court, palace, and princess.
+The great dome of the sky sprung cloudless; there was no wind; all things
+seemed halted, as if they had been thus forever. The men almost nodded as
+they marched.
+
+Back, steadily, though slowly, gave the blue skirmishers before the grey
+skirmishers. So thickly grew the Wilderness that it was somewhat like
+Indian fighting, and no man saw a hundred yards in front of him.
+Stonewall Jackson's eyes glinted under the forage cap; perhaps he saw
+more than a hundred yards ahead of him, but if so he saw with the eyes
+of the mind. He was moving very slowly, more like a tortoise than a
+thunderbolt. The men said that Old Jack had spring fever.
+
+Grey columns, grey artillery, grey flanking cavalry, all came under
+slant sunrays to within a mile or two of that old house called
+Chancellorsville set north of the pike, upon a low ridge in the
+Wilderness. "Open ground in front--open ground in front--open ground in
+front! Let Old Jack by--Let Old Jack by! Going to see--Going to see--"
+_Halt_!
+
+The beat of feet ceased. The column waited, sunken in the green and gold
+and misty Wilderness where the shadows were lengthening and the birds
+were at evensong. In a moment the evensong was hushed and the birds flew
+away. The same instant brought explanation of that "Don't-care.
+-On-the-whole-quite-ready-to-retreat.-Merely-following-instructions"
+attitude for the past two hours of the blue skirmish line. From
+Chancellorsville, from Hooker's great entrenchments on the high roll of
+ground, along the road, and on the plateau of Hazel Grove, burst a
+raking artillery fire. The shells shrieked across the open, plunged into
+the wood, and exploded before every road-head. Hooker had guns a-many;
+they commanded the Wilderness rolling on three sides of the formidable
+position he had seized; they commanded in iron force the clearing along
+his front. He had breastworks; he had abattis. He had the 12th Corps,
+the 2d, the 3d, the 5th, the 7th, the 11th; he had in the Wilderness
+seventy thousand men. His left almost touched the Rappahannock, his
+right stretched two miles toward Germanna Ford. He was in great
+strength.
+
+Jeb Stuart with his cavalry, waiting impatiently near Catherine Furnace,
+found beside him General Jackson on Little Sorrel. "General Stuart, I
+wish you to ride with me to some point from which those guns can be
+enfiladed. Order Major Beckham forward with a battery."
+
+This was the heart of the Wilderness. Thick, thick grew the trees and
+the all-entangling underbrush. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson, staff
+behind them, pursued a span-wide bridle path, overarched by dogwood and
+Judas tree. It led at last to a rise of ground, covered by matted
+growth, towered above by a few pines. Four guns of the Horse Artillery
+strove, too, to reach the place. They made it at last, over and through
+the wild tangle, but so narrow was the clearing, made hurriedly to
+either side of the path, that but one gun at a time could be brought
+into position. Beckham, commanding now where Pelham had commanded, sent
+a shell singing against the not distant line of smoke and flame. The
+muzzle had hardly blazed when two masked batteries opened upon the rise
+of ground, the four guns, the artillerymen and artillery horses, and
+upon Stonewall Jackson, Stuart, and the staff.
+
+The great blue guns were firing at short range. A howling storm of shot
+and shell broke and continued. Through it came a curt order. "Major
+Beckham, get your guns back. General Stuart, gentlemen of the staff,
+push out of range through the underwood."
+
+The guns with their maddened horses strove to turn, but the place was
+narrow. Ere the movement could be made there was bitter loss. Horses
+reared and fell, dreadfully hurt; men were mown down, falling beside
+their pieces. It was a moment requiring action decisive, desperately
+gallant, heroically intelligent. The Horse Artillery drew off their
+guns, even got their wounded out of the intolerable zone of fire.
+Stonewall Jackson, with Stuart, watched them do it. He nodded, "Good!
+good!"
+
+Out of the raking fire, back in the scrub and pine, there came to a halt
+near him a gun, a Howitzer. He sat Little Sorrel in the last golden
+light, a light that bathed also the piece and its gunners. The Federal
+batteries were lessening fire. There was a sense of pause. The two foes
+had seen each other; now--Army of Northern Virginia, Army of the
+Potomac--they must draw breath a little before they struck, before they
+clenched. The sun was setting; the cannonade ceased.
+
+Jackson sat very still in the gold patch where, between two pines, the
+west showed clear. The aureate light, streaming on, beat full upon the
+howitzer and on the living and unwounded of its men. Stonewall Jackson
+spoke to an aide. "Tell the captain of the battery that I should like to
+speak to him."
+
+The captain came. "Captain, what is the name of the gunner there? The
+one by the limber with his head turned away."
+
+The captain looked. "Deaderick, sir. Philip Deaderick."
+
+"_Philip Deaderick._ When did he volunteer?"
+
+The other considered. "I think, general, it was just before
+Sharpsburg.--It was just after the battle of Groveton, sir."
+
+"Sharpsburg!--I remember now. So he rejoined at Manassas."
+
+"He hadn't been in earlier, sir. He had an accident, he said. He's a
+fine soldier, but he's a silent kind of a man. He keeps to himself. He
+won't take promotion."
+
+"Tell him to come here."
+
+Deaderick came. The gold in this open place, before the clear west, was
+very light and fine. It illuminated. Also the place was a little
+withdrawn, no one very near, and by comparison with the tornado which
+had raged, the stillness seemed complete. The gunner stood before the
+general, quiet, steady-eyed, broad-browed. Stonewall Jackson, his
+gauntleted hands folded over the saddle bow, gazed upon him fully and
+long. The gold light held, and the hush of the place; in the distance,
+in the Wilderness, the birds began again their singing. At last Jackson
+spoke. "The army will rest to-night. Headquarters will be yonder, by the
+road. Report to me there at ten o'clock. I will listen to what you have
+to say. That is all now."
+
+Night stole over the Wilderness, a night of large, mild stars, of
+vagrant airs, of balm and sweetness. Earth lay in a tender dream, all
+about her her wild flowers and her fresh-clad trees. The grey and the
+blue soldiers slept, too, and one dreamed of this and one dreamed of
+that. Alike they dreamed of home and country and cause, of loved women
+and loved children and of their comrades. Grey and blue, these two
+armies fought each for an idea, and they fought well, as people fight
+who fight for an idea. And that it was not a material thing for which
+they fought, but a concept, lifted from them something of the grossness
+of physical struggle, carried away as with a strong wind much of the
+pettiness of war, brought their strife upon the plane of heroes. There
+is a beauty and a strength in the thought of them, grey and blue,
+sleeping in the Wilderness, under the gleam of far-away worlds.
+
+The generals did not sleep. In the Chancellor house, north of the pike,
+Fighting Joe Hooker held council with his commanders of corps, with
+Meade and Sickles and Slocum and Howard and Couch. Out in the
+Wilderness, near the Plank Road, with the light from a camp-fire turning
+to bronze and wine-red the young oak leaves about them, there held
+council Robert Edward Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Near them a war horse
+neighed; there came the tramp of the sentry, then quiet stole upon the
+scene. The staff was near at hand, but to-night staff and couriers held
+themselves stiller than still. There was something in the air of the
+Wilderness; they knew not what it was, but it was there.
+
+Lee and Jackson sat opposite each other, the one on a box, the other on
+a great fallen tree. On the earth between them lay an unrolled map, and
+now one took it up and pondered it, and now the other, and now they
+spoke together in quiet, low voices, their eyes on the map at their feet
+in the red light. Lee spoke. "I went myself and looked upon their left.
