By Mary Johnston

THE LONG ROLL. The first of two books dealing with the war between theStates. 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 magazinesof Historical Societies, to whom the writer of a story dealing with thisperiod is indebted, would be to place below a very long list. In lieu ofdoing so, the author of this book will say here that many incidentswhich she has used were actual happenings, recorded by men and womenwriting of that through which they lived. She has changed the manner butnot the substance, and she has used them because they were "truestories" and she wished that breath of life within the book. To allrecorders of these things that verily happened, she here acknowledgesher 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 itsexcitement. It might have climbed rapidly from a lower land, soheightened now were its pulses, so light and rare the air it drank, soraised its mood, so wide, so very wide the opening prospect. Oldred-brick houses, old box-planted gardens, old high, leafless trees, outit 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 agreater value than other points and positions only the Judge of all candetermine. The little town tried to see clearly and to act rightly. If, in this time so troubled, so obscured by mounting clouds, so tossed bywinds of passion and of prejudice, it felt the proudest assurance thatit was doing both, at least that self-infatuation was shared all aroundthe compass. 

The town was the county-seat. Red brick and white pillars, set on risingground 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 BotetourtResolutions, offered by the President of the Supreme Court of Virginia, and now delivered in a solemn and a ringing voice. The season wasDecember 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 Virginianever 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 asto 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'tfeel alike, and we don't interpret the Constitution alike! I'll tell youhow the North interprets it!--Government by the North, for the North, andover 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 andinalienable!--We fought for it--when didn't we fight for it? When we ceaseto 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 thebone--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 notquite mad--not even the black Republicans! We'll save the Union!--Wemade it, and we'll save it!--Unless the North takes leave of itssenses. --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 abeginning of sound, like the beginning of wind in the forest. It grew, it became deep and surrounding as the atmosphere, it increased into thegeneral voice of the county, and the voice passed the BotetourtResolutions. 

CHAPTER II

THE HILLTOP

On the court house portico sat the prominent men of the county, lawyersand planters, men of name and place, moulders of thought and leaders inaction. Out of these came the speakers. One by one, they stepped intothe clear space between the pillars. Such a man was cool and weighty, such a man was impassioned and persuasive. Now the tense crowdlistened, hardly breathing, now it broke into wild applause. Thespeakers dealt with an approaching tempest, and with a gesture theychecked off the storm clouds. "_Protection for the manufacturing Northat the expense of the agricultural South_--an old storm centre!_Territorial Rights_--once a speck in the west, not so large as a man'shand, and now beneath it, the wrangling and darkened land! _The Bondageof the African Race_--a heavy cloud! Our English fathers raised it; ournorthern brethren dwelled with it; the currents of the air fixed it inthe South. At no far day we will pass from under it. In the mean time wewould not have it _burst_. In that case underneath it would lie ruinedfields and wrecked homes, and out of its elements would come a fearfulpestilence! _The Triumph of the Republican Party_--no slight darkeningof the air is that, no drifting mist of the morning! It is the triumphof that party which proclaims the Constitution a covenant with death andan agreement with hell!--of that party which tolled the bells, and firedthe minute guns, and draped its churches with black, and all-hailed assaint and martyr the instigator of a bloody and servile insurrection ina sister State, the felon and murderer, John Brown! The Radical, theBlack Republican, faction, sectional rule, fanaticism, violation of theConstitution, aggression, tyranny, and wrong--all these are in the bosomof that cloud!--_The Sovereignty of the State. _ Where is the tempestwhich threatens here? _Not_ here, Virginians! but in the pleasingassertion of the North, 'There is no sovereignty of the State!' 'A Stateis merely to the Union what a county is to a State. ' O shades of JohnRandolph of Roanoke, of Patrick Henry, of Mason and Madison, ofWashington and Jefferson! O shade of John Marshall even, whom we used tothink too Federal! The Union! We thought of the Union as a goldenthread--at the most we thought of it as a strong servant we had madebetween us, we thirteen artificers--a beautiful Talus to walk our coastsand 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 monsterthat Frankenstein made, not this Minotaur swallowing States! _TheSovereignty of the State!_ Virginia fought seven years for thesovereignty of Virginia, wrung it, eighty years ago, from Great Britain, and has not since resigned it! Being different in most things, possiblythe North is different also in this. It may be that those States haverenounced the liberty they fought for. Possibly Massachusetts--the years1803, 1811, and 1844 to the contrary--does regard herself as a county. Possibly Connecticut--for all that there was a HartfordConvention!--sees herself in the same light. Possibly. 'Brutus saith 'tis 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 theletters burn bright! Unterrified then she entered this league from whichwe hoped so much. Unterrified to-morrow, should a slurring hand be laidupon that shield, will she leave it!"

Allan Gold, from the schoolhouse on Thunder Run, listened with aswelling heart, then, amid the applause which followed the last speaker, edged his way along the crowded old brick pavement to where, not farfrom 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 thesequestions. Hairston Breckinridge glanced down at the pressure upon hisarm, recognized the hand, and pursued, half aloud, the current of histhought. "I don't believe I'll go back to the university. I don'tbelieve 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 ofreason. In these affairs out of reason is out of honour. There's nothingsacred in the word _Union_ that men should bow down and worship it! It'sthe thing behind the word that counts--and whoever says thatMassachusetts and Virginia, and Illinois and Texas are united just nowis 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 onfurlough. --Old-line Whig. I've been at his brother's place, nearCharlottesville--"

From the portico came a voice. "I am sure that few in Botetourt need anintroduction here. We, no more than others, are free from vanity, and wethink we know a hero by intuition. Men of Botetourt, we have the honourto listen to Major Fauquier Cary, who carried the flag up Chapultepec!"

Amid applause a man of perhaps forty years, spare, bronzed, andsoldierly, entered the clear space between the pillars, threw out hisarm with an authoritative gesture, and began to speak in an odd, dry, attractive voice. "You are too good!" he said clearly. "I'm afraid youdon'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 yonderon the plains with the Apaches and the Comanches and the sage brush andthe desert--"

There was an interruption. "How about Chapultepec?"--"And the RioGrande?"--"Didn't we hear something about a fight in Texas?"

The speaker laughed. "A fight in Texas? Folk, folk, if you knew how manyfights there are in Texas--and how meritorious it is to keep out ofthem! No; I'm only a Virginian out there. " He regarded the throng withhis magnetic smile, his slight and fine air of gaiety in storm. "As youknow, I am by no means the only Virginian, and they are heroes, theothers, if you like!--real, old-line heroes, brave as the warriors inHomer, and a long sight better men! I am happy to report to his kinsmenhere that General Joseph E. Johnston is in health--still lovingastronomy, 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 apoet's poet! I see men before me who are of the blood of the Lees. Outthere by the Rio Grande is a Colonel Robert E. Lee, of whom Virginia maywell be proud! There are few heights in those western deserts, but hecarries his height with him. He's marked for greatness. And there are'Beauty' Stuart, and Dabney Maury, the best of fellows, and EdwardDillon, and Walker and George Thomas, and many another good man andtrue. First and last, there's a deal of old Virginia following Mars, outyonder! We've got Hardee, too, from Georgia, and Van Dorn fromMississippi, and Albert Sidney Johnston from Kentucky--no better men inHomer, no better men! And there are others as soldierly--McClellan withwhom 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, Sykesfrom Delaware, and Averell from New York. And away, away out yonder, inthe midst of sage brush and Apaches, when any of us chance to meetaround a camp-fire, there we sit, while coyotes are yelling off in thedark, there we sit and tell stories of home, of Virginia andPennsylvania, 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 andspoke in a changed tone, with a fiery suddenness, a lunge as of a triedrapier, quick and startling. 

"Men of Botetourt! I speak for my fellow soldiers of the Army of theUnited States when I say that, out yonder, we are blithe to fight withmarauding Comanches, with wolves and with grizzlies, but that we arenot--oh, we are not--ready to fight with each other! Brother againstbrother--comrade against comrade--friend against friend--to quarrel inthe same tongue and to slay the man with whom you've faced a thousanddangers--no, we are not ready for that!

"Virginians! I will not believe that the permanent dissolution of thisgreat Union is come! I will not believe that we stand to-day in dangerof internecine war! Men of Botetourt, go slow--go slow! The Right of theState--I grant it! I was bred in that doctrine, as were you all. Albemarle no whit behind Botetourt in that! The BotetourtResolutions--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, oldvictories, we shall still be friends. If the Gulf States go, still it istheir right, immemorial, incontrovertible!--The right ofself-government. We are of one blood and the country is wide. God-speedboth to Lot and to Abraham! On some sunny future day may their childrendraw together and take hands again! So much for the seceding States. ButVirginia, --but Virginia made possible the Union, --let her stand fast init in this day of storm! in this Convention let her voice be heard--as Iknow it will be heard--for wisdom, for moderation, for patience! So, orsoon or late, she will mediate between the States, she will once againmake the ring complete, she will be the saviour of this great historicConfederation which our fathers made!"

A minute or two more and he ended his speech. As he moved from betweenthe pillars, there was loud applause. The county was largely Whig, honestly longing--having put on record what it thought of the presentmischief 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 ofthe Virginians within it. It was amid cheering that Fauquier Cary leftthe portico. At the head of the steps, however, there came a question. "One moment, Major Cary! What if the North declines to evacuate FortSumter? 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 politiciansin the North whom I'll not defend! But the people--the people--thepeople are neither fools nor knaves! They were born North and we wereborn 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 thefurtherance of common interests. When the minds are discordant, and theinterests opposed, one may be bound to another by Conquest--nototherwise! What said Hamilton? _To coerce a State would be one of themaddest projects ever devised!_" He descended the court house steps tothe grassy, crowded yard. Here acquaintances claimed him, and here, atlast, the surge of the crowd brought him within a yard of Allan Gold andhis companion. The latter spoke. "Major Cary, you don't remember me. I'mHairston Breckinridge, sir, and I've been once or twice to Greenwoodwith Edward. I was there Christmas before last, when you came homewounded--"

The older man put out a ready hand. "Yes, yes, I do remember! We had amerry Christmas! I am glad to meet you again, Mr. Breckinridge. Is thisyour brother?"

"No, sir. It's Allan Gold, from Thunder Run. "

"I am pleased to meet you, sir, " said Allan. "You have been saying whatI 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 areat the university. But we mustn't keep you, sir. "

In effect they could do so no longer. Major Cary was swept away byacquaintances and connections. The day was declining, the final speakerdrawing to an end, the throng beginning to shiver in the deepening cold. The speaker gave his final sentence; the town band crashed indeterminedly with "Home, Sweet Home. " To its closing strains the countypeople, afoot, on horseback, in old, roomy, high-swung carriages, tookthis road and that. The townsfolk, still excited, still discussing, lingered awhile round the court house or on the verandah of the oldhotel, but at last these groups dissolved also. The units betookthemselves home to fireside and supper, and the sun set behind theAlleghenies. 

Allan Gold, striding over the hills toward Thunder Run, caught up withthe miller from Mill Creek, and the two walked side by side until theirroads diverged. The miller was a slow man, but to-day there was a red inhis cheek and a light in his eye. "Just so, " he said shortly. "They mustkeep 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 isreally about the negro? I was brought up to wish that Virginia had neverheld 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 theTaylors. Nor five sixths of the farming folk about here. Nor seveneighths of the townspeople. We don't own a negro, and I don't know thatwe ever did own one. Not long ago I asked Colonel Anderson a lot ofquestions about the matter. He says the census this year gives Virginiaone million and fifty thousand white people, and of these the fiftythousand hold slaves and the one million don't. The fifty thousand'smostly in the tide-water counties, too, --mighty little of it on thisside the Blue Ridge! Ain't anybody ever accused Virginians of not beinggood to servants! and it don't take more'n half an eye to see that theservants love their white people. For slavery itself, I ain'tquarrelling for it, and neither was Colonel Anderson. He said it wasabhorrent in the sight of God and man. He said the old House ofBurgesses used to try to stop the bringing in of negroes, and that theColony was always appealing to the king against the traffic. He saidthat in 1778, two years after Virginia declared her Independence, shepassed the statute prohibiting the slave trade. He said that she was thefirst country in the civilized world to stop the trade--passed herstatute thirty years before England! He said that all our greatRevolutionary men hated slavery and worked for the emancipation of thenegroes who were here; that men worked openly and hard for it until1832. Then came the Nat Turner Insurrection, when they killed all thosewomen and children, and then rose the hell-fire-for-all, bitter-'n-gallAbolition people stirring gunpowder with a lighted stick, holding onlike grim death and in perfect safety fifteen hundred miles from wherethe explosion was due! And as they denounce without thinking, so a lotof men have risen with us to advocate without thinking. And underneathall the clamour, there goes on, all the time, quiet and steady, afreeing of negroes by deed and will, a settling them in communities infree States, a belonging to and supporting Colonization Societies. Thereare now forty thousand free negroes in Virginia, and Heaven knows howmany have been freed and established elsewhere! It is our best peoplewho make these wills, freeing their slaves, and in Virginia, at least, everybody, sooner or later, follows the best people. 'Gradualmanumission, Mr. Green, ' that's what Colonel Anderson said, 'withcolonization in Africa if possible. The difficulties are enough to turna man's hair grey, but, ' said he, 'slavery's knell has struck, and we'llput an end to it in Virginia peacefully and with some approach towisdom--if only they'll stop stirring the gunpowder!'"

The miller raised his large head, with its effect of white powder fromthe mill, and regarded the landscape. "'We're all mighty blind, poorcreatures, ' as the preacher says, but I reckon one day we'll find theright 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 KingGeorge saddled us with, not much to their betterment and to our certainhurt. I reckon we'll find it. But I'm damned if I'm going to take theNorth's word for it that she has the way! Her old way was to sell hernegroes South. "

"I've thought and thought, " said Allan. "People mean well, and yetthere's such a dreadful lot of tragedy in the world!"

"I agree with you there, " quoth the miller. "And I certainly don't denythat slavery's responsible for a lot of bitter talk and a lot ofred-hot feeling; for some suffering to some negroes, too, and for a dealof harm to almost all whites. And I, for one, will be powerful glad whenevery negro, man and woman, is free. They can never really grow untilthey are free--I'll acknowledge that. And if they want to go back totheir own country I'd pay my mite to help them along. I think I owe itto them--even though as far as I know I haven't a forbear that ever didthem wrong. Trouble is, don't any of them want to go back! You couldn'tscare them worse than to tell them you were going to help them back totheir fatherland! The Lauderdale negroes, for instance--never see onethat he isn't laughing! And Tullius at Three Oaks, --_he'd_ say hecouldn't possibly think of going--must stay at Three Oaks and look afterMiss Margaret and the children! No, it isn't an easy subject, look at itany way you will. But as between us and the North, it ain't the mainsubject of quarrel--not by a long shot it ain't! The quarrel's that aman wants to take all the grist, mine as well as his, and grind it inhis mill! Well, I won't let him--that's all. And here's your road toThunder Run. "

Allan strode on alone over the frozen hills. Before him sprang therampart of the mountains, magnificently drawn against the eastern sky. To either hand lay the fallow fields, rolled the brown hills, rose theshadowy bulk of forest trees, showed the green of winter wheat. Theevening was cold, but without wind and soundless. The birds had flownsouth, the cattle were stalled, the sheep folded. There was only theearth, 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 itleft 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 hillwhose 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 andstream. The afterglow was upon the land. He looked at the mountains, thegreat mountains, long and clean of line as the marching rollers of agiant sea, not split or jagged, but even, unbroken, and old, old, theoldest almost in the world. Now the ancient forest clothed them, whilethey were given, by some constant trick of the light, the distant, dreamy blue from which they took their name. The Blue Ridge--the BlueRidge--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 thesycamores and the willows, the river--the upper reaches of the riverJames. 

The glow deepened. From a farmhouse in the valley came the sound of abell. Allan straightened himself, lifting his arms from the grey oldrails. He spoke aloud. 

 Breathes there the man with soul so dead, --

The bell rang again, the rose suffused the sky to the zenith. The youngman 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 hadbeen cut away, but the blackened trunk remained, and from it as vantagepoint one received another great view of the rolling mountains and thevalleys between. Allan Gold, coming down the hill, became aware, firstof a horse fastened to a wayside sapling, then of a man seated upon thefallen oak, his back to the road, his face to the darkening prospect. Below him the winter wind made a rustling in the dead leaves. Evidentlyanother had paused to admire the view, or to collect and mould betweenthe hands of the soul the crowding impressions of a decisive day. Itwas, apparently, the latter purpose; for as Allan approached the ravinethere came to him out of the dusk, in a controlled but vibrant voice, the following statement, repeated three times: "We are going to havewar. --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 nottrue!--It's Richard Cleave, there, isn't it?"

The figure on the oak, swinging itself around, sat outlined against theviolet 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 thetrunk beside him, he sprang lightly down to the roadside, where heproceeded to brush dead leaf and bark from his clothing with an oldgauntlet. 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 countrylawyer in peaceful old Virginia in this year of grace! But like manyanother curious thing, it's true! I was never on a field of battle, butI know all about a field of battle. "

He shook his head, lifted his hand, and flung it out toward themountains. "I don't want war, mind you, Allan! That is, the great streamat the bottom doesn't want it. War is a word that means agony to manyand a set-back to all. Reason tells me that, and my heart wishes theworld 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, hispowerful frame, not tall, but deep-chested, broad-shouldered, lookedlarger than life. "I don't talk this way often--as you'll grant!" hesaid, and laughed. "But I suppose to-day loosed all our tongues, liftedevery man out of himself!"

"If war came, " said Allan, "it couldn't be a long war, could it? Afterthe first battle we'd come to an understanding. "

"Would we?" answered the other. "Would we?--God knows! In the past ithas been that the more equal the tinge of blood, the fiercer was thewar. "

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 coldand still, a crescent moon in the sky, and lights beginning to shinefrom the farmhouses in the valley. 

"Though I teach school, " said Allan, "I like the open. I like to dothings 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! Mygrandfather was a scout in the Revolution, and his father was aranger. . . . God knows, _I_ don't want war! But if it comes I'll go. We'llall 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 thefirst, "I shall ride to Lauderdale after supper and talk to FauquierCary. "

"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--thattype. "

"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 atall--he'll only say what he said to-day, that every one should work forpeace, 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 thecrystal air. Between the branches of the trees the sky showed intenseand cold, the crescent moon, above a black mass of mountains, golden andsharp, the lights in the valley near enough to be gathered. 

"If there should be war, " asked Allan, "what will they do, all theVirginians in the army--Lee and Johnston and Stuart, Maury and Thomasand 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 thehousehold lamps up to the marching stars. "Yes. If my State called, Iwould do it. "

"This is what will happen, " said Cleave. "There are times when a mansees clearly, and I see clearly to-day. The North does not intend toevacuate Fort Sumter. Instead, sooner or later, she'll try to reinforceit. That will be the beginning of the end. South Carolina will reducethe fort. The North will preach a holy war. War there will be--whetherholy or not remains to be seen. Virginia will be called upon to furnishher quota of troops with which to coerce South Carolina and the GulfStates 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 anywill be forced into secession! And then the Virginians in the army willcome home. "

The wood gave way to open country, softly swelling fields, willowcopses, and clear running streams. In the crystal air the mountain wallsseemed near at hand, above shone Orion, icily brilliant. The lawyer froma dim old house in a grove of oaks and the school-teacher from ThunderRun went on in silence for a time; then the latter spoke. 

"Hairston Breckinridge says that Major Cary's niece is with him atLauderdale. "

"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 androde bareheaded. 

"It's strange to me, " said Allan presently, "that any one should be gayto-day. "

As he spoke he glanced up at the face of the man riding beside him onthe great bay. There was yet upon the road a faint after-light--enoughlight to reveal that there were tears on Cleave's cheek. InvoluntarilyAllan uttered an exclamation. 

The other, breaking off his chant, quite simply put up a gauntleted handand wiped the moisture away. "Gay!" he repeated. "I'm not gay. What gaveyou such an idea? I tell you that though I've never been in a war, Iknow all about war!"

CHAPTER III

THREE OAKS

Having left behind him Allan Gold and the road to Thunder Run, RichardCleave 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 secondgate, opened this and, skirting a knoll upon which were set threegigantic oaks, rode up a short and grass-grown drive. It led him to theback of the house, and afar off his dogs began to give him welcome. Whenhe had dismounted before the porch, a negro boy with a lantern took hishorse. "Hit's tuhnin' powerful cold, Marse Dick!"

"It is that, Jim. Give Dundee his supper at once and bring him aroundagain. Down, Bugle! Down, Moira! Down, Baron!"

The hall was cold and in semi-darkness, but through the half-opened doorof his mother's chamber came a gush of firelight warm and bright. Hervoice reached him--"Richard!" He entered. She was sitting in a great oldchair by the fire, idle for a wonder, her hands, fine and slender, clasped over her knees. The light struck up against her fair, broodingface. "It is late!" she said. "Late and cold! Come to the fire. Ailsywill have supper ready in a minute. "

He came and knelt beside her on the braided rug. "It is always warm inhere. 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, sankinto it, and taking the ash stick from the corner, stirred the glowinglogs. "Judge Allen's Resolutions were read and carried. Fauquier Caryspoke--many others. "

"Did not you?"

"No. They asked me to, but with so many there was no need. People weremuch moved--"

He broke off, sitting stirring the fire. His mother watched the deephollows with him. Closely resembling as he did his long dead father, theinner tie, strong and fine, was rather between him and the woman who hadgiven him birth. Wedded ere she was seventeen, a mother at eighteen, shesat now beside her first-born, still beautiful, and crowned by a lovelylife. She had kept her youth, and he had come early to a man'sresponsibilities. For years now they had walked together, caring for thefarm, which was not large, for the handful of servants, for the twoyounger children, Will and Miriam. The eighteen years between them wascancelled by their common interests, his maturity of thought, herquality of the summer time. She broke the silence. "What did FauquierCary say?"

"He spoke strongly for patience, moderation, peace--I am going toLauderdale after supper. "

"To see Judith?"

"No. To talk to Fauquier. . . . Maury Stafford is at Silver Hill. " Hestraightened himself, put down the ash stick, and rose to his feet. "Thebell will ring directly. I'll go upstairs for a moment. "

Margaret Cleave put out a detaining hand. "One moment--Richard, are youquite, 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 adull cousin, too, who does nothing much in the law, and is not even avery good farmer! Am I sure? Yes, I am sure enough!" His hand closed onthe back of her chair; the wood shook under the sombre energy of hisgrasp. "Did I not see how it was last summer that week I spent atGreenwood? Was he not always with her?--supple and keen, easy andstrong, with his face like a picture, with all the advantages I did nothave--education, travel, wealth!--Why, Edward told me--and could I notsee for myself? It was in the air of the place--not a servant but knewhe had come a-wooing!"

"But there was no engagement then. Had there been we should have knownit. "

"No engagement then, perhaps, but certainly no discouragement! He wasthere again in the autumn. He was with her to-day. " The chair shookagain. "And this morning Fauquier Cary, talking to me, laughed and saidthat 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 spentthere that unhappy week! Before that it was just a fancy--and then Imust go and let it bite into heart and brain and life--" He dropped hishand abruptly and turned to the door. "Well, I've got to try now tothink only of the country! God knows, things have come to that pass thather sons should think only of her! It is winter time, Mother; the birdsaren't mating now--save those two--save those two!"

Upstairs, in his bare, high-ceiled room, his hasty toilet made, he stoodupon the hearth, beside the leaping fire, and looked about him. Oflate--since the summer--everything was clarifying. There was at worksome great solvent making into naught the dross of custom and habitude. The glass had turned; outlines were clearer than they had been, thelight was strong, and striking from a changed angle. To-day both thesight of a face and the thought of an endangered State had worked tomake the light intenser. His old, familiar room looked strange to himto-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 werehis Coke and Blackstone, Vattel, Henning, Kent, and Tucker, and herewere other books of which he was fonder than of those, and here were afew volumes of the poets. Of them all, only the poets managed to keepto-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'scabin. When, in another moment, Cleave came downstairs, it was to findthem both in wait at the foot, illumined by the light from thedining-room door. Miriam laid hold of him. "Richard, Richard! tell mequick! Which was the greatest, Achilles or Hector?"

Will, slight and fair, home for the holidays from Lexington and, byvirtue of his cadetship in the Virginia Military Institute, an authorityon most things, had a movement of impatience. "Girls are so stupid! Tellher 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 oftall, beaded silver and the gilt-banded china, while Mehalah thewaitress brought the cakes from the kitchen and the fire burned softlyon the hearth below the Saint Memin of a general and law-giver, talkfell at once upon the event of the day, the meeting that had passed theBotetourt Resolutions. Miriam, with her wide, sensitive mouth, hertip-tilted nose, her hazel eyes, her air of some quaint, bright gardenflower swaying on its stem, was for war and music, and both her brothersto become generals. "Or Richard can be the general, and you be acavalryman like Cousin Fauquier! Richard can fight like Napoleon and youmay fight like Ney!"

The cadet stiffened. "Thank you for nothing, Missy! Anyhow, I shan'tsulk 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 otherwouldn't be respectful. He's never 'Major Jackson' except when he'strying to teach natural philosophy. On the drill ground he's 'Old Jack. 'Richard, he says--Old Jack says--that not a man since Napoleon hasunderstood 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 herhair out of her eyes and came back from her own dream of the story shewas reading, and Will turned as sharply as if he were on the paradeground at Lexington. 

"You don't think, then, that it is just all talk, Richard! You are surethat 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! 'OldJack' knows, if you don't--"

"Children, children!" said Margaret Cleave, in a quivering voice. "It isenough to know that not a man of this family but would fight now forVirginia, just as they fought eighty odd years ago! Yes, and we womendid our part then, and we would do it now! But I pray God, night andday--and Miriam, you should pray too--that this storm will not burst! Asfor you two who've always been sheltered and fed, who've never had ablow struck you, who've grown like tended plants in a garden--you don'tknow what war is! It's a great and deep Cup of Trembling! It's a scourgethat reaches the backs of all! It's universal destruction--and the giftthat the world should pray for is to build in peace! That is true, isn'tit, Richard?"

"Yes, it is true, " said Richard. "Don't, Will, " as the boy began tospeak. "Don't let's talk any more about it to-night. After all, a dealof storms go by--and it's a wise man who can read Time's order-book. " Herose from the table. "It's like the fable. The King may die, the Ass maydie, the Philosopher may die--and next Christmas maybe the peacefulleston record! I'm going to ride to Lauderdale for a little while, and, ifyou like, I'll ask about that shotgun for you. "

A few minutes later and he was out on the starlit road to Lauderdale. Ashe rode he thought, not of the Botetourt Resolutions, nor of FauquierCary, nor of Allan Gold, nor of the supper table at Three Oaks, nor of acase 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 thegarden there, of a week last summer, of Maury Stafford--Stafford whom atfirst meeting he had thought most likable! He did not think him soto-night, there at Silver Hill, ready to go to Lauderdaleto-morrow!--_Judith Cary--Judith Cary--Judith Cary. _ He saw Staffordbeside her--Stafford beside her--Stafford beside her--

"If she love him, " said Cleave, half aloud, "he must be worthy. I willnot be so petty nor so bitter! I wish her happiness. --_JudithCary--Judith Cary. _ If she love him--"

To the left a little stream brawled through frosty meadows; to the rightrose a low hill black with cedars. Along the southern horizon stretchedthe Blue Ridge, a wall of the Titans, a rampart in the night. The linewas long and clean; behind it was an effect of light, a steel-likegleaming. Above blazed the winter stars. "If she love him--if she lovehim--" He determined that to-night at Lauderdale he would try to see heralone for a minute. He would find out--he must find out--if there wereany doubt he would resolve it. 

The air was very still and clear. He heard a carriage before him on theroad. It was coming toward him--a horseman, too, evidently riding besideit. Just ahead the road crossed a bridge--not a good place for passingin the night-time. Cleave drew a little aside, reining in Dundee. With ahollow rumbling the carriage passed the streams. It proved to be anold-fashioned coach with lamps, drawn by strong, slow grey horses. Cleave recognized the Silver Hill equipage. Silver Hill must have beensupping 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 thecoach. "It's Richard Cleave now! Stop, Ephraim!"

The slow grey horses came to a stand. Cleave dismounted, and came, hatin hand, to the coach window. The mistress of Silver Hill, a youngmarried woman, frank and sweet, put out a hand. "Good-evening, Mr. Cleave! You are on your way to Lauderdale? My sister and Maury Staffordand I are carrying Judith off to Silver Hill for the night. --She wantsto 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. Iwould 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, " saidJudith clearly, "had I known that you would ride to Lauderdaleto-night--"

"You would dutifully have stayed to see a cousin, " thought Cleave insavage pain. He spoke quietly, in the controlled but vibrant voice hehad used on the hilltop. "I am sorry that I will not see you to-night. Iwill ride on, however, and talk to Fauquier. You will give my love, willyou not, to all my cousins at Greenwood? I do not forget how good allwere to me last summer!--Good-bye, Judith. "

She gave him her hand. It trembled a little in her glove. "Come again toGreenwood! Winter or summer, it will be glad to see you!--Good-bye, Richard. "

Fur cap, cloak, beautiful face, drew back. "Go on, Ephraim!" said themistress 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 anexciting day!" he said. "I think that we are at the parting of theways. "

"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 isworth something to be with Fauquier Cary a little longer. "

"That is quite true, " said Cleave slowly. "I do not ride to Albemarleto-morrow, and so I will pursue my road to Lauderdale and make the mostof him to-night!" He turned his horse, lifted his hat. Stafford didlikewise. They parted, and Cleave presently heard the rapid hoofbeatovertake the Silver Hill coach and at once change to a slower rhythm. "Now _he_ is speaking with her through the window!" The sound of wheeland hoof died away. Cleave shook Dundee's reins and went on towardLauderdale. _Judith Cary--Judith Cary--There are other things in lifethan love--other things than love--other things than love. . . . JudithCary--Judith Cary. . . . _

At Three Oaks Margaret Cleave rested upon her couch by the fire. Miriamwas curled on the rug with a book, an apple, and Tabitha the cat. Willmended 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 aregular withering up! They'll all tell you, ma'am, that he excels inwithering up! 'You are wrong, Mr. Wilson, ' says he, in that tone ofhis--dry as tinder, and makes you stop like a musket-shot! 'You arealways 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 heknew it. Well, the day went on about as usual. It set in to snow, and bynight 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 theCampus! 'T was so deadly cold and the lights so dismal that we ratherlooked forward to taps. Up comes an orderly. 'Mr. Wilson to theCommandant's office!'--Well, old Wilson looked startled, for he hadn'tdone 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, onhis big boots, on his beard, on his cap. He lives most a mile from theInstitute, and the weather was bad, sure enough! Well, old Wilson didn'tknow what to expect--most likely hot shot, grape and canister withmusketry fire thrown in--but he saluted and stood fast. 'Mr. Wilson, 'says Old Jack, 'upon returning home and going over with closed eyesafter supper as is my custom the day's work, I discovered that you wereright this morning and I was wrong. Your solution was correct. I felt itto be your due that I should tell you of my mistake as soon as Idiscovered it. I apologise for the statement that you were always wrong. You may go, sir. ' Well, old Wilson never could tell what he said, butanyhow he accepted the apology, and saluted, and got out of the roomsomehow and back to barracks, and we breathed on the window and made aplace through which we watched Old Jack over the Campus, ploughing backto Mrs. Jack through the blizzard! So you see, ma'am, things like thatmake us lenient to Old Jack sometimes--though he is awfully dull and hasvery peculiar notions. "

Margaret Cleave sat up. "Is that you, Richard?" Miriam put down Tabithaand rose to her knees. "Did you see Cousin Judith? Is she as beautifulas ever?" Will hospitably gave up the big chair. "You must have gallopedDundee both ways! Did you ask about the shotgun?"

Cleave took his seat at the foot of his mother's couch. "Yes, Will, youmay have it. --Fauquier sent his love to you, Mother, and to Miriam. Theyleave for Greenwood to-morrow. "

"And Cousin Judith, " persisted Miriam. "What did she have on? Did shesing to you?"

Cleave picked up her fallen book and smoothed the leaves. "She was notthere. The Silver Hill people had taken her for the night. I passed themon 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'swords, left lying on the table, but he drew a chair before thefireplace, and from its depths he raised his eyes to his grandfather'ssword slung above the mantel-shelf. He sat there, long, with the swordbefore him; then he rose, took a book from the case, trimmed thecandles, 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 theGreenwood drawing-room with dreamy gold. It lit the ancient wall-paperwhere the shepherds and shepherdesses wooed between garlands of roses, and it aided the tone of time among the portraits. The boughs of peachand cherry blossoms in the old potpourri jars made it welcome, and thedark, waxed floor let it lie in faded pools. Miss Lucy Cary was glad tosee it as she sat by the fire knitting fine white wool into a sacque fora baby. There was a fire of hickory, but it burned low, as though itknew the winter was over. The knitter's needles glinted in the sunshine. She was forty-eight and unmarried, and it was her delight to makebeautiful, soft little sacques and shoes and coverlets for every actualor prospective baby in all the wide circle of her kindred and friends. 

A tap at the door, and the old Greenwood butler entered with themail-bag. Miss Lucy, laying down her knitting, took it from him witheager fingers. _Place a la poste_--in eighteen hundred and sixty-one!She untied the string, emptied letters and papers upon the table besideher, and began to sort them. Julius, a spare and venerable piece ofgrey-headed ebony, an autocrat of exquisite manners and great familypride, stood back a little and waited for directions. 

Miss Lucy, taking up one after another the contents of the bag, made hercomments half aloud. "Newspapers, newspapers! Nothing but the twelfthand Fort Sumter! _The Whig. _--'South Carolina is too hot-headed!--butwhen all's said, the North remains the aggressor. ' _TheExaminer. _--'Seward's promises are not worth the paper they are writtenupon. ' '_Faith as to Sumter fully kept--wait and see. _' That which wasseen was a fleet of eleven vessels, with two hundred and eighty-fiveguns and twenty-four hundred men--'_carrying provisions to a starvinggarrison!_' Have done with cant, and welcome open war! _TheEnquirer. _--'Virginia will still succeed in mediating. Virginia from hercurule chair, tranquil and fast in the Union, will persuade, willreconcile these differences!' Amen to that!" said Miss Lucy, and took upanother bundle. "_The Staunton Gazette_--_The Farmer's Magazine_--_TheLiterary Messenger_--My _Blackwood_--Julius!"

"Yaas, Miss Lucy. "

"Julius, the Reverend Mr. Corbin Wood will be here for supper and tospend the night. Let Car'line know. "

"Yaas, Miss Lucy. Easter's Jim hab obsarved to me dat Marse Edward amconducin' home a gent'man from Kentucky. "

"Very well, " said Miss Lucy, still sorting. "_The WinchesterTimes_--_The Baltimore Sun. _--The mint's best, Julius, in the lowerbed. I walked by there this morning. --Letters for my brother! I'llreaddress these, and Easter's Jim must take them to town in time for theRichmond train. "

"Yaas, Miss Lucy. Easter's Jim hab imported dat Marse Berkeley Cyarterdone recompense him on de road dis mahnin' ter know when Marster'scomin' home. "

"Just as soon, " said Miss Lucy, "as the Convention brings everybody totheir senses. --Three letters for Edward--one in young Beaufort Porcher'swriting. Now we'll hear the Charleston version--probably he fired thefirst shot!--A note for me. --Julius, the Palo Alto ladies will stop byfor dinner to-morrow. Tell Car'line. "

"Yaas, Miss Lucy. "

Miss Lucy took up a thick, bluish envelope. "From Fauquier at last--fromthe Red River. " She opened the letter, ran rapidly over the half-dozensheets, then laid them aside for a more leisurely perusal. "It's one ofhis swift, light, amusing letters! He hasn't heard aboutSumter. --There'll be a message for you, Julius. There always is. "

Julius's smile was as bland as sunshine. "Yaas, Miss Lucy. I 'spectsdar'll be some excommunication fer me. Marse Fauquier sho' do favour OldMarster in dat. --He don' never forgit! 'Pears ter me he'd better comehome--all dis heah congratulatin' backwards an' forwards wid gunpowderover de kintry! Gunpowder gwine burn ef folk git reckless!"

Miss Lucy sighed. "It will that, Julius, --it's burning now. Edward fromSally 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 ridefurder'n Monticello. "

"Very well. Mr. Stafford will be here to supper, then. HairstonBreckinridge, too, I imagine. Tell Car'line. "

Miss Lucy readdressed the letters for her brother, a year older thanherself, and the master of Greenwood, a strong Whig influence in hissection of the State, and now in Richmond, in the Convention there, speaking earnestly for amity, a better understanding between SovereignStates, and a happily restored Union. His wife, upon whom he hadlavished an intense and chivalric devotion, was long dead, and for yearshis sister had taken the head of his table and cared like a mother forhis children. 

She sat now, at work, beneath the portrait of her own mother. As good asgold, 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 knewher. Not a great beauty as had been her mother, she was yet a handsomewoman, clear brunette with bright, dark eyes and a most likable mouth. Miss Lucy never undertook to explain why she had not married, but herbrothers thought they knew. She finished the letters and gave them toJulius. "Let Easter's Jim take them right away, in time for the eveningtrain. --Have you seen Miss Unity?"

"Yaas, ma'am. Miss Unity am in de flower gyarden wid Marse HairstonBreckinridge. 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 sheentered the drawing-room with a great atlas outspread upon her arms. "Aunt Lucy, where _are_ all these places? I can't find them. The Islandand Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, and the rest ofthem! I wish when bombardments and surrenders and exciting things happenthey'd happen nearer home!"

"Child, child!" cried Miss Lucy, "don't you ever say such a thing asthat again! The way you young people talk is enough to bring down ajudgment upon us! It's like Sir Walter crying 'Bonny bonny!' to thejagged lightnings. You are eighty years away from a great war, and youdon't know what you are talking about, and may you never be anynearer!--Yes, Julius, that's all. Tell Easter's Jim to go rightaway. --Now, Molly, this is the island, and here is Fort Moultrie andhere Fort Sumter. I used to know Charleston, when I was a girl. I cansee 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 laidit down and applied herself to Fauquier Cary's letter. Molly, ensconcedin a window, was already busy with her own. Presently she spoke. "MiriamCleave 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, andshe'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 forhis 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 heused to watch her and Mr. Stafford--and there was a look in his eyeslike the knight's in the 'Arcadia'--"

"Molly! Molly!"

"And everybody knew that Mr. Stafford was a suitor. _I_ knew it--Eastertold 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 wasthe big tournament, and Richard and Dundee took all the rings, though Iknow that Mr. Stafford had expected to, and Judith let Richard crown herqueen, but she looked just as pale and still! and Richard had a linebetween his brows, and I think he thought she would rather have had theMaid of Honour's crown that Mr. Stafford won and gave to just a littlegirl--"

"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 andfine, and rode away. He isn't really handsome--not like Edward, thatis--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 thetournament I slept in Judith's room, and I woke up three times, and eachtime there was Judith still sitting in the window, in the moonlight, andthe roses Richard had crowned her with beside her in grandmother'sLowestoft 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 morningRichard rode away, and the next day was Sunday, and Judith went tochurch both morning and evening, and that night she took so long to sayher prayers she must have been praying for the whole world--"

Miss Lucy rose with energy. "Stop, Molly! I shouldn't have let you everbegin. It's not kind to watch people like that. "

"I wasn't watching Judith, " said Molly. "I'd scorn to do such a thing! Iwas just seeing. And I never said a word about her and Richard untilthis instant when the sunshine came in somehow and started it. And Idon't know that she likes Richard any more. I think she's trying hard tolike Mr. Stafford--he wants her to so much!"

"Stop talking, honey, and don't have so many fancies, and don't read somuch poetry!--Who is it coming up the drive?"

"It's Mr. Wood on his old grey horse--like a nice, quiet knight out ofthe 'Faery Queen. ' Didn't you ever notice, Aunt Lucy, how everybodyreally belongs in a book?"

On the old, broad, pillared porch the two found the second Miss Cary andyoung Hairston Breckinridge. Apparently in training the roses they haddiscovered a thorn. They sat in silence--at opposite sides of thesteps--nursing the recollection. Breckinridge regarded the toe of hisboot, Unity the distant Blue Ridge, until, Mr. Corbin Wood and his greyhorse coming into view between the oaks, they regarded him. 

"The air, " said Miss Lucy, from the doorway, "is turning cold. What didyou fall out about?"

"South Carolina, " answered Unity, with serenity. "It's not unlikely thatour grandchildren will be falling out about South Carolina. Mr. Breckinridge is a Democrat and a fire-eater. Anyhow, Virginia is notgoing to secede just because he wants her to!"

The angry young disciple of Calhoun opposite was moved to reply, but atthat moment Mr. Corbin Wood arriving before the steps, he must perforcerun down to greet him and help him dismount. A negro had hardly takenthe grey, and Mr. Wood was yet speaking to the ladies upon the porch, when two other horsemen appeared, mounted on much more fiery steeds, andcoming at a gait that approached the ancient "planter's pace. " "Edwardand Hilary Preston, " said Miss Lucy, "and away down the road, I seeJudith and Mr. Stafford. "

The two in advance riding up the drive beneath the mighty oaks anddismounting, the gravel space before the white-pillared porch became ascene of animation, with beautiful, spirited horses, leaping dogs, negroservants, and gay horsemen. Edward Cary sprang up the steps. "AuntLucy, you remember Hilary Preston!--and this is my sister Unity, Preston, --the Quakeress we call her! and this is Molly, the littleone!--Mr. Wood, I am very glad to see you, sir! Aunt Lucy! VirginiaPage, the two Masons, and Nancy Carter are coming over after supper withCousin William, and I fancy that Peyton and Dabney and Rives and Leewill 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 littledance. Negro fiddlers, two of them, born musicians, came from thequarter. They were dressed in an elaborate best, they were as suavelyhappy as tropical children, and beamingly eager for the credit in thedance, as in all things else, of "de fambly. " Down came the bow upon thestrings, out upon the April night floated "Money Musk!" All thefurniture was pushed aside, the polished floor gave back the lights. From the walls men and women of the past smiled upon a stage they nolonger trod, and between garlands of roses the shepherds andshepherdesses pursued their long, long courtship. The night was mild, the windows partly open, the young girls dancing in gowns of summerystuff. Their very wide skirts were printed over with pale flowers, theirbodices were cut low, with a fall of lace against the white bosom. Thehair was worn smooth and drawn over the ear, with on either side abright cluster of blossoms. The fiddlers played "Malbrook s'en va-t-enguerre. " Laughter, quick and gay, or low and ripplingly sweet, flowedthrough the old room. The dances were all square, for there existed inthe country a prejudice against round dancing. Once Edward Cary pushed afriend down on the piano stool, and whirled with Nancy Carter into themiddle of the room in a waltz. But Miss Lucy shook her head at hernephew, and Cousin William gazed sternly at Nancy, and the fiddlerslooked scandalized. Scipio, the old, old one, who could remember theLafayette ball, held his bow awfully poised. 

Judith Cary, dressed in a soft, strange, dull blue, and wearing a littlecrown 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 wasdreaming of their ride that afternoon, of the clear green woods and thedogwood stars, and of some words that he had said. In these days he washoping against hope. Well off and well-bred, good to look at, pleasantof speech, at times indolent, at times ardent, a little silent on thewhole, and never failing to match the occasion with just the right shadeof intelligence, a certain grip and essence in this man made itself feltlike the firm bed of a river beneath the flowing water. He was not ofAlbemarle; he was of a tide-water county, but he came to Albemarle andstayed with kindred, and no one doubted that he strove for an Albemarlebride. It was the opinion of the county people that he would win her. Itwas hard to see why he should not. He was desperately in love, and fartoo determined to take the first "No" for an answer. Until the lasteight months it had been his own conclusion that he would win. 

The old clock in the hall struck ten; in an interval between the dancesJudith slipped away. Stafford wished to follow her, but Cousin Williamheld him like the Ancient Mariner and talked of the long past on theEastern 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 verywrong of you to watch it?"

Mr. Wood, the long thin fingers of one hand lightly touching the longthin fingers of the other hand, considered the matter. "Why, no, " hesaid in a mellow and genial voice. "Why, no--it is always hard for me tothink that anything beautiful is wrong. It is this way. I go into thedrawing-room and watch you. It is, as you say, a very pretty sight! Butif I find it so and still keep a long face, I am to myself something ofa hypocrite. And if I testify my delight, if I am absorbed in yourevolutions, and think only of springtime and growing things, and show mythought, then to every one of you, and indeed to myself too, my dear, Iam something out of my character! So it seems better to sit here andread Jeremy Taylor. "

"You have the book upside down, " said Judith softly. Her old friend puton his glasses, gravely looked, and reversed the volume. He laughed, andthen he sighed. "I was thinking of the country, Judith. It's the onlybook that is interesting now--and the recital's tragic, my dear; therecital's tragic!"

From the hall came Edward Cary's voice, "Judith, Judith, we want you forthe reel!"

In the drawing-room the music quickened. Scipio played with all hissoul, his eyes uprolled, his lips parted, his woolly head nodding, hisvast 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 greeningforests, ploughed land, and fruit trees, blew in and out the long, thincurtains. Faster went the bow upon the fiddle, the room became morebrilliant and more dreamy. The flowers in the old, old blue jars grewpinker, mistier, the lights had halos, the portraits smiled forthright;but from greater distances, the loud ticking of the clock without thedoor changed to a great rhythm, as though Time were using a violinstring. The laughter swelled, waves of brightness went through theancient 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 youlook 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 clearto-night, and there must be an echo. It does sound like a great body ofhorsemen 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, theodour of the flowers spread, subtle and intense. The dancers moved moreand more quickly. "There are only three horses, " said Cousin William, "two in front and one behind. Two gentlemen and a servant. Now they arecrossing 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 aburst 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 uponthe porch, a voice. "Father, father!" cried Judith, and ran into thehall. 

A minute later the master of Greenwood, his children about him, enteredthe drawing-room. Behind him came Richard Cleave. There was a momentaryconfusion of greeting; it passed, and from the two men, travel-stained, fatigued, pale with some suppressed emotion, there sped to the gayercompany a subtle wave of expectation and alarm. Miss Lucy was the firstwhom it reached. "What is it, brother?" she said quickly. Cousin Williamfollowed, "For God's sake, Cary, what has happened?" Edward spoke frombeside the piano, "Has it come, father?" With his words his hand fellupon 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, andstood there, beneath the lit candles, the swinging prisms of thechandelier. Peale's portrait of his father hung upon the wall. Theresemblance was strong between the dead and the living. 

"Be quiet, every one, " he said now, speaking very quietly himself. "Isall the household here? Open the window wide, Julius. Let the houseservants come inside. If there are men and women from the quarter on theporch, tell them to come closer, so that all may hear. " Julius openedthe long windows, the negroes came in, Mammy in her turban, Easter andChloe the seamstresses, Car'line the cook, the housemaids, thedining-room boys, the young girls who waited upon the daughters of thehouse, Isham the coachman, Shirley the master's body-servant, Edward'sboy Jeames, and the nondescript half dozen who helped the others. Theruder sort upon the porch, "outdoor" negroes drawn by the music and thespectacle from the quarter, approached the windows. Together they made abackground, dark and exotic, splashed with bright colour, for the Aryanstock ranged to the front. The drawing-room was filled. Mr. Corbin Woodhad come noiselessly in from the library, none was missing. Guests, family, and servants stood motionless. There was that in the bearing ofthe master which seemed, in the silence, to detach itself, and to cometoward them like an emanation, cold, pure, and quiet, determined andimposing. He spoke. "I supposed that you had heard the news. Along therailroad and in Charlottesville it was known; there were great crowds. Isee it has not reached you. Mr. Lincoln has called for seventy-fivethousand troops with which to procure South Carolina and the GulfStates' return into the Union. He--the North--demands of Virginia eightthousand men to be used for this purpose. She will not give them. Wehave fought long and patiently for peace; now we fight no more on thatfield. Matters have brought me for a few hours to Albemarle. To-morrow Ireturn to Richmond, to the Convention, to do that which I never thoughtto do, to give my voice for the secession of Virginia. "

There was a general movement throughout the room. "So!" said Corbin Woodvery softly. Cousin William rose from the sofa, drew a long breath, andsmote his hands together. "It had to come, Cary, it had to come! Northand South, we've pulled in different directions for sixty years! Thecord had to snap. " From among the awed servants came the voice of oldIsham the coachman, "'Secession!' What dat wuhd 'Secession, ' marster?"

"That word, " answered Warwick Cary, "means, Isham, that Virginia leavesof her free will a Union that she entered of her free will. The terms ofthat Union have been broken; she cannot, within it, preserve herintegrity, her dignity, and her liberty. Therefore she uses the rightwhich she reserved--the right of self-preservation. Unterrified sheentered the Union, unterrified she leaves it. "

He paused, standing in the white light of the candles, among hischildren, kinsmen, friends, and slaves. To the last, if ingrainedaffection, tolerance, and understanding, quiet guidance, patient care, akindly heart, a ready ear, a wise and simple dealing with a simple, notwise folk, are true constituents of friendship, he was then their friendas well as their master. They with all the room hung now upon his words. The light wind blew the curtains out like streamers, the candlesflickered, petals from the blossoms in the jars fell on the floor, theclock that had ticked in the hall for a hundred years struck eleven. "There will be war, " said the master. "There should not be, but therewill 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. Weare in earnest. War will be for us a desperate thing. We are utterlyunprepared; we are seven million against twenty million, an agriculturalcountry against a manufacturing one. We have little shipping, they havemuch. They will gain command of the sea. If we can get our cotton toEurope we will have gold; therefore, if they can block our ports theywill do it. There are those who think the powers will intervene and thatwe will have England or France for our ally. I am not of them. The oddsare greatly against us. We have struggled for peace; apparently wecannot have it; now we will fight for the conviction that is in us. Itwill be for us a war of defence, with the North for the invader, andVirginia will prove the battle-ground. I hold it very probable thatthere are men here to-night who will die in battle. You women are goingto 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 iscourageous, all that is heroically devoted, Virginia expects and willreceive 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 youare called my servants, emancipated at my death, every one of you, bythat will which I read to you years ago, each of you having long knownthat you have but to ask for your freedom in my lifetime to have it--toyou all I speak. Julius, Shirley, Isham, Scipio, Mammy, and the rest ofyou, there are hard times coming! My son and I will go to war. Much willbe left in your trust. As I and mine have tried to deal by you, so doyou 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 deygwine want dey bes' shu't, an dey hat breshed jes' right! I'se gwine widyou!" A face as dark as charcoal, with rolling eyes, looked over mammy'sshoulder. "Ain' Marse Edward gwine? 'Cose he gwine! Den Jeames gwine, too!" A murmuring sound came from the band of servants. They began torock themselves, to strike with the tongue the roof of the mouth, towork toward a camp-meeting excitement. Out on the porch Big Mimy, thewasherwoman, 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 milliontimes? Dar wuz Gineral Lafayette an' dar wuz Gineral Rochambeau, an' darwuz Gineral Washington! An' dar wuz Light Horse Harry Lee, an' dar wuzMarse Fauquier Cary dat wuz marster's gran'father, an' Marse EdwardChurchill! 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 dohit 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 speakto 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 amoment 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 prohibitjes' de same care ob de fambly an' de silver!"

When they were gone came the leave-taking of the guests, of all who werenot to sleep that night at Greenwood. Maury Stafford was to stay, andMr. Corbin Wood. Of those going Cousin William was the only one ofyears; the others were all young, --young men, young women on the edge ofan unthought-of experience, on the brink of a bitter, tempestuous, wintry sea. They did not see it so; there was danger, of course, butthey thought of splendour and heroism, of trumpet calls and wavingbanners. They were much excited; the young girls half frightened, themen wild to be at home, with plans for volunteering. "Good-bye, andgood-bye, and good-bye again! and when it's all over--it will be over inthree months, will it not, sir?--we'll finish the 'Virginia Reel!'"

The large, old coach and the saddle horses were brought around. Theydrove or rode away, through the April night, by the forsythia and theflowering almond, between the towering oaks, over the bridge with ahollow sound. Those left behind upon the Greenwood porch, clustered atthe top of the steps, between the white pillars, stood in silence untilthe noise of departure had died away. Warwick Cary, his arm aroundMolly, his hand in Judith's, Unity's cheek resting against his shoulder, then spoke. "It is the last merry-making, poor children! Well--'Time andtide run through the longest day!'" He disengaged himself, kissed eachof his daughters, and turned toward the lighted hall. "There are papersin the library which I must go over to-night. Edward, you had best comewith me. "

Father and son left the porch. Miss Lucy, too, went indoors, calledJulius, and began to give directions. Ready and energetic, she neverwasted time in wonder at events. The event once squarely met, shestruck immediately into the course it demanded, cheerfully, withoutrepining, and with as little attention as possible to forebodings. Hervoice died away toward the back of the house. The moon was shining, andthe lawn lay chequered beneath the trees. Corbin Wood, who had beenstanding in a brown study, began to descend the steps. "I'll take alittle walk, Judith, my dear, " he said, "and think it over! I'll letmyself in. " He was gone walking rapidly, not toward the big gate and theroad, but across to the fields, a little stream, and a strip that hadbeen left of primeval forest. Unity and Molly, moving back to thedoorstep, sat there whispering together in the light from the hall. Judith and Richard were left almost alone, Judith leaning against awhite pillar, Cleave standing a step or two below her. 

"You have been in Richmond?" she said. "Molly had a letter fromMiriam--"

"Yes, I went to find, if possible, rifled muskets for my company. I didnot do as well as I had hoped--the supply is dreadfully small--but Isecured a few. Two thirds of us will have to manage, until we can dobetter, with the smoothbore and even with the old flintlock. I have seena 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 tothe governor. Every moment now is important. "

"At dawn. . . . You will be its captain?"

"I suppose so. We will hold immediately an election of officers--andthat's as pernicious a method of officering companies and regiments ascan be imagined! 'They are volunteers, offering all--they can be trustedto 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 tobe a good captain. --The clock is striking. I do not know when nor how Ishall see Greenwood again. Judith, you'll wish me well?"

"Will I wish you well, Richard? Yes, I will wish you well. Do not go atdawn. "

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 tosay good-bye. "

"I will wait then. " The light from the hall lay unbroken on thedoorstep. Molly and Unity had disappeared. A little in yellow lamplight, chiefly in silver moonlight the porch lay deserted and quiet before themurmuring oaks, above the fair downward sweep of grass and flowers. "Itis long, " said Cleave, "since I have been here. The day after thetournament--"

"Yes. "

He came nearer. "Judith, was it so hard to forgive--that tournament? Youhad both crowns, after all. "

"I do not know, " said Judith, "what you mean. "

"Do you remember--do you remember last Christmas when, going toLauderdale, 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. Iwished to ask you a question--I wished to make certain. And then youpassed me going to Silver Hill, and I said, 'It is certainly so. ' I havebelieved it to be so. I believe it now. And yet I ask youto-night--Judith--"

"You ask me what?" said Judith. "Here is Mr. Stafford. "

Maury Stafford came into the silver space before the house, glancedupward, and mounted the steps. "I walked as far as the gate withBreckinridge. He tells me, Mr. Cleave, that he is of your Company ofVolunteers. "

"Yes. "

"I shall turn my face toward the sea to-morrow. Heigho! War is folly atthe best. And you?--"

"I leave Greenwood in the morning. "

The other, leaning against a pillar, drew toward him a branch ofclimbing rose. The light from the hall struck against him. He alwaysachieved 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 letthe rose bough go and turned to Judith. His voice when he spoke to herbecame at once low and musical. There was light enough to see the flushin his cheek, the ardour in his eye. "'Unfortunately!' What a word touse in leaving Greenwood! No! For me most fortunately I must waitanother four and twenty hours. "

"Greenwood, " said Judith, "will be lonely without old friends. " As shespoke, she moved toward the house door. In passing a great porch chairher dress caught on the twisted wood. Both men started forward, butStafford was much the nearer to her. Released, she thanked him withgrave kindness, went on to the doorway, and there turned, standing amoment in her drapery of dim blue, in the two lights. She had about hera long scarf of black lace, and now she drew it closer, holding itbeneath 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 merelykind to me--a kindness she could afford. 'Do not go till morning--_dearcousin_!'" There was a silence on the Greenwood porch, a white-pillaredrose-embowered space, paced ere this by lovers and rivals. It was brokenby Mr. Corbin Wood, returning from the fields and mounting the moonlitsteps. "I have thought it out, " he said. "I am going as chaplain. " Hetouched Stafford, of whom he was fond, on the shoulder. "It's thesweetest night, and as I came along I loved every leaf of the trees andevery blade of grass. It's home, it's fatherland, it's sacred soil, it'smother, dear Virginia--"

He broke off, said good-night, and entered the house. 

The younger men prepared to follow. "The next time that we meet, " saidStafford, "may be in the thunder of the fight. I have an idea that I'llknow it if you're there. I'll look out for you. "

"And I for you, " said Cleave. Each had spoken with entire courtesy and amarked lack of amity. There was a moment's pause, a feeling as of theedge of things. Cleave, not tall, but strongly made, with his thick darkhair, his tanned, clean shaven, squarely cut face, stood very straight, in earnest and formidable. The other, leaning against the pillar, wasthe fairer to look at, and certainly not without his own strength. Theone thought, "I will know, " and the other thought, "I believe you to bemy foe of foes. If I can make you leave this place early, withoutspeaking 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 momentthe seal ring which he wore, then spoke with deliberation. "Yes. It ishard to quit Paradise for even such a tourney as we have before us. Ahwell! when one comes riding back the welcome will be the sweeter!"

They went indoors. Later, alone in a pleasant bedroom, the man who hadput a face upon matters which the facts did not justify, opened wide thewindow and looked out upon moon-flooded hill and vale. "Do I despisemyself?" he thought. "If it was false to-night I may yet make it truthto-morrow. All's fair in love and war, and God knows my all is in thiswar! Judith! Judith! Judith! look my way, not his!" He stared into thenight, moodily enough. His room was at the side of the house. Below laya slope of flower garden, then a meadow, a little stream, and beyond, alow hilltop crowned by the old Greenwood burying-ground. "Why notsleep?. . . 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 thecandles burning on the dressing-table. She blew them out, parted thewindow curtains of flowered dimity, and curling herself on thewindow-seat, became a part of the April night. Crouching there in thescented air, beneath the large, mild stars, she tried to think ofVirginia and the coming war, but at the end of every avenue she cameupon a morning hour. Perhaps it would be in the flower garden, perhapsin the summer-house, perhaps in the plantation woods where thewindflower and the Judas tree were in bloom. Her heart was hopeful. Solifted and swept was the world to-night, so ready for great things, thather great thing also ought to happen, her rose of happiness ought tobloom. "After to-morrow, " she said to herself, "I will think ofVirginia, and I'll begin to help. "

Toward daybreak, lying in the large four-post bed beneath the whitetasselled canopy, she fell asleep. The sun was an hour high when sheawoke. Hagar, the girl who waited upon her, came in and flung wide theshutters. "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 downstairsyet, Hagar?--No, not that dress. The one with the little flowers. "

"Dar ain' nobody down yit, " said Hagar. "Marse Richard Cleave, he donecome down early, 'way 'bout daybreak. He got one of de stable-men tersaddle he horse an' he done rode er way. Easter, she come in de housejes' ez he wuz leaving en he done tol' her ter tell marster dat he'ddone been thinkin' ez how dar wuz so much ter do dat he'd better mek anearly start, en he lef' good-bye fer de fambly. Easter, she ax him won'the wait 'twel the ladies come down, en he say No. 'Twuz better fer himter go now. En he went. Dar ain' nobody else come down less'n hits MarseMaury 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 tollgatehalfway down the mountain. His parents were dead, his brothers movedaway. The mountain girls were pretty and fain, and matches were earlymade. Allan made none; he taught with conscientiousness thirtytow-headed youngsters, read what books he could get, and worked in thetollgate keeper's small, bright garden. He had a passion for flowers. Heloved, 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 ofchestnut and oak to the mighty valley below, and across to the far bluewall of the Alleghenies. 

The one-roomed, log-built schoolhouse stood a mile from the road acrossthe mountains, upon a higher level, in a fairy meadow below the mountainclearings. 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 untilthe last free-born imp elected to leave the delights of a minnow-filledpool, a newly discovered redbird's nest, and a blockhouse in process ofconstruction against imaginary Indians. At last all were seated upon therude benches in the dusky room, --small tow-headed Jacks and Jills, heirsto a field of wheat or oats, a diminutive tobacco patch, a log cabin, apiece of uncleared forest, or perhaps the blacksmith's forge, a smallmountain store, or the sawmill down the stream. Allan read aloud theParable of the Sower, and they all said the Lord's Prayer; then hecalled the Blue Back Speller class. The spelling done, they read fromthe same book about the Martyr and his Family. Geography followed, withan account of the Yang-tse-Kiang and an illustration of a pagoda, afterwhich the ten-year-olds took the front bench and read of little Hugh andold Mr. Toil. This over, the whole school fell to ciphering. Theyciphered for half an hour, and then they had a history lesson, whichtold of one Curtius who leaped into a gulf to save his country. Historybeing followed by the writing lesson, all save the littlest presentbegan 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 thepool? Had the blockhouse fallen down? Would writing go on forever?--Thebell rang; the teacher, whom they liked well enough, was speaking. _Nomore school!_ Recess forever--or until next year, which was the samething! No more geography, reading, writing, arithmetic, and spelling; nomore school! Hurrah! Of course the redbird's nest was swinging on thebough, and the minnows were in the pool, and the blockhouse wasstanding, and the sun shining with all its might! "All the men abouthere are going to fight, " said Allan. "I am going, too. So we'll have tostop school until the war is over. Try not to forget what I've taughtyou, children, and try to be good boys and girls. You boys must learnnow to be men, for you'll have to look after things and the women. Andyou girls must help your mothers all you can. It's going to be hardtimes, little folk! You've played a long time at fighting Indians, andlatterly I've noticed you playing at fighting Yankees. Playtime's overnow. It's time to work, to think, and to try to help. You can't fightfor Virginia with guns and swords, but every woman and child, everyyoung boy and old man in Virginia can make the hearts easier of thosewho go to fight. You be good boys and girls and do your duty here onThunder Run, and God will count you as his soldiers just the same as ifyou were fighting down there in the valley, or before Richmond, or onthe Potomac, or wherever we're going to fight. You're going to be goodchildren; 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 theplace. " He left his rude old desk and the little platform, and steppingdown amongst his pupils, gave to each his hand. Then he divided amongthem the scanty supply of books, patiently answered a scurry ofquestions, and outside, upon the sunshiny sward, with the wind in thewalnut tree and the larkspur beginning to bloom, said good-bye oncemore. Jack and Jill gave no further thought to the bird's nest, theminnows in the pool, the unfinished blockhouse. Off they rushed, up theside of the mountain, over the wooded hills, along Thunder Run, where itleaped from pool to pool. They must be home with the news! No moreschool--no more school! And was father going--and were Johnny and Samand Dave? Where were they going to fight? As far as the big sawmill? asfar away as the _river_? Were the dogs going, too?

Allan Gold, left alone, locked the schoolhouse door, walked slowly alongthe footpath between the flowers he had planted, and, standing byThunder Run, looked for awhile at the clear, brown water, then, with along breath and a straightening of the shoulders, turned away. "Good-bye, little place!" he said, and strode down the ravine to theroad and the toll-house. 

The tollgate keeper, old and crippled, sat on the porch beside a woodenbucket of well-water. The county newspaper lay on his knee, and he wasreading the items aloud to his wife, old, too, but active, standing ather ironing-board within the kitchen door. A cat purred in the sunshine, and all the lilac bushes were in bloom. "'Ten companies from thisCounty, '" read the tollgate keeper; "'Ten companies from OldBotetourt, --The Mountain Rifles, the Fincastle Rifles, the BotetourtDragoons, 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'sgot 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 anyshirts fit to fight in! Go on reading, I hear ye. "

"It's an editorial, " said Tom weightily. "'Three weeks have passed sincewar was declared. At once Governor Letcher called for troops; at oncethe call was answered. We have had in Botetourt, as all over Virginia, as through all the Southern States, days of excitement, sleeplessnights, 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 yearthar'll be more tears, I reckon, and less laughter! I ain't a girl, andI 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 Breckinridgemen--all are gone. There is now but one party--_the party of theinvaded_. A month ago there was division of opinion; it does not existto-day. It died in the hour when we were called upon to deny ourconvictions, to sacrifice our principles, to juggle with theConstitution, to play fast and loose, to blow hot and cold, to say onething and do another, to fling our honour to the winds and to assist incoercing Sovereign States back into a Union which they find intolerable!It died in the moment when we saw, no longer the Confederation ofRepublics to which we had acceded, but a land whirling toward Empire. Itis dead. There are no Union men to-day in Virginia. The ten Botetourtcompanies hold themselves under arms. At any moment may come the orderto the front. The county has not spared her first-born--no, nor thedarling of his mother! It is a rank and file different from the OldWorld's rank and file. The rich man marches, a private soldier, besidethe poor man; the lettered beside the unlearned; the planter, thelawyer, the merchant, the divine, the student side by side with the manfrom the plough, the smith, the carpenter, the hunter, the boatman, thelabourer by the day. Ay, rank and file, you are different; and the armythat 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 fighthalf 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 nearGod's truth all the same!" He moved restlessly, then took his crutch andbeat a measure upon the sunken floor. His faded blue eyes, set in athousand wrinkles, stared down upon and across the great view of ridgeand spur and lovely valleys in between. The air at this height was clearand strong as wine, the noon sunshine bright, not hot, the murmur in theleaves 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 wasyounger? If 't weren't for that darned fall out o' Nofsinger's hayloftI'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 andunlatched the little gate. She had upon her arm a small basket such asthe 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 thesplit-bottomed chair to which he waved her, but upon the edge of theporch, with her back to the sapling that served for a pillar, and withher small, ill-shod feet just touching a bed of heartsease. She pushedback her sunbonnet. "Dave an' Billy told us good-bye yesterday. Pap isgoing down the mountain to-day. Dave took the shotgun an' pap hasgrandpap's flintlock, but Billy didn't have a gun. He said he'd take onefrom 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 himwhat he called a spear-head. He took a bit o' rawhide and tied it to anoak 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, andthe heartsease at her feet ran together into a little sea of purple andgold. She took the cape of her sunbonnet and with it wiped away theunaccustomed tears. 

"Sho!" said Sairy. "We'll all miss Billy. I reckon we all that stay athome air going to have our fill o' missing!--What have you got in yourbasket, honey?"

Christianna lifted a coloured handkerchief and drew from the basket alittle bag of flowered chintz, roses and tulips, drawn up with a blueribbon. "My! that's pretty, " exclaimed Sairy. "Whar did you get thestuff?"

The girl regarded the bag with soft pride. "Last summer I toted a bucketo' blackberries down to Three Oaks an' sold them to Mrs. Cleave. An' shewas making a valance for her tester bed, an' I thought the stuff wasmighty pretty, an' she gave me a big piece! an' I put it away in mypicture 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 longbreath. "My land! 't was fine in the town--High Street just crowded withVolunteers, 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 goaway. 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, " saidChristianna. "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 besmaller--but he'll have room for it, I reckon? _I_ think it's rightpretty. "

Old Tom Cole leaned over, took the tiny, flowery affair, and balanced itgently upon a horny hand. "Of course he'll have room for it! An' it'sjest as pretty as they make them!--An' here he comes now, down themountain, to thank ye himself!"

Allan Gold thanked Christianna with simplicity. He had never had sopretty a thing, and he would keep it always, and every time he looked atit he would see Thunder Run and hear the bees in the flowers. It wasvery 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, beganto say good-bye in her soft, drawling voice. "You're going down themountain 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' whenyou come again--thar'll be ice upon the creeks, I reckon. " She drew hershoulders 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 wentout 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 wasthe use in sayin' that every time he looked at that thar bag he'd seeThunder Run? Thunder Run ain't a-keerin' if he sees it or if he don'tsee it! He might ha' said that every time he laid eyes on them roseshe'd see Christianna!--Thar's a wagon comin' up the road an' a man onhorseback behind. Here, I'll take the toll--"

"No, I'll take it myself, " said Tom, reaching for the tobacco box whichserved as bank. "If I can't 'list, I reckon I can get all the newsthat'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 thinkforest fires and floods were exciting! Down there in camp the boys can'tsleep at night--every time a rooster crows they think it's JohnnyMason'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 fromThunder Run. I reckon Thunder Run ain't goin' to lag behind! Even SteveDagg'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 arefirst-rate--though a heap of them are powerfully young. "

"Thar's Billy Maydew, for instance, " said Sairy. "Sho! Billy is tooyoung 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 withhis head as high as General Washington's! I was at Lexington and sawthem go. Good Lord! most of them just children--that Will Cleave, forinstance, that used to beg a ride on my load of hay! Four companies ofthem marched away at noon, with their muskets shining in the sun. Allthe town was up and out--the minister blessing them, and the peoplecrying and cheering! Major T. J. Jackson led them. "

"The Thunder Run men are going in Richard Cleave's company. He sets aheap o' store by Allan, an' wanted him for second lieutenant, but themen 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 horsebackfollowed. The tollgate keeper hobbled back to his chair, and Sairyreturned to her dinner. Allan was going away, and she was makinggingerbread because he liked it. The spicy, warm fragrance permeated theair, 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'sAllan now, " said Tom. "Hey, Allan! you must have gone a good bit o' theway?"

"I went all the way, " answered Allan, lifting the gourd of well-water tohis lips. "Poor little thing! she is breaking her heart over Billy'sgoing. "

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 herup. I'll look out for the boy in every way I can. " He took the littlebag of chintz from the bench where he had laid it when he went withChristianna, and turned to the rude stair that led to his room in thehalf story. He was not kin to the tollgate keepers, but he had livedlong 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 yourgingerbread again, and I don't see how I am going to tell you and Tomgood-bye!" He was gone, humming "Annie Laurie" as he went. 

"'T would be just right an' fittin', " remarked Mrs. Cole, "if half themen in the world went about with a piece of pasteboard round their necksan' written on it, 'Pity the Blind!' Dinner's most ready, Tom, --an' Idon't see how I'm goin' to tell him good-bye myself. "

An hour later, in his small bare room underneath the mossy roof, withthe small square window through which the breezes blew, Allan stood andlooked about him. Dinner was over. It had been something of a feast, with unusual dainties, and a bunch of lilacs upon the table. Sairy hadon a Sunday apron. The three had not been silent either; they had talkeda good deal, but without much thought of what was said. Perhaps it wasbecause of this that the meal had seemed so vague, and that nothing hadleft a taste in the mouth. It was over, and Allan was making ready todepart. 

On the floor, beside the chest of drawers, stood a small hair trunk. Aneighbour with a road wagon had offered to take it, and Allan, too, downthe mountain at three o'clock. In the spring of 1861, one out of everytwo Confederate privates had a trunk. One must preserve the decencies oflife; one must make a good appearance in the field! Allan's was smalland modest enough, God knows! but such as it was it had not occurred tohim 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 articlesof his outfit. All was simple, clean, and new--only the books that hewas taking with him were old. They were his Bible, his Shakespeare, avolume of Plutarch's Lives, and a Latin book or two beside. In a placeto themselves were other treasures, a daguerreotype of his mother, acapacious huswife that Sairy had made and stocked for him, the littlebox of paper "to write home on" that had been Tom's present, varioustrifles that the three had agreed might come in handy. Among these henow placed Christianna's gift. It was soft and full and bright--he hadthe same pleasure in handling it that he would have felt in touching adamask rose. He shut it in and rose from his knees. 

He had on his uniform. They had been slow in coming--the uniforms--fromRichmond. It was only Cleave's patient insistence that had procured themat last. Some of the companies were not uniformed at all. So enormouswas the press of business upon the authorities, so limited was the powerof an almost purely agricultural, non-manufacturing world suddenly toclothe alike these thousands of volunteers, suddenly to arm them withsomething better than a fowling-piece or a Revolutionary flintlock, thatthe 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 strangearray. With an attempt at similarity and a picturesque taste of theirown, most of them wore linsey shirts and big black hats, tucked up onone side with a rosette of green ribbon. One man donned hisgrandfather'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, asthey 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'shunting-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. Theyoung man, for all his quietude, his conscientious ways, his daily workwith children, his love of flowers, and his dreams of books, inheritedfrom frontiersmen--whose lives had depended upon watchfulness--quicknessof wit, accuracy of eye, and steadiness of aim. He rarely missed hismark, and he read intuitively and easily the language of wood, sky, androad. On the bed lay his slouch hat, his haversack, knapsack, andcanteen, cartridge-box and belt, and slung over the back of a chair washis roll of blanket. All was in readiness. Allan went over to thewindow. Below him were the flowers he had tended, then the great forestsin their May freshness, cataracts of green, falling down, down to thevalley. Over all hung the sky, divinely blue. A wind went rustlingthrough the forest, joining its voice to the voice of Thunder Run. Allanknelt, touching with his forehead the window-sill. "O Lord God, " hesaid, "O Lord God, keep us all, North and South, and bring us throughwinding ways to Thy end at last. " As he rose he heard the wagon comingdown 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 hismusket, looked once again about the small, familiar room, then left itand 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 fromthe house with that article upon his shoulder. "I reckon I'll volunteermyself, 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 downthe 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 afraidof. I know you'll go riskin' yourself!"

"God bless you, " said Tom. "You've been like a son to us these fiveyears. Don't you forget to write. "

"I won't, " answered Allan. "I'll write you long letters. And I won't getkilled, Aunt Sairy. I'll take the best of care. " He took the old womanin his arms. "You two have been just as good as a father and mother tome. Thank you for it. I'll never forget. Good-bye. "

Toward five o'clock the wagon rolled into the village whence certain ofthe Botetourt companies were to march away. It was built beside theriver--two long, parallel streets, one upon the water level, the othermuch higher, with intersecting lanes. There were brick and frame houses, modest enough; there were three small, white-spired churches, manylocust and ailanthus trees, a covered bridge thrown across the river toa village upon the farther side and, surrounding all, a noble frame ofmountains. There was, in those days, no railroad. 

Cleave's hundred men, having the town at large for their friend, stoodin no lack of quarters. Some had volunteered from this place or itsneighbourhood, others had kinsmen and associates, not one was so forlornas to be without a host. The village was in a high fever of hospitality;had the companies marching from Botetourt been so many brigades, itwould still have done its utmost. From the Potomac to the Dan, from theEastern Shore to the Alleghenies the flame of patriotism burned high andclear. There were skulkers, there were braggarts, there were knaves andfools 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 thepeople were very honest, stubbornly convinced, showing to the end a mostheroic and devoted ardour. This village was not behindhand. All heryoung men were going; she had her company, too. She welcomed Cleave'smen, gathered for the momentarily expected order to the front, andlavished upon them, as on two other companies within her bounds, everyhospitable care. 

The wagon driver deposited Allan Gold and his trunk before the porch ofthe old, red brick hotel, shook hands with a mighty grip, and rattled ontoward 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 ofelderly men sitting with tilted chairs in the shade of a locust treerose 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; goodgiant stuff! Have you somewhere to stay to-night? If not, any one of uswill be happy to look after you. --Mr. Harris, let us have juleps allround--"

"Thank you very kindly, sir, " said Allan, "but I must go find mycaptain. "

"I saw him, " remarked a gray-haired gentleman, "just now down thestreet. He's seeing to the loading of his wagons, showing Jim Ball andthe drivers just how to do it--and he says he isn't going to show thembut 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. 'Thiscompany's got the largest part of its provisions for the whole war righthere and now, ' says he. 'Thar's a heap of trunks, ' says I. 'More thanwould be needed for the White Sulphur, ' he says, says he. 'This time twoyears we'll march lighter, ' says he--"

There were exclamations. "Two years! Thunderation!--This war'll be overbefore persimmons are ripe! Why, the boys haven't volunteered but forone 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-firedslow work. Anyhow, that's what he said. 'This time two years we'll marchlighter, ' he says, says he, and then I came away. He's down by the oldwarehouse by the bridge, Mr. Gold--and I just met Matthew Coffin and hesays thar's going to be a parade presently. "

An hour later, in the sunset glow, in a meadow by the river, the threecompanies paraded. The new uniforms, the bright muskets, the silkencolours, the bands playing "Dixie, " the quick orders, the more or lesspractised evolutions, the universal martial mood, the sense of dangerover all, as yet thrilling only, not leaden, the known faces, the lovedfaces, the imminent farewell, the flush of glory, the beckoning of greatevents--no wonder every woman, girl, and child, every old man and youngboy 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 ofwomen, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts, of those who were goingforth to war. They swayed forward, absorbed in watching, not thecompanies as a whole, but one or two, sometimes three or four figurestherein. They had not held them back; never in the times of history werethere more devotedly patriotic women than they of the Southern States. They lent their plaudits; they were high in the thoughts of the menmoving with precision beneath the great flag of Virginia, to the soundof music, in the green meadow by the James. The colours of the severalcompanies had been sewed by women, sitting together in dim old parlours, behind windows framed in roses. One banner had been made from a weddinggown. 

 Look away! look away! Look away down South to Dixie!

The throng wept and cheered. The negroes, slave and free, belonging tothis 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, andthey, 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 ofAbraham, or Esau and Jacob, sons of Isaac, marching with banners againstCanaan or Moab, may have heard some such acclaim from the servants leftbehind. Several were going with the company. Captain and lieutenants, and more than one sergeant and corporal had their body-servants--thesewere the proudest of the proud and the envied of their brethren. Thelatter 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 Iwuz er gwine! An dat dar Tullius from Three Oaks--he gwine march rightbehin' de captain, an' Marse Hairston Breckinridge's boy he gwine marchright 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 momentousupward wave of emotion, parted this way and that, to supper, to diverspreparations, fond talk, and farewells, to an indoor hour. Then, presently, out again in the mild May night, out into High Street and LowStreet, in the moonlight, under the odour of the white locust clusters. The churches were lit and open; in each there was brief service, wellattended. Later, from the porch of the old hotel, there was speaking. Itdrew toward eleven o'clock. The moon was high, the women and childrenall housed, the oldest men, spent with the strain of the day, also goneto their homes, or their friends' homes. The Volunteers and a faithfulfew were left. They could not sleep; if war was going to be always asexciting as this, how did soldiers ever sleep? There was not among thema man who had ever served in war, so the question remained unanswered. AThunder Run man volunteered the information that the captain wasasleep--he had been to the house where the captain lodged and his motherhad come to the door with her finger on her lips, and he had lookedpast her and seen Captain Cleave lying on a sofa fast asleep. ThunderRun's comrades listened, but they rather doubted the correctness of hisreport. It surely wasn't very soldier-like to sleep--even upon asofa--the night before marching away! The lieutenants weren't asleep. Hairston Breckinridge had a map spread out upon a bench before the postoffice, and was demonstrating to an eager dozen the indubitable factthat the big victory would be either at Harper's Ferry or Alexandria. Young Matthew Coffin was in love, and might be seen through the hotelwindow writing, candles all around him, at a table, covering one paleblue sheet after another with impassioned farewells. Sergeants andcorporals and men were wakeful. Some of these, too, were writingletters, sending messages; others joined in the discussion as to thetheatre of war, or made knots of their own, centres of conjectures andprophecy; others roamed the streets, or down by the river bank watchedthe dark stream. Of these, a few proposed to strip and have a swim--whoknew when they'd see the old river again? But the notion was frownedupon. One must be dressed and ready. At that very moment, perhaps, a manmight be riding into town with the order. The musicians were not asleep. Young Matthew Coffin, sealing his letter some time after midnight, andcoming out into the moonlight and the fragrance of the locust trees, hadan 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 therewere many pretty ladies staying in the town or at the two or threepleasant old houses upon its outskirts. Two o'clock, three o'clockpassed, and there were yet windows to sing beneath. Old love songsfloated through the soft and dreamy air; there was a sense of angelicbeings in the unlit rooms above, even of the flutter of their wings. Then, at the music's dying fall, flowers were thrown; there seemed todescend a breath, a whisper, "Adieu, heroes--adored, adored heroes!" Ascramble 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. Acoldness was in the air, a mist arose from the river, there came asensation 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 inthe 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. Theorder--the order--the order to the front! It called again, sounding theassembly. _Fall in, men, fall in!_

At sunrise Richard Cleave's company went away. There was a dense crowdin the misty street, weeping, cheering. An old minister, standing besidethe captain, lifted his arms--the men uncovered, the prayer was said, the blessing given. Again the bugle blew, the women cried farewell. Theband played "Virginia, " the flag streamed wide in the morning wind. Good-bye, good-bye, and again good-bye! _Attention! Take arms! Shoulderarms! Right face!_ FORWARD, MARCH!

CHAPTER VI

BY ASHBY'S GAP

The 65th Virginia Infantry, Colonel Valentine Brooke, was encamped tothe north of Winchester in the Valley of Virginia, in a meadow throughwhich ran a stream, and upon a hillside beneath a hundred chestnuttrees, covered with white tassels of bloom. To its right lay the 2d, the4th, the 5th, the 27th, and the 33d Virginia, forming with the 65th theFirst Brigade, General T. J. Jackson. The battery attached--theRockbridge Artillery--occupied an adjacent apple orchard. To the left, in other July meadows and over other chestnut-shaded hills, were spreadthe brigades of Bee, Bartow, and Elzey. Somewhere in the distance, behind the screen of haze, were Stuart and his cavalry. Across thestream a brick farmhouse, ringed with mulberry trees, made theheadquarters of Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the forces of theConfederacy--an experienced, able, and wary soldier, engaged just now, with eleven thousand men, in watching Patterson with fifteen thousand onthe one hand, and McDowell with thirty-five thousand on the other, andin listening attentively for a voice from Beauregard with twentythousand at Manassas. It was the middle of July, 1861. 

First Brigade headquarters was a tree--an especially big tree--a littleremoved from the others. Beneath it stood a kitchen chair and a woodentable, 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 kitchenchair, his feet, in enormous cavalry boots, planted precisely beforehim, his hands rigid at his sides. Here he transacted the business ofeach day, and here, when it was over, he sat facing the North. Anawkward, inarticulate, and peculiar man, with strange notions about hishealth and other matters, there was about him no breath of grace, romance, or pomp of war. He was ungenial, ungainly, with large hands andfeet, with poor eyesight and a stiff address. There did not lack spruceand handsome youths in his command who were vexed to the soul by theidea of being led to battle by such a figure. The facts that he hadfought very bravely in Mexico, and that he had for the enemy a cold andformidable hatred were for him; most other things against him. Hedrilled his troops seven hours a day. His discipline was of thesternest, his censure a thing to make the boldest officer blench. Ablunder, a slight negligence, any disobedience of orders--down camereprimand, suspension, arrest, with an iron certitude, a relentlessnessquite like Nature's. Apparently he was without imagination. He had butlittle sense of humour, and no understanding of a joke. He drank waterand sucked lemons for dyspepsia, and fancied that the use of pepper hadcaused a weakness in his left leg. He rode a raw-boned nag named LittleSorrel, he carried his sabre in the oddest fashion, and said "oblike"instead of "oblique. " He found his greatest pleasure in going to thePresbyterian Church twice on Sundays and to prayer meetings through theweek. 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 itpromised. One or two observers claimed that he was ambitious, but thesewere 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 secrecyof the sepulchre, rarely sleeping, rising at dawn, and requiring hisstaff to do likewise, praying at all seasons, and demanding an implicityof obedience which might have been in order with some great and gloriouscaptain, some idolized Napoleon, but which seemed hardly the due of thelate professor of natural philosophy and artillery tactics at theVirginia Military Institute. True it was that at Harper's Ferry, where, as Colonel T. J. Jackson, he had commanded until Johnston's arrival, hehad begun to bring order out of chaos and to weave from a high-spiritedrabble of Volunteers a web that the world was to acknowledge remarkable;true, too, that on the second of July, in the small affair withPatterson at Falling Waters, he had seemed to the critics in the ranksnot altogether unimposing. He emerged from Falling WatersBrigadier-General T. J. Jackson, and his men, though with some mentalreservations, began to call him "Old Jack. " The epithet impliedapproval, 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 inwar, impatient and youthful body of men, with the lesson yet to learnthat the shortest distance between two points is sometimes a curve. Inits eyes Patterson at Bunker Hill was exclusively the blot upon theescutcheon, and the whole game of war consisted in somehow doing awaywith that blot. There was great chafing at the inaction. It was hot, argumentative July weather; the encampment to the north of Winchester inthe Valley of Virginia hummed with the comments of the strategists inthe ranks. Patterson should have been attacked after Falling Waters. What if he was entrenched behind stone walls at Martinsburg? Pattersonshould have been attacked upon the fifteenth at Bunker Hill. What if hehas fifteen thousand men?--what if he has _twenty_ thousand?--What ifMcDowell is preparing to cross the Potomac? And now, on the seventeenth, Patterson is at Charlestown, creeping eastward, evidently going tosurround the Army of the Shenandoah! Patterson is the burning realityand McDowell the dream--and yet Johnston won't move to the westward andattack! _Good Lord! we didn't come from home just to watch thesechestnuts get ripe! All the generals are crazy, anyhow. _

It was nine, in the morning of Thursday the eighteenth, --a scorchingday. The locusts were singing of the heat; the grass, wherever men, horses, and wagon wheels had not ground it into dust, was parched to agolden brown; the mint by the stream looked wilted. The morning drillwas over, the 65th lounging beneath the trees. It was almost too hot tofuss about Patterson, almost too hot to pity the sentinels, almost toohot to wonder where Stuart's cavalry had gone that morning, and why "OldJoe" quartered behind the mulberries in the brick farmhouse, had sent astaff officer to "Old Jack, " and why Bee's and Bartow's and Elzey'sbrigades had been similarly visited; almost too hot to play checkers, towhittle a set of chessmen, to finish that piece of Greek, to read"Ivanhoe" and resolve to fight like Brian de Bois Gilbert and RichardCoeur de Lion in one, to write home, to rout out knapsack andhaversack, 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 howpap was gettin' on with that thar piece of corn, and what the girls weresayin'; too hot to borrow, too hot to swear, too hot to go down to thecreek and wash a shirt, too hot--"What's that drum beginning for? _Thelong roll! The Army of the Valley is going to move! Boys, boys, boys! Weare going north to Charlestown! Boys, boys, boys! We are going to lickPatterson!_"

At noon the Army of the Valley, the First Brigade leading, uncoileditself, regiment by regiment, from the wide meadow and the chestnutwood, swept out upon the turnpike--and found its head turned toward thesouth! There was stupefaction, then tongues were loosed. "What'sthis--what's this, boys? Charlestown ain't in this direction. Old Joe'slost his bearings! Johnny Lemon, you go tell him so--go ask Old Jack ifyou can't. Whoa, there! The fool's going!! Come back here quick, Johnny, afore the captain sees you! O hell! we're going right backthrough 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. "Closeup, men, close up! No, I don't know any more than you do--maybe it'ssome roundabout way. Close up--close up!" The colonel rode along theline. "What's the matter here? You aren't going to a funeral! Think it'sa fox hunt, boys, and step out lively!" A courier arrived from the headof the column. "General Jackson's compliments to Colonel Brooke, and hesays if this regiment isn't in step in three minutes he'll leave it withthe sick in Winchester!"

The First Brigade, followed by Bee, Bartow, and Elzey, marched sullenlydown the turnpike, into Winchester, and through its dusty streets. Thepeople were all out, old men, boys, and women thronging the bricksidewalks. The army had seventeen hundred sick in the town. Pale faceslooked out of upper windows; men just recovering from dysentery, frommeasles, from fever, stumbled out of shady front yards and fell intoline; 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 beleft to Patterson? We've done our best by you--and you go marchingaway!" Several of the older women were weeping, the younger lookedscornful. _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 greatpike, a hundred and twenty miles of road, traversing as fair, rich, andhappy a region as war ever found a paradise and left a desolation. Tothe east towered the Blue Ridge, to west the Great North and ShenandoahMountains, twenty miles to the south Massanutton rose like a Gibraltarfrom the rolling fields of wheat and corn, the orchard lands andpleasant pastures. The region was one of old mills, turning flashingwheels, of comfortable red brick houses and well-stored barns, of fairmarket towns, of a noble breed of horses, and of great, white-coveredwagons, of clear waters and sweet gardens, of an honest, thrifty, brave, and intelligent people. It was a fair country, and many of the armywere at home there, but the army had at the moment no taste for itsbeauties. It wanted to see Patterson's long, blue lines; it wanted todrive them out of Virginia, across the Potomac, back to where they camefrom. 

The First Brigade was dispirited and critical, and as it had not yetlearned to control its mood, it marched as a dispirited and criticalperson would be apt to march in the brazen middle of a July day. Everyspring and rivulet, every blackberry bush and apple tree upon the roadgathered recruits. The halts for no purpose were interminable, theperpetual _Close up, close up, men!_ of the exasperated officers asunavailing as the droning in the heat of the burnished June-bugs. Thebrigade had no intention of not making known its reluctance to leavePatterson. It took an hour to make a mile from Winchester. GeneralJackson rode down the column on Little Sorrel and said something to thecolonel of each regiment, which something the colonels passed on to thecaptains. The next mile was made in half an hour. 

The July dust rose from the pike in clouds, hot, choking, thick as therain of ash from a volcano. It lay heavy upon coat, cap, haversack, andknapsack, 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, sullenlysouthward, hot without and hot within! The knapsack was heavy, thehaversack was heavy, the musket was heavy. Sweat ran down from under capor felt hat, and made grimy trenches down cheek and chin. The men hadtoo thick underwear. They carried overcoat and blanket--it was hot, hot, and every pound like ten! _To keep--to throw away? To keep--to throwaway?_ 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 thevalley appeared as brown smudges against an ochreish sky. The fartherhills and the mountains were not seen at all. The stone fences on eitherside the road, the blackberry bushes, the elder, the occasional apple orcherry tree were all but dun lines and blotches. Oh, hot, hot! A manswung his arm and a rolled overcoat landed in the middle of a briarpatch. A second followed suit--a third, a fourth. A great, raw-bonedfellow from some mountain clearing jerked at the lacing of his shoes andin a moment was marching barefoot, the offending leather swinging fromhis arm. To right and left he found imitators. A corpulent man, amerchant 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 inwheezing gasps. His overcoat went first, then his roll of blanket. Finally he gazed a moment, sorrowfully enough, at his knapsack, thendropped 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 ColourCompany of the 65th a boy began to cough, uncontrollably, with a hollowsound. 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 marchdown this pike longer, we'll all land home!--If you listen right hardyou can hear Thunder Run!--And that thar Yank hugging himself back tharat Charlestown!--dessay he's telegraphin' right this minute that we'verun 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 thatcoughing?"

"Andrew Kerr, sir. "

"Andrew Kerr, you go to the doctor the first thing after roll-callto-night. Cheer up, men! No one's going to send you home withoutfighting. "

From the rear came a rumble, shouted orders, a cracking of whips. Thecolumn swerved to one side of the broad road, and the RockbridgeArtillery passed--a vision of horses, guns, and men, wrapped in a dunwhirlwind and disappearing in the blast. They were gone in thunderthrough the heat and haze. The 65th Virginia wondered to a man why ithad not chosen the artillery. 

Out of a narrow way stretching westward, came suddenly at a gallop ahandful of troopers, black plumed and magnificently mounted, swinginginto the pike and disappearing in a pillar of dust toward the head ofthe 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 ofthem, 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'sGap? Wish this pike was shady like that!"

A bugle blew; the command to halt ran down the column. The First Brigadecame to a stand upon the dusty pike, in the heat and glare. The 65th wasthe third in column, the 4th and the 27th leading. Suddenly from the 4ththere burst a cheer, a loud and high note of relief and exultation. Amoment, and the infection had spread to the 27th; it, too, was cheeringwildly. Apparently there were several couriers--No! staff officers, the65th saw the gold lace--with some message or order from the commandinggeneral, now well in advance with his guard of Black Horse. They wereriding down the line--Old Jack was with them--the 4th and the 27th werecheering like mad. The colonel of the 65th rode forward. There was aminute's parley, then he turned, "Sixty-fifth! It isn't a fox hunt--it'sa bear hunt! 'General Johnston to the 65th'--" He broke off and wavedforward 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 toPiedmont, and from Piedmont by rail to Manassas Junction. General Stuartis still at Winchester amusing General Patterson. At Manassas ourgallant army under General Beauregard is attacked by McDowell withoverwhelming numbers. The commanding general hopes that his troops willstep 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. Theypassed the shouting 65th, and presently from down the line came thecheers of the 2d, 21st, and 33d Virginia. Old Jack rode back alone thelength of his brigade; and so overflowing was the enthusiasm of the menthat 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 crythe First Brigade wheeled into the road that led eastward through theBlue Ridge by Ashby's Gap. 

Two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock came and passed. Enthusiasmcarried the men fast and far, but they were raw troops and theysuffered. The sun, too, was enthusiastic, burning with all its might. The road proved neither cool nor shady. All the springs seemed suddenlyto have dried up. Out of every hour there was a halt of ten minutes, andit was needed. The men dropped by the roadside, upon the parched grass, beneath the shadow of the sumach and the elder bushes, and lay withoutspeaking. The small farmers, the mountaineers, the hunters, theploughmen fared not so badly; but the planters of many acres, thelawyers, the doctors, the divines, the merchants, the millers, and theinnkeepers, the undergraduates from the University, the youths fromclassical academies, county stores, village banks, lawyers' offices, allwho led a horseback or sedentary existence, and the elderly men and thevery young, --these suffered heavily. The mounted officers were notfoot-weary, but they also had heat, thirst, and hunger, and, inaddition, responsibility, inexperience, and the glance of theirbrigadier. The ten minutes were soon over. _Fall in--fall in, men!_ Theshort rest made the going worse, the soldiers rose so stiff and sore. 

The men had eaten before leaving the camp above Winchester--but that wasdays ago. Now, as they went through Clarke County, there appeared atcross-roads, at plantation gates, at stiles leading into green fields, ladies young and old, bearing baskets of good things hastily snatchedfrom pantry and table. They had pitchers, too, of iced tea, of coldmilk, even of raspberry acid and sangaree. How good it all was! and howimpossible to go around! But, fed or hungry, refreshed or thirsty, themen blessed the donors, and that reverently, with a purity of thought, achivalrousness of regard, a shade of feeling, youthful and sweet and yetvirile enough, which went with the Confederate soldier into the serviceand abode to the end. 

The long afternoon wore to a close. The heat decreased, but the dustremained and the weariness grew to gigantic proportions. The FirstBrigade was well ahead of Bee, Bartow, and Elzey. It had started inadvance and it had increased the distance. If there was any marching inmen, Jackson forced it out; they went a league for him where anotherwould have procured but a mile, but even he, even enthusiasm and thenecessity of relieving Beauregard got upon this march less than twomiles an hour. Most happily, McDowell, advancing on Beauregard and BullRun and fearing "masked batteries, " marched much more slowly. At sunsetthe First Brigade reached the Shenandoah. 

The mounted officers took up one and sometimes two men beside them, andthe horses struggled bravely through the cold, rapid, breast-deepcurrent. Behind them, company by company, the men stripped off coat andtrousers, piled clothing and ammunition upon their heads, held hightheir muskets, and so crossed. The guns and wagons followed. Before theriver was passed the night fell dark. 

The heat was now gone by, the dust was washed away, the men had drunktheir fill. From the haversacks they took the remnant of the food cookedthat morning. The biscuit and the bacon tasted very good; not enough ofeither, it was true, but still something. The road above the river rosesteeply, for here was the Blue Ridge, lofty and dark, rude with rock, and shaggy with untouched forests. This was the pass through themountains, 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. Theyfelt older, and the air, blowing down from the mountains, seemed the airof a far country toward which they had been travelling almost withoutknowing it. They saw now that it was a strange country, much unlike thatin which they had hitherto lived. They climbed slowly between dark cragand tree, and wearily. All song and jest had died; they were tiredsoldiers, hungry now for sleep. _Close up, men, close up!_

They came to the height of the pass, marked by a giant poplar whoseroots struck deep into four counties. Here again there was a tenminutes' 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 dreamheard the _Fall in--fall in, men!_ The column stumbled to its feet andbegan the descent of the mountain. 

Clouds came up; at midnight when they reached the lower slope, it wasraining. Later they came to the outskirts of the village of Paris, to agrove of mighty oaks, and here the brigade was halted for the night. Themen fell upon the ground and slept. No food was taken, and no sentrieswere posted. An aide, very heavy-eyed, asked if guard should not be set. "No, sir, " answered the general. "Let them sleep. " "And you, sir?" "Idon't feel like it. I'll see that there is no alarm. " With his cloakabout him, with his old cadet cap pulled down over his eyes, awkward andsimple and plain, he paced out the night beneath the trees, or sat upona broken rail fence, watching his sleeping soldiers and, the aidethought, praying. 

The light rain ceased, the sky cleared, the pale dawn came up from theeast. In the first pink light the bugles sounded. Up rose the FirstBrigade, cooked and ate its breakfast, swung out from the oak grove uponthe highroad, and faced the rising sun. The morning was divinely cool, the men in high spirits, Piedmont and the railway were but six milesdown the road. The First Brigade covered the distance by eight o'clock. There was the station, there was the old Manassas Gap railroad, therewas the train of freight and cattle cars--ever so many freight andcattle cars! Company after company the men piled in; by ten o'clockevery car was filled, and the platforms and roofs had their quota. Thecrazy old engine blew its whistle, the First Brigade was off forManassas. Bee, Bartow, and Elzey, arriving at Piedmont in the course ofthe morning, were not so fortunate. The railroad had promised, barringunheard-of accident, to place the four brigades in Manassas by sunriseof the twentieth. The accident duly arrived. There was a collision, thetrack was obstructed, and only the 7th and 8th Georgia got through. Theremainder of the infantry waited perforce at Piedmont, a portion of itfor two mortal days, and that without rations. The artillery and thecavalry--the latter having now come up--marched by the wagon road andarrived in fair time. 

From ten in the morning until sunset the First Brigade and the ManassasGap train crept like a tortoise through the July weather, by rustlingcornfields, by stream and wood, by farmhouse and village. It was hot inthe freight and cattle cars, hot, cinderish, and noisy. With here andthere an exception the men took off their coats, loosened the shoes fromtheir feet, made themselves easy in any way that suggested itself. Thesubtle _give_, the slip out of convention and restraint back toward aless trammelled existence, the faint return of the more purelyphysical, the slight withdrawal of the more purely mental, the rapidbreaking down of the sheer artificial--these and other marks of one ofthe many predicates of war began to show themselves in this journey. Butat the village stations there came a change. Women and girls weregathered here, in muslin freshness, with food and drink for "ourheroes. " The apparel discarded between stations was assiduouslyreassumed whenever the whistle blew. "Our heroes" looked out of freightand cattle car, somewhat grimy, perhaps, but clothed and in their rightmind, with a becoming bloom upon them of eagerness, deference, andpatriotic willingness to die in Virginia's defence. The dispensers ofnectar and ambrosia loved them all, sped them on to Manassas with many aprayer 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 pouredthe First Brigade, fell into line, and was double-quicked four miles toMitchell's Ford and a pine wood, where, hungry, thirsty, dirty, andexhausted, the ranks were broken. 

This was the night of the nineteenth. At Piedmont the brigade had heardof yesterday's minor affair at this ford between Tyler's division andLongstreet, the honours of the engagement resting with the Confederate. In the pine wood there was a line of fresh graves; on the brown needleslay boughs that shell had cut from the trees; there were certain stainsupon the ground. The First Brigade ate and slept--the last somewhatfeverishly. The night passed without alarm. An attack in force wasexpected in the morning, but it did not come. McDowell, amazinglyenough, still rested confident that Patterson had detained Johnston inthe valley. Possessed by this belief he was now engaged in a"reconnoissance by stealth, " his object being to discover a road wherebyto cross Bull Run above the Stone Bridge and turn Beauregard's left. This proceeding and an afternoon rest in camp occupied him the whole ofthe twentieth. On this day Johnston himself reached Manassas, bringingwith him Bee's 2d Mississippi and 4th Alabama, and Bartow's 7th and 8thGeorgia. Stuart, having successfully amused Patterson, was also on hand. The remainder of the Army of the Shenandoah, detained by the break uponthe Manassas Gap, was yet missing, and many an anxious glance thegenerals cast that way. 

The First Brigade, undiscovered by the "reconnoissance by stealth, "rested all day Saturday beneath the pines at Mitchell's Ford, and atnight slept quietly, no longer minding the row of graves. At dawn ofSunday a cannon woke the men, loud and startling, McDowell's signal gun, fired from Centreville, and announcing to the Federal host that theinterrupted march, the "On to Richmond" blazoned on banners and chalkedon trunks, would now be resumed, willy nilly the "rebel horde" on thesouthern bank of Bull Run. 

CHAPTER VII

THE DOGS OF WAR

In the east was a great flare of pink with small golden clouds floatingacross, all seen uncertainly between branches of pine. A mist lay aboveBull Run--on the high, opposite bank the woods rose huddled, indistinct, and dream-like. The air was still, cool, and pure, a Sunday morningwaiting for church bells. There were no bells; the silence wasshattered by all the drums of the brigade beating the long roll. Menrose from the pine needles, shook themselves, caught up musket andammunition belt. The echoes from McDowell's signal cannon had hardlydied when, upon the wooded banks of Bull Run, the First Brigade stood inarms. 

Minutes passed. Mitchell's Ford marked the Confederate centre. Here, andat Blackburn's Ford, were Bonham, Bee, Bartow, Longstreet, and Jackson. Down the stream, at MacLean's Ford and Union Mills, Early and Ewell andD. R. Jones held the right. To the left, up Bull Run, beyond Bee andbeyond Stuart, at the Island, Ball and Lewis fords, were Cocke's Brigadeand Hampton's Legion, and farther yet, at the Stone Bridge, Evans with asmall brigade. Upon the northern bank of the Run, in the thick woodsopposite Mitchell's and Blackburn's fords, was believed to be the massof the invaders. There had been a certitude that the battle would joinabout these fords. Beauregard's plan was to cross at MacLean's and fallupon the Federal left. Johnston had acceded, and with the first lightorders had gone to the brigadiers. "Hold yourselves in readiness tocross and to attack. "

Now suddenly from the extreme left, away in the direction of the StoneBridge, burst an unexpected sound both of musketry and artillery. It wasdistant, it waxed and waned and waxed again. The First Brigade, nervous, impatient, chilled by the dawn, peered across its own reach of mistystream, and saw naught but the dream-like woods. Tyler's division wasover there, it knew. When would firing begin along this line? When wouldthe brigade have orders to move, when would it cross, when would thingsbegin to happen?

An hour passed. Ranks were broken and the men allowed to cook and eat ahasty breakfast. How good, in the mist-drenched wood, tasted thescalding coffee, how good the cornbread and the bacon! The last crumbswallowed, they waited again, lying on the brown earth beneath thepines. The mounted officers, advanced upon the bank of the stream andseen through the mist, loomed larger, man and horse, than life. Jacksonsat very quiet upon Little Sorrel, his lips moving. Far up the streamthe firing continued. The 2d, 4th, 5th, 27th, 33d, and 65th Virginiafidgeted, groaned, swore with impatience. 

Suddenly the nearer echoes awoke. A Federal battery, posted on thehills beyond the fringe of thick wood on the northern bank, opened aslow and ineffective fire against the hills and woods across the stream. The Confederates kept their position masked, made no reply. The shellsfell short, and did harm only to the forest and its creatures. Nearlyall fell short, but one, a shell from a thirty-pounder Parrott, enteredthe pine wood by Mitchell's Ford, fell among the wagons of the 65th, andexploded. 

A driver was killed, a mule mangled so that it must be shot, and anambulance split into kindling wood. Few in the First Brigade had seensuch a thing before. The men brushed the pine needles and the earth fromtheir coats, and looked at the furrowed ground and at the headless bodyof the driver with a startled curiosity. There was a sense of a suddenand vivid flash from behind the veil, and they as suddenly perceivedthat the veil was both cold and dark. This, then, was one of the ways inwhich death came, shrieking like this, ugly and resistless! The Julymorning was warm and bright, but more than one of the volunteers in thatwood 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. " Hestopped before the colour company of the 65th. "Captain Cleave. "

"Yes, sir. "

"You have hunters from the mountains. After the battle send me the manyou think would make the best scout--an intelligent man. "

"Very well, sir. "

The other turned Little Sorrel's head toward the stream and stoodlistening. The sound of the distant cannonade increased. The pine woodran back from the water, grew thinner, and gave place to mere copse anda field of broomsedge. From this edge of the forest came now a noise ofmounted men. "Black Horse, I reckon!" said the 65th. "Wish they'd go askOld Joe what he and Beauregard have got against us!--No, 'taint BlackHorse--I see them through the trees--gray slouch hats and no feathers inthem! Infantry, too--more infantry than horse. Hampton, maybe--No, theylook like home folk--" A horseman appeared in the wood, guiding apowerful black stallion with a light hand between the pines, andchecking him with a touch beside the bank upon which Little Sorrel wasplanted. "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 amglad to see you, sir. We never met in Mexico, but I heard of you--Iheard 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 andFeathers, too! Oh, Mexico!"

Jackson's countenance, so rigid, plain, restrained, altered as throughsome effect of soft and sunny light. The blue of the eye deepened, theiris enlarged, a smile came to his lips. His stiffly held, awkwardlyerect figure relaxed, though very slightly. "I loved it in Mexico. Ihave never forgotten it. _Dear land of the daughters of Spain!_" Thelight went indoors again. "That demonstration upstream is increasing. Colonel Evans will need support. "

"Yes, we must have orders shortly. " Turning in his saddle, Cary gazedacross the stream. "Andrew Porter and Burnside are somewhere over there. I wonder if Burnside remembers the last time he was in Virginia!" Helaughed. "Dabney Maury's wedding in '52 at Cleveland, and Burnside happyas a king singing 'Old Virginia never tire!' stealing kisses from thebridesmaids, hunting with the hardest, dancing till cockcrow, andasking, twenty times a day, 'Why don't we do like this in Indiana?' Iwonder--I wonder!" He laughed again. "Good old Burnside! It's an oddworld 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. Thatfiring's growing louder, I think. There's a cousin of mine in the65th--yonder by the colours! May I speak to him?"

"Certainly, sir. I have noticed Captain Cleave. His men obey him withreadiness. " He beckoned, and when Cleave came up, turned away withLittle 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, tallcompany!"

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 alegend--this army!"

"I believe that you are right. When you were a boy you used to dreamartillery. "

"I dream it still. Sooner or later, by hook or by crook, I'll get intothat arm. It wasn't feasible this spring. "

His cousin looked at him with the affection, half humorous and whollytender, with which he regarded most of his belongings in life. "I alwaysliked 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 toleave his company. Edward is with the Rifles?"

"Yes, adding lustre to the ranks. I came upon him yesterday cutting woodfor 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 andhurrying off to roll call. Phoebus Apollo swincking for Mars!--I wasat Greenwood the other day. They all sent you their love. "

A colour came into Cleave's dark cheek. "Thank them for me when youwrite. Only the ladies are there?"

"Yes. I told them it had the air of a Spanish nunnery. Maury Stafford iswith Magruder on the Peninsula. "

"Yes. "

"Judith had a letter from him. He was in the affair at Bethel. --What'sthis? Orders for us all to move, I hope!"

A courier had galloped into the wood. "General Jackson? Where is GeneralJackson?" A hundred hands having pointed out Little Sorrel and hisrider, he arrived breathless, saluted, and extended a gauntleted handwith a folded bit of paper. Jackson took and opened the missive with hisusual deliberation, glanced over the contents, and pushed Little Sorrelnearer to Fauquier Cary. "_General_, " he read aloud, though in a lowvoice, "_the signal officer reports a turning column of the enemyapproaching Sudley Ford two miles above the Stone Bridge. You willadvance with all speed to the support of the endangered left. Bee andBarlow, the Hampton Legion and the Virginia Legion will receive likeorders. 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 toCleave, he was gone, crashing through the thinning pines to thebroomsedge 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 ofmusketry, growing in volume. The pines were left behind; oak copsesucceeded, then the up and down of grassy fields. Wooden fencesstretched across the way, streamlets presented themselves, here andthere gaped a ravine, ragged and deep. On and on and over all! Bee andBartow were ahead, and Hampton and the Virginia Legion. The sound of theguns grew louder. "Evans hasn't got but six regiments. _Get on, men, geton!_"

The fields were very rough, all things uneven and retarding. Only thesun 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 greatcornfield. They stumbled over the furrows, they broke down the stalks, they tore aside the intertwining small, blue morning-glories. Wet withthe dew of the field, they left it and dipped again into woods. Theshade did not hold; now they were traversing an immense and wastedstretch where the dewberry caught at their ankles and the sun had anunchecked sway. Ahead the firing grew louder. _Get on, men, get on!_

Allan Gold, hurrying with his hurrying world, found in life this Julymorning something he had not found before. Apparently there were cracksin the firmament through which streamed a dazzling light, aninvigorating air. After all, there was something wide, it seemed, inwar, something sweet. It was bright and hot--they were going, clean andchildlike, to help their fellows at the bridge. When, near at hand, abugle blew, high as a lark above the stress, he followed the sound witha clear delight. He felt no fatigue, and he had never seen the sky soblue, the woods so green. Chance brought him for a moment in line withhis captain. "Well, Allan?"

"I seem to have waked up, " said Allan, then, very soberly. "I am goingto 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, andfought again with the dewberry vines. "When the battle's over you're toreport to General Jackson. Say that I sent you--that you're the man heasked for this morning. "

The entangling vines abruptly gave up the fight. A soft hillside ofpasturage succeeded, down which the men ran like schoolboys. A grayzigzag of rail fence, a little plashy stream, another hillside, and atthe 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 isa feint. Colonel Evans has left four companies there, and with the 4thSouth Carolina and the Louisiana Tigers is getting into position acrossYoung's Branch, upon the Mathews Hill. Colonel Evans's compliments, andhe 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 downthe 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 ofthose low waves. The First Brigade had proved its mettle, but here itbegan to lose. Men gasped, wavered, fell out of line and were leftbehind. In Virginia the July sunshine is no bagatelle. It beat hardto-day, and to many in these ranks there was in this July Sunday anawful strangeness. At home--ah, at home!--crushed ice and cooling fans, a pleasant and shady ride to a pleasant, shady church, a little dozingthrough a comfortable sermon, then friends and crops and politics in thetwilight dells of an old churchyard, then home, and dinner, and wideporches--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 yellowingsedge, dotted over with young pines. The 65th headed the column. Lieutenant Coffin of Company A was a busy officer, active as ajumping-jack, half liked and half distasted by the men. The need of somebreathing time, however slight, was now so imperative that at a stakeand rider fence, overgrown with creepers, a five minutes' halt wasordered. The fence ran at right angles, and all along the column the mendropped upon the ground, in the shadow of the vines. Coffin threwhimself down by the Thunder Run men. "Billy Maydew!"

"Yaas, sir. "

"What have you got that stick tied to your gun for? Throw it away! Ishould think you'd find that old flintlock heavy enough withoutshouldering 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 onit 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 rightinterestin'. 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 tellyou. "

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 rosefrom the fence corner. "Throw that stick away, or I'll put you in theguardhouse! This ain't Thunder Run--and you men have got to learn athing 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. "Lookhere, Billy! We're going into battle in a minute, and you want to bethere, don't you? The lieutenant's right--that oak tree surely will getin your way! Let's see how far you can throw it. There's plenty moresaplings 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 thesame to you, lieutenant, " he said politely, "I'll break it into bitsfirst. 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, brokeit in twain, broke in their turn the two halves, and tossed the fourpieces over the fence. "Thar, now! It's did. " Moving back to Allan'sside, he threw himself down upon the grass. "When's this hell-firedfightin' goin' to begin? I don't ask anything better, jest at thisminute, 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 founditself upon a stretch of road, in a dust cloud that neatly capped allprevious ills. At some distance rose the low hill, covered, upon thisside, by a second growth of pines. "That's the Henry Hill, " said theguide with the 65th. "The house just this side is the Lewishouse--'Portici, ' they call it. The top of the hill is a kind ofplateau, with deep gulleys across it. Nearly in the middle is the WidowHenry'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 theHenry Hill, and Mrs. Henry is old and bedridden. I don't know whatshe'll do, anyway! The hill's most level on top, as I said, but beyondthe Henry House it falls right down, quite steep, to the Warrentonturnpike. Across that there's marshy ground, and Young's Branch, withthe 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 seethe cleared ground when you get on top. "

A bowshot from the wood, the head of the column was met by a secondcourier, a boy from the Alabama River, riding like Jehu, pale withexcitement. "When you get to the top of the hill you'll see! They'rethicker than bees from a sweet gum--they're thicker than bolls in acotton-field! They've got three thousand Regulars, and fifteen thousandof the other kind, and they're cutting Evans to pieces!" He pulledhimself together and saluted. "General Bee's compliments to GeneralJackson, 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, brightgreen needles aloft on slender trunks, out of which, in the strongsunshine, resin was oozing. They were set well apart, the grass beneathdry and slippery, strewn with cones. The sky was intensely blue, the airhot 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. Aninvisible line joined with suddenness the early morning picture, thetorn and dying mule, the headless driver, to this. Breathless, heated, excited, the 65th swept on, yet it felt the cold air from the cavern. Ithad, of course, seen accidents, men injured in various ways, but neverhad it viewed so many, nor so much blood, and never before had it rushedpast the helpless and the agonizing. There were surgeons andambulances--there seemed to be a table of planks on which the worstcases were laid--the sufferers had help, of course, a little help. ACreole from Bayou Teche lay writhing, shot through the stomach, beneatha 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 agreat wave somewhere beyond that cover--men limping, men supported bytheir comrades, men gasping and covered with sweat, men livid withnausea, men without arms, men carrying it off with bluster, and men toohonestly frightened for any pretence. A number were legitimately there, wounded, ill, exhausted, useless on the field of battle; others weremalingerers, and some were cowards--cowards for all time, or cowards forthis time only. A minority was voluble. "You all think yo' going to aSunday-school picnic, don't you? Well, you ain't. Just _you_ all waituntil you get to the top of the hill! What are you going to see? You'regoing to see hell's mouth, and the devil wearing blue! We've beenthere--we've been in hell since daybreak--damned if we haven't! Evansall cut to pieces! Bee and Bartow have gone in now. They'll find ithell, jest like we did. Twenty thousand of them dressed in blue. " A manbegan to weep. "All cut to pieces. Major Wheat's lying there in a littlepiney wood. He was bleeding and bleeding--I saw him--but I reckon theblood 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 andYoung's Branch, and then there's a hill called the Mathews Hill. We werethere--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 itagain, if you have to be dragged by the heels! Get back there, youdamned, roustabout cowards!" The mounted man laid about him with hissabre; the lieutenant, afoot, wrenched from a strapping fellow hisBelgian musket and applied the stock to the recreant's shoulders. The65th left the clamour, swept onward between the pines, and presently, inthe 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 hisdamned Regulars. Beg your pardon, general--? General Jackson. I'll getthe 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--theStaunton Artillery--four smoothbore, brass six-pounders, guns, andcaissons drawn by half the proper number of horses--the rest beingkilled--and conducted by wounded, exhausted, powder-grimed and swearingartillerymen. Imboden, in front, was setting the pitch. "---- ----! ---- ----! ---- ---- ----!" Jackson checked Little Sorrel andwithered the battery and its captain. "What are you doing here, sir, blaspheming and retreating? Outfacing your God with your back to theenemy! What--"

Imboden, an entirely gallant man, hastened to explain. "Beg pardon, general! Bad habit, I acknowledge, but the occasion excuses--My batteryhas spent the morning, sir, on the Henry Hill, and damn me, if it hasn'tbeen as lonely there as the Ancient Mariner! No support--not a damnedinfantryman in sight for the last half hour! Alone down there by theRobinson House, and Ricketts and Griffin--Regulars by the Lord!--and thedevil knows how many batteries beside playing on us with Parrotts andtwelve-pounder howitzers like all the fountains at Versailles! Theground looks as though it had been rooted by hogs! No support, and noorders, and on the turnpike a bank of blue massing to rush my guns! Andmy ammunition out, and half my horses down--and if General Bee sent meorders to move I never got them!" He stamped upon the ground, wiping theblood 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 wasthe Staunton Artillery! We had to move out. "

Jackson eyed him, unmollified. "I have never seen the occasion, CaptainImboden, that justified profanity. As for support--I will support yourbattery. Unlimber right here. "

Imboden unlimbered, placing his guns below the pine wood upon thesummit. The First Brigade wheeled into line to the left. Here it was metby an aide. "General Jackson, hold your troops in reserve until Bee andBartow need support--then give it to them!" The First Brigade deployedin the wood. About the men was still the pine thicket, blazed upon bythe sun, shrilled in by winged legions; before them was the field ofBull Run. A tableland, cut by gullies, furred with knots of pine andoak, held in the middle a flower garden, a few locust trees, and a smallhouse--the Henry House--in which, too old and ill to be borne away tosafety, lay a withered woman, awaiting death. Beyond the house theground fell sharply. At the foot of the hill ran the road, and beyondthe road were the marshy banks of a little stream, and on the other sideof the stream rose the Mathews Hill. Ranged upon this height Rickettsand Griffin and Arnold and many another Federal battery were sendingshrieking shells against the Henry Hill. North and east and west of thebatteries ran long radii of blue, pointed with bright banners, and outof the hollow between the hills came a smoke and noise as of thenethermost pit. There, beneath that sulphurous cloud, the North and theSouth were locked in an embrace that was not of love. 

CHAPTER VIII

A CHRISTENING

Imboden had been joined by the Rockbridge Artillery and the Alexandriaand Loudoun batteries. A little later there came up two of the NewOrleans guns. All unlimbered in front of the pine wood where was couchedthe First Brigade, trained the sixteen guns upon the Mathews Hill andbegan firing. Griffin and Ricketts and Arnold answered with Parrotts andhowitzers, throwing elongated, cylindrical shell that came with thescreech of a banshee. But the Federal range was too long, and the fusesof many shells were uncut. Two of Rockbridge's horses were killed, acaisson of Stanard's exploded, scorching the gunners, a lieutenant waswounded in the thigh, but the batteries suffered less than did theinfantry in the background. Here, more than one exploding horror wroughtdestruction. Immediately in rear of the guns were posted the 4th, the27th, and the 65th. To the right hand was the 5th, to the left the 2dand the 33d. In all the men lay down in ranks, just sheltered by thefinal fringe of pines. The younger officers stood up, or, stepping intothe clearing, seated themselves not without ostentation upon pinestumps, to the laudable end that the enemy should know where to findthem. Jackson rode back and forth behind the guns. 

The thundering voices grew louder, shaking the hills. The First Brigadecould not see the infantry, swept now from the Mathews Hill and engagedabout the turnpike and the stream. By stretching necks it saw a roof ofsmoke, dun-coloured, hiding pandemonium. Beneath that deeper thunder ofthe guns, the crackling, unintermittent sound of musketry affected theear like the stridulation of giant insects. The men awaiting their turnbeneath the pines, breathing quick, watching the shells, moved theirheads slightly to and fro. In front, outdrawn upon a little ridge, stoodthe guns and boomed defiance. Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New Orleans did well this day. The guns themselves were somethingancient, growing obsolete; but those striplings about them, beardless, powder-grimed, bare of arm and chest, silent and swift and steady of eyeand hand, sponging, ramming, priming, aiming, firing, showed in the vanof 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 thespeaking guns and the waiting infantry. The men, from their couch uponthe needles, watched him. Before their eyes war was transfiguring him, and his soldiers called him "Old Jack" and made no reservation. Theawkward figure took on a stalwart grace, the old uniform, the boots, thecap, grew classically right. The inner came outward, the atmospherealtered, and the man was seen as he rode in the plane above. A shellfrom Ricketts came screaming, struck and cut down a young pine. Infalling, the tree caught and hurt a man or two. Another terror followedand exploded overhead, a fragment inflicting upon a bugler of the 65tha ghastly wound. "Steady, men, steady!--all's well, " said Old Jack. Hethrew up his left hand, palm out, --an usual gesture, --and turned tospeak to Imboden, whose profanity he had apparently forgiven. As in anyother July hour a cloud of gnats might have swum above that hill, so, onthis one summer day, death-dealing missiles filled the air. Somesplinter 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 wouldgive--I will give--for this cause every drop of blood that coursesthrough my heart. " He drew out a handkerchief, wrapped it around thewound, and rode on down the right of his line. 

Up to meet him from the foot of the hill, out of the dun smoke hidingthe wrestle, came at a gallop a roan horse bearing a rider tall and wellmade, black-eyed and long-haired, a bright sash about his waist, aplumed hat upon his head. Panting, he drew rein beside Little Sorrel. "Iam Bee. --General Jackson, we are driven--we are overwhelmed! My God!only Evans and Bartow and I against the whole North and the Regulars! Weare being pushed back--you must support. --In three minutes the battlewill be upon this hill--Hunter and Heintzleman's divisions. They're hotand huzzaing--they think they've got us fast! They have, by God! if ourtroops don't come up!" He turned his horse. "But you'll support--wecount on you--"

"Count only upon God, General Bee, " said Jackson. "But I will give themthe bayonet. "

Bee struck spur into the roan and galloped across the plateau. Out ofone of the furrowing ravines, a sunbaked and wrinkled trough springingfrom the turnpike below and running up and across the Henry Hill towardthe crest of pine and oak, came now a handful of men, grey shadows, reeling, seeking the forest and night. Another followed--another--then astream, a grey runlet of defeat which grew in proportions. A momentmore, and the ravine, fed from the battle-ground below, overflowed. Thered light shifted to the Henry Hill. It was as though a closed fan, laidupon that uneven ground, had suddenly opened. The rout was not hideous. The men had fought long and boldly, against great odds; they fled nowbefore the storm, but all cohesion was not lost, nor presence of mind. Some turned and fired, some listened to their shouting officer, andstrove to form about the tossed colours, some gave and took advice. Butevery gun of the Federal batteries poured shot and shell upon thathilltop, and the lines of blue had begun to climb. The disorderincreased; panic might come like the wind in the grass. Bee reached thechoked 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, standingagainst the sky, upon the rim of the ravine, he looked colossal, abronze designed to point the way. He cried aloud, "Look! Yonder isJackson standing like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!" As hespoke 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 apine wood, ran a stone wall, grey, irregular, touched here by sunlight, there by shadow, and shrouded in part by the battle smoke. Some one hadplanted upon it a flag. For a full moment the illusion held, then thewall moved. A captain of the 4th Alabama, hoarse with shouting, foundvoice once more. "God! We aren't beaten! Talk of Birnam wood! The stonewall's coming!"

Up and out of the ravine, widening like an opening fan, pressed thedisordered troops. The plateau was covered by chaos come again. Officers, raging, shouted orders, ran to and fro, gesticulated withtheir swords. A short line was formed, another; they dissolved before athird could be added. All voices were raised; there was a tumult ofcries, commands, protestations, adjurations, and refusals. Over allscreamed the shells, settled the smoke. Franklin, Willcox, Sherman, andPorter, pressing the Federal advantage, were now across the turnpike. Beneath their feet was the rising ground--a moment more, and they wouldleap victorious up the ragged slope. The moment was delayed. With arending sound as of a giant web torn asunder, the legions of Hampton andCary, posted near the house of the free negro Robinson, came into actionand held in check the four brigades. 

High upon the plateau, near Jackson's line, above the wild confusion ofthe retreating troops, appeared in the blaze of the midday sun, hatless, on steeds reeking from the four miles' gallop from that centre where thebattle did not join to this left where it did, the generals Johnston andBeauregard. Out of the red lightning, the thunder, the dust and thesmoke, above the frenzied shouting and the crying of the wounded, theirpresence was electrically known. A cheer rushed from the First Brigade;at the guns Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New Orleanstook up the cry, tossed it with grape and canister across to theopposite hill. Bee, Bartow, and Evans, exhausted, shattered, waveringupwards toward the forest, rest, cessation from long struggle, heard thenames and took fresh heart. The two were not idle, but in the crucialmoment turned the scale. Black danger hemmed their cause. The missingbrigade of the Shenandoah was no man knew where. At Mitchell's andBlackburn's fords, Ewell, D. R. Jones, Bonham, and Longstreet wereengaged in a demonstration in force, retaining upon that front theenemy's reserve. Holmes and Jubal Early were on their way to theimperilled 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 headlongflight; lower, in the hollow land, McDowell's advance, filling thelittle valley, islanding the two fighting legions, and now, a mountingtide, attacking the Henry Hill. At Beauregard's order the regimentalcolours were advanced, and the men adjured to rally about them. Fiery, eloquent, of French descent and impassioned, Pierre Gustave ToutantBeauregard rose in his stirrups and talked of _la gloire_, of home, andof country. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana listened, cheered, and began to reform. Johnston, Scotch, correct, military, theRegular in person, trusted to the hilt by the men he led, seized thecolours of the 4th Alabama, raised them above his grey head, spurred hiswar horse, and in the hail of shot and shell established the line ofbattle. Decimated as they were, raw volunteers as they were, drawn frompeaceful ways to meet the purple dragon, fold on fold of war, the troopsof Bee, Bartow, and Evans rallied, fell into line, and stood. The 49thVirginia came upon the plateau from Lewis Ford--at its head Ex-GovernorWilliam Smith. "Extra Billy, " old political hero, sat twisted in hissaddle, and addressed his regiment. "Now, boys, you've just got to killthe ox for this barbecue! Now, mind you, I ain't going to have anybacking 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 thegirls! 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 knowOld Virginny. Tom Scott, you beat the drum real loud, and James, youswing that flag so high the good Lord's got to see it!--Here's the WestP'inters--here's the generals! Now, boys, just see how loud you canholler!"

The 49th went into line upon Gartrell's right, who was upon Jackson'sleft. Beauregard paused to speak to that brigadier, advanced upon LittleSorrel in front of the 65th. An aide addressed the latter's colonel. "General Bee christened this brigade just before he fell. He called it astone wall. If he turns out a true prophet I reckon the name willstick. " A shell came hurtling, fell, exploded, and killed under himBeauregard's horse. He mounted the aide's and galloped back to Johnston, near the Henry House. Here there was a short council. Had the missingbrigade, the watched for, the hoped for, reached Manassas? Ewell andEarly had been ordered up from Union Mills. Would they arrive upon thishill in time? What of the Stone Bridge, now left almost undefended? Whatof Blackburn and Mitchell's fords, and Longstreet's demonstration, andthe enemy's reserves across Bull Run? What best disposition of thestrength that might arrive? The conference was short. Johnston, thesenior with the command of the whole field, galloped off to the LewisHouse, while Beauregard retained the direction of the contest on theHenry Hill. Below it the two legions still held the blue wave frommounting. 

Ricketts and Griffin upon the Mathews Hill ceased firing--greatly to theexcitement of Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and NewOrleans. The smoke slightly lifted. "What're they doing? They've gottheir horses--they're limbering up! What in hell!--d'ye suppose they'vehad 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 theturnpike. A moment and they were lost to sight, another and thestraining horses and the dust and the guns and the fighting men aboutthem showed above the brow of the Henry Hill. Out they thundered uponthe plateau and wheeled into battery very near to the Henry House. Magnificence but not war! They had no business there, but they had beenordered and they came. With a crash as of all the thunders they openedat a thousand feet, full upon the Confederate batteries and upon thepine wood where lay the First Brigade. 

Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New Orleans, wet withsweat, black with powder, sponging, ramming, priming, aiming, firing, did well with the bass of that hill-echoing tune. A lieutenant of theWashington Artillery made himself heard above the roar. "Short range!We've got short range at last! Now, old smoothbores, show what you aremade of!" The smoothbores showed. Griffin and Ricketts answered, Jackson's sharpshooters took a part, the uproar became frightful. Thecaptain of the Rockbridge Artillery was a great-nephew of EdmundPendleton, a graduate of West Point and the rector of the EpiscopalChurch in Lexington. He went back and forth among his guns. "Fire! andthe Lord have mercy upon their souls. --Fire! and the Lord have mercyupon their souls. " With noise and a rolling smoke and a scorching breathand a mad excitement that annihilated time and reduced with athunderclap 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 ofRicketts and Griffin. Behind them showed in strength other climbingmuskets. In the vale below Hampton and Cary had made diversion, had heldthe brigades in check, while upon the plateau the Confederates rallied. The two legions, stubborn and gallant, suffered heavily. With many deadand many wounded they drew off at last. The goal of the Henry Hill layclear before McDowell. 

He had brigades enough for the advance that should set all the bells ofWashington ringing for victory. His turning column at Sudley Ford hadnumbered eighteen thousand men. But Howard was somewhere in the vaguedistance, Burnside was "resting, " Keyes, who had taken part in theaction against Hampton, was now astray in the Bull Run Valley, andSchenck had not even crossed the stream. There were the dead, too, thewounded and the stragglers. All told, perhaps eleven thousand menattacked the Henry Hill. They came on confidently, flushed with victory, brilliant as tropical birds in the uniforms so bright and new, in theblue, 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 andcircumstance of that somewhat theatrical "On to Richmond. " With gleamingmuskets and gleaming swords and with the stars and stripes above them, they advanced, huzzaing. Above them, on that plateau, ranged beneath thestars and bars, there awaited the impact six thousand and five hundredConfederates with sixteen guns. Three thousand of the troops were fresh;three thousand had been long and heavily engaged, and driven from theirfirst position. 

Rockbridge and New Orleans and their fellows worked like grey automataabout their belching guns. They made a dead line for the advance tocross. Ricketts and Griffin answered with their howling shells--shellsthat burst above the First Brigade. One stopped short of the men inbattle. It entered the Henry House, burst, and gave five wounds to thewoman cowering in her bed. Now she lay there, dying, above the armies, and the flower-beds outside were trampled, and the boughs of the locusttrees strewn upon the earth. 

Hunter and Heintzleman mounted the ridge of the hill. With an immensevolley of musketry the battle joined upon the plateau that was but fivehundred yards across. The Fire Zouaves, all red, advanced like a flameagainst the 4th Alabama, crouched behind scrub oak to the left of thefield. The 4th Alabama fired, loaded, fired again. The zouaves broke, fleeing in disorder toward a piece of woods. Out from the shadow of thetrees came Jeb Stuart with two hundred cavalrymen. The smoke was verythick; it was not with ease that one told friend from foe. In theinstant of encounter the _beau sabreur_ thought that he spoke toConfederates. He made his horse to bound, he rose in his stirrups, hewaved his plumed hat, he shouted aloud in his rich and happy voice, "Don't run, boys! We are here!" To his disappointment the magic fellshort. The "boys" ran all the faster. Behind him, a trooper lifted hisvoice. "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 FirstBrigade fired and loaded and fired again. Men and horses fell around theguns of Ricketts and Griffin, but the guns were not silenced. Rockbridgeand Loudoun and their fellows answered with their Virginia MilitaryInstitute six-pounders, with their howitzers, with their one or twoNapoleons, but Ricketts and Griffin held fast. The great shells camehurtling, death screaming its message and sweeping the pine wood. Thestone wall suffered; here and there the units dropped from place. Jackson, holding up his wounded hand, came to the artillery. "Get theseguns out of my way. I am going to give them the bayonet. " The bugler putthe bugle to his lips. The guns limbered up, moving out by the rightflank and taking position elsewhere upon the plateau. Jackson returnedto his troops. "Fix bayonets! Now, men, charge and take thosebatteries!"

The First Brigade rose from beneath the pines. It rose, it advancedbetween the moving guns, it shouted. The stone wall became an avalanche, and started down the slope. It began crescent-wise, for the pine woodwhere it had lain curved around Ricketts and Griffin like a giant'shalf-closed hand. From the finger nearest the doomed batteries sprangthe 33d Virginia. In the dust of the field all uniforms were now of oneneutral hue. Griffin trained his guns upon the approaching body, but hischief stopped him. "They're our own, man!--a supporting regiment!" The33d Virginia came on, halted at two hundred feet, and poured upon thebatteries a withering fire. Alas for Ricketts and Griffin, brave menhandling brave guns! Their cannoneers fell, and the scream of theirhorses shocked the field. Ricketts was badly wounded; his lieutenant Ramsaylay dead. The stone wall blazed again. The Federal infantry supportingthe guns broke and fled in confusion. Other regiments--Michiganand Minnesota this time--came up the hill. A grey-hairedofficer--Heintzleman--seated sideways in his saddle upon ahillock, appealing, cheering, commanding, was conspicuous for hisgallant 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 wholeof the First Brigade was now in action and the plateau of the Henry Hillroared like the forge of Vulcan when it welded the armour of Mars. Itwas three in the afternoon of midmost July. There arose smoke and shoutsand shrieks, the thunder from the Mathews Hill of the North's uncrippledartillery, and from the plateau the answering thunder of the Southern, with the under song, incessant, of the muskets. Men's tongues clave tothe roofs of their mouths, the sweat streamed forth, and the sweatdried, black cartridge marks were about their lips, and their eyes feltmetallic, heated balls distending the socket. There was a smell ofburnt cloth, of powder, of all heated and brazen things, indescribable, unforgettable, the effluvia of the battlefield. The palate savouredbrass, and there was not a man of those thousands who was notthirsty--oh, very, very thirsty! Time went in waves with hollows betweenof negation. A movement took hours--surely we have been at it since lastyear! Another passed in a lightning flash. We were there beneath thepines, on the ground red-breeched Zouaves and United States Marines, above us a noisy shell, the voice of the general coming dry and far likea grasshopper's through the din--we are here in a trampled flowergarden, beside the stumps of locust trees, in the midst of yells andtrampling, hands again upon the guns! There was no time between. The menwho were left of Ricketts and Griffin fought well; they were bravefighters. The 2d Wisconsin came up the hill, then the 79th and 69th NewYork. An impact followed that seemed to rock the globe. Wisconsin andNew York retired whence they came, and it was all done in a moment. Other regiments took their places. McDowell was making a frontal attackand sending in his brigades piecemeal. The plateau was uneven; lowridges, shallow hollows, with clumps of pine and oak; one saw at a timebut a segment of the field. The nature of the ground split the troops aswith wedges; over all the Henry Hill the fighting now became from handto 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. Hesaid 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 MathewsHill--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 ofhorses dead or disabled, tried to drag away the guns. Down upon themroared 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 tookagain the guns; it met a regiment from the Northwest, also starkfighters and hunters, and turned it back; it seized the guns and drewthem toward the pine wood. On the other side Howard's Brigade came intoaction, rising, a cloud of stinging bees, over the ridge. Maine andVermont fell into line, fired, each man, twenty rounds. The FirstBrigade answered at close range. All the Henry plateau blazed andthundered. 

From headquarters at the Lewis House a most able mind had directed theseveral points of entrance into battle of the troops drawn from thelower fords. The 8th, the 18th, and 28th Virginia, Cash and Kershaw ofBonham's, Fisher's North Carolina--each had come at a happy moment andhad given support where support was most needed. Out of the southeastarose a cloud of dust, a great cloud as of many marching men. It movedrapidly. It approached at a double quick, apparently it had several gunsat 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 missingbrigade?_ Beauregard, flashing across the plateau like a meteor, liftedhimself in his stirrups, raised with a shaking hand his field-glasses tohis eyes. Stonewall Jackson held higher his wounded hand, wrapped in ahandkerchief 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. "GoodLord, I hope it's Elzey! Oh, good Lord, let it be Elzey!" The 49thVirginia was strung behind a rail fence, firing from between the greybars. "Extra Billy, " whose horse had been shot an hour before, suddenlyappeared in an angle erect upon the topmost rails. He gazed, then turnedand harangued. "Didn't I tell you, boys? Didn't I say that the oldManassas Gap ain't half so black as she's painted? The president of thatroad is my friend, gentlemen, and a better man never mixed a julep! Theold 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 downfrom 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 RhodeIsland, saw and heard. There was a waver as of grain beneath wind overthe field, then the grain stood stiff against the wind, and all themuskets flamed again. 

The lost brigade of the Army of the Shenandoah, seventeen hundredinfantry and Beckham's Battery swept by the Lewis House, receivedinstructions from Johnston in person, and advanced against the enemy'sright flank. Kirby Smith led them. Heated, exhausted, parched withthirst, the regiments came upon the plateau. Not till then did they seethe enemy, the awaited, the dreamed-of foe, the giant whose voice theyhad 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 angerand personal opinion. There was the enemy. They saw him, theyyelled, --without premeditation, without cooperation, each man forhimself, _Yaai, Yai . . . Yaai, Yaai, Yai. . . . Yaai!_ Thatcry 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 theChinn 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, agleaming, formidable crescent, half hid by a cloud of skirmishers. Outof the woods by the Chinn House now came Jubal Early, with Kemper's 7thVirginia, Harry Hays's Louisianians, and Barksdale's 13th Mississippi. They took position under fire and opened upon the enemy's right. As theydid so Elzey's brigade, the 10th Virginia, the 1st Maryland, the 3dTennessee, the 8th and 2d South Carolina, the 18th and 28th Virginia, and Hampton's and Cary's legions charged. The First Brigade came downupon the guns for the third time, and held them. Stuart, standing in hisstirrups and chanting his commands, rounded the base of the hill, andcompleted the rout. 

The Federals turned. Almost to a man their officers did well. There weremany privates of a like complexion. Sykes' Regulars, not now upon theHenry Hill, but massed across the branch, behaved throughout the daylike trained and disciplined soldiers. No field could have witnessedmore gallant conduct than that of Griffin and Ricketts. Heintzleman hadbeen conspicuously energetic, Franklin and Willcox had done their best. McDowell himself had not lacked in dash and grit, nor, to say sooth, instrategy. It was the Federal tactics that were at fault. But all thetroops, barring Sykes and Ricketts and the quite unused cavalry, wereraw, untried, undisciplined. Few were good marksmen, and, to tell thetruth, few were possessed of a patriotism that would stand strain. Thatvirtue awoke later in the Army of the Potomac; it was not present inforce on the field of Bull Run. Many were three-months men, their termof service about to expire, and in their minds no slightest intention ofreenlistment. They were close kin to the troops whose term expiring onthe eve of battle had this morning "marched to the rear to the sound ofthe enemy's cannon. " Many were men and boys merely out for a lark andalmost ludicrously astonished at the nature of the business. NewEnglanders had come to battle as to a town meeting; placid farmers andvillage youths of the Middle States had never placed in the meadows oftheir imaginations events like these, while the more alert and restlessfolk of the cities discovered that the newspapers had been hardlyexplicit. The men of the Northwest had a more adequate conception; therewas promise in these of stark fighting. To all is to be added a rabbleof camp followers, of sutlers, musicians, teamsters, servants, congressmen in carriages, even here and there a congressman's wife, allthe hurrah and vain parade, the strut and folly and civilian ignorance, the unwarlike softness and the misdirected pride with which these Greekshad set out to take in a night that four-years-distant Troy. Now aconfusion fell upon them, and a rout such as was never seen again inthat war. They left the ten guns, mute enough now, they gave no heed totheir frantic officers, they turned and fled. One moment they stood thatcharge, the next the slopes of the Henry Hill were dark blue withfugitives. There was no cohesion; mere inability to find each anunencumbered path crowded them thus. They looked a swarm of bees, butthere was no Spirit of the Hive. The Confederate batteries strewed theirpath with shot and shell, the wild and singular cry, first heard uponthat field, rang still within their ears. They reached the foot of thehill, the Warrenton turnpike, the Sudley and Newmarket road, and themarshy fields through which flowed Young's Branch. Up to this momentcourtesy might have called the movement a not too disorderly retreat, but now, upon the crowded roads and through the bordering meadows, itbecame mere rout, a panic quite simple, naked, and unashamed. In vainthe officers commanded and implored, in vain Sykes' Regulars tookposition on the Mathews Hill, a nucleus around which the broken troopsmight have reformed. The mob had neither instinct nor desire for order. The Regulars, retreating finally with the rest, could only guard therear and hinder the Confederate pursuit. The panic grew. Ravens in theair 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 anddeadly missiles, blocking the way to the Potomac! Jeb Stuart wasfollowing on the Sudley Road, and another cavalry fiend--Munford--on theturnpike. Four hundred troopers between them? No! _Four thousand_--andeach riding like the Headless Horseman with terror in his hand! Therewas Confederate infantry upon the turnpike--a couple of regiments, alegion, a battery--they were making for a point they knew, this sideCentreville, where they might intercept the fleeing army. It behoved thearmy to get there first, to cross Bull Run, to cross Cub Run, and toreach Centreville with the utmost possible expedition. The ravenscroaked of the Confederate troops four miles down Bull Run, at the lowerfords. They would cross, they would fall upon Miles and Tyler, theywould devour alive the Federal reserves, they would get first toCentreville! That catastrophe, at least, the mob did its best toprevent. It threw away its muskets, it dropped its colours, it lighteneditself of accoutrements, it fled as if each tired and inexperienced greysoldier behind it had been Death in the Apocalypse. Each man ran forhimself, swore for himself, prayed for himself, found in Fate a personalfoe, and strove to propitiate her with the rags of his courage. The menstumbled 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 behindthem the folds heard again the Confederate yell. Centreville--Centrevillefirst, and a little food--all the haversacks had been thrownaway--but no stopping at Centreville! No! Beyond Centreville thePotomac--Washington--_home_! Home and safety, Maine or Massachusetts, New York or Vermont, as the case might be! The sun went down and left thefleeing army streaming northward by every road or footpath which itconceived might lead to the Potomac. 

In the summer dusk, back at the Lewis House, a breathless courierbrought to Beauregard a circumstantial statement. "From Major Rhett atManassas, general! The Federal Reserves have been observed crossingbelow MacLean's. A strong column--they'll take us in the rear, orthey'll fall upon Manassas!" That McDowell would use his numerousreserves was so probable a card that Bonham and Longstreet, started uponthe pursuit, were recalled. Ewell and Holmes had just reached thebattlefield. They were faced about, and, Beauregard with them, double-quicked back to MacLean's Ford--to find no Miles or Richardson orRunyon for them to attack! It was a mistake and a confusion of identity. The crossing troops were Confederates--D. R. Jones returning from theposition he had held throughout the day to the southern bank of BullRun. The dark had come, the troops were much exhausted, the routed armyby now at Centreville. Beauregard did the only thing that could bedone, --ordered the men to halt and bivouac for the night in the woodsabout the stream. 

Back upon the Sudley Road Stuart and his troopers followed for twelvemiles the fugitive army. There was a running fight; here and there theenemy was cut off; great spoil and many prisoners were taken. Encumberedwith all of these, Stuart at Sudley Church called off the chase andhalted for the night. At the bridge over Cub Run Munford with a handfulof the Black Horse and the Chesterfield Troop, a part of Kershaw'sregiment and Kemper's battery meeting the retreat as it debouched intothe Warrenton turnpike, heaped rout on rout, and confounded confusion. Awagon was upset upon the bridge, it became impassable, and Panic foundthat she must get away as best she might. She left her congressmen'scarriages, her wagons of subsistence, and her wagons of ammunition, herguns and their caissons, her flags and her wounded in ambulances; shecut the traces of the horses and freed them from pleasure carriage, guncarriage, ammunition wagon, and ambulance; with these horses and afoot, she dashed through the water of Cub Run, and with the long wail of thehelpless behind her, fled northward through the dusk. A little later, bugles, sounding here and there beneath the stars, called off thepursuit. 