+It is very strong. An assault upon their centre? Well-nigh impossible! I
+sent Major Talcott and Captain Boswell again to reconnoitre. They report
+the front fairly impregnable, and I agree with them that it is so. The
+right--Here is General Stuart, now, to tell us something of that!"
+
+In fighting jacket and plume Jeb Stuart came into the light. He saluted.
+"General Lee, their right rests on the Brock road, and the Brock road is
+as clean of defences as if gunpowder had never been invented, nor
+breastworks thought of!" He knelt and took up the map. "Here, sir, is
+Hunting Creek, and here Dowdall's Tavern and the Wilderness church, and
+here, through the deep woods, runs the old Furnace road, intersecting
+with the Brock road--"
+
+Lee and his great lieutenant looked and nodded, listening to his further
+report. "Thank you, General Stuart," said at last the commander-in-chief.
+"You bring news upon which I think we may act. A flanking movement by the
+Furnace and Brock roads. It must be made with secrecy and in great strength
+and with rapidity. General Jackson, will you do it?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Turn his right and gain his rear. I shall have my entire
+command?"
+
+"Yes, general. Generals McLaws and Anderson will remain with me,
+demonstrate against these people and divert their attention. When can
+you start?"
+
+"I will start at four, sir."
+
+Lee rose. "Very good! Then we had better try to get a little sleep. I
+see Tom spreading my blanket now.--The Wilderness! General, do you
+remember, in Mexico, the _Noche Triste_ trees and their great scarlet
+flowers? They grew all about the Church of our Lady of Remedies.--I
+don't know why I think of them to-night.--Good-night! good-night!"
+
+A round of barren ground, towered over by pines, hedged in by the
+all-prevailing oak scrub, made the headquarters of the commander of the
+2d Corps. Jim had built a fire, for the night wind was strengthening,
+blowing cool. He had not spared the pine boughs. The flames leaped and
+made the place ruddy as a jewel. Jackson entered, an aide behind him.
+"Find out if a soldier named Deaderick is here."
+
+The soldier named Deaderick appeared. Jackson nodded to the aide who
+withdrew, then crossing to the fire, he seated himself upon a log. It
+was late; far and wide the troops lay sleeping. A pale moon looked down;
+somewhere off in the distance an owl hooted. The Wilderness lay still as
+the men, then roused itself and whispered a little, then sank again into
+deathlike quiet.
+
+The two men, general and disgraced soldier, held themselves for a moment
+quiet as the Wilderness. Cleave knew most aspects of the man sitting on
+the log, in the gleam of the fire. He saw that to-night there was not
+the steel-like mood, cold, convinced, and stubborn, the wintry
+harshness, the granite hardness which Stonewall Jackson chiefly used
+toward offenders. He did not know what it was, but he thought that his
+general had softened.
+
+With the perception there came a change in himself. He had entered this
+ring in the Wilderness with a constriction of the heart, a quick
+farewell to whatever in life he yet held dear, a farewell certainly to
+the soldier's life, to the army, to the guns, to the service of the
+country, an iron bracing of every nerve to meet an iron thrust. And now
+the thrust had not yet come, and the general looked at him quietly, as
+one well-meaning man looks at another who also means well. He had
+suffered much and long. Something rose into his throat, the muscles of
+his face worked slightly, he turned his head aside. Jackson waited
+another moment,--then, the other having recovered himself, spoke with
+quietness.
+
+"You did, at White Oak Swamp, take it upon yourself to act, although
+there existed in your mind a doubt as to whether your orders--the orders
+you say you received--would bear that construction?"
+
+"Yes, general."
+
+"And your action proved a wrong action?"
+
+"It proved a mistaken action, sir."
+
+"It is the same thing. It entailed great loss with peril of greater."
+
+"Yes, general."
+
+"Had the brigade followed there might have ensued a general and
+disastrous engagement. The enemy were in force there--_as I knew_. Your
+action brought almost the destruction of your regiment. It brought the
+death of many brave men, and to a certain extent endangered the whole.
+That is so."
+
+"Yes, general. It is so."
+
+"Good! There was an order delivered to you. The man from whose lips you
+took it is dead. His reputation was that of a valiant, intelligent, and
+trustworthy man--hardly one to misrepeat an important order. That is
+so?"
+
+"It is entirely so, sir."
+
+"Good! You say that he brought to you such and such an order, the order,
+in effect, which, even so, you improperly construed and improperly acted
+upon, an order, however, which was never sent by me. A soldier who was
+by testifies that it was that order. Well?"
+
+"That soldier, sir, was a known liar, with a known hatred to his
+officers."
+
+"Yes. He repeated the order, word for word, as I sent it. How did that
+happen?"
+
+"Sir, I do not know."
+
+"The officer to whom I gave the order, and who, wrongly enough,
+transferred it to another messenger, swears that he gave it thus and
+so."
+
+"Yes, general. He swears it."
+
+A silence reigned in the fire-lit ring. The red light showed form and
+feature clearly. Jackson sitting on the log, his large hands resting on
+the sabre across his knees, was full within the glow. It beat even more
+strongly upon Cleave where he stood. "You believe," said Jackson, "that
+he swore falsely?"
+
+"Yes, general."
+
+"It is a question between your veracity and his?"
+
+"Yes, general."
+
+"There was enmity between you?"
+
+"Yes, general."
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"He is somewhere in prison. He was taken at Sharpsburg."
+
+There fell another silence. The sentry's tread was heard, the crackle of
+the fire seizing upon pine cone and bough, a low, sighing wind in the
+wilderness. Jackson spoke briefly. "After this campaign, if matters so
+arrange themselves, if the officer returns, if you think you can provide
+new evidence or re-present the old, I will forward, approved, your
+appeal for a court of inquiry."
+
+"I thank you, sir, with all my heart."
+
+Stonewall Jackson slightly changed his position on the log. Jim tiptoed
+into the ring and fed again the fire. There was a whinnying of some
+near-by battery horses, the sound of changing guard, then silence again
+in the Wilderness. Cleave stood, straight and still, beneath the other's
+pondering, long, and steady gaze. An aide appeared at an opening in the
+scrub. "General Fitzhugh Lee, sir." Jackson rose. "You will return to
+your battery, Deaderick.--Bring General Lee here, captain."
+
+The night passed, the dawn came, red bird and wren and robin began a
+cheeping in the Wilderness. A light mist was over the face of the earth;
+within it began a vast shadowy movement of shadowy troops. Silence was
+so strictly ordered that something approaching it was obtained. There
+was a certain eeriness in the hush in which the column was formed--the
+grey column in the grey dawn, in the Wilderness where the birds were
+cheeping, and the mist hung faint and cold. By the roadside, on a little
+knoll set round with flowering dogwood, sat General Lee on grey
+Traveller. A swirl of mist below the two detached them from the wide
+earth and marching troops, made them like a piece of sculpture seen
+against the morning sky. Below them moved the column, noiseless as might
+be, enwound with mist. In the van were Fitzhugh Lee and the First
+Virginia Cavalry. They saluted; the commander-in-chief lifted his hat;
+they vanished by the Furnace road into the heart of the Wilderness.
+Rodes's Division came next, Alabama troops. Rodes, a tall and handsome
+man, saluted; Alabama saluted. Regiment by regiment they passed into the
+flowering woods. Now came the Light Division beneath skies with a coral
+tinge. Ambrose Powell Hill saluted, and all his brigades, Virginia and
+South Carolina. The guns began to pass, quiet as was constitutionally
+possible. The very battery horses looked as though they understood that
+people who were going to turn the flank of a gigantic army in a strong
+position proceed upon the business without noise. Up rose the sun while
+the iron fighting men were yet going by. The level rays gilded all
+metal, gilded Traveller's bit and bridle clasps, gilded the spur of Lee
+and his sword hilt and the stars upon his collar. The sun began to drink
+up the mist and all the birds sang loudly. The sky was cloudless, the
+low thick woodland divinely cool and sweet. Violet and bloodroot,
+dogwood and purple Judas tree were all bespangled, bespangled with dew.
+
+While the guns were yet quietly rumbling by Stonewall Jackson appeared
+upon the rising ground. He saluted. Lee put out his hand and clasped the
+other's. "General, I feel every confidence! I am sure that you are going
+forth to victory."
+
+"Yes, sir. I think that I am.--I will send a courier back every half
+hour."
+
+"Yes, that is wise.--As soon as your wagons are by I will make
+disposition of the twelve thousand left with me. I propose a certain
+display of artillery and a line of battle so formed as to deceive--and
+deceive greatly--as to its strength. If necessary we will skirmish hotly
+throughout the day. I will create the impression that we are about to
+assault. It is imperative that they do not come between us and cut the
+army in two."
+
+"I will march as rapidly as may be, sir. The Furnace road, the Brock
+road, then turn eastward on the Plank road and strike their flank.
+Good!" He jerked his hand into the air. "I will go now, general."
+
+Lee bent across again. The two clasped hands. "God be with you, General
+Jackson!"
+
+"And with you, General Lee."
+
+Little Sorrel left the hillock. The staff came up. Stonewall Jackson
+turned in his saddle, and, the staff following his action, raised his
+hand in salute to the figure on grey Traveller, above them in the
+sunlight. Lee lifted his hat, held it so. The others filed by, turned
+sharply southward, and were lost in the jewelled Wilderness.
+
+The sun cleared the tallest pines; there set in a splendid day. The long,
+long column, cavalry, Rodes's Division, the Light Division, the artillery,
+ordnance wagons and ambulances, twenty-five thousand grey soldiers with
+Stonewall Jackson at their head--the long, long column wound through the
+Wilderness by narrow, hidden roads. Close came the scrub and pine and all
+the flowering trees of May. The horsemen put aside vine and bough, the pink
+honeysuckle brushed the gun wheels; long stretches of the road were
+grass-grown. Through the woods to the right, by paths nearer yet to the
+far-flung Federal front, paced ten guardian squadrons. All went silently,
+all went swiftly. In the Confederate service there were no automata. These
+thousands of lithe, bronzed, bright-eyed, tattered men knew that something,
+something, something was being done! Something important that they must all
+help Old Jack with. Forbidden to talk, they speculated inwardly. "South by
+west. 'T isn't a Thoroughfare Gap march. They're all here in the
+Wilderness. We're leaving their centre--their right's somewhere over there
+in the brush. Shouldn't wonder--Allan Gold, what's the Latin for 'to
+flank'?--Lieutenant, we were just whispering! Yes, sir.--All right, sir. We
+won't make no more noise than so many wet cartridges!"
+
+On they swung through the fairy forest, grey, steady, rapidly moving,
+the steel above their shoulders gleaming bright, the worn, shot-riddled
+colours like flowers amid the tender, all-enfolding green. The head of
+the column came to a dip in the Wilderness through which flowed a little
+creek. It was about nine o'clock in the morning. All the men looked to
+the right, for they could see the plateau of Hazel Grove and the great
+Federal intrenchments. "If those fellows look right hard they can see
+us, too! Can't help it--march fast and get past.--Oh, that's what the
+officers think, too! _Double quick_!"
+
+The column crossed the tiny vale. Beyond it the narrow road of bends and
+turns plunged due south. Now, General Birney, stationed on the high
+level of Hazel Grove, observed, though somewhat faintly, that movement.
+He sent a courier to Hooker at Chancellorsville. "Rebel column seen to
+pass across my front. All arms and wagon train. It has turned to the
+southward."
+
+"To the south!" said Hooker. "Turned southward. Now what does that mean?
+It might mean that Sedgwick at Fredericksburg has seized and is holding
+the road to Richmond. It might mean that Lee contemplated an
+unobstructed retreat through this Wilderness section southward to
+Gordonsville, which is not far away. From Gordonsville, he would fall
+back on Richmond. Say that is what he planned. Then, finding me in
+strength across his path, he would naturally make some demonstration,
+and behind it inaugurate a forced march, southward out of this wild
+place. A retreat to Gordonsville. It's the most probable move. I will
+send General Sickles toward Catherine Furnace to find out exactly."
+
+Birney from Hazel Grove, Sickles from Chancellorsville, advanced. At
+Catherine Furnace they found the 23d Georgia, and on both sides of the
+Plank road discovered Anderson's division. Now began hot fighting in the
+Wilderness. The brigades of Anderson did gloriously. The 23d Georgia,
+surrounded at the Furnace, saw fall, in that square of the Wilderness,
+three hundred officers and men; but those Georgians who yet stood did
+well, did well! Full in the front of Chancellorsville, McLaws, with his
+able, Roman air, his high colour, short black beard and crisp speech,
+handled his troops like a rightly trusted captain of Caesar's. He kept
+the enemy's attention strained in his direction. Standing yet upon the
+little hillock, in the midst of the flowering dogwood, a greater than
+McLaws overlooked and directed all the grey pieces upon the board before
+Chancellorsville, played, all day, like a master, a skilfully
+complicated game.
+
+Far in the Wilderness, miles now to the westward, the rolling musketry
+came to the ears of Stonewall Jackson. He was riding with Rodes at the
+head of the column. "Good! good!" he said. "That musketry is at the
+Furnace. General Hooker will attempt to drive between me and General
+Lee."
+
+An aide of A. P. Hill's approached at a gallop. He saluted, gained
+breath and spoke. "They're cutting the 23d Georgia to pieces, sir!
+General Anderson is coming into action--"
+
+A deeper thunder rolling now through the Wilderness corroborated his
+words. "Good! good!" said Jackson imperturbably. "My compliments to
+General Hill, and he will detach Archer's and Thomas's brigades and a
+battalion of artillery. They are to cooperate with General Anderson and
+protect our rear. The remainder of the Light Division will continue the
+march."
+
+On past the noon point swung light and shadow. On through the languorous
+May warmth travelled westward the long column. It went with marked
+rapidity, emphatic even for the "foot cavalry," went without swerving,
+without straggling, went like a long, gleaming thunderbolt firmly held
+and swung. Behind it, sank in the distance the noise of battle. The Army
+of Northern Virginia knew itself divided, cut in two. Far back in the
+flowering woods before Chancellorsville, the man on the grey horse,
+directing here, directing there his twelve thousand men, played his
+master game with equanimity, trusting in Stonewall Jackson rushing
+toward the Federal right. Westward in the Wilderness, swiftly nearing
+the Brock road, the man on the sorrel nag travelled with no backward
+look. In his right hand was the thunderbolt, and near at hand the place
+from which to hurl it. He rode like incarnate Intention. The officer
+beside him said something as to that enormous peril in the rear, driving
+like a wedge between this hurrying column and the grey twelve thousand
+before Chancellorsville. "Yes, sir, yes!" said Jackson. "But I trust
+first in God, and then in General Lee."
+
+The infantry swung into the Brock road. It ran northward; it lay bare,
+sunny, sleepy, walled in by emerald leaves and white and purple bloom.