 * * * * *

The spoil of Manassas included twenty-eight fieldpieces with a hundredrounds of ammunition to each gun, thirty-seven caissons, six forges, four battery wagons, sixty-four artillery horses, five hundred thousandrounds of small arm ammunition, four thousand five hundred sets ofaccoutrements, four thousand muskets, nine regimental and garrisonflags, pistols, swords, musical instruments, knapsacks, canteens, blankets, tents, officers' luggage, rope, handcuffs, axes, andintrenching tools, wagons, horses, camp and garrison equipage, hospitalstores and subsistence, and one thousand four hundred and twenty-oneprisoners. 

History has not been backward with a question. Why did not theConfederate forces press the pursuit to the Potomac, twenty-five milesaway? Why did they not cross that river? Why did they not takeWashington? History depones that it was a terror-stricken city and thatit might have been stormed, and so, perhaps, the great war ended ere ithad well begun. Why did you not pursue from Manassas to Washington?

The tongue of the case answers thus: "We were a victorious army, but wehad fought long and hard. We had not many fresh troops. Even those whichwere not engaged had been marching and countermarching. The enemy hadmany more than we--heavy reserves to whom panic might or might not havebeen communicated. These were between us and Centreville, and the nighthad fallen. Our cavalry was the best in the land, but cruelly small inforce, and very weary by that midnight. We were scant of provisions, scant of transportation, scant of ammunition. What if the Federalreserves had not stood, but had fled with the rest, and we had in somefashion achieved the Potomac? There were strong works at Arlington andAlexandria, lined with troops, and in easy distance were Patterson andhis 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 withstrong earthworks and mounted guns. Being only men and not clairvoyantswe 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 fewweary regiments. We never saw the like in our own capital at any afterdate, and we did not know. We were under arms from dawn until the starscame out, we had fought through the heat of a July day in Virginia, wewere hungry, we were thirsty, we were drunk with need of rest. Most ofus were under twenty-four. We had met and vanquished heavy odds, but weourselves, like those who fled, were soldiers all untried. Victorydisorganized us, as defeat disorganized them. Not in the same measure, but to the extent that all commands were much broken, men astray in thedarkness, seeking their companies, companies calling out the number oftheir regiments. Most of us went hungry that night. And all around werethe dead and wounded, and above us, like a pall, the strangeness of thiswar at last. The July night passed like a fevered dream; men sleeping onthe earth, men seeking their commands, men riding to and fro, menwandering with lanterns over the battlefield. At three came down therain. It was as though the heavens were opened. No one had ever seensuch a downpour. All day long it rained, and in the rain we buried ourcomrades. There were two brothers, Holmes and Tucker Conrad, boys fromthe University. Holmes was shot through the heart, just on the edge of aravine on the Henry Hill. Tucker, across the ravine, saw him fall. Hewas down one side and up the other before a man could draw breath. Helifted Holmes, and as he did so, he, too, was killed. We found themlying in each other's arms, Holmes smiling, and we buried them so. Weburied many friends and comrades and kindred--we were all more or lessakin--and perhaps, being young to war, that solemn battlefield loomed tous so large that it obstructed the view of the routed invasion nowacross the Potomac, out of Virginia. We held then and we hold still, that our generals that day were sagacious and brave, and we thinkhistory may take their word for it that any effective pursuit, lookingto the crossing of the Potomac, was a military impossibility. It is truethat Stonewall Jackson, as history reminds us, was heard to exclaimwhile the surgeon was dressing his hand, 'Give me ten thousand freshtroops, and I will be in Washington to-morrow!' But there were not theten thousand troops to give. "

CHAPTER IX

WINCHESTER

The December afternoon was drawing to a quiet close. The season hadproved extraordinarily mild--it seemed Indian summer still rather thanonly a fortnight from Christmas. Farming folk prophesied a cold January, while the neighbourhood negroes held that the unusual warmth proceededfrom the comet which blazed this year in the skies. An old woman whomthe children called a witch sat in the sun on her doorstep, and shookher head at every passer-by. "A green Christmas makes a fatgraveyard. --Down, pussy, down, down!--A green Christmas makes a fatgraveyard. Did ye hear the firing yesterday?"

An amethyst haze filled the valley town of Winchester. Ordinarily, inweather such as this, the wide streets had a dream quality and thegardens where the chrysanthemums yet lingered and the brick sidewalksall strewn with russet leaves, and the faint smell of wood smoke, andthe old gilt of the sunshine, all carried back as to some vanished songor story, sweet while it lasted. But if this was true once ofWinchester, and might be true again, it was hardly true of to-day, ofWinchester 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 toreconnoitre the Federal General Banks; of Winchester, with bands playing"Dixie, " with great white-topped wagons going endlessly through thestreets, with soldiers passing and repassing, or drilling, drilling, drilling in the fields without, or thronging the Taylor House, or comingto supper in the hospitable brick mansions where the pretty girls couldnever, never, never look aught but kindly on any man who wore thegrey--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 awarehouse fitted for a hospital. Faces showed at the windows; when, fora moment, a sash was lifted, a racking cough made itself heard. Justnow no wounded lodged in the warehouse, but all the diseases were therewith which raw troops are scourged. There were measles and mumps, therewere fevers, typhoid and malarial, there were intestinal troubles, therewere pleurisy and pneumonia. Some of the illnesses were slight, and someof the men would be discharged by Death. The glow of the sun made thewindow glass red. It was well, for the place needed every touch ofcheer. 

The door opened, and two ladies came out, the younger with an emptybasket. The oppression of the place they were leaving stayed with themfor 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 theyounger, at least, revived. She drew a long breath. "Well! As long asWill is in a more comfortable place, and is getting better, and Richardis well and strong, and they all say he is a born soldier and his menadore him, and there isn't a battle, and if there were, we'd win, andthis weather lasts, and a colonel and a captain and two privates arecoming to supper, and one of them draws and the other has a voice likean angel, and my silk dress is almost as good as new, I can't beterribly 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 amthankful about Will and I am thankful about Richard, and war is war, andwe must all stand it. We must stand it with just as high and exquisite acourage 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 theSouth--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 accompanimentswith much pleasure--and to-morrow we'll come back to the warehouse witha full basket! I wish the coffee was not getting so low. "

A soldier, a staff officer equipped for the road, came rapidly up thebrick sidewalk, overtook the two, and spoke their names, holding out hishand. "I was sure 'twas you! Nowadays one meets one's world in no matterhow unlikely a place! Not that Winchester is an unlikely place--dear andhospitable little town! Nor, perhaps, should I be surprised. I knew thatCaptain Cleave was in the Stonewall Brigade. " He took the basket fromMiriam and walked beside them. 

"My youngest son has been ill, " said Margaret. "He is in the 2d. Kindfriends took him home and cared for him, but Miriam and I were unhappyat Three Oaks. So we closed the house and came. "

"Will always was a baby, " volunteered Miriam. "When the fever made himdelirious and they thought he was going to die, he kept calling formother, and sometimes he called for me. Now he's better, and the sisterof a man in his mess is reading 'Kenilworth' aloud to him, and he'sspoiled to death! Richard always did spoil him--"

Her mother smiled. "I don't think he's really spoiled; not, that is, byRichard. --When did you come to town, Major Stafford?"

"Last night, " answered Stafford. "From General Loring, near Monterey. Iam the advance of the Army of the Northwest. We are ordered to joinGeneral 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 dreadfulmartinet! He drills and drills and drills the poor men until they're tootired to stand. He makes people get up at dawn in December, and he won'tlet officers leave camp without a pass, and he has prayer meetings allthe time! Ever so many people think he's crazy!"

"Miriam!"

"But they do, mother! Of course, not Richard. Richard knows how to be asoldier. And Will--Will would be loyal to a piece of cement out of theVirginia Military Institute! And of course the Stonewall Brigade doesn'tsay it, nor the Rockbridge Artillery, nor any of Ashby's men--they'resoldiers, too! But I've heard the _militia_ say it--"

Maury Stafford laughed. "Then I won't! I'll only confide to you that theArmy of the Northwest thinks that General Jackson is--is--well, isGeneral Jackson!--To burn our stores of subsistence, to leave unguardedthe passes along a hundred miles of mountain, to abandon quarters justestablished, to get our sick somehow to the rear, and to come up hereupon some wild winter campaign or other--all on the representation ofthe rather singular Commander of the Army of the Valley!" He took offhis gold-braided cap, and lifted his handsome head to the breeze fromthe west. "But what can you do with professors of military institutesand generals with one battle to their credit? Nothing--when they havemanaged to convert to their way of thinking both the commanding generaland the government at Richmond!--You look grave, Mrs. Cleave! I shouldnot have said that, I know. Pray forget it--and don't believe that I amgiven to such indiscretions!" He laughed. "There were representationswhich I was to make to General Jackson. Well, I made them! In point offact, I made them but an hour ago. Hence this unbecoming temper. Theywere received quite in the manner of a stone wall--without comment andwithout removal from the ground occupied! Well! Why not expect the thingto show its nature?--Is this pleasant old house your goal?"

They had come to a white, old mansion, with steps running up to a narrowyard and a small porch. "Yes, we are staying here. Will you not comein?"

"Thank you, no. I ride as far as Woodstock to-night. I have not seenCaptain Cleave. Indeed, I have not seen him since last spring. "

"He is acting just now as aide to General Jackson. You have been allthis while with General Magruder on the Peninsula?"

"Yes, until lately. We missed Manassas. " He stood beside the gardenwall, his gauntleted hand on the gatepost. A creeper bearing yet a fewleaves hung from a tree above, and one of the crimson points touched hisgrey cap. "I am now on General Loring's staff. Where he goes at presentI go. And where General Jackson goes, apparently we all go! Heigho! Howdo you like war, Miss Miriam?"

Miriam regarded him with her air of a brown and gold gilliflower. Shethought him very handsome, and oh, she liked the gold-braided cap andthe 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 runinto 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 ared sunset glow, beneath trees on which yet hung a few russet leaves. Hegreeted his mother and sister, then turned with courtesy to Stafford. "Sandy Pendleton told me you were in town. From General Loring, are younot? You low-countrymen are gathering all our mountain laurels! GauleyRiver and Greenbriar and to-day, news of the Allegheny engagement--"

"You seem to be bent, " said Stafford, "on drawing us from the Montereyline 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 aresent. But this weather is much too good to last, and I fail to see whatcan be done to the northward when winter is once let loose! And we leavethe passes open. There is nothing to prevent Rosecrans from pushing aforce through to Staunton!"

"That is the best thing that could happen. Draw them into the middlevalley 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 anold cadet cap!"

Cleave laughed. "No, no! but it is, I think, apparent--You will not goin? I will walk with you, then, as far as the hotel. "

Margaret Cleave held out her hand. "Good-bye, Major Stafford. We thinkday and night of all you soldiers. God bless you all, wherever you maybe!"

In the sunset light the two men turned their faces toward the TaylorHouse. "It is a good thing to have a mother, " said Stafford. "Mine diedwhen I was a little boy. --Well, what do you think of affairs ingeneral?"

"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 'BruteMass'! To listen to the newspapers one would suppose that the fightinganimal was never bred north of the Potomac--Maryland, alone, anhonourable exception! France and England, too! They'll be our activeallies 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 moreeffective, and yet before we are closed in a ring of fire we do not getour cotton out nor our muskets in! Send the cotton to Europe and sell itand so fill the treasury with honest gold!--not with this delusion ofwealth, these sheafs of Promises to Pay the Government is issuing. Fivemillion 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 weshall rest as isolated as the other side of the moon. Well! Fewcountries or men are wise till after the event. "

"You are not bitter. "

Cleave shook his head. "I do not believe in bitterness. And if thegovernment is not altogether wise, so are few others. The people areheroic. We will see what we will see. I had a letter from the Peninsulathe other day. Fauquier Cary is there with his legion. He says thatMcClellan will organize and organize and organize again untilspringtime. 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 notthwarted by his own government he'll try to reach Richmond from thecorrect direction--and that's by sea to Old Point and up both banks ofthe James. All of which means heavy fighting on the Peninsula. So Carythinks, and I dare say he knows his man. They were classmates and servedtogether in Mexico. "

They approached the old colonnaded hotel. Stafford's horse stood at therack. A few soldiers were about the place and down the street, in thewarm dusk a band was playing. "You ride up the valley to-night?" saidCleave. "When you return to Winchester you must let me serve you in anyway I can. "

"You are very good. How red the sunsets are! Look at that bough acrossthe sky!"

"Were you, " asked Cleave, "were you in Albemarle this autumn?"

"Yes. For one day in October. The country looked its loveliest. The oldride through the woods, by the mill--"

"I remember, " said Cleave. "My cousins were well?"

"Quite well. Enchanted princesses guarded by the sable Julius. The oldplace was all one drift of red and yellow leaves. "

They reached the hotel. Cleave spoke abruptly. "I am to reportpresently at headquarters, so I will say good-bye here. " The two touchedhands. "A pleasant gallop! You'll have a moon and the road is good. Ifyou see Randolph of Taliaferro's, tell him to bring that book of mine hehas. "

He walked away, stalwart in the afterglow. Stafford watched him from theporch. "Under other circumstances, " he thought, "I might have liked youwell enough. Now I do not care if you lead your mad general's next madcharge. "

The night fell, mild as milk, with a great white moon above thetreetops. It made like mother-of-pearl the small grey house with pointedwindows occupied, this December, by Stonewall Jackson. A clock in thehall was striking nine as Cleave lifted the knocker. An old negro cameto 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 anaide with his hands behind him studying an engraving of Washingtoncrossing the Delaware, Cleave went on to the room whence the voice hadissued. "Come in, and close the door, " it said again. 

The room was small, furnished with a Spartan simplicity, but with twogood lamps and with a log of hickory burning on the hearth. A table helda number of outspread maps and three books--the Bible, a dictionary, andNapoleon's "Maxims. " General Jackson was seated on a small, rush-bottomed chair beside the table. By the window stood a soldier innondescript grey attire, much the worse for mud and brambles. "CaptainCleave, " said the general, "were you ever on the Chesapeake and OhioCanal?"

"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 coalat Cumberland and turn back toward Washington in about ten days. It isestimated that a thousand tons a day will go down the canal--some of itfor private use in Washington, but the greater part for the warships andthe factories. The flatboats carry a large amount of forage. The Yankeesare using them, too, to transport troops. There is no attempt to rebuildthe section of the Baltimore and Ohio that we destroyed. They seemwilling to depend upon the canal. But if Dam No. 5 were cut it would drythat canal like a bone for miles. The river men say that if anyconsiderable breach were made it could not be mended this winter. As forthe troops on the other side of the river--" He drew out a slip of paperand read from it: "'Yankees upon the Maryland side of the Potomac fromPoint of Rocks to Hancock--say thirty-five hundred men. Two thirds ofthis force above Dam No. 4. At Williamsport Colonel Leonard with threeregiments and several guns. At Four Locks a troop. At Dam No. 5 severalcompanies of infantry encamped. At Hancock a considerable force--perhapstwo regiments. A detachment at Clear Spring. Cavalry over against SleepyCreek, Cherry Run, and Sir John's Run. Concentration easy at any pointup and down the river. A system of signals both for the other side andfor any of their scouts who may have crossed to this. Troops reportedbelow Point of Rocks and at the mouth of the Monocacy. The remainder ofGeneral Banks's division--perhaps fifteen thousand men--in winterquarters 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 hisslow stiff stride to the mantelpiece. From behind a china vase he took asaucer holding a lemon which had been cut in two, then, standing veryrigidly before the fire, he slowly and meditatively sucked the lemon. Cleave, beside the table, had a whimsical thought. The general, about toopen slightly the door of reticence and impart information, wasstimulating himself to the effort. He put the lemon down and returned tothe table. "Captain Cleave, while I am waiting for General Loring, Ipropose to break this dam--Dam No. 5. "

"Yes, sir. "

"I shall go almost immediately to Martinsburg, taking with me GeneralGarnett's brigade and two of the Rockbridge guns. It will be necessaryto cover the operation. The work may take several days. By the time thedam is broken General Loring will be up. "

His eyes moved toward the mantel. Allan Gold stepped noiselessly acrossthe room and brought back the saucer with the lemon, setting it on thetable. "Thank you, " said Jackson gently, and sucked the acid treasure. "With this reinforcement I am going against Kelly at Romney. If Godgives 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 makingan effort for. "

"That is my opinion, sir. While I march toward Romney the government atWashington may thrust General Banks across the Potomac. I do not wanthim in my rear, nor between me and General Johnston. " He again suckedthe lemon. "The Secretary of War writes that our spies report a clamourat Washington for some movement before spring. It is thought at Richmondthat General Banks has been ordered to cross the Potomac as soon aspracticable, effecting if possible a junction with Kelly and descendingupon Winchester; General McClellan at the same time to advance againstGeneral Johnston at Manassas. Maybe it is so, maybe not. Of one thing Iam sure--General McClellan will not move until General Banks is on thisside of the river. Yesterday Colonel Ashby captured a courier of Kelly'sbearing a letter to Banks. The letter, which demands an answer, asks toknow explicitly what are Banks's instructions from Washington. "

He put the lemon down. "Captain Cleave, I very particularly wish to knowwhat are General Banks's instructions from Washington. Were Jarrow herehe would find out for me, but I have sent Jarrow on other business. Iwant to know within four days. "

There was a moment's stillness in the room; then, "Very well, sir, " saidCleave. 

"I remember, " said Jackson, "that you sent me the scout here. He doesgood service. He is at your disposal for the next few days. " Drawing inkand paper toward him, he wrote a few lines. "Go to the adjutant foranything you may need. _Captain Cleave on Special Service. _ Here, too, is the name and address of a Catholic priest in Frederick City. He maybe depended upon for some readiness of mind, and for good-will. That isall, I think. Good-night, captain. In four days, if you please. You willfind me somewhere between Martinsburg and the river. "

"You spoke, sir, " said Cleave, "of a captured dispatch from GeneralKelly. 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, notif 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 thecourier. "

"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 thehall, past the door where the aide was now studying the Capture of Andreand out into the moonlight. They walked down the long board path to thegate, unlatched this, and turned their faces toward the camp. For somedistance they were as silent as the street before them; then, "If everyou had taught school, " said Allan, "you would know how headings out ofreading books and sentences that you set for the children to copy have away of starting up before you at every corner. _The Post of Honour isthe Post of Danger. _ I can see that in round hand. But what I can't seeis how you are going to do it. "

"I want, " said the other, "one half-hour quite to myself. Then I thinkI'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 thetents failed there had been erected tiny cabins, very rude, withabundant ventilation and the strangest chimneys. A few field officerswere quartered in the town and Jackson had with him there his permanentstaff. But captains and lieutenants stayed with the men. The general ofthem 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, butit grew to a crushing beam for the _officer_ who did not with alacrityhabitually attend to his every duty, great or small. The do-nothing, thepopinjay, the intractable, the self-important, the remonstrant, the _Ithought, sir_--the _It is due to my dignity, sir_--none of theseflourished in the Army of the Valley. The tendencies had been there, ofcourse; they came up like the flowers of spring, but each poor bloom asit appeared met an icy blast. The root beneath learned to send up to thesky a sturdier growth. 

Company A, 65th Virginia, numbered in its ranks men who knew all aboutlog cabins. It was well lodged, and the captain's hut did it credit. Richard Cleave and Allan, entering, found a fire, and Tullius noddingbeside it. At their step he roused himself, rose, and put on anotherlog. He was a negro of sixty years, tall and hale, a dignified master offoraging, a being simple and taciturn and strong, with a love for everyclod of earth at Three Oaks where he had been born. 

Cleave spoke. "Where is Lieutenant Breckinridge, Tullius?"

Tullius straightened himself. "Lieutenant Breckinridge is at thecolonel's, sah. An' Lieutenant Coffin, he's at the Debatin' Society inCompany C. "

Cleave sat down before the pine table. "Give Allan Gold something toeat, and don't either of you speak to me for twenty minutes. " He proppedhis head on his hands and stared at the boards. Allan seated himself ona box beside the fire. Tullius took from a flat, heated stone a batteredtin coffee-pot, poured into an earthenware cup some smoking mixture, andbrought it to the scout. "Hit ain't moh'n half chicory, sah, " From animpromptu 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 uponthe 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 tablesomething like the required number. "Thar's all thar is. " He returned tohis corner of the fire, and it purred and flamed upon the crazy hearthbetween him and the scout. The latter, his rifle across his knees, nowwatched the flames, now the man at the table. Cleave had strung thecoffee berries along a crack between the boards. Now he advanced onesmall brown object, now retired another, now crossed them from one sideto the other. Following these manoeuvres, he sat with his chin uponhis 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 brigadeheadquarters for a little, Allan. Suppose you come along. There are somethings I want to know--those signals, for instance. " He took up his hatand sword. "Tullius, you'll have Dundee saddled at four o'clock. I'llsee Lieutenant Breckinridge and the colonel. I won't be back until aftertaps. Cover the fire, but wait up for me. "

He and Allan went out together. Tullius restored the coffee berries tothe tin box, and the box to the cupboard, sat down by the fire, and fellagain into a nodding dream of Three Oaks, of the garden, and of hisgrandchildren in the quarter. 

CHAPTER X

LIEUTENANT McNEIL

The Williamsport ferry-boat came slowly across the Potomac, from theMaryland to the Virginia side. The clear, deep water lay faintly bluebeneath the winter sky, and the woods came so close that long branchesof sycamore swept the flood. In that mild season every leaf had notfallen; 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, cameslowly to the southern side of the stream. The craft, squat to the waterand railed on either side, was in the charge of an old negro. Clusteredin the middle of the boat appeared a tall Marylander in blue jeans, twosoldiers in blue cloth, and a small darky in a shirt of blue gingham. All these stared at a few yards of Virginia road, shelving, andoverarched by an oak that was yet touched with maroon, and stared at ahorseman 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 Enfieldrifle. The other, a middle-aged, weather-beaten sergeant-major who hadbeen leaning against the rail, straightened himself and spoke, being nowwithin a few feet of the man on horseback. 

"Your signal was all right, " he said. "And your coat's all right. Buthow 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--andthat was before Bull Run. " He addressed the negro. "Is this the fastestthis boat can travel? I've been waiting here half an hour. "

The sergeant-major persisted. "Your coat's all right, and your signal'sall 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 allright, but I'm damned if your voice ain't Southern--" The head of theboat touched the shore and the dress of the horseman was seen moreclosely. --"Lieutenant, " ended the speaker, with a change of tone. 

The rider, dismounting, led his horse down the yard or two of road andinto the boat. "So, Dandy! Just think it's the South Branch, and comeon! 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 propertone of respect toward a lieutenant, "I was once in Virginia for amonth, down on the Pamunkey--and the people all said 'gaily. '"

"They say it still, " answered the rider. "Not so much, though, in mypart of Virginia. It's Tuckahoe, not Cohee. I'm from the valley of theSouth 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 atthe stranger, standing with his arm around his horse's neck, and lookedat the Williamsport landing, and the cannon frowning from Doubleday'sHill. In the back of his head there formed a little picture--a drumheadcourt-martial, a provost guard, a tree and a rope. Then came the hand ofreason, and wiped the picture away. "Pshaw! spies don't _say_ they'reSouthern. And, by jiminy! one might smile with his lips, but he couldn'tsmile with his eyes like that. And he's lieutenant, and there's such athing, Tom Miller, as being too smart!--" He leaned upon the rail, and, being an observant fellow, he looked to see if the lieutenant's handtrembled at all where it lay upon the horse's neck. It did not; itrested as quiet as an empty glove. The tall Marylander began to speakwith a slow volubility. "There was a man from the Great Kanawha toWilliamsport 't other day--a storekeeper--a big, fat man with a beardlike Abraham's in the 'lustrated Bible. I heard him a-talking to thecolonel. 'All the Union men in northwestern Virginia are on the Ohioside of the mountains, ' said he. 'Toward the Ohio we're all for theUnion, ' said he. 'There's more Northern blood than Southern in thatsection, anyway, ' said he. 'But all this side of the Alleghenies isdifferent, and as for the Valley of the South Branch--the Valley of theSouth Branch is a hotbed of rebels. ' That's what he said--'a hotbed ofrebels. ' 'As for the mountain folk in between, ' he says, 'they hunt withguns, and the men in the valley hunt with dogs, and there ain't any lovelost between them at the best of times. Then, too, it's the feud thatsettles it. If a mountain man's hereditary enemy names his babyJefferson Davis, then the first man, he names his Abraham Lincoln, andshoots at the other man from behind a bush. And _vice versa_. So itgoes. But the valley of the South Branch is old stock, ' he says, 'and ahotbed of rebels. '"

"When it's taken by and large, that is true, " said the horseman withcoolness. "But there are exceptions to all rules, and there are someUnion 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'tride 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 andMilikenville, Illinois! I guess he's a jim dandy to travel, Lieutenant--"

"McNeill, " said the Virginian. "It is lovely weather. You don't oftenhave 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 marchingbefore springtime. "

"No, I reckon not, " answered the man from the South Branch. "I came fromRomney 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 thatthe army's just as cosy at Frederick as a bug in a rug. Yes, sir; it'sin the air that we'll give the rebels rope till springtime. "

The ferry-boat touched the northern bank. Here were a little, rockyshore, an expanse of swampy ground, a towpath, a canal, a road cutbetween two hills, and in the background a village with one or twochurch spires. The two hills were white with tents, and upon the browcannon were planted to rake the river. Here and there, between the riverand the hills, were knots of blue soldiers. A freight boat loaded withhay passed snail-like down the canal. It was a splendid early afternoon, cool, still, and bright. The tall Marylander and the three blue soldiersleft the boat, the man from Romney leading his horse. "Where'sheadquarters?" he demanded. "I'll go report, and then get something toeat for both Dandy and myself. We've got to make Frederick Cityto-night. "

"The large wall tents over there on the hill, " directed thesergeant-major. "It's a long way to Frederick, but Lord! with thathorse--" He hesitated for a moment, then spoke up in a courageous, middle-aged, weather-beaten fashion, "I hope you'll have a pleasantride, lieutenant! I guess I was a little stiffer'n good manners callsfor, 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! 'Tisn'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 rivernaturally looks askance at the other. But you see, General Kelly _is_over there, and he happens, just now, to want to communicate withGeneral Banks. " His smile grew broader. "It's perfectly natural, butit's right hard on the man acting courier! Lord knows I had troubleenough running Ashby's gauntlet without being fired on from this side!"

"That's so! that's so!" answered the sergeant cordially. "Well, goodluck to you getting back! You may find some friends here. We've acompany or two of Virginians from the Ohio. "

General Kelly's messenger proceeded to climb the hill to the wall tentsindicated. There was a short delay, then he found himself in thepresence of the colonel commanding at Williamsport. "From General Kellyat Romney? How did you get here?"

"I left Romney, sir, yesterday morning, and I came by bridle pathsthrough the mountains. I was sent because I have hunted over every mileof that country, and I could keep out of Ashby's way. I struck the riverabove Bath, and I worked down through the woods to the ferry. I have aletter for General Banks. "

Drawing out a wallet, he opened it and handed to the other the missivein question. "If I was chased I was to destroy it before capture, " hesaid. "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 adisaffected 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 useall dispatch back to Romney with General Banks's answer. "

The colonel, seated at a table, weighed General Kelly's letter in hishand, looked at the superscription, turned it over, and studied theseal. "Do the rebels on the other side show any signs of comingactivity? Our secret service men have not been very successful--theymake statements that it is hard to credit. I should be glad of anyreliable 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 threepicket posts. He has vedettes everywhere. The report is that he hasfifteen hundred troopers--nearly all valley men, born to the saddle andknowing every crook and cranny of the land. They move like a whirlwindand 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 theother hand, Jackson at Winchester need not, perhaps, be taken intoaccount. The general impression is that he'll stay where he is untilspring. I managed to extract some information from a mountain man aboveSleepy Creek. Jackson is drilling his men from daylight until dark. Itis said that he is crazy on the subject--on most subjects, in fact; thathe thinks himself a Cromwell, and is bent upon turning his troops intoIronsides. Of course, should General Banks make any movement tocross--preparatory, say, to joining with General Kelly--Jackson mightswing out of Winchester and give him check. Otherwise, he'll probablykeep on drilling--"

"The winter's too far advanced, " said the colonel, "for any suchmovement upon our part. As soon as it is spring we'll go over there andtrample out this rebellion. " He weighed Kelly's letter once more in hishand, then restored it to the bearer. "It's all right, LieutenantMcNeill. 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 andthe accompanying slip to his wallet. "Thank you, sir. If I am to makeFrederick before bedtime I had better be going--"

"An aide of General Banks, " remarked the colonel, "is here, and isreturning 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 bluebefore the tent door. "Captain Marchmont, " said the colonel, "let memake you acquainted with Lieutenant McNeill, a _loyal_ Virginian bearinga 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, youmay 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 in1843. At your service, lieutenant, whenever you're ready. "

The road to Frederick lay clear over hill and dale, past forest andstream, through a gap in the mountain, by mill and barn and farmhouse, straight through a number of miles of crystal afternoon. Out ofWilliamsport conversation began. "When you want a purchaser for thathorse, I'm your man, " said the aide. "By any chance, _do_ you want tosell?"

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. Ithink we'll see it out together. "

"Yes, they aren't bad comrades, " said the other amicably. "In '53, whenI was with Lopez in Cuba, I had a little black mare that was just aswell 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 forher pains, and never dropped until she reached our camp!" He coughed. "What pleasant weather! Was it difficult getting through Jackson'slines?"

"Yes, rather. "

They rode for a time in silence between fields of dead aster andgoldenrod. "When I was in Italy with Garibaldi, " said Captain Marchmontthoughtfully, "I saw something of kinsmen divided in war. It looked avery 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 theinviolability of the Union. "

"Oh, I?" answered Marchmont coolly. "I believe in it, of course. I amfighting for it. It chanced, you see, that I was in France--and out ofservice 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 myunderstanding that she was bound for New Orleans, but instead she putinto Boston Harbour. I had no marked preference, fighting being fightingunder whatever banner it occurs, so the next day I offered my sword tothe 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 rowturned up, I should fight with England. "

"No doubt, " answered the other. "Your mind travels along the broad andsimple lines of the matter. But with us there are many subtle andintricate considerations. "

Passing now through woods they started a covey of partridges. The smallbrown 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 offparticularity in such matters. Live and let live--and each man to runthe great race according to his inner vision! If he really conflictswith me, I'll let him know it. "

They rode on, now talking, now silent. To either side, beyond stonewalls, the fields ran bare and brown to distant woods. The shadow of thewayside trees grew longer and the air more deep and cold. They passed astring of white-covered wagons bearing forage for the army. The suntouched the western hills, rimming them as with a forest fire. Thehorsemen entered a defile between the hills, travelled through twilightfor a while, then emerged upon a world still softly lighted. "In thecountry at home, " said the Englishman, "the waits are practicingChristmas carols. "

"I wish, " answered the Virginian, "that we had kept that old custom. Ishould like once to hear English carols sung beneath the windows on asnowy night. " As he rode he began to sing aloud, in a voice notremarkable, 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, andproceeded 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 pinkstayed in the sky and was mirrored in a tranquil stream which theycrossed. It faded at last into the quiet dusk. A cricket chirped from afield of dried Michaelmas daisies. They overtook and passed an infantryregiment, coming up, an officer told them, from Harper's Ferry. Thenight fell, cold and still, with many stars. "We are not far fromFrederick, " said Marchmont. "You were never here before?"

"No. "

"I'll take you at once to General Banks. You go back to Kelly at Romneyto-morrow. "

"Just as soon as General Banks shall have answered General Kelly'sletter. "

"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'lllook 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 twoothers. "

"I'm exceedingly obliged, " said McNeill, "but I have ridden hard oflate, and slept little, and I should prove dull company. Moreoverthere'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 sleepsoundly and quietly at his house to-night. "

"Very good, " said Marchmont. "You'll get a better night there, thoughI'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 bya swinging lantern. "Very good. Pass, Lieutenant McNeill. "

The two rode on. To left and right were lighted streets of tents, variedhere 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 doorflap was fastened back, plain to view about the camp-fires in openplaces, clustering like bees in the small squares from which ran thecamp streets, thronging the trodden places before the sutlers, everywhere apparent in the foreground and divined in the distance. Fromsomewhere came the strains of "Yankee Doodle. " A gust of wind blew outthe folds of the stars and stripes, fastened above some regimentalheadquarters. The city of tents and of frame structures hasty and crude, of fires in open places, of sutlers' shops and cantines, and booths ofstrolling players, of chapels and hospitals, of fluttering flags andwandering music, of restless blue soldiers, oscillating like motes insome searchlight of the giants, persisted for a long distance. At lastit died away; there came a quiet field or two, then the old Marylandtown of Frederick. 

CHAPTER XI

"AS JOSEPH WAS A-WALKING"

At eleven that night by the Frederick clocks an orderly found anEnglishman, a Prussian, a New Yorker, and a man from somewhere west ofthe Mississippi playing poker. "General Banks would like to speak toCaptain Marchmont for a moment, sir. "

The aide laid down his cards, and adjusted his plumage before a longmirror. "Lieber Gott!" said Major Hertz, "I wish our general would gosleep 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 disturbedframe of mind. "Look here, captain, you rode from Williamsport with thatfellow of Kelly's. Did you notice anything out of the usual?"

The aide deliberated. "He had a splendid horse, sir. And the man himselfseemed rather a mettled personage. If that's out of the usual, I noticedthat. "

"Oh, of course he's all right!" said the general. "Kelly's letter isperfectly _bona fide_, and so I make no doubt are McNeill's passport andpaper of instructions. I gave the letter back or I'd show you thesignatures. It's only that I got to thinking, awhile ago, after he'dgone. " He took a turn across the roses upon the carpet. "A man that'sbeen in politics knows there are so many dodges. Our spies say thatGeneral Jackson is very acute. I got to thinking--" He came back to thered-covered table. "Did you talk of the military situation comingalong?"

"Very little, sir. "

"He wasn't inquisitive? Didn't criticise, or draw you on to talk--didn'task about my troops and my movements?"

"He did not, sir. "

The general sighed. "It's all right, of course. You see, he seemed anintelligent man, and we got to talking. I wrote my answer to GeneralKelly. He has it now, is to start to Romney with it at dawn. Then Iasked some questions, and we got to talking. It's all straight, ofcourse, but on looking back I find that I said some things. He seemed anintelligent man, and in his general's confidence. Well, I dismissed himat 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 allthese places are only names to me, but--" He unrolled upon the table amap of large dimensions. "Look here a moment, captain! This is a map thedepartment furnishes us. It's black, you see, for the utterly disloyalsections, shaded for the doubtful, and white where there are Unionists. All Virginia's black except this northwest section, and that's largelyshaded. "

"What, " asked Marchmont, "is this long black patch in the midst of theshading?"

"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 youthe nature of his talk along the road--"

"It was hardly of military matters, sir. But if you wish to detainhim--"

"General Kelly must have my letter. I'm not to move, and it's importantthat he should know it. "

"Why not question him again?"

The general came back to the big chair beside the table. "I have nodoubt he's as honest as I am. " He looked at the clock. "Aftermidnight!--and I've been reviewing troops all day. Do you think it'sworth while, captain?"

"In war very little things are worth while, sir. "

"But you were with him all afternoon, and he seemed perfectly allright--"

"Yes, sir, I liked him very well. " He pulled at his long yellowmoustache. "There was only one little circumstance. . . . If you aredoubtful, sir--The papers, of course, might be forged. "

The late Governor of Massachusetts rested irresolute. "Except that hewas born in Virginia there isn't a reason for suspecting him. And it'sour policy to conciliate all this shaded corner up here. " The clockstruck 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, thisworking over time. --Where's he lodging?"

"McNeill, sir? He said he would find quarters with some connection orother--a Catholic priest--"

"A Catholic--There again!" The general looked perturbed. Rising, he tookfrom a desk two or three pages of blue official paper, covered withwriting. "I got that from Washington to-day, from the Secret ServiceDepartment. Read it. "

Captain Marchmont read: "'Distrust without exception the Catholicpriests in Frederick City. There is reason to believe that the Catholicsthroughout Maryland are Secessionists. Distrust all Maryland, in fact. The Jesuits have a house at Frederick City. They are suspected offurnishing information. Keep them under such surveillance as yourjudgment shall indicate. '--Humph!"

General Banks sighed, poured out something from a decanter, and drankit. "I guess, captain, you had better go and bring that man from theSouth Branch back here. Take a few men and do it quietly. He seems agentleman, and there may be absolutely nothing wrong. Tell him I'vesomething to add to General Kelly's letter. Here's a list of the priestsin Frederick. Father Tierney seems the most looked up to, and I gave hima subscription yesterday for his orphan asylum. "

Half an hour later Marchmont and two men found themselves before asmall, square stone house, standing apart from its neighbours in asmall, square yard. From without the moonbeams flooded it, from withincame no pinpoint of light. It was past the middle of the night, andalmost all the town lay still and dark. Marchmont lifted the brassknocker and let it fall. The sound, deep and reverberant, should havereached every ear within, however inattentive. He waited, but there cameno answering footfall. He knocked again--no light nor sound; again--onlyinterstellar quiet. He shook the door. "Go around to the back, Roberts, and see if you can get in. " Roberts departed. Marchmont picked up somepieces 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 reallyis. Stand back, you two. "

He put his shoulder to the door--"Wait a minute, sir! Somebody's lit acandle upstairs. "

The candle passed leisurely from window to window, was lost for aminute, and then, through a small fan-light above the door, was observeddescending the stairs. A bolt creaked, then another. The door opened, and Father Tierney, hastily gowned and blinking, stood before theinvaders. He shaded his candle with his hand, and the light struck back, showing a strong and rosy and likable face. "Faith!" he said, "an' Ithought I was after hearin' a noise. Good-evenin', gentlemen--or rathergood-morning, for it must be toward cockcrow. What--"

"It's not so late as that, " interrupted Marchmont. "I wish I had yourrecipe for sleeping, father. It would be invaluable when a man didn'twant 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 bymyself? Father Lavalle is at the other end of town, and Father O'Haralives by the Noviciate. Sure, and any one could have told you--"

"Father Lavalle and Father O'Hara, " said the aide, "are nothing to thequestion. You have a guest with you--"

Father Tierney looked enlightened. "Oh! Av coorse! There's alwaysbusiness on hand between soldiers. Was it Lieutenant McNeill you'll belooking after?"

Marchmont nodded. "There are some instructions that General Banksneglected to give him. It is late, but the general wishes to get it allstraight before he sleeps. I am sorry to disturb Lieutenant McNeill, forhe must be fatigued. But orders are orders, you know--"

"Av coorse, av coorse!" agreed Father Tierney. "'A man havingauthority, ' '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 LieutenantMcNeill--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 mustawaken Lieutenant McNeill. Indeed, it's hard to think that he'sasleep--"

"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 innature--"

General Banks's aide made a gesture of impatience. "I can't dawdle hereany longer! Either you or I, father. " He pushed into the hall. "Where ishis room?"

"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Father Tierney. "It's vexed he'll be when helearns that the general wasn't done with him! There's the room, captaindarlint, but--"

Marchmont's eyes followed the pointing of the candlestick. "There!" heexclaimed. The door was immediately upon the left, not five feet fromthe portal he had lately belaboured. "Then 't was against his windowthat I flung the gravel!"

With an oath he crossed the hall and struck his hand against the panelindicated. No answer. He knocked again with peremptoriness, then triedthe door. It was unlocked, and opened quietly to his touch. All beyondwas 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 andvacant chamber, furnished with monastic spareness. There was a narrowcouch that had been slept in. Marchmont crossed the bare floor, bent, and felt the bedclothing. "Quite cold. You've been gone some time, myfriend. H--m! things look rather black for you!"

Father Tierney spoke from the middle of the room. "It's sorry thelieutenant 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 ateight. ' 'No, no, father, ' says he. 'General Kelly is wearying for thisletter from General Banks. If I get it through prompt it will beremembered for me, ' he says. ''T will be a point toward promotion, ' hesays. 'My horse has had a couple of hours' rest, and he's a Trojanbeside, ' he says. 'I'll sleep an hour myself, and then I'll be takingthe road back to Romney. Ashby's over on the other side, ' he says, 'andthe sooner I get Ashby off my mind, the better pleased I'll be, ' hesays. 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, myson, I was that deep asleep when you knocked that I don't rightly knowthe 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 silencefor a moment, then turned sharply. "Blue or grey, which? I'll be damnedif I don't find out! Your horse may be a Trojan, my friend, but by thistime he's a tired Trojan! Roberts!"

"Yes, sir. "

"You two go at once to headquarters' stables. Saddle my horse--not theblack 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 openfront door. Father Tierney, repossessed of the candle, followed him. "Sure, and the night's amazing chill! By good luck, I've a fine oldbottle 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 theheart av ye--"

"I'll not stop now, father, " said the aide dryly. "Perhaps, upon myreturn to Frederick I may call upon you. "

"Do so, do so, my son, " said Father Tierney. "And ye're going toovertake the lieutenant with the general's last words?--Faith, and whileI think of it--he let drop that he'd be after not going by the pike. Theold road by the forge, that goes south, and then turns. It's a dirtroad, 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 iceyou have around this house?"

"By all the powers, my son!" answered Father Tierney. "The moonlight'sdesaving you! That isn't water--that's firm ground. Look out for theflagstaff at the gate, and presint my respects to the general. Sure, 'twas a fine donation for the orphans he donated!"

It was two o'clock of a moonlight night when Captain Marchmont and histroopers took the road to Williamsport. They passed through the silentcamp, gave the word to the last sentry, and emerged upon the quietcountryside. "Was a courier before them?" "Yes, sir--a man on a greatbay horse. Said he had important dispatches. "

The moon-flooded road, hard beneath the hoofs of the horses, stretchedsouth and west, unmarked by any moving creature. Marchmont rode inadvance. His horse was strong and fresh; clear of the pickets, he puthim to the gallop. An hour went by. Nothing but the cold, stillmoonshine, 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 womanlooked forth upon the riders. At a tollgate the aide drew rein, leanedfrom his saddle, and struck against the door with a pistol butt. A manopened 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 weregood, but not so good as was his. He left them some way behind. Thenight grew old. The moon, which had risen late, was high in the heavens. The Englishman traversed a shadowy wood, then went by silvered fields. Acabin door creaked; an old negro put out a cautious head. "Has a courierpassed, 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 amile in the rear. "And when I come up with you, my friend, what then? Onthe whole I don't think I'll ask you to turn with me. We'll go on toWilliamsport, 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. Hewas 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, andneared the hill. His vision was a trained one, exercised by war in manylands. 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 youup!" His own horse devoured the ground, steadily galloping by the frostyfields, through the air of earliest dawn. Suddenly, before him, thecourier from Kelly halted. Mounted against a faint light in thesouthwestern sky, he stood upon the hilltop and waited for the horsemanfrom Frederick. The latter took at a gallop the remainder of the levelroad, but at the foot of the hill changed to a trot. Above him, thewaiting horseman grew life-size. He waited, very quietly, Marchmontobserved, sitting, turned in his saddle, against the sky of dawn. "Damned if I know if you're truly blue or grey!" thought the aide. "Didyou stop to disarm suspicion, because you saw you'd be overtaken--"

Another minute and the two were in speaking distance; another, and theywere together on the hilltop. "Good-morning!" said McNeill. "What hasteto Williamsport?" He bent forward in the light that was just strongenough to see by. "Why--It is yesterday's comrade! Good-morning, CaptainMarchmont!"

"We must have started, " said Marchmont, "somewhere near the same hour. Ihave a communication from General Banks for the commander atWilliamsport. "

If the other raised his brows over the aide's acting courier twice intwenty-four hours, the action did not appear in the yet uncertain light. Apparently McNeill took the statement easily, upon its face value. "Inthat case, " he said with amicableness, "I shall have the pleasure ofyour company a little longer. We must be about six miles out, I shouldthink. "

"About that distance, " agreed the other. "And as at this unearthly hourI certainly cannot see the colonel, and as your horse is evidentlyspent, why go the rest of the way at a gallop?"

"It was my idea, " said McNeill, "to pass the river early. If I can gainthe 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 gomore slowly now. "

They put themselves in motion. "Two men are behind us, " remarked the manfrom Romney. 

"Yes. There they come through the fields. Two troopers who are ridingwith 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, themoon looked wan, there was a faint rose in the east. Far in a vale tothe left a cock crew, and was answered from across a stream. To thesouth, visible between and above the fringing trees, a ribbon of mistproclaimed the river. The two men rode, not in silence, but still notwith yesterday's freedom of speech. There was, however, no quietude thatthe chill ebb of the hour and the weariness of overwork might notaccount for. They spoke of this and that briefly, but amicably. "Willyou report at headquarters?" asked Marchmont, "before attempting theVirginia shore?"

"I do not yet know. There is no occasion, as I have all instructionsfrom 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. Thereis 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, andcrows came cawing from the woods to the vast, brown cornfields. The roadnow ran at no great distance from the canal and the river. First camethe canal, mirroring between trodden banks the red east, then thetowpath, a cornfield, a fringe of sycamore, oak, and willow, then thePotomac veiled with mist. They were drawing near to Williamsport. Theday's travel had begun. They met or overtook workers upon the road, sutlers' carts, ordnance wagons, a squad of artillerymen conducting agun, a country doctor in an old buggy, two boys driving calves yokedtogether. The road made a curve to the north, like a sickle. On theinland side it ran beneath a bluff; on the other a rail fence rimmed atwelve-foot embankment dropping to a streamlet and a wide field wherethe corn stood in shocks. Here, at a cross-roads debouching from thenorth into the pike, they encountered a company of infantry. 

Marchmont checked his horse. "I'm not sure, but I think I know theofficer. 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. Theinfantrymen broke lines a little, leaned on their rifles, and discussedarrangements for breakfast. Among them were a number of tall men, leanand sinewy, with a sweep of line and unconstraint of gesture thatsmacked of hunters' ways and mountain exercise. The two troopers fromFrederick City came up. The place of the cross-roads showed animatedand blue. The sun pushed its golden ball above the hilltops, and all therifle barrels gleamed in the light. Marchmont and the new-met captainapproached the courier from Kelly, sitting his horse in the middle ofthe road. "Lieutenant McNeill, " said the aide with quietness, "thereseemed, at Frederick, some irregularity in your papers. Doubtlesseverything can be explained, and your delay in reaching Romney will beslight. It is my duty to conduct you to Williamsport headquarters, andto report the matter to the colonel commanding. I regret theinterruption--not a long continued one, I trust--to our pleasantrelations. "

McNeill had made a movement of surprise, and his brows had cometogether. It was but for an instant, then he smiled, and smiled with hiseyes. "If such are your orders, sir, neither you nor I can help thematter. To headquarters, of course--the sooner the better! I can have nopossible objection. "

He touched his horse and advanced a little farther into the road. Allthe blue soldiers were about him. A sergeant-major, brought for themoment 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 crossedyesterday. 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 northwesternVirginians--'"

"By jingo!" cried the captain, "that's true! There's a squad of themhere. " 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 thenineteenth. "Do any of you men know the South Branch of the Potomac?"

Three voices made themselves heard. "Know it like a book. "--"Don't knowit like a book--know it like I know my gun and dawg. "--"Don't know anygood 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 eversince afore the Mexican War. Root and branch, I've got something againstthem. When I heard, over there in Grant, that they was hell-bent for theConfederacy, I just went, hell-bent, for the other side. Root andbranch, I know them, and root and branch they're damned rebels--"

"Do you know, " demanded the captain, "this one? This is LieutenantMcNeill. "

The man looked, General Kelly's courier facing him squarely. There was asilence upon the road to Williamsport. The mountaineer spat. "He may bea 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 lookedamused, "that you really know all the McNeills, or their party? Thevalley 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 thathas escaped my observation, and there ain't one of them that ain't adamned rebel. They're with Ashby now, and those of them that ain't withAshby 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. "HerrCaptain! 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 namedDundee. "

"'Dundee--'" exclaimed Marchmont. "That's the circumstance. You startedto say 'Dundee. '"

He gave an abrupt laugh. "On the whole, I like you even better than Idid--but it's a question now for a drumhead and a provost guard. I'msorry--"

The other's hand had been resting upon his horse's neck. Suddenly therewas 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 frostedearth of the cornfield, and was away like an arrow toward the mistywhite river. Out of the tumult upon the road rang a shot. Marchmont, thesmoking pistol still in hand, urged his horse to the leap, touched inturn the field below, and at top speed followed the bay. He shouted tothe troopers behind him; their horses made some difficulty, but inanother 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 andrider emerged unhurt from the friendly walls of cedar and locust. "Forward, sharpshooters!" cried the infantry captain. A lieutenant andhalf 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 fleeinghorse kept on, the rider close to the neck, in their sight, beyond thewater, 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 wonby his forefathers. What his rider's hand and voice conveyed cannot beprecisely known, but that which was effected was an access of love, courage, and understanding of the end desired. He moved with every powerdrawn to the point in hand. Marchmont, only a few lengths behind, firedagain. The ball went through Cleave's sleeve, grazing his arm andDundee's shoulder. The two shot on, Marchmont behind, then the twomounted men, then the sharpshooters, running afoot. From the road theremainder of the company watched with immemorial, white-heat interestthe immemorial incident. "He's wounded--the bay's wounded, too! They'llget him at the canal!--Thar's a bridge around the bend, but he don'tknow it!--Climb atop the fence; ye can see better--"

The canal, deep between willowy banks, a moat to be overpassed withoutdrawbridge, lay ahead of the foremost horse and rider. A moment and thetwo 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 thecaptain from Frederick! Thar he is--thar he is!" Marchmont vanished intothe belt of willows. The two troopers had swerved; they knew of thebridge beyond the turn. Dundee swam the canal. The bank before him, upto the towpath, was of loose earth and stone, steep and difficult. Heclimbed it like a cat-o'-mountain. As he reached the towpath Marchmontappeared before the willows. His horse, a powerful sorrel, took thewater unhesitatingly, but the opposite bank made trouble. It was but ashort delay; while the soldiers on the road held their breath he was upand away, across the wide field between canal and river. The troopers, too, had thundered across the bridge. The sharpshooters were behindthem, blue moving points between the shocked corn. The field was wide, rough, and furrowed, bordered on its southern side by a line ofsycamores, leafless and tall, a lacework of white branches against thenow brilliant sky. Beyond the sycamores lay the wide river, beyond theriver lay Virginia. Dundee, red of eye and nostril, foam streaked andquivering, raced on, his rider talking to him as to a lover. But the baywas sore tired, and the sorrel gained. Marchmont sent his voice beforehim. "Surrender! You'll never reach the other side!"

"I'll try mighty hard, " answered Cleave between his teeth. He caressedhis horse, he made their two hearts one, he talked to him, he crooned anair 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 crashedinto the belt of sycamores. Before him was the Potomac, cold, wide, mist-veiled. He heard Marchmont break into the wood and turned. Theaide's arm was raised, and a shaft of red sunlight struck the barrel ofhis pistol. Before his finger could move Cleave fired. 

The sorrel, pierced through the shoulder, swerved violently, reared, andplunged, all but unseating his rider. Marchmont's ball passed harmlesslybetween the branches of trees. The bay and his master sprang from thelow bank into the flood. So veiled was it by the heavy mist that, sixstrokes from shore, all outlines grew indistinct. 

The two troopers reached the shore. "Where is he, sir?--Out there?" Theyemptied their pistols--it was firing into a cloud. The sharpshootersarrived. Skilful and grim, they raised their rifles, scanned the expanseof woolly white before them, and fired at what, now here, now there, they conceived might be a moving object. The mist lay close to theriver, 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 againstthe south, wreathed and linked by lianas of grape, showed, far withdrawnand shadowy, the trees of the Virginia shore. The rifles continued toblaze, but the mist held, and there came no answering scream of horse orcry of man. Marchmont spoke at last, curtly. "That's enough! He's eitherhit and drowned, or he has reached home. I wish we were on the sameside. "

One of the troopers uttered an exclamation. "Hear that, sir! He'sacross! Damned if he isn't halloaing to tell us so!"

Faintly, from the southern shore, came a voice. It was raised in a lineof 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 thewood and came with suddenness upon a vedette, posted beneath a beechtree. 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 greyfigure. "Hello, Company F! It's all right! It's all right! It's CaptainCleave, 65th Virginia. Special service. " Musket in hand, Allan came at arun 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 closedeach forest vista, came a milk-white horse, stepping high over thefallen leaves. The rider, not tall, black-bearded, with a pale, handsomeface, sat like a study for some great sculptor's equestrian masterpiece. In a land where all rode well, his was superb horsemanship. The cape ofhis grey coat was lined with scarlet, his soft wide hat had a blackplume; he wore long boots and white gauntlets. The three beneath thebeech 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 andcold above the river. The water, clear now of mist, sparkled, a streamof diamonds, from shore to shore, except where rose Dam No. 5. Here thediamonds fell in cataracts. A space of crib-work, then falling gems, another bit of dry logs in the sun, then again brilliancy and thunder ofwater over the dam; this in sequence to the Maryland side. That sidereached, there came a mere ribbon of brown earth, and beyond this ranthe Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. To-day boats from Cumberland were goingdown the canal with coal and forage, and boats from Harper's Ferry werecoming up with a reinforcing regiment of soldiers for Lander at Hancock. It was bright and lively weather, and the negroes talked to the mules onthe 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 whereit is!"--"Purty day! Seen any rebels crost the river?"--"At Williamsportthey told us there was a rebel spy got away this morning--galloped downa cliff like Israel Putnam and took to the river, and if he was drownedor not they don't know--" "No, he wasn't drowned; he got away, but hewas shot. Anyhow, they say he hadn't been there long enough to find outanything. "--"Wish _I_ could find out something--wish I could find outwhen 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 nicepicnic-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 byAshby's men, the height of the afternoon saw the arrival of the advanceguard of that portion of the Army of the Valley which was to coveroperations against Dam No. 5. Later in the day came Garnett with theremainder of the Stonewall Brigade and a two-gun detachment of theRockbridge Artillery, and by sunset the militia regiments were up. Campwas pitched behind a line of hills, within the peninsula made by thecurve of the river. This rising ground masked the movement; moreover, with Ashby between any body of infantry and an enemy not in unreasonableforce, that body worked and ate and slept in peace of mind. Six milesdown the river, over on the Maryland side, was Williamsport, with aninfantry command and with artillery. Opposite Dam No. 5 in the Marylandfields beyond the canal, troops were posted, guarding that very stretchof river. From a little hill above the tents frowned their cannon. AtHancock, at Hagerstown, and at Frederick were other thousands, and all, from the general of the division to the corporal drilling an awkwardsquad in the fields beside the canal, thought of the Army of the Valleyas at Winchester. 

With the Confederate advance guard, riding Little Sorrel, his cadet capover his eyes, his uniform whole and clean, but discoloured like aNovember leaf from rain and dust and dust and rain, with great boots andheavy cavalry spurs, with his auburn beard and his deep-set grey-blueeyes, with his forehead broad and high, and his aquiline nose, and hismouth, wide and thin-lipped, came Jackson. The general's tent was a rudeaffair. His soldiers pitched it beneath a pine, beside a small tricklingstream half choked with leaves. The staff was quartered to right andleft, and a clump of pines in the rear served for an Arcadian kitchen. Acamp-stool and a table made of a board laid upon two stumps of treesfurnished the leaf-strewn terrace before the tent. Here, Cleave, comingto 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 aglance, 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 thelittle stream. The respectful murmur of the chief of staff came to anend. "Very good, major. You will send a courier back to Falling Watersto halt General Carson there. He is to be prepared to make a diversionagainst Williamsport in the morning. I will give precise instructionslater. What of this mill by the river?"

"It is a very strong, old, stone mill, sir, with windows. It wouldcommand any short-range attack upon the workers. "

"Good! good! We will put riflemen there. As soon as General Garnett isup, send him to me. "

From the not-distant road came a heavy rumble of wheels and the sound ofhorses' feet. "There are the guns, now, sir. "

"Yes. They must wait until nightfall to get into position. Send CaptainMcLaughlin 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 fromthe 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 everylog, I reckon. It works the mill. "

"If we break it, it will work the mill no longer. In addition, if theenemy cross, they will probably destroy the property. "

"Yes, sir. My mother and I would not let that weigh with us. As I knowthe construction I should esteem it an honour, sir, if I might lead theparty. I think I may say that I know where the cribs could be mosteasily cut. "

"Very good then, sir. You will report for duty at nine to-night. CaptainHolliday of the 33d and Captain Robinson of the 27th, with a number oftheir 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'sletter 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 riverand 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--ifthey could be gotten here in time every soldier in the Carolinas. Therewould then be but a streamlet of blood where now there is going to be agreat river. The streamlet should run through the land of them with whomwe are righteously at war. As it is, the great river will run throughours. " He rose. "You have done your mission well, sir. The 65th will beup presently. "

 * * * * *

It took three days to cut Dam No. 5. On the fourth the brigade went backto 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 theroad. 

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 witheredgoldenrod and gaunt mullein stalks and dead asters by the wayside almostseemed to bloom again, while the winter wheat gave an actual vernaltouch. The long column, winding somewhere--no one knew where, but anyhowon the Pugh Town Road and in a northwesterly direction (even Old Jackcouldn't keep them from knowing that they were going northwest!)--was inhigh spirits. At least, the Stonewall Brigade was in spirits. It wassaid that Loring's men didn't want to come, anyhow. The men whistled andsang, laughed, joked, were lavish of opinions as to all the world ingeneral and the Confederate service in particular. They were sarcastic. The Confederate private was always sarcastic, but throughout the morningthere had been small sting in their remarks. Breakfast--"at earlydawn"--was good and plentiful. Three days' rations had been served andcooked, and stowed in haversacks. But, so lovely was the weather, sooppressive in the sunshine would be a heavy weight to carry, so obligingwere the wagon drivers, so easy in many regiments the Confederatediscipline, that overcoats, blankets, and, in very many instanceshaversacks, had been consigned before starting to the friendly care ofthe 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 atremendous hurry. Over every smooth stretch the men were double-timed, and there was an unusual animus against stragglers. There grew, too, amoral certitude that from the ten minutes' lawful rest in each hour atleast five minutes was being filched. Another and still more certainconclusion 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 ofLoring'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 withouthaversacks! They looked as though they had borne all the burdens of themarch. There was hunger within and scant sympathy without. "Didn't thedamned fools know that Old Jack always keeps five miles ahead of wagontrains and hell fire?" "Here, Saunders! take these corn pones over tothose damned idiots with the compliments of Mess No. 4. We know thatthey have Cherrystone oysters, canvas-back ducks, terrapin, and peachbrandy 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 marchedon. The bright skies subtly changed. The blue grew fainter; a haze, white, harsh, and cold, formed gradually, and a slight wind began toblow. The aster and goldenrod, the dried ironweed and sumach, the redrose hips and magenta pokeberry stalks looked dead enough now, dead anddreary upon the weary, weary road. The men sang no more; the more weaklyshivered. Before long the sky was an even greyish-white, and the windhad much increased. Coming from the northwest, it struck the column inthe 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 andslower, all heads bent before the wind, which now blew with violence. Itraised, too, a blinding dust. A curt order ran down the lines for lessdelay. The regiments changed gait, tried quick time along a levelstretch, and left behind a large number of stragglers. The burst ofspeed was for naught, they went the slower thereafter, and coming to along, bleak hill, crept up it like tortoises--but without protectingshells. By sunset the cold was intense. Word came back that the head ofthe column was going into camp, and a sigh of approbation arose fromall. But when brigade by brigade halted, deployed, and broke ranks, itappeared that "going into camp" was rather a barren phrase. The wagonshad not come up; there were no tents, no blankets, no provisions. Anorthwester was blowing, and the weather-wise said that there would besnow ere morning. The regiments spread over bare fields, enclosed byrail fences. There were a small, rapidly freezing stream and thickwoods, skirting the fields. In the woods were fallen boughs and pinecones 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, soeasy to demolish, so splendid to burn! Orders on the subject werestringent. _Officers will be held responsible for any destruction ofproperty. We are here to protect and defend, not to destroy. _ The mengathered dead branches and broke down others, heaped them together inthe open fields, and made their camp-fires. The Rockbridge Artilleryoccupied a fallow field covered with fox grass, dead Michaelmas daisy, and drifted leaves. It was a good place for the poor horses, the batterythought. But the high wind blew sparks from the fires and lighted thegrass. The flames spread and the horses neighed with terror. The batterywas forced to move, taking up position at last in a ploughed field wherethe frozen furrows cut the feet, and the wind had the sweep of anunchained demon. An infantry regiment fared better. It was in a stretchof fenced field between the road and the freezing brook. A captain, native of that region, spoke to the lieutenant-colonel, and the latterspoke 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 hisfence rails. Give him a cheer, and build your fires!" The men cheeredlustily, and tore the rails apart, and had rousing fires and werecomfortable; but the next morning Stonewall Jackson suspended from dutythe donor of his own fences. The brigades of Loring undoubtedly sufferedthe most. They had seen, upon the Monterey line, on the Kanawha, theGauley, and the Greenbriar, rough and exhausting service. And then, justwhen they were happy at last in winter quarters, they must pull upstakes and hurry down the Valley to join "Fool Tom Jackson" of theVirginia Military Institute and one brief day of glory at Manassas!Loring, a gallant and dashing officer, was popular with them. "Fool TomJackson" was not. They complained, and they very honestly thought thatthey had upon their side justice, common sense, and common humanity--tosay nothing of military insight! The bitter night was bitterer to themfor their discontent. Many were from eastern Virginia or from the statesto the south, not yet inured to the winter heights and StonewallJackson's way. They slept on frozen ground, surrounded by grimmountains, and they dreamed uneasily of the milder lowlands, of the yetgreen tangles of bay and myrtle, of quiet marshes and wide, unfreezingwaters. In the night-time the clouds thickened, and there came down afine rain, mixed with snow. In the morning, fields, hillsides, and roadappeared glazed with ice--and the wagons were not up!

The country grew rougher, lonelier, a series of low mountains and partlycleared levels. To a few in the creeping column it may have occurredthat Jackson chose unfrequented roads, therefore narrow, therefore worsethan other roads, to the end that his policy of utter secrecy might bethe better served; but to the majority his course seemed sprung from acertain cold wilfulness, a harshness without object, unless his objectwere to wear out flesh and bone. The road, such as it was, was sheetedwith ice. The wind blew steadily from the northwest, striking the facelike a whip, and the fine rain and snow continued to fall and to freezeas it fell. What, the evening before, had been hardship, now grew toactual misery. The column faltered, delayed, halted, and still the ordercame back, "The general commanding wishes the army to press on. " Thearmy stumbled to its now bleeding feet, and did its best with a hilllike Calvary. Up and down the column was heard the report of muskets, men falling and accidentally discharging their pieces. The companyofficers lifted monotonous voices, weary and harsh as reeds by a winterpond. _Close up, men--close up--close up!_

In the afternoon Loring, riding at the head of his brigades, sent astaff officer forward with representations. The latter spurred hishorse, 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, thered of the colours the only gleam of cheer, the line crawled over a longhill, icy, unwooded, swept by the shrieking wind. Stafford in passingexchanged greetings with several of the mounted officers. These were inas bad case as their men, nigh frozen themselves, distressed for thehorses beneath them, and for the staggering ranks, striving for angerwith the many stragglers and finding only compunction, in blankignorance as to where they were going and for what, knowing only thatwhereas they had made seventeen miles the day before, they were notlikely to make seven to-day. He passed the infantry and came up with theartillery. The steep road was ice, the horses were smooth shod. The poorbrutes slipped and fell, cutting themselves cruelly. The men were downin the road, lifting the horses, dragging with them at gun and caisson. The crest of the hill reached, the carriages must be held back, keptfrom sliding sideways in the descent. Going down was worse than comingup. The horses slipped and fell; the weight of gun and caisson came uponthem; together they rolled to the foot, where they must be helped up andurged to the next ascent. Oaths went here and there upon the wind, hurtwhinnies, words of encouragement, cracking of whips, straining andgroaning of gun carriages. 

Stafford left the artillery behind, slowly climbed another hill, andmore slowly yet picked his way down the glassy slope. Before him lay agreat stretch of meadow, white with sleet, and beyond it he saw theadvance guard disappearing in a fold of the wrinkled hills. As he rodehe tried to turn his thoughts from the physical cold and wretchedness tosome more genial chamber of the brain. He had imaginative power, abilityto build for himself out of the void. It had served him well in thepast--but not so well the last year or two. He tried now to turn thering and pass from the bitter day and road into some haunt of warmth andpeace. Albemarle and summer--Greenwood and a quiet garden. That did notanswer! Harassment, longing, sore desire, check and bitterness--unhappinessthere as here! He tried other resting places that once hadanswered, poets' meadows of asphodel, days and nights culled like abouquet from years spent in a foreign land, old snatchesout of boyhood. These answered no longer, nor did a closing of the eyesand a sinking downward, downward through the stratas of being into somecavern, reckonless and quiet, of the under-man. It as little served tofront the future and try to climb, like Jack of the Beanstalk, to someplane above and beyond war and disappointment and denying. He wasunhappy, and he spoke wearily to his horse, then shut his lips and facedthe Siberian road. Entering in his turn the fold of the hills, he sooncame up with the advance. As he passed the men on foot a sudden swirl ofsnow came in larger flakes from the leaden skies. Before him were adozen horsemen, riding slowly. The air was now filled with the greatwhite flakes; the men ahead, in their caped overcoats, with their hatsdrawn low, plodding on tired horses between the hills, all seen vaguelythrough the snow veil, had a sudden wintry, desolate, and far-awayseeming. 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 whathaste he could and came up with Stonewall Jackson, riding with Ashby andwith 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 serviceand 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 oncebefore?"

"Yes, general. Many of the men are without rations. Others are almostbarefoot. The great number are unused to mountain work or to sorigorous a climate. "

The commanding general sat regarding the emissary with a curious chillblankness. In peace, to the outward eye he was a commonplace man; in warhe changed. The authority with which he was clothed went, no doubt, formuch, 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; afirm man, indomitable, a thunderbolt of war, a close-mouthed, far-seeing, praying and worshipping, more or less ambitious, not alwaysjust, patriotically devoted fatalist and enthusiast, a mysterious andcommanding genius of an iron sort. When he was angered it was as thoughthe offender had managed to antagonize some natural law, or force ormass. Such an one had to face, not an irritated human organism, but aGibraltar armed for the encounter. The men who found themselvesconfronted by this anger could and did brace themselves against it, butit was with some hopelessness of feeling, as of hostility upon a planewhere they were at a disadvantage. The man now sitting his horse beforehim on the endless winter road was one not easily daunted by outwardaspects. Nevertheless he had at this moment, in the back of his head, aweary consciousness that war was roseate only to young boys and girls, that the day was cold and drear, the general hostile, the earth overlaidwith dull misery, that the immortals, if there were any, must beclamouring for the curtain to descend forever upon this shabby humanstage, painful and sordid, with its strutting tragedians and itsbellman's cry of _World Drama_! The snow came down thickly, in largeflakes; a horse shook himself, rubbed his nose against his fellow'sneck, and whinnied mournfully. The pause, which had seemed long, was notreally so. Jackson turned toward the group of waiting officers. "MajorCleave. "

Cleave pushed his horse a little into the road. "Sir. "

"You will return with this officer to General Loring's command. It isfar in the rear. You will give General Loring this note. " As he spoke hewrote upon a leaf torn from his pocket-book. The words as he traced themread: "_General Jackson's compliments to General Loring. He has somefault to find with the zeal of General Loring, his officers and men. General Loring will represent to himself that in war soldiers areoccasionally called upon to travel in winter weather. Campaigns cannotalways be conducted in seasons of roses. General Loring will urge hismen forward, without further complaint. T. J. Jackson, Major-General. _"

He folded the leaf and gave it to Richard Cleave, then touched LittleSorrel with his heavy spur and with Ashby and the staff rode on throughthe falling snow, between the hills. The small cavalry advance passed, too, grey and ghost-like in the grasp of General January, disappearingwithin the immense and floating veil of the snow. When all were goneStafford and Cleave turned their horses' heads toward the distantcolumn, vaguely seen in the falling day. Stafford made an expressivesound. 

"I am sorry, " said Cleave gravely. "But when you have been with himlonger 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 hadbetter turn out and let the guns pass. "

They moved into the untrodden snow lying in the fence corners andwatched the guns, the horses, and men strain past with a sombre noise. Officers and men knew Richard Cleave, and several hailed him. "Where inhell are we going, Cleave? Old Jack likes you! Tell him, won't you, thatit'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 upthere, Selim! Pull, Flora, pull!--Whoa!--Damnation! Come lay a hand tothis gun, boys! Where's Hetterich! Hetterich, this damned wheel's offagain!"

The delay threatening to be considerable, the two men rode on, pickingtheir way, keeping to the low bank, or using the verge of the crowdedroad. At last they left the artillery, and found themselves again upon alonely way. "I love that arm, " said Cleave. "There isn't a gun therethat isn't alive to me. " He turned in his saddle and looked back at thelast 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 againwhitening beneath it. Half a mile ahead was visible the StonewallBrigade, coming very slowly, beaten by the wind, blinded by the snow, aspectral grey serpent upon the winding road. 

Stafford spoke abruptly. "I am in your debt for the arrangements I foundmade for me in Winchester. I have had no opportunity to thank you. Youwere extremely good so to trouble yourself--"

"It was no trouble. As I told you once before, I am anxious to serveyou. "

They met the brigade, Garnett riding at the head. "Good-day, RichardCleave, " he said. "We are all bound for Siberia, I think!" Company bycompany the regiments staggered by, in the whirling snow, the coloursgripped by stiffening hands. There were blood stains on the frozenground. Oh, the shoes, the shoes that a non-manufacturing country withclosed ports had to make in haste and send its soldiers! Oh, themuskets, heavy, dull, ungleaming, weighting the fiercely achingshoulders! Oh, the snow, mounded on cap, on cartridge box, on rolledblanket and haversack. Oh, the northwest wind like a lash, the pinchedstomach, the dry lips, the wavering sight, the weariness excessive! Thestrong 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. "Ihave a brother in this regiment, and he has been ill--"

A company came stumbling by, heads bent before the bitter wind. He spoketo its captain, the captain spoke to a lieutenant, the lieutenant to aprivate in the colour guard, who at once fell out of line and sprangsomewhat stiffly across the wayside depression to the two horsemen drawnup 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 pieceof bacon. We added them and then divided them, and it was lovely, so faras it went!" He laughed ruefully. "Only I've still that typhoid feverappetite--"

His brother took from under the cape of his coat a small parcel. "Hereare some slices of bread and meat. I hoped I would see you, and so Isaved them. Where is that comforter Miriam knitted you?"

The boy's eyes glistened as he put out a gaunt young hand and took theparcel. "Won't Mr. Rat and I have a feast! We were just talking of oldJudge 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'tmuch stamina and no shoes at all. They were bad when he started, and onefell to pieces yesterday, and he left most of the other on that badpiece of road this morning. So at the last halt we cut my comforter intwo and tied up his feet with it--I didn't need it, anyway. " He lookedover his shoulder. "Well, I'd better be catching up!"

Richard put a hand upon his arm. "Don't give away any more clothing. Youhave 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 andwhite?--like a feather bed with lovely clean sheets. The fence railsmake it look like my old crib at home--" He pulled himself together witha jerk. "You take care of yourself, Richard! I'm all right. Mr. Rat andI were soldiers before the war broke out!" He was gone, stumblingstiffly across to the road, running stiffly to overtake his company. Hisbrother looked after him with troubled eyes, then with a sigh picked upthe reins and followed Stafford toward the darkening east. 

The two going one way, the haggard regiments another, the line thatseemed 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'sResolutions_--hey, Richard! The world has moved since then! I wishFincastle could see us now--or rather I don't wish it! Oh, we're holdingout all right! The men are trumps. " Mathew Coffin, too, came up. "Itdoesn't look much, Major Cleave, like the day we marched away! All theserenading and the flowers--we never thought war could be ugly. " Heglanced disconsolately down at a torn cuff and a great smear of frozenmire 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 cutroad, empty save for here and there poor stragglers, sitting dismallyhuddled together beneath a cedar, or limping on painful feet, hopingsomewhere to overtake "the boys. " A horse had fallen dead and had beendragged out of the road and through a gap in the fencing into a narrowfield. Beyond this, on the farther boundary of grey rails, threebuzzards were sitting, seen like hobgoblins through the veiling snow. The afternoon was closing in; it could only be said that the world was adreary one. 