+The grey thunderbolt travelled fast, fast, and at three o'clock its head
+reached the Plank road. Far to the east, in the Wilderness, the noise of
+the battle yet rolled, but it came fainter, with a diminishing sound.
+Anderson, Thomas, and Archer had driven back Sickles. There was a pause
+by Chancellorsville and Catherine Furnace. Through it and all the while
+the man on grey Traveller kept with a skill so exquisite that it shaded
+into a grave simplicity those thousands and thousands and thousands of
+hostile eyes turned quite from their real danger, centred only on a
+finely painted mask of danger.
+
+At the intersection of the Brock and the Plank roads, Stonewall Jackson
+found massed the 1st Virginia cavalry. Upon the road and to either side
+in the flowering woods, roan and bay and black tossed their heads and
+moved their limbs amid silver dogwood and rose azalea. The horses
+chafed, the horsemen looked at once anxious and exultant. Fitzhugh Lee
+met the general in command. The latter spoke. "Three o'clock. Proceed at
+once, general, down the Plank road."
+
+"I beg, sir," said the other, "that you will ride with me to the top of
+this roll of ground in front of us. I can show you the strangest
+thing!"
+
+The two went, attended only by a courier. The slight eminence, all clad
+with scrub-oak, all carpeted with wild flowers, was reached. The
+horsemen turned and looked eastward, the breast-high scrub, the few
+tender-foliaged young trees sheltering them from view. They looked
+eastward, and in the distance they saw Dowdall's Tavern. But it was not
+Dowdall's Tavern that was the strangest thing. The strangest thing was
+nearer than Dowdall's; it was at no great distance at all. It was a long
+abattis, and behind the abattis long, well-builded breastworks. Behind
+the breastworks, overlooked by the little hill, and occupying an old
+clearing in the Wilderness, was a large encampment--the encampment, in
+short, of the 11th Army Corps, Howard commanding, twenty regiments, and
+six batteries. From the little hill where the violets purpled the
+ground, Stonewall Jackson and the cavalry leader looked and looked in
+silence. The blue soldiers lay at ease on the tender sward. It was
+_dolce far niente_ in the Wilderness. The arms were stacked, the arms
+were stacked. There were cannon planted by the roadside, but where were
+the cannoneers? Not very near the guns, but asleep on the grass, or
+propped against trees smoking excellent tobacco, or in the square on the
+greensward playing cards with laughter! Battery horses were grazing
+where they would. Far and wide were scattered the infantry, squandered
+like plums on the grass. They lay or strolled about in the slant
+sunshine, in the balmy air, in the magic Wilderness--they never even
+glanced toward the stacked arms.
+
+On the flowery slope across the road, Stonewall Jackson sat Little
+Sorrel and gazed upon the pleasant, drowsy scene. His eyes had a glow,
+his cheek a warm colour beneath the bronze. Staff, and indeed the entire
+2d Corps, had remarked from time to time this spring upon Old Jack's
+evident good health. "Getting younger all the time! This war climate
+suits him. Time the peace articles are signed he'll be just a boy again!
+Arrived at--what do you call it? perennial youth." Now he and Little
+Sorrel stood upon the flowering hilltop, and his lips moved. "Old Jack's
+praying--Old Jack's praying!" thought the courier.
+
+Fitz Lee said something, but the general did not attend. In another
+moment, however, he spoke curt, decisive, final. He spoke to the
+courier. "Tell General Rodes to move _across_ the Plank road. He is to
+halt at the turnpike. I will join him there. Move quietly."
+
+The courier turned and went. Stonewall Jackson regarded again the scene
+before him--abattis and breastworks and rifle-pits untenanted, guns
+lonely in the slanting sunlight, lines of stacked arms, tents,
+fluttering flags, the horses straying at their will, cropping the tender
+grass, in a corner of a field men butchering beeves--regarded the German
+regiments, Schimmelpfennig and Krzyzancerski, regarded New York and
+Wisconsin, camped about the Wilderness church. Up from the clearing,
+across to the thick forest, floated an indescribable humming sound, a
+confused droning as from a giant race of bees. The shadows of the trees
+were growing long, the sun hung just above the pines of the Wilderness.
+"Good! good!" said Stonewall Jackson. His eyes, beneath the old, old
+forage cap, had a sapphire depth and gleam. A colour was in his cheek.
+"Good! good!" he said, and jerked his hand into the air. Suddenly
+turning Little Sorrel, he left the hill--riding fast, elbows out, and
+big feet, down into the woods, his sabre leaping as he rode.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+THE RIVER
+
+
+It yet lacked of six o'clock when the battle lines were finally formed.
+Only the treetops of the Wilderness now were in gold, below, in the
+thick wood, the brigades stood in shadow. In front were Rodes's
+skirmishers, and Rodes's brigades formed the first line. The troops of
+Raleigh Colston made the second line, A. P. Hill's men the third. A
+battery--four Napoleons--were advanced; the other guns were coming up.
+The cavalry, with Stonewall Brigade supporting, took the Plank road,
+masking the actual movement. On the old turnpike Stonewall Jackson sat
+his horse beside Rodes. At six o'clock he looked at his watch, closed
+it, and put it in his pocket. "Are you ready, General Rodes?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You can go forward, sir."
+
+High over the darkening Wilderness rang a bugle-call. The sound soared,
+hung a moment poised, then, far and near, thronged the grey echoes,
+bugles, bugles, calling, calling! The sound passed away; there followed
+a rush of bodies through the Wilderness; in a moment was heard the
+crackling fire of the skirmishers. From ahead came a wild beating of
+Federal drums--the long roll, the long roll! _Boom!_ Into action came
+the grey guns. Rodes's Alabamian's passed the abattis, touched the
+breastworks. Colston two hundred yards behind, A. P. Hill the third
+line. _Yaaai! Yaaaiiih! Yaaaaaiiihh!_ rang the Wilderness.
+
+Several miles to the eastward the large old house of Chancellorsville,
+set upon rising ground, reflected the sun from its westerly windows. All
+about it rolled the Wilderness, shadowy beneath the vivid skies. It lay
+like a sea, touching all the horizon. On the deep porch of the house,
+tasting the evening coolness, sat Fighting Joe Hooker and several of his
+officers. Eastward there was firing, as there had been all day, but it,
+too, was decreased in volume, broken in continuity. The main rebel body,
+thought the Federal general, must be about ready to draw off, follow the
+rebel advance in its desperate attempt to get out of the Wilderness, to
+get off southward to Gordonsville. The 12th Corps was facing the "main
+body". The interchange of musketry, eastward there, had a desultory,
+waiting sound. From the south, several miles into the depth of the
+Wilderness, came a slow, uninterrupted booming of cannon. Pleasanton and
+Sickles were down there, somewhere beyond Catherine Furnace. Pleasanton
+and Sickles were giving chase to the rebel detachment,--whatever it was;
+Stonewall Jackson and a division probably--that was trying to get out of
+the Wilderness. At any rate, the rebel force was divided. When morning
+dawned it should be pounded small, piece by piece, by the blue impact!
+"We've got the men, and we've got the guns. We've got the finest army on
+the planet!"
+
+The sun dropped. The Wilderness rolled like a sea, hiding many things.
+The shaggy pile of the forest turned from green to violet. It swept to
+the pale northern skies, to the eastern, reflecting light from the
+opposite quarter, to the southern, to the splendid west. Wave after
+wave, purple-hued, velvet-soft, it passed into mist beneath the skies.