The Army of the Kanawha, Loring's three brigades, with the batteriesattached, came into view a long way off, grey streaks upon the road. Before the two horsemen reached it it had halted for the night, brokenranks, and flowed into the desolate fields. There was yet an hour ofdaylight, but discontent had grown marked, the murmuring loud, and thehalt was made. A few of the wagons were up, and a dark and heavy woodfilling a ravine gave fagots for the gathering. The two aides foundLoring himself, middle-aged and imposing, old Indian fighter, hero ofContreras, Churubusco, Chapultepec, and Garita de Belen, commander, since the transference of General Robert E. Lee to South Carolina, ofthe Army of the Kanawha, gallant and dashing, with an arm left inMexico, with a gift for picturesque phrases, with a past full of varietyand a future of a like composition, with a genuine tenderness and carefor his men, and an entire conviction that both he and his troops wereat present in the convoy of a madman--they found Loring seated on a logbeside a small fire and engaged in cooling in the snow a too-hot tin cupof coffee. His negro servant busily toasted hardtack; a brigadier seatedon an opposite log was detailing, half fiercely, half plaintively, theconditions under which his brigade was travelling. The two from Jacksondismounted, crunched their way over the snow and saluted. The generallooked up. "Good-evening, gentlemen! Is that you, Stafford? Well, didyou do your prettiest--and did he respond?"

"Yes, sir, he responded, " replied Stafford, with grimness. "But not byme. --Major Cleave, sir, of his staff. "

Cleave came forward, out of the whirling snow, and gave Jackson'smissive. It was so dull and dark a late afternoon that all things wereindistinct. "Give me a light here, Jupiter!" said Loring, and the negroby the fire lit a great sliver of pine and held it like a torch abovethe page. Loring read, and his face grew purple. With a suppressed oathhe sat a moment, staring at the paper, then with his one hand folded itagainst his knee. His fingers shook, not with cold, but with rage. "Verygood, very good! That's what he says, isn't it, all the time? 'Verygood!' or is it 'Good, good!'" He felt himself growing incoherent, pulled himself sharply together, and with his one hand thrust the paperinto his breast pocket. "It's all right, Stafford. Major Cleave, theArmy of the Kanawha welcomes you. Will you stay with us to-night, orhave you fifty miles to make ere dawn?"

Cleave, it appeared, had not fifty miles to make, but four. He mustreport at the appointed bivouac. Loring tore with his one hand a leaffrom his pocket-book, found his pencil, and using a booted knee for atable, wrote a line, folded and superscribed it. "This for GeneralJackson. Ugh, what freezing weather! Sit down and drink a cup of coffeebefore 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 swelledand swelled and thought himself an ox. Curious how your boyhood bookscome back into your mind! Sit down, gentlemen, sit down! Reardon's got abox of cigars tucked away somewhere or he isn't Reardon--"

Along the edge of the not-distant ravine other small fires had beenbuilt. From the circle about one of these arose a quavering voice--asoldier 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, veryliterally like a shepherd, found the little stream at its foot frozen tothe bottom. No morning bath for a lover of cleanliness! There had beenlittle water, indeed, to expend on any toilet since leaving Winchester. Corbin Wood tried snow for his face and hands, but the snow was nolonger soft, as it had fallen the day before. It was frozen and harsh. "And the holy hermits and the saints on pillars never had abath--apparently never wanted one!"

Reveille sounded drearily enough from the surrounding mountains. Thefires sprang up, but they did not burn brightly in the livid day. Thelittle there was to eat was warmed and eaten. When, afterwards, therolls were called, there were silences. Mr. Ready-to-halt, Mr. FaintHeart, Mr. Fearing, and also Mr. Honesty, really too ill to march, weresomewhere on the backward road to Winchester. Length by length, like aserpent grey and cold, sluggish, unburnished, dull, and bewildered, thecolumn took the road. Deeply cut the day before by the cavalry, byGarnett's brigade, and by the artillery, the road was horrible. What hadbeen ridged snow was now ridged ice. 

Corbin Wood and his old grey horse were loved by their regiment. Thechaplain was not, physically, a strong man, and his ways were those of ascholar, but the regiment found them lovable. Pluto the horse was verywise, very old, very strong and gentle. Upon the march he was of use tomany beside his master. The regiment had grown accustomed to the sightof 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 thehalf-sick or wholly weary private seated in his saddle. He was forevergiving some one a lift along the road. Certain things that have hadsmall place in the armies of the world were commonplaces in theConfederate service. The man on horseback was a more fortunate, but nota 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 acast of the road to a comrade in the ranks. So, to-day, the chaplain'shorse was rather for everybody than for the chaplain himself. An oldcollege mate slipping stiffly to earth after five inestimable minutes, remonstrated. "I'd like to see you riding, Corbin! Just give yourself alift, won't you? Look at Pluto looking at that rent in your shoe! You'llnever be a bishop if you go on this way. "

The sleet fell and fell, and it was intensely cold. The wagons wereinvisible. It was rumoured that they had taken another road. The countrywas almost a wilderness. At long intervals the troops came upon alonely farmhouse, or a wayside cabin, a mill, a smithy. Loring sentahead a foraging party, with orders to purchase all supplies. Hardlyanything was gotten. Little had been made this year and little stored. Moreover, latterly, the Yankees at Bath had taken all the stock andpoultry and corn--and without paying for it either. "Yes, sir, there areYankees at Bath. More'n you can shake a stick at!"

The foragers brought back the news. "There are Yankees at Bath--eightmiles away! Any number of them. Just as certain as it's sleeting, that'swhere Old Jack's going!"

The news running along the column awoke a small flare of interest. Butit filled no empty stomachs, nor dissipated the numbing cold. Themomentary enthusiasm passed. "Eight miles! Have we got to go eight milesto-day? We haven't made three miles since dawn. If George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Julius Caesar were here they couldn't get thisarmy eight miles to-day!"

The cavalry, the artillery, the Stonewall Brigade, Meems and Carson'sMilitia, the three brigades of Loring--on wound the sick and sluggishcolumn. The hills were now grey glass, and all the horses smooth-shod. In advance a corps of pioneers broke with pickaxes the solid andtreacherous surface, roughening the road so that the poor brutes mightgain foothold. The vanguard, stumbling around a bend of the road, stumbled upon a Federal ambush, horse and foot. To either side a wood ofcedars blazed and rang. A lieutenant of the 21st Virginia threw up hisarms and pitched forward, dead. A private was badly wounded. The companycharged, 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 afrozen stream, the column halted. There were no tents, and there wasscarcely 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 sleetthe men tore apart the shocks and with numbed fingers stripped from thegrain the sere, rough, and icy husks. They and the horses ate the yellowcorn. All night, stupid with misery, the soldiers dozed and mutteredbeside 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 thestream stood a deserted sawmill, and here the Rockbridge men foundplanks with which they made for themselves little pens. The sleetsounded for hours on the boards that served for roof, but at last itdied away. The exhausted army slept, but when in the grey dawn itstirred and rose to the wailing of the bugles, it threw off a weight ofsnow. All the world was white again beneath a livid sky. 

This day they made four miles. The grey trees were draped with ice, thegrey zigzag of the fences was gliding ice under the hands that caught atit, the hands of the sick and weak. Motion resolved itself into a DeadMarch; few notes and slow, with rests. The army moved and halted, movedand halted with a weird stateliness. Couriers came back from the manriding ahead, cadet cap drawn over eyes that saw only what a giant andiron race might do under a giant and iron dictatorship. General Jacksonsays, "Press Forward!" General Jackson says, "Press Forward, men!"

They did not reach Bath that night. They lay down and slept behind ascreen of hills and awoke in an amethyst dawn to a sky of promise. Thelight, streaming from the east, made glorious the ice-laden trees andthe far and dazzling wastes of snow. The sunshine cheered the troops. Bath was just ahead--Bath and the Yankees! The 1st Tennessee and the48th Virginia suddenly swung from the main road, and moved across thefields to the ridges overlooking the town. Apparently they had gatheredtheir strength into a ball, for they went with energy, double-quickeningover the snow. The afternoon before Carson and Meems had been detached, disappearing to the right. A rumour ran through the ranks. This forcewould be now on the other side of Bath. "It's like a cup, all of us onthe rim, and the Yanks at the bottom. If Carson can hold the roads onthe other side we've got them, just like so many coffee grounds! Fifteenhundred of them in blue, and two guns?--Boys, I feel better!"

Old Jack--the men began with suddenness again to call him Old Jack--OldJack divulged nothing. Information, if information it was, came fromscouts, couriers, Ashby's vedettes, chance-met men and women of theregion. Something electric flashed from van to rear. The line went upthe hill with rapidity. When they reached the crest the men saw thecavalry far before and below them, charging upon the town and shouting. After the horse came a body of skirmishers, then, pouring down thehillside the 1st Tennessee and the 48th Virginia, yelling as they ran. From the town burst a loud rattle of musketry, and from a height beyonda cannon thundered. All the white sides of the cup echoed the sound. 

The infantry swerved to let the artillery by. The guns, grim beneaththeir ice coats, the yelling men, the drivers loudly encouraging thehorses, the horses, red-nostrilled, wide-eyed--all came somehow, helter-skelter down the long windings of the ridge. The infantryfollowed; the town was entered; the Federals retreated, firing as theywent, streaming out by two roads. One led toward Sir John's Run, theother direct to the Potomac with Hancock on the Maryland shore, and atHancock General Lander with a considerable force. Carson's men, alack!had found the winter hills no bagatelle. They were not in time to securethe roads. 

The Confederate cavalry, dividing, followed, full tilt, the retreatingfoe. A courier brought back to the artillery a curt order from Jacksonto push on by the Hancock road. As he turned, his mare slipped, and thetwo came crashing down upon the icy road. When they had struggled up andout of the way the batteries passed rumbling through the town. Old menand boys were out upon the trampled sidewalks, and at window and doorwomen and children waved handkerchiefs, clapped hands. At a corner, inthe middle of the street, lay a horse, just lifeless, covered withblood. The sight maddened the battery horses. They reared and plunged, but at last went trembling by. From the patriarchs and the eager boyscame information. The Yankees were gone, but not their baggage andstores. Everything had been left behind. There were army blankets, tents, oilcloths, clothing, _shoes_, cords of firewood, forage for thehorses, flour, and fresh meat, sugar, coffee, sutlers' stores of everykind, wines, spirits, cigars--oh, everything! The artillery groaned andswore, but obeyed orders. Leaving Capua behind, it strained along theHancock road in the wake of the pursuing cavalry and the fleeingFederals. 

The main body of the latter, well in advance and with no exhaustingmarch behind them to weaken horse and man, reached the Potomac by theHancock road at a point where they had boats moored, and got clean away, joining Lander on the Maryland shore. The lesser number, making for SirJohn's Run and the Big Cacapon and followed by some companies ofAshby's, did not so quickly escape. The Confederate advance came, artillery, horse, and skirmishers, upon the river bank at sunset. Allaround were great rolling hills, quite bare of trees and covered withsnow, over which the setting sun threw a crimson tinge. Below was theriver, hoarsely murmuring, and immediately upon the other side, theclustering Maryland village, with a church spire tall and taperingagainst the northern sky. About the village was another village oftents, and upon a hilltop frowned a line of guns. Dusk as it was, theConfederate batteries unlimbered, and there opened an artillery duel, shells screaming from north to south and south to north across the riveryet stained with the sunset glow. 

That night the infantry remained at Bath, warmed and comforted by thecaptured stores. They came like a gift from the gods, and as is usualwith that gift they disappeared in a twinkling. In the afternoon thethree arms met on the river bank. The sky was again a level grey; it wasevident that a snowstorm was brewing. There was not a house; except forthe fringe along the water's edge there was hardly a tree. The hillswere all bare. The snow was packed so hard and so mingled with ice thatwhen, in the cannonading, the Federal missiles struck and tore it up thefragments were as keen and troublesome, almost, as splinters of shell. There was no shelter, little wood for burning. The men gazed about themwith a frown of uneasiness. The storm set in with a whirl of snow andwith a wind that raved like a madman and broke the spectral white armsof the sycamores by the river. In a short time there was a shifting, wonderful, numbing veil streaming silent from the grey heavens. It wasalmost a relief when dark came and wrapped the great, lonely, ghostlycountryside. This night the men disregarded the taboo and burned everyavailable fence rail. 

In the morning a boat was put across the half-frozen river. It bore asummons to Lander to surrender, the alternative being a bombardment ofthe town. "Retaliation for Shepherdstown" read Jackson's missive. Ashbybore the summons and was led blindfold through the streets toheadquarters. Lander, looking momently for reinforcements fromWilliamsport, declined to surrender. Ashby passed blindfolded out of thetown, entered the boat, and came back to Stonewall Jackson. The latterwaited two hours, then began to throw shells into the town. Since earlymorning a force had been engaged in constructing, two miles up theriver, a rude bridge by which the troops might cross. The evening beforethere had been skirmishes at Sir John's Run and at the Big Cacapon. Aregiment of Loring's destroyed the railroad bridge over the latterstream. The Federals withdrew across the river, leaving no command inMorgan County. 

Throughout the afternoon McLaughlin's battery dropped shells intoHancock, but an hour before dark came orders to cease firing. Ascout--Allan Gold--brought tidings of heavy reinforcements pouring intothe town from Williamsport and Hagerstown. So heavy were they thatJackson, after standing for five minutes with his face to the north, sent orders to discontinue work upon the bridge. Romney, when all wassaid, not Hancock, was his destination--Kelly's eight thousand inVirginia, not Lander's brigades across the line. Doubtless it had beenhis hope to capture every Federal in Bath, to reach and cross thePotomac, inflict damage, and retire before those reinforcements couldcome up. But the infantry which he commanded was not yet his "footcavalry, " 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 andcoloured, not instinct with the one man view as they were to becomeinstinct. They were not iron as he was iron, nor yet thunderbolts ofwar. They could not divine the point and hour of attack, and, sooth tosay, they received scant assistance from the actual wizard. They werepatriot forces, simple and manly souls ready enough to die for theircause, but few were yet at the arrowhead of concentration as was thisman. They were to attain it, but not yet. He looked at the north and helooked at his complaining legions, and he strode off to his bivouacbeneath a solitary tree. Here, a little later he gave orders to hisbrigadiers. The Army of the Northwest would resume the march "at earlydawn. "

In the harsh coldness of the morning they retraced the road to Bath, afrightful road, a road over which an army had passed. At noon they cameto Bath, but there was hardly a pause in the town. Beneath a sky oflead, in a harsh and freezing wind, the troops swung slowly into anarrow road running west through a meagre valley. Low hills were oneither side--low and bleak. Scrub oak and pine grew sparsely, and alongthe edges of the road dead milkweed and mullein stood gaunt above thesnow. The troops passed an old cider press and a cabin or two out ofwhich negroes stared. 

Before long they crossed a creek and began to climb. All the landscapewas now mountainous. To the right, as the way mounted, opened a greatview, white dales and meadows, far winter forests, and the long, longwall of North Mountain. There was small care for the view among thestruggling soldiers. The hills seemed perpendicular, the earthtreacherous glass. Going up, the artillerymen must drag with the horsesat gun and caisson; going down the carriages must be held back, elsethey would slide sideways and go crashing over the embankment. Again andagain, going down, the horses slipped and fell. The weight of metalbehind coming upon them, the whole slid in a heap to the bottom. Therethey must be gotten to their feet, the poor trembling brutes! and set tothe task of another hill. The long, grey, halting, stumbling, creepingline saw no beauty in the winter woods, in the arched fern over thesnow, in the vivid, fairy plots of moss, in the smooth, tall ailanthusstems by the wayside, in the swinging, leafless lianas of grape, pendentfrom the highest trees, in the imposing view of the mountains. The linewas sick, sick to the heart, numbed and shivering, full of pain. Everyambulance and wagon used as ambulance was heavy laden; at everyinfrequent cabin or lonely farmhouse were left the too ill to travelfarther. The poor servants, of whom there were some in each company, were in pitiable plight. No negro likes the cold; for him all the hotsunshine he can get! They shivered now, in the rear of the companies, their bodies drawn together, their faces grey. The nature of most was ofan abounding cheerfulness, but it was not possible to be cheerful onthis January road to Romney. 

The army crossed Sleepy Creek. It was frozen to the bottom. The cedarsalong its shore stood so funereally, so crape-like and dark, thesycamores were so clay-white and long of arm, the great birds slowlycircling above a neighbouring wood of so dreary a significance, that theheart sank and sank. Was this war?--war, heroic and glorious, withbanners, trumpets, and rewarded enterprise? Manassas had been war--forone 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 ridingside by side, with other mounted officers, in advance of Loring'sleading regiment. The chaplain had experienced, the day before, an uglyfall. 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 manbehind him. Now, however, he was riding single. Indeed, for the lastmile he had uttered no pitiful comment and given no invitation. Moreover, he talked persistently and was forever calling his companion'sattention to the beauty of the view. At last, after a series of shortanswers, it occurred to Stafford to regard him more closely. There was acolour in the chaplain's cheek and he swayed ever so slightly andrhythmically in his saddle. Stafford checked his horse, drew his handout of an ice-caked gauntlet, and leaning over laid it on the other'swhich was bare. The chaplain's skin was burning hot. Stafford made asound of concern and rode forward to the colonel. In a minute hereturned. "Now you and I, Mr. Wood, will fall out here and just quietlywait until the wagons come by. Then the doctor will fix you up nicely inthe ambulance. . . . Oh, yes, you are! You're ill enough to want to liedown for awhile. Some one else, you know, can ride Pluto. "

Corbin Wood pondered the matter. "That's true, that's very true, my dearMaury. Fontaine, now, behind us in the ranks, his shoes are all wornout. Fontaine, eh? Fontaine knows more Greek than any man--and he'll begood to Pluto. Pluto's almost worn out himself--he's not immortal likeXanthius and Balius. Do you know, Maury, it's little wonder thatGulliver found the Houyhnhnms so detesting war? Horses have a dreadfullot in war--and the quarrel never theirs. Do but look at thatstream!--how cool and pleasant, winding between the willows--"

Stafford got him to one side of the road, to a small plateau beneath anoverhanging bank. The column was now crawling through a ravine with asheer descent on the right to the frozen creek below. To the left, covering the mountain-side, were masses of evergreen kalmia, and abovethem tall and leafless trees in whose branches the wind made a gratingsound. The sleet was falling again--a veil of sleet. The two waiting forthe ambulance looked down upon the grey soldiers, grey, weary, and bentbefore the wind. "Who would ever have thought, " said the chaplain, "that Dante took an idea from Virginia in the middle of the nineteenthcentury? I remember things being so happy and comfortable--but it musthave been long ago. Yes, my people, long ago. " Dropping the bridle, heraised his arm in a gesture usual with him in the pulpit. In the fadinglight there was about him an illusion of black and white; he moved hisarm as though it were clad in the sleeve of a surplice. "I am not oftendenunciatory, " he said, "but I denounce this weary going to and fro, this turning like a dervish, this finding that every straight line isbut a fraction of a circle, this squirrel cage with the greenwood neverreached, 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. Thechaplain, still talking, was persuaded stiffly to dismount, to givePluto's bridle into Stafford's hand, and to enter. There were otheroccupants, two rows of them. Stafford saw his old friend laid in acorner, on a wisp of straw; then, finding Fontaine in the ranks, gaveover the grey, and joined the staff creeping, creeping on tired horsesthrough the sleet. 

Cavalry and infantry and wagon train wound at the close of day over avast bare hilltop toward Unger's Store where, it was known, would be thebivouac. The artillery in the rear found it impossible to finish out themarch. 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 upon the wind-swept hill. The guns were left in the road, the horses leddown 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 foundsome hay and corn. The men had no supper, or only such crumbs as werefound in the haversacks. They made their fires on the hillside andcrouched around them, nodding uneasily, trying to sleep with facesscorched by the flame and freezing backs. They put their feet in thesodden shoes to the fire, and the poor, worn-out leather fell into yetgreater holes. There was some conjecture as to how far the thermometerstood below zero. Some put it at forty, but the more conservativedeclared for twenty. It was impossible to sleep, and every one washungry, and the tobacco was all out. _What were they doing at home, bythe 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 wheneven a dawn like this would be met by the Confederate soldier withwhimsical cheer, with greetings as to an oft-encountered friend, with acourage quaint, pathetic, and divinely high--but the time was not yet. The men swore and groaned. The haversacks were quite empty; there wouldbe no breakfast until the wagons were caught up with at Unger's. Thedrivers went down the hillside for the horses. When they came to thestrength that had drawn the guns and looked, there was a moment'ssilence. Hetterich the blacksmith was with the party, and Hetterichwept. "If I was God, I wouldn't have it--I wouldn't have a horse treatedso! Just look at Flora--just look at her knees! Ah, the poor brute!" Sofrequent had been the falls of the day before, so often had the animalsbeen cut by the carriages coming upon them, that many were scarred in adreadful fashion. The knees of Flora had been badly cut, and whatHetterich pointed at were long red icicles hanging from the wounds. 

At Unger's the evening before, in a narrow valley between the silverhills, the infantry stacked arms, broke ranks, and listened with sullenbrows to two pieces of news. At Hanging Rock, between Unger's andRomney, the advance, composed of a regiment of militia and a section ofartillery, had come into touch with the enemy. The militia had broken, the two guns had been lost. "Fool Tom Jackson" was reported to havesaid, "Good! good!" and lifted that right hand of his to the sky. Theother tidings were to the effect that the troops would rest at Unger'sfor three days, to the end, chiefly, that the horses might berough-shod. Rest--delicious sound! But Unger's! To the east theunutterably bleak hills over which they had toiled, to the west CaponMountain high and stark against the livid skies, to the south a darkforest with the snow beneath the trees, to the north long, low hills, with faded broomsedge waving in the wind. Upon a hilltop perched acountry store, a blacksmith shop, and one or two farmhouses, forlorn andlonely in the twilight, and by the woods ran Buffalo Run, ice upon theshallows to either bank. 

In the morning, when the artillery was up, when breakfast was over, rollcalled, orders read, the army fell to the duties upon which paramountstress had been laid. All the farriers, the drivers, the men who had todo with horses, went to work with these poor, wretched, lame, andwounded friends, feeding them, currying them, dressing their hurts and, above all, rough-shoeing them in preparation for the icy mountainsahead. 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 thesky. Even the crows cawing above the woods did not sound so dolefully. AThunder Run man found a tree laden with shrivelled persimmons. He was upit like a squirrel. "Simmon tree! Simmon tree!" Comrades came hurryingover the snow; the fruit was dropped into upheld caps, lifted towardeager mouths. Suddenly there flamed a generous impulse. "Boys! them poorsick fellows with nothing but hardtack--" The persimmons were carried tothe hospital tents. 

Before the sun was halfway to the meridian a curious spectacle appearedalong the banks of Buffalo Run. Every hundred feet or so was built alarge fire. Over it hung a camp kettle, full of water--water hot as thefire could make it. Up and down the stream an improvised laundry wentinto operation, while, squad by squad, the men performed their personalablutions. It was the eighth of January; they had left Winchester uponthe first, and small, indeed, since then had been the use of washingwater. In the dire cold, with the streams frozen, cleanliness had nottempted the majority, and indeed, latterly, the men had been too wornout to care. Sleep and food and warmth had represented the sum ofearthly desire. A number, with ostentation, had each morning broken theice from some pool or other and bathed face and hands, but few extendedthe laved area. The General Order appointing a Washerman's Day came nonetoo soon. Up and down Buffalo Run, in the zero weather, the men strippedand bathed. Soap was not yet the scarce and valuable commodity it was tobecome; there was soap enough for all and the camp kettles were filledfrom the stream as soon as emptied. Underclothing, too, flannel andcotton, must be washed. . . . There came discoveries, made amid "Ughs!" ofdisgust. The more fastidious threw the whole business, undergarment andparasites into the fire; others, more reasonable, or without a change ofclothing, scalded their apparel with anxious care. The episode marked astage in warfare. That night Lieutenant Coffin, writing a letter on hislast scrap of pale blue paper, sat with scrupulously washed hands wellback 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 andthe purity of women, and he said there was a side of war which WalterScott 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 warriorants. 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 deepvales--very fine and utterly unappreciated. The earth was hostile, thesky was hostile, the commanding general was hostile. Snow began to fall. 

Allan Gold, marching with Company A, began to think of Thunder Run, theschoolhouse, and the tollgate. The 65th was now high upon themountain-side and the view had vastly widened. The men looked out andover toward the great main Valley of Virginia, and they lookedwistfully. To many of the men home was over there--home, wife, child, mother--all hopelessly out of reach. Allan Gold had no wife nor childnor mother, but he thought of Sairy and Tom, and he wondered if Sairywere making gingerbread. He tried to smell it again, and to feel thewarmth of her kitchen--but then he knew too well that she was not makinggingerbread! Tom's last letter had spoken of the growing scarcity; flourso high, sugar so high. Everybody was living very plainly, and the poorwere 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 plainlythan ever he had done before. She looked starved, defeated. He thoughtof 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 "Itis over. " But it wasn't over. Marching and camping had followed, fightson 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 andthe wind screaming like a banshee. At the foot was a stretch of bottomland, then, steep and rocky, grimly waiting to be crossed, rose BearGarden Ridge. High Top loomed behind. The infantry could see thecavalry, creeping up Bear Garden, moving slowly, slowly, bent before theblast, wraith-like through the falling snow. From far in the rear, backof the Stonewall Brigade, back of Loring, came a dull sound--theartillery and the wagon train climbing Sleepy Creek Mountain. It wasthree 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. CorbinWood, better than he had been for several days, but still feverish, proppedhimself upon the straw and smiled across at Will Cleave, who, half carriedby his brother, had appeared beside the ambulance an hour before. Swayingas he stood, the boy protested to the last that he could march just as wellas the other fellows, that they would think him a baby, that Richard wouldruin his reputation, that he wasn't giddy, that the doctor in Winchesterhad told him that after you got well from typhoid fever you were strongerthan 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 uponthe straw which several of the sick pushed forward and patted into place. The surgeon gave a restorative. The elder brother waited until the boy'seyes opened, stooped and kissed him on the forehead, and went away. NowWill said that he was rested, and that it was all a fuss about nothinganyway, and it was funny, travelling like animals in a circus, and wasn'tit most feeding time anyway? Corbin Wood had a bit of bread which heshared, 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 intowinter quarters--that's where we're going. Yes, siree, up with the polarbears--" "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 thesnake charmer's rattlers!" "Boys, jes' think of a real circus, with all thewomen folk, an' the tarletan, an' the spangles, an' the pink lemonade, an'the little fellers slipping under the ropes, an' the Grand Parade comingin, 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 ringmaster?_" "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 reflectupon the general commanding this army--"

A Georgian of Loring's, tall, gaunt, parched, haggard, a college man andhigh private astray from his own brigade, rose to a sitting posture. "What in hell is that young cockerel crowing about? Is it about thedamned individual at the head of this army? I take it that it is. Then Iwill answer him. The individual at the head of this army is not ageneral; he is a schoolmaster. Napoleon, or Caesar, or Marlborough, orEugene, or Cromwell, or Turenne, or Frederick wouldn't turn their headsto look at him as they passed! But every little school-yard martinetwould! He's a pedagogue--by God, he's the Falerian pedagogue who soldhis pupils to the Romans! Oh, the lamb-like pupils, trooping after himthrough flowers and sunshine--straight into the hands of Kelly atRomney, with Rosecrans and twenty thousand just beyond! Yaaah! Aschoolmaster leading Loring and all of us! Let him go back to Lexingtonand teach the Rule of Three, for by God, he'll never demonstrate theRule of One!"

He waved a claw-like hand. "Kindly do not interrupt. Stiff, fanatic, inhuman, callous, cold, half mad and wholly rash, without militarycapacity, ambitious as Lucifer and absurd as Hudibras--I ask again whatis this person doing at the head of this army? Has any one confidence inhim? Has any one pride in him? Has any one love for him? In all thisfrozen waste through which he is dragging us, you couldn't find an echoto say 'One!' Oh, you needn't shout 'One!' You're not an echo; you'reonly 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 manover there--he doesn't count either. He belongs to the StonewallBrigade. He's one of Major-General T. J. Jackson's pet lambs. They'reschool-teachers' favourites. All they've got to do is to cheer for theirmaster. --Hip, hip, hooray! Here's Old Jack with his hand lifted and hisold cap pulled low, and his sabre carried _oblikely_, and his 'God hasbeen 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 theGeorgian. Corbin Wood crawled over and separated them. "Boys, boys!You're quarrelling just because you're sick and tired and cold andfretful! Try to be good children. I predict there'll come a day whenwe'll _all_ cheer like mad--our friend from Georgia, too--all cheer likemad when General Jackson goes by, leading us to victory! Be good now. Iwas at the circus once, when I was a little boy, when the animals got tofighting--"

The way over Bear Garden was steep, the road a mere track amongboulders. There were many fallen trees. In places they lay across theroad, abatis thrown there by the storm to be removed by half-frozenhands while the horses stood and whinnied. The winter day was failingwhen Stonewall Jackson, Ashby, and a portion of the cavalry with thesmall infantry advance, came down by precipitous paths into BloomeryGap. 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 Staffordforward with a statement, couched in terms of courtesy three-piled andicy. The aide--a favourite with his general--had ventured to demur. "Idon'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 theLord, I've seen him make others do it! You go ahead, and when you'rethere talk indigo Presbyterian!"

"There" was a space of trampled snow underneath a giant pine. A picketon the eastern side of the stream pointed it out, three hundred yardsaway, a dark sentinel towering above the forest. "He's thar. His staff'sthis side, by the pawpaw bushes. " Stafford crossed the stream, shallowand filled with floating ice, climbed the shelving bank, and coming tothe pawpaw bushes found Richard Cleave stooping over the small flamethat 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 acouple of sweet potatoes. "

"I can't stay, thank you, " said the other. "General Jackson is overyonder?"

"Yes, by the great pine. I will take you to him. " The two stepped fromout the ring of pawpaws, Stafford, walking, leading his horse. "GeneralLoring complains again?"

"Has he not reason to?" Stafford looked about him. "Ugh! steppes ofRussia!"

"You think it a Moscow march? Perhaps it is. But I doubt if Neycomplained. "

"You think that we complain too much?"

"What do you think of it?"

Stafford stood still. They were beside a dark line of cedars, skirtingthe forest, stretching toward the great pine. It was twilight; all thenarrow valley drear and mournful; horses and men like phantoms on themuffled earth. "I think, " said Stafford deliberately, "that to aNapoleon General Loring would not complain, nor I bear his message ofcomplaint, 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 willqualify that statement. Garnett's Brigade and Ashby's Cavalry have notcomplained. "

"No. Many disagreeable duties are left to the brigades of GeneralLoring. "

"I challenge that statement, sir. It is not true. "

Stafford laughed. "Not true! You will not get us to believe that. Ithink you will find that representations will be forwarded to thegovernment at Richmond--"

"Representations of disaffected soldiers?"

"No, sir! Representations of gentlemen and patriots. Remonstrances ofbrave men against the leadership of a petty tyrant--a diseased mind--aPresbyterian deacon crazed for personal distinction--"

Cleave let his hand fall on the other's wrist. "Stop, sir! You willremember that I am of Garnett's Brigade, and, at present, of GeneralJackson's military family--"

Stafford jerked his wrist away. He breathed hard. All the pentweariness, irritation, wrath, of the past most wretched days, all thechill discomfort of the hour, the enmity toward Cleave of which he wasincreasingly conscious, the very unsoundness of his position anddissatisfaction with his errand, pushed him on. Quarrel was in the air. Eight thousand men had, to-day, found their temper on edge. It was notsurprising that between these two a flame leaped. "Member of Garnett'sBrigade and member of General Jackson's military family to thecontrary, " said Stafford, "these are Russian steppes, and this is amarch from Moscow, and the general in command is no Napoleon, but a fooland 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 hadundoubtedly--the weight of the body being thrown forward--the appearanceof an assault. Stafford's foot slipped upon the freezing snow. Down hecame to the earth, Cleave upon him. A voice behind them spoke with akind of steely curtness, "Stand up, and let me see who you are!"

The two arose and faced Stonewall Jackson. He had come upon themsilently, out from the screen of blackening cedars. Now he blocked theirpath, his lips iron, his eyes a mere gleaming line. "Two squabblersrolling in the snow--two staff officers brawling before a disheartenedarmy! What have you to say for yourselves? Nothing!"

Stafford broke the silence. "Major Cleave has my leave to explain hisaction, sir. "

Jackson's eyes drew to a yet narrower line. "Your leave is notnecessary, sir. What was this brawl about, Major Cleave?"

"We quarrelled, sir, " said Cleave slowly. "Major Stafford gaveutterance to certain sentiments with which I did not agree, and . . . Wequarrelled. "

"What sentiments? Yes, sir, I order you to answer. "

"Major Stafford made certain statements as to the army and thecampaign--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 thecedars seemed to advance; a hollow wind blew through the forest. "Why, Iwill tell you, sir!" said Stafford impatiently. "I said--"

Jackson cut him short. "Be silent, sir! I have not asked you for yourreport. Major Cleave, I am waiting. "

Cleave made a slight gesture, sullen, weary, and determined. "I am verysorry, sir. Major Stafford made certain comments which I resented. Hencethe action of a moment. That is all that I can say, sir. "

Stafford spoke with curt rapidity. "I said that these were Russiansteppes and that this was a march from Moscow, but that we had not aNapoleon to soften privation for us. I said that the Stonewall Brigadewas unduly favoured, that the general commanding was--"

He got no further. "Silence, sir, " said Jackson, "or I will bring youbefore a court martial! You will come with me now to my tent. I willhear General Loring's latest communication there. " He turned uponCleave. "As for you, sir, you will consider yourself under arrest, firstfor disobedience of orders, second for brawling in camp. You will marchto-morrow in the rear of your regiment. "

He towered a moment, then with a jerk of his hand went away, taking withhim the officer from Loring. Stafford had a moment in which to make agesture of anger and deprecation--a gesture which the other acknowledgedwith a nod; then he was gone, looking back once. Cleave returned toTullius and the small fire by the pawpaw bushes. 

An hour later when his regiment came down into Bloomery Gap, he foundthe colonel and made his report. "Why, damn it all!" said the colonel. "We were backing you for the brush. Hunting weather, and a clean runand all the dogs of war to fawn upon you at the end! And here's a paltrythree-foot hedge and a bad tumble! Never you mind! You'll pick yourselfup. Old Jack likes you first-rate. "

Cleave laughed. "It doesn't much look like it, sir! Well--I'm back withthe regiment, anyway!"

All that night it snowed, snowed hard. When the day broke the valley hadthe seeming of a crowded graveyard--numberless white mounds stretchingnorth and south in the feeble light. A bugle blew, silver chill;--themen beneath the snow stirred, moaned, arose all white. All that day theymarched, and at dusk crossed the Capon and bivouacked below the shoulderof Sand Mountain. In the morning they went up the mountain. The road wasdeep sand, intolerably toilsome. The column ascended in long curves, through a wood of oak and hickory, with vast tangles of grape hangingfrom the trees. Cavalry, infantry, artillery, wagon train, stragglers, the army came slowly, slowly down Sand Mountain, crossed the slenderlevels, and climbed Lovett's Mountain. Lovett's was long and high, butat last Lovett's, too, was overpassed. The column crept through a ravinewith a stream to the left. Grey cliffs appeared; fern and laurel growingin the clefts. Below lay deep snowdrifts with blue shadows. Ahead, overarching the road, appeared a grey mass that all but choked thegorge. "Hanging Rock!" quoth some one. "That's where the guns werelost!" The army woke to interest. "Hanging Rock!. . . How're we going toget by? That ain't a road, it's just a cow path!--Powerful good placefor 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 almostburned away, and the charred ruin of a house. By the roadside lay a deadcow; in the field were others, and buzzards were circling above a pieceof woods. A little farther a dog--a big, brown shepherd--lay in themiddle 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 thebarn were burned. 

It was the beginning of a track of desolation. From Hanging Rock toRomney the Confederate column traversed a country where Kelly's troopshad been before it. To well-nigh all of the grey rank and file thevision came with strangeness. They were to grow used to such sights, used, used! but now they flamed white with wrath, they exclaimed, theystammered. "What! what! Just look at that thar tannery! They've slit thehides to ribbons!--That po' ole white horse! What'd he done, Iwonder?. . . 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 morewater go over that wheel!. . . Making war on children and doll babies anddumb animals and mills!"

Now as hereafter the immediate effect was almost that of warmth andrest, food and wine. Suddenly the men began to say, "Old Jack. Wait tillOld Jack gets there! Just wait till Old Jack and us gets there. I reckonthere'll be something doing! There'll be some shooting, I reckon, thatain'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 ofpurplish slate, to either hand great stretches of dogwood showingscarlet berries, or sumach lifting torches in which colour yetsmouldered. The column came down a steep descent, crossed a creek, andsaw before it Jersey Mountain. Jersey Mountain proved ghastly; long, high, bare, blown against by all the winds. There had been upon Jersey afew cabins, a smithy, a mountain school--now there were only blackenedchimneys. The men panted as they climbed; the wind howled along thecrest, the snow began to swirl. At a turn of the road where had been acabin, high upon the bank above the men, stood a mountain woman, herlinsey skirt wrapped about her by the wind, her thick, pale Saxon hairlifted and carried out to its full length, her arms raised above herhead. "Air ye going against them? Air ye going against them? Thelightning go with ye--and the fire go with ye--and the hearts of yourmothers 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 themen's eyes, upon the treeless plateau which marked the summit, a smallcountry church and graveyard. Inexpressibly lonely they looked againstthe stormy sky, lonely and beckoning. From company to company ran astatement. "When you get to that church you're just three miles fromRomney. " Up and up they mounted. The cavalry and advance guard, seen fora moment against a level horizon, disappeared beyond the church, overthe brink of the hill. The main column climbed on through the wind andthe snow; the rear came far behind. The Stonewall Brigade led the mainbody. As it reached the crest of Jersey, a horse and rider, a courier ofJackson's coming from the west, met it, rose in his stirrups, andshouted, "The damned vandals have gone! The Yankees have gone! They'vegotten across the river, away to Cumberland! You weren't quick enough. General Jackson says, 'By God, you are too slow!'" The courier even inhis anger caught himself. "_I_ say, 'By God!' General Jackson says, 'Youare too slow. ' They've gone--only Ashby at their heels! They've lefttheir 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. TheStonewall Brigade left behind the graveyard and the church and began thelong descent. At first a great flame of anger kept up the hearts of themen. But as they marched, as they toiled down Jersey, as the realizationof the facts pressed upon them, there came a change. The enemy had beengone from Bath; the enemy had been inaccessible at Hancock; now theenemy was not at Romney. Cumberland! Cumberland was many a wintry mileaway, on the other side of the Potomac. Here, here on Jersey, there werecold, hunger, weariness, sickness, clothing grown ragged, shoes betweena laugh and a groan, the snow falling, the wind rising, the daydeclining, and misery flapping dark wings above the head of the Army ofthe Northwest! Over the troops flowed, resistless, a wave of reaction, nausea, disappointment, melancholy. The step changed. Toward the foot ofJersey came another courier. "Yes, sir. On toward New Creek. GeneralJackson says, 'Press forward!'"

The Stonewall Brigade tried to obey, and somewhat dismally failed. Howcould it quicken step again? Night was coming, the snow was falling, everybody was sick at heart, hobbling, limping, dog-tired. The _Closeup, men_, the _Get on, men!_ of the officers, thin, like a child'sfretful wail, was taken up by the wind and lost. With Romney well insight came a third courier. "General Jackson says, 'Press forward!'--No, sir. He didn't say anything else. But I've been speaking with a courierof Ashby's. _He_ says there are three railroad bridges, --one acrossPatterson's Creek and two across the river. If they were destroyed theenemy'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, onand on toward the rear, past the Stonewall Brigade, past the artillery, on to Loring yet climbing Jersey. Miles beyond Romney! Railroad bridgesto cut!--Frozen creeks, frozen rivers, steel in a world of snow--Kellyprobably already at Cumberland, and Rosecrans beyond atWheeling--hunger, cold, winter in the spurs of the Alleghenies, disease, stragglers, weariness, worn-out shoes, broken-down horses, disappointment, disillusion, a very, very strange commandinggeneral--Suddenly confidence, heretofore a somewhat limping attendant ofthe army, vanished quite away. The shrill, derisive wind, the greywraiths of snow, the dusk of the mountains took her, conveyed her fromsight, and left the Army of the Northwest to the task of followingwithout her "Fool Tom Jackson. "

CHAPTER XIV

THE IRON-CLADS

Miss Lucy Cary, knitting in hand, stood beside the hearth and surveyedthe large Greenwood parlour. "The lining of the window curtains, " shesaid, "is good, stout, small figured chintz. My mother got it fromEngland. 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 knowwhat use they could make of it, but they can surely do something. Thenet curtains will do to stretch over hospital beds. Call one of theboys, Julius, and have them all taken down. --Well, what is it?"

"Miss Lucy, chile, when you done sont de curtains ter Richmon', how isyou 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 gwineinvestigate dat piano wif?"

"Why, we'll leave it bare, Julius! The grain of the wood shows betterso. "

"The bishop, " said Miss Lucy thoughtfully--"the bishop sent his studycarpet last week. What do you think, Unity?"

Unity, her head to one side, studied the carpet. "Do you reckon theywould really sleep under those roses and tulips, Aunt Lucy? Just imagineEdward!--But if you think it would do any good--"

"We might wait awhile, seeing that spring is here. If the war shouldlast until next winter, of course we shall send it. "

Unity laughed. "Julius looks ten years younger! Why, Uncle Julius, wehave bare floors in summer, anyhow!"

"Yaas, Miss Unity, " said Julius solemnly. "An' on de hottes' day ob Julyyou hab in de back ob yo' haid dat de cyarpets is superimposin' in degarret, in de cedar closet, ready fer de fust day ob November. How yougwine feel when you see November on de road, an' de cedar closet bar ezer bone? Hit ain' right ter take de Greenwood cyarpets an' curtains, an'my tablecloths an' de blankets an' sheets an' Ole Miss's fringedcounterpanes--no'm, hit ain't right eben if de ginerals do sequesteratesupplies! 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 tomake sugar cakes for Sunday?"

"Yes, dear, I did. I am sorry, for I know that you like them. Buteverything is so hard to get--and the armies--and the poor people. I'vetold Car'line to give us no more desserts. "

"Oh!" cried Molly. "I wasn't complaining! It was Car'line who wasfussing. I'd give the army every loaf of sugar, and all the flour. Isthat 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 velvetcover, and began to fold it. Muttering and shaking his head, Julius leftthe room. Miss Lucy went over and stood before the portrait of hermother. "Unity, " she said, "would you send the great coffee urn toRichmond for the Gunboat Fair, or would you send lace?"

Unity pondered the question. "The lace would be easier to send, butmaybe they would rather have the silver. I don't see who is to buy atthe Fair--every one is _giving_. Oh, I wish we had a thousand gunboatsand 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 isblowing the elms almost to the ground! There are black clouds in theeast. I hope that there are clouds over the ocean, and over Chesapeake, and over Hampton Roads--except where the Merrimac lies! I hope thatthere it is still and sunny. Clouds, and a wind like a hurricane, a windthat 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 thesea!"

She crossed the room, opened the French window, and stood, a hand oneither side of the window frame, facing the darkened sky and thewind-tossed oaks. Behind her, in the large old parlour, there was aninstant's silence. Molly broke it with a shocked cry, "Judith JacquelineCary!"

Judith did not answer. She stood with her hair lifted by the wind, herhands wide, touching the window sides, her dark eyes upon the bendingoaks. 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 usalone. They have shut up all our ports. God forgive me, but I am blithewhen I hear of their ships gone down at sea!"

"Yes, " said Judith, without turning. "Not stranded as they were beforeRoanoke Island, but wrecked and sunken. Come, look, Unity, at the wildstorm!"

Unity came and stood beside her. The oaks outside, like the elms at theback of the house, were moving in the blast. Over them hurried theclouds, black, large, and low. Down the driveway the yellow forsythias, the red pyrus japonicas showed in blurs of colours. The lightningflashed, and a long roll of thunder jarred the room. "You were thedreamer, " 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 candream--no, not dream, see! I follow all the time--I follow with my mindthe troops upon the march, and the ships on the sea. I do not hate theships--they are beautiful, with the green waves about them and thesea-gulls with shining wings. And yet I wish that they would sink--down, down quickly, before there was much suffering, before the men on themhad time for thought. They should go like a stone to the bottom, withoutsuffering, and they should lie there, peacefully, until their spiritsare called again. And our ports should be open, and less blood would beshed. Less blood, less anger, less wretchedness, less pain, lessshedding 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 fromthe trunk, came crashing down and out upon the lawn. The thunder rolledagain, 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 ofthe 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 houseappeared the dogs, then, in the storm, two or three turbaned negresses. Mammy, coifed and kerchiefed, came down the stairs and through thehouse. "O my Lawd! Hit's my baby! O glory be! Singin' jes' lak he ustersing, 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. Beyondthe nearer trees, by the great pyrus japonica bush, flame-red, she met aragged spectre, an Orpheus afoot and travel-stained, a demigod showingsigns of service in the trenches, Edward Cary, in short, beautifulstill, but gaunt as any wolf. The two embraced; they had always beencomrades. "Edward, Edward--"

"Eleven months, " said Edward. "Judith, Judith, if you knew how good homelooks--"

"How thin you are, and brown! And walking!--Where is Prince John--andJeames?"

"Didn't I tell you in my last letter? Prince John was killed in a fightwe 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 daysmyself. Furloughs are hard to get, but just now the government will doanything for anybody who was on the Merrimac--You're worn yourself, Judith, and your eyes are so big and dark!--Is it Maury Stafford orRichard Cleave?"

Amid the leaping of the dogs they reached the gravelled space before thehouse. Miss Lucy folded her nephew in her arms. "God bless you, Edward--" She held him off and looked at him. "I never saw itbefore--but you're like your grandfather, my dear; you're like my dearfather!--O child, how thin you are!"

Unity and Molly hung upon him. "The papers told us that you were on theMerrimac--though we don't know how you got there! Did you come fromRichmond? 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' erbaby still--"

Edward hugged her. "One night in the trenches, not long ago, I swear Iheard you singing, mammy! I couldn't sleep. And at last I said, 'I'llput 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, andanswers. "So short a furlough--when we have not seen you for almost ayear! Never mind--of course, you must get back. We'll have a littleparty for you to-morrow night. Oh, how brown you are, and your uniform'sso ragged! Never mind--we've got a bolt of Confederate cloth and JohnnyBates shall come out to-morrow. . . . All well. Knitting and watching, watching and knitting. The house has been full of refugees--Fairfaxesand Fauntleroys. They've gone on to Richmond, and we're alone just now. We take turn about at the hospitals in Charlottesville--there are threehundred sick--and we look after the servants and the place and the poorfamilies whose men are gone, and we read the papers over and over, everyword--and we learn letters off by heart, and we make lint, and we twistand turn and manage, and we knit and knit and wait and wait--Here'sJulius with the wine! And your room's ready--fire and hot water, andyoung Cato to take Jeames's place. Car'line is making sugar cakes, andwe 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 thelast of the coffee poured from the urn that had not yet gone to theGunboat Fair, with the Greenwood ladies dressed in the best of theirlast 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-roomboy, duskily smiling in the background, with the spring rain beatingagainst the panes, with the light-wood burning on the hearth, withChurchill and Cary and Dandridge portraits, now in shadow, now in gleamupon the walls--with all the cheer, the light, the gracious warmth ofHome. None of the women spoke of how seldom they burned candles now, ofhow the coffee had been saved against an emergency, and of the luxurywhite bread was becoming. They ignored, too, the troubles of theplantation. They would not trouble their soldier with the growingdifficulty of finding food for the servants and for the stock, of theplough horses gone, and no seed for the sowing, of the problem it was toclothe the men, women, and children, with osnaburgh at thirty-eightcents a yard, with the difficulties of healing the sick, medicine havingbeen declared contraband of war and the home supply failing. They wouldnot trouble him with the makeshifts of women, their forebodings as toshoes, as to letter paper, their windings here and there through a mazeof difficulties strange to them as a landscape of the moon. They wouldlearn, and it was but little harder than being in the field. Not thatthey thought of it in that light; they thought the field as much harderas it was more glorious. Nothing was too good for their soldier; theywould have starved a week to have given him the white bread, the loafsugar, and the Mocha. 

Supper over, he went down to the house quarter to speak to the men andwomen there; then, in the parlour, at the piano, he played with hismasterly touch "The Last Waltz, " and then he came to the fire, took hisgrandfather'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 canalboats, to the end that Burnside should not get by. Besides the canalboats and the guns and the waterfowl there was a deal offever--malarial--of exposure, of wet, of mouldy bread, of homesicknessand general desolation. Some courage existed, too, and singing at times. We had been down there a long time among the marshes--all winter, infact. About two weeks ago--"

"Oh, Edward, were you very homesick?"

"Devilish. For the certain production of a very curious feeling, give mepicket duty on a wet marsh underneath the stars! Poeticplaces--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 ElCapitan Colorado--General Magruder, you know--gold lace, stars, andblack 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 beingin 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 thatis 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'veraised her, and cut her down to her berth deck, and made of her what wecall an iron-clad. An iron-clad is a new man-of-war that's going to takethe place of the old. The Merrimac is not a frigate any longer; she'sthe iron-clad Virginia, and we rather think she's going to make her nameremembered. She's over there at the Gosport Navy Yard, and she's almostready. 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 beautythat you ever saw! She's almost ready to send to Davy Jones's locker aYankee ship or two. Commodore Buchanan commands her, and you know who heis! 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'smen are scarcer, my friends, than hen's teeth! It's what comes of havingno maritime population. Every man Jack that isn't on our few littleships is in the army--and the Virginia wants a crew of three hundred ofthe bravest of the brave! Now, I am talking to Virginians andLouisianians. Many of you are from New Orleans, and that means that someof you may very well have been seamen--seamen at an emergency, anyhow!Anyhow, when it comes to an emergency Virginians and Louisianians arethere to meet it--on sea or on land! Just now there is an emergency--theVirginia's got to have a crew. General Magruder, for all he's got only asmall force with which to hold a long line--General Magruder, like thepatriot 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 thestrangest deck of the strangest ship that ever you saw! No fear for thelaurels! They're fresh and green even under our belching smokestack. TheMerrimac is up like the phoenix; and the last state of her is greaterthan the first, and her name is going down in history! Louisianians andVirginians, 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 abaker's dozen of ignoramuses beside. I came in with that portion of theelect. And off we went, in boats, across the James to the southern shoreand 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 appearanceof a barn with everything but the roof submerged--or of Noah's Ark, three fourths under water! Sometimes, when the flag is flying, she hasthe air of a piece of earthworks, mysteriously floated off into theriver. Ordinarily, though, she is rather like a turtle, with a chimneysticking up from her shell. The shell is made of pitch pine and oak, andit is covered with two-inch thick plates of Tredegar iron. The beak isof cast iron, standing four feet out from the bow; that, with the restof the old berth deck, is just awash. Both ends of the shell are roundedfor pivot guns. Over the gun deck is an iron grating on which you canwalk at need. There is the pilot-house covered with iron, and there isthe smokestack. Below are the engines and boilers, condemned after theMerrimac's last cruise, and, since then, lying in the ooze at the bottomof 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 lastfrom away out in Montgomery County, from the Price coal-fields. The gunsare 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 muchlike that as like anything else. 

"When we eighty men from the Warwick first saw her, she was swarmingwith workmen. They continued to cover her over, and to make impossibleany drill or exercise upon her. Hammer, hammer upon belated plates fromthe Tredegar! Tinker, tinker with the poor old engines! Make shift hereand make shift there; work through the day and work through the night, for there was a rumour abroad that the Ericsson, that we knew wasbuilding, was coming down the coast! There was no chance to drill, tobecome acquainted with the turtle and her temperament. Her species hadnever gone to war before, and when you looked at her there was room fordoubt as to how she would behave! Officers and men were strange to oneanother--and the gunners could not try the guns for the swarmingworkmen. There wasn't so much of the Montgomery coal that it could bewasted on experiments in firing up--and, indeed, it seemed wise not toexperiment at all with the ancient engines! So we stood about the navyyard, and looked down the Elizabeth and across the flats to HamptonRoads, where we could see the Cumberland, the Congress, and theMinnesota, Federal ships lying off Newport News--and the workmenrivetted the last plates--and smoke began to come out of thesmokestack--and suddenly Commodore Buchanan, with his lieutenants behindhim, appeared between us and the Merrimac--or the Virginia. Most of usstill call her the Merrimac. It was the morning of the eighth. The sunshone brightly and the water was very blue--blue and still. There weresea-gulls, I remember, flying overhead, screaming as they flew--and themarshes were growing emerald--"

"Yes, yes! What did Commodore Buchanan want?"

"Don't be impatient, Molly! You women don't in the least look likeGriseldas! Aunt Lucy has the air of her pioneer great-grandmother whohas heard an Indian calling! And as for Judith--Judith!"

"Yes, Edward. "

"Come back to Greenwood. You looked a listening Jeanne d'Arc. What didyou hear?"

"I heard the engines working, and the sea fowl screaming, and the windin the rigging of the Cumberland. Go on, Edward. "

"We soldiers turned seamen came to attention. 'Get on board, men, ' saidCommodore Buchanan. 'We are going out in the Roads and introduce a newera. ' So off the workmen came and on we went--the flag officers and thelieutenants and the midshipmen and the surgeons and the volunteer aidesand the men. The engineers were already below and the gunners werelooking at the guns. The smoke rolled up very black, the ropes were castoff, a bugle blew, out streamed the stars and bars, all the workmen onthe dock swung their hats, and down the Elizabeth moved the Merrimac. She moved slowly enough with her poor old engines, and she steeredbadly, and she drew twenty-two feet, and she was ugly, ugly, ugly, --poorthing!

"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, andthere are forts upon the main along the James. All these were nowcrowded with men, hurrahing, waving their caps. . . . As we passed Craneythey were singing 'Dixie. ' So we came out into the James to HamptonRoads. 

"Now all the southern shore from Willoughby's Spit to Ragged Island isas grey as a dove, and all the northern shore from Old Point Comfort toNewport News is blue where the enemy has settled. In between are theshining Roads. Between the Rip Raps and Old Point swung at anchor theRoanoke, the Saint Lawrence, a number of gunboats, store ships, andtransports, and also a French man-of-war. Far and near over the Roadswere many small craft. The Minnesota, a large ship, lay halfway betweenOld Point and Newport News. At the latter place there is a large Federalgarrison, and almost in the shadow of its batteries rode at anchor thefrigate Congress and the sloop Cumberland. The first had fifty guns, thesecond thirty. The Virginia, or the Merrimac, or the turtle, creepingout from the Elizabeth, crept slowly and puffing black smoke into theSouth Channel. The pilot, in his iron-clad pilot-house no bigger than ahickory nut, put her head to the northwest. The turtle began to swimtoward Newport News. 

"Until now not a few of us within her shell, and almost all of thesoldiers and the forts along the shore, had thought her upon a trialtrip only, --down the Elizabeth, past Craney Island, turn at Sewell'sPoint, and back to the dock of the Gosport Navy Yard! When she did notturn, the cheering on the shore stopped; you felt the breathlessness. When she passed the point and took to the South Channel, when her headturned upstream, when she came abreast of the Middle Ground, when theysaw that the turtle was going to fight, from along the shore to Craneyand from Sewell's Point there arose a yell. Every man in grey yelled. They swung hat or cap; they shouted themselves hoarse. All the flagsstreamed suddenly out, trumpets blared, the sky lifted, and we drank thesunshine in like wine; that is, some of us did. To others it came coldlike hemlock against the lip. Fear is a horrible sensation. I wasdreadfully afraid--"

"Edward!"

"Dreadfully. But you see I didn't tell any one I was afraid, and thatmakes all the difference! Besides, it wore off. . . . It was a spring dayand high tide, and the Federal works at Newport News and the Congressand the Cumberland and the more distant Minnesota all looked asleep inthe calm, sweet weather. Washing day it was on the Congress, and clotheswere drying in the rigging. That aspect as of painted ships, paintedbreastworks, a painted sea-piece, lasted until the turtle reachedmid-channel. Then the other side woke up. Upon the shore appeared a blueswarm--men running to and fro. Bugles signalled. A commotion, too, aroseupon the Congress and the Cumberland. Her head toward the latter ship, the turtle puffed forth black smoke and wallowed across the channel. Anuglier poor thing you never saw, nor a bolder! Squat to the water, belching black smoke, her engines wheezing and repining, unwieldy ofmanagement, her bottom scraping every hummock of sand in all the shoalyRoads--ah, she was ugly and courageous! Our two small gunboats, theRaleigh and the Beaufort, coming from Norfolk, now overtook us, --we wenton together. I was forward with the crew of the 7-inch pivot gun. Icould see through the port, above the muzzle. Officers and men, we wereall cooped under the turtle's shell; in order by the open ports, and theguns all ready. . . . We came to within a mile of the Cumberland, tall andgraceful with her masts and spars and all the blue sky above. She lookeda swan, and we, the Ugly Duckling. . . . Our ram, you know, was underwater--seventy feet of the old berth deck, ending in a four-foot beak ofcast iron. . . . We came nearer. At three quarters of a mile, we openedwith the bow gun. The Cumberland answered, and the Congress, and theirgunboats and shore batteries. Then began a frightful uproar that shookthe marshes and sent the sea birds screaming. Smoke arose, and flashingfire, and an excitement--an excitement--an excitement. --Then it was, ladies, that I forgot to be afraid. The turtle swam on, toward theCumberland, swimming as fast as Montgomery coal and the engines that hadlain at the bottom of the sea could make her go. There was a frightfulnoise within her shell, a humming, a shaking. The Congress, the gunboatsand the shore batteries kept firing broadsides. There was an enormous, thundering noise, and the air was grown sulphurous cloud. Their shotcame 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 awithering fire. We returned it, and steered on for the Cumberland. Aword ran from end to end of the turtle's shell, 'We are going to ramher--stand by, men!'

"Within easy range we fired the pivot gun. I was of her crew; half nakedwe were, powder-blackened and streaming with sweat. The shell she sentburst above the Cumberland's stern pivot, killing or wounding most ofher crew that served it. . . . We went on. . . . Through the port I could nowsee the Cumberland plainly, her starboard side just ahead of us, men inthe shrouds and running to and fro on her deck. When we were all but onher, her starboard blazed. That broadside tore up the carriage of ourpivot gun, cut another off at the trunnions, and the muzzle from athird, riddled the smokestack and steam-pipe, carried away an anchor, and killed or wounded nineteen men. The Virginia answered with threeguns; 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 witha dull and grinding sound. The iron beak with which we were armed waswrested off. 

"The Virginia shivered, hung a moment, then backed clear of theCumberland, in whose side there was now a ragged and a gaping hole. Thepilot in the iron-clad pilot-house turned her head upstream. The waterwas shoal; she had to run up the James some way before she could turnand come back to attack the Congress. Her keel was in the mud; she wascreeping now like a land turtle, and all the iron shore was firing ather. . . . She turned at last in freer water and came down the Roads. Through the port we could see the Cumberland that we had rammed. Shehad 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 pivotguns. She fought to the last. A man of ours, stepping for one momentthrough a port to the outside of the turtle's shell, was cut in two. Asthe water rose and rose, the sound of her guns was like a lesseningthunder. 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 thathad been anchored far up the river. The Patrick Henry had twelve guns, the Jamestown had two, and the Teaser one. Down they scurried like threevaliant marsh hens to aid the turtle. With the Beaufort and the Raleighthere 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 ofthe Patrick Henry, scalding to death the men who were near. . . . Theturtle sank a transport steamer lying alongside the wharf at NewportNews, 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 inthe shallows where she was safe from the ram of the Merrimac. We couldget no nearer than two hundred feet. There we took up position, andthere we began to rake her, the Beaufort, the Raleigh, and the Jamestowngiving us what aid they might. She had fifty guns, and there were theheavy shore batteries, and below her the Minnesota. This ship, alsoaground in the Middle Channel, now came into action with a roar. Ahundred guns were trained upon the Merrimac. The iron hail beat downevery point, not iron-clad, that showed above our shell. The muzzle oftwo 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 poorfellows that the Cumberland's guns had mowed down, we now had otherkilled and wounded. Commodore Buchanan was badly hurt, and the flaglieutenant, Minor. The hundred guns thundered against the Merrimac, andthe Merrimac thundered against the Congress. The tall frigate and herfifty guns wished herself an iron-clad; the swan would have blithelychanged with the ugly duckling. We brought down her mainmast, wedisabled her guns, we strewed her decks with blood and anguish (war is awild beast, nothing more, and I'll hail the day when it lies slain). Wesmashed in her sides and we set her afire. She hauled down her coloursand ran up a white flag. The Merrimac ceased firing and signalled to theBeaufort. The Beaufort ran alongside, and the frigate's ranking officergave up his colours and his sword. The Beaufort's and the Congress's ownboats removed the crew and the wounded. . . . The shore batteries, theMinnesota, the picket boat Zouave, kept up a heavy firing all the whileupon the Merrimac, upon the Raleigh and the Jamestown, and also upon theBeaufort. We waited until the crew was clear of the Congress, and thenwe gave her a round of hot shot that presently set her afire from stemto stern. This done, we turned to other work. 

"The Minnesota lay aground in the North Channel. To her aid hurrying upfrom Old Point came the Roanoke and the Saint Lawrence. Our ownbatteries at Sewell's Point opened upon these two ships as they passed, and they answered with broadsides. We fed our engines, and under abillow of black smoke ran down to the Minnesota. Like the Congress, shelay upon a sand bar, beyond fear of ramming. We could only manoeuvrefor deep water, near enough to her to be deadly. It was now lateafternoon. I could see through the port of the bow pivot the slantsunlight upon the water, and how the blue of the sky was paling. TheMinnesota lay just ahead; very tall she looked, another of the Congressbreed; the old warships singing their death song. As we came on we firedthe bow gun, then, lying nearer her, began with broadsides. But we couldnot get near enough; she was lifted high upon the sand, the tide wasgoing out, and we drew twenty-three feet. We did her great harm, but wewere 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 theSaint Lawrence remained to thunder at the turtle's iron shell. TheMerrimac was most unhandy, and on the ebb tide there would be shoalsenough between us and a berth for the night. . . . The Minnesota could notget away, at dawn she would be yet aground, and we would then take herfor our prize. 'Stay till dusk, and the blessed old iron box will groundherself where Noah's flood won't float her!' The pilot ruled, and in thegold and purple sunset we drew off. As we passed, the Minnesota blazedwith all her guns; we answered her, and answered, too, the SaintLawrence. The evening star was shining when we anchored off Sewell'sPoint. The wounded were taken ashore, for we had no place for woundedmen under the turtle's shell. Commodore Buchanan leaving us, LieutenantCatesby Ap Rice Jones took command. 

"I do not remember what we had for supper. We had not eaten since earlymorning, so we must have had something. But we were too tired to thinkor to reason or to remember. We dropped beside our guns and slept, butnot for long. Three hours, perhaps, we slept, and then a whisper seemedto run through the Merrimac. It was as though the iron-clad herself hadspoken, 'Come! watch the Congress die!' Most of us arose from beside theguns and mounted to the iron grating above, to the top of the turtle'sshell. 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 OldPoint, lights on the battery at the Rip Raps, lights in the frightenedshipping, huddled under the guns of Fortress Monroe, lights along eithershore. There were lanterns in the rigging of the Minnesota where she layupon 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 fastfor a rowboat--funny! right on the water like that!' 'A launch, Ireckon, ' said a third, 'with plenty of rowers. Now it's behind theMinnesota. '--'Shut up, you talkers, ' said a midshipman, 'I want to lookat the Congress!'

"Four miles away, off Newport News, lay the burning Congress. In thestill, 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 redeyes. Her ports were windows lit from within. She made a vision ofbeauty and of horror. One by one, as they were reached by the flame, herguns exploded--a loud and awful sound in the night above the Roads. Westood and watched that sea picture, and we watched in silence. We areseeing giant things, and ere this war is ended we shall see more. At twoo'clock in the morning the fire reached her powder magazine. She blewup. A column like the Israelite's Pillar shot to the zenith; there camean earthquake sound, sullen and deep; when all cleared there was onlyher hull upborne by the sand and still burning. It burned until thedawn, when it smouldered and went out. "

The narrator arose, walked the length of the parlour, and came back tothe four women. "Haven't you had enough for to-night? Unity lookssleepy, and Judith's knitting has lain this half-hour on the floor. Judith!"

Molly spoke. "Judith says that if there is fighting around Richmond sheis going there to the hospitals, to be a nurse. The doctors here saythat 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 everyman stood to the guns, and the Merrimac moved from Sewell's Point, herhead turned to the Minnesota, away across, grounded on a sand bank inthe North Channel. The sky was as pink as the inside of a shell, and athin white mist hung over the marshes and the shore and the greatstretch of Hampton Roads. It was so thin that the masts of the shipshuddled below Fortress Monroe rose clear of it into the flush of thecoming sun. All their pennants were flying--the French man-of-war, andthe northern ships. At that hour the sea-gulls are abroad, searching fortheir food. They went past the ports, screaming and moving their silverwings. 

"The Minnesota grew in size. Every man of us looked eagerly--from thepilot-house, from the bow ports, and as we drew parallel with her fromthe ports of the side. We fired the bow gun as we came on and the shottold. There was some cheering; the morning air was so fine and the prizeso sure! The turtle was in spirits--poor old turtle with her batteredshell 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, andshe drew so deep that, in that shoaly water, she went aground twicebetween Sewell's Point and the stretch she had now reached of smoothpink water, with the sea-gulls dipping between her and the Minnesota. Despite the engines she was happy, and the gunners were all ready at thestarboard 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 acheese-box on a shingle. It had lain there hidden by her bulk sincemidnight. It was its single light that we had watched and thought nomore of! A cheese-box on a shingle--and now it darted into the open asthough a boy's arm had sent it! It was little beside the Minnesota. Itwas little even beside the turtle. There was a silence when we saw it, asilence of astonishment. It had come so quietly upon the scene--a _deusex machina_, indeed, dropped from the clouds between us and our prey. Ina moment we knew it for the Ericsson--the looked-for other iron-clad weknew to be a-building. The Monitor, they call it. . . . The shingle wasjust awash; the cheese-box turned out to be a revolving turret, mail-clad and carrying two large, modern guns--11-inch. The whole thingwas armoured, had the best of engines, and drew only twelve feet. . . . Well, the Merrimac had a startled breath, to be sure--there is nodenying the drama of the Monitor's appearance--and then she righted andbegan firing. She gave to the cheese-box, or to the armoured turret, oneafter the other, three broadsides. The turret blazed and answered, andthe balls rebounded from each armoured champion. " He laughed. "ByHeaven! it was like our old favourites, Ivanhoe and De BoisGuilbert--the ugliest squat gnomes of an Ivanhoe and of a Brian de BoisGuilbert that ever came out of a nightmare! We thundered in the lists, and then we passed each other, turned, and again encountered. Sometimeswe were a long way apart, and sometimes there was not ten feet of waterbetween those sunken decks from which arose the iron shell of theMerrimac and the iron turret of the Monitor. She fired every sevenminutes; we as rapidly as we could load. Now it was the bow gun, now theafter pivot, now a full broadside. Once or twice we thought her donefor, but always her turret revolved, and her 11-inch guns opened again. In her lighter draught she had a great advantage; she could turn andwind where we could not. The Minnesota took a hand, and an iron batteryfrom the shore. We were striving to ram the Ericsson, but we could notget close to her; our iron beak, too, was sticking in the side of thesunken Cumberland--we could only ram with the blunt prow. The Minnesota, as we passed, gave us all her broadside guns--a tremendous fusillade atpoint-blank range, which would have sunk any ship of the swan breed. Theturtle shook off shot and shell, grape and canister, and answered withher 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 onfire. Leaving disaster aboard the Minnesota, we turned and sunk thetugboat Dragon. Then came manoeuvre and manoeuvre to gain positionwhere we could ram the Monitor. . . . 

"We got it at last. The engines made an effort like the leap of thespirit before expiring. 'Go ahead! Full speed!' We went; we bore downupon the Monitor, now in deeper water. But at the moment that we sawvictory she turned. Our bow, lacking the iron beak, gave but a glancingstroke. It was heavy as it was; the Monitor shook like a man with theague, but she did not share the fate of the Cumberland. There was noragged hole in her side; her armour was good, and held. She backed, gathered herself together, then rushed forward, striving to ram us inher turn. But our armour, too, was good, and held. Then she came uponthe Merrimac's quarter, laid her bow against the shell, and fired her11-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. Theshots struck above the ports of the after guns, and every man at thoseguns was knocked down by the impact and bled at the nose and ears. TheMonitor dropped astern, and again we turned and tried to ram her. Buther far lighter draught put her where we could not go; our bow, too, wasnow twisted and splintered. Our powder was getting low. We did not spareit, we could not; we sent shot and shell continuously against theMonitor, and she answered in kind. Monitor and Merrimac, we went nowthis way, now that, the Ericsson much the lighter and quickest, theMerrimac fettered by her poor old engines, and her great length, and hertwenty-three feet draught. It was two o'clock in the afternoon. . . . Theduelists stepped from off the cloak, tried operations at a distance, hung for a moment in the wind of indecision, then put down the matchfrom the gunners' hands. The Monitor darted from us, her head toward theshoal water known as the Middle Ground. She reached it and restedtriumphant, out of all danger from our ram, and yet where she couldstill protect the Minnesota. . . . A curious silence fell upon the Roads;sullen like the hush before a thunderstorm, and yet not like that, forwe had had the thunderstorm. It was the stillness, perhaps, ofexhaustion. It was late afternoon, the fighting had been heavy. The airwas filled with smoke; in the water were floating spars and wreckage ofthe ships we had destroyed. The weather was sultry and still. The doggedbooming of a gun from a shore battery sounded lonely and remote as abell buoy. The tide was falling; there were sand-bars enough between usand Sewell's Point. We waited an hour. The Monitor was rightly contentwith the Middle Ground, and would not come back for all our charming. Wefired at intervals, upon her and upon the Minnesota, but at last ourpowder grew so low that we ceased. The tide continued to fall, and thepilot had much to say. . . . The red sun sank in the west; the engineersfed the ancient mariners with Montgomery coal; black smoke gushed forthand pilots felt their way into the South Channel, and slowly, slowlyback toward Sewell's Point. The day closed in a murky evening with ataste of smoke in the air. In the night-time the Monitor went down theRoads to Fortress Monroe, and in the morning we took the Merrimac intodry 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 theCumberland. Her boats were gone, and her smokestack as full of holes asany colander, and the engines at the last gasp. Several of the guns wereinjured, and coal and powder and ammunition all lacked. We put herthere--the dear and ugly warship, the first of the iron-clads--we puther there in dry dock, and there she's apt to stay for some weeks tocome. Lieutenant Wood was sent to Richmond with the report for thepresident and the secretary of the navy. He carried, too, the flag ofthe Congress, and I was one of the men detailed for its charge. . . . Andnow 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-enguerre. " Miss Lucy took up her knitting, and knitted very rapidly, hereyes now upon her nephew, now upon her father's portrait. Judith, risingfrom the old cross-stitch tabouret where she had been sitting, laid afresh 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 theValley?"

Unity answered: "General Banks has crossed the Potomac and enteredWinchester--poor, poor Winchester! General Jackson hasn't quite fivethousand men. He has withdrawn toward Woodstock. In spite of thatdreadful Romney march, General Johnston and the soldiers seem to haveconfidence in him--"

Molly came in with her soft little voice. "Major Stafford has beentransferred. He is with General Ewell on the Rappahannock. He writes toJudith every week. They are beautiful letters--they make you seeeverything that is done. "

"What do you hear from Richard Cleave?"

"He never writes. "

Judith came back from the window. "It is raining, raining! The petalsare falling from the pyrus japonica, and all the trees are bending!Edward, war is terrible, but it lifts you up. . . . " She locked her handsbehind her head. "It lifts you up, out in the storm or listening to whatthe ships have done, or to the stories that are told! And then you lookat the unploughed land, and you wait for the bulletins, and you go tothe hospital down there, . . . And you say, 'Never--oh, nevermore let ushave 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 thathid 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 wasmisinformed--more than we thought--Shields and nine thousand men. "

Along the line the soldiers slightly moved their feet, moistened theirlips. The 65th occupied a fairy dell where Quaker ladies, blue as theheavens, bloomed by every stone. A Federal battery opened from a hill tothe right. A screaming shell entered the wood, dug into earth, andexploded, showering all around with mould. There came a great burst ofmusic--the Northern bands playing as the regiments deployed. "That's'Yankee Doodle!'" said the men. "Everybody's cartridge-box full? JohnnyLemon, don't you forgit to take your ramrod out before you fire!"

The colonel came along the line. "Boys, there is going to be aconsiderable 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'smoving from the Rapidan toward Richmond, and he doesn't want Banksbothering him. He says, 'Delay the enemy as long as you can. ' NowGeneral Jackson's undertaken to do it. We've got thirty-five hundredmen, and that ought to be enough. --_Right face! Forward march!_"

As the troops crossed the Valley pike the men hailed it. "Howdy, oldRoad! Pleased to meet you again. Lord! jest as fresh as a daisy--jest asthough we hadn't tramped them thirty-six miles from New Market sinceyesterday daybreak! My Lord! wish I had your staying qualities--_Aure-vo-ree!_"

Stone fences bordered the pike. The infantry, moving in double column, climbed them and entered another strip of springtime woods. Theartillery--McLaughlin's, Carpenter's, and Waters's batteries--found across-roads and thundered by, straining to the front. Ashby, togetherwith Chew's battery of horse artillery, kept the pike the other side ofKernstown. In front of the infantry stretched a great open marshymeadow, utterly without cover. Beyond this to the north, rose low hills, and they were crowned with Federal batteries, while along the slopes andin the vales between showed masses of blue infantry, clearly visible, inimposing strength and with bright battle-flags. It was high noon, beneath a brilliant sky. There were persistent musicians on the northernside; all the blue regiments came into battle to the sound of first-ratemilitary bands. The grey listened. "They sure are fond of 'YankeeDoodle!' There are three bands playing it at once. . . . There's the 'StarSpangled 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'rewaiting for the artillery to get ahead. We're going to turn the enemy'sright--Shields's division, Kimball commanding. You see that wooded ridgeaway across there? That's our objective. That's Pritchard's Hill, whereall the flags are--How many men have they got? Oh, about ninethousand. --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 theValley crossed the endless open meadow beneath Kimball's batteries. Thatthe latter's range was poor was a piece of golden fortune. The shellscrossed to the wood or exploded high in blue air. Harmless they mightbe, but undeniably they were trying. Involuntarily the men stared, fascinated, at each round white cloud above them; involuntarily jerkedtheir heads at each rending explosion. From a furrowed ridge below theguns, musketry took a hand. The Army of the Valley here first met withminie balls. The sound with which they came curdled the blood. "What'sthat? What's that?. . . That's something new. _The infernal things!_"Billy Maydew, walking with his eyes on the minies, stumbled over afairy's ring and came to his knees. Lieutenant Coffin swore at him. "---- ----! Gawking and gaping as though 'twere Christmas and Romancandles going off! Getup!" Billy arose and marched on. "I air a-going tokill him. Yes, sir; I air a-going to kill him yet. " "Shoo!" said the manbeside him. "He don't mean no harm. He's jest as nervous as a two-yearfilly, and he's got to take it out on some one! Next 'lection ofofficers 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 stillrained. An oak, struck and split by solid shot, fell across the way. Aline of ambulances coming somehow upon the hillside fared badly. Up themen strained to the top, which proved to be a wide level. TheRockbridge battery passed them at a gallop, to be greeted by a shellthrown from a thirty-two pounder on the Federal right. It struck a wheelhorse of one of the howitzers, burst, and made fearful havoc. Torn fleshand blood were everywhere; a second horse was mangled, only lesshorribly than the first; the third, a strong white mare, was so coveredwith the blood of her fellows and from a wound of her own, that shelooked a roan. The driver's spine was crushed, the foot of a gunner wastaken 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 otherguns of the battery, together with Carpenter's and Waters's, swept roundthe ruin and over the high open ground toward a stone wall that randiagonally across. The infantry followed and came out on an old field, strewn with rocks and blackberry bushes. In the distance stretchedanother long stone wall. Beyond it, on the gentle slopes, were gunsenough and blue soldiers enough--blue soldiers, with bright flags abovethem and somewhere still that insistent music. They huzzahed when theysaw the Confederates, and the Confederates answered with that strangestbattle shout, that wild and high and ringing cry called the "rebelyell. "

In the woods along the ridge and in the old field itself the infantrydeployed. There were portions of three brigades, --Fulkerson's, Burk's, and the Stonewall. Fulkerson held the left, Burk with the IrishBattalion the right, and Garnett the centre. The position wascommanding, the Confederate strength massed before the Federal right, Shields's centre well to the eastward, and his left under Sullivan inthe air, on the other side of the pike. It was Stonewall Jackson'sdesire to turn that right flank, to crumple it back upon the centre, andto sweep by on the road to Winchester--the loved valley town so nearthat one might see its bourgeoning trees, hear its church bells. 

He rode, on Little Sorrel, up and down the forming lines, and he spokeonly to give orders, quiet and curt, much in his class-room tone. He wasall brown like a leaf with Valley dust and sun and rain. The old cadetcap was older yet, the ancient boots as grotesquely large, the curiouslift of his hand to Heaven no less curious than it had always been. Hewas as awkward, as hypochondriac, as literal, as strict as ever. Moreover, there should have hung about him the cloud of disfavour andhostility raised by that icy march to Romney less than three months ago. And yet--and yet! What had happened since then? Not much, indeed. Thereturn of the Stonewall Brigade to Winchester, Loring's representations, the War Department's interference, and Major-General T. J. Jackson'sresignation from the service and request to be returned to the VirginiaMilitary 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 themselvesof this withdrawal. They had greeted the news with hurrahs; they hadbeen all that day in extraordinary spirits. Why? To save them they couldnot have told. He had not won any battles. He had been harsh, hostile, pedantic, suspected, and detested upon that unutterable Bath and Romneytrip. And yet--and yet! He was cheered when, at Winchester, it was knownthat the Army of the Valley and not the Virginia Military Institute wasto have Major-General T. J. Jackson's services. He was cheered when, atshort intervals, in the month or two there in camp, he reviewed hisarmy. He was cheered when, a month ago, the army left Winchester, leftthe 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, backalong the pike, back toward Winchester. 

He was cheered now as he rode quietly to and fro, forming his line ofbattle--Fulkerson's 23d and 37th Virginia on the left, then the 27thsupported by the 21st, in the second line the 4th, the 33d, the 2d, the65th, a little back the Irish Battalion, and at the bottom of the ridgethe 5th, keeping touch with Ashby toward the pike. It was two of theafternoon, beautiful and bright. A brigadier, meeting him, said, "Wewere not sure, general, that you would fight to-day! It is Sunday. "

The other fastened upon him his steady grey-blue eyes. "The God ofBattles, sir, as a great general, will understand. I trust that everyregiment may have service to-morrow in Winchester. Advance yourskirmishers, and send a regiment to support Carpenter's battery. "

The 27th Virginia, target for a withering artillery fire, crossed theopen and disappeared in a strip of March wood, high and keen and brownagainst the fleckless sky. Behind it two long grey lines moved slowlyforward, out now in the old field. The men talked as they went. "Wishthere was nice ripe blackberries on these bushes! Wish I was a littleboy again with a straw hat and a tin bucket, gathering blackberries andlistenin' to the June bugs! _Zoon--Zoon--Zoon!_ O Lord! listen to thatshell!--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 reckonthey're tired of it, sir? Hope their ammunition's out!"

From the rear galloped a courier. "Where's General Jackson?--They'redrawing off!--a big body, horse and foot, is backing towardWinchester--"

"Glory hallelujah!" said the men. "Maybe we won't have to fight onSunday after all!"

Out of the March woods ahead broke a thunderclap of sound, settling intoa roar of musketry. It endured for some minutes, then forth from thethickets and shadow of the forest, back from Barton's Woods into theragged old field, reeled the 27th Virginia. Its colonel, Colonel JohnEchols, was down; badly hurt and half carried now by his men; there werefifty others, officers and men, killed or wounded. The wounded, most ofthem, were helped back by their comrades. The dead lay where they fellin Barton's Woods, where the arbutus was in bloom and the purpleviolets. 

The 21st swept forward. The 27th rallied, joined the 21st. The twocharged 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 37thVirginia. He deployed his men under cover, but now they were out in agreat and ragged field, all up and down, with boggy hollows, scarred tooby rail fences and blurred by low-growing briar patches. Diagonallyacross it, many yards away, ran one of the stone fences of the region, along dike of loosely piled and rounded rock. Beyond it the ground keptthe same nature, but gradually lifted to a fringe of tall trees. Emerging from this wood came now a Federal line of battle. It came withpomp and circumstance. The sun shone on a thousand bayonets; brightcolours 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 hisright, and he began to mass his regiments, and he sent for Sullivan fromthe left. 

The 23d and 37th Virginia eyed the on-coming line and eyed the stonefence. "That's good cover!" quoth a hunter from the hills. "We'd a longsight better have it than those fellows!--Sh! the colonel's speaking. "

Fulkerson's speech was a shout, for there had arisen a deafening noiseof artillery. "Run for your lives, men--toward the enemy! Forward, andtake the stone fence!"

The two regiments ran, the Federal line of battle ran, the stone coverthe 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; thecolour-bearer pitched forward, the line wavered, gave back. The charginggrey reached and took the wall. It was good cover. They knelt behind it, laid their musket barrels along the stones, and fired. The blue linewithstood that volley, even continued its advance, but a secondfusillade poured in their very faces gave them check at last. Indisorder, colours left upon the field, they surged back to the wood andto the cover of a fence at right angles with that held by theConfederates. Now began upon the left the fight of the stone wall--hoursof raging battle, of high quarrel for this barrier. The regimentscomposing the grey centre found time to cheer for Fulkerson; the rumourof the fight reached the right where Ashby's squadron held the pike. Jackson himself came on Little Sorrel, looked at the wall and the lineof men, powder grimed about the lips, plying the ramrods, shoulderingthe 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 indeedbut seventeen, for a Tredegar iron gun was disabled in crossing themeadow. The blue were the stronger cannon, modern, powerful. The greywere inferior there; also the grey must reach deeper and deeper intocaisson and limber chest, must cast anxious backward glances towardordnance wagons growing woefully light. The fire of the blue wasextremely heavy; the fire of the grey as heavy as possible consideringthe question of ammunition. Rockbridge worked its guns in a narrowclearing dotted with straw stacks. A section under Lieutenant Poague wassent at a gallop, half a mile forward, to a point that seemed ofvantage. 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 gunwas blown from position, and out of the smoke came a fearful cry ofwounded men. "O God!--O God!" The smoke cleared. All who had served thatgun were down. Their fellows about the six-pounder, the other gun of thesection, stood stupefied, staring, their lips parted, sponge staff orrammer or lanyard idle in their hands. A horse came galloping. An aideof Jackson's--Sandy Pendleton it was said--leaped to the ground. He wasjoined by Richard Cleave. The two came through the ring of the woundedand laid hold of the howitzer. "Mind the six-pounder, Poague! We'llserve here. Thunder Run men, three of you, come here and help!"

They drew the howitzer in position, charged it, and fired. In a very fewmoments after the horror of the shell, she was steadily sending canisteragainst the great Parrott on the opposite hill. The six-pounder besideher worked as steadily. A surgeon came with his helpers, gathered up thewounded, and carried them beneath a whistling storm of shot and shell toa field hospital behind the ridge. 

Out of the woods came fresh regiments of the enemy. These bore down uponthe guns and upon the 5th Virginia now forming behind them. Poague'ssection opened with canister at one hundred and fifty yards. All theValley marksmen of the 5th let fall the lids of their cartridge boxes, lifted their muskets, and fired. The blue withstood the first volley andthe second, but at the third they went back to the wood. An orderarrived from McLaughlin of the Rockbridge, "Lieutenant Poague back tothe straw stacks!" The battery horses, quiet and steadfast, were broughtfrom where they had stood and cropped the grass, the guns were limberedup, Jackson's aide and the men of the 65th fell back, the six-poundershared its men with the howitzer, off thundered the guns. There was astir 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 onthe right. Against them poured the regiments of Kimball and Tyler, withSullivan coming up. The sun, could it have been seen through the rollingsmoke, would have showed low in the heavens. The musketry wascontinuous, and the sound of the cannon shook the heart of Winchesterthree miles away. 

The 65th moved forward. Halfway up the slope, its colonel received anugly wound. He staggered and sank. "Go on! go on, men! Fine hunt! Don'tlet the stag--" The 65th went on, led by Richard Cleave. 

Before it stretched a long bank of springtime turf, a natural breastworkseized by the blue soldiers as the stone fence on the left had beentaken by Fulkerson. From behind this now came a line of leaping flame. Several of the grey fell, among them the colour-bearer. The man nearestsnatched the staff. Again the earthwork blazed and rang, and again thecolour-bearer fell, pitching forward, shot through the heart. BillyMaydew caught the colours. "Thar's a durned sharpshooter a-settin' inthat thar tree! Dave, you pick him off. "

Again the bank blazed. A western regiment was behind it, a regiment ofhunters and marksmen. Moreover a fresh body of troops could be seenthrough the smoke, hurrying down from the tall brown woods. The greyline broke, then rallied and swept on. The breastwork was now but a fewhundred feet away. A flag waved upon it, the staff planted in the softearth. Billy, moving side by side with Allan Gold, clutched closer thegreat red battle-flag with the blue cross. His young face was set, hiseyes alight. Iron-sinewed he ran easily, without panting. "I aira-goin', " he announced, "I air a-goin' to put this here one in the placeof that thar one. "

"'T isn't going to be easy work, " said Allan soberly. "What's the use ofducking, Steve Dagg? If a bullet's going to hit you it's going to hityou, 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 musketfrom a dead man's grasp, and together he and Billy somehow fastened theflag to the bayonet and lifted it high. The line halted under amomentary cover, made by the rising side of a hollow rimmed by a fewyoung locust trees. Cleave came along it. "Close ranks!--Men, all ofyou! that earthwork must be taken. The 2d, the 4th, and the 33d arebehind 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 thebottomless pit. The yellow flashes of the guns came through it, and ablur of colour--the flag on the bank. On went their own greatbattle-flag, slanting forward as Billy Maydew ran. The bank flamed androared. A bullet passed through the fleshy part of the boy's arm. Helooked sideways at the blood. "Those durned bees sure do sting! I aira-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 otherStonewall regiments struggled with desperation to hold the centre, theartillery thundered from every height. The 65th touched the earthwork. Cleave mounted first; Allan followed, then Billy and the Thunder Runmen, the regiment pouring after. Hot was the welcome they got, andfierce was their answering grip. In places men could load and fire, butbayonet and musket butt did much of the work. There was a great clamour, the acrid smell of powder, the indescribable taste of battle. The flagwas down; the red battle-flag with the blue cross in its place. Therewas a surge of the western regiment toward it, a battle around it thatstrewed 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 thebank, back toward the wood arising, shadowy, from a base of eddyingsmoke. 

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'tit?--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 fromthe wood which portended more. Back, inch by inch, gave the grey, fighting desperately. They loaded, fired, loaded, fired. They usedbayonet and musket stock. The blue fell thick, but always others came totake their places. The grey fell, and the ranks must close with none toreinforce. In the field to the left the 4th and the 33d had their handsvery full; the 2d was gone to Fulkerson's support, the 5th and the 42dwere not yet up. Out of the wood came a third huzzahing blue line. Cleave, hatless, bleeding from a bayonet thrust in the arm, ordered theretreat. 

On the crest of the bank there was confusion and clamour, shots andshouts, the groans of the fallen, a horrible uproar. Out of the stormcame a high voice, "It air a-goin' to stay, and I air a-goin' to staywith it!"

Billy Maydew had the flag. He stood defiant, half enveloped in itsfolds, his torn shirt showing throat and breast, his young head thrownback 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'! Iain't a-goin' to quit!"

Allan Gold laid hold of him. "Why, Billy, we're coming back! There's gotto be a lot of times like this in a big war! You come on and carry thecolours 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 Iwas putting a hop pole in Christianna's garden, and I ain't a-goin' todig it up again--"

Dave appeared. "Billy boy, don't be such a damned fool! You jestskeedaddle with the rest of us and take it out of them next time. Don'tye want to see Christianna again, an' maw an' the dogs?--Thar, now!"

A bullet split the standard, another--a spent ball coming from thehillside--struck the bearer in the chest. Billy came to his knees, thegreat 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 ofKernstown. Upon that field, beneath the sulphurous battle cloud, it wasdusk indeed. The fighting line was everywhere, and for the Confederatesthere were no reinforcements. Fulkerson yet held the left, Garnett withconspicuous gallantry the centre with the Stonewall regiments. Thebatteries yet thundered upon the right. But ammunition was low, and forthree hours Ashby's mistake as to the enemy's numbers had received fulldemonstration. Shields's brigadiers did well and the blue soldiers didwell. 

A body of troops coming from the wood and crowding through a gap in astone fence descended upon the Rockbridge battery. Four regiments of theStonewall brigade clung desperately to the great uneven field whichmarked the centre. The musket barrels were burningly hot to the touch ofthe men, their fingers must grope for the cartridges rattling in thecartridge 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 fightin 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 thecartridges were not automatically supplied. It even seemed that theymight one day come to an end. The dusk deepened. They had, beneath thered-lit battle clouds, a glimpse of Garnett, a general chivalric andloved, standing in his stirrups, looking out and upward toward the darkwood and Sullivan's fresh regiments. 

A sergeant came along the line stretching a haversack open with hishands. In it were cartridges. "I gathered all the dead had. 'T isn'tmany. You've got to shoot to kill, boys!" A man with a ball through theend 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 greysoldier 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 threethousand fresh bayonets at the back of these woods. General Jackson doesnot wish a massacre. I will withdraw the brigade. "

The troops were ready to go. They had held the centre very long; thecartridges were all but spent, the loss was heavy, they were deadlytired. They wanted water to drink and to hear the command, _Breakranks!_ Garnett was gallant and brave; they saw that he did what he didwith reason, and their judgment acquiesced. There was momently a freshfoe. Without much alignment, fighting in squads or singly, firing asthey went from thicket and hollow at the heavy on-coming masses, theStonewall Brigade fell back upon the wood to the south. The blue wavesaw 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 thewithdrawing 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. Herode 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 gauntletedhand with force on the arm of a drummer boy. "Beat the rally!" hecommanded. 

The rapid and continuous rolling filled like a sound of the sea the earsof the Stonewall Brigade. Garnett, in a strange voice, gave thecounter-order. The men uttered a hard and painful gasp. They looked andsaw Stonewall Jackson lifted above them, an iron figure in a storm ofshot and shell. He jerked his hand into the air; he shouted, "Back, men!Give them the bayonet!" The drum beat on. Colonels and captains andlieutenants strove to aid him and to change the retreat into an advance. In vain! the commands were shattered; the fighting line all broken anddispersed. The men did not shamefully flee; they retreated sullenly, staying here and there where there were yet cartridges, to fire upon theon-coming foe, but they continued to go back. 

The 5th and the 42d with Funsten's small cavalry command came hasteningto the broken centre and there made a desperate fight. The 5th Virginiaand the 5th Ohio clanged shields. The 84th Pennsylvania broke twice, rallied twice, finally gave way. Two Indiana regiments came up; the 5thVirginia was flanked; other blue reinforcements poured in. The last greycommands gave way. Fulkerson, too, on the left, his right now uncovered, must leave his stone fence and save his men as best he might. Rockbridgeand Carpenter and Waters no longer thundered from the heights. The greyinfantry, wildly scattered, came in a slow surge back through the woodswhere dead men lay among the spring flowers, and down the ridge andthrough the fields, grey and dank in the March twilight, toward theValley pike. Night and the lost battle weighed upon the army. Theshadowy ambulances, the lights of the gatherers of the wounded flittingfew and far over the smoke-clouded field, made for a ghastly depression. Sick at heart, in a daze of weariness, hunger and thirst, drunk withsleep, mad for rest, command by command stumbled down the pike orthrough the fields to where, several miles to the south, stretched themeadows where their trains were parked. There was no pursuit. Woods andfields were rough and pathless; it was now dark night, and Ashby heldthe pike above. 

A camp-fire was built for Stonewall Jackson in a field to the right ofthe road, three miles from Kernstown. Here he stood, summoned Garnett, and put him under arrest. The army understood next day that heavycharges 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 thepart of the ring about it. "Don't be so downcast, people! Sometimes adefeat in one place equals a victory in another. I don't believe thatGeneral Banks will join General McClellan just now. Indeed, it's notimpossible that McClellan will have to part with another division. Theirgovernment's dreadfully uneasy about Washington and the road toWashington. They didn't beat us easily, and if we can lead them up anddown this Valley for a while--I imagine that's what General Johnstonwants, and what General Jackson will procure. --And now you'd better allgo to sleep. "

"Where are you going, Cleave?"

"To see about the colonel. They've just brought him to the farmhouseyonder. Dr. McGuire says he will get well--dear old Brooke!"

He went, striding over the furrowed field past groups of men sleepingand 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 ofthe 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 StonewallJackson. A dark figure came wandering up to him. It proved to be that ofan old negro. "Marster, is you seen Marse Charlie?"

"Marse Charlie whom, uncle?"

"Marse Charlie Armetage, sah, mah young marster. I 'spec you done seedhim? I 'spec he come marchin' wif you down de pike f'om dat damnbattlefield? I sure would be 'bleeged ef you could tell me, sah. "

"I wish I could, " said Cleave, with gentleness. "I haven't seen him, butmaybe some one else has. "

The old negro drew one hand through the other. "I's asked erbout fiftygent'men . . . Reckon Marse Charlie so damn tired he jes' lain downsomewhere 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'sa-lyin'. " He wandered off in the darkness, and Cleave heard him speakingto 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, thesecond day after Kernstown, to the gorge of Cedar Creek. A bridge hadonce been here; there remained the blackened cross-timbers and a portionof the flooring. The water below was cold, deep, and rapid. Rather thanbreast it, the army made shift to cross on the charred wood. An infantrycommand, stepping gingerly, heard behind it shots and shouts--a Federalcavalry charge upon the rear guard. Several of the men, listening tooabsorbedly, or not content with the present snail-like motion, suddenlyleft the timbers and entered the rough and swollen creek that pouredbeneath. Their exclamations in this berth were piteous, and theircomrades fished them out with bayonets and laughter. 

Upon the night of the 26th Banks's troopers occupied the northern shoreof Tom's Brook. Ashby held the southern side, and held it fast. Behindthat safe and vigilant and valiant screen the Army of the Valley movedquietly and in good spirits to the points its general had in mind. Thearmy never knew what were these points until it found itself actuallyupon the ground. It is morally certain that had he lived, arecalcitrant, in former days, no amount of _peine forte et dure_ wouldhave opened the lips of Stonewall Jackson had he willed to keep themclosed. During their earlier acquaintance officers and men alike hadmade many an ingenious endeavour to learn the plans they thought theyought to know. They set quaint traps, they made innocent-seemingremarks, they guided right, they guided left, they blazed beautifultrails straight, they thought, to the moment of revelation. It nevercame. He walked past and around and over their traps. Inquisitiveofficers found themselves not only without a straw of information, butunder displeasure. Brilliant leading remarks shone a moment by their ownbrilliancy, then went out. The troops conjectured one road--they went byanother; natives described the beauties of the village before which theywere sure to break ranks--at eve they experienced the hospitalities ofquite another town. Generals in the ranks demonstrated that they weregoing to turn on Shields, or that they were going east by the oldManassas Gap and whip Geary, or northeast and whip Abercrombie. They didnone of the three. They marched on up the valley to Rude's Hill nearMount Jackson. About this time, or a little later, men and officers gaveit 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 andFremont and Milroy and McClellan and Lincoln and Stanton don't know, either!" The mess grew thoughtful; presently it took the pipe from itsmouth to answer, "Dog-gone it, Martin, that's true! Never saw it justthat way before. "

Rude's Hill formed a strong natural position. There was water, therewere woods, there was an excellent space for a drill-ground. Jackson'sdirections 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 theydrilled and drilled and drilled. Every morning rang out adjutant's call, every morning there were infantry evolutions, artillery evolutions. Theartillery had some respite, for, turn by turn, the sections went forwardten miles to do picket duty for Ashby, Chew's Horse Artillery beingcontinually engaged with the Federal outposts. But the infantry drilledon, drilled and wondered at Banks. One week--two weeks!--and the generalin blue with nineteen thousand men still on the farther side of Tom'sBrook!

Despite the drilling the Army of the Valley had a good time at Rude'sHill. Below brawled the Shenandoah, just to the east sprang theMassanuttens. There was much rain, but, day by day, through the silverveil or the shattered golden light, lovelier and more lovely grew thespring. The army liked to see her coming. In its heart it felt aspringtime, too; a gush of hope and ardour. The men hardly countedKernstown a defeat. It was known that Old Jack had said to one of theaides, "I may say that I am satisfied, sir. " And Congress had thankedthe Army of the Valley. And all the newspapers sang its praises. Thebattle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas, the shelling of Newbern in NorthCarolina, the exploits of the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, the battle ofKernstown in the Valley--so at the moment ran the newspapers. And day byday recruits were coming in; comrades as well who had been in hospitalor home on furlough. In that fortnight the Army of the Valley grew tonumber nearly six thousand men. 

At Rude's Hill there was an election of company officers. Theproceedings--amazing enough to the professional soldier--put into camplife three days of excitement and salt. Given a people of strongpolitical proclivities suddenly turned soldier; given human grudges andlikings, admirations and contempts; given the ballot in military as incivil life; given a chance to inject champagne into the ennui of campexistence, and in lieu of gun practice to send off sky-rockets andcatherine wheels; given a warm personal interest in each private's bosomas to whom, for the next twelfth month (if the war lasted that long), hewas going to obey--and there resulted a shattering of monotonycomparable to a pitched battle. 

The elections were held in beautiful, vernal groves. That there would bechanges it was believed; change was in the air! For days beforehand thecharacter for conduct, courage, and general agreeableness of every manwho wore three bars on his collar, or two, or one, or who carriedchevrons of silk or chevrons of worsted, had been strictly in the zoneof fire. Certain officers nearing certain camp-fires felt caucusesdissolving at their approach into an innocence of debating societiesengaged with Fabius Maximus or Scipio Africanus. Certain sergeants andcorporals dreamed bars instead of chevrons, and certain high privates, conscious of merit, saw worsted chevrons, silk chevrons, and gold barsall in one blissful night. 

But when election day dawned bright and clear, with a fine chorus ofbirds and an especial performance by the regimental bands, when rollcall was over, and camp duties were over, and morning drill was over (norelaxation here! There was only one day in the week on which Old Jacklet up on drill, and that wasn't election day!) and the pickets hadreluctantly marched away, leaving their votes behind them, and a sectionof artillery had gone off, swearing, to relieve Chew, and the men couldat last get down to work, to happy babbling, happy speechifying, happyminding the polls, and when in the cool of the afternoon the returnswere announced, there were fewer changes than had been predicted. Afterall, most of the officers were satisfactory; why let them down with ajolt? And the privates were satisfactory, too. Why take a capitalcomrade, a good cook and forager and story-teller, and make himuncomfortable by turning him into an officer? He was nice enough as hewas. Not that there were no alterations. Several companies had newcaptains, some lieutenants stepped down, and there was a shifting ofnon-commissioned officers. In Company A of the 65th Lieutenant MathewCoffin lost out. The men wished to put up Allan Gold for thelieutenancy, but Allan declined. He had rather, he said, be scout thanlieutenant--and what was the use in changing, anyhow? Lieutenant Coffinwas all right. Hadn't he been as brave as a lion at Kernstown--and anyman is liable to lose his temper at times--and wouldn't we hate him tohave to write back to that young lady at home--? The last plea almostsettled it, for the Confederate heart might be trusted to melt at themention of any young lady at home. But all the Thunder Run men wereagainst Coffin, and Thunder Run turned the scale. In the main, however, throughout the army, company officers were retained, and retainedbecause they were efficient. The election was first-rate fun, and themen cheered the returns, then listened to the orders of the evening fromthe same old bars and chevrons. The sun went down on a veritable lovefeast--special rations, special music, special fires, and, betweensupper 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 pieceof earth, purple brown with pine needles. Two huge fires, one at eitherside, made a strong, copper-red illumination. The soldier audience satin a deep semicircle, and sat at ease, being accustomed by now to theposture of tailor or Turk. Only recruits sought logs or stones uponwhich to sit. Tobacco smoke rose like incense. 

The chief musician "sounded on the bugle horn. " The Glee Club of CompanyC filed on the stage with three banjos and two guitars, bowed elegantly, and sang the "Bonny Blue Flag. " The applause was thunderous. A largebearded man in the front row lifted a voice that boomed like one ofAshby's cannon. "Encore! Encore!" Company C sang "Listen to the MockingBird. " The audience gently sighed, took the pipe from its lips, andjoined 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 hurryingShenandoah. 

 "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!" Thechief 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 inthe debate otherwise than judicially, at the close. "

The close saw it decided by a rising vote that England would comefirst--Sergeant Smith, indeed, who chanced to be a professor ofbelles-lettres at a great school, having declared, with the gesture ofSaint John on Patmos, that he saw approaching our shores a white wingedship bearing her declaration of amity. "No. 3, " intoned the firstmusician. "Recitation by Private Edwin Horsemanden. "

Private Edwin Horsemanden gave the title of his selection, a poeticselection. Some of his fellow privates looked puzzled. "'OzEtaliahn?'--What does 'Oz Etaliahn' mean? Cherokee or Choctaw, which?Explain it to us, Eddy. Is it something to eat--or to drink? ''T istrue, 'tis pity, 'tis pity 'tis 'tis true'--but most of us never went tocollege!. . . Oh, an opera house!--In Paris, do you say? Go on, Eddy, goon!"

 "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 queenonce. . . . And the queen of the circus. . . . There's a man in Company D oncesaw the queen of England, saw her just as plain! She was wearing a scoopbonnet 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 singingtill they hang him? Oh, Lord, yes! And the anvil chorus! The anvilchorus 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'tany such place. The com--commanding general'll put him in irons formisrepresenting the sidereal system. There's only heaven, hell, and theenemy. --_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 amazeme. 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 didwant a chance at German. --Now you say them slowly and we'll repeat. . . . Why, man alive, you ought to be proud of your linguisticaccomplishments!. . . 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 knowwhat'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'sgetting too big. Let's all learn the words together, so's PrivateHorsemanden can go on with his piece! Attention, 65th! Make ready! Takeaim! 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'tanything 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 wenton. Moreover he had his revenge, for at bottom the 65th was itselftender-hearted, not to say sentimental. It believed in lost loves andlost blossoms, muslin dresses, and golden chains, cypress shades andjasmine 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 65thgrew 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. PrivateEdwin Horsemanden went on without interruption and finished with eclat. The chief musician cleared his throat. "The Glee Club of Company H willnow--"

The Glee Club of Company H was a large and popular organization. It tookthe stage amid applause. The leader bowed. "Gentlemen, we thank you. Gentlemen, you have just listened to a beautiful novelty--a prettylittle foreign song bird brought by the trade-wind, an Englishnightingale singing in Virginian forests. --Gentlemen, the Glee Club ofCompany H will give you what by now is devil a bit of a novelty--whatpromises to be as old as the hills before we have done with it--what ourgrandchildren's grandchildren may sing with pride--what to the end oftime will carry with it a breath of our armies. Gentlemen, the Glee Clubof 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 2dVirginia, encamped in a great open field; to the left the 5th, occupyinga grove of oaks. These regiments were busied with their own genial hour, but when the loudly sung air streamed across from the 65th theysuspended their work in hand. They also sung "Dixie. " Thence it wastaken up by the 4th and the 33d, and then it spread to Burk andFulkerson. The batteries held the top of Rude's Hill, up among the nightwind and the stars. The artillerymen took the air from the infantry. Headquarters was situated on the green bank of the Shenandoah. Staff andcouriers and orderlies hummed or sang. Stonewall Jackson came to thedoor of his tent and stood, looking out. All Rude's Hill throbbed to"Dixie. "

On went the programme. "Marco Bozzaris" was well spoken. A blacksmithand a mule driver wrestled for a prize. "Marmion Quitting the Douglas'sHall" was followed by "Lula, Lula, Lula is Gone, " and "Lula" by"Lorena, " and "Lorena" by a fencing match. The Thespians playedcapitally an act from "The Rivals, " and a man who had seen Macready gaveHamlet's Soliloquy. Then they sang a song lately written by JamesRandall 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 Jacksonwishes to see you, sir. "

The general's tent was not large. There were a table and two stools, onone of which sat Jackson in his characteristic position, large feetaccurately paralleled. On the table, beside the candle, lay threebooks--the Bible, a dictionary, and "Napoleon's Maxims. " Jackson waswriting, 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 hispage. Having here signed his name, he dropped the quill and slightlyturned so as to face the waiting officer. From under his high bronzedforehead his blue eyes looked quietly upon Cleave. 

The younger man returned the gaze as quietly. This was the first time hehad been thus summoned since that unlucky winter evening at BloomeryGap. He remembered that evening, and he did not suppose that his generalhad forgotten it. He did not suppose that Jackson forgot anything. Butapparently it was no longer to be counted against him. Jackson's facewore the quiet, friendly, somewhat sweet expression usual to it when allwas calm within. As for Cleave himself, his nature owned a certainprimal flow and bigness. There were few fixed and rigid barriers. Injured pride and resentment did not lift themselves into reefs againstwhich 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 hemight have felt at Bloomery Gap had long passed away. He sat nowattentive, collected, broad-browed, and quiet. 

"Major Cleave, " said Jackson, "you will take an orderly with you andride across the mountains. General Ewell is at Gordonsville with asomewhat larger force than my own. You will take this letter to him, " hefolded it as he spoke, "and you will talk to him as one intelligent manto another. "

"Do you mean, sir, that I am to answer his questions?"

"Yes, sir. To the best of your ability. There is impending a junctionbetween General Ewell and myself. He wishes to know many things, andseems to think it natural that I should tell him them. I am not a greatletter writer. You will give him all the information that is common tothe army. "

Cleave smiled. "That, sir, is not a great deal. "

"Perhaps it is not, sir. You are at liberty to give to General Ewellyour own observations and expectations. You will, however, representthem 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, Isuppose, sir, purely a matter of conjecture?"

"Purely, sir. "

"But the _morale_ of the army, its efficiency and spirit, may be freelypraised and imparted?"

"Yes, sir, freely. Upon your return I shall want from you yourimpression of General Ewell and the troops he commands. " He drew towardhim a map which lay on the table. "You will ride through Massanutton Gapby Conrad's Store and Swift Run Gap. Thence you will make a detour toCharlottesville. There are stores there that I wish reported upon andsent on to Major Harman at Staunton. You will spend one day upon thatbusiness, 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 ofendeavour and helpfulness, a place of horror, and also of strangesmiling, even of faint laughter, a country as chill as death and as warmas love--the hospital at Charlottesville saw the weary morning grow toweary noon, the weary noon change toward the weary latter day. The womenwho nursed the soldiers said that it was lovely outside, and that allthe peach trees were in bloom. "We'll raise you a little higher, " theysaid, "and you can see for yourself. And look! here is your broth, sogood and strengthening! And did you hear? We won on the Peninsulato-day!"

At four o'clock Judith Cary gave to another her place beside a typhoidpallet and came out into the emerald and rose, the freshness andfragrance 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 wuhddat 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 tospeak to her. "Isn't there a greater stir than usual?" she asked. 

"Some of General Ewell's men are over from Gordonsville. There goesGeneral Dick Taylor now--the one in grey and white! He's a son, youknow, of Zachary--Old Rough and Ready. General Jackson, too, has anofficer here to-day, checking the stores that came from Richmond. --Howis it at the hospital?"

"It is very bad, " said Judith. "When the bands begin to play I laugh andcry like all the rest, and I wave and clap my hands, and I would fighton and on like the rest of you, and I do not see that, given people asthey are, the war could have been avoided, and I would die to win, and Iam, I hope, a patriot--and yet I do not see any sense in it! It hurts meas I think it may hurt the earth. She would like, I believe, somethingbetter than being a battlefield. --There is music again! Yesterday a mandied, crying for the band to hush. He said it drowned something heneeded to hear. "

"Yes, yes, " replied her friend, nodding his head. "That is perfectlytrue. 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! Whatare 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 andthe golden light inestimable after the moaning wards. The carriage wentslowly, for the roads were heavy; moreover the former carriage horseswere gone to the war. These were two from the farm, somewhat old andstiff, willing, but plodders. They went half asleep in the softsunshine, and Isham on the box went half asleep too. Judith would havebeen willing to sleep, but she could not. She sat with her gaze upon thefair spring woods and the amethystine hills rising to blue skies. Thecarriage stopped. Isham bent down from the box. "Miss Judith, honey, ergent'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 purplehills, her thoughts away from Albemarle. The sound that Isham made ofsurprise and satisfaction did not reach her. Until she saw Cleave's faceat 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 towardhim, but she sat perfectly still, without speaking. Only the door wasbetween 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 didnot know. --I thought it was one of the others. . . . I hope that you are alittle glad to see me. "

Judith looked at him a moment longer, then swayed a little forward. Shebent her head. Her cheek touched his clasped hands, he felt her kissupon 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 notmatter. . . . I have loved you for two years. "

"Maury Stafford?"

"I have never believed that you understood--though what it was that madeyou 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 thelight. Send the carriage on. "

She did so. The road was quiet, deserted, a wide bright path between theevening hills. Dundee following them, they walked a little way untilthey 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 fairyvistas, fountains of living green, stars of the dogwood and purplesprays of Judas tree. "How I misunderstood is no matter now, " saidCleave. "I love you, and you say that you love me. Thank God for it!"

They sat with clasped hands, their cheeks touching, their breathmingling. "Judith, Judith, how lovely are you! I have seen you always, always!. . . Only I called it 'vision, ' 'ideal. ' At the top of every deedI have seen your eyes; from the height of every thought you havebeckoned further! Now--now--It is like a wonderful home-coming . . . Andyet you are still there, above the mountains, beckoning, drawing--Thereand here, here in my arms!. . . Judith--What does 'Judith' mean?"

"It means 'praised. ' Oh, Richard, I heard that you were wounded atKernstown!"

"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? Howlong can you stay?"

"Love, I cannot stay at all. I am on General Jackson's errand. I mustride 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 anddown the Valley. Every man is needed. I am not willing to ask even ashort furlough. "

"I am not willing that you should. . . . I know that you are in dangerevery 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 onto 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 wereach the carriage. "

They went slowly by the quiet road beneath the flowering trees. Thelight was now only on the hilltops; the birds were silent; only thefrogs in the lush meadows kept up their quiring, a sound quaintlymournful, weirdly charming. A bend of the road showed them Isham, thefarm horses, and the great old carriage waiting beneath a tulip tree. The lovers stopped, took hands, moved nearer each to the other, restedeach in the other's arms. Her head was thrown back, his lips touched herhair, her forehead, her lips. "Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!"

He put her in the carriage, kissed her hands as they lay on the doorledge, 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 wasleft to the soldier and his horse. 

Cleave rode to Gordonsville that night as though he carried Heaven withhim. The road was fair, the moon was high. Far-flung, beautiful odoursfilled the air; the red ploughed earth sent its share, the floweringfruit trees theirs, the flowers in the wood, the mint by the stream. Alight wind swung them as from a censer; the moved air touched the youngman's forehead. He took off his hat; he rode rapidly with head heldhigh. He rode for hours, Dundee taking the way with even power, amagnificently silent friend. Behind, on an iron grey, came the orderly. Riding thus together, away from organization and discipline, therelations between the two men, officer and private, were perfectlydemocratic. From Rude's Hill across the Massanuttons and from Swift RunGap to Charlottesville they had been simply comrades and fellowVirginians. They were from adjoining counties, where the one hadpractised law and the other had driven a stage. There were differencesin breeding, education, and employment; but around these, recognized byboth, stretched the enormous plane of humanity. They met there in simplebrotherliness. To-night, however, Cleave had spoken for silence. "I wantto be quiet for a while, Harris. --There is something I have to thinkof. "

[Illustration: THE LOVERS]

The night was all too short for what he had to think of. The pink flushof dawn, the distant view of Ewell's tents, came too soon. It was hardto lower the height and swell of the mind, to push back the surgingthoughts, to leave the lift and wonder, the moonlight, and the floweringway. Here, however, were the pickets; and while he waited for thecorporal of the guard, standing with Harris on a little hill, beforethem the pink sky, below them a peach orchard, pink too, with alace-like mist wreathing the trees, he put golden afternoon andmoonlight night in the bottom of his heart and laid duty atop. 

Ewell's camp, spread over the rolling hills and lighted by a splendidsunrise, lay imposingly. To the eyes of the men from the Valley theordered white tents of Trimble's and Taylor's and the Maryland line hadan air luxuriously martial. Everything seemed to gleam and shine. Theguns of the parked batteries gave back the light, the colours seemedsilken and fine, the very sunrise gun had a sonorousness lacking toChew's Blakeley, or to McLaughlin's six-pounders, and the bugles blowingreveille a silvery quality most remarkable. As for the smoke from thecamp-fires--"Lord save us!" said Harris, "I believe they're broilingpartridges! Of all the dandy places!"

Cleave laughed. "It's not that they are so fine, but that we are soweather-beaten and rusty! They're only in good working-day trim. We'llhave to polish up at Rude's Hill. "

"This is the 1st Maryland on the hillside, " said the guide the corporalhad given; "there with the blue flag. Mighty fine feathers, but I reckonthey're gamecocks all right! Elzey's Brigade's over beside thewoods--Virginian to the backbone. Trimble's got a fine lot--Georgiansand Alabamians and Mississippians. Here come some of the 2d VirginiaCavalry! Ain't they pretty?"

They were. But Harris stood up for the absent Valley. "Huh! Ashby's goodenough 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'tsetting up on this side of the mountains to beat _him_! But I reckon the2d 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 fromLouisiana--Acadians I've heard them called--and they can't speak a wordof English, poor souls!--There goes their band again. They're alwaysplaying, dancing, and cooking rice. We call them Parlavoos--name oftheir county, I reckon. --He's got Wheat's Battalion, too. Sorrow a bitof 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 greatwine 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 ofthe tent came a high, piping voice. "Good-morning, Hamilton! What is it?What is it?--An officer from General Jackson? All right! All right! gladto see him. Tell him to wait--Jim, you black idiot, what have I donewith that button?"

The aide smiled, Cleave smiled. There was something in the voice thatannounced the person, quaintly rough, lovable and gallant, --"dear DickEwell. " He came out presently, a small man with a round bald head, hooknose and bright eyes. 

"This the officer? Glad to see you, Major--Major Cleave? Stay tobreakfast. Bob, you black rascal, another plate! Can't give youmuch, --mysterious inward complaint, myself, --can't eat anything butfrumenty. --Well, sir, how is General Jackson?"

"Quite well, general. "

"Most remarkable man! Wants to tie a bandage round everybody's eyes buthis own!"--all this plaintively treble. "Would ask to have it off if Iwas facing a firing party, and in the present circumstances don't likeit at all!--Did you happen to meet any of my couriers?"

"Yes, general. One at the foot of the Massanuttons, one in Elk RunValley. "

"Got to send them. Got to ask what to do. By God, out on the plains withfifty dragoons I'd know! And here President Davis has made me amajor-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 liedown; 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 openedthe 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 onSunday. Other directions will be given as needed. _' Hm! Highlycharacteristic! Never anything more than a damned dark lantern!--Well, it's something to know that we're going by Stanardsville and are to reston 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 uponfrumenty. "All right! I'll move, and I suppose when I get there oldJackson'll vouchsafe another gleam. --Bob, you damned Ethiopian, whereare your wits? Fill Major Cleave's cup. --Glad to welcome you, major, toCamp Ewell. Pretty tidy place, don't you think?"

"I do indeed, sir. "

"Have you seen Dick Taylor's beauties--his Creoles and Tigers and HarryHayes, 7th Louisiana? The Maryland Line, too, and Trimble and Elzey?Damned fine army! How about yours over there?" He indicated the BlueRidge with a bird-like jerk, and helped himself again to frumenty. 

"Your description applies there, too, sir. It's a little rough andready, 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 shakeit. "

"_Morale_ good?"

"Extraordinarily so. That army is all right, sir. "

"I wish, " said Ewell plaintively, "that I knew what to make of GeneralJackson. What do you make of him, major?"

"I make a genius, sir. "

Ewell raised his shoulder and ducked his head, his bright round eyesmuch 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 tothink mighty well of the man who leads me. That Romney trip now?--ofcourse, I only heard Loring's side. He doesn't just wind in and out ofmountains 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 Imean. It develops confidence in a very marked fashion. "

Ewell listened bright-eyed. "I am glad to hear you say that, for damnme, confidence is what I want! I want, sir, to be world-without-end-surethat my commanding officer is forever and eternally right, and then Iwant to be let go ahead!--I want to be let feel just as though I were acaptain of fifty dragoons, and nothing to do but to get back to post bythe sunset gun and report the work done!--And so you think that when myforce and old Jackson's force get together we'll do big things?"

"Fairly big, sir. It is fortunate to expect them. They will arrive thesooner. "

Ewell bobbed his head. "Yes, yes, that's true! Now, major, I'm going toreview the troops this morning, and then I'll write an answer forGeneral Jackson, and you'll take it to him and tell him I'm coming on byStanardsville, just as he says, and that I'll rest on Sunday. Maybe evenwe'll find a church--Presbyterian. " He rose. "You'd better come withme. --I've got some more questions to ask. Better see my troops, too. OldJackson might as well know what beautiful children I've got. Have youany idea yourself what I'm expected to do at Stanardsville?"

"I don't know what General Jackson expects, sir. But my own idea is thatyou'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--comeeast--cross the mountains himself instead of my crossing them. What doyou think of that?"

"I am not in his council, sir. The Valley people would hate to see himgo. "

"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 Jacksonmustn't fling my brigades against windmills or lose them in themountains! I'm fair to confess I feel anxious. Out on the plains when wechase Apaches we chase 'em! We don't go deviating like a love vine allover creation. --That's Harry Hayes's band--playing some Frenchy thing orother! Cavalry's over there--I know you've got Ashby, but Flournoy andMunford 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 Idon't remember that I was restless. He is. He was with Loring buttransferred. --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 knowhe's crazy!"

The review was at last over. Back under the wine sap Ewell wrote hisanswer to Jackson, then, curled in a remarkable attitude on the benchbeneath the tree ("I'm a nervous major-general, sir. Can't help it. Didn't sleep. Can't sleep. "), put Cleave through a catechism searchingand shrewd. His piping, treble voice, his varied oaths and quaintlypetulant talk, his roughness of rind and inner sweetness made him, crumpled under the apple tree, in his grey garb and cavalry boots, withhis bright sash and bright eyes, a figure mellow and olden out of anancient story. Cleave also, more largely built, more muscular, a littletaller, with a dark, thin, keen face, the face of a thinkingman-at-arms, clad in grey, clean but worn, seated on a low stool beneaththe tinted boughs, his sword between his knees, his hands clasped overthe hilt, his chin on his hands--Cleave, too, speaking of skirmishes, ofguns and horsemen, of the massed enemy, of mountain passes and fordablerivers, had the value of a figure from a Flemish or Venetian canvas. Theform of the moment was of old time, old as the smell of apple blossomsor the buzzing of the bees; old as these and yet persistently, too, ofthe present as were these. The day wore on to afternoon, and at last themessenger from Jackson was released. 

The--Virginia had its encampment upon the edge of a thick and venerablewood, beech and oak, walnut and hickory. Regimental headquarters wasindeed within the forest, half a dozen tents pitched in a glade sylvanenough 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 trainingfor a brigadier!" He came forward, holding out his hand. "I am glad tosee you. Welcome to Camp Ewell!"

Cleave's hand made no motion from his side. "Thank you, " he said. "Itis good when a man can feel that he is truly welcome. "

The other was not dull, nor did he usually travel by indirection. "Youwill not shake hands, " he said. "I think we have not been throwntogether since that wretched evening at Bloomery Gap. Do you bear malicefor 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 downthere?"

They moved down one of the forest aisles. The earth was carpeted withdead leaves from beneath which rose the wild flowers. The oak wasputting forth tufts of rose velvet, the beech a veil of pale and satinygreen. The sky above was blue, but, the sun being low, the space beneaththe lacing boughs was shadowy enough. The two men stopped beside thebole of a giant beech, silver-grey, splashed with lichens. "Quiet enoughhere, " said Stafford. "Well, what is it, Richard Cleave?"

"I have not much to say, " said Cleave. "I will not keep you manymoments. I will ask you to recall to mind the evening of the seventeenthof last April. "

"Well, I have done so. It is not difficult. "

"No. It would, I imagine, come readily. Upon that evening, MauryStafford, you lied to me. "

"I--"

"Don't!" said Cleave. "Why should you make it worse? The impressionwhich, that evening, you deliberately gave me, you on every afteroccasion as deliberately strengthened. Your action, then and since, brands you, sir, for what you are!"

"And where, " demanded Stafford hoarsely, "where did you get thisprecious information--or misinformation? Who was at the pains topersuade 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 inwhich they stood. It lit Cleave's head and face as by a candle closelyheld. The other uttered a sound, a hard and painful gasp. "You have seenher!"

"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 breathingheavily; he looked, veritably, a wounded man. "I will go now, " saidCleave. "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 youwhy I--as you phrase it--lied to you. I allowed you to rest under thatimpression which I am not sure that I myself gave you, because I thoughther yet trembling between us, and that your withdrawal would beadvantageous to my cause. Not for all of Heaven would I have had her turnto you! Now that, apparently, I have lost her irrevocably, I will tell youthat you do not love her as I do. Have I not watched you? Did she dieto-day, you would go on to-morrow with your _Duty_--_Duty_--_Duty_--! Forme, I would kill myself on her grave. Where you and I were rivals andenemies, now we are enemies. Look out for me, Richard Cleave!" He began tolaugh, 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 amoment, nor remember it. I doubt neither your passion nor yoursuffering. But in one thing, Maury Stafford, you have lied again. I loveas strongly, and I love more highly than you do! As for yourthreats--threatened men live long. "

He turned, left the forest glade and came out into the camp lying nowbeneath the last rays of the sun. That evening he spent with Ewell andhis staff, passed the night in a friendly tent, and at dawn turnedDundee's head toward the Blue Ridge. 

CHAPTER XVIII

McDOWELL

At Stanardsville he heard from a breathless crowd about the small hotelnews 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 awhole company of Ashby's! "General Jackson?" General Jackson had burnedthe railway station at Mt. Jackson and fallen back--was believed to besomewhere about Harrisonburg. 

"Any other news?"

"Yes, sir! Fremont's pressing south from Moorefield, Milroy east fromMonterey! General Edward Johnson's had to fall back from theAlleghenies!--he's just west of Staunton. He hasn't got but a brigadeand a half. "

"Anything more?"

"Stage's just brought the Richmond papers. All about Albert SydneyJohnston's death at Shiloh. He led the charge and a minie ball struckhim, and he said 'Lay me down. Fight on. '"

"Fort Pulaski's taken! The darned gunboats battered down the wall. Allof the garrison that ain't dead are prisoners. "

"News from New Orleans ain't hilarious. Damned mortar boats bombard andbombard!--four ships, they say, against Fort Saint Philip, more againstFort Jackson. Air full of shells. Farragut may try to run forts andbatteries, Chalmette and all--"

"What else?"

"Looks downright bad down t' Richmond. McClellan's landed seventy-fivethousand men. Magruder lost a skirmish at Yorktown. All the Richmondwomen are making sandbags for the fortifications. Papers talk awful calmand large, but if Magruder gives way and Johnston can't keep McClellanback, 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 ofSwift Run Gap. Between two and three he and Harris and Dundee and thegrey were again upon the road. It wound through forests and by greatmountains, all wreathed in a ghostly mist. The moon shone bright, butthe cold was clinging. It had rained and on the soft wood road thehorses feet fell noiselessly. The two men rode in silence, cloaks drawnclose, hats over their eyes. 

Behind them in the east grew slowly the pallor of the dawn. The starswaned, the moon lost her glitter, in the woods to either side began afaint peeping of birds. The two came to Conrad's Store, where the threeor four houses lay yet asleep. An old negro, sweeping the ground beforea smithy, hobbled forward at Harris's call. "Lawd, marster, enny news? Ispecs, sah, I'll hab ter ax you 'bout dat. I ain' heard none but dat darwuz er skirmish at Rude's Hill, en er skirmish at New Market, en er-nurrskirmish at Sparta, en dat Gineral Jackson hold de foht, sah, atHarrisonburg, en dat de Yankees comin', lickerty-split, up de Valley, endat de folk at Magaheysville air powerful oneasy in dey minds fer feardey'll deviate dis way. Howsomever, we's got er home guard ef dey docome, wid ole Mr. Smith what knew Gin'ral Washington at de haid. En darwuz some bridges burnt, I hearn, en Gineral Ashby he had er fight on deSouth Fork, en I cyarn think ob no mo' jes now, sah! But Gineral Jacksonhe sholy holdin' de foht at Harrisonburg. --Yes, sah, dat's deMagaheysville road. "

The South Fork of the Shenandoah lay beneath a bed of mist. They crossedby a wooden bridge and came up again to the chill woods. Dim purplestreaks showed behind them in the east, but there was yet no glory andno warmth. Before them rose a long, low mountain ridge, a road runningalong the crest. "That certainly is damn funny!" said Harris; "unlessI've taken to seeing sights. "

Cleave checked his horse. Above them, along the ridge top, was moving anarmy. It made no noise on the soft, moist road, artillery wheel andhorse's hoof quiet alike. It seemed to wish to move quietly, withoutvoice. The quarter of the sky above the ridge was coldly violet, palelyluminous. All these figures stood out against it, soldiers with theirmuskets, colour-bearer with furled colours, officers on foot, officerson 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'yereckon 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 theturn. "

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 ofthe bottom lands. The leading regiment chanced to be the 2d; colonel andadjutant and others riding at the head. "Hello! It's RichardCleave!--The top of the morning to you, Cleave!--knew that Old Jack hadsent you off somewhere, but didn't know where. --Where are we going? ByGod, if you'll tell us, we'll tell you! Apparently we're leaving theValley--damn it all! Train to Richmond by night, I reckon. We've leftFourth of July, Christmas, and New Year behind us--Banks rubbing hishands, Fremont doing a scalp dance, Milroy choosing headquarters inStaunton! Well, it doesn't stand thinking of. You had as well waited forus at the Gap. The general? Just behind, head of main column. He'sjerked that right hand of his into the air sixteen times since we leftHarrisonburg day before yesterday, and the staff says he prays at nightmost powerful. Done a little praying myself; hope the Lord will lookafter the Valley, seeing we aren't going to do it ourselves!"

Cleave drew his horse to one side. "I'll wait here until he comesup--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 atKernstown--V. M. I. Airs and precision, and gallantry enough for adozen!"

"I'll tell him you said so, colonel! Good-bye!"

Will, too, wanted to know--he said that Mr. Rat wanted to know--all thefellows 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--itisn't in the least like his usual conduct! Old Jack backing away fromcannons and such--quitting parade ground before it's time!--marching offto barracks with a beautiful rumpus behind him! It ain't natural! Markmy words, Richard, and Mr. Rat thinks so, too, it's General Lee orGeneral Johnston, and he's got to obey and can't help himself!--What doyou think?"

"I think it will turn out all right. Now march on, boy! The colonel sayshe watched you at Kernstown; says you did mighty well--'gallant for adozen!'"

General Jackson on Little Sorrel was met with further on. Imperturbableand self-absorbed, with his weather-stained uniform, his great boots, his dreadful cap, he exhibited as he rode a demeanour in which there wasneither heaviness nor lightness. Never jovial, seldom genial, he was onone day much what he was on another--saving always battle days. Ridingwith his steadfast grey-blue eyes level before him, he communed withhimself or with Heaven--certainly not with his dissatisfied troops. 

He acknowledged Cleave's salute, and took the letter which the otherproduced. "Good! good! What did you do at Charlottesville?"

"I sent the stores on to Major Harman at Staunton, sir. There was a gooddeal 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 MajorHarman. "

"Good!" He folded the slip of paper between his large fingers andtransferred it to his pocket. "I will read General Ewell's letter. LaterI may wish to ask you some questions. That is all, major. "

Cleave rode back to the 65th. Presently, the sun now brilliantly up, theArmy of the Valley, in no sunny mood, crossed the bridge over theShenandoah. There was a short halt. A company of Ashby's galloped fromthe rear and drew off into a strip of level beside the bridge. A sectionof artillery followed suit. The army understood that for some reason orother and for some length of time or other the bridge was to be guarded, but it understood nothing more. Presently the troops passed Conrad'sStore, where the old negro, reinforced now by the dozen whiteinhabitants, gaped at the tramping column. The white men askedstuttering questions, and as the situation dawned upon them theyindulged in irritating comment. "Say, boys, where in the Lord's name airyou going? We want you on this side of the Blue Ridge--you ain't got anycall to go on the other!--if you've got any Tuckahoes, let them go, butyou Cohees stay in your native land--Valley men ain't got no _right_ togo! _What'd the women say to you along the road?_ Clearing out like apassel of yaller dogs afore there's trouble and leavin' them an' thechildren to entertain the Yankees!"

Harris, coming up with the orderlies, found the old negro at his mare'sbridle. "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 powerfulcu'rous, hit sho do. But dar! I done seed de stars all fallin' way backin '33, en dat wuz powerful cu'rous too, fer de worl' didn't come ter aneend--Mebbe, sah, he jes'er drawin' dat gent'man on?"

Sullen and sorry, the army marched on, and at noon came to Elk RunValley on the edge of Swift Run Gap. When the men stacked arms and brokeranks, it was upon the supposition that, dinner over, they would resumethe 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 theriver and the camp; north, south, and east rose the mountains, and onthe other side of Swift Run Gap, near Stanardsville, lay Ewell and hiseight thousand. The encampment occupied low and flat ground, throughwhich ran a swollen creek. The spring had been on the whole inclement, and now, with suddenness, winter came back for a final word. One daythere was a whirl of snow, another was cold and harsh, on the thirdthere set in a chilly rain. It rained and rained, and all the mountainstreams came down in torrents and still further swelled the turbidcreek. One night, about halfway through their stay, the creek came outof its banks and flooded the surrounding land. All tents, huts, andshelters of boughs for a hundred feet each side acquired a liquidflooring. There arose an outcry on the midnight air. Wet and cursing, half naked and all a-shiver, men disentangled themselves from theirsoaked blankets, snatched up clothing and accoutrements, and splashedthrough a foot of icy water to slightly dryer quarters on the risingground. 

Snow, rain, freeze, thaw, impatience, listlessness, rabid conjecture, apathetic acquiescence, quarrels, makeups, discomfort, ennui, a deal ofswearing (carefully suppressed around headquarters), drill wheneverpracticable, two Sunday services and one prayer meeting!--the last weekof 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 leakedlike a sieve, and there was a deserted tannery that still filled the airwith an evil odour, and there was change of pickets, and there wererain-sodden couriers to be observed coming and going (never anything tobe gotten out of them), and there were the mountains hung with greyclouds. The wood was always wet and would not burn. Coffee was so lowthat it was served only every other day, besides being half chicory, andthe commissary had been cheated into getting a lot of poor tobacco. Theguardhouse accommodated more men than usual. A squad of Ashby's broughtin five deserters, all found on the backward road to the Valley. Onesaid that he was sick and that his mother had always nursed him; anotherthat 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 thathis wife was alive; the fifth that he was tired of living; and the sixthsaid nothing at all. Jackson had the six put in irons, and it wasthought that after the court martial they would be shot. 

On the twenty-ninth Ashby, from the other side of the Shenandoah, made ademonstration in force against the enemy at Harrisonburg, and the nextday, encountering the Federal cavalry, drove them back to the town. Thatsame afternoon the Army of the Valley, quitting without regret Elk RunValley, found itself travelling an apparently bottomless road that woundalong 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 stillin the Valley. "

"By gosh, I've heard the captain give some mighty good guesses! I'mgoing to ask him. --Captain, what d' ye reckon we camped ten days in thatmud hole for?"

Hairston Breckinridge gave the question consideration. "Well, Tom, maybethere were reasons, after all. General Ewell, for instance--he couldhave joined us there any minute. They say he's going to take our placeat Elk Run to-night!"

"That so? Wish him joy of the mud hole!"

"And we could have been quickly reinforced from Richmond. General Bankswould know all that, and 't would make him even less eager than he seemsto 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 wemight pile out and strike Milroy, and if he went south and west to meetMilroy he might hear of something happening to Fremont. "

"That's so--"

"And if he moved south on Staunton he might find himself caught like ascalybark in a nut cracker--Edward Johnson on one side and the Army ofthe Valley on the other. "

"That's so--"

"The other day I asked Major Cleave if General Jackson never amusedhimself 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 marchinginfantry. The wagon train moved in front, and the heavy wheels made forthe rest a track something like Christian's through the Slough ofDespond. The artillery brought up the rear and fared worst of all. Gunsand caissons slid heavily into deep mud holes. The horses strained--poorbrutes! but their iron charges stuck fast. The drivers used whip andvoice, the officers swore, there arose calls for Sergeant Jordan. Appearing, that steed tamer picked his way to the horses' heads, spoketo them, patted them, and in a reasonable voice said, "Get up!" They didit, 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 mudtortoise. Twilight found it little more than five miles from itsstarting-point, and the bivouac that night was by the comfortlessroadside, in the miry bushes, with fires of wet wood, and small and poorrations. Clouds were lowering and a chilly wind fretted the forests ofthe Blue Ridge. Around one of the dismal, smoky fires an especiallydejected 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 tojudge. 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 mightthrough grey sheets of rain. Breakfast was a mockery, damp hardtackholding the centre of the stage. A very few men had cold coffee in theircanteens, but when they tried to heat it the miserable fire went out. Onmarched 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 waslike the other, and none had any bottom. Each gun had now a corps ofpioneers, who, casting stone and brushwood into the morass, laboriouslybuilt a road for the piece. Whole companies of infantry were put at thiswork. The officers helped, the staff dismounted and helped, thecommanding general was encountered, rain-dripping, mud-spattered, a logon his shoulder or a great stone in his hands. All this day they madebut five miles, and at night they slept in something like a lake, with agibing 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 Maythe third the clouds broke and the sun came out. It found the troopsbivouacked just east of the village of Port Republic, and it put intothem life and cheer. Something else helped, and that was the fact thatbefore them, clear and shining in the morning light, stretched, not theneglected mountain road they had been travelling, but a fair Valleyroad, the road to Staunton. 

Jackson and his staff had their quarters at the neighbouring house ofGeneral Lewis. At breakfast one of the ladies remarked that the Stauntonroad was in good condition, and asked the guest of honour how long itwould 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, bynight?"

"You are fortunate, " said the general, "in having a great naturalcuriosity at your very doors. I have long wanted to see Weyers's Cave. Avast cavern like that, hollowed out by God's finger, hung withstalactites, with shells and banners of stone, filled with soundingaisles, run through by dark rivers in which swim blind fish--howwonderful a piece of His handiwork! I have always wished to see it--themore so that my wife has viewed it and told me of its marvels. I alwayswish, madam, to rest my eyes where my wife's have rested. "

The bugles ringing "Fall in!" were positively sweet to the ears of thesoldiers of the Valley. "Fall in? with pleasure, sir! Eighteen miles?What's eighteen miles when you're going home? It's a fine old roadanyhow, with more butterflies on it! We'll double-quick it all the wayif Old Jack wants us!"

"That man back there says Staunton's awfully anxious. Says people allthink we've gone to reinforce Richmond without caring a damn whatbecomes of the Valley. Says Milroy is within ten miles of Staunton, andBanks's just waiting a little longer before he pulls up stakes atHarrisonburg and comes down the pike to join him. Says Edward Johnsonain't got but a handful, and that the Staunton women are hiding theirsilver. Says--Here's Old Jack, boys! going to lead us himself back toGoshen! One cheer ain't enough--_three cheers for General Jackson!_"

Jackson, stiffly lifting the old forage cap, galloped by upon LittleSorrel. His staff behind him, he came to the head of the column where itwas drawn up on the fair road leading through Port Republic, south andwest to Staunton. Close on the eastern horizon rose the Blue Ridge. Tothis side turned off a rougher, narrower way, piercing at Brown's Gapthe great mountain barrier between the Valley and Piedmont Virginia. 

The column was put into motion, the troops stepping out briskly. Warmand lovely was the sunshine, mildly still the air. Big cherry trees werein bloom by the wayside: there was a buzzing of honey bees, a slowfluttering of yellow butterflies above the fast drying mud puddles. Throughout the ranks sounded a clearing of throats; it was evident thatthe men felt like singing, presently would sing. The head of the columncame 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 hornwinding up the James at night, not the minie's long screech, notGabriel's trump, not anything could have sounded at this moment somournfully in the ears of the Army of the Valley. It wheeled to theleft, it turned its back to the Valley, it took the stony road toBrown'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 andin sweet odours, was carpeted with wild flowers and ecstatic with singingbirds. 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 farmand 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 northto south, twenty-five from Blue Ridge to Alleghenies! The men lookedwistfully, with grieved, children's faces. 

At the top of the mountain there was a short halt. The up-hill pull hadbeen hard enough, heavy hearts and all! The men dropped upon the earthbetween the pine trees of the crest. For the most part they lay in thesullen silence with which they had climbed. Some put their heads upontheir arms, tilted hat or cap over their eyes. Others chewed a twig orstalk of grass and gazed upon the Valley they were leaving, or upon thevast eastward stretch of Piedmont, visible also from the mountain top. It was bright and quiet up here above the world. The sunshine drew outthe 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 theValley soldiers were not happy. Jackson, riding by a recumbent group, spoke from the saddle. "That's right, men! You rest all over, lyingdown. " In the morning this group had cheered him loudly; now it salutedin a genuine "Bath to Romney" silence. He rode by, imperturbable. Hischief engineer was with him, and they went on to a flat rock commandingboth the great views, east and west. Here they dismounted, and betweenthem unfurled a large map, weighting its corners with pine cones. Thesoldiers below them gazed dully. Old Jack--or Major-General T. J. Jackson--or Fool Tom Jackson was forever looking at maps. It was a trickof his, as useless as saying "Good! good!" or jerking his hand in theair in that old way. 

 * * * * *

That evening the Army of the Valley slept in emerald meadows besideMeechum's River in Albemarle. Coming down the mountain it had caughtdistant glimpses of white spirals of smoke floating from the overworkedengines of the Virginia Central; and now it lay near a small countrystation, and there on the switch were empty cars and empty cars!--_carsto go to Richmond on_. The army groaned and got its supper, took out itspipe and began, though reluctantly enough, to regard the situation witha philosophic eye. What was done was done! The Blue Ridge lay betweenit and the Valley, and after all Old Joe must be wanting soldiers prettybadly down at Richmond! The landscape was lovely, the evening tranquiland sweet. The army went to bed early, and went in a frame of mindapproaching resignation. This was Saturday evening; Old Jack would restto-morrow. 

Sunday dawned clear and sweet. Pleasant morning--no drill, and lightcamp duties--coffee, hot biscuits, good smoke--general Sundayatmosphere--bugler getting ready to sound "Church!"--regimentalchaplains 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! Thebugler blew another call, the chaplains stopped short in their sedatestride, 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 onSunday--forced marches on Sunday--Sunday train to Richmond. Languagefailed. 

There were long lines of cars, some upon the main track, others on thesiding. The infantry piled in, piled atop. Out of each window came threeor four heads. "You fellows on the roof, you're taller'n we are! Air wethe first train? That's good, we'll be the first to say howdy toMcClellan. You all up there, don't dangle your legs that-a-way! You'reas hard to see through as Old Jack!"

Company after company filed into the poor old cars that were none toolarge, whose ante-bellum days were their best days, who never had timenow to be repaired or repainted, or properly cleaned. Squad by squadswung itself up to the cindery roof and sat there in rows, feet over theedge, 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? Crowdinggentlemen in this inconsiderate fashion! Oh, ain't it hot? Wish I wasgoing 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 seethe artillery and the wagons?"

"Yes. Way over there. Going along a road--nice shady road. Rockbridge'sleading--"

"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 grindingbump. An instant's pause, a gathering of force, a mighty puffing and, slow and jerkily, the cars began to move. The ground about Meechum'sStation was grey with soldiers--part of the Stonewall, most of Burk'sand Fulkerson's brigades, waiting for the second train and the thirdtrain and their turn to fill the cars. They stood or leaned against thestation platform, or they sat upon the warm red earth beneath the locusttrees, white and sweet with hanging bloom. "Good-bye, boys! See you inRichmond--Richmond on the James! Don't fight McClellan till we getthere! That engine's just pulling them beyond the switch. Then that onebelow there will back up and hitch on at the eastern end. --That'sfunny!" The men sitting on the warm red earth beneath the locust treessprang 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 trainfloated wild cheering. "Staunton! We're going to Staunton! We're goingback 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 hurryup. 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 beesswarming. Another train was on the main track, the head beautifully, gloriously westward! "Staunton! Good-bye, you little old Richmond, weain't going to see you this summer!--Feel good? I feel like a shoutingMethodist! My grandmother was a shouting Methodist. I feel I'm going toshout--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 Valleytown, fair-sized and prosperous, with its pillared court house, its oldhotel, its stores, its up and down hill streets, its many and shadytrees, its good brick houses, and above the town its quaintly namedmountains--Staunton had had, in the past twelve months, many an unwontedthrob and thrill. To-day it was in a condition of genuine, dull, steadyanxiety, now and then shot through by a fiercer pang. There had been intown a number of sick and convalescent soldiers. All these were sentseveral days before, eastward, across the mountains. In the place werepublic and military stores. At the same time, a movement was made towardhiding these in the woods on the other side of the twin mountains BetsyBell and Mary Grey. It was stopped by a courier from the direction ofSwift Run Gap with a peremptory order. _Leave those stores where theyare. _ Staunton grumbled and wondered, but obeyed. And now the eveningbefore, had come from Port Republic, eighteen miles toward the BlueRidge, a breathless boy on a breathless horse, with tidings that Jacksonwas at last and finally gone from the Valley--had crossed at Brown's Gapthat morning! "Called to Richmond!" groaned the crowd that accompaniedthe boy on his progress toward official Staunton. "Reckon Old Joe andGeneral 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 andMilroy'll saunter along and dig us up! There's old Watkin's bugle! HomeGuard, come along and drill!"