+There was a perception of a vastness not comprehended. One of the men
+upon the Chancellor's porch cleared his throat. "There's an awful
+feeling about this place! It's poetic, I suppose. Anyhow, it makes you
+feel that anything might happen--the stranger it was, the likelier to
+happen--"
+
+"I don't feel that way. It's just a great big rolling plain with woods
+upon it--no mountains or water--"
+
+"Well, I always thought that if I were a great big thing going to happen
+I wouldn't choose a chopped up, picturesque place to happen in! I'd
+choose something like this. I--"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+_Boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom!_
+
+Hooker, at the opposite end of the porch, sprang up and came across.
+"Due west!--Howard's guns?--What does that mean--"
+
+_Boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom!_
+
+Fighting Joe Hooker ran down the steps. "Bring my horse, quick! Colonel,
+go down to the road and see--"
+
+"My God! Here they come!"
+
+Down the Plank road, through the woods, back to Chancellorsville, rushed
+the routed 21st Corps. Soldiers and ambulances, wagons and cattle,
+gunners lacking their guns, companies out of regiments, squads out of
+companies, panic-struck and flying units, shouting officers brandishing
+swords, horsemen, colour-bearers without colours, others with colours
+desperately saved, musicians, sutlers, camp followers, ordnance wagons
+with tearing, maddened horses, soldiers and soldiers and soldiers--down,
+back to the centre at Chancellorsville, roared the blue wave, torn,
+churned to foam, lashed and shattered, broken against a stone wall--back
+on the centre roared and fell the flanked right! Down the Plank road,
+out of the dark woods of the Wilderness, out of the rolling musketry,
+behind it the cannon thunder, burst a sound, a sound, a known sound!
+_Yaaaai! Yaaaaaiih! Yaaiii! Yaaaaiiihhhhh!_ It echoed, it echoed from
+the east of Chancellorsville! _Yaaih! Yaaaaiih! Yaaaaaaaiihh!_ yelled
+the troops of McLaws and Anderson. "Open fire!" said Lee to his
+artillery; and to McLaws, "Move up the turnpike and attack."
+
+The Wilderness of Spottsylvania laid aside her mantle of calm. She
+became a maenad, intoxicated, furious, shrieking, a giantess in action, a
+wild handmaid drinking blood, a servant of Ares, a Titanic hostess
+spreading with lavish hands large ground for armies and battles, a
+Valkyrie gathering the dead, laying them in the woodland hollows amid
+bloodroot and violets! She chanted, she swayed, she cried aloud to the
+stars, and she shook her own madness upon the troops, very impartially,
+on grey and on blue.
+
+Down the Plank road, in the gathering night, the very fulness of the
+grey victory brought its difficulties. Brigades were far ahead,
+separated from their division commanders; regiments astray from their
+brigadiers, companies struggling in the dusk through the thickets,
+seeking the thread from which in the onset and uproar the beads had
+slipped. They lost themselves in the wild place; there came perforce a
+pause, a quest for organization and alignment, a drawing together, a
+compressing of the particles of the thunderbolt; then, then would it be
+hurled again, full against Chancellorsville!
+
+The moon was coming up. She silvered the Wilderness about Dowdall's
+Tavern. She made a pallor around the group of staff and field officers
+gathered beside the road. Her light glinted on Stonewall Jackson's
+sabre, and on the worn braid of the old forage cap. A body of cavalry
+passed on its way to Ely's Ford. Jeb Stuart rode at the head. He was
+singing. "_Old Joe Hooker, won't you come out of the Wilderness?_" he
+sang. An officer of Rodes came up. "General Rodes reports, sir, that he
+has taken a line of their entrenchments. He's less than a mile from
+Chancellorsville."
+
+"Good! Tell him A. P. Hill will support. As you go, tell the troops that
+I wish them to get into line and preserve their order."
+
+The officer went. An aide of Colston's appeared, breathless from a
+struggle through the thickets. "From General Colston, sir. He's
+immediately behind General Rodes. There was a wide abattis. The troops
+are reforming beyond it. We see no Federals between us and
+Chancellorsville."
+
+"Good! Tell General Colston to use expedition and get his men into line.
+Those guns are opening without orders!"
+
+Three grey cannon, planted within bowshot of the Chancellor House,
+opened, indeed, and with vigour,--opened against twenty-two guns in
+epaulements on the Chancellorsville ridge. The twenty-two answered in a
+roar of sound, overtowering the cannonade to the east of McLaws and
+Anderson. The Wilderness resounded; smoke began to rise like the smoke
+of strange sacrifices; the mood of the place changed to frenzy. She
+swung herself, she chanted.
+
+                      "Grey or blue,
+                        I care not, I!
+                      Blue and grey
+                        Are here to die!
+                      This human brood
+                        Is stained with blood.
+                      The armed man dies,
+                        See where he lies
+                      In my arms asleep!
+                        On my breast asleep!
+                      The babe of Time,
+                        A nestling fallen.
+                      The nest a ruin,
+                        The tree storm-snapped.
+              Lullaby, lullaby! sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep!"
+
+The smoke drifted toward the moon, the red gun-flashes showed the aisles
+of pine and oak. Jackson beckoned imperiously to an aide. "Go tell A. P.
+Hill to press forward."
+
+The thunder of the guns ceased suddenly. There was heard a trample of
+feet, A. P. Hill's brigades on the turnpike. "Who leads?" asked a voice.
+"Lane's North Carolinians," answered another. General Lane came by,
+young, an old V. M. I. cadet. He drew rein a moment, saluted. "Push
+right ahead, Lane! right ahead!" said Jackson.
+
+A. P. Hill, in his battle shirt, appeared, his staff behind him. "Your
+final order, general?"
+
+"Press them, Hill! Cut them off from the fords. Press them!"
+
+A. P. Hill went. From the east, the guns upon his own front now having
+quieted, rolled the thunder of those with Lee. The clamour about
+Chancellorsville where, in hot haste, Hooker made dispositions, streamed
+east and west, meeting and blending with, westward, a like distraction
+of forming commands, of battle lines made in the darkness, among
+thickets. The moon was high, but not observed; the Wilderness fiercely
+chanting. Behind him was Captain Wilbourne of the Signal Corps, two
+aides and several couriers, Jackson rode along the Plank road.
+
+There was a regiment drawn across this way through the Wilderness, on
+the road and in the woods on either hand. In places in the Wilderness,
+the scrub that fearfully burned the next day and the next was even now
+afire, and gave, though uncertainly and dimly, a certain illumination.
+By it the regiment was perceived. It seemed composed of tall and shadowy
+men. "What troops are these?" asked the general.
+
+"Lane's North Carolinians, sir,--the 18th."
+
+As he passed, the regiment started to cheer. He shook his head. "Don't,
+men, we want quiet now!"
+
+A very few hundred yards from Chancellorsville he checked Little Sorrel.
+The horse stood, fore feet planted. Horse and rider, they stood and
+listened. Hooker's reserves were up. About the Chancellor House, on the
+Chancellorsville ridge, they were throwing up entrenchments. They were
+digging the earth with bayonets, they were heaping it up with their
+hands. There was a ringing of axes. They were cutting down the young
+spring growth; they were making an abattis. Tones of command could be
+heard. "Hurry, hurry--hurry! They mean to rush us. Hurry--hurry!" A dead
+creeper mantling a dead tree, caught by some flying spark, suddenly
+flared throughout its length, stood a pillar of fire, and showed redly
+the enemy's guns. Stonewall Jackson sat his horse and looked. "Cut them
+off from the ford," he said. "Never let them get out of Virginia." He
+jerked his hand into the air.