Staunton did little sleeping that Saturday night. Jackson wasgone--Ashby with him. There was not a Confederate vedette between thetown and Banks at Harrisonburg--the latter was probably moving down thepike this very night, in the dark of the moon. Soldiers of EdwardJohnson--tall Georgians and 44th Virginians--had been in town thatSaturday, but they two were gone, suddenly recalled to their camp, sevenmiles west, on the Parkersburg road. Scouts had reported to Johnson thatMilroy was concentrating at M'Dowell, twenty miles to the westward, andthat Schenck, sent on by Fremont, had joined or would join him. Any hourthey might move eastward on Staunton. Banks--Fremont--Milroy--threearmies, forty thousand men--all converging on Staunton and its HomeGuard, with the intent to make it even as Winchester! Staunton feltitself the mark of the gods, a mournful Rome, an endangered Athens, atottering Carthage. 

Sunday morning, clear and fine, had its church bells. The children wentto Sunday School, where they learned of Goliath and the brook Hebron, and David and his sling. At church time the pews were wellfilled--chiefly old men and women and young boys. The singing wasfervent, the prayers were yet more so. The people prayed very humbly andheartily for their Confederacy, for their President and his Cabinet, andfor Congress, for their Capital, so endangered, for their armies andtheir generals, for every soldier who wore the grey, for their blockedports, for New Orleans, fallen last week, for Norfolk that theauthorities said must be abandoned, for Johnston and Magruder on thePeninsula--at that very hour, had they known it, in grips with Hancockat Williamsburg. 

Benediction pronounced, the congregation came out of the churchyards intime to greet with delight, not unmixed with a sense of the pathos ofit, certain just arrived reinforcements. Four companies of VirginiaMilitary Institute cadets, who, their teachers at their head, had beenmarched 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 andtheir colours, amidst plaudits, tears, laughter, flowers, thrown kisses, they came down the street, wheeled, and before the court house werereceived by the Home Guard, an organization of grey-headed men. 

Sunday afternoon brought many rumours. Milroy would march from McDowellto-morrow--Banks was coming down the turnpike--Fremont hovering closer. Excited country people flocked into town. Farmers whose sons were withJackson came for advice from leading citizens. Ought they to bring inthe women and children?--no end of foreigners with the blue coats, andforeigners are rough customers! And stock? Better drive the cows up intothe mountains and hide the horses? "Tom Watson says they're awfulwanton, --take what they want and kill the rest, and no more think ofpaying!--Says, too, they're burning barns. What d'you think we'd betterdo, 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 horsebackor in their white-covered wagons, and bringing wife or daughter. The menwere long-bearded and venerable of aspect; the women had peaceful Quakerfaces, framed by the prim close bonnet of their peculiar garb. Thesequiet folk, too, were anxious-eyed. They would not resist evil, buttheir homes and barns were dear to their hearts. 

By rights the cadets should have been too leg weary for parade, but ifStaunton (and the young ladies) wished to see how the V. M. I. Didthings, why, of course! In the rich afternoon light, band playing, MajorSmith at their head, the newly-arrived Corps of Defence marched down thestreet toward a green field fit for evolutions. With it, on eithersidewalk, went the town at large, specifically the supremely happy, small boy. The pretty girls were already in the field, seated, fullskirted 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'sthat? Train due?"--"No. Not due for an hour--always late then! Betterhalt until it pulls in. Can't imagine--"

The engine appeared, an old timer of the Virginia Central, excitedlypuffing dark smoke, straining in, like a racer to the goal. Behind itcars and cars--_cars with men atop_! They were all in grey--they wereall yelling--the first car had a flag, the battle-flag of theConfederacy, the dear red ground, and the blue Saint Andrew's Cross andthe white stars. There were hundreds of men! hundreds and hundreds, companies, regiments, on the roof, on the platforms, half out of thewindows, 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 thelight of a great camp-fire and wrote a dispatch to his Government. Therewaited for it a swift rider--watching the stars while the general wrote, or the surgeons' lanterns, like fireflies, wandering up and down thelong green slopes where the litter bearers lifted the wounded, friendand 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 helooked for a minute or two at the flitting lanterns, and then he slowlytore 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 totake it, for his horse whinnied upon the road far below, and the way toStaunton was long and dark. However, Jackson's eyes again dwelt on thegrey slopes before him and on the Alleghenies, visited by stars, andthen, as slowly as before, he tore this dispatch also across and acrossand dropped the pieces on the brands. When they were burned he wrote asingle line, signed and folded it, and gave it to the courier. Thelatter, 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 suchwomen in the Valley there'll be worth-while men there, too! You've allsurely done your share. "

"Now, you've got the pot of apple butter, and the bucket with thehoneycomb, and the piece of bacon and the light bread. If you'd come alittle earlier I could have let you have some eggs--"

"I've got a feast for a king. --All these fighting men going up and downthe Valley are going to eat you out of house and home. --I got some paytwo months ago, and I've enough left to make it fairer--"

He drew out a Confederate note. The woman on the doorstep looked at itadmiringly, and, taking it from him, examined either side. "They makethem pretty as a picture, " she said. "Once't I was in Richmond and sawthe Capitol. That's a good picture of it. And that statue of GeneralWashington!--My! his horse's just dancing as they say Ashby's does tomusic. 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'dhave liked to give you--but it's all gone. Howsoever, you won't gohungry 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 Ican 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 ofthere being different kinds. Do you think the army'll come this way?"

"I shouldn't be surprised, " said Allan. "Indeed, I'm rather expectingit. 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 ahundred miles away, I reckon, but all last night I thought I heard thecannon. Well, good-bye! I'm mighty glad to see you all again in theValley. Be sure to come back for your breakfast--and if the army passesI'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 thespring, then climbed a rail fence and made across a rolling field ofbright green clover to a width of blossoming woods, beyond which ran theMt. Solon and Bridgewater road. From the forest issued a curl of bluevapour and a smell of wood smoke. The scout, entering, found a cheerful, unnecessarily large fire. Stretched beside it, upon the carpet of lastyear's leaves, lay Billy Maydew, for whose company he had applied uponquitting, a week before, the army between McDowell and Franklin. Allansnuffed the air. "You build too big a fire, Billy! 'Tisn't a goodscout's way of doing. "

Billy laid down horizontally upon the leaves the stick he had beenwhittling. "Thar ain't anybody but home folks to smell it. Didn't we seeAshby on the black stallion draw a line like that thar stick across theValley with a picket post for every knot?" He sat up. "Did you getanything to eat?"

"I certainly did. There surely are good women in the land!" Allandisburdened himself. "Rake the coals out and get the skillet. "

Afterwards they lay prone upon the leaves and talked. They had much oflife in common; they were as at home with each other as two squirrelsfrequenting the same tree. Now, as they lay beneath two clouds from twobriar-roots, they dwelt for some time upon Thunder Run, then from thatdelectable region turned to the here and now. Allan had taught Billy, finding him a most unsatisfactory pupil. Billy had in those daysacquired little book learning, but a very real respect for the blondgiant now lying opposite to him. Since coming to the army he had beenled to deplore his deficiencies, and, a week ago, he had suggested toAllan that in the interim of active scouting the latter should continuehis education. "When thar air a chance I want to swap into theartillery. Three bands of red thar, " he drew a long finger across hissleeve, "air my ambition. I reckon then Christianna and all the ThunderRun girls would stop saying 'Billy. ' They'd say 'Sergeant Maydew. ' Anartillery sergeant's got to be head in ciphering, and he's got to beable to read words of mor'n one--one--"

"Syllable. "

"That's it. Now they aren't any printed books hereabouts, but you've gotit all in your head--"

"I can't teach you much, " Allan had said soberly, "whispering underbushes 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 onThunder Run. Now, lying in the woods a little west of Mt. Solon, waitingfor the army moving back to the Valley, this time from the west, fromthe Allegheny fastnesses, he accomplished with eclat some oralarithmetic--"If two Yankee Parrotts are fired every eight minutes, andin our battery we serve the howitzer every nine minutes, the Napoleonevery ten, the two six-pounders every eleven, and if the Yankees limberup and leave at the end of an hour, how many shells will have beenthrown?"--"If it is a hundred and ten miles from Harrisonburg to thePotomac, 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 skirmisheseach occupying two hours, and if Banks makes a stand of half a day atWinchester, and if Fremont executes a flank movement and delays us sixhours, just how long will it be before Old Jack pushes Banks into thePotomac?"--"If Company A had ninety men when it started ('thar war afull hundred') and five men died of measles and pneumonia (''t weresix'), and if we recruited three at Falling Springs, and six were killedat Manassas and sixteen wounded, half of whom never came back, and wegot twelve recruits at Centreville and seven more at Winchester, and iffive 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 thehospital, and if ten more recruits came in at Rude's Hill and if we leftfour sick at Magaheysville, and if we lost none at McDowell, not beingengaged, but two in a skirmish since, and if Steve Dagg straggled threetimes but was brought back and tried to desert twice but never got anyfurther than the guardhouse--how many men are in Company A?"--"If"--thiswas Billy's--"if I have any luck in the next battle, and if I air foundto have a speaking acquaintance with every damned thousand-legged wordthe captain asks me about, and I get to be a sergeant, and I air swappedinto the artillery, and thar's a big fight, and my battery and Company Aare near, and Sergeant Mathew Coffin gets into trouble right next doorto me, and he cried out a hundred times (lying right thar in the zone offire), 'Boys, come take me out of hell!' and the company all was forcedback, and all the gunners, and I was left thar serving my gun, just aspretty and straight, and he cried out anoth'r hundred times, 'BillyMaydew, come pick me up and carry me out of hell'--and I just served ona hundred times, only looking at him every time the gun thundered and Istraightened up--"

"For shame!" cried Allan. "I've heard Steve Dagg say something like thatabout Richard Cleave. " Billy sat up indignant. "It air not like that atall! The major air what he is, and Steve Dagg air what he is! SergeantMathew Coffin air what somebody or other called somebody else in thatthar old history book you used to make us learn! He air 'a pettytyrant. ' He air that, and Thunder Run don't like that kind. He air notgoing to tyrannize much longer over Billy Maydew. And don't you becomparing 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. Allantook it calmly, made a placating remark or two, and lapsed into afriendly silence. It was pleasant in the woods, where the birds flittedto and fro, and the pink honeysuckle grew around, and from a safedistance a chipmunk daintily watched the intruders. The scout lay, drowsily happy, the sunshine making spun gold of his hair and beard, hiscarbine resting near. Back on Thunder Run, at the moment, Christianna inher pink sunbonnet, a pansy from the tollgate at her throat, rested uponher hoe in the garden she was making and looked out over the great seaof mountains visible from the Thunder Run eyrie. Shadows of clouds movedover them; then the sun shone out and they lay beneath in an amethystinedream; Christianna had had her dream the night before. In her sleep shehad come upon a dark pool beneath alders, and she had knelt upon theblack bank and plunged her arms to the shoulders into the water. Itseemed in her dream that there was something at the bottom that shewanted--a breastpin or a piece of money. And she had drawn up somethingthat weighed heavily and filled her arms. When she had lifted it halfwayout of the water the moon came out, and it was Allan Gold. She stood nowin her steep mountain garden bordered with phlox and larkspur and lookedfar out over the long and many ridges. She knew in which generaldirection to look, and with her mind's eye she tried to see the fightingmen, the fighting men; and then she shook her head and bent to herhoeing--far back and high up on Thunder Run. 

Thirty leagues away, in the flowering wood by the Mt. Solon road Allansat up. "I was nearly asleep, " he said, "back on the mountain-sideabove 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 earthon the fire while I take a look. " Rifle in hand, he threaded the thickundergrowth between the camp and the road. 

It was late in the afternoon, but the road lay yet in sunshine betweenthe clover and the wheat, the bloomy orchards and the woods of May. Allan's precautions had been largely instinctive; there were noFederals, he had reason to be sure, south of Strasburg. He looked to seesome changing picket post of Ashby's. But the five horsemen who came insight, 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, afteranother deliberate look, stepped from behind a flowering thorn. Theparty drew up. "Good-afternoon, my man, " said the stars and wreath inthe centre in a high, piping voice. "Alone, are you?--Ain't straggling, I hope? Far too many stragglers--curse of this service--civilians turnedsoldiers and all that. What's that? You know him, Stafford? One ofGeneral Jackson's scouts?--Then do you know, pray, where is GeneralJackson? 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 ismarching 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 knowwhat I'm to do! Am I to strengthen Johnston at Richmond? Am I to crossinto the Valley--by God, it's lovely!--and reinforce Jackson? Damn it, gentlemen, I'm a major-general on a seesaw! Richmond in danger--Valleyin danger. 'Better come to me!' says Johnston. Quite right! He needsevery man. 'Better stay with Jackson, ' says Lee. Quite right again! OldJackson has three armies before him and only a handful. 'Better gallopacross and find out the crazy man's own mind, ' says the major-generalin the middle. " He turned with the suddenness of a bird to Allan. "ByGod, 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 butterand a piece of honeycomb, sir--"

Ewell dismounted. "You're the foster brother I've been in search of forthirty-five years! Maury and John, it sounds as though there were enoughfor four. Deane and Edmondson, you ride on to that mill I see in frontof us, and ask if the folks won't give you supper. We'll pick you up inan hour or so. Now, my friend in need, we'll build a fire and if you'vegot a skillet I'll show you how an omelette ought to be made andgenerally isn't!"

Within the covert Billy made up the fire again, and General Ewell, beneaththe amused eyes of his aides, sliced bacon, broke eggs into the skillet andproduced an omelette which was a triumph. He was, in truth, a mastercook--and everything was good and savoury--and the trio was very hungry. Ewell had cigars, and smoked them like a Spaniard--generous, too--givingfreely to the others. As often as it burned low Billy threw dried sticksupon the fire. The evening was cool, the shadows advancing; the cracklinglight and warmth grateful enough. The newcomers asked questions. They wereeager to know--all the country was keen-set to know--eye-witnesses ofevents 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 thecrest. 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 ourtroops were lying down. 'We didn't come all this way to hide fromYankees, ' 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 oftheirs--firing the forest! Everywhere a great murk with tongues offlame--smoke in nostril and eyes and the wind blowing fast. It lookedlike the end of the world. Old Jack--beg pardon, sir, GeneralJackson--General Jackson couldn't but smile, it was such excellenttactics. We drew off at last, near Franklin, and the army went into campfor 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 prettythoroughly. "

"How?"

"Burned all the bridges; cut down trees--in one place a mile ofthem--and made abatis, toppled boulders over the cliffs and choked theroads. If Fremont wants to get through he'll have to go round RobinHood's Barn to do it! He's out of the counting for awhile, I reckon. Atleast he won't interfere with our communications. Ashby has threecompanies toward the mountains, He's picketed the Valley straight acrossbelow Woodstock. Banks can't get even a spy through from Strasburg. I'veheard an officer say--you know him, Major Stafford--Major Cleave--I'veheard him say that General Jackson uses cavalry as Napoleon did and asno one has done since. "

Ewell lit another cigar. "Well, I'm free to confess that old Jacksonisn't as crazy as an idiot called Dick Ewell thought him! As Miltonsays, '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 agood name, by George! but, by George! they ought to call him the ArtfulDodger--"

Maury Stafford burst into laughter. "By Heaven. Morris, you'd bettertell 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 asMacchiavelli! Begins his orders with an honourable mention of God, closes them with 'Put all deserters in irons, ' and in between givespoints 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, witha letter from General Jackson. I left him at the mill and came back toreport. There's a nice little office there with a light and writingmaterials. "

Dusk filled the forest, the night came, and the stars shone between thebranches. A large white moon uprose and made the neighbouring road amilky ribbon stretched east and west. A zephyr just stirred the myriadleaves. Somewhere, deeper in the woods, an owl hooted at intervals, verysolemnly. Billy heaped wood upon the fire, laid his gun carefully, justso, stretched himself beside it and in three minutes reached the deepestbasin of sleep. Allan sat with his back to the hickory, and thefirelight falling upon the leaves of a book he had borrowed from somestudent in the ranks. It was a volume of Shelley, and the young man readwith serious appreciation. He was a lover of poetry, and he was glad tomeet with this poet whose works he had not been able as yet to put uponhis book-shelf, back in the little room, under the eaves of thetollgate. He read on, bent forward, the firelight upon his ample frame, gold of hair and beard, and barrel of the musket lying on the leavesbeside 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 ofthe 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 ofweariness in the very hoof sounds, then left the road for the woodsideand stopped. Ensued a pause while the rider fastened it to some sapling, then, through the bushes, the former came toward the camp-fire. Heproved to be Maury Stafford. "The courier says General Jackson willreach Mt. Solon about midnight. General Ewell is getting an hour's sleepat the mill. I am not sleepy and your fire is attractive. May I keep youcompany for awhile?"

Allan was entirely hospitable. "Certainly, sir! Spread your cloak justthere--the wind will blow the smoke the other way. Well, we'll all beglad 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 withhis chin in his hand, staring at the fire. Some moments elapsed beforehe 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 betterthan 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 andout. "

"A little clumsily simple sometimes, do you not think? Lawyer andsoldier grafted on Piers Ploughman, and the seams not well hidden? Iwould 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 ofthe Romney expedition--"

"Oh, that!" said Allan, "that was nothing. " He put down his pipe. "Letme see if I can explain to you the ways of this army. You don't knowGeneral Jackson as we do, who have been with him ever since a year agoand 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 inhis discipline, and he'll tolerate no shade of insubordination, ordisobedience, 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'tunderstand making allowances or forgiving. He'll rebuke a man in generalorders, hold him up--if he's an officer--before the troops, and all forsomething that another general would hardly notice! He'll make anofficer march without his sword for whole days in the rear of hisregiment, and all for something that just a reprimand would have donefor! As you say, he made the very man we're talking of do that fromBloomery Gap to Romney--and nobody ever knew why. Just the other daythere were some poor fools of twelve-month men in one of our regimentswho concluded they didn't want to reenlist. They said they'd go home andcried out for their discharge. And they had forgotten all about theconscription act that Congress had just passed. So, when the dischargewas refused they got dreadfully angry, and threw down their arms. Thecolonel went to the general, and the general almost put him underarrest. 'Why does Colonel Grigsby come to me to learn how to deal withmutineers? Shoot them where they stand. '--Kernstown, too. There's hardlya man of the Stonewall that doesn't think General Garnett justified inordering that retreat, and yet look at Garnett! Under arrest, and thecommanding general preferring charges against him! Says he did not waitfor orders, lost the battle and so on. With Garnett it is a deadlyserious 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 bestcan avoid them. I shouldn't think they were pleasant, for sometimes theyare 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 helooked a happy man. "

"Ah!"

The conversation dropped. The scout, having said his say, easilyrelapsed into silence. His visitor, half reclining upon his cloakbeneath an old, gnarled tree, was still. The firelight played strangelyover his face, for now it seemed the face of one man, now that ofanother. In the one aspect he looked intent, as though in his mind hemapped a course. In the other he showed only weariness, dashed withsomething tragic--a handsome, brooding, melancholy face. They stayedlike this for some time, the fire burning before them, the moon floodingthe forest, the owl hooting from his hole in some decaying tree. 

At last, however, another sound intruded, a very low, subdued sound likea distant ground swell or like thunder without resonance. It grew; dullyet, it became deep. Allan knocked the ashes from his pipe. "That is asound, " he said, "that when you have once heard you don't forget. Thearmy's coming. "

Stafford rose. "I must get back to General Ewell! Thank you, Gold, foryour hospitality. "

"Not at all! Not at all!" said Allan heartily. "I am glad that I couldput that matter straight for you. It would blight like black frost tohave Stonewall Jackson's hand and mind set against you--and RichardCleave 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, havingmarched twenty miles since high noon. On either hand stretched pleasantpastures, a running stream, fair woods. Company by company the men leftthe road, were halted, stacked arms, broke ranks. Cessation from motionwas sweet, sweet the feel of turf beneath their feet. They had hadsupper three hours before; now they wanted sleep, and without muchprevious ado they lay down and took it--Stonewall Jackson's "footcavalry" sleeping under the round moon, by Mt. Solon. 

At the mill there was a meeting and a conference. A figure in an oldcloak and a shabby forage cap dismounted, ungracefully enough, from atired nag, and crossed the uncovered porch to the wide mill door. Therehe was met by his future trusty and trusted lieutenant--"dear DickEwell. " Jackson's greeting was simple to baldness. Ewell's had theprecision of a captain of dragoons. Together they entered the small milloffice, where the aides placed lights and writing materials, thenwithdrew. The generals sat down, one on this side of the deal table, oneon that. Jackson took from his pocket a lemon, very deliberately openeda knife, and, cutting the fruit in two, put one half of the sourtreasure to his lips. Ewell fidgeted, then, as the other sucked on, determined to set the ball rolling. "Damn me, general! if I am not gladto have the pleasure at last--"

Jackson sent across the table a grey-blue glance, then gently put downone half of the lemon and took up the other. "Why the deuce should helook at me in that damned reproachful fashion?" thought Ewell. He madeanother 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 notswearing. Profanity, sir, is most distasteful to me. Now, you rodeacross?"

Ewell swallowed. "Rode across--rode across--I rode across, sir, fromSwift Run Gap, and I brought with me two late dispatches from GeneralJohnston and General Lee. I thought some expression, perhaps, to them ofyour opinion--following the late victory and all--"

The other took and read, laid down the dispatches and applied himself tohis lemon. Presently. "I will telegraph to-night to General Johnston andGeneral 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 willat once move your troops forward a day's march. Upon receipt of advicesfrom General Johnston and General Lee--and if they are of the tenour Iexpect--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 thoseinstructions be followed. I assume the responsibility of giving theproper instructions. "

"I understand, general. Obey and ask no questions. "

"Just so. Be careful of your ammunition wagons, but otherwise as littleimpedimenta as possible. "

"I understand, sir. The road to glory cannot be followed with muchbaggage. "

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. NowI will write a telegram to General Lee and then you shall get back toSwift Run Gap. The fewer hours a general is away from his troops thebetter. " He rose and opened the door. "Lieutenant Meade!" The aideappeared. "Send me a courier--the one with the freshest horse. OrderGeneral Ewell's horses to be saddled. "

This was the seventeenth. Two days later the Army of the Valley, movingdown the Valley pike in a beautiful confidence that it was hurlingitself against Banks at Strasburg, swerved to the east about New Market, with a suddenness that made it dizzy. Straight across its path now ranthe strange and bold wall of the Massanuttons, architectural freak ofNature's, planted midway of the smiling Valley. The army groaned. "Always climbing mountains! This time to-morrow, I reckon, we'll climbit back again. Nothing over on the other side but the Luray Valley!"

Up and up went the army, through luxuriant forests where the laurel wasin bloom, by the cool dash of mountain waters, past one-time haunts ofstag and doe, through fern, over pine needles, under azure sky, --thendown it sank, long winding after winding, moss and fern and richestforest, here velvet shadow, there highest light, down and down to thelovely Luray Valley, to the crossing of the Shenandoah, to green meadowsand 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 ridthemselves of the dust of yesterday's long march. In they plunged, allalong the south fork of the Shenandoah, into the cool and wholesomeflood. There were laughters, shoutings, games of dolphins. Then out theycame, and while they cooked their breakfasts they heard the drums andfifes of Ewell's eight thousand, marching down from Conrad's Store. 

The night before at Washington, where there was much security and muchtriumph over the certain-to-occur-soon-if-not-already-occurred Fall ofRichmond, the Secretary of War received a dispatch from General Banks atStrasburg 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 fromStrasburg, 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 thecool of the evening, at the door of headquarters, he looked toward theeast where the first stars were shining. Fourteen miles over there washis strongest outpost, the village of Front Royal occupied by ColonelKenly with a thousand men and two guns. The general could not see theplace; it lay between the Massanuttons and the Blue Ridge, but it was inhis mind. He spoke to an aide. "To-morrow I think I will recall Kenlyand send him down the pike to develop the force of the enemy. "

The small town of Strasburg pulsed with flaring lights and with themanifold sounds of the encamped army. Sutlers showed their wares, guarddetails went by, cavalrymen clanked their spurs through the streets, laughter and talk rang through the place. A company of strollingplayers had come down from the North, making its way from Washington toHarper's Ferry, held by three thousand Federals; from Harper's Ferry toWinchester, held by fifteen hundred; and from Winchester to Strasburg. The actors had a canvas booth, where by guttering candles and to thesound of squeaking fiddles they gave their lurid play of the night, andthey played to a crowded house. Elsewhere there was gambling, elsewherepraying, elsewhere braggarts spoke of Ajax exploits, elsewhere there wasmoaning and tossing in the hospitals, elsewhere some private, raisedabove the heads of his fellows, read aloud the Northern papers. _McClellan has one hundred and twelve thousand men. Yesterday hisadvance reached the White House on the Pamunkey. McDowell has fortythousand men, and at last advice was but a few marches from thetreasonable capital. Our gunboats are hurrying up the James. Presumablyat 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, wrotetheir 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 Jacksonmust be; and at those in the east, over the Massanuttons, with the BlueRidge beyond, and Front Royal in between, where Colonel Kenly was; andat the bright stars in the North, over home, over Connecticut andPennsylvania 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 milesfrom Front Royal, Stonewall Jackson and seventeen thousand men. 

CHAPTER XX

FRONT ROYAL

In the hot, bright morning, Cleave, commanding four companies of the65th thrown out as skirmishers, entered the band of forest lying betweenthe Blue Ridge and Front Royal. The day was hot, the odour of the pinesstrong and heady; high in heaven, in a still and intense blue, thebuzzards were slowly sailing. A long, thin line of picked men, keen, watchful, the reserve a hundred yards or two behind, the skirmishersmoved forward over a rough cart track and over the opposing banks. Eachman stepped lightly as a cat, each held his gun in the fashion mostconvenient to himself, each meant to do good hunting. Ahead was athicker belt of trees, and beyond that a gleam of sky, a promise of aclearing. 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 momentbefore the moment. The clearing appeared to be several hundred yardsaway. Back from it, upon the idle air, floated loud and carelesstalking, 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 growinglouder. Each grey marksman twitched his cartridge box in place, glanced athis musket, glanced toward his immediate officer. Across the intervals ranan indefinable spark, a bracing, a tension. Some of the men moistened theirlips, one or two uttered a little sigh, the hearts of all beat faster. Thestep had quickened. The trees grew more thinly, came down to a merebordering fringe of sumach. Cleave motioned to the bugler; the latterraised the bugle to his lips. _Forward!--Commence--Firing!_ The twocompanies in blue, marched down that morning superfluously to picket aregion where was no danger, received that blast and had their moment ofstupour. Laughter died suddenly. A clock might have ticked twice while theysat or stood as though that were all there was to do. The woods blazed, along 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 asugar 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 markupon his naked thigh. All ran now, ran with cries and oaths toward thestacked rifles. Ere they could snatch the guns, drop upon their knees, aimat the shaken sumach bushes and fire, came a second blaze and rattle and aleaden 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, itswallowed up the verdant mead, it came on, each of its units yellingdeath, to envelop the luckless two companies. One of these was very nearat hand, the other, for the moment more fortunate, a little way down thestream, near the Front Royal road. Cleave reached, a grey brand, theforemost of the two. "Surrender!"

The blue captain's sword lay with other paraphernalia on the grassbeneath the trees, but he signified assent to the inevitable. Thereserve, hurrying down from the wood, took the captured in charge. Theattack 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 throughthe bordering fields toward Front Royal. Cleave and his skirmishersgained. They were mountain men, long of limb; they went like Greekrunners, and they tossed before them round messengers of death. Thegreater number of blue soldiers, exhausted, slackened in their pace, halted, threw down their arms. Presently, trailing their feet, theyreturned to the streamlet and their companions in misfortune. 

The grey swept on, near now to Front Royal; before them a few bluefugitives, centre of a swiftly moving cloud of dust, a cloud into whichthe Thunder Run men fired at short intervals. Behind them they heard thetramp of the army. The Louisiana Brigade, leading, was coming at adouble-quick. On a parallel road to the left a dust cloud and dullthunder proclaimed a battery, making for the front. Out of the woodwhich 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 abreastof Cleave. Jackson spoke from the saddle. "How many?"

"Two companies, sir. Several killed, the rest prisoners, save six oreight who will reach the town. "

"Good! Press on. If they open with artillery, get under cover until ourguns are placed. " He jerked his hand into the air and rode on, gallopingstiffly, his feet stuck out from the nag's sides. The cavalrydisappeared 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 thetown was quartered a company or so. Soldiers off duty were lounging onthe shady side of the village street, missing the larger delights ofStrasburg, wondering if Richmond had fallen and where was StonewallJackson, when the fracas, a mile away, broke upon their ears. Secureindolence woke with a start. Front Royal buzzed like an overturned hive. In the camp beyond the town bugles blared and the long roll wasfuriously beaten. The lounging soldiers jerked up their muskets; otherspoured out of houses where they had been billeted. All put their legs togood use, down the road, back to the camp! Out, too, came the villagepeople, though not to flee the village. In an instant men and women werein street or porch or yard, laughing, crying, hurrahing, clapping hands, waving anything that might serve as a welcoming banner. "StonewallJackson! It's Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Bless the Lord, O mysoul!--Can't you all stop and tell a body?--No; you can't, of course. Goalong, and God bless you!--Their camp's this side the North Fork--abouta thousand of them. --Guns? Yes, they've got two guns. Cavalry? No, nocavalry. --Don't let them get away! If they fall back they'll try to burnthe bridges. Don't let them do that. The North Fork's awful rough andswollen. It'll be hard to get across. --Yes, the railroad bridge and thewagon bridge. I can't keep up with you any longer. I ain't as young as Ionce was. You're welcome, sir. "

Cleave and his men came out of the village street at a run. Before themstretched level fields, gold with sunshine and with blossoming mustard, crossed and cumbered with numerous rail fences. Beyond these, frombehind rolling ground lightly wooded, rang a great noise of preparation, drums, trumpets, confused voices. As the skirmishers poured into theopen and again deployed, a cannon planted on a knoll ahead spoke withvehemence. The shell that it sent struck the road just in front of thegrey, exploded, frightfully tore a man's arm and covered all with a dunmantle of dust. Another followed, digging up the earth in the field, uprooting and ruining clover and mustard. A third burst overhead. Astone wall, overtopped by rusty cedars, ran at right angles with theroad. To this cover Cleave brought the men, and they lay behind itpanting, welcoming the moment's rest and shelter, waiting for thebattery straining across the fields. The Louisianians, led by Taylor, were pouring through the village--Ewell was behind--Jackson and thecavalry had quite disappeared. 

Lying in the shadow of the wall, waiting for the order forward, Cleavesuddenly saw again and plainly what at the moment he had seen withoutnoting--Stafford's face, very handsome beneath soft hat and plume, riding with the 6th. It came now as though between eyelid and ball. Theeyes, weary and tragic, had rested upon him with intentness as he stoodand spoke with Jackson. Maury Stafford--Maury Stafford! Cleave's handstruck the sun-warmed stone impatiently. He was not fond of deepunhappiness--no, not even in the face of his foe! Why was it necessarythat the man should have felt thus, have thought thus, acted thus? Thefact that he himself could not contemplate without hot anger that otherfact of Stafford's thought still dwelling, dwelling upon Judith had madehim fight with determination any thought of the man at all. He could nothurt Judith, thank God! nor make between them more misunderstanding andmischief! Then let him go--let him go! with his beauty and his fatallook, like a figure out of an old, master canvas!--Cleave wrenched histhought to matters more near at hand. 

The battery first seen and heard was now up. It took position on a riseof ground and began firing, but the guns were but smoothboresix-pounders and the ammunition was ghastly bad. The shells explodedwell before they reached the enemy's lines. The opposing bluebattery--Atwell's--strongly posted and throwing canister fromten-pounder Parrotts--might have laughed had there not been--had therenot been more and more and yet more of grey infantry! Taylor with hisLouisianians, the First Maryland, Ewell, Winder with the Stonewall, grey, grey, with gleaming steel, with glints of red, pouring from thewoods, through the fields--the Pennsylvanians, working the battery, didnot laugh; they were pale, perhaps, beneath the powder grime. But paleor 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 ofArtillery, Colonel Crutchfield. The outclassed smoothbores limbered upand drew sulkily away; Courtenay's Battery, including a rifled gun, arrived in dust and thunder to take their place. Behind cameBrockenborough. The reeking battery horses bent to it; the driversyelled. The rumbling wheels, the leaping harness, the dust that allraised, made a cortege and a din as of Dis himself. The wheel stopped, the men leaped to the ground, the guns were planted, the limbersdropped, the horses loosed and taken below the hill. A loud cannonadebegan. 

Behind the screen of smoke, in the level fields, four Louisianaregiments formed in line of battle. A fifth moved to the left, itspurpose to flank the Federal battery. As for the cavalry, it appeared tohave sunk into the earth--and yet, even with the thought, out of theblue distance toward McCoy's Ford, on the South Fork arose a tremendousracket! A railway station, Buckton--was there, and a telegraph line, andtwo companies of Pennsylvania infantry, and two locomotives with steamup. At the moment there were also Ashby and the 7th Virginia, bent uponburning the railroad bridge, cutting the telegraph, staying thelocomotives, and capturing the Pennsylvanians. The latter tried toescape by the locomotives; tried twice and failed twice. The forminginfantry before Front Royal knew by the rumpus that Ashby was overthere, below the Massanuttons. There ran a rumour, too, that the 2dVirginia cavalry under Munford was somewhere to the northeast, blockingthe road to Manassas Gap, closing the steel trap on that quarter. The6th with Jackson remained sunken. 

In the hot sunshine blared the Louisianian trumpets. An aide, stretchedlike an Indian along the neck of his galloping horse, came to theskirmishers. "All right, Cleave! Go ahead! The Louisianians are pawingthe ground!--Shade of Alexander Hamilton, listen to that!"

"That" was the "Marseillaise, " grandly played. _Tramp, tramp!_ theLouisianians came on to its strains. The skirmish line left the sunnystone fence where slender ferns filled the chinks, and lizards ran likefrightened flames, and brown ants, anxious travellers, sought a wayhome. Cleave, quitting the shadow of a young locust tree, touched withhis 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 boughagain, 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 powerfultrap, manoeuvred ably. His guns were well served, and while theystayed for a moment the Confederate advance, he made dispositions for adetermined stand. The longer delay here, the greater chance atStrasburg! A courier dispatched in hot haste to warn the general thereencountered and hurried forward a detachment of the 7th New York Cavalryas well as a small troop of picked men, led by a sometime aide ofGeneral Banks. These, crossing the wagon bridge over the Shenandoah andcoming down the road at a double, reported to Kenly and were received bythe anxious troops with cheering. The ground hereabouts was rolling, green eminences at all points breaking the view. Kenly used the cavalryskilfully, making them appear now here, now there between the hills, tothe end that to the attackers they might appear a regiment. His gunsthundered, 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. "Agreat force of cavalry, sir--Ashby, I reckon, or the devil himself--onthe right! If they get to the river first--" There was small need offurther saying. If Ashby or the devil got to the river first, thenindeed was the trap closed on the thousand men!

_Face to the Rear! March!_ ordered Kenly. Atwell's Battery limbered upin hot haste, turned, and dashed in thunder up the road. It must crossthe bridge, seize some height, from there defend the crossing. Where thebattery had been the cavalry now formed the screen, thin enough andragged, yet menacing the grey infantry. 

The grey skirmishers rallied, fixed bayonets and advanced, theLouisianians close behind. The blue horsemen attempted a charge, anaction more bold than wise, they were so small a force. The men in greysprang at the bridles of the foremost, wrapped long mountain arms aboutthe riders. Despite sabre, despite pistol, several were dragged down, horse and man made captive. The most got back to safer ground. Kenly'sbugles rang out again, palpably alarmed, shrilly insistent. Horse andfoot must get across the Shenandoah or there would be the devil to pay!Beside the imperious trumpet came something else, an acrid smell andsmoke, 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, awhirling pillar of dust and clamour, sabre strokes, rifle and pistolcracks, oaths, cries, plunging of a maddened horse, Cleave saw a flushedface lift itself from the ground, a powerful shoulder thrust away thesurging grey shapes, a sabre flash in the sun, a hand from which bloodwas streaming catch at the horse's mane. The owner of the hand swunghimself again into the saddle from which Dave Maydew had plucked him. Remounted, he made a downward thrust with his sabre. Dave, keepingwarily out of reach of the horse's lashing heels, struck up the arm withhis bayonet. The sabre clattered to the ground; with an oath the man--anofficer--drew a revolver. The ball whizzed past Cleave's temple; asecond might have found his heart but that Allan Gold, entering somehowthe cleared circle made by the furious horse, hung upon the arm sleevedin fine blue cloth, and wrenched the Colt's from the gauntleted hand. Cleave, at the bridle, laughed and took his hands away. "ChristmasCarols 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. "Iprofess that in all this dust and smoke I did not at first recognizeyou. I am your obedient servant. If my foe, sir, then I dub you mydearest foe! To our next meeting!"

He backed the furious horse, wheeled and was gone like a bolt from acatapult toward his broken and retiring troop. As he rode he turned inhis 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, theskirmish line, the Louisiana troops, the First Maryland. A light wind blewbefore them the dun and rolling smoke from the burning camp. For all theirhaste the men found tongue as they passed that dismal pyre. They sniffedthe air. "Coffee burning!--good Lord, ain't it a sin?--Look at thoseboxes--shoes as I am a Christian man!--And all the wall tents--like'Laddin's palaces! Geewhilikins! what was that? That was oil. There mightbe 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 cameupon 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'reon it--they're halfway over! Their guns are over!--We ain't ever going tolet 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 theeastern bank of the stream. The skirmishers, First Maryland, --Louisiana, --poured down the slope, firing on Kenly as they ran. A number of his mendropped, but he was halfway across and he pressed on, the New York cavalryand Marchmont's small troop acting as rear guard. The battery was alreadyover. The western bank rose steep and high, commanding the eastern. Up thisstrained the guns, were planted, and opened with canister upon the swarminggrey upon the other shore. Company by company Kenly's infantry got across--got across, and once upon the rising ground faced about and opened adetermined fire under cover of which his cavalry entered the bridge. Thelast trooper over, his pioneers brought brush and hay, thrust it into themouth of the bridge and set all on fire. 

Jackson was up just in time to witness the burst of flames. He turned tothe nearest regiment--the 8th Louisiana, Acadians from the Attakapas. There was in him no longer any slow stiffness of action; his body movedas though every joint were oiled. He looked a different creature. Hepointed to the railroad bridge just above the wagon bridge. "Cross atonce on the ties. " The colonel looked, nodded, waved his sword andexplained to his Acadians. "_Mes enfans! Nous allons traverser le pontla-bas. En avant!_" In column of twos he led his men out on the ties ofthe trestle bridge. Below, dark, rapid, cold, rushed the swollenShenandoah. Musketry and artillery, Kenly opened upon them. Many a poorfellow, who until this war had never seen a railroad bridge, threw uphis arms, stumbled, slipped between the ties, went down into the floodand disappeared. 

Stonewall Jackson continued his orders. "Skirmishers forward! Clearthose combustibles out of the bridge. Cross, Wheat's Battalion! FirstMaryland, follow!" He looked from beneath the forage cap at the steepopposite shore, from the narrow level at the water's edge to the ridgetop held by the Federal guns. Rank by rank on this staircase, showedKenly'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 speedilyfound, crossing the wagon bridge over the Shenandoah! One span was allafire. The flooring burned their feet, flames licked the wooden sides ofthe structure, thick, choking smoke canopied the rafters. With musketbutts the men beat away the planking, hurled into the flood belowburning scantling and brand, and trampled the red out of the charringcross timbers. Some came out of the western mouth of the bridge stampingwith the pain of burned hands, but the point was that they did comeout--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 burnedaway--"

"Good! good!" said Jackson. "We will cross rougher rivers ere we aredone. " He turned to Flournoy's bugler. "_Squadrons. Right front intoline. March!_"

Kenly, stubbornly firing upon the two columns, that one now quitting, with a breath of relief, the railway bridge, and that issuing under anarch of smoke from the wagon bridge, was hailed by a wild-eyedlieutenant. "Colonel Kenly, sir, look at that!" As he spoke, he tried topoint, but his hand waved up and down. The Shenandoah, below the twobridges, 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 entirelythe better part of valour. Strasburg was fourteen miles away; over hilland dale rose and fell the road that ran that way. Off, off! and somemight yet escape--or it might please the gods to let him meet withreinforcements! His guns ceased with their canister and limbering upthundered away toward the sun, now low and red in the heavens. Theinfantry followed; the small cavalry force bringing up the rear, nowdeployed as skirmishers, now rallying and threatening the grey footmen. 

The Shenandoah was impetuous, deep, turbid, with many eddies, lifted bythe spring rains almost level with its banks. The horses liked itnot--poor brutes! They shuddered, whinnied, glared with distended, bloodshot eyes. Once in, they patiently did their best. Each was ownedby its rider, and was his good friend as well as servant. Theunderstanding between the two could not be disturbed, no, not even bythe swollen Shenandoah! The trooper, floating free upon the down-streamside, one hand on mane, or knees upgathered, and carbine held high, squatting in the saddle on the crossed stirrups, kept up a stream ofencouragement--soft words, pet names, cooing mention of sugar (littleenough in the commissariat!) and of apples. The steed responded. The godabove or beside him wished it thus, and certainly should be obeyed, andthat with love. The rough torrent, the eddies, the violent current werenothing--at least, not much! In column of twos the horses breasted theriver, the gods above them singing of praise and reward. They neared thewestern shore and the green, overhanging trees, touched bottom, plungeda little and came out, wet and shining, every inch of metal about themglinting in the level rays of the sun. 

High on the bank Stonewall Jackson with Flournoy and his aides, thefirst to cross, watched that passage of the squadrons. Little Sorrel, slow and patient, had perhaps been, in his own traversing, the one steedto hear no especial word of endearment nor much of promise. He did notseem to miss them; he and Jackson apparently understood each other. Themen said that he could run only one way and that toward the enemy. 

Far down the Front Royal and Winchester turnpike, through a fair farmingcountry, among cornfields and orchards, the running fight continued. Itwas almost sunset; long shadows stretched across the earth. Scene andhour 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 withnoise and smoke, and in the fields and fence corners lay dead andwounded men, while in the farmhouses of the region, women drew theblinds, gathered the children about them and sat trembling. 

The blue cavalry was hard put to it. The grey infantrymen were goodmarksmen, and their line was long, drawn across the road and the up anddown of the fields. Here and there, now and again, a trooper went downto the dust, and the riderless horse, galloping to the rear, broughtsmall comfort to Kenly's retreating companies. At last there rode backthe 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 Ican hold the men--"

Kenly debated within himself, then. "I'll make a stand at thecross-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 ofthe 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 justtumbled off a black horse with a white star! 'T was Dave hit him, Ireckon. They look powerful droopy, them cavalrymen! The big man youwouldn'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'stail. "

"Faced which way?"

"That way. No! by Jiminy, they ain't! They air faced this way! They airgoing 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 thathangs over the road. Thar's another man off his horse! Threw up his armand fell, and his foot caught in the stirrup. I don't know if 't warDave 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 tearingdown 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 fivelines--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'sgetting 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 westof the road, leaving a space of trampled green between themselves andit. Out of the dust cloud toward the river now rose a thud of manyhoofs--a body of horse coming at a trot. The sound deepened, drewnearer, changed measure. The horses were galloping, though not at fullspeed. They could be seen now, in two lines, under bright guidons, eating up the waves of earth, galloping toward the sunset in dust andheat and thunder. At first sight like toy figures, men and horses werenow grown life-size. They threatened, in the act of passing, to becomegigantic. The sun had set, but it left walls and portals of cloud tingedand rimmed with fire. The horsemen seemed some home-returning aerialrace, so straight they rode into the west. The ground shook, the dustrose higher, the figures enlarged, the gallop increased. Energy at itsheight, of a sudden all the trumpets blew. 

[Illustration: bugle call music]

Past the grey infantry, frantically yelling its welcome, swept atremendous charge. Knee to knee, shouting, chanting, horse and man onewar shaft, endued with soul and lifted to an ecstasy, they went by, flecked with foam, in a whirlwind of dust, in an infernal clangour, withthe blare and fury, the port and horror of Mars attended. The horsesstretched neck, shook mane, breathed fire; the horsemen drained to thelees the encrusted heirloom, the cup of warlike passion. Frenzied theyall rode home. 

The small cavalry force opposed, gasped at the apparition. Certainlytheir officers tried to rally the men, but certainly they knew it forfutility! Some of the troopers fired their carbines at the approachingtide, hoar, yelling, coming now so swiftly that every man rode as agiant and every steed seemed a spectre horse--others did not. Allturned, 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 beentaken down preparatory to deploying in the fields, but the movement wasnot yet made. Kenly had his face turned to the west, straining his eyesfor the guns or for the reinforcements which happily General Banks mightsend. A shout arose. "Look out! Look out! Oh, good Lord!"

First there was seen a horrible dust cloud, heard a great thunder ofhoofs. 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 thetorrent as a protesting straw. Into the blue infantry rode the bluecavalry. 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 upthe crumbling banks. Where they could they reached the rail fences, tumbled over them and lay, gasping, close alongside. The majority couldnot get out of the road. They pressed themselves flat against theshelving banks, and let the wedge drive through. Many were caught, overturned, felt the fierce blows of the hoofs. Regardless of any wreckbehind them, on and over and down the Winchester road tore the maddenedhorses, the appalled troopers. 

The luckless infantry when, at last, their own had passed, had no timeto form before the Confederate charge was upon them. At the highest key, the fiercest light, the extremest motion, sound and sight procuring forthem a mighty bass and background, came Jackson's charging squadrons. They swallowed the road and the fields on either hand. Kenly, with theforemost company, fired once, a point-blank volley, received at twentyyards, and emptying ten saddles of the central squadron. It could notstay the unstayable; in a moment, in a twinkling of the eye, withindescribable noise, with roaring as of undammed waters, with a lapse ofall colours into red, with smell of sweat and powder, hot metal andburning cloth, with savour of poisoned brass in furred mouths, with animpact of body, with sabre blow and pistol shot, with blood spilled andbone 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, themelee. 

Kenly, vainly striving to rally a handful about the colours, fell, allbut mortally wounded. In the wild quarter of an hour that elapsed beforethe surrender of the whole, many of the blue were killed, many morewounded. Far and wide the men scattered, but far and wide they wereridden down. One of the guns was taken almost at once, the other alittle 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, twentyofficers and nine hundred men, the dead, the wounded, the surrendered, together with a section of artillery, some unburned stores, and theNorthern colours and guidons, rested in Jackson's hands. That night inStrasburg, when the stars came out, men looked toward those that shonein the east. 

CHAPTER XXI

STEVEN DAGG

Steven Dagg, waked by the shrill reveille, groaned, raised himself fromhis dew-drenched couch, ran his fingers through his hair, kneaded neck, arms, and ankles, and groaned more heavily yet. He was dreadfully stiffand sore. In five days the "foot cavalry" had marched more than eightymiles. Yesterday the brigade had been afoot from dawn till dark. "Andwe didn't have the fun of the battle neither, " remarked Steve, in asavagely injured tone. "Leastwise none of us but the damned threecompanies and a platoon of ours that went ahead to skirmish 'cause theyknew 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 alaugh. "Did you hear that, fellows? Steve's grumbling because he wasn'tlet to do it all! Poor Steve! poor Hotspur! poor Pistol!" He bent, chuckling, over the pool that served him for mirror. "You stop callingme dirty names!" growled Steve, and, his toilet ended well-nigh beforebegun, slouched across to fire and breakfast. The former was large, thelatter small. Jackson's ammunition wagons, double-teamed, were up withthe army, but all others back somewhere east of Front Royal. 

Breakfast was soon over--"sorry breakfast!" The _assembly_ sounded, thecolumn was formed, Winder made his brigade a short speech. Stevelistened with growing indignation. "General Banks, falling back fromStrasburg, is trying to get off clear to Winchester. ('Well, let him! Idon't give a damn!') We want to intercept him at Middletown. ('Oh, dowe?') We want to get there before the head of his column appears, andthen to turn and strike him full. ('O Lord! I ain't a rattler!') We wantto beat him in the middle Valley--never let him get to Winchester atall! ('I ain't objecting, if you'll give the other brigades a show andlet them do it!') It's only ten miles to Middletown. ('Only!') A forcedmarch needed. ('O Gawd!') Ashby and Chew's Battery and a section of theRockbridge and the skirmishers and Wheat's Tigers are ahead. ('Well, ifthey're so brash, let them wipe out Banks and welcome! And if one damnedofficer that's ahead gits killed, I won't mourn him. ') Ewell withTrimble's Brigade and the First Maryland, Courtenay and Brockenboroughare 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 6thcavalry are already at Newtown. ('What in hell do I care if they air?')Campbell and Taliaferro and Elzey and Scott and the Stonewall and thebalance of the guns form the main column, and at Middletown we're goingto turn and meet Banks. ('Gawd! more fighting, on an empty stomach, anddog-tired!') General Jackson says, '_Men, we're going to rid the Valleyof 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 theman you hate worse than pison oak comes by!') Let the Stonewall nowturn avalanche; fall on Banks at Middletown and grind him small!--_Foursright! Forward! March!_ ('Oh, Gawd! my cut foot! It's my lasting hopethat--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 thedust rose from the road, and the two together caused the mostdiscomfortable grime! It marked all faces, and it lodged between neckand neckband and wrist and wristband where it chafed the skin. It gotdeep into the shoes--through holes enough, God knows!--and there thematter became serious, for many a foot was galled and raw. It got intoeyes and they grew red and smarting. It stopped ear and nostril. Itlined the mouth; it sifted down the neck and made the body miserable. Atthe starting, as the men quit the green banks of Shenandoah, several ofthe aesthetic sort had been heard to comment upon the beauty of thescenery. Possibly the soul for beauty lasted, but as for the scenery, itvanished. The brigade was now upon the Front Royal and Winchester pike, moving in the foot and wheel prints of the advance, and under andthrough an extended cirrhus cloud of dirty saffron. The scenery couldnot be viewed through it--mere red blotches and blurs. It was so heavythat it served for darkness. Men saw each other dimly at the distance often 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; hewas 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 hismouth besides, where it made him thirsty. He eyed an object danglingfrom the belt of the man next him, and since from long habit it hadbecome easy to him to break the tenth commandment he broke itagain--into a thousand pieces. At last, "Where did you get thatcanteen?"

"Picked it up at McDowell. Ef 't warn't covered with dust you could seethe 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 anemergency. "

It did not appear that we would come to a stream, or a spring, or awell, or anything liquid--to anything but awful miles of dust and heat, trudged over by anything but three-leagued boots. Despite the spur ofWinder's speech the brigade moved with dispiriting slowness. It was notthe first in column; there were troops ahead and troops behind, and itwould perhaps have said that it was not its part to overpass the one andoutstrip the other. The whole line lagged. "Close up, men! close up!"cried the officers, through dust-lined throats. "If it's as hot asginger, then let the ginger show! Step out!" Back from the head of thecolumn came peremptory aides. "Press on! General Jackson says, 'Presson!'--Yes; he knows you marched twenty-six miles yesterday, and thatit'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 thedusty street with buckets of water--a few buckets, a little water. Thewomen looked pale, as though they would swoon; beads of sweat stood onthe boys' brows and their lips worked. Thousands of soldiers had passedor were passing; all thirsty, all crying, "Water, please! water, please!" Women and boys had with haste drawn bucket after bucket fromthe wells of the place, pumped them full from a cistern, or run to anear-by spring and come panting back to the road--and not one soldier inten could get his tin cup filled! They went by, an endless line, a fewrefreshed, the vast majority thirstier for the Tantalus failure. Thewater bearers were more deadly tired than they; after it was all over, the last regiment passed, the women went indoors trembling in everylimb. "O Jesus! this war is going to be a dreadful thing!" The columnmarching 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 thewater 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, andthere were the willows that the dust had made as sere as autumn, --butwhere 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 fromthe 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 leanedforward and well-nigh drank it up. Refreshed, he rose, got out of themire back to the bank, and considered a deeper belt of willows fartherdown the stream. They were on the edge of the dust belt, they had an airfaintly green, extremely restful. Steve looked over his shoulder. Allthe boys were drinking, or seeking a place to drink, and the dust waslike a red twilight! Furtively swift as any Thunder Run "crittur, " hemade for the willows. They formed a deep little copse; nobody withintheir round and, oh joy! shade and a little miry pool! Steve sat downand drew off his shoes, taking some pains lest in the action side andsole part company. Undoubtedly his feet were sore and swollen, red andfevered. He drank from the miry pool, and then, trousers rolled to hisknees, sunk foot and ankle in the delicious coolness. Presently he layback, 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 andnever had to move I wouldn't change for heaven. O Gawd! that damnedbugle!"

_Fall in! Fall in!--Fall in! Fall in!_ With a deep groan Steve picked uphis 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 cautiouslyout of an opening he had made in the willow branches. The regiments werealready in column, the leading one, the 4th, formed and disappearing inthe dust of the turnpike. "Air ye going now and have every damnedofficer swearing at you? What do they care if your foot's cut and yourback aches? and you couldn't come no sooner. _I ain't a-going. _" Steve'seyes filled with tears. He felt sublimely virtuous; a martyr from thefirst. "What does anybody there care for _me_! They wouldn't care if Idropped 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 thedecenter you are the quicker you try to get out of it!" He closed thewillow branches and stepped back to his lair. "Let 'em bellow for Stevejust as loud as they like! I ain't got no call to fight Banks on thishere foot. If a damned provost-guard comes along, why I just fell asleepand couldn't help it. "

So tired was he, and so soothing still his retreat, that to fall asleepwas precisely what he did. The sun was twenty minutes nearer the zenithwhen noise roused him--voices up and down the stream. He crawled acrossthe 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 attheir luck, ranged up and down the stream. It was presently evident thatthe search might bring any number around or through Steve's coolharbour. He cursed them, then, in a sudden panic, picked up his shoesand slipped out at the copse's back door. Able-bodied stragglers, whencaught, were liable to be carried on and summarily deposited with theirrightful companies. Deserters fared worse. On the whole, Steve concludedto seek safety in flight. At a little distance rose a belt of woodsroughly parallel with the road. Steve took to the woods, and foundsanctuary behind the bole of an oak. His eye advanced just beyond thebark, he observed the movement of troops with something like a grin. Onthe whole he thought, perhaps, he wouldn't rejoin. Taliaferro's menhardly seemed happy, up and down the trodden, miry runlet. "Wuz a timethey wouldn't think a dog could drink there, and now just look at themlapping it up! So many fine, stuck-up fellows, too--gentlemen andsuch. --Yah!"

The brigade moved on as had done the Stonewall. There grew in the wood asound. "What's that?" Scrambling up, he went forward between the treesand presently came full upon a narrow wood road, with a thin growth offorest upon the other side. The sound increased. Steve knew it well. Hestamped upon the moss with the foot that hurt him least. "Artillerycoming!--and all them damned gunners with eyes like lynxes--"

He crossed the road and the farther strip of woods. Behind him theapproaching wheels rumbled loudly; before him a narrow lane stretchedthrough a ploughed field, to a grassy dooryard and a small house. On theedge of the wood was a mass of elderbush just coming into bloom. Heworked his way into the centre of this, squatted down and regarded thehouse from between the green stems. Smoke rose from the chimney. "Itmust be near eleven o'clock, " thought Steve. "She's getting dinner. "

Behind him, through the wood, on toward Middletown rumbled the passingbattery. The heavy sound brought a young woman to the door. She stoodlooking 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 theopen 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 biteto eat?"

He ended with a hollow groan and the weight of his body against thelintel. The young woman dragged forward a split-bottomed armchair. "Sitright down there! Of course I'll give you something to eat. It ain'tanything catching, is it?"

Steve sank into the chair. "It was pneumonia, and my strength ain't comeback yet. "

"I only asked because I have to think of my baby. " She glanced toward acradle by the window. "Pneumonia is dreadful weakening! How come theylet you march?"

"Why, I didn't, " said Steve, "want to be left behind. I wanted to be inthe 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, butif you find you're too weak to go on, fall out! Maybe some good Seraphimwill give you 'commodation--'"

"I can't give you 'commodation, because there's just the baby andmyself, James being with Ashby. But I can give you dinner (I haven't gotmuch, but what I've got you're quite welcome to). You kin rest here tillevening. Maybe a wagon'll come along and give you a lift, so's you canget 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 kinfight have to take a back seat 'cause of illness and watch the otherkind go front!" He groaned again and closed his eyes. "I don't supposeyou've got a drop of spirits handy?"

The woman--she was hardly more than a girl--hesitated. Because the mostwere heroic, and for the sake of that most, all Confederate soldierswore the garland. It was not in this or any year of the war thatConfederate women lightly doubted the entire heroism of the least ofindividuals, so that he wore the grey. It was to them, most nobly, mostpathetically, a sacred investiture. Priest without but brute within, wolf in shepherd's clothing, were to them not more unlooked-for norabhorrent than were coward, traitor, or shirk enwrapped in the pall andpurple of the grey. Fine lines came into the forehead of the girlstanding between Steve and the hearth. She remembered suddenly thatJames had said there were plenty of scamps in the army and that notevery straggler was lame or ill. Some were plain deserters. 

"I haven't got any spirits, " she answered. "I did have a little bottlebut I gave it to a sick neighbour. Anyhow, it isn't good for weaklungs. "

Steve looked at her with cunning eyes. "You didn't give it all away, " hethought. "You've got a little hid somewhere. O Gawd! I want a drink sobad!"

"I was making potato soup for myself, " said the girl, "and my fathersent me half a barrel of flour from Harrisonburg and I was baking asmall loaf of bread for to-morrow. It's Sunday. It's done now, and I'llslice it for you and give you a plate of soup. That's better for youthan--. Where do you think we'll fight to-day?"

"Where?--Oh, anywhere the damned fools strike each other. " He stumbledto the table which she was spreading. She glanced at him. "There's abasin 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 comeoff. O Gawd! this soup is good. "

"People getting over fevers and lung troubles don't usually burn. Theystay white and peaked even out of doors in July. "

"I reckon I ain't that kind. I'll take another plateful. Gawd, what apretty arm you've got!"

The girl ladled out for him the last spoonful of soup, then went andstood with her foot upon the cradle rocker. "I reckon you ain't thatkind, " she said beneath her breath. "If you ever had pneumonia I bet itwas before the war!"

Steve finished his dinner, leaned back in his chair and stretchedhimself. "Gawd! if I just had a nip. Look here, ma'am! I don't believeyou gave all that apple brandy away. S'pose you look and see if youwasn't mistaken. "

"There isn't any. "

"You've got too pretty a mouth to be lying that-a-way! Look-a-here, thedoctor prescribed it. "

"You've had dinner and you've rested. There's a wood road over therethat cuts off a deal of distance to Middletown. It's rough but it'sshady. I believe if you tried you could get to Middletown almost as soonas the army. "

"Didn't I tell you I had a furlough? Where'd you keep that peach brandywhen you had it?"

"I'm looking for James home any minute now. He's patrolling between hereand the pike. "

"You're lying. You said he was with Ashby, and Ashby's away north toNewtown--the damned West P'inter that marches at the head of the brigadesaid so! You haven't got the truth in you, and that's a pity, forotherwise I like your looks first-rate. " He rose. "I'm going foragingfor 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 keyin his pocket. "Now you jest stay still where you are or it'll be theworse for you and for the baby, too! Don't be figuring on the window orthe back door, 'cause I've got eyes in the side of my head and I'llcatch you before you get there! That thar cupboard looks promising. "

The cupboard not only promised; it fulfilled. Steve's groping handclosed upon and drew forth a small old Revolutionary brandy bottle quitefull. Over his shoulder he shot a final look at once precautionary andtriumphant. "You purty liar! jest you wait till I've had my dram!" Anold 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 putthat mug down, " said the voice of his hostess, "or I'll put a bulletthrough 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 forme to try and find out! You set down there! That's it; right there whereI can see you! My grandmother's birthday mug! Yes, and she saw hermother kill an Indian right here, right where the old log cabin used tostand! 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'llhave 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 comingdown the road--"

"Please put that gun down, ma'am. I'll say good-bye and go just aspeaceable--"

"And whether they're blue or grey I hope to God they'll take you off myhands! 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 thebaby!"

"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 thedoor! 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 openwindow. His eyes rested a moment upon the interior; then he put handsupon 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 gladsomebody came, sir. He's a coward and a deserter and a drunkard and afrightener of women! He says he's had pneumonia, and I don't believehim. If I was the South I'd send every man like him right across Masonand 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 himsomehow. " He wiped the dust from his face. "Have you anything at allthat 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 alittle, 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 theValley pike. "

"I've got some cold potatoes, and some scraps of bread crust I wassaving 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 thingI 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 notionsabout. The first thing I knew--and I just as innocent as her baby--sheup 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 yourbrigade?"

"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'sold 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 youone against him?"

"I have, " said Steve, "and I don't care who knows it! If he was assteady 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 ofbread. I wish it was something better. "

Stafford took it from her with thanks. "As for this man, my orderlyshall take him up behind, and when we reach Middletown I'll turn himover 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 frontof me. --March!"

The five horsemen, detail of Flournoy's, sent upon some service thenight before, mounted a hill from which was visible a great stretch ofcountry. From the east came the Front Royal road; north and southstretched that great artery, the Valley turnpike. Dust lay over theFront Royal road. Dust hung above the Valley pike--hung from Strasburgto Middletown, and well beyond Middletown. Out of each extended cloud, now at right angles, came rumblings as of thunder. The column beneaththe Front Royal cloud was moving rapidly, halts and delays apparentlyover, lassitude gone, energy raised to a forward blowing flame. That onthe Valley pike, the six-mile-long retreat from Strasburg, was making, too, a progress not unrapid, considering the immensity of its wagontrain and the uncertainty of the commanding general as to what, on thewhole, 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 runningtoward the village, and three minutes later encountered a detachment ofblue horsemen, flankers of Hatch's large cavalry force convoying theFederal wagon train. There was a shout, and an interchange of pistolshots. The blue outnumbered the grey four to one. The latter wheeledtheir horses, used spur and voice, outstripped a shower of bullets andreached Middletown. When, breathless, they drew rein before a streetdown 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'msorry--but I don't reckon he's much loss. "

Steve had taken refuge behind the lock of a rail fence draped withcreeper. On the whole, he meant to stay there until the two armies hadwended their ways. When it was all done and over, he would make a changesomehow and creep to the southward and get a doctor's certificate. Allthis in the first gasp of relief, at the end of which moment it becameapparent that the blue cavalry had seen him run to cover. A couple oftroopers rode toward the rail fence. Steve stepped from behind thecreepers and surrendered. "Thar are Daggs up North anyway, " he explainedto the man who took his musket. "I've a pack of third cousins in themparts somewhere. I shouldn't wonder if they weren't fighting on yourside 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. Sayshe's got cousins with us. Says he'd as soon fight on one side as theother. "

"I can't very well fight nowhere, " whined Steve. "If you'd be so good asto look at my foot, sir--"

"I see. You deserted and they picked you up. Very well, Mr. Deserter, Iwant 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 numbersand that we aren't only Ewell. Gawd! Old Jack's struck them this veryminute! 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 thecavalry. --It isn't just Ewell's division, he says. He says it's all ofthem and Stonewall Jackson!--Take the fellow up somebody and bring himalong!--_Fours right! Forward!_"

Five minutes later they reached the pike, south of Middletown. It proveda seething stream of horse and foot and wagon train, forms shadowy andumber, moving in the whirling dust. Over all hung like a vast and blackstreamer a sense of panic. Underneath it every horse was restive andevery voice had an edge. Steve gathered that there were teamsters whowished to turn and go back to Strasburg. He saw wagon masters plyinglong black whips about the shoulders of these unwilling; he heardofficers shouting. The guns ahead boomed out, and there came a cry of"Ashby"! The next instant found him violently unseated and hurled intothe dust of the middle road, from which he escaped by rolling with allthe velocity of which he was capable into the depression at the side. Hehardly knew what had happened--there had been, he thought, a runawayteam dragging an ordnance wagon. He seemed to remember a movingthickness in the all-pervading dust, and, visible for an instant, agreat U. S. Painted on the wagon side. Then shouts, generalscatteration, 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 hereworld!"

The world was, indeed, to-day rather like a bad dream--like one of thosedim and tangled streams of things, strange and frightful, at oncegrotesquely unfamiliar and sickeningly real, which one neighbours for atime in sleep. Steve picked himself out of the ditch, being much indanger, even there, of trampling hoofs or wagons gone amuck, andattained, how he could not tell, a rank wayside clump of Jamestown weedand pokeberry. In the midst of this he squatted, gathered into as smalla bunch as was physically possible. He was in a panic; the sweat coldupon 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. Itwas in a wild hurry; the main stream striving somehow to gainMiddletown, which must be passed, hook or crook, aid of devil or aid ofsaint, while a second current surged with increasing strength backtoward Strasburg. All was confusion. They would never stop to listen toexplanations as to a turned coat! Steve was sure that they would simplyshoot him or cut him down before he could say "I am one of you!" Theywould kill him, like a stray bee in the hive, and go their way, one wayor the other, whichever way they were going! The contending motions madehim giddy. 

An aide in blue, galloping madly from the front, encountered beside thepokeberry clump an officer, directing, with his sword. Steve was morallyassured that they had seen him, had stopped, in short, to hale himforth. As they did not--only excitedly shouted each at the other--hedrew breath again. He could see the two but dimly, close though theywere, because of the dust. Suddenly there came to him a rose-colouredthought. That same veil must make him well-nigh invisible; more thanthat, the dust lay so thickly on all things that colour in any uniformwas a debatable quality. He didn't believe anybody was noticing. Theextreme height to which his courage ever attained, was at once his. Hefelt 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 hurrythem up! Hell's broke loose and occupied Middletown. Ashby's there, andthey say Jackson! They've planted guns--they've strung thousands of menbehind stone fences--they're using our own wagons for breastworks! Thecavalry was trying to get past. Listen to that!"

The other officer shouted also, waving his sword. "There's a batterybehind--Here it comes!--We ought to have started last night. The generalsaid 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, scatteringmen to either side like spray. Steve's wayside bower was invaded. "Getout of here! This ain't no time to be sitting on your tail, thinking ofgoing fishing! G'lang!"

Steve went, covered with dust, the shade of the uniform below nevernoticed in the furious excitement of the road. Life there was at feverpoint, aware that death was hovering, and struggling to escape. In thedust and uproar, the blare and panic, he was aware that he was movingtoward Middletown where they were fighting. Fighting was not preciselythat for which he was looking, and yet he was moving that way, and hecould not help it. The noise in front was frightful. The head of thecolumn 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 middleValley to Winchester, fifteen miles away. It was trying to drag itspainful length through the village just ahead. There were scorpions inthe village, on both sides the pike, on the hills above. StonewallJackson with his old sabre, with his "Good! Good!" was hacking at thesnake, just there, in its middle. The old sabre had not yet cut quitethrough, but there was hope--or fear--(the deserter positively did notknow which) that presently it would be done. A tall soldier, besidewhom, in the dream torrent, Steve found himself, began to talk. "Got anywater? No. Nobody has. I guess it's pouring down rain in New Bedfordthis very minute! All the little streams running. " He sighed. "'T ain'tno use in fussing. I don't remember to have ever seen you before, butthen 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 toNew 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 indarkness. All the street was full of struggling forms. A man onhorseback, tall and horrible in the nightmare, cut at him with a sabreas long as himself. Steve ducked, went under the horse's belly, and cameup to have a pistol shot take the cap from his head. With a yell he ranbeneath the second horse's arching neck. The animal reared; a thirdhorseman raised his carbine. There was an overturned Conestoga wagon inthe middle of the street, its white top like a bubble in all the wildswirl and eddy of the place. Steve and the ball from the carbine passedunder the arch at the same instant, the bullet lodging somewhere in thewagon bed. 

Steve at first thought he might be dead, for it was cool and dark underthe tilted canvas, and there was a momentary effect of quietness. Thecarbine had been fired; perhaps the bullet was in his brain. Theuncertainty held but a second; outside the fracas burst forth again, andbeneath him something moved in the straw. It proved to be the driver ofthe wagon, wounded, and fallen back from the seat in front. He spoke nowin a curious, dreamy voice. "Get off the top of my broken leg--damn youto everlasting hell!" Steve squirmed to one side. "Sorry. Gawd knows Iwish I wasn't any nearer it than the Peaks of Otter!" There was atriangular tear in the canvas. He drew down the flap and looked out. "They were Ashby's men--all those three!" He began to cry, thoughnoiselessly. "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--" Thefigure in the straw moved. Steve turned sick with apprehension. "Did youhear what I said? I was just a-joking. Gawd! It's enough to make a manwish he was a Johnny Reb--Hey, what did you say?"

But the figure in blue said nothing, or only some useless thing aboutwanting water. Steve, reassured, looked again out of window. His refugelay a few feet from the pike, and the pike was a road throughpandemonium. He could see, upon a height, dimly, through the dust andsmoke the Rockbridge battery. Yellow flashes came from it, thenear-splitting sound. A Federal force, horse, foot and guns, had hastilyformed in the opposite fields, seized a crest, planted cannon. Thesesent screaming shells. In between the iron giants roared themelee--Ashby jousting with Hatch's convoying cavalry--the Louisianatroops firing in a long battle line, from behind the stone fences--ahorrible jam of wagons, overturned or overturning, panic-stricken mules, drivers raving out oaths, using mercilessly long, snaky, blackwhips--heat, dust, thirst and thunder, wild excitement, blood and death!There were all manner of wagons. Ambulances were there withinmates, --fantastic sickrooms, with glare for shade, Tartarean heat forcoolness, cannon thunder and shouting for quietness, grey enemies fornursing women, and for home a battlefield in a hostile land. Heavyordnance wagons, far from the guns they were meant to feed, traces cutand 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 anythere have looked or pitied! Looming through there were the great supplywagons, with others of lighter stores, holding boxes and barrels ofwines and fruits, commodities of all sorts, gold-leafed fripperies, luxuries of all manner, poured across the Potomac for her soldiers bythe North. Sutlers' wagons did not lack, garishly stocked, forlorn asHarlequin in the day's stress. In and around and over all these strandedhulls roared the opposing forces. Steve saw Ashby, on the blackstallion, directing with a gauntleted hand. Four great draught horses, drawing a loaded van, without a driver, maddened with fright, turnedinto this street up and down which there was much fighting. A shoutarose. Carbines cracked. One of the leaders came down upon his knees. The other slipped in blood and fell. The van overturned, pinning beneathit 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 didso the wounded soldier in the straw had a remark to make. He made it inthe 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 thecanvas 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 endof my backbone. I can't sit up. I been lying here studying the scoop ofthis here old wagon. It looks to me like the firmament at night, withall the stars a-shining. There's no end of texts about stars. 'Like asone star differeth from another--'" He began to cough. "There seems tobe 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 theother side of a little garden slope planted with potatoes. In the shadowof the wall a line of men, kneeling, rested rifle barrel upon the copingand fired on Hatch's cavalry, now much broken, wavering towarddispersion. At first the line was hidden by a swirl of smoke; thislifted, and Steve recognized a guidon they had planted, then the menthemselves. They were the Louisiana Tigers, Wheat's Battalion, upgathered from levee and wharf and New Orleans purlieu, among many of abetter cast, not lacking rufflers and bravos, soldiers of fortune whomPappenheim might not have scorned. Their stone wall leaped fire again. 

Steve looked to heaven and earth and as far around as the dun cloudpermitted, then moved with swiftness across the potato patch. All aboutin the mingled dust and smoke showed a shifting pageantry of fightingmen; upon the black earth below the rank green leaves and purple bloomslay in postures hardly conceivable the dead and wounded. In the line bythe stone fence was here and there a gap. Steve, head between shoulders, made for the breastwork and sank into one of these openings, hisneighbour upon one hand an Irish roustabout, on the other a Creole froma sugar plantation. He explained his own presence. "I got kind ofseparated from my company--Company A, 65th Virginia. I had an awfulfight with three damned Yanks, and a fourth came in and dragged my gunaway! If you don't mind I'll just stay here and help you--"

"Sorra an objection, " said the Irishman. "Pick up Tim's musket behindyou 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 theIrishman. "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 thestones, drew himself up, and viewed the prospect. "Holy Saint Pathrick!look at them sthramin' off into space! An' look at the mile of wagonsthey'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 ofstray bullets, I reckon? There's something awful in seeing a road likethat. There's a man that his mother wouldn't know!--horse stepped on hisface, I reckon. Gawd! we have gangs of prisoners!--Who's that coming outof the cloud?"

"Chew's Horse Artillery--with Ashby, the darlint!"

Ashby stopped before the stone house to the right. "There are men inhere--officers with them. Captain, go bid them surrender. "

The captain, obeying, found a barred door and no answer. An approach tothe window revealed behind the closed blinds the gleam of a musketbarrel. "Go again! Tell them their column's cut and their armydispersed. If they do not surrender at once I will plant a shell in themiddle of that room. "

The captain returned once more. "Well?"

"They said, 'Go to hell, ' sir. They said General Banks would be here ina moment, and they'd taken the house for his headquarters. They've gotsomething in there beside water, I think. "

A sergeant put in a word. "There's a score of them. They seized thisempty 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 Yanksbroke in--Ah!--Well, better your hat than you, sir! We'll blow thatsharpshooter 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 besidethe black plume. "No, no, West! We can't take chances like that! We'llbreak open the door instead. "

"The others think that the Tiger was mistaken, sir. They say all thewomen went out of the other houses, and they're sure they went out ofthis one, too. Shan't we fire, sir?"

"No, no! We can't take chances. Limber up, lieutenant, and move on withthe others. --Volunteers to break open that door!"

"Ain't nobody looking, " thought Steve, behind the wall. "Gawd! I reckonI'll have to try my luck again. 'T won't do to stay here. " To the bigIrishman he said, "Reckon I'll try again to find my company! I don'twant to be left behind. Old Jack's going to drive them, and he needsevery fighter!"

CHAPTER XXII

THE VALLEY PIKE

As he moved away from the stone house, the vicinity of Ashby and theline of Tigers behind the fence, he became aware that not a smallportion of Wheat's Battalion had broken ranks and was looting thewagons. There were soldiers like grey ants about a sutler's wagon. Steve, struggling and shouldering boldly enough now, managed to getwithin hailing distance. Men were standing on the wheels, drawing outboxes and barrels and throwing them down into the road, where the antsswarmed to the attack. Not the Tigers alone, but a number of Ashby's menas well engaged in the general business. The latter, either not sohungry or more valiant to abstain from the smaller rifling, turned tothe plunder of horses. There were horses enough, dead and wounded, alongthat frightful road. Others were unhurt, still harnessed to wagons, orcorralled in fence corners, or huddled with prisoners in the troddenfields. Horses, to the trooper of the Valley, were as horses in the tenyears' war at Troy--the prized spoil of battle, the valued trophies, utilities outweighing all filagree spoil. Each man of Ashby's owned thehorse he rode, burned to provide himself with a second mount, and flamedto be able to say at home, "This horse I took at Middletown, just beforewe drove the Yankees out of the Valley and ended the war!" "Home, " formany of them was not at all distant--gallop a few miles, deposit theprize, return, catch up before Winchester! Wild courage, much manliness, much chivalry, ardent devotion to Ashby and the cause, individualism ofa citizen soldiery, and a naive indiscipline all their own--such wereAshby's men! Not a few now acted upon the suggestion of the devil whotempts through horse flesh. In the dust they went by Steve like figuresof a frieze. 

Inefficient even in plundering, he found himself possessed of but ahandful of crackers, a tin of sardines--a comestible he had never seenbefore and did not like when he tasted it--and a bottle of what hethought 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 drinkwhen you're thirsty, and eat when you're hungry, and sleep when you'resleepy--"

A drum beat, a bugle blew. _Fall in! Fall in!_ Officers passed fromwagon to wagon. They were ready enough with the flats of their swords. "For shame, men, for shame! _Fall in! Fall in!_ General Jackson isbeyond Newtown by now. You don't want him to have to _wait_ for you, doyou? _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 onthe bordering of what had been, that morning, dew-gemmed grass andflower, War the maniac had left marks. Overturned wagons formedbarriers around which the column must wind. Some were afire; the smokeof burning straw and clothing and foodstuffs mingling with the yetlow-lying powder smoke and with the pall of Valley dust. Horses laystark across the way, or, dying, stared with piteous eyes. The sky waslike a bowl of brass, and in the concave buzzards were sailing. Allalong 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 onall the dust was thick. There were many wounded; the greater number ofthese had somehow reached the foul grass and trampled flowers of thewayside. Prisoners were met; squads brought in from the road, fromfields and woods. There was one group, men and horses covered with thedust of all time, disarmed, hatless, breathless, several bleeding fromsabre cuts. One among them--a small man on a tall horse--indulged inbravado. "What are you going to do with us now you've got us? You'venowhere 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 foryou--waiting for every last dirty ragamuffin and slave-driver that callshimself general or president, and for the rest of you, too! Pity youdidn't have just one neck so's he could do the whole damn thirteenmillions of you at once!--Jeff Davis and Lee and Johnston were hanged atnoon. This very moment Little Mac's in Richmond, marching down whateveryour damned Pennsylvania Avenue's called--"

A negro body servant marching in the rear of one of the contemptuouscompanies broke ranks and rushed over to the reviling soldier. "You damnpo' white trash, shet yo' mouf or I'll mek you! Callin' Main Street'Pennsylvania Avenue, ' and talkin' 'bout hangin' gent'men what you ain'tgot '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' nevergwine ter fall. I done wait on Marse Robert Lee once't at Shirley, an heain'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, appearedthe theatrical troupe which had amused General Banks's army inStrasburg. Men and women there were, a dozen actors, and they had withthem a cart bearing their canvas booth and the poor finery of theirwardrobe. One of the women nursed a baby; they all looked down likewraiths upon the passing soldiers. 

Firing broke out ahead. "Newtown, " said the men beside Steve. "I've gotfriends there. Told 'em when we came up the Valley after Kernstown we'dcome down again! 'N here we are, bigger 'n life and twice as natural!That's Rockbridge making that awful noise. Must be a Yankeebattery--There it opens! Oh, we're going to have a chance, too!"

They were moving at double-quick. Steve simulated a stumble, caughthimself, groaned and fell out of line. The wall to the left blazed. Heuttered a yell and sprang back. "That's right!" said the man. "It'staken most a year to learn it, but you feel a whole heap safer in linethan out of it when firing's going on. That's a nice little--what d'yecall it?--they've planted there--"

"Avalanche, " panted Steve. "O Gawd!" A minie ball had pierced theother's brain. He fell without a sound, and Steve went on. 

The troops entered the hamlet at a run, passing two of the Rockbridgeguns planted on a hillock and hurling shell against a Federal battery atthe 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 andlaughter cried them welcome. On the porch of a comfortable house stood acomfortable, comely matron, pale with ardent patriotism, the happy tearsrunning down her cheeks. Parched as were their throats the troops foundvoice 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, unconsciousof self, uplifted, tremulous with emotion, opened wide her arms, "All ofyou 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 thirstremained. Fatigue was the abominable thing. "Gawd!" thought Steve. "Ican't stand it any longer. I got ter quit, and ef I could shoot thatlieutenant, I would. " The man whom the closing of the ranks had broughtupon his left began to speak in a slow, refined voice. "There was abook published in England a year or so ago. It brings together oldobservations, shoots and theories, welds them, and produces a Thor'shammer that's likely to crack some heads. Once upon a time, it seems, wewent 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 wewere at Meechum's River, and since then we've marched most two hundredmiles, and fought two battles and a heap of skirmishes! I reckonthere'll be a big fight to-morrow, with Old Jack jerking his hand in theair 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 tarnishedearth, on the vast, spectacular road to Winchester. They cared not somuch for supper, faint as they were; they wanted sleep. Supper theyhad--all that could be obtained from the far corners of haversacks andall that, with abounding willingness, the neighbouring farmhouses couldscrape together--but when it came to sleep--. With nodding heads the menwaited longingly for roll call and tattoo, and instead there came anorder from the front. "_A night march!_ O Lord, have mercy, forStonewall Jackson never does. " _Fall in! Fall in! Column Forward!_

When they came to the Opequon they had a skirmish with a Massachusettsregiment which fired a heavy volley into the cavalry ahead, driving itback upon the 33d Virginia, next in column. The 33d broke, then rallied. Other of the Stonewall regiments deployed in the fields and the 27thadvanced against the opposing force, part of Banks's rearguard. It gaveway, disappearing in the darkness of the woods. The grey column, pushingacross the Opequon, came into a zone of Federal skirmishers andsharpshooters ambushed behind stone fences. 

Somewhere about midnight Steve, walking in about the worst dream he hadever had, determined that no effort was too great if directed towardwaking. It was a magic lantern dream--black slides painted only with starsand fireflies, succeeded by slides in which there was a moment's violentillumination, stone fences leaping into being as the musket fire ran along. A halt--a company deployed--the foe dispersed, streaming off into thedarkness--the hurt laid to one side for the ambulances--_Column Forward!_Sometimes a gun was unlimbered, trained upon the threatening breastwork andfired. Once a shell burst beneath a wagon that had been drawn into thefields. It held, it appeared, inflammable stores. Wagon and contents shotinto the air with a great sound and glare, and out of the light about theplace came a frightful crying. Men ran to right and left to escape the rainof missiles; then the light died out, and the crying ceased. The columnwent on slowly, past dark slides. Its progress seemed that of a snail army. Winchester lay the fewest of miles away, but somewhere there waslegerdemain. The fewest of miles stretched like a rubber band. The troopsmarched 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 hisdream, but here he changed the current. How he managed he could scarcehave told, but he did find himself under the bridge where at once he laydown. 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 beatendraggingly and slow. "Gawd!" thought Steve. "It sounds like a DeadMarch. "

He slept, despite the canopy of footsteps. He might have lain like a logtill morning but that at last the flooring of the bridge rebelled. Asection of a battery, kept for some hours at Middletown, found itselfaddressed by a courier, jaded, hoarse as a raven of the night. "GeneralJackson says, 'Bring up these guns. ' He says, 'Make haste. '" The batterylimbered up and came with a heavy noise down the pike, through thenight. Before it was the rearguard; the artillery heard the changedsound as the men crossed the wooden bridge. The rearguard went on; theguns arrived also at the ditch and the overtaxed bridge. The Tredegariron gun went over and on, gaining on the foot, with intent to pass. Thehowitzer, following, proved the last straw. The bridge broke. A gunwheel went down, and amid the oaths of the drivers a frightened screechcame from below. "O Gawd! lemme get out of this!"

Pulled out, he gave an account of his cut foot, piteous enough. Thelieutenant 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--ifever 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 aswere the troops the field roused them. "Kernstown! Kernstown! We're backagain. "

"Here was where we crossed the pike--there's the old ridge. Griffintearing up his cards--and Griffin's dead at McDowell. "

"That was Fulkerson's wall--that shadow over there! There's the bankwhere the 65th fought. --Kernstown! I'm mighty tired, boys, but I've gota peaceful certainty that that was the only battle Old Jack's ever goingto lose!"

"Old Jack didn't lose it. Garnett lost it. "

"That ain't a Stonewall man said that! General Garnett's in trouble. Ireckon didn't anybody lose it. Shields had nine thousand men, and hejust 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 eachsegment of the column, came up with the van, beyond Kernstownbattlefield, and halted upon a little rise of ground. All aroundstretched grey, dew-wet fields and woods, and all around lay an army, sleeping, strange sight in the still and solemn light, with the birdscheeping overhead! The guns stopped, the men got down from limber andcaisson, the horses were unhitched. "An hour's sleep--Kernstownbattlefield!"

An officer whose command lay in the field to the left, just beyond agreat breach that had been made in the stone fence, arose from the cloakhe 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 thehowitzer as though it had been a living thing. 

"We've got with us a stray of yours, " said the artilleryman. "Says hehas 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. GeneralEwell lies over there on the Front Royal road. He has eaten breakfast, and is clanking his spurs and swearing as they swore in Flanders. " Hepointed 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 withnarrowed eyes. 

Cleave addressed the figure, which, there being no help for it, had comefrom behind the caisson. "You, Dagg, of course! Straggling ordeserting--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 thestraggler or deserter has as few marks as you to show. There is thecompany, down the road, in the field. To-night I shall find out if youhave been with it all the day. Go! You disgrace the very mountains whereyou were born--"

Beyond the guns was a misty bend of the road. The light was stronger, inthe east a slender streamer of carnation; the air dank, cool and still. On the edge of Kernstown battlefield a cock crew; a second horn camefaintly. Very near at hand sounded a jingle of accoutrement; StonewallJackson, two or three of the staff with him, came around the turn andstopped beside the guns. The men about them and the horses, and on theroadside, drew themselves up and saluted. Jackson gave his slow quietnod. He was all leaf bronze from head to foot, his eyes just glintingbeneath the old forage cap. He addressed the lieutenant. "You willadvance, sir, in just three quarters of an hour. There are batteries inplace upon the ridge before us. You will take position there, and youwill not leave until ordered. " His eyes fell upon Stafford. "Have youcome 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 pickedhim up--"

"Found him under a bridge, sir. I'd call him a deserter--"

Steve writhed as though, literally, the eyes were cold steel and hadpinned him down. "Gawd, general! I didn't desert! Cross my heart and mayI go to hell if I did! I was awful tired--hungry and thirsty--and myhead swimming--I just dropped out, meaning to catch up after a bit! Ihad a sore foot. Major Cleave's awful hard on me--"

"You're a disgrace to your company, " said Cleave. "If we did not needeven 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 init something of cruelty, of pondering, and of question. Steve writhed. "I ain't any better 'n anybody else. Life's awful! Everybody in theworld's agin me. Gawd knows Major Cleave's so--" Cleave made a sound ofcontempt. 

Stafford spoke. "I do not think he's actually a deserter. I remember hisface. I met him near Middletown, and he gave me his regiment andcompany. There are many stragglers. "

Steve could have fallen and worshipped. "Don't care whether he did itfor me, or jest 'cause he hates that other one! He does hate him! 'N Ihate him, too--sending me to the guardhouse every whip-stitch!" This tohimself; outside he tried to look as though he had carried the coloursfrom Front Royal, only dropping them momentarily at that unfortunatebridge. Jackson regarded him with a grey-blue eye unreconciled, butfinally made his peculiar gesture of dismissal. The Thunder Run mansaluted and stumbled from the roadside into the field, the dead Tiger'smusket in the hollow of his arm, his face turned toward Company A. Backin the road Jackson turned his eyes on Cleave. "Major, in half an houryou will advance with your skirmishers. Do as well as you have doneheretofore and you will do well--very well. The effect of ColonelBrooke'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 themisty half light, against the red guidons of the east. Stafford wentwith him. Randolph, his cannoneers and drivers dropped beside the piecesand were immediately asleep--half an hour now was all they had. Thehorses cropped the pearled wayside grass. Far away the cocks werecrowing. In the east the red bannerols widened. There came a faintblowing of bugles. Cleave stooped and took up his cloak. 

Steve, stumbling back over the wet field, between the ranks of sleepingmen, found Company A--that portion of it not with the skirmishers. Everysoul was asleep. The men lay heavily, some drawn into a knot, otherswith arms flung wide, others on their faces. They lay in the dank andchilly dawn as though death had reaped the field. Steve lay down besidethem. "Gawd! when will this war be over?"

He dreamed that he was back at Thunder Run, crouching behind a certainboulder at a turn of the road that wound up from the Valley. He had anold flintlock, but in his dream he did not like it, and it changed toone of the beautiful modern rifles they were beginning to take from theYankees. There were no Yankees on Thunder Run. Steve felt assured ofthat in his dream; very secure and comfortable. Richard Cleave cameriding up the road on Dundee. Steve lifted the rifle to his shoulder andsighted very carefully. It seemed that he was not alone behind theboulder. 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 couldclear so that he might know his luck the sound of the shot changed toclear trumpets, long and wailing. Steve turned on his side. "Reveille! OGawd!"

The men arose, the ranks were formed. _No breakfast?_--HairstonBreckinridge explained the situation. "We're going to breakfast inWinchester, men! All the dear old cooks are getting ready for us--rollsand waffles and broiled chicken and poached eggs and coffee--and all theladies in muslin and ribbons are putting flowers on the table andsaying, 'The Army of the Valley is coming home!'--Isn't that a Sundaymorning breakfast worth waiting for? The sooner we whip Banks the soonerwe'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 killon 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 itought ter be an easy job--"

"Good Lord! Steve's been absent at a council of war--talking familiarlywith 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 afterBath and Romney? 'Most the nicest Valley town!--and we had to go awayand 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'tit 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 inWinchester. Says his mother and sister are there, too, and he can'tsleep for thinking of the enemy all about them. Children sure do grow upquick 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 largeon the opposite bank of Abraham's Creek, and he must go to meet it. Hewas wedged between comrades--Sergeant Coffin was looking straight at himwith his melancholy, bad-tempered eyes--he could not fall out, dropbehind! The backs of his hands began to grow cold and his unwashedforehead was damp beneath matted, red-brown elf locks. From considerableexperience he knew that presently sick stomach would set in. When thecompany splashed through Abraham's Creek he would not look at therunning water, but when he looked at the slopes he was expectedpresently to climb he saw that there was fighting there and that thenightmare attended! Steve closed his eyes. "O Gawd, take care of me--"

Later on, when the ridge was won he found himself, still in the companyof the nightmare, cowering close to the lock of a rail fence thatzigzagged along the crest. How he got there he really did not know. Hehad his musket still clutched--his mountaineer's instinct served forthat. Presently he made the discovery that he had been firing, had firedthrice, it appeared from his cartridge box. He remembered neither firingnor loading, though he had some faint recollection of having been uponhis knees behind a low stone wall--he saw it now at right angles withthe rail fence. A clover field he remembered because some one had saidsomething about four-leaved clovers, and then a shell had come by andthe 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 thegiant brush of eddying smoke. Steve tasted powder, smelled powder. Onthe other side of the fence, from a battery lower down the slope to theguns beyond him two men were running--running very swiftly, with bentheads. They ran like people in a pelting rain, and between them theycarried a large bag or bundle, slung in an oilcloth. They were tall andhardy men, and they moved with a curious air of determination. "Carryingpowder! Gawd! before I'd be sech a fool--" A shell came, andburst--burst between the two men. There was an explosion, ear-splitting, heart-rending. A part of the fence was wrecked; a small cedar tree torninto kindling. Steve put down his musket, laid his forehead upon therail 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, hethought, have been running away, not knowing where he was going, andinfernally managed to get up here. The nightmare abode with him. Hisjoints felt like water, his heart was straightened, stretched, andcorded in his bosom like a man upon the rack. He pressed close into theangle of the fence, made himself of as little compass as his long andgangling limbs allowed, and held himself still as an opossum feigningdeath. Only his watery blue eyes wandered--not for curiosity, but thathe might see and dodge a coming harm. 

Before him the ridge ran steeply down to a narrow depression, a littlevale, two hundred yards across. On the further side the land rose againto 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, wellserved. North and South, muzzle to muzzle, the guns roared across thegreen hollow. The blue musketrymen behind the wall were using minies. Ofall death-dealing things Steve most hated these. They came with sounearthly a sound--zzzz-ip! zzzzz-ip!--a devil noise, a death thatshrieked, taunted, and triumphed. To-day they made his blood like water. He crouched close, a mere lump of demoralization, behind a veil of wildbuckwheat. 

Rockbridge was suffering heavily, both from the opposing Parrotts andfrom sharpshooters behind the wall. A belated gun came straining up theslope, the horses doing mightily, the men cheering. There was an openingin a low stone wall across the hillside, below Steve. The gate had beenwrenched away and thrown aside, but the thick gatepost remained, and itmade the passage narrow--too narrow for the gun team and the carriage topass. 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 postdown. "

"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 acrossthe hollow blazed more fiercely; the sharpshooters diverted theirattention from the men and horses higher upon the hill. Agnor swung theaxe with steadiness; the chips flew far. The post was cut almost throughbefore 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 asteady face. It found place a few yards above Steve in his corner, andjoined 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 allthe guns, strung like black beads along the crest, dragged themselves orwere carried to this shelter. Hope rose in Steve's heart. "Gawd! I'llcreep through the clover and git there myself. " He started on hands andknees, but once out of his corner and the shrouding mass of wildbuckwheat, terror took him. The minies were singing like so many birds. A line of blue musketrymen, posted behind cover, somewhat higher thanthe grey, were firing alike at gunners, horses, and the men passing toand fro behind the fighting line. Steve saw a soldier hobbling to thebarn throw up his arms, and pitch forward. Two carrying a third betweenthem were both struck. The three tried to drag themselves further, butonly the one who had been borne by the others succeeded. A shell piercedthe roof of the barn, burst and set the whole on fire. Steve turned likea lizard and went back to the lock of the fence and the tatteredbuckwheat. 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 shirtopen over the breast, and sleeves rolled up. They stood straight, orbent, 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 voicescame as though earth and air were speaking. "Sponge out. --All right. Fire! Hot while it lasts, but it won't last long. I have everyconfidence in Old Jack and Old Dick. Drat that primer! All right!--Threeseconds! Jerusalem! that created a sensation. The Louisianians arecoming up that cleft between the hills. All the Stonewall regiments inthe 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 hopeyou'll go away from here! We'll stay it out--give you our word. Letthem 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 hecould recover from this experience a shell burst immediately in front ofhis panel. He was covered with earth, a fragment of shell sheared awaythe protecting buckwheat and a piece of rail struck him in the back withforce. He yelled, threw down his musket and ran. 

He passed John Agnor lying dead by the gateway, and he reached somehowthe foot of the hill and the wide fields between the embattled ridgesand the Valley pike, the woods and the Front Royal road. He now couldsee the Federal line of battle, drawn on both sides of the pike, butpreponderantly to the westward. They were there, horse and foot andbellowing artillery, and they did not look panic-stricken. Their flagswere flying, their muskets gleaming. They had always vastly more andvastly better bands than had the grey, and they used them morefrequently. They were playing now--a brisk and stirring air, sinking andswelling as the guns boomed or were silent. The mist was up, the sunshone bright. "Gawd!" thought Steve. "I'd better be there than here! Weain't a-goin' to win, anyhow. They've got more cannon, and a biggercountry, and all the ships, and pockets full of money. Once't I had achance 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 towardthem 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 ThunderRun I wouldn't move North for nothing! _Yaaaihhhh! Yaaaaihhh_--"

_Yaaihhhhh! Yaaihhhhh! Yaaaihh! Yaaaaaaaihhhh!_ Ten thousand greysoldiers with the sun on their bayonets--

 * * * * *

There came by a riderless horse, gentle enough, unfrightened, wantingonly to drink at the little stream. Steve caught him withoutdifficulty, climbed into the saddle and followed the army. The army wasa clanging, shouting, triumphant thing to follow--to follow into theWinchester streets, into a town that was mad with joy. A routed army wasbefore it, pouring down Loudoun Street, pouring down Main Street, pouring down every street and lane, pouring out of the northern end ofthe 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, asweeping out of single and desperate knots of blue. Church bells werepealing, 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, ona sorrel nag, answered with a gravity strangely enough not withoutsweetness the acclamation with which he was showered, sent an aide tohasten the batteries, sent another with an order to General George H. Steuart commanding cavalry, jerked his hand into the air and swept on inpursuit out by the Martinsburg pike. The infantry followed him, hurrahing. They tasted to-day the sweets of a patriot soldiery relievinga patriot town. The guns came thundering through, the horses doing well, the proud drivers, cannoneers, officers, waving caps and hats, bowing tohalf-sobbing hurrahs, thrown kisses, praises, blessings. Ewell'sdivision poured through--Ewell on the flea-bitten grey, Rifle, swearinghis men forward, pithily answering the happy people, all the while thechurch bells clanging. The town was in a clear flame of love, patriotism, martial spirit, every heart enlarged, every house thrownopen to the wounded whom, grey and blue alike, the grey surgeons werebringing in. 

For fear to keep him, Steve had left his captured horse's back and lethim go loose. Now on foot and limping terribly, trying to look equalparts fire-eater and woe-begone, he applied to a grey-headed couple inthe dooryard of a small clean home. Would they give a hurt soldier a bedand something to eat? Why, of course, of course they would! Come rightin! What command?

"The Stonewall Brigade, sir. You see, 'twas this a-way. I was helpingserve a gun, most of the gunners being strewed around dead--and weinfantrymen having to take a hand, and a thirty pound Parrott came andburst 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 hadbeen tending. He was asleep; had gone to sleep calling her "Maman" andbabbling of wild-fowl on the bayou. She kissed him lightly on theforehead "for Will"--Will, somewhere on the Martinsburg pike, battlingin heat and dust, battling for the Confederacy, driving the foe out ofVirginia, back across the Potomac--Will who, little more than a yearago, had been her "baby, " whom she kissed each night when he went tosleep in his little room next hers at Three Oaks. She straightenedherself 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 inMarch the army had withdrawn from Winchester, held three wounded. Uponthe four-post bed, between white valance and tester, lay a dyingofficer. His wife was with him, and a surgeon, who had found the ballbut could not stop the hemorrhage. A little girl sat on the bed, andevery now and then put forth a hand and timidly stroked her father'sclay-cold wrist. On the floor, on a mattress matching the one on whichthe boy lay, was stretched a gaunt giant from some backwoods or mountainclearing. Margaret knelt beside him and he smiled up at her. "I ain'tmuch hurt, and I ain't sufferin' to amount to nothin'. Ef this peskybutternut wouldn't stick in this here hurt place--" She cut the shirtfrom a sabre wound with the scissors hanging at her waist, then bringingwater 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, notto disturb the central group. "But you don't look easy. You are stillsuffering. 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 nowbreathed his last. She brought the unneeded surgeon to the crushedankle, summoned to help him another of the women in the house, thenmoved to the four-poster and aided the tearless widow, young and soonagain to become a mother, to lay the dead calm and straight. The littlegirl began to shake and shudder. She took her in her arms and carriedher out of the room. She found Miriam helping in the storeroom. "Get thechild's doll and take her into the garden for a little while. She iscold 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 thefloor in the chamber. If he wakes, give him water, but don't let himlift himself. He looks like Will. "

In the hall a second surgeon met her. "Madam, will you come help? I'vegot to take off a poor fellow's leg. " They entered a room together--theparlour this time, with the windows flung wide and the afternoonsunlight lying in pools among the roses of the carpet. Two mahoganytables had been put together, and the soldier lay atop, the crushed legbared and waiting. The surgeon had an assistant and the young man'sservant was praying in a corner. Margaret uttered a low, painedexclamation. This young lieutenant had been well liked last winter inWinchester. He had been much at this house. He had a good voice and shehad played his accompaniments while he sang--oh, the most sentimental ofditties! Miriam had liked him very well--they had read together--"ThePilgrims of the Rhine"--Goldsmith--Bernardin de Saint Pierre. He had atrick 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 adrawn 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 hishead. "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 ofthe long day's tasks she heard a group of soldiers talking. There wereinfantry officers from the regiments left in town, and a dustycavalryman or two--riders from the front with dispatches or orders. Onewith 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 ordersyou to pursue vigorously. He says lose no time. He says kill andcapture; let as few as possible get to the Potomac. Do your best. '" Hefilled his glass again from the pitcher standing by. "Steuart answersthat he's of General Ewell's Division. Must take his orders from GeneralEwell. "

"West Point notions! Good Lord!"

"Says the aide, 'General Jackson commands General Ewell, and so maycommand you. His orders are that you shall pursue vigorously'--SaysSteuart, 'I will send a courier to find General Ewell. If his orders arecorroboratory 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 tofind 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 byevery cow path, Stonewall and the infantry advance behind him--butLittle Sorrel couldn't do it alone. " He put down the glass. "Steuart'llcatch it when Old Jack reports. We might have penned and killed thesnake, and now it's gotten away!"

"Never mind! It's badly hurt and it's quitting Virginia at a high rateof speed. It's left a good bit of its skin behind, too. Hawks says he'sdamned if the army shan't have square meals for a week, andCrutchfield's smiling over the guns--"

"Falligant says the men are nigh dead, officers nodding in theirsaddles, giving orders in their sleep. Falligant says--"

Margaret touched one of the group upon the arm. He swung round in thehall that was darkening toward sunset and swept off his hat. "Do youthink, sir, that there will be fighting to-night?"

"I think not, madam. There may be skirmishes of course--our men may cutoff parties of the enemy. But there will be no general battle. It isagreed that General Banks will get across the Potomac. The troops willbivouac this side of Martinsburg. "

The wounded in the house slept or did not sleep. The young widow satbeside the dead officer. She would not be drawn away--said that she wasquite comfortable, not unhappy, there was so much happiness to remember. Hannah found a nook for the little girl and put her to bed. The officerswent away. There were a thousand things to do, and, also, they mustsnatch some sleep, or the brain would reel. The surgeon, hollow-eyed, grey with fatigue, dropping for sleep, spoke at the open front door tothe elderly lady of the house and to Margaret Cleave. "Lieutenant Wallerwill 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 boyis a good nurse. I'll come back myself about midnight. That Louisianayoungster is all right. You might get two men and move him from thatroom. No; the other won't lose the foot. He, too, might be moved, if youcan 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 pointsmyself. Excuse me, ladies, I hardly know what I am saying. Yes, thankyou, I see the step. I'll come back about midnight. "

The old yards up and down the old street were much trampled, shrubberybroken, fences down, the street thick dust, and still strewn withaccoutrements that had been thrown away, with here and there a brokenwagon. Street and pavement, there was passing and repassing--the life ofthe rear of an army, and the faring to and fro on many errands of thepeople of the relieved town. There were the hospitals and there were thewounded in private houses. There were the dead, and all the burials forthe morrow--the negroes digging in the old graveyard, and the childrengathering flowers. There were the living to be cared for, the manyhungry to be fed. All the town was exalted, devoted, bent on service--alittle city raised suddenly to a mountain platform, set in a strange, high light, fanned by one of the oldest winds, and doing well with aclear intensity. 

Miriam came and stood beside her mother, leaning her head upon theother'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 werebeginning 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 arenot so red. ' He said he kept all my letters over his heart--only he torethem up before the battle, tore them into little bits and gave them tothe wind, so that if he fell into his hands 'l'ennemi' might not readthem. "

"The doctor says that he will do well. "

"He is like Will. Oh, mother, I feel ten thousand years old! I feel asthough I had always lived. "

"I, too, dear. Always. I have always borne children and they have alwaysgone 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 ofdreamless sleep. She stood beside him. "My poor, dead man, I hated tokeep my word. "

He smiled. "It would have been as hard to wake up at the end of aweek!--Mother, I am so dirty!"

"The servants have brought you plenty of hot water, and we have done thebest we could with your uniform. Here is fresh underwear, and abeautiful shirt. I went myself down to the officer in charge of capturedstores. He was extremely good and let me have all I wished. Tullius ishere. He came in an hour ago with Dundee. I will send him up. When youare dressed come into the hall. I will have something there for you toeat. "

Richard drew her hand to his lips. "I wonder who first thought of soblessed an institution as a mother? Only a mother could have thought ofit, 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 breezecame through the open window, and with it the scent of jasmine. The windblew the candle flame until his mother, stepping lightly, brought aglass shade and set it over the silver stick. Small moths flew in andout, 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 andstair in dimness, the ill or wounded quiet or at least not loudlycomplaining. Now and then a door softly opened or closed; a woman'sfigure or that of some coloured servant passed from dimness to dimness. They passed and the whole was quiet again. Mother and son spoke low. "Iwill not wake Miriam until just time to say good-bye. She isoverwrought, poor child! She had counted so on seeing Will. "

"We will press on now, I think, to Harper's Ferry. But events may bringus this way again. The 2d is bivouacked by a little stream, and I sawhim fast asleep. He is growing strong, hardy, bronzed. It is strikingtwelve. Tullius is saddling Dundee. "

"There will be no fighting in the morning?"

"No. Not, perhaps, until we reach Harper's Ferry. Banks will get acrossto Williamsport to-night. For the present he is off the board. Saxton atHarper's Ferry has several thousand men, and he will be at once heavilyreinforced from Washington. It is well for us and for Richmond that thatcity 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 cavalryfailure. --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 wagedin the enemy's territory. But I am certain that we are working with theexplicit purpose of preventing McDowell's junction with McClellan andthe complete investment of Richmond which would follow that junction. Weare going to threaten Washington. The government there may be trusted, Ithink, to recall McDowell. Probably also they will bring upon our rearFremont from the South Branch. That done, we must turn and meet themboth. "

"Oh, war! Over a year now it has lasted! There are so many in black, andthe church bells have always a tolling sound. And then the flowersbloom, 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 asbaseness. And the mind adapts itself, and the ocean is deeper than wethink. Somewhere, of course, lies the shore of Brotherhood, and beyondthat the shore of Oneness. It is not unlikely, I think, that we mayreinforce 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 perhapsfive. "

"Five years! All the country will be grey-haired. "

"War is a forge, mother. Many things will be forged--more of ironperhaps 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 thegenerals--and, God knows, I do not doubt the women at home! If I am notso sure in all ways of the government, at least no man doubts itsintegrity and its purpose. The President, if he is clear and narrowrather than clear and broad, if he sometimes plays the bigot, if he is agood field officer rather than the great man of affairs we need--yet heis earnest, disinterested, able, a patriot. And Congress does itsbest--is at least eloquent and fires the heart. Our crowding needs aregreat and our resources small; it does what it can. The departments workhard. Benjamin, Mallory, Randolph, Meminger--they are all good men. Andthe railroad men and the engineers and the chemists and themechanics--all so wonderfully and pathetically ingenious, labouring dayand night, working miracles without material, making bricks withoutstraw. Arsenals, foundries, powder-mills, workshop, manufactories--allin a night, out of the wheat fields! And the runners of blockades, andthe river steamer men, the special agents, the clerks, the workers ofall kind--a territory large as Europe and every man and woman in thefield 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. Andsometimes in the middle of the night, I see all our blocked ports--andthe Mississippi, slipping from our hands. I do not believe that Englandwill come to our help. There is a sentiment for us, undoubtedly, butlike 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 donot know how I will come out of war! I know how I went into it, but noman 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 herslender maturity, with the thin fine bit of lace at her neck, againstthe blowing curtains and in the jasmine scent she suggested somethingfine and strong and sweet, of old time, of all time. "I know that youwill serve with every fibre, " she said. "I know it because I also shallserve that way. " Presently she dropped her hand and looked up at himwith 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 tome, two weeks ago. It does not do her justice. "

Margaret laughed. "They never do! But I agree with you--and yet, it islovely! Her eyes were always wonderful, and she smiles like some oldpicture. I shall love her well, Richard. "

"And she you. Mother, the country lies on my heart. I see a dark'ningsky and many graveyards, and I hear, now 'Dixie, ' now a Dead March. Andyet, 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, rodeaway on Dundee, Tullius following him, down the pike, toward thesleeping army. He passed the pickets and came to the first regimentbefore dawn; to the 65th just as the red signals showed in the east. Itwas a dawn like yesterday's. Far and wide lay the army, thousands ofmen, motionless on the dew-drenched earth, acorns fallen from the treeof war. He met an officer, plodding through the mist, trying to read inthe 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 ageneral. Hear Old Jack said so. "

Cleave laughed, a vibrant sound, jest and determination both. "Of courseI am! I settled that at sixteen, one day when I was ploughing corn. Howthey all look, scattered wide like that!"

"Reveille not until six. The general's going to beat the devil round thestump. Going to have a Sunday on a Monday. Rest, clean up, divineservice. Need all three, certainly need two. Good record the last fewweeks--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, andabundance of the Federal commissariat. Roll call followed, with themoment's full pause after names that were not answered to. A generalorder 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 doxologysung, the benediction pronounced, he told the chaplain that he had beenedified exceedingly, and he looked it. There were times when it might besaid quite truly that his appearance was that of an awkward knight ofthe Holy Grail. 

Headquarters was a farmhouse, a small, cosy place, islanded in a rollingsea of clover. About dusk Allan Gold, arriving here, found himselfadmitted to the farmer's parlour. Here were a round table with lamps, aclerk or two writing, and several members of Jackson's military family. The general himself came in presently, and sat down at the table. Adark, wiry man, with a highly intellectual face, who had been going overpapers 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 leatherpouch. "It won't hold much, but enough. Headquarters' mail. Service overthe mountain, to the Manassas Gap for the first Richmond train. Profoundignorance on General Jackson's part of McDowell's whereabouts. Thelatter's pickets gobble up courier, and information meant for Richmondgoes 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 itis safe prisoner, and he has given a straight story, he can get away ifhe 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 afew of a general nature--"

"I thought of that. Here are copies of various letters received fromRichmond. They are now of no special value. I will return them with amemorandum 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 ofbattle, wounds, messages, etc. They are all optimistic in tone, but forthe rest tell no news. I have carefully opened, gone over, and reclosedthem. "

"Good! good! Let Robinson, there, take a list of the names. LieutenantWillis, you will see each of the men and tell them they must rewritetheir 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, anddated 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, " saidJackson. 

 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 beused 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 thebag captured early to-morrow. "

On May the twenty-eighth, fifteen thousand in all, Winder still inadvance, they moved by Summit Point toward Harper's Ferry, thirty milesaway. Ewell on Rifle led the main column, Jackson and Little Sorrelmarched to-day with the rear, Ashby on the black stallion went farahead with his cavalry. The army moved with vigour, in high spirits andthrough fine weather, a bright, cool day with round white clouds in anintense blue sky. When halts were made and the generals rode by theresting troops they were loudly cheered. The men were talkative; theyindulged in laughter and lifted voice in song. Speculation ran to andfro, but she wore no anxious mien. The army felt a calm confidence, ahappy-go-lucky mood. It had come into a childlike trust in itscommanding general, and that made all the difference in the world. "Where are we going? Into Maryland? Don't know and don't care! Old Jackknows. _I_ think we're going to Washington--Always did want to see it. Ithink so, too. Going to take its attention off Richmond, as the Irishmansaid when he walked away with the widow at the wake. Look at thatbuzzard up there against that cloud! Kingbird's after him! Right at hiseyes!--Say, boys, look at that fight!"

In the afternoon the Stonewall came to Charlestown, eight miles fromHarper's Ferry. Here they found, strongly posted in a wood, fifteenhundred Federals with two guns, sent from Harper's Ferry by Saxton. Acourier 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, cameinto view, two miles from the Potomac, of the enemy's guns on BolivarHeights. 

Saxton, now commanding about seven thousand men, had strongly occupiedthe hills on the southern side of the Potomac. To the north the MarylandHeights were held by several regiments and a naval battery of Dahlgrenguns. 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, GeneralBanks 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 beenboiling up since dark. Huge portentous masses rose on all sides andblotted out the skies. The air was for a time oppressively hot andstill. The smoke from the guns which had wrangled during the day, longand loud, hung low; the smell of powder clung. The grey troops massed onLoudoun Heights and along the Shenandoah wiped the sweat from theirbrows. Against the piled clouds signal-lights burned dull and red, starsof war communicating through the sultry night. The clouds rose higheryet and the lightnings began to play. A stir began in the leaves of thefar-flung forests, blended with the murmur of the rivers and becamerushing sound. Thunder burst, clap after clap, reverberating through themountains. The air began to smell of rain, grew suddenly cool. Throughthe welcome freshness the grey troops advanced beyond Bolivar Heights;there followed a long crackle of musketry and a body of blue troopsretreated across the river. The guns opened again; the grey cannontrained upon the Maryland Heights; the Maryland Heights answeringsullenly. Down came the rain in torrents, the lightning flashed, thethunder 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 greytroops awaiting orders, wondered, "Aren't we going to cross the riverafter them?" "Oh, let it alone. Old Jack knows. "

Toward midnight, in the midst of a great access of lightning, rain, andthunder, fighting was renewed. It was not for long. The guns fell silentagain upon Loudoun Heights; moreover the long lines of couching infantrysaw by the vivid lightning the battery horses come up, wet and shiningin the rain. From regiment to regiment, under the rolling thunder, ranthe order. _Into column! By the left flank! March!_

A small stone hut on the side of a hill had formed the shelter of thegeneral commanding. Here he wrote and gave to two couriers a message induplicate. 

 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 ofVirginia, 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 fifteenthousand. These two were blue clad, moving under the stars and stripes. The third, grey, under the stars and bars, sixteen thousand muskets, ledby a man on a sorrel nag, came from Harper's Ferry. Fremont, Indianfighter, moved fast; Shields, Irish born, veteran of the Mexican War, moved fast; but the man in grey, on the sorrel nag, moved infantry withthe rapidity of cavalry. Around the three converging armies rested oradvanced other bodies of blue troops, hovering, watchful of the chanceto strike. Saxton at Harper's Ferry had seven thousand; Banks atWilliamsport had seven thousand. Ord, commanding McDowell's seconddivision, was at Manassas Gap with nine thousand. King, the thirddivision, had ten thousand, near Catlett's Station. At Ashby's Gap wasGeary with two thousand; at Thoroughfare, Bayard with two thousand. 

Over a hundred miles away, southeast, tree-embowered upon her sevenhills, lay Richmond, and at her eastern gates, on the marshyChickahominy were gathered one hundred and forty thousand men, blueclad, led by McClellan. Bronzed, soldierly, chivalrous, an able ifover-cautious general, he waited, irresolute, and at last postponed hisbattle. He would tarry for McDowell who, obeying orders from Washington, had turned aside to encounter and crush a sometime professor of naturalphilosophy with a gift for travelling like a meteor, for confusing likea Jack-o'-lantern, and for striking the bull's-eye of the moment like asilver bullet or a William Tell arrow. Between Richmond and the many andheavy blue lines, with their siege train, lay thinner lines ofgrey--sixty-five thousand men under the stars and bars. They, too, watched the turning aside of McDowell, watched Shields, Ord, King, andFremont from the west, trappers hot on the path of the man with the oldforage 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, Armiesof the Ohio, of the Mississippi, of the West--one hundred and ten thousandin blue, eighty thousand in grey, Halleck and Beauregard--listened for newsfrom Virginia. "Has Richmond fallen?" "No. McClellan is cautious. Lee andJohnston are between him and the city. He will not attack until he isfurther strengthened by McDowell. " "Where is McDowell?" "He was movingsouth from Fredericksburg. His outposts almost touched those of McClellan. But now he has been sent across the Blue Ridge to the Valley, there to puta period to the activities of Stonewall Jackson. That done, he will turnand join McClellan. The two will enfold Lee and Jackson--the AnacondaScheme--and crush every bone in their bodies. Richmond will fall and thewar end. "

Tennessee watched and north Alabama. In Arkansas, on the White Riverwere twelve thousand men in blue, and, arrayed against them, sixthousand, white men and Indians, clad in grey. Far, far away, outeredges of the war, they, too, looked toward the east and wondered how itwent 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 receivedor messages read, soldiers in blue or soldiers in grey asked eagerly"What news from Richmond?"--"Stonewall Jackson? Valley ofVirginia?"--"Valley of Virginia! I know!--saw it once. God's country. "

At New Orleans, on the levees, in the hot streets, under old balconiesand by walled gardens, six thousand men in blue under Butler watched, and a sad-eyed captive city watched. From the lower Mississippi, fromthe blue waters of the Gulf, from the long Atlantic swells, the shipslooked to the land. All the blockading fleets, all the oldline-of-battle ships, the screw-frigates, the corvettes, the oldmerchant steamers turned warrior, the strange new iron-clads and mortarboats, engaged in bottling up the Confederacy, they all looked for thefall of Richmond. There watched, too, the ram-fitted river boats, thedouble-enders, lurking beneath Spanish moss, rocking beside canebrakes, on the far, sluggish, southern rivers. And the other ships, the navy alltoo small, the scattered, shattered, despairing and courageous shipsthat flew the stars and bars, they listened, too, for a last great cryin the night. The blockade-runners listened, the Gladiators, theCeciles, the Theodoras, the Ella Warleys faring at headlong peril to andfro between Nassau in the Bahamas and small and hidden harbours of thevast coast line, inlets of Georgia, Florida, Carolina. Danger flew withthem always through the rushing brine, but with the fall of Richmonddisaster might be trusted to swoop indeed. Then woe for all the waresbelow--the Enfield rifles, the cannon powder, the cartridges, thesaltpetre, 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 frompatrol duty. Let Richmond fall, and the Confederacy, war andoccupation, freedom, life, might be gone in a night, blown fromexistence by McClellan's siege guns!

Over seas the nations watched. Any day might bring a packet withnews--Richmond fallen, fallen, fallen, the Confederacy vanquished, suingfor peace--Richmond not fallen, some happy turn of affairs for theSouth, the Peace Party in the North prevailing, the Confederacyestablished, 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. Shieldsand 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 thethirtieth. The main body moved at once, back upon Winchester, where itgathered up stragglers, prisoners, and the train of captured stores. Winder with the Stonewall Brigade, left to make a final feint atHarper's Ferry, was not in motion southward till much later. Of the mainarmy the 21st Virginia led the column, convoying prisoners and the prizeof stores. There were twenty-three hundred prisoners, men in blue, tramping sullenly. Stonewall Jackson had made requisition of all wagonsabout Winchester. They were now in line, all manner of wagons, white-covered, uncovered, stout-bodied, ancient, rickety, in everycondition but of fresh paint and new harness. Carts were brought, smallvans of pedlars; there were stranded circus wagons with gold scrolls. Nor did there lack vehicles meant for human freight. Old familycarriages, high-swung, capacious as the ark, were filled, not with womenand children, belles and beaux, but with bags of powder and boxes ofcartridges. Superannuated mail coaches carried blankets, oilcloths, sabres, shoes; light spring wagons held Enfield rifles; doctors' buggiesmedicine cases corded in with care. All these added themselves to theregular 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 daysfilled the vacancies; welcome enough were the thirty-five thousandpounds of bacon, the many barrels of flour, the hardtack, sugar, cannedgoods, coffee, the tea and strange delicacies kept for the sick. Morewelcome was the capture of the ammunition. The ordnance officers beamedlovingly upon it and upon the nine thousand excellent new small arms, and the prisoner Parrotts. There were two hundred beautiful wagonsmarked U. S. A. ; the surgeons, too, congratulated themselves upon newambulances. Horses and mules that had changed masters might be restlessat first; but they soon knew the touch of experienced hands and turnedcontented up the Valley. A herd of cattle was driven bellowing intoline. 

Seven miles in length, train and convoying troops emerged fromWinchester in the early light and began a rumbling, bellowing, singing, jesting, determined progress up the Valley pike. Ewell followed with hisbrigadiers--Taylor, Trimble, Elzey, Scott, and the Maryland Line. Theold Army of the Valley came next in column--all save the StonewallBrigade that was yet in the rear double-quicking it on the road fromHarper's Ferry. As far in advance moved Stonewall Jackson's screen ofcavalry, the Valley horsemen under Ashby, a supple, quick-travelling, keen-eyed, dare-devil horde, an effective cloud behind which to executeintricate manoeuvres, a drawer-up of information like dew from everyby-road, field, and wood, and an admirable mother of thunderbolts. Ashbyand Ashby's men were alike smarting from a late rebuke, administered inGeneral Orders. They felt it stingingly. The Confederate soldierenthroned on high his personal honour, and a slur there was a slurindeed. Now the memory of the reprimand was a strong spur to endeavour. The cavalry meant to distinguish itself, and pined for a sight ofFremont. 

The day was showery with strong bursts of sunshine between the slantingsummer rains. All along the great highway, in sun and shade, women, children, the coloured people, all the white men left by the drag-net ofthe war, were out in the ripening fields, by the roadside wall, beforegates, in the village streets. They wept with pride and joy, theylaughed, they embraced. They showered praises, blessings; theyprophesied good fortune. The young women had made bouquets and garlands. Many a favourite officer rode with flowers at his saddle bow. Otherwomen had ransacked their storerooms, and now offered delicate food onsalvers--the lavish, brave, straightforward Valley women, with the mengone 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 theclothes wearing out, with supplies hard to get, with the children, theold people, the servants, the sick, the wounded on their hands, in theirhearts and minds! They brought food, blessings, flowers, "everything forthe army! It has the work to do. " The colours streamed in the wetbreeze, glorious in shadow, splendid when the sun burst forth. Thelittle 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 columnmoved up the Valley pike, violet in the shadow, gold in the sun. Theten-minutes-out-of-an-hour halts were shortened to five minutes. Duringone 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 hislemons are all right! If we don't get those lemon wagons through safe toStaunton there'll be hell to pay! Go 'way! we know he won't call ithell!"

 "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. Winderwith the Stonewall Brigade bivouacked at Newtown, twelve miles north. Hehad made a wonderful march. The men, asleep the instant they touched theearth, lay like dead. The rest was not long; between one and two thebugles called and the regiments were again in motion. A courier hadcome from Jackson. "_General Winder, you will press forward. _"

Silent, with long, steady, swinging tread, the Stonewall moved up theValley. Before it, pale, undulating, mysterious beneath the stars, ranthe turnpike, the wonderful Valley road, the highway that had grownfamiliar to the army as its hand. The Army of the Valley endowed theValley pike with personality. They spoke of it as "her. " They blamed herfor mud and dust, for shadeless, waterless stretches, for a habit shewas acquiring of furrows and worn places, for the aid which sheoccasionally gave to hostile armies, for the hills which she presented, for the difficulties of her bordering stone walls when troops must bedeployed, for the weeds and nettles, thistles, and briars, with whichshe had a trick of decking her sides, for her length. "You kin marchmost 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 theycaressed her name. "Wish I could see the old pike once more!"--"Ain'tany road in the world like the Valley pike, and never was! _She_ neverbehaved herself like this damned out-of-corduroy-into-mud-hole, bayonet-narrow, drunken, zigzag, world's-end-and-no-to-morrow cowtrack!"

It was not only the road. All nature had new aspects for the Confederatesoldier; day by day a deeper shade of personality. So much of him wasfarmer that he was no stranger to the encampment of the earth. He wasweather-wise, knew the soil, named the trees, could _orientate_ himself, had a fighting knowledge, too, of blight and drouth, hail, frost, highwind, flood, too little and too much of sun fire. Probably he hadthought that he knew all that was to be told. When he volunteered it wasnot 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 amask for what he did not expect. He learned other manuals, among themthat of earth, air, fire, and water. His ideas of the four underwentmodification. First of all he learned that they were combatants, activeparticipants in the warfare which he had thought a matter only of armiesclad 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 sidethen on the other. Sometimes they did this in rapid succession, sometimes they seemed to fight on both sides at once; the only attitudethey never took was one immaterial to the business in hand. Moreoverthey were vitally for or against the individual soldier; now hisfriend, now his foe, now flattering, caressing, bringing gifts, nowsnatching away, digging pitfalls, working wreck and ruin. They werestronger than he, strong and capricious beyond all reckoning. Sometimeshe loved these powers; sometimes he cursed them. Indifference, only, wasgone. He and they were alike sentient, active, conscious, inextricablymingled. 

To-night the pike was cool and hard. There were clouds above, but notheavy; streams of stars ran between. To either side of the road layfields of wheat, of clover, of corn, banded and broken by shadowyforest. Massanutton loomed ahead. There was a wind blowing. Togetherwith the sound of marching feet, the jingle of accoutrements, thestriking of the horses' hoofs against loose stones, the heavy noise ofthe guns in the rear, it filled the night like the roar of a distantcataract. The men marched along without speech; now and then a terseorder, nothing more. The main army was before them at Strasburg; theymust catch up. To the west, somewhat near at hand in the darkness, wouldbe lying Fremont. Somewhere in the darkness to the east was Shields. Their junction was unmade, Stonewall Jackson and his army passingbetween the upper and the nether millstone which should have joined tocrush. 

The stars began to pale, the east to redden. Faintly, faintly the swelland roll of the earth gathered colour. A cock crew from some distantfarmhouse. The Stonewall swung on, the 65th leading, its colonel, Richard Cleave, at its head. The regiment liked to see him there; itloved him well and obeyed him well, and he in his turn would have diedfor his men. Undoubtedly he was responsible for much of the regiment'stone and temper. It was good stuff in the beginning, but something ofits firm modelling was due to the man now riding Dundee at its head. The65th was acquiring a reputation, and that in a brigade whose deeds hadbeen ringing, like a great bell, sonorously through the land. "The goodconduct of the 65th--" "The 65th, reliable always--" "The 65th with itsaccustomed courage--" "The disciplined, intelligent, and courageous65th--" "The gallantry of the 65th--"

The light strengthened; pickets were reached. They belonged to Taylor'sBrigade, lying in the woods to either side of the pike. The Stonewallpassed them, still figures, against the dawn. Ahead lay Strasburg, itschurch spires silver-slender in the morning air. Later, as the sunpushed a red rim above the hills, the brigade stacked arms in a fairgreen meadow. Between it and the town lay Taliaferro. Elzey and Campbellwere in the fields to the east. General Jackson and his staff occupied aknoll just above the road. 

The Stonewall fell to getting breakfast--big tin cups of scaldingcoffee! sugar! fresh meat! double allowance of meal! They broiled themeat on sharpened sticks, using the skillets for batter bread; theygrinned at the sugar before they dropped it in, they purred over thecoffee. Mingling with the entrancing odours was the consciousness ofhaving marched well, fought well, deserved well. Down the pike, whereTaylor kept the rear, burst a rattle of musketry. The Stonewallscrambled to its feet. "What's that? Darn it all! the Virginia Reel'sbeginning!" An officer hurried by. "Sit down, boys. It's just aminuet--reconnoissance of Fremont and Dick Taylor! It's all right. ThoseLouisianians are damned good dancers!" A courier quitting the knollabove the pike gave further information. "Skirmish back there, near theCapon road. Just a feeler of Fremont's--his army's three miles overthere in the woods. Old Dick's with General Taylor. Don't need yourhelp, boys--thank you all the same! Fremont won't attack in force. OldJack says so--sitting up there on a hickory stump reading the Book ofKings!"

"All right, " said the Stonewall. "We ain't the kind to go butting inwithout an invitation! We're as modest as we are brave. Listen! The bluecoats are using minies. "

Down the pike, during an hour of dewy morning, the Louisiana Brigade andFremont's advance fired at each other. The woods hereabouts were dense. At intervals the blue showed; at intervals Ewell dispatched a regimentwhich 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 Jacksonsays I am not to go far from the pike! I want to go after those men. Iwant 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 tothe 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 morningprayer meeting!--Oh, here are your men back with prisoners! Now, you menin blue, what command's that in the woods? Eh?--What?" "_Von Bayern binich nach diesem Lande gekommen. _" "_Am Rhein habe ich gehort dass vielbezahlt wird fur. . . . _" "Take 'em away! Semmes, you go and tell GeneralJackson all Europe's here. --Mean you to go? Of course I don't mean youto 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, GeneralTaylor--tell him to shake the pig-nuts out of those trees!"

Toward midday the army marched. All the long afternoon it moved to thesound of musketry up the Valley pike. There was skirmishing inplenty--dashes by Fremont's cavalry, repulsed by the grey, a shortstampede of Munford's troopers, driven up the pike and into the infantryof the rear guard, rapid recovery and a Roland for an Oliver. TheValley, shimmering in the June light, lay in anything but Sabbath calm. Farmhouse and village, mill, smithy, tavern, cross-roads store, heldtheir breath--Stonewall Jackson coming up the pike, holding Fremont offwith 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 therear guard. Drawn upon high ground to either side of the pike, itlighted no fires and rested on its arms. Next it to the south layWinder. The night was clear and dark, the pike a pale limestone gleambetween the shadowy hills. Hour by hour there sounded a clattering ofhoofs, squads of cavalry, reports, couriers, staff. There was, too, asense of Stonewall Jackson somewhere on the pike, alert with grey-blueeyes piercing the dark. Toward one o'clock firing burst out on thenorth. It proved an affair of outposts. Later, shots rang out close athand, Fremont having ordered a cavalry reconnoissance. The grey met itwith clangour and pushed it back. Wheat's battalion was orderednorthward and went swinging down the pike. The blue cavalry swarmedagain, whereupon the Louisianians deployed, knelt first rank, fired rearrank, rose and went forward, knelt, fired and dispersed the swarm. Froma ridge to the west opened a Federal gun. It had intent to rake thepike, but was trained too high. The shells hurtled overhead, explodinghigh in air. The cannonade ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Daybegan to break in violet and daffodil. 

As the hours went on they became fiery hot and dry. The dust cloud washigh again over advance with great wagon train, over main column andrear. Water was scarce, the men horribly weary; all suffered. Sufferingor ease, pain or pleasure, there was no resting this day. Fremont, usingparallel roads, hung upon the right; he must be pushed back to themountains as they passed up the Valley pike. All morning blue cavalrymenaced the Stonewall; to the north a dense southward moving cloudproclaimed a larger force. Mid-day found Winder deployed on both sidesof the pike, with four guns in position. The Louisianians sent back toknow if they could help. "No--we'll manage. " A minute later Jacksonappeared. Wherever matters drew suddenly to a point, there he wasmiraculously found. He looked at the guns and jerked his hand in theair. "General Winder, I do not wish an engagement here. Withdraw yourbrigade, sir, regiment by regiment. General Ashby is here. He will keepthe rear. "

Ashby came at the moment with a body of horse out of the wood to theeast. He checked the black stallion, saluted and made his report. "Ihave burned the Conrad Store, White House and Columbia bridges, sir. IfShields 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 themen that I wish them to press on. General Ashby, the march is now toproceed undisturbed. "

The second of June burned onward to its close, through heat, dust, thirst, and relentlessly rapid marching. In the late afternoon occurreda monstrous piling up of thunder clouds, a whistling of wind, and agreat downpour of rain. It beat down the wheat and pattered like elfinbullets on the forest leaves. Through this fusillade the army came downto 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 loudwind and dashing rain, Jackson on Little Sorrel watched the transit. Bydusk all were over and the bridge was taken up. 

On the further shore Ashby now kept guard between Fremont and the hostin 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 andFremont. The Army of the Valley had run the gauntlet, and in doing sohad 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. Healmost always spoke to his troops gently, but to-night there was almosta fatherly tone. And though he jerked his hand into the air, it wasmeditatively 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 courierunwrapped from a bit of cloth several leaves of the whitey-browntelegraph paper of the Confederacy and gave them into the general'shand. 

Next morning, at roll call, each colonel spoke to his regiment. "Men!There has been a great battle before Richmond--at a place called SevenPines. Day before yesterday General Johnston attacked General McClellan. The battle raged all day with varying fortune. At sunset GeneralJohnston, in the thickest of the fight, was struck from his horse by ashell. He is desperately wounded; the country prays not mortally. General Lee is now in command of the Armies of Virginia. The battle wasresumed yesterday morning and lasted until late in the day. Each sideclaims the victory. Our loss is perhaps five thousand; we hold that theenemy's was as great. General McClellan has returned to his camp uponthe banks of the Chickahominy. Richmond is not taken. --The generalcommanding the Army of the Valley congratulates his men upon the partthey have played in the operations before our capital. At seven in themorning the chaplains of the respective regiments will hold divineservices. "

CHAPTER XXV

ASHBY

Flournoy and Munford, transferred to Ashby's command, kept with him inthe Confederate rear. The army marching from the Shenandoah left thecavalry behind in the wind and rain to burn the bridge and delayFremont. Ashby, high on the eastern bank, watched the slow flames seizethe timbers, fight with the wet, prevail and mount. The black stallionplanted his fore feet, shook his head, snuffed the air. The wind blewout his rider's cloak. In the light from the burning bridge the scarletlining glowed and gleamed like the battle-flag. The stallion neighed. Ashby's voice rose ringingly. "Chew, get the Blakeley ready! Wyndham'son 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 thedarkness to the north came Maury Stafford with a scouting party. Hesaluted. "There is a considerable force over there, sir, double-quickingthrough the woods to save the bridge. Cavalry in front--Wyndham, Isuppose, still bent on 'bagging' you. "

"Here they are!" said Ashby. "But you are too late, Colonel Sir PercyWyndham!"

The blazing arch across the river threw a wine-red light up and down andshowed cavalry massing beneath walnut, oak, and pine. There were trumpetsignals and a great trampling of hoofs, but the roaring flames, theswollen torrent, the pattering rain, the flaws of wind somewhat dulledother sounds. A tall man with sash and sabre, thigh boots andmarvellously long moustaches, sat his horse beneath a dripping, wind-tossed pine. He pointed to the grey troopers up and down thesouthern bank. "There's the quarry! _Fire!_"

Two could play at that game. The flash from the northern bank and therattle of the carbines were met from the southern by as vivid a leapingspark, 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 touchedthe red-lit water. There was a Versailles fountain costing nothing. TheBlakeley 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, ifthey 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 hisshoulder and sounded the retreat. The flaming bridge lit all the placeand showed the great black horse and him upon it. The English adventureracross the water had with him sharpshooters. In the light that wavered, leaped and died, and sprang again, these had striven in vain to reachthat high-placed target. Now one succeeded. 

The ball entered the black's side. He had stood like a rock, now heveered like a ship in a storm. Ashby dropped the bugle, threw his legover the saddle, and sprang to the earth as the great horse sank. Thosenear him came about him. "No! I am not hurt, but Black Conrad is. Mypoor friend!" He stroked Black Conrad, kissed him between the eyes anddrew his pistol. Chew fired the Blakeley again, drowning all lessersound. Suddenly the supports of the bridge gave way. A great part of theroaring mass fell into the stream; the remainder, toward the southernshore, flamed higher and higher. The long rattle of the Federal carbineshad an angry sound. They might have marched more swiftly after all, seeing that Stonewall Jackson would not march more slowly! Build abridge! How could they build a bridge over the wide stream, angryitself, hoarsely and violently thrusting its way under an inky, tempestuous sky! They had no need to spare ammunition, and so they firedrecklessly, cannon, carbine, and revolvers into the night after thegrey, retiring squadrons. 

Stafford, no great favourite with the mass of the men, but well liked bysome, 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 closedand memory holding every card. He spoke cheerfully. "Shenandoahbeautifully swollen! Don't believe Fremont has pontoons. He's out of thereckoning for at least a day and a night--probably longer. Nice for usall!"

"It has been a remarkable campaign. "

"'Remarkable'! Tell you what it's like, Stafford. It's like1796--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 aretoo damned perfunctory. You take orders like an automaton, and you goexecute them like an automaton. I don't say that they're notbeautifully executed; they are. But the soul's not there. The other dayat Tom's Brook I watched you walk your horse up to the muzzle of thatfellow Wyndham's guns, and, by God! I don't believe you knew any morethan an automaton that the guns were there!"

"Yes, I did--"

"Well, you may have known it with one half of your brain. You didn'twith the other half. To a certain extent, I can read your hand. You'vegot 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 headtoward 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 thebrain in two--send the biggest part off, knight-errant or Saracen, intosome No-Man's Country, and keep the other piece here in Virginia tocrack 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 andhate 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 gettoo high!"

"Will you listen, " said Stafford, "to the wind in the pines? and did youever see the automatic chess-player?"

Two days later, Fremont, having bridged the Shenandoah, crossed, andpushed his cavalry with an infantry support southward by the pike. Aboutthree in the afternoon of the sixth, Ashby's horses were grazing in thegreen fields south of Harrisonburg, on the Port Republic road. To thewest stretched a belt of woodland, eastward rose a low ridge clad withbeech and oak. The green valley lay between. The air, to-day, was softand sweet, the long billows of the Blue Ridge seen dreamily, through anamethyst 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 clearpool. Naked to the waist, they knelt like washerwomen, and rubbed thesoapless linen against smooth stones, or wrung it wrathfully, orturning, spread it, grey-white, upon the grass to dry. Four played pokerbeneath a tree, one read a Greek New Testament, six had found a smallturtle, and with the happy importance of boys were preparing a brushwoodfire and the camp kettle. Others slept, head pillowed on arm, soft felthat drawn over eyes. The rolling woodland toward Harrisonburg andFremont was heavily picketed. A man rose from beside the pool, straightened himself, and holding up the shirt he had been washinglooked at it critically. Apparently it passed muster, for hepainstakingly stretched it upon the grass and taking a pair of cottondrawers turned again to the water. A blue-eyed Loudoun youth whistling"Swanee River" brought a brimming bucket from the stream that made thepool and poured it gleefully into the kettle. A Prince Edward man, lyingchest downward, blew the fire, another lifted the turtle. The horsesmoved toward what seemed lusher grass, one of the poker players said"Damn!" the reader turned a leaf of the Greek Testament. One of thesleepers sat up. "I thought I heard a shot--"

Perhaps he had heard one; at any rate he now heard many. Down the roadand out from under the great trees of the forest in front burst thepickets driven in by a sudden, well-directed onslaught of bluecavalry--Fremont's advance with a brigade of infantry behind. In amoment all was haste and noise in the green vale. Men leaped to theirfeet, left their washing, left the turtle simmering in the pot, the gaycards 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 damnedBriton again, sir, with his squadrons from New Jersey! Rode usdown--John Ferrar killed--Gilbert captured--You can see from the hilltopthere. They are forming for a charge. There's infantry behind--Blinker'sDutch from the looks of them!"

"Blinker's Dutch, " said the troopers. "'Hooney, ' 'Nix furstay, ' 'BagJackson, ' '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 roadwound up and over it. Ashby's bugle sounded. "_Right face. Trot!March!_" The road went gently up, grass on either side with here andthere a clump of small pines. Butterflies fluttered; all was gay andsweet in the June sunshine. Ashby rode before on the bay stallion. TheHorse Artillery came also from the meadow where it had beencamped--Captain Chew, aged nineteen, and his three guns and histhreescore men, four of them among the best gunners in the whole army. All mounted the ridge, halted and deployed. The guns were postedadvantageously, the 6th, the 7th, and the 2d Virginia Cavalry in tworanks along the ridge. Wide-spreading beech boughs, growing low, smalloak scrub and branchy dogwood made a screen of the best; they lookeddown, hidden, upon a gentle slope and the Port Republic road. Ashby'spost was in front of the silver bole of a great beech. With onegauntleted hand he held the bay stallion quiet, with the other he shadedhis eyes and gazed at the westerly wood into which ran the road. Chew, to his right, touched the Blakeley lovingly. Gunner number 1 handed thepowder. Number 2 rammed it home, took the shell from Number 1 and put itin. All along the ridge the horsemen handled their carbines, spoke eachin a quiet, genial tone to his horse. Sound of the approaching forcemade 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. Itwas yet a little distant, horses at a trot, the declining sun making astirring picture. Rapidly crescent to eye and ear, they came on. Theircolours flew, the sound of their bugles raised the blood. Their pacechanged to a gallop. The thundering hoofs, the braying trumpets, shookthe air. Colours and guidons grew large. 

"By God, sir, Wyndham is coming to eat you up! This time he knows he'scaught the hare. "

"Do all John Bulls ride like that? Shades of the Revolution! did we allride 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, thegreen grass to either hand. The bugles blew at height, the sabresgleamed, the tall man in front rode rising in his stirrups, his sabreoverhead. "Huzzah! huzzah! huzzah!" shouted the blue cavalry. 

"Are you ready, Captain Chew?" demanded Ashby. "Very well, then, letthem have it!"

The Blakeley and the two Parrott guns spoke in one breath. While theechoes were yet thundering, burst a fierce volley from all theConfederate short rifles. Down went the Federal colour-bearer, down wentother troopers in the front rank, down went the great gaunt horsebeneath the Englishman! Those behind could not at once check theirheadlong gallop; they surged upon and over the fallen. The Blakeleyblazed again and the grey carbines rang. The Englishman was on his feet, had a trooper's horse and was shouting like a savage, urging thesquadrons on and up. For the third time the woods flamed and rang. Theblue lines wavered. Some horsemen turned. "Damn you! On!" raged Wyndham. 

Ashby put his bugle to his lips. Clear and sweet rose the notes, asilver tempest. "_Ashby! Ashby!_" shouted the grey lines and charged. "_Ashby! Ashby!_" Out of the woods and down the hill they came likeundyked waters. The two tides met and clashed. There followed a wildmelee, a shouting, an unconscious putting forth of great muscularenergy, a seeing as through red glasses besmirched with powder smoke, apoisonous odour, a sense of cotton in the mouth, a feeling as ofstruggle 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 asthough they were flying through the air, falling, falling! the grey hada sense of dizziness as they struck spur in flank and pursued headlong. All seemed to be sinking through the air, then, suddenly, they feltground, exhaled breath, and went thundering up the Port Republic road, toward Harrisonburg. In front strained the blue, presently reaching thewood. A gun boomed from a slope beyond. Ashby checked the pursuit andlistened to the report of a vedette. "Fremont pushing forward. Horseand guns and the German division. Hm!" He sat the bay stallion, lookingabout him, then, "Cuninghame, you go back to General Ewell. Rear guardcan't be more than three miles away. Tell General Ewell about theGermans and ask him to give me a little infantry. Hurry now, and if hegives 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. Thelatter numbered four officers and forty men. They were all in a group inthe sunshine, which lay with softness upon the short grass and thelittle pine trees. The dead lay huddled, while over them flitted thebutterflies. Ashby's surgeons were busy with the wounded. A man with ashattered jaw was making signs, deliberately talking in thedeaf-and-dumb alphabet, which perhaps he had learned for some friend orrelative's sake. A younger man, his hand clenched over a wound in thebreast, said monotonously, over and over again, "I am from Trenton, NewJersey, I am from Trenton, New Jersey. " A third with glazing eyes madethe sign of the cross, drew himself out of the sun, under one of thelittle pine trees, and died. Some of the prisoners were silent. Otherstalked with bravado to their captors. "Salisbury, North Carolina! That'snot far. Five hundred miles not far--Besides, Fremont will make a rescuepresently. And if he doesn't, Shields will to-morrow! Then off youfellows go to Johnson's Island!" The officer who had led the charge saton 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 afallen pine. Ashby came back to the road, dismounting, and leading thebay stallion, advanced. "Good-day, Colonel Wyndham. "

"Good-day, General Ashby. War's a game. Somebody's got to lose. Only wayto stop loss is to stop war. You held the trumps--Damn me! You playedthem well, too. " His sword lay across his knees. He took it up and heldit out. Ashby made a gesture of refusal. "No. I don't want it. I amabout 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 ofwar. Bad place for a charge. Ought to have been more wary. Served meright. You've got Bob Wheat with you? Know Bob Wheat. Find him in therear?"

"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. Muchobliged. 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 Yorkcavalry as well as the New Jersey--plenty of infantry--PennsylvaniaBucktails and so forth. Wish I could see the scrimmage! Curious world!Can't wish you good luck. Must wish you ill. However, good luck'swrapped 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 Artillerywhich he posted on a rise of ground, behind a mask of black thorn anddogwood. From the east arose the strains of fife and drum. "MarylandLine, " 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! 58thVirginia! Hurrah! The Maryland Line!"

The two infantry regiments came forward at a double-quick, bright andbrisk, rifle barrels and bayonets gleaming in the now late sunshine, their regimental flags azure and white, and beside them streaming thered battle-flag with the blue cross. As they approached there alsobegan 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 talltrees cresting a wave of earth. A body of blue cavalry started out ofthe wood, across the field. At once Chew opened with the Blakeley andthe two Parrotts. There ensued confusion and the horse fell back. A blueinfantry regiment issued at a run, crossed the open and attained thecover of the coppice which commanded the road and the eastern stretch offields. A second prepared to follow. The Maryland Line swung through thewoods with orders to flank this movement. Ashby galloped to the 58th. "Forward, 58th, and clear that wood!" He rode on to Munford at the headof the squadrons. "I am going to dislodge them from that cover. Themoment they leave it sound the charge!"