+
+Turning Little Sorrel, he rode back along the Plank road toward his own
+lines. The light of the burning brush had sunken. The cannon smoke
+floating in the air, the very thick woods, made all things obscure.
+
+"There are troops across the road in front," said an aide.
+
+"Yes. Lane's North Carolinians awaiting their signal."
+
+A little to the east and south broke out in the Wilderness a sudden
+rattling fire, sinking, rising, sinking again, the blue and grey
+skirmishers now in touch. All through the vast, dark, tangled beating
+heart of the place, sprang into being a tension. The grey lines listened
+for the word _Advance_! The musket rested on the shoulder, the foot
+quivered, eyes front tried to pierce the darkness. Sound was unceasing;
+and yet the mind found a stillness, a lake of calm. It was the moment
+before the moment.
+
+Stonewall Jackson came toward the Carolinians. He rode quickly, past the
+dark shell of a house sunken among pines. There were with him seven or
+eight persons. The horses' hoofs made a trampling on the Plank road. The
+woods were deep, the obscurity great. Suddenly out of the brush rang a
+shot, an accidentally discharged rifle. Some grey soldier among Lane's
+tensely waiting ranks, dressed in the woods to the right of the road,
+spoke from the core of a fearful dream: "Yankee cavalry!"
+
+"_Fire!_" called an officer of the 18th North Carolina.
+
+The volley, striking diagonally across the road, emptied several
+saddles. Stonewall Jackson, the aides and Wilbourne, wheeled to the
+left, dug spur, and would have plunged into the wood. "_Fire!_" said the
+Carolinians, dressed to the left of the road, and fired.
+
+Little Sorrel, maddened, dashed into the wood. An oak bough struck his
+rider, almost bearing him from the saddle. With his right hand from which
+the blood was streaming, in which a bullet was imbedded, he caught the
+bridle, managed to turn the agonized brute into the road again. There
+seemed a wild sound, a confusion of voices. Some one had stopped the
+firing. "My God, men! You are firing into _us_!" In the road were the
+aides. They caught the rein, stopped the horse. Wilbourne put up his arms.
+"General, general! you are not hurt?--Hold there!--Morrison--Leigh!--"
+
+They laid him on the ground beneath the pines and they fired the
+brushwood for a light. One rode off for Dr. McGuire, and another with a
+penknife cut away the sleeve from the left arm through which had gone
+two bullets. A mounted man came at a gallop and threw himself from his
+horse. It was A. P. Hill. "General, general! you are not much hurt?"
+
+"Yes, I think I am," said Stonewall Jackson. "And my wounds are from my
+own men."
+
+Hill drew off the gauntlets that were all blood soaked, and with his
+handkerchief tried to bind up the arm, shattered and with the main
+artery cut. A courier came up. "Sir, sir! a body of the enemy is close
+at hand--"
+
+The aides lifted the wounded general. "No one," said Hill, "must tell
+the troops who was wounded." The other opened his eyes. "Tell them
+simply that you have a wounded officer. General Hill, you are in command
+now. Press right on."
+
+With a gesture of sorrow Hill went, returning to the front. The others
+rested at the edge of the road. At that moment the Federal batteries
+opened, a hissing storm of shot and shell, a tornado meant measurably to
+retard that anticipated, grey onrush. The range was high. Aides and
+couriers laid the wounded leader on the earth and made of their bodies a
+screen. The trees were cut, the earth was torn up; there was a howling
+as of unchained fiends. There passed what seemed an eternity and was but
+ten minutes. The great blue guns slightly changed the direction of their
+fire. The storm howled away from the group by the road, and the men
+again lifted Jackson. He stood now on his feet; and because troops were
+heard approaching, and because it must not be known that he was hurt,
+all moved into the darkness of the scrub. The troops upon the road came
+on--Pender's brigade. Pender, riding in advance, saw the group and asked
+who was wounded. "A field officer," answered one, but there came from
+some direction a glare of light and by it Pender knew. He sprang from
+his horse. "Don't say anything about it, General Pender," said Jackson.
+"Press on, sir, press on!"
+
+"General, they are using all their artillery. It is a very deadly fire.
+In the darkness it may disorganize--"
+
+The forage cap was gone. The blue eyes showed full and deep. "You must
+hold your ground, General Pender. You must hold out to the last, sir."
+
+"I will, general, I will," said Pender.
+
+A litter was found and brought, and Stonewall Jackson was laid upon it.
+The little procession moved toward Dowdall's Tavern. A shot pierced the
+arm of one of the bearers, loosening his hold of the litter. It tilted.
+The general fell heavily to the ground, injuring afresh the wounded
+limb, striking and bruising his side. They raised him, pale, now, and
+silent, and at last they struggled through the wood to a little
+clearing, where they found an ambulance. Now, too, came the doctor, a
+man whom he loved, and knelt beside him. "I hope that you are not badly
+hurt, general?"
+
+"Yes, I am, doctor. I am badly hurt. I fear that I am dying."
+
+In the ambulance lay also his chief of artillery, Colonel Crutchfield,
+painfully injured. Crutchfield pulled the doctor down to him. "He isn't
+badly hurt?"
+
+"Yes. Badly hurt."
+
+Crutchfield groaned. "Oh, my God!" Stonewall Jackson heard and made the
+ambulance stop. "You must do something for Colonel Crutchfield, doctor.
+Don't let him suffer."
+
+A. P. Hill, riding back to the front, was wounded by a piece of shell.
+Boswell, the chief engineer, to whom had been entrusted the guidance
+through the night of the advance upon the roads to the fords, was
+killed. That was a fatal cannonade from the ridge of Chancellorsville,
+fatal and fateful! It continued. The Wilderness chanted a battle chant
+indeed to the moon, the moon that was pale and wan as if wearied with
+silvering battlefields. Hill, lying in a litter, just back of his
+advanced line, dispatched couriers for Stuart. Stuart was far toward
+Ely's Ford, riding through the night in plume and fighting jacket. The
+straining horses, the recalling order, reached him.
+
+"General Jackson badly wounded! A. P. Hill badly wounded! I in command!
+My God, man! all changed like that? _Right about face! Forward! March!_"
+
+There was, that night, no grey assault. But the dawn broke clear and
+found the grey lines waiting. The sky was a glory, the Wilderness rolled
+in emerald waves, the redbirds sang. Lee and the 2d Corps were yet two
+miles apart. Between was Chancellorsville, and all the strong
+entrenchments and the great blue guns, and Hooker's courageous men.
+
+Now followed Jeb Stuart's fight. In the dawn, the 2nd Corps, swung from
+the right by a master hand, struck full against the Federal centre,
+struck full against Chancellorsville. In the clear May morning broke a
+thunderstorm of artillery. It raged loudly, peal on peal, crash on
+crash! The grey shells struck the Chancellor house. They set it on fire.
+It went up in flames. A fragment of shell struck and stunned Fighting
+Joe Hooker. He lay senseless for hours and Couch took command. The grey
+musketry, the blue musketry, rolled, rolled! The Wilderness was on fire.
+In places it was like a prairie. The flames licked their way through the
+scrub; the wounded perished. Ammunition began to fail; Stuart ordered
+the ground to be held with the bayonet. There was a great attack against
+his left. His three lines came into one and repulsed it. His right and
+Anderson's left now touched. The Army of Northern Virginia was again a
+unit.