The 58th advanced steadily over the open. When it was almost upon thecoppice it fired, then fixed bayonets. The discharge had been aimed atthe wood merely. The shadows were lengthening, the undergrowth wasthick; they could not see their opponents. Suddenly the coppice blazed, a well-directed and fatal volley. The regiment that held this wood had agood record and meant to-day to better it. Its target was visibleenough, and close, full before it in the last golden light. A greyofficer fell, the sword that he had brandished described a shining curvebefore it plunged into a clump of sumach. Five men lay upon the earth;the colour-bearer reeled, then pitched forward. The man behind himcaught the colours. The 58th fired again, then, desperately, continuedits advance. Smoke and flame burst again from the coppice. A voice ofStentor 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 thirdseized the standard. Another officer was down; there were gaps in theranks and under feet the wounded. The regiment wavered. 

From the left came a bay stallion, devouring the earth, legs and headone tawny line, distended nostril and red-lit eye. The rider loosenedfrom his shoulders a scarlet-lined cloak, lifted and shook it in theair. It flared out with the wind of his coming, like a banner, or atorch. 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 wascrushing, startling, beating at the ear drum. The Bucktails wereshouting, "Come on, Johnny Reb! Go back, Johnny Reb! Don't know what youwant 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 thescene, 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 wasthe earth herself complaining. 

"On, on, men!" cried Ashby. "Help's coming--the Maryland Line!" Therewas a wavering answer, half cheer, half-wailing cry, "_Ashby! Ashby!_"Two balls pierced the bay stallion. He reared, screamed loudly, and fellbackward. Before he touched the earth the great horseman of the Valleywas clear of him. In the smoke and din Ashby leaped forward, waving thered-lined cloak above his head. "Charge, men!" he cried. "For God'ssake, charge!" A bullet found his heart. He fell without a groan, hishand and arm wrapped in the red folds. 

From rank to rank there passed something like a sobbing cry. The 58thcharged. Bradley Johnson with the Maryland Line dislodged the Bucktails, captured their colonel and many others, killed and wounded many. Thecoppice, from soaked mould to smoky treetop, hung in the twilight like awood in Hades. It was full dusk when Fremont's advance drew back, retreating sullenly to its camp at Harrisonburg. The stars were all outwhen, having placed the body on a litter, Ashby's men carried Ashby toPort Republic. 

He lay at midnight in a room of an old house of the place. They had laidhim upon a narrow bed, an old, single four-poster, with tester andvalance. The white canopy above, the fall of the white below had aneffect of sculptured stone. The whole looked like an old tomb in somedim abbey. The room was half in light, half in darkness. The villagewomen had brought flowers; of these there was no lack. All the blossomsof June were heaped about him. He lay in uniform, upon the red-linedcloak, his plumed hat beside him, his sword in his hand. His staffwatched in the room, seated with bowed heads beside the open window. Anhour before dawn some one spoke to the sentry without the door, thengently turned the handle and entered the chamber. The watchers arose, stood at salute. "Kindly leave General Ashby and me alone together for alittle while, gentlemen, " said the visitor. The officers filed out. Thelast 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 thatseemed unnatural. For fifteen days, north from Front Royal to Harper'sFerry, 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 thisSaturday there was no fighting. The cavalry watched both flanks of theMassanuttons. The main army rested in the rich woods that covered thehills above the North Fork of the Shenandoah. Headquarters were in thevillage across the river, spanned by a covered bridge. Three miles tothe northwest Ewell's division was strongly posted near the hamlet ofCross Keys. From the great south peak of the Massanuttons a signal partylooked down upon Fremont's road from Harrisonburg, and upon the road bywhich Shields must emerge from the Luray Valley. The signal officer, looking through his glass, saw also a road that ran from Port Republicby Brown's Gap over the Blue Ridge into Albemarle, and along this roadmoved a cortege--soldiers with the body of Ashby. The dead general'smother was in Winchester. They would have taken him there, but couldnot, for Fremont's army was between. So, as seemed next most fit, theycarried him across the mountains into Albemarle, to the University ofVirginia. Up on Massanutton the signal officer's hand shook. He loweredhis glass and cleared his throat: "War's a short word to say all itsays--"

Fremont rested at Harrisonburg after yesterday's repulse. On the otherside of Massanutton was Shields, moving south from Luray under theremarkable impression that Jackson was at Rude's Hill and Fremonteffectively dealing with the "demoralized rebels. " On the sixth he beganto concentrate his troops near where had been Columbia Bridge. On theseventh 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 themountains. 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 thewar commenced. You are within thirty miles of a broken, retreatingenemy, who still hangs together. Ten thousand Germans are on his rear, who hang on like bull dogs. You have only to throw yourself down onWaynesborough before him, and your cavalry will capture thousands, seizehis train and abundant supplies. "_

In chase of this so beautiful a chance Shields set forth down theeastern side of Massanutton, with intent to round the mountain at PortRepublic, turn north again, and somewhere on the Valley pike make thatwill-o'-the-wisp junction with Fremont and stamp out rebellion. But oflate it had rained much, and the roads were muddy and the streamsswollen. His army was split into sections; here a brigade and there abrigade, the advance south of Conrad's Store, the rear yet at Luray. Hehad, 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 theSouth Fork of the Shenandoah, and clung to the shingle roofs and bowerytrees of the village between. The South Fork was shallow and could beforded. The North Fork was deep and strong and crossed by a coveredbridge. Toward the bridge now, winding down from the near-by height onwhich the brigade had camped, came a detail from the 65th--twenty menled by Sergeant Mathew Coffin. They were chiefly Company A men, and theywere going to relieve the pickets along the South Fork. Thanks to Mr. Commissary Banks, they had breakfasted well. The men were happy, nothilariously so, but in a placid, equable fashion. As they came down, over the wet grass, from the bluff, they talked. "Mist over theShenandoah's just like mist over the James"--"No, 'tisn't! Nothing'slike 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, ithas!"--"No, it hasn't!"--"I know better, I've been through it. "--"I'vebeen through it twice't--was through it after Elk Run, a monthago!"--"Well, it hasn't got sidewalks, anyway, "--"I tell you ithas. "--"You 're mistaken!"--"I'm not. "--"You never did see straightnohow!"--"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, breathingirritation. His oval face with its little black moustache was set ashard as its boyish curves permitted, and his handsome dark eyes had twoparallel lines above them. He marched as he marched always nowadays, with a mien aggrieved and haughty. He never lost the consciousness thathe was wearing chevrons who had worn bars, and he was quite convincedthat the men continually compared his two states. 

The progress down hill to the bridge was short. Before the party thelong, tunnel-like, weather-beaten structure loomed through the mist. Themen entered and found it dusk and warm, smelling of horses, the river, fifteen feet below, showing through the cracks between the heavy logs ofthe 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 abridge. 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 wholepicket post started after me, 'n' I run fer it, 'n' the trees put outarms to stop me, 'n' the dewberry, crawling on the ground, said toitself, 'Hello! Let's make a trap'; 'n' when the rail fences allhollered out, 'We're goin' to turn agin you!' 'n' when a bit of swamphollered louder than any, 'Let's suck down Billy Maydew--suck down BillyMaydew!' '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 theShenandoah and there wa'n't no bridge, 'n' the Shenandoah says 'I'd justas soon drown men as look at them!'--when all them things talked so, Iknew just how the critturs feel in the woods; 'n' I ain't so crazy abouthunting as I was--and I say again this here air a most con-ve-ni-entbridge. "

With his musket butt he struck the boarded side. The noise was soresoundingly greater than he had expected that he laughed and the menwith him. Now Sergeant Mathew Coffin was as nervous as a witch. He hadbeen marching along with his thoughts moodily hovering over the batteryhe would take almost single-handed, or the ambush he would dislodge andso procure promotion indeed. At the noise of the stick he startedviolently. "Who did that? Oh, I see, and I might have known it! I'llreport 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 camenearer, his arm thrown up, though but in an angry gesture. "If I struckyou, " thought Billy, "I'd be sorry for it, so I won't do it. But onething's sure--I certainly should like to!"

"If you don't answer me, " said Coffin thickly, "I'll report you fordisobedience as well as for disorderly conduct! What was it you saidthen?"

"I said, 'Report ahead--and be damned to you!'"

Coffin's lips shut hard. "Very good! We'll see how three days ofguardhouse tastes to you!--Forward!"

The party cleared the bridge and almost immediately found itself in thestraggling village street. The mist clung here as elsewhere, houses andtrees dim shapes, the surrounding hills and the dense woods beyond theSouth Fork hardly seen at all. Coffin marched with flushed face and hisbrows drawn together. He was mentally writing a letter on pale bluepaper, and in it he was enlarging upon ingratitude. The men sympathizedwith Billy and their feet sounded resentfully upon the stones. Billyalone marched with elaborate lightness, quite as though he were walkingon air and loved the very thought of the guardhouse. 

Headquarters was an old corner house that had flung open its doors toGeneral Jackson with an almost tremulous eagerness. A flag waved beforethe door, and there was a knot beneath of couriers and orderlies, withstaff officers coming and going. Opposite was a store, closed of courseupon Sunday, but boasting a deep porch with benches, to say nothing ofconvenient kegs and boxes. Here the village youth and age alike foundbusiness 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 longto see anything, and so I told Susan. When's he coming out?--Once't whenI was a little shaver like Bob, sitting on the scales there, I went withmy father in the stage-coach to Fredericksburg, I remember just aswell--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 ridingdown the street, with two or three others. I jus' remember a blue coatand a cocked hat and that his hair was powdered--and the man put me downand got up, and everybody else before the tavern got up--and somebodyholloaed out 'Hurrah for General Washington--'"

There was a stir about the opposite door. An aide came out, mounted androde off toward the bridge. An orderly brought a horse from theneighbouring stable. "That's his! That's General Jackson's!--Don't looklike the war horse in Job, does he now?--Looks like a doctor'shorse--Little Sorrel's his name. " The small boy surged forward. "He'scoming out!"--"How do you know him?"--"G' way! You always know generalswhen you see them! Great, big men, all trimmed up with gold. Besides, Isaw him last night. "--"You didn't!"--"Yes, I did! Saw his shadow on thecurtain. "--"How did you know 'twas his?"--"My mother said, 'Look, John, and don't never forget. That's Stonewall Jackson. ' And it was a bigshadow walking up and down, and it raised its hand--"

The church bell rang. A chaplain came out of the house. He had a Biblein his hand, and he beamed on all around. "There's the first bell, gentlemen--the bell, children! Church in a church, just like before wewent 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 hiscustomary morning half-hour with his heads of departments--an invariablyrecurring period in his quiet and ordered existence. It was omitted onlywhen he fought in the morning. He sat as usual, bolt upright, large feetsquarely planted, large hands stiff at sides. On the table before himwere his sabre and Bible. Before him stood a group of officers. Theadjutant, 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 thehorses are eating their fill. A few have sore hoof and may have to beleft 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, butmarching. I sent this morning a string of wagons to Cross Keys, toGeneral 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 batflitted. They had been telling stories of ha'nts, and they swore theysaw General Ashby galloping by on the white stallion. "

"Poor, simple, ignorant creatures!" said Jackson. "There is no witch ofEndor can raise that horse and rider!--Major Hawks!"

The chief commissary came forward. "General Banks's stores are holdingout well, sir. We are issuing special rations to the men to-day--Sundaydinner--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 thehill commanding the bridge. There's a gun of Courtney's disabled. I havethought 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 tofinding the best place for the foot bridge you ordered constructed. Ihave 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 villageare caring for those. Three cases of fever, two of pneumonia, somedysentery, measles among the recruits. The medicines we got atWinchester are invaluable; they and the better fare the men are getting. Best of all is the consciousness of victory, --the confidence andexaltation 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. AYankee cavalry company threatened to cut us off. Had we stayed we shouldhave 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 wemade out nothing. "

Jackson rose and drew closer the sabre and the Bible. "That is all, gentlemen. After religious services you will return to your respectiveduties. "

The sun was now above the mountain tops, the mist beginning to lift. Itlay heavily, however, over the deep woods and the bottom lands of theSouth Fork, through which ran the Luray road, and on the South Forkitself. --Clatter, clatter! Shots and cries! Shouting the alarm as theycame, splashing through the ford, stopping on the hither bank for onescattering volley back into the woolly veil, came Confederate infantrypickets and vedettes. "Yankee cavalry! Look out! Look out! Yankees!" Inthe mist the foremost man ran against the detail from the 65th. Coffinseized him. "Where? where?" The other gasped. "Coming! Drove us in!Whole lot of them! Got two guns. All of Shields, I reckon, rightbehind!" He broke away, tearing with his fellows into the village. 

Sergeant Coffin and his men stared into the mist. They heard a greatsplashing, a jingling and shouting, and in another instant were aware ofsomething looming like a herd of elephants. From the village behind themburst the braying of their own bugles--headquarters summoning, baggagetrain on the Staunton road summoning. The sound was shrill, insistent. The shapes in the mist grew larger. There came a flash of rifles, paleyellow through the drift as of lawn. Zzzzzz! Zzzzzz! sang the balls. Thetwenty men of the 65th proceeded to save themselves. Some of them toredown a side street, straight before the looming onrush. Others leapedfences and brushed through gardens, rich and dank. Others found housedoors suddenly and quietly opening before them, houses with capaciousdark garrets and cellars. All the dim horde, more and more of it, camesplashing 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 ahighly work-a-day Monday. The blue cavalry began to harry the place. Thetownspeople hurried home, trumpets blared, shots rang out, oaths, shoutsof warning! Men in grey belonging with the wagon train ran headlongtoward their posts, others made for headquarters where the flag was andStonewall Jackson. A number, headed off, were captured at once. Others, indoors when the alarm arose, were hidden by the women. Three staffofficers had walked, after leaving Jackson's council, toward a householding pretty daughters whom they meant to take to church. When theclangour broke out they had their first stupefied moment, after whichthey turned and ran with all their might toward headquarters. There wasfighting up and down the street. Half a dozen huzzaing and sabringtroopers saw the three and shouted to others nearer yet. "Officers! Cutthem off, you there!" The three were taken. A captain, astride of agreat reeking horse, towered above them. "Staff? You're staff? IsJackson 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 likethose mirages travellers tell about. The nearer he gets to it thefurther it is away. "

"It has occurred to me that if after the evacuation of CorinthBeauregard should come back to Virginia--"

The captain in blue, hot and breathless, bewildered by the very successof the dash into town, kept saying, "Where is Jackson? What? Quickthere, you! Where--" Behind him a corporal spoke out cavalierly. "Theyaren't going to tell you, sir. There's a large house down there that'sgot something like a flag before it--I think, too, that we ought to gotake the bridge. "

The streams of blue troopers flowed toward the principal street andunited there. Some one saw the flag more plainly. "That's aheadquarters!--What if Jackson were there? Good Lord! what if we tookJackson?" A bugler blew a vehement rally. "_All of you, come on! All ofyou, come on!_" The stream increased in volume, began to move, a compactbody, down the street. "There are horses before that door! Look at thatnag! That's Jackson's horse!--No. "--"Yes! Saw it at Kernstown! Forward!"

Stonewall Jackson came out of the house with the flag before it. Behindhim were those of his staff who had not left headquarters when theinvasion occurred, while, holding the horses before the door, waited, white-lipped, a knot of most anxious orderlies. One brought LittleSorrel. Jackson mounted with his usual slow deliberation, then, turningin the saddle, looked back to the shouting blue horsemen. They saw himand dug spurs into flanks. First he pulled the forage cap over his eyesand then he jerked his hand into the air. These gestures executed hetouched Little Sorrel with the rowel and, his suite behind him, startedoff down the street toward the bridge over the Shenandoah. One would nothave said that he went like a swift arrow. There was, indeed, an effectof slowness, of a man traversing, in deep thought, a solitary plain. Butfor all that, he went so fast that the space between him and the enemydid not decrease. They came thunderingly on, a whole Federal charge--buthe kept ahead. Seeing that he did so, they began to discharge carbineand pistol, some aiming at Little Sorrel, some at the grey figure ridingstiffly, bolt upright and elbows out. Little Sorrel shook his head, snorted, and went on. Ahead loomed the bridge, a dusky, warm, gold-shottunnel below an arch of weather-beaten wood. Under it rolled with aheavy 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 earthleading to the bridge mouth. The blue cavalry shouted and spurred. Theircarbines cracked. The balls pockmarked the wooden arch. Jackson draggedthe forage cap lower and disappeared within the bridge. The four or fivewith him turned and drew across the gaping mouth. 

The blue cavalry came on, firing as they came. Staff and orderlies, thegrey answered with pistols. Behind, in the bridge, sounded the hollowthunder of Little Sorrel's hoofs. The sound grew fainter. Horse andrider were nearly across. Staff and orderlies fired once again, then, just as the blue were upon them, turned, dug spur, shouted, anddisappeared beneath the arch. 

The Federal cavalry, massed before the bridge and in the field to eitherside, swore and swore, "He's out!--Jackson's out! There he goes--up theroad! Fire!--Damn it all, what's the use? He's charmed. We almost gothim! Good Lord! We'd all have been major-generals!"

A patrol galloped up. "They've got a great wagon train, sir, at theother end of the village--ordnance reserve, supply, everything! It is inmotion. It's trying to get off by the Staunton road. "

The cavalry divided. A strong body stayed by the bridge, while one aslarge turned and galloped away. Those staying chafed with impatience. "Why don't the infantry come up--damned creeping snails!"--"Yes, wecould cross, but when we got to the other side, what then?--No, don'tdare to burn the bridge--don't know what the general wouldsay. "--"Listen to those drums over there! If Stonewall Jackson bringsall those hornets down on us!"--"If we had a gun--Speak of theangels!--Unlimber right here, lieutenant!--Got plenty of canister? Nowif the damned infantry would only come on! Thought it was just behind uswhen 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 acrossthe river! Look! All the hornets are coming down--"

Of the detail from the 65th Coffin and two others stood their grounduntil the foremost of the herd was crossing the ford near at hand, large, threatening, trumpeting. Then the three ran like hares, heartspounding at their sides, the ocean roaring in their ears, and in everycell in their bodies an accurate impression that they had been seen, andthat the trumpeting herd meant to run down, kill or capture every greysoldier in Port Republic! Underfoot was wet knot grass, difficult andslippery; around was the shrouding mist. They thought the lane ranthrough to another street, but it proved a cul-de-sac. Something rosemistily before them; it turned out to be a cowshed. They flungthemselves against the door, but the door was padlocked. Behind theshed, between it and a stout board fence, sprang a great clump of wetelder, tall and rank, with spreading leaves; underneath, black, miryearth. Into this they crowded, squatted on the earth, turned face towardthe passage up which they had come, and brought their rifles to thefront. 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 asquad coming up here. "

The three kneeling in the mire, watching through triangular spacesbetween the branchy leaves, grew suddenly, amazingly calm. What was thesense in being frightened? You couldn't get away. Was there anywhere togo to one might feel agitation enough, but there wasn't! Coffin handledhis rifle with the deliberation of a woman smoothing her long hair. Theman next him--Jim Watts--even while he settled forward on his knees andraised his musket, turned his head aside and spat. "Derned old fogalways gits in my throat!" A branch of elder was cutting Billy Maydew'sline of vision. He broke it off with noiseless care and raised to hisshoulder the Enfield rifle which he had acquired at Winchester. Thereloomed, at thirty feet away, colossal beasts bestridden by giants. 

Suddenly the mist thinned, lifted. The demon steeds and riders resolvedthemselves into six formidable looking Federal troopers. From the mainstreet rang the Federal bugles, vehemently rallying, imperative. Shouting, too, broke out, savage, triumphant, pointed with pistolshots. The bugle called again, _Rally to the colours! Rally!_

"I calculate, " said one of the six blue horsemen, "that the boys havefound Stonewall. "

"Then they'll need us all!" swore the trooper leading. "If anybody's inthe cow-house they can wait. "--_Right about face! Forward! Trot!_

The men within the elder settled down on the wet black earth. "Might aswell 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 mystomach. " He rolled over and lay groaning. "Can't I go, sir?" askedBilly. "I kind of feel more natural in the open. "

Now Mathew Coffin had just been thinking that while this elder bushspringing from muddy earth, with a manure heap near, was damneduncomfortable, it was better than being outside while those devils wereslashing and shooting. Perhaps they would ride away, or the army mightcome over the bridge, and there would be final salvation. He had evenadded a line to the letter he was writing, "An elder bush afforded mesome slight cover from which to fire--" And now Billy Maydew wanted togo 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 liptwitched one side away from his white teeth. 

Billy, his legs already out of the bush, looked at him with large, calmgrey eyes. "Kin I go?"

"Go where? You'll get killed. "

"You wouldn't grieve if I did, would you? I kinder thought I might getby a back street to the wagons. A cousin of mine's a wagon master and heain'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 Ididn'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 townoccupied changed its mien according to the colour of the uniform inpossession. As the two hurrying grey figures approached, a woman, starting from the window beside which she had been kneeling, watchingthrough a crevice, ran out of the house and through the yard to thegate. "You two men, come right in here! Don't you know the Yankees arein town?"

She was young and pretty. Coffin swept off his cap. "That's the reasonwe're trying to get to the edge of town--to help the men with the wagontrain. "

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 ladybesought 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 hurriedlymoving on the Staunton road. There was a sudden burst of musketry. Avoice reached them from the street below. "Halt, you two Confeds runningthere! Come on over here! Rally to the colours!" There was a flash ofthe stars and bars, waved vigorously. "Oh, ha, ha!" cried Billy, "tharwas some of us wasn't taken! Aren't you glad we didn't stay behind thecowshed?"

It came into Coffin's head that Billy might tell that his sergeant hadwished to stay behind the cowshed. The blood rushed to his face; he sawthe difficulty of impressing men who knew about the cowshed with hisabilities in the way of storming batteries single-handed. He had reallya very considerable share of physical courage, and naturally he esteemedit something larger than it was. He began to burn with the injustice ofBilly Maydew's thinking him backward in daring and so reporting himaround camp-fires. As he ran he grew angrier and angrier, and not farfrom the shaken flag, in a little grassy hollow which hid them fromview, he called upon the other to halt. Billy's sense of disciplinebrought 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 apretty tight place together--Mathew Coffin but three years older thanhe, and no great shakes anyhow. "What for?" asked Billy. 

"I just want to say to you, " said Coffin thickly, "that as to thatshed, it was my duty to protect my men; just as it is my duty as anofficer to report you for disobedience and bad language addressed to anofficer--"

Billy's brow clouded. "I had forgotten all about that. I was going alongvery nicely with you. You were really behaving yourself--like a--like agentleman. The cow-house was all right. You are brave enough when itcomes 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 fromthat-a stand. "

"You are going to the guardhouse for disobedience and bad language andimpertinence. "

"It would be right hard, " said Billy, "if I had to leavesu-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 amoccasin, swerved aside. "Air you finished speaking, sergeant? Fer ifyou have, 'n' if you don't mind, I think I'll run along--I air onlyfighting Yankees this mornin'!"

An aide of Jackson's, cut off from headquarters and taking shelter inthe upper part of the town, crept presently out of hiding, and findingthe invaders' eyes turned toward the bridge, proceeded with dispatch andquietness to gather others from dark havens. When he had a score or morehe proceeded to bolder operations. In the field and on the Staunton roadall was commotion; wagons with their teams moving in double column upthe road, negro teamsters clamouring with ashen looks, "Dose damn Yanks!Knowed we didn't see dat ghos' fer nothin' las' night!" Wagon mastersshouted, guards and sentries looked townward with anxious eyes. The aidegot a flag from the quartermaster's tent; found moreover a very fewartillery reserves and an old cranky howitzer. With all of these hereturned to the head of the main street, and about the moment thecavalry at the bridge divided, succeeded in getting his forces admirablyplaced in a strong defensive position: Coffin and Billy Maydew joinedjust as an outpost brought a statement that about two hundred Yankeecavalry 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 firstcharge Coffin received a sabre cut over the head. The blood blinded himat first, and when he had wiped it away, and tied a beautiful newhandkerchief from a Broadway shop about the wound, he found it stillaffected sight and hearing. He understood that their first musketry firehad driven the cavalry back, indeed he saw two or three riderless horsesgalloping away. He understood also that the Yankees had brought up agun, and that the captain was answering with the superannuated howitzer. He was sure, too, that he himself was firing his musket with greatprecision. _Fire!--load, fire!--load, fire! One, two, --one, two!_ buthis head, he was equally sure, was growing larger. It was now largerthan the globe pictured on the first page of the geography he hadstudied at school. It was the globe, and he was Atlas holding it. _Fire--load, fire--load!_ Now the head was everything, and all life waswithin it. There was a handsome young man named Coffin, very brave, butmisunderstood by all save one. He was brave and handsome. He could takea tower by himself--_Fire, load--Fire, load--One, two. _ The enemy knewhis fame. They said, "Coffin! Which is Coffin?"--_Fire, load, one, two. _The grey armies knew this young hero. They cheered when he went by. Theycheered--they cheered--when he went by to take the tower. They wrotehome and lovely women envied the loveliest woman. "Coffin! Coffin!Coffin's going to take the tower! Watch him! _Yaaaaih! Yaaaih!_"--Hestruck the tower and looked to see it go down. Instead, with a roar, itsprang, triple brass, height on height to the skies. The stars fell, andsuddenly, in the darkness, an ocean appeared and went over him. He laybeneath the overturned Federal gun, and the grey rush that had silencedthe gunners and taken the piece went on. 

For a long time he lay in a night without a star, then day began tobreak. It broke curiously, palely light for an instant, then obscured bythick clouds, then faint light again. Some part of his brain began tothink. His head was not now the world; the world was lying on hisshoulder and arm, crushing it. With one piece of his brain he began toappeal to people; with another piece to answer the first. "Mother, takethis 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 justgive a hand? Here I am, under Purgatory Mountain. Darling--take thisthing away! Darling--Darling! Men!--Colonel Cleave!--Boys--boys--" Allthe 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 hisface, brought him to. "Thar now!" said Billy, "I certainly air glad tosee that you air alive!" Coffin groaned. "It must ha' hurt awful! S'poseyou let me look before I move you?" He took out a knife and gently slitthe 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 totouch the gun. Thar now! I air a-tying the han'kerchief from your headaround 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 andcarry you to the nearest house. All the boys have run on after theYanks. "

He took up his sergeant and moved off with an easy step. Coffin uttereda short and piteous moaning like a child. They presently met a number ofgrey 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 thefirst man at the gun. He fired, an' then he got hold of the sponge staffand laid about him--he was that gallant. The men ought to 'lect himback. 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 downthe bed. Oh, poor boy! He looks like my Robert down at Richmond! Thisway--get a little blackberry wine, Betty, and the scissors and my rollof lint--"

Billy laid him on the bed in the best room. "Thar now! You air allright. The doctor'll come just as soon as I can find him, 'n' then I'llget back to the boys--Wait--I didn't hear, I'll put my ear down. Youcouldn'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, drinkyour wine, and stop bothering!"

Across the Shenandoah Stonewall Jackson and the 37th Virginia came downfrom the heights with the impetuosity of a torrent. Behind them pouredother grey troops. On the cliff heads Poague and Carpenter came intoposition and began with grape and canister. The blue Parrott, fullbefore the bridge mouth, menacing the lane within, answered with ashriek of shells. The 37th and Jackson left the road, plunged down theragged slope of grass and vines, and came obliquely toward the darktunnel. Jackson and Little Sorrel had slipped into their battle aspect. You would have said that every auburn hair of the general's head andbeard was a vital thing. His eyes glowed as though there were lampsbehind, 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 onevolley. The unwounded among the blue artillerymen strove to plant ashell within the dusky lane. But most of the gunners were down, or thefuse was wrong. The grey torrent leaped out of the tunnel and upon thegun. They took it and turned it against the horsemen. The blue cavalryfled. On the bluff heads above the river three grey batteries came intoaction. The 37th Virginia began to sweep the streets of Port Republic. 

The blue cavalry, leaving the guns, leaving prisoners they had taken andtheir wounded, turned alike from the upper end of the village and rode, pell-mell, for the South Fork. One and all they splashed through, notnow in covering mist, but in hot sunshine, the 37th volleying at theirheels and from the bluffs above the Shenandoah, Poague and Carpenter andWooding 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 thevanguard approached, the Confederate batteries across the river limberedup, trotted or galloped to other positions on the green bluff heads, andtrained the guns on the ground between Port Republic and the head of theFederal column. Winder's brigade came also and took position on theheights commanding Lewiston, and Taliaferro's swung across the bridgeand formed upon the townward side of South Fork. Shields halted. Allday he halted, listening to the guns at Cross Keys. 

Sitting Little Sorrel at the northern end of the bridge, StonewallJackson watched Taliaferro's men break step and cross. A staff officerventured 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 hishorse. "Listen, sir!"

"Yes. Artillery firing to the northwest. Fremont will act withoutShields. "

A courier came at a gallop. "General Ewell's compliments, sir, and thebattle of Cross Keys is beginning. "

"Good! good! My compliments to General Ewell, and I expect him to winit. "

CHAPTER XXVII

JUDITH AND STAFFORD

The cortege bearing Ashby to his grave wound up and up to the pass inthe Blue Ridge. At the top it halted. The ambulance rested beside a greyboulder, while the cavalry escort dismounted and let the horses crop thesweet mountain grass. Below them, to the east, rolled Piedmont Virginia;below them to the west lay the great Valley whence they had come. Asthey rested they heard the cannon of Cross Keys, and with a glass madeout the battle smoke. 

For an hour they gazed and listened, anxious and eager; then thehorsemen remounted, the ambulance moved from the boulder, and all wentslowly down the long loops of road. Down and down they wound, from thecool, blowing air of the heights into the warm June region of red roads, shady trees and clear streams, tall wheat and ripening cherries, oldhouses and gardens. They were moving toward the Virginia Central, towardMeechum's Station. 

A courier had ridden far in advance. At Meechum's was a little crowd ofcountry people. "They're coming! That's an ambulance!--Is he in theambulance? Everybody take off their hats. Is that his horse behind? Yes, it is a horse that he sometimes rode, but the three stallions werekilled. How mournful they come! Albert Sidney Johnston is dead, and OldJoe 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 uslift the flowers! We were up at dawn and gathered all there were--"

The train from Staunton came in--box cars and a passenger coach. Thecoffin, made at Port Republic, was lifted from the ambulance, out of abed of fading flowers. It was wrapped in the battle-flag. The crowdbowed its head. An old minister lifted trembling hand. "God--this Thyservant! God--this Thy servant!" The three women brought their lilies, their great sprays of citron aloes. The coffin was placed in the aisleof the passenger coach, and four officers followed as its guard. Theescort was slight. Never were there many men spared for these duties. The dead would have been the first to speak against it. Every man inlife was needed at the front. The dozen troopers stalled their horses intwo of the box cars and themselves took possession of a third. The bellrang, slowly and tollingly. The train moved toward Charlottesville, andthe little crowd of country folk was left in the June sunshine with theempty ambulance. In the gold afternoon, the bell slowly ringing, thetrain crept into Charlottesville. 

In this town, convenient for hospitals and stores, midway betweenRichmond and the Valley, a halting place for troops moving east andwest, there were soldiers enough for a soldier's escort to his restingplace. The concourse at the station was large, and a long train followedthe bier of the dead general out through the town to the University ofVirginia, and the graveyard beyond. 

There were no students now at the University. In the white-pillaredrotunda surgeons held council and divided supplies. In the ranges, wherewere the cell-like students' rooms, and in the white-pillaredprofessors' houses, lay the sick and wounded. From room to room, betweenthe pillars, moved the nursing women. To-day the rotunda was cleared. Surgeons and nurses snatched one half-hour, and, with the families fromthe 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 heardthe Dead March. 

For an hour the body lay between the white columns before the rotundathat Jefferson had built. Soldiers and civilians, women and children, passing before the bier, looked upon the marble face and the hand thatclasped the sword. Then, toward sunset, the coffin lid was closed, thebearers took the coffin up, the Dead March began again, and all movedtoward the graveyard. 

Dusk gathered, soft and warm, and filled with fireflies. The Greenwoodcarriage, with the three sisters and Miss Lucy, drew slowly through thescented air up to the dim old house. Julius opened the door. The ladiesstepped out, and in silence went up the steps. Molly had been crying. The little handkerchief which she dropped, and which was restored to herby 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 bigoaks, and when dey outer de kerriage an' went up de steps dey waschatterin' lak de birds at daybreak! An' now I heah dem sighin' an' MissMolly's handkerchief ez wet ez ef 't was in de washtub! De ol' times isevaporated. "

"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 heahwar, anyhow? W'ite folk ought ter hab more sence. "

In the Greenwood dining-room they sat at table in silence, scarcelytouching Car'line's supper, but in the parlour afterward Judith turnedat bay. "Even Aunt Lucy--of all people in the world! Aunt Lucy, if youdo not smile this instant, I hope all the Greenwood shepherdesses willstep 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 thisafternoon? He left a thought of him that will guide men on! Who doubtsthat to-morrow morning we shall hear that Cross Keys was won? Oh, I knowthat you are thinking most of General Ashby!--but I am thinking most ofCross 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, andthat they are resting on the field. --Now, for us women. I do not thinkthat we do badly now. We serve all day and half the night, and we keepup the general heart. I think that if in any old romance we read ofwomen like the women of the South in this war we would say, 'Those womenwere heroic. ' We have been at war for a year and two months. I see noend of it. It is a desert, and no one knows how wide it is. We maytravel for years. Beside every marching soldier, there marches invisiblea woman soldier too. We are in the field as they are in the field, anddoing our part. No--we have not done at all badly, but now let us giveit all! There is a plane where every fibre is heroic. Let us draw tofull 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 suchanother 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 haveto be strong. I have to look at the stars, for the desert is full ofterrible shapes. Some one said that the battle with Shields may befought to-morrow. I have to look at the stars. " She lifted herself. "Wefinished '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 earthheaped over the dead cavalry leader, Maury Stafford lay that night inCharlottesville at an old friend's house. He slept little; the friendheard him walking up and down in the night. By nine in the morning hewas 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 hiseyes upon the road by which must approach the Greenwood carriage, waitedthe half-hour. It passed; the carriage drew up and Judith stepped fromit. Her eyes rested upon him with a quiet friendliness. He had been hersuitor; but he was so no longer. Months ago he had his answer. All theagitation, the strong, controlling interest of his world must, perforce, have made him forget. She touched his hand. "I saw you yesterdayafternoon. I did not know if you had ridden back--"

"No. I shall be kept here until to-morrow. Will you be Sister of Mercyall 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 thebattle yesterday? Tell me--"

"We do not know the details yet. It seems that only Ewell's division wasengaged. Trimble's brigade suffered heavily, but it was largely anartillery battle. I saw a copy of General Jackson's characteristictelegram to Richmond. 'God gave us the victory to-day at CrossKeys. '--Fremont has drawn off to Harrisonburg. There is a rumour of abattle to-day with Shields. "

He thought that afternoon, as he passed through the road gates and intothe drive between the oaks, that he had never seen the Greenwood placelook so fair. The sun was low and there were shadows, but where thelight rays touched, all lay mellow and warm, golden and gay and sweet. On the porch he found Unity, sitting with her guitar, singing to aragged grey youth, thin and pale, with big hollow eyes. She smiled andput out her hand. "Judith said you were coming. She will be down in amoment. 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 sentimentalditties 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 buyguitar 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 faceand her dark liquid eyes. She had a scarf in her hand; it chanced to bethe long piece of black lace that Stafford remembered her wearing thatApril 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 whichto watch the sunset. Stafford unlatched the flower-garden gate. "Theroses are blooming as though there were no war!" said Judith. "Look atGeorge the Fourth and the Seven Sisters and my old Giant of Battle!"

"Sometimes you are like one flower, " answered Stafford, "and sometimeslike another. To-day, in that dress, you are like heliotrope. "

Judith wondered. "Is it wise to go on--if he has forgotten so little asthat?" 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 toknow about the Valley--"

Stafford looked pleadingly. "No, no! let us go the old path and see thesunset over Greenwood. Always when I ride from here I say to myself, 'Imay 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 itselfmay go back to wilderness. "

"You have noticed that? It is always so in times like these. We leavethe artificial. Things have a hardier growth--feeling breaks itsbanks--custom is not listened to--"

"It is not so bad as that!" said Judith, smiling. "And we will notreally let the box grow out of all proportion!--Now tell me of theValley. "

They left the garden and dipped into the green meadow. Stafford talkedof battles and marches, but he spoke in a monotone, distrait andcareless, as of a day-dreaming scholar reciting his lesson. Such as itwas, the recital lasted across the meadow, into the wood, yet lit byyellow light, a place itself for day dreams. "No. I did not see himfall. He was leading an infantry regiment. He was happy in his death, Ithink. 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, struckacross the woodland path. He stood within it, on slightly rising groundthat lifted him above her. The quality of the light gave him a singularaspect. He looked a visitant from another world, a worn spirit, of finetemper, but somewhat haggard, somewhat stained. Lines came into Judith'sbrow. She stepped more quickly, and they passed from out the wood to abare hillside, grass and field flowers to the summit. The little paththat zigzagged upward was not wide enough for two. He moved through thegrass and flowers beside her, a little higher still, and between her andthe 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 nothave come. " She talked on. "When we were children and read 'Pilgrim'sProgress' Unity and I named this the Hill Difficulty. And we named theBlue Ridge the Delectable Mountains--War puts a stop to reading. "

"Yes. The Hill Difficulty! On the other side was the Valley ofHumiliation, was it not?"

"Yes: where Christian met Apollyon. We are nearly up, and the sunsetwill be beautiful. "

At the top, around a solitary tree, had been built a bench. The two satdown. The sun was sinking behind the Blue Ridge. Above the mountainssailed a fleet of little clouds, in a sea of pale gold shut in by purpleheadlands. Here and there on the earth the yellow light lingered. Judithsat with her head thrown back against the bark of the tree, her eyesupon the long purple coast and the golden sea. Stafford, his sword drawnforward, rested his clasped hands upon the hilt and his cheek on hishands. "Are they not like the Delectable Mountains?" she said. "Almostyou 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, knownothing 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 blowingabout this hilltop, a leaf upon this tree might strive and strive tocling to the bough, to remain with its larger self--yet would it betwisted off and carried whither the wind willed! My passion is thattempest and my soul is that leaf. "

"It is more than a year since first I told you that I could not returnyour feeling. Last October--that day we rode to the old mill--I told youso again, and told you that if we were to remain friends it could onlybe on condition that you accepted the truth as truth and let the stormyou 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 Ithought it was quite over. All through the winter those gay, wonderfulletters 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 onenearly concerned. I--I--" He put his hand to his throat as if he werechoking, arose, and walked a few paces and came back. "It was over therenear Gordonsville--under a sunset sky much like this. What did I do thatnight? I have a memory of all the hours of blackness that men have everpassed, lying under forest trees with their faces against the earth. Yousee me standing here, but I tell you my face is against the earth, atyour feet--"

"It is madness!" said Judith. "You see not me, but a goddess of your ownmaking. It is a chain of the imagination. Break it! True goddesses donot 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 aglow and warmth. They took a path which led, not by way of the wood, butby the old Greenwood graveyard, the burying-place of the Carys. At thefoot of the lone tree hill they came again side by side, and so mountedthe next low rise of ground. "Forgive me, " said Stafford. "I haveangered 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 thenext day brings news that such and such an one is dead! With the soundof Death's wings always in the air, how can any one--I do not wish to beangry. If you choose we will talk like friends--like a man and a womanof the South. If you do not, I can but shut my ears and hasten home andhenceforth 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 elmtops dreaming! And beyond that gold sky and the mountains all thefighting! Let us go through the graveyard. It is so still--and all theirtroubles are over. "

Within the graveyard, too, was an old bench around an elm. "A fewminutes only!" pleaded Stafford. "Presently I must ride back totown--and in the morning I return to the Valley. " They sat down. Beforethem was a flat tombstone sunk in ivy, a white rose at the head. Stafford, leaning forward, drew aside with the point of his scabbard thedark 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 wishedto live. If death were forgetfulness! I do not believe it. I shallpersist, 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 couldbut tear it! Judith, Judith! Power and longing grow in the very air Ibreathe!--will to move the universe if thereby I might gain you!--yourpresence always with me in waves of light and sound! and you cannottruly 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 donot attract me. You repel me. There are many souls and many deeps, andthe 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 youplease! I will go alone. Let me pass, Major Stafford!--"

She was gone, over the dark trailing periwinkle, through the little gatecanopied with honeysuckle. For a minute he stayed beneath the elms, calling himself fool and treble fool; then he followed, though at alittle distance. She went before him, in her pale violet, through thegathering dusk, unlatched for herself the garden gate and passed intothe shadow of the box. A few moments later he, too, entered the scentedalley 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 thegravel below, and an elderly, plain man, a neighbouring farmer, standinghalfway up the steps. He was speaking excitedly. Molly beckoned fromabove. "Oh, Judith, it's news of the battle--"

"Yes'm, " said the farmer. "Straight from Staunton--telegram to thecolonel in Charlottesville. '_Big fighting at Port Republic. Jacksonwhipped Shields. Stonewall Brigade suffered heavily. _'--No'm--That wasall. We won't hear details till to-morrow. --My boy John's in theStonewall, you know--but Lord! John always was a keerful fellow! Ireckon he's safe enough--but I ain't going to tell his mother about thebattle till to-morrow; she might as well have her sleep. --War'spernicious 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 acleft of the hills. "Major Stafford cannot stay to supper, Aunt Lucy, "said Judith clearly. "Is that Julius in the hall? Tell one of the boysto bring Major Stafford's horse around. "

As she spoke she turned and went into the house. The group upon theporch heard her step upon the polished stair. Unity proceeded to makeconversation. A negro brought the horse around. Judith did not return. Stafford, still and handsome, courteous and self-possessed, leftfarewell for her, said good-bye to the other Greenwood ladies, mountedand rode away. Unity, sitting watching him unlatch the lower gate andpass 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 itis 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 whenMr. 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 wasthe 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 andGreek looking? Well, Judith looked like that. And she and Major Staffordcrossed looks, and it was like crossed swords. And then she sent for hishorse and went away, upstairs to her room. She's up there now prayingfor the Stonewall Brigade and for Richard. "

"Molly, you're uncanny!" said Unity. "Oh me! Love and Hate--North andSouth--and we'll not have the bulletin until to-morrow--"

Miss Lucy rose. "I am going upstairs to Judith and tell her that Isimply know Richard is safe. There are too many broken love stories inthe 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 fourpitched battles and a whole rosary of skirmishes, made of naught theoperations of four armies, threatened its enemy's capital and relievedits own, the Army of the Valley wound upward toward the Blue Ridge fromthe field of Port Republic. It had attended Shields some distance downthe Luray road. "Drive them!--drive them!" had said Jackson. It haddriven them then, turning on its steps it had passed again thebattlefield. Fremont's army, darkening the heights upon the further sideof that river of burned bridges, looked impotently on. Fremont shelledthe meadow and the wheat fields over which ambulances and surgeons wereyet moving, on which yet lay his own wounded, but his shells could notreach the marching foe. Brigade after brigade, van, main and rear, cavalry, infantry, artillery, quartermaster, commissary and ordnancetrains, all disappeared in the climbing forest. A cold and chilling raincame on; night fell, and a drifting mist hid the Army of the Valley. Thenext morning Fremont withdrew down the Valley toward Strasburg. Shieldstarried at Luray, and the order from Washington directing McDowell tomake at once his long delayed junction with McClellan upon theChickahominy was rescinded. 

The rear guard of the Army of the Valley buried the dead of PortRepublic in trenches, and then it, too, vanished. To the last wagonwheel, to the last poor straggler, all was gone. It was an idiosyncrasyof Jackson's to gather and take with him every filing. He travelled likea magnet; all that belonged to him went with him. Long after dark, highon the mountain-side, an aide appeared in the rain, facing the head ofthe 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 forthat. "

The aide galloped forward, reported, turned, and galloped back. "GeneralJackson says, sir, that if it takes every horse in your command, thatcaisson is to be brought up before daylight. "

The other swore. "All those miles--dark and raining!--LieutenantParke!--Something told me I'd better do it in the first place!"

Brigade after brigade the Army of the Valley climbed the Blue Ridge. Atfirst the rain had been welcome, so weary and heated were the men. Butit never took long for the novelty of rain to wear off. Wet and silentthe troops climbed through the darkness. They had won a victory; theywere 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 thathistory might rank them with the Old Guard. But the rain was chill andthe night mournfully dark. When had they eaten? They hardly remembered, and it was an effort to lift one leg after the other. Numbers of menwere dropping with sleep. All shivered; all felt the reaction. Back onthe plain by the river lay in trenches some hundreds of their comrades. In the rear toiled upwards ambulances filled with wounded. There werenot ambulances enough; the wounded rode wherever there was room in anywagon. The less badly hurt sat or lay, dully suffering, on caissons. Allas they toiled upward had visions of the field behind them. It had notbeen a great battlefield, as to extent and numbers engaged, but ahorrible one. The height where the six guns had been, the gun which theLouisianians took--the old charcoal kiln where the guns had beenplanted, the ground around, the side of the ravine--these made an uglysight between eyelid and ball! So many dead horses!--eighty of them inone place--one standing upright where he had reared and, dying, had beencaught 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'sdesperate fight, and the battle in the wheat! The Federal cannon hadsheared the heads from the men. The soldiers, mounting through thedarkness in the whistling wind and rain, saw again these headlessbodies. One only, the body of a young soldier of the 2d Virginia, abrother of the colonel of the 65th, the army was carrying with it. Thebrother, wounded himself, had begged the body. At the first villagewhere the army halted, he would get a coffin and lay the boy in a gravehe could mark. His mother and sister could visit it then. Permission wasgiven. It lay now in an ambulance, covered with a flag. Cleave lay uponthe straw beside it, his arm flung across the breast. At its feet sat adark and mournful figure, old Tullius with his chin propped on hisknees. 

The rain came down, fine as needles' points and cold. Somewhere farbelow a mountain stream was rushing, and in the darkness the wind wassighing. The road wound higher. The lead horses, drawing a gun, steppedtoo near the edge of the road. The wet earth gave way. The unfortunatebrutes plunged, struggled, went down and over the embankment, draggingthe wheel horses after them. Gun, carriage, and caisson followed. Theechoes awoke dismally. The infantry, climbing above, looked down the farwooded slopes, but incuriously. The infantry was tired, cold, andfamished; it was not interested in artillery accidents. Perhaps at timesthe Old Guard had felt thus, with a sick and cold depression, kibedspirits as well as heels, empty of enthusiasm as of food, resolutionlost somewhere in the darkness, sonority gone even from "_l'empereur_"and "_la France_. " Slowly, amid drizzling rain, brigade after brigademade Brown's Gap and bivouacked within the dripping forest. 

Morning brought a change. The rain yet fell, but the army was recoveringfrom the battlefield. It took not long, nowadays, to recover. The armywas learning to let the past drop into the abyss and not to listen forthe echoes. It seemed a long time that the country had been at war, andeach day's events drove across and hid the event of the day before. Speculation as to the morrow remained, but even this hung loosely uponthe Army of the Valley. Wonderment as to the next move partook less ofdeep anxiety than of the tantalization of guessing at a riddle with theanswer always just eluding you. The army guessed and guessed--botheringwith the riddle made its chief occupation while it rested for two daysand nights, beside smoky camp-fires, in a cold June rain, in the crampedarea of Brown's Gap; but so assured was it that Old Jack knew the properanswer, and would give it in his own good time, that the guessing hadlittle fretfulness or edge of temper. By now, officers and men, theconfidence was implicit. "Tell General Jackson that we will go whereverhe wishes us to go, and do whatever he wishes us to do. "

On the morning of the twelfth "at early dawn" the army found itselfagain in column. The rain had ceased, the clouds were gone, presently uprose the sun. The army turned its back upon the sun; the army went downthe western side of the mountains, down again into the great Valley. Themen who had guessed "Richmond" were crestfallen. They who had stoutlyheld that Old Jack had mounted to this eyrie merely the better again toswoop down upon Fremont, Shields, or Banks crowed triumphantly. "Knew itTuesday, when the ambulances obliqued at the top and went on down towardStaunton! 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 PortRepublic, and came into a lovely verdurous country, soft green grass andstately trees set well apart. Here it rested five days, and here thecommanding 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 tono man more scrupulously truthful in the least of his personalrelations, and to no commander in war more gifted in all that pertainsto "deceiving the enemy and impressing him with an idea of yourpresence. " Infantry and artillery, the Army of the Valley rested at Mt. Meridian under noble trees. The cavalry moved to Harrisonburg. Munfordhad succeeded Ashby in command, and Munford came to take his orders fromhis 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, fromhere to here. " He drew a map toward him and touched two points with astrong, 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 accidentallytransmit information. You will give this order, and you will be heldaccountable for its non-obedience. "

"Very well, sir. "

"You will proceed to act with boldness masking caution. Press theoutposts of the enemy and, if possible, drive him still furthernorthward. " He broke off and sucked the lemon. 

"Very well, sir. "

"Create in him the impression that you are strongly supported. Drive itinto his mind that I am about to advance against him. General Lee issending reinforcements from Richmond. I do not object to his knowingthis, nor to his having an exaggerated idea of their number. You willregard 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, andpushed his outposts twelve miles to the northward. Here they encountereda Federal flag of truce, an officer with several surgeons, and a demandfrom Fremont for the release of his wounded men. The outposts passed theembassy on to Munford's headquarters at Harrisonburg. That cavalrymanstated that he would take pleasure in forwarding General Fremont'sdemand to General Jackson. "Far? Oh, no! it is not far. " In the meantime it was hoped that the Federal officers would find such and such aroom comfortable lodging. They found it so, discovered, too, that it wasnext to Munford's own quarters, and that the wall between wasthin--nothing more, indeed, than a slight partition. An hour or twolater the Federal officers, sitting quietly, heard the Confederatecavalryman enter, ask for writing materials, demand of an aide if thecourier had yet returned from General Jackson, place himself at a tableand fall to writing. One of the blue soldiers tiptoed to the wall, founda chair conveniently placed and sat down with his ear to the boards. Forfive minutes, scratch, scratch! went Munford's pen. At the expiration ofthis time there was heard in the hall without a jingling of spurs and aclanking of a sabre. The scratching ceased; the pen was evidentlysuspended. "Come in!" The listeners in the next room heard morejingling, 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 willcontinue to attend their wounded. As we are not monsters they will be ascarefully attended to as are our own. The only lack in the matter willbe medicines and anaesthetics. "

"Very good, Gilmer, I will so report to the officer in charge of theflag of truce. --Well, what is it, man? You look as though you werebursting with news!"

"I am, sir! Whiting, and Hood, and Lawton, and the Lord knows whobesides, are coming over the Rockfish Gap! I saw them with my own eyeson the Staunton road. About fifteen thousand, I reckon, of Lee's best. Gorgeous batteries--gorgeous troops--Hood's Texans--thousands ofGeorgians--all of them playing 'Dixie, ' and hurrahing, and askingeverybody they see to point out Jackson!--No, sir, I'm not dreaming! Iknow we thought that they couldn't get here for several days yet--buthere they are! Good Lord! I wouldn't, for a pretty, miss the huntingdown the Valley!"

The blue soldiers heard Munford and the courier go out. An hour laterthey were conducted to the colonel's presence. "I am sorry, major, butGeneral Jackson declines acceding to General Fremont's request. Hesays--"

The party with the flag of truce went back to Fremont. They went likeLieutenant Gilmer, "bursting with news. " The next day Munford pushed hisadvance to New Market. Fremont promptly broke up his camp, retired toStrasburg, and began to throw up fortifications. His spies broughtbewilderingly conflicting reports. A deserter, who a little laterdeserted back again, confided to him that Stonewall Jackson was simplyanother Cromwell; that he was making his soldiers into Ironsides: thatthey were Presbyterian to a man, and believed that God Almighty hadplanned this campaign and sent Jackson to execute it; that he--thedeserter--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 occupiedHarrisonburg, and that Jackson was close behind, having rebuilt thebridge at Fort Republic across the Shenandoah, and advanced by theKeezletown road. An old negro shambled one morning into the lines. "Yaas, sah, dat's de truf! I ain' moughty unlike ol' Brer Eel. Icert'ny slipped t'roo dat 'cordion Gineral Jackson am er stretchin'! Howmany on de oder side, sah? 'Bout er half er million. " Fremonttelegraphed and wrote to Washington. "The condition of affairs hereimperatively requires that some position be immediately made strongenough to be maintained. Reinforcements should be sent here without anhour's delay. Whether from Richmond or elsewhere, forces of the enemyare certainly coming into this region. Casualties have reduced my force. The small corps scattered about the country are exposed to sudden attackby greatly superior force of an enemy to whom intimate knowledge ofcountry and universal friendship of inhabitants give the advantage ofrapidity and secrecy of movements. I respectfully submit thisrepresentation to the President, taking it for granted that it is theduty of his generals to offer for his consideration such impressions asare made by knowledge gained in operations on the ground. "

South of the impenetrable grey curtain stretched across the Valley begana curious series of moves. A number of Federal prisoners on their wayfrom Port Republic to Richmond, saw pass them three veteran brigades. The guards were good-naturedly communicative. "Who are those? Those areWhiting and Hood and Lawton on their way to reinforce Stonewall. If wedidn't have to leave this railroad you might see Longstreet'sDivision--it's just behind. How can Lee spare it?--Oh, Beauregard's upfrom the South to take its place!" The prisoners arrived in Richmond. Totheir 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; theirpassage northward to McDowell's lines at Fredericksburg was facilitated. In a remarkably short space of time they were in Washington, insistingthat Longstreet had gone to the Valley, and that Beauregard was up fromthe South--they had an impression that in that glimpse of a big reviewthey had seen him! Certainly they had seen somebody who looked as thoughhis name ought to be Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard!

In the mean time Hood, Lawton, and Whiting actually arrived in theValley. They came into Staunton, in good order, veteran troops, readyto march against Shields or Fremont or Banks or Sigel, to keep theValley or to proceed against Washington, quite as Stonewall Jacksonshould desire! Seven thousand troops, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia, lean, bronzed, growing ragged, tall men, with eyes setwell apart, good marchers, good fighters, good lovers, and goodhaters. --There suddenly appeared before them on the pike at StauntonStonewall Jackson, ridden through the night from Mt. Meridian. 

The three brigades paraded. Jackson rode up and down the line. His famehad mounted high. To do with a few men and at a little cost what, by allthe rules of war, should have involved strong armies and muchbloodshed--that took a generalship for which the world was beginning togive him credit. With Cross Keys and Port Republic began that sustainedenthusiasm which accompanied him to the end. Now, on the march and onthe battlefield, when he passed his men cheered him wildly, andthroughout the South the eyes of men and women kindled at his name. AtStaunton the reinforcing troops, the greater number of whom saw him forthe first time, shouted for him and woke the echoes. Grave andunsmiling, he lifted the forage cap, touched Little Sorrel with the spurand went on by. It is not to be doubted that he was ambitious, and itlies not in ambitious man, no, nor in man of any type, to feel no joy insuch 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 underorders to follow, stayed only to cook a day's rations and to repacktheir wagons. Their certainty was absolute. "We will join the Army ofthe Valley _wherever it may be_. Then we will march against Shields orFremont, or maybe against Banks or Sigel. "

Breaking camp in the afternoon, they moved down the pike, through acountry marvellous to the Georgians and Texans. Sunset came, and stillthey marched; dark, and still they marched; midnight, and, extremelyweary, they halted in a region of hills running up to the stars. Reveille sounded startlingly soon. The troops had breakfast while thestars were fading, and found themselves in column on the pike under thefirst pink streakings of the dawn. They looked around for the Army ofthe Valley. A little to the northeast showed a few light curls ofsmoke, such as might be made by picket fires. They fancied, too, thatthey heard, from behind the screen of hills, faint bugle-calls, bugleanswering bugle, like the cocks at morn. If it were so, they were thinand far away, "horns of elfland. " Evidently the three brigades mustrestrain their impatience for an hour or two. 

In the upshot it proved that they were not yet to fraternize with theArmy of the Valley. When presently, they marched, it was _up_ theValley, back along the pike toward Staunton. The three brigadiersconferred together. Whiting, the senior, a veteran soldier, staunch anddetermined, was angry. "Reasonable men should not be treated so! 'Youwill start at four, General Whiting, and march until midnight, when youwill bivouac. At early dawn a courier will bring you furtherinstructions. ' 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 aregetting 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! heoughtn't to treat reasonable men so!--_Column Forward!_"

Under the stately trees at Mt. Meridian, in the golden June weather, theArmy of the Valley settled to its satisfaction that it was about toinvade Maryland. Quite an unusual number of straws showed which way thewind was blowing. Northern news arrived by grapevine, and Northernpapers told the army that was what it was going to do, --"invade Marylandand move on Washington--sixty thousand bloody-minded rebels!"--"Lookhere, boys, look here. Multiplication by division! The Yanks have spliteach of us into four!" Richmond papers, received by way of Staunton, divulged the fact that troops had been sent to the Valley, and opinedthat the other side of Mason and Dixon needed all the men at home. Theengineers received an order to prepare a new and elaborate series ofmaps of the Valley. They were not told to say nothing about it, sopresently the army knew that Old Jack was having every rabbit track andrail fence put down on paper. "Poor old Valley! won't she have ascouring!"

The sole question was, when would the operations begin. The "footcavalry" grew tired of verdant meads, June flowers, and warbling birds. True, there were clear streams and Mr. Commissary Banks's soap, and theclothes got gloriously washed! Uniforms, too, got cleaned and patched. "Going calling. Must make a show!" and shoes were cobbled. (Cartridgeboxes surreptitiously cut to pieces for this. ) Morning drills occurredof course, and camp duties and divine services; but for all thesediversions the army wearied of Mt. Meridian, and wanted to march. Twentymiles a day--twenty-five--even thirty if Old Jack put a point on it! Thefoot cavalry drew the line at thirty-five. It had tried this once, andonce was enough! In small clasped diaries, the front leaves given overto a calendar, a table of weights and measures, a few 1850 censusreturns, and the list of presidents of the United States, stopping atJames Buchanan, the army recorded that nothing of interest happened atMt. Meridian and that the boys were tired of loafing. 

"How long were they going to stay?" The men pestered the companyofficers, the company asked the regimental, field asked staff, staffshook its head and had no idea, a brigadier put the question toMajor-General Ewell and Old Dick made a statement which reached thedrummer boys that evening. "We are resting here for just a few daysuntil all the reinforcements are in, and then we will proceed to beat upBanks's quarters again about Strasburg and Winchester. "

On the morning of the seventeenth there was read a general order. "_Campto 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 theMississippi. _"--"Why, we are going to stay here forever!" The regimentalcommanders, walking away from drill, each found himself summoned to thepresence of his brigadier. "Good-morning, colonel! Just received thisorder. 'Cook two days' rations and pack your wagons. Do it quietly. '"

By evening the troops were in motion, Ewell's leading brigade standingunder arms upon a country road, the red sunset thrown back from everymusket barrel. The brigadier approached Old Dick where he sat Riflebeneath a locust tree. "Might I be told in which direction, sir--"

Ewell looked at him with his bright round eyes, bobbed his head andswore. "By God! General Taylor! I do not know whether we are to marchnorth, south, east, or west, or to march at all!" There was shoutingdown the line. "Either Old Jack or a rabbit!" Five minutes, and Jacksoncame by. "You will march south, General Ewell. "

The three brigades of Whiting, Hood, and Lawton, having, like the Kingof France, though not with thirty thousand men, marched up the hill anddown again, found at Staunton lines of beautifully shabby VirginiaCentral cars, the faithful, rickety engines, the faithful, overworked, thin-faced railroad men, and a sealed order from General Jackson. "_Takethe cars and go to Gordonsville. Go at once. _" The reinforcements fromLee left the Valley of Virginia without having laid eyes upon the armythey were supposed to strengthen. They had heard its bugles over thehilltops--that was all. 

The Army of the Valley marched south, and at Waynesboro struck the roadthrough Rockfish Gap. Moving east through magnificent scenery, it passedthe 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 onthe northern flank rode Munford's troopers. At night picket duty provedheavy. In the morning, before the bivouacs were left, the troops wereordered to have no conversation with chance-met people upon the road. "If anybody asks you questions, you are to answer, I don't know. " Thetroops went on through lovely country, through the June weather, andthey did not know whither they were going. "Wandering in thewilderness!" said the men. "Good Lord! they wandered in the wildernessfor forty years!" "Oh, that was Moses! Old Jack'll double-quick usthrough on half-rations in three days!"

The morning of the nineteenth found the army bivouacked nearCharlottesville. An impression prevailed--Heaven knows how or why--thatBanks had also crossed the Blue Ridge, and that the army was about tomove to meet him in Madison County. In reality, it moved toGordonsville. Here it found Whiting, Hood, and Lawton come in by trainfrom Staunton. Now they fraternized, and now the army numberedtwenty-two thousand men. At Gordonsville some hours were spent inwondering. One of the chaplains was, however, content. The Presbyterianpastor of the place told him in deep confidence that he had gathered atheadquarters that at early dawn the army would move toward Orange CourtHouse and Culpeper, thence on to Washington. The army moved at earlydawn, but it was toward Louisa Court House. 

Cavalry, artillery, and wagon trains proceeded by the red and heavyroads, but from Gordonsville on the Virginia Central helped the infantryas best it might. The cars were few and the engine almost as overworkedas the train men, but the road did its best. The trains moved back andforth, took up in succession the rear brigade and forwarded them on themarch. The men enjoyed these lifts. They scrambled aboard, hung out ofthe window, from the platform and from roof, encouraged the engine, offered to push the train, and made slighting remarks on the tameness ofthe scenery. "Not like God's country, back over the mountains!" Theyyelled encouragement to the toiling column on the red roads. "Stepspryer! Your turn next!"

Being largely Valley of Virginia Virginians, Louisianians, Georgians, Texans, and North Carolinians, the army had acquaintance slight or nonewith 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 wideenough!"--"Gentlemen, I think it is the Rappahannock. "--"Go away! it isthe headwaters of the York. "--"Rapidan maybe, or Rivanna. "--"ProbablyPamunkey, or the Piankatank, Where the bullfrogs jump from bank to bank. "

"Why not say the James?"--"Because it isn't. We know the James. "--"Maybeit's the Chickahominy! I'm sure we've marched far enough! Think I hearMcClellan's cannon, anyhow!"--"Say, captain, is that the riverDan?"--"_Forbidden to give names!_"--"Good Lord! I'd like to see--no, Iwouldn't like to see Old Jack in the Inquisition!"--"I was down hereonce and I think it is the South Anna. "--"It couldn't be--it couldn't beAcquia Creek, boys?"--"Acquia Creek! Absurd! You aren't even warm!"--"Itmight be the North Anna. "--"Gentlemen, cease this idle discussion. It isthe Tiber!"

On a sunny morning, somewhere in this _terra incognita_, one of Hood'sTexans chanced, during a halt, to stray into a by-road where anox-heart cherry tree rose lusciously, above a stake and rider fence. TheTexan looked, set his musket against the rails, and proceeded to mountto a green and leafy world where the cherries bobbed against his nose. Avoice 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, salutedmost shamefacedly. The horseman looked hard and grim enough. "Well, sir, what is the meaning of this? And can you give me any reason why youshould not mount guard for a month?"

Tears were in the Texan's eyes. "General, general! I didn't know 't wasyou! Give you my word, sir, I thought it was just anybody! We've hadorders every morning to say, 'I don't know'--and it's gotten to be ajoke--and I was just fooling. Of course, sir, I don't mean that it hasgotten to be a joke--only that we all say 'I don't know' when we askeach other questions, and I hope, sir, that you'll understand that Ididn'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 likea zephyr from company to company: "We'll wait here until every regimentis up. Then we'll move north to Fredericksburg and meet McDowell. "

The morrow came, a warm, bright Sunday. The last brigade got up, theartillery arrived, the head of the ammunition train appeared down theroad. 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 theywere going there anyhow, why--why--why in the name of common sense hadGeneral Lee sent Whiting, Hood, and Lawton to the Valley? Was itreasonable to suppose that he had marched them a hundred and twentymiles just to march them back a hundred and twenty miles? The men agreedthat it wasn't common sense. Still, a number had Richmond firmly fixedin their minds. Others conceived it not impossible that the Army of theValley might be on its way to Tennessee to take Memphis, or even toVicksburg, to sweep the foe from Mississippi. The men lounged beneaththe trees, or watched the weary Virginia Central bringing in the fag endof things. Fredericksburg was now the road's terminus; beyond, the linehad been destroyed by a cavalry raid of McClellan's. 

Stonewall Jackson made his headquarters in a quiet home, shaded withtrees and with flowers in the yard. Sunday evening the lady of the housesent a servant to the room where he sat with his chief of staff. "OleMiss, 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 shallbe 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 theusual 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 thedictionary and Napoleon's Maxims (the Bible was gone) on the table totestify to its late occupancy. Jim, the general's body servant, emergedfrom an inner room. "Gineral Jackson? Fo' de Lawd, niggah! yo' ain'tlooking 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 deValley!"

In the dark night, several miles from Frederickshall, two riders, oneleading, one following, came upon a picket. "Halt!" There sounded theclick 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 efyou 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 fromthat 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 youmove while I carry it out!" He put his fingers to his lips and whistledshrilly. A sergeant and two men came tumbling out of the darkness. "Whatis 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 tohis cap with an involuntary jerk; he fell back from the rein he had beenholding. Billy almost dropped his musket. He gasped weakly, then grewburning red. Jackson threw down the match. "Good! good! I see that I cantrust 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 bestlesson! He will do well. " He gathered up the reins. "There are four menhere. 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 sobbingbreath. "I gave him such a damned lot of impudence! He was hiding hisvoice, and not riding Little Sorrel, or I would have known him. "

The sergeant comforted him. "Just so you were obeying orders andwatching and handling your gun all right, he didn't care! I gather youdidn'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 cockswere crowing, a worthy farmer, living near the road, was awakened by thesound of horses. "Wonder who's that?--Tired horses--one of them's gonelame. They're stopping here. "

He slipped out of bed and went to the window. Just light enough to seeby. "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 aConfederate 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 twostrangers took the stable key and went off to the building looming inthe background. The other sat stark and stiff in the grey light. Thefirst returned. "Two in very good condition, sir. If you'll dismountI'll change saddles and leave our two in the stalls. "

The officer addressed took his large feet out of the stirrups, tuckedhis sabre under his arm, and stiffly dismounted. Waiting for the freshhorses, 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 thearmy! And one horse ain't as good as another--not when one of yours isyour daughter's and you've ridden the other to the Court House and tochurch for twelve years--"

"That is so true, sir, " answered the officer, "that I shall takepleasure in seeing that, when this need is past, your horses arereturned to you. I promise you that you shall have them back in a veryfew 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 lighthad now really strengthened. All things were less like shadows. TheLouisa County man saw his visitor somewhat plainly, and it came into hismind that he had seen him before, though where or when--He was allwrapped 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 ofRichmond, 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 fromthe defences east or south to the defences north. There it beat deepand slow, a muffled drum, a Dead March--some officer killed in askirmish, or dying in a hospital, borne now to Hollywood. Elsewhere, quick and bright again, it meant Home Guards going to drill. From theoutskirts of the town might be heard the cavalry bugles blowing, --fromthe Brook turnpike and the Deep Run turnpike, from Meadow Bridge roadand Mechanicsville road, from Nine-Mile and Darbytown and Williamsburgstage roads and Osborne's old turnpike, and across the river from theroad to Fort Darling. From the hilltops, from the portico or the roof ofthe Capitol, might be seen the camp-fires of Lee's fifty thousandmen--the Confederate Army of the Potomac, the Army of the Rappahannock, the Army of Norfolk, the Army of the Peninsula--four armies waiting forthe arrival of the Army of the Valley to coalesce and become the Army ofNorthern Virginia. The curls of smoke went up, straight, white, andfeathery. 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 foreach great State of the Confederacy. By the size you knew the arm--fourfeet square for infantry, three feet square for artillery, two and ahalf by two and a half for cavalry. 

The light lay warm on the Richmond houses--on mellow red brick, on palegrey stucco. It touched old ironwork balconies and ivy-topped walls, andit gilded the many sycamore trees, and lay in pools on the heavy leavesof the magnolias. Below the pillared Capitol, in the green up and downof the Capitol Square, in Main Street, in Grace Street by St. Paul's, before the Exchange, the Ballard House, the Spotswood, on Shockoe Hillby the President's House, through all the leafy streets there was vividmovement. In this time and place Life was so near to Death; the ocean ofpain and ruin so evidently beat against its shores, that from verycontrast and threatened doom Life took a higher light, a deepersplendour. All its notes resounded, nor did it easily relinquish themajor key. 

In the town were many hospitals. These were being cleaned, aired, andput in order against the impending battles. The wounded in them now, chiefly men from the field of Seven Pines, looked on and hoped for thebest. Taking them by and large, the wounded were a cheerful set. Manycould sit by the windows, in the perfumed air, and watch the women ofthe South, in their soft, full gowns, going about their country'sbusiness. Many of the gowns were black. 

About the hotels, the President's House, the governor's mansion, and theCapitol, the movement was of the official world. Here were handsome menin broadcloth, grown somewhat thin, somewhat rusty, but carefullypreserved and brushed. Some were of the old school and still affectedstocks and ruffled shirts. As a rule they were slender and tall, and asa rule wore their hair a little long. Many were good Latinists, mostwere good speakers. One and all they served their states as best theyknew how, overworked and anxious, facing privation here in Richmond withthe knowledge that things were going badly at home, sitting long hoursin Congress, in the Hall of Delegates, in courts or offices, strugglingthere with Herculean difficulties, rising to go out and listen totelegrams or to read bulletins. Sons, brothers, kinsmen, and friendswere in the field. 

This golden afternoon, certain of the latter had ridden in from thelines upon this or that business connected with their commands. Theywere not many, for all the world knew there would be a deadly fightingpresently, deadly and prolonged. Men and officers must stay withindrum-beat. Those who were for an hour in Richmond, in their worn greyuniforms, with the gold lace grown tarnished (impossible ofreplacement!), with their swords not tarnished, their netted silksashes, their clear bright eyes and keen thin faces, found friendsenough as they went to and fro--more eager questioners and eagerlisteners than they could well attend to. One, a general officer, a manof twenty-nine, in a hat with a long black plume, with the most charmingblue eyes, and a long bronze, silky, rippling beard which he constantlystroked, could hardly move for the throng about him. Finally, in theCapitol Square, he backed his horse against the railing about the greatequestrian Washington. The horse, a noble animal, arched his neck. Therewas around it a wreath of bright flowers. The rider spoke in anenchanting voice. "Now if I tell you in three words how it was and whatwe did, will you let me go? I've got to ride this afternoon to YellowTavern. "

"Yes, yes! Tell us, General Stuart. "

"My dear people, it was the simplest thing in the world! A man in theFirst has made a song about it, and Sweeney has set it to the banjo--ifyou'll come out to the camp after the battle you shall hear it! GeneralLee 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 areconnoissance in force. I took twelve hundred cavalrymen and two gunsof the horse artillery and made the reconnoissance. Is there anythingelse 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'tcheer 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 theFirst'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 LittleMac. He's a gentleman, and he's got a fine army. Except for poor Latanewe 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 andpassed rapidly eastward through the town. The afternoon was warm, butthe foremost wore a great horseman's cloak. It made all outlinesindefinite 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 norecognition. Out of the town, on the Nine-Mile road, he showed theofficer of the guard who stopped him a pass signed "R. E. Lee" andentered the Confederate lines. "General Lee's headquarters?" They werepointed out, an old house shaded by oaks. He rode hither, gave his horseto the courier with him, and spoke to the aide who appeared. "TellGeneral Lee, some one from the Valley. "

The aide shot a quick glance, then opened a door to the left. "GeneralLee will be at leisure presently. Will you wait here, sir?"

He from the Valley entered. It was a large, simply furnished room, withsteel engravings on the walls, --the 1619 House of Burgesses, Spotswoodon the Crest of the Blue Ridge with his Golden Horseshoe Knights, Patrick Henry in Old St. John's, Jefferson writing the Declaration ofIndependence, Washington receiving the Sword of Cornwallis. The windowswere