+
+Stuart swung above his head the hat with the black feather. His
+beautiful horse danced along the grey lines, the lines that were very
+grimly determined, the lines that knew now that Stonewall Jackson was
+badly wounded. They meant, the grey lines, to make this day and this
+Wilderness remembered. "_Forward. Charge!_" cried Jeb Stuart. "Remember
+Jackson!" He swung his plumed hat. _Yaaaii! Yaaaaaaaiihhh! Yaaaaaii!
+Yaaaiiiihhh!_ yelled the grey lines, and charged. Stuart went at their
+head, and as he went he raised in song his golden, ringing voice. "_Old
+Joe Hooker, won't you come out of the Wilderness?_"
+
+By ten o'clock the Chancellor ridge was taken, the blue guns silenced,
+Hooker beaten back toward the Rappahannock. The Wilderness, after all,
+was Virginian. She broke into a war song of triumph. Her flowers
+bloomed, her birds sang, and then came Lee to the front. Oh, the Army of
+Northern Virginia cheered him! "Men, men!" he said, "you have done well,
+you have done well! Where is General Jackson?"
+
+He was told. Presently he wrote a note and sent it to the field hospital
+near Dowdall's Tavern. "_General:--I cannot express my regret. Could I
+have directed events I should have chosen for the good of the country to
+be disabled in your stead. I congratulate you upon the victory, which is
+due to your skill and energy. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
+R. E. Lee._"
+
+An aide read it to Stonewall Jackson where he lay, very quiet, in the
+deeps of the Wilderness. For a minute he did not speak, then he said,
+"General Lee is very kind, but he should give the praise to God."
+
+For four days yet they fought, in the Wilderness, at Salem church, at
+the Fords of the Rappahannock, again at Fredericksburg. Then they
+rested, the Army of the Potomac back on the northern side of the
+Rappahannock, the Army of Northern Virginia holding the southern shore
+and the road to Richmond--Richmond no nearer for McDowell, no nearer for
+McClellan, no nearer for Pope, no nearer for Burnside, no nearer for
+Hooker, no nearer after two years of war! In the Wilderness and
+thereabouts Hooker lost seventeen thousand men, thirteen guns, and
+fifteen hundred rounds of cannon ammunition, twenty thousand rifles,
+three hundred thousand rounds of infantry ammunition. The Army of
+Northern Virginia lost twelve thousand men.
+
+On the fifth of May Stonewall Jackson was carefully moved from the
+Wilderness to Guiney's Station. Here was a large old residence--the
+Chandler house--within a sweep of grass and trees; about it one or two
+small buildings. The great house was filled, crowded to its doors with
+wounded soldiers, so they laid Stonewall Jackson in a rude cabin among
+the trees. The left arm had been amputated in the field hospital. He was
+thought to be doing well, though at times he complained of the side
+which, in the fall from the litter, had been struck and bruised.
+
+At daylight on Thursday he had his physician called. "I am suffering
+great pain," he said. "See what is the matter with me." And presently,
+"Is it pneumonia?"
+
+That afternoon his wife came. He was roused to speak to her, greeted her
+with love, then sank into something like stupor. From time to time he
+awakened from this, but there were also times when he was slightly
+delirious. He gave orders in a shadow of the old voice. "You must hold
+out a little longer, men; you must hold out a little longer!... Press
+forward--press forward--press forward!... Give them canister, Major
+Pelham!"
+
+Friday went by, and Saturday. The afternoon of this day he asked for his
+chaplain, Mr. Lacy. Later, in the twilight, his wife sang to him, old
+hymns that he loved. "Sing the fifty-first psalm in verse," he said. She
+sang,--
+
+                    "Show pity, Lord! O Lord, forgive--"
+
+The night passed and Sunday the tenth dawned. He lay quiet, his right
+hand on his breast. One of the staff came for a moment to his bedside.
+"Who is preaching at headquarters to-day?" He was told, and said, "Good!
+I wish I might be there."
+
+The officer's voice broke. "General, general! the whole army is praying
+for you. There's a message from General Lee."
+
+"Yes, yes. Give it."
+
+"He sends you his love. He says that you must recover; that you have
+lost your left arm, but that he would lose his right arm. He says tell
+you that he prayed for you last night as he had never prayed for
+himself. He repeats what he said in his note that for the good of
+Virginia and the South he could wish that he were lying here in your
+place--"
+
+The soldier on the bed smiled a little and shook his head. "Better ten
+Jacksons should lie here than one Lee."
+
+It was sunny weather, fair and sweet with all the bloom of May, the
+bright trees waving, the long grass rippling, waters flowing, the sky
+azure, bees about the flowers, the birds singing piercingly sweet,
+mother earth so beautiful, the sky down-bending, the light of the sun so
+gracious, warm, and vital!
+
+A little before noon, kneeling beside him, his wife told Stonewall
+Jackson that he would die. He smiled and laid his hand upon her bowed
+head. "You are frightened, my child! Death is not so near. I may yet get
+well."
+
+The doctor came to him. "Doctor, Anna tells me that I am to die to-day.
+Is it so?"
+
+"Oh, general, general!--It is so."
+
+He lay silent a moment, then he said, "Very good, very good! It is all
+right."
+
+Throughout the day his mind was now clouded, now clear. In one of the
+latter times he said there was something he was trying to remember.
+There followed a half-hour of broken sleep and wandering, in the course
+of which he twice spoke a name, "Deaderick." Once he said "Horse
+Artillery," and once "White Oak Swamp."
+
+The alternate clear moments and the lapses into stupour or delirium were
+like the sinking or rising of a strong swimmer, exhausted at last, the
+prey at last of a shoreless sea. At times he came head and shoulders out
+of the sea. In such a moment he opened his grey-blue eyes full on one of
+his staff. All the staff was gathered in grief about the bed. "When
+Richard Cleave," he said, "asks for a court of enquiry let him have it.
+Tell General Lee--" The sea drew him under again.
+
+It hardly let him go any more; moment by moment now, it wore out the
+strong swimmer. The day drew on to afternoon. He lay straight upon the
+bed, silent for the most part, but now and then wandering a little. His
+wife bowed herself beside him; in a corner wept the old man, Jim.
+Outside the windows there seemed a hush as of death.
+
+"Pass the infantry to the front!" ordered Stonewall Jackson. "Tell A. P.
+Hill to prepare for action!" The voice sank; there came a long silence;
+there was only heard the old man crying in the corner. Then, for the
+last time in this phase of being, the great soldier opened his eyes. In
+a moment he spoke, in a very sweet and calm voice. "Let us cross over
+the river, and rest under the shade of the trees." He died.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The bells tolled, the bells tolled in Richmond, tolled from each of her
+seven hills! Sombre was the sound of the minute guns, shaking the heart
+of the city! Oh, this capital knew the Dead March in Saul as a child
+knows his lullaby! To-day it had a depth and a height and was a dirge
+indeed. To-day it wailed for a Chieftain, wailed through the streets
+where the rose and magnolia bloomed, wailed as may have wailed the
+trumpets when Priam brought Hector home. The great throng to either side
+the streets shivered beneath the wailing, beneath the low thunder of the
+drums. There was lacking no pomp of War, War who must have gauds with
+which to hide his naked horror. The guns boomed, the bells tolled, the
+muffled drums beat, beat! Regiments marched with reversed arms, with
+colours furled. There was mournful civic pomp, mournful official. There
+came a great black hearse drawn by four white horses. On it lay the body
+of Stonewall Jackson, and over it was drawn the deep blue flag with the
+arms of Virginia, and likewise the starry banner of the eleven
+Confederate States. Oh, heart-breaking were the minute guns, and the
+tolling, tolling bells, and the deep, slow, heroic music, and the
+sobbing of the people! It was a cloudless day and filled with grief.
+Behind the hearse trod Little Sorrel.
+
+Beneath arching trees, by houses of mellow red brick, houses of pale
+grey stucco, by old porches and ironwork balconies, by wistaria and
+climbing roses and magnolias with white chalices, the long procession
+bore Stonewall Jackson. By St. Paul's they bore him, by Washington and
+the great bronze men in his company, by Jefferson and Marshall, by Henry
+and Mason, by Lewis and Nelson. They bore him over the greensward to the
+Capitol steps, and there the hearse stopped. Six generals lifted the
+coffin, Longstreet going before. The bells tolled and the Dead March
+rang, and all the people on the green slopes of the historic place
+uncovered their heads and wept. The coffin, high-borne, passed upward
+and between the great, white, Doric columns. It passed into the Capitol
+and into the Hall of the Lower House. Here it rested before the
+Speaker's Chair.
+
+All day Stonewall Jackson lay in state. Twenty thousand people, from the
+President of the Confederacy to the last poor wounded soldier who could
+creep hither, passed before the bier, looked upon the calm face, the
+flag-enshrouded form, lying among lilies before the Speaker's Chair, in
+the Virginia Hall of Delegates, in the Capitol of the Confederacy. All
+day the bells tolled, all day the minute guns were fired.
+
+A man of the Stonewall Brigade, pausing his moment before the dead
+leader, first bent, then lifted his head. He was a scout, a blonde
+soldier, tall and strong, with a quiet, studious face and sea-blue eyes.
+He looked now at the vaulted roof as though he saw instead the sky. He
+spoke in a controlled, determined voice. "What Stonewall Jackson always
+said was just this: _'Press forward!'_" He passed on.
+
+Presently in line came a private soldier of A. P. Hill's, a young man
+like a beautiful athlete from a frieze, an athlete who was also a
+philosopher. "Hail, great man of the past!" he said. "If to-day you
+consort with Caesar, tell him we still make war." He, too, went on.
+
+Others passed, and then there came an artilleryman, a gunner of the
+Horse Artillery. Grey-eyed, broad-browed, he stood his moment and gazed
+upon the dead soldier among the lilies. "Hooker yet upon the
+Rappahannock," he said. "We must have him across the Potomac, and we
+must ourselves invade Pennsylvania."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Riverside Press
+
+CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
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+
+       *       *       *       *       *
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+THE RIGHT STUFF
+
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+
+"Those who love the companionship of people of fine fibre, and to whom a
+sense of humor has not been denied, will make no mistake in seeking the
+society open to them in 'The Right Stuff.'"
+
+_New York Times._
+
+
+"Hay resembles Barrie, and, like Barrie, he will grow in many
+ways."--_Cleveland Leader._
+
+
+"A compelling tribute to the homely genuineness and sterling worth of
+Scottish character."
+
+_St. Louis Post Dispatch._
+
+
+"Mr. Hay has written a story which is pure story and is a delight from
+beginning to end."
+
+_San Francisco Argonaut._
+
+
+"It would be hard, indeed, to find a more winning book."--_New Orleans
+Times-Democrat._
+
+
+With frontispiece by James Montgomery Flagg. 12mo.
+
+$1.20 _net._ Postage 10 cents.
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+JOHN WINTERBOURNE'S FAMILY
+
+By ALICE BROWN
+
+"A delightful and unusual story. The manner in which the hero's male
+solitude is invaded and set right is amusing and eccentric enough to
+have been devised by the late Frank Stockton. It is a story that is well
+worth reading."--_New York Sun._
+
+"Is to be counted among the best novels of this entertaining writer ...
+written with a skilful and delicate touch."--_Springfield Republican._
+
+"In its literary graces, in its portrayal of characters that are never
+commonplace though genuinely human, and in its development of a singular
+social situation, the book is one to give delight."--_Philadelphia
+Press._
+
+12mo, $1.35 _net._ Postage 13 cents.
+
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+ENCHANTED GROUND
+
+An Episode in the Life of a Young Man
+
+By HARRY JAMES SMITH
+
+"An absorbing, dramatic, and sweet story ... a problem novel--with a
+solution."--_New York Times._
+
+"One of the strongest American novels that has appeared in several
+seasons.... The whole story is on a far higher plane than the ordinary
+novel of American life. The main characters are real, but they are
+touched with the fire of the spirit."--_San Francisco Chronicle._
+
+"It has a strong vein of sentiment, a flexible and kindly humor, a plot
+directly concerned with a pair of young lovers, and a vigorous
+style."--_The Nation._
+
+"That it will be a favorite seems to us a safe prediction.... There is
+no part of it which, once begun, is likely to be left unread."--_The
+Dial._
+
+12mo, $1.20 _net._ Postage 12 cents.
+
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+
+
+
+LEWIS RAND
+
+By MARY JOHNSTON
+
+"One of the strongest works of fiction that has seen the light of day in
+America."--_New York Times._
+
+"In 'Lewis Rand' we have historical fiction at its very best, and Miss
+Johnston also at the highest point of her inventive, her pictorial and
+her constructive skill."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+"The story is a strong one. It provides a vivid presentation of a
+deeply interesting period of our national annals, and it throbs with
+real life."--_Chicago Dial._
+
+"Aside from its high dramatic quality and tense dramatic interest 'Lewis
+Rand' portrays admirably the manners and customs of an important
+historical epoch."--_Philadelphia North American._
+
+Illustrated in color by F. C. Yohn.
+
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+
+
+THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS
+
+By MEREDITH NICHOLSON
+
+"It is not often that one comes upon so clean a farce, so delightful,
+good-humored satire."--_Chicago Evening Post._
+
+"He has woven wit and humor and clever satire into this airy fantasy of
+twentieth century life in a way that should add to his literary
+fame."--_Indianapolis Star._
+
+"For sheer cleverness of invention and sprightly wit this story has had
+no peer in recent years."--_New York Press._
+
+"Just the sort of book which will delight those seeking clean, wholesome
+entertainment."--_Boston Globe._
+
+"Meredith Nicholson's is a delightful book, witty, epigrammatic,
+flavorsome ... recalls Frank Stockton's bewitching foolery and perennial
+charm."--_Milwaukee Free Press._
+
+With frontispiece by C. Coles Phillips and illustrations by Reginald
+Birch. $1.20 _net._ Postage 14 cents.
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+
+
+HUMAN BULLETS
+
+By TADAYOSHI SAKURAI
+
+"'Human Bullets' is the most remarkable book, in a literary and
+psychological way, brought out through the war clash of Russia and
+Japan. It is the revelation at once of the soul of a soldier and the
+moving spirit of a people."--_New York World._
+
+"The book as a whole is a singular and strikingly valuable work, not
+only by reason of its vivid descriptions of the stern side of war, but
+for its revelation of Japanese ideals of patriotism and military
+duty."--_Brooklyn Eagle._
+
+"The story is told simply, but with such a touch of realism that his
+word-pictures are distinctly picturesque.... The author has shown rare
+literary skill, and the translator and editor have not permitted the
+narrative to lose anything of technical value."--_Transcript, Boston._
+
+"It is an illuminating exposition of the Japanese mind, in war and in
+peace.... The book furnishes a striking picture of what war actually is,
+even under its most humane aspects."--_Bookman, N. Y._
+
+With frontispiece in color by the author
+
+12mo, $1.25 _net._ Postpaid $1.37
+
+HOUGHTON
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+BOSTON
+AND
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+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Long Roll, by Mary Johnston
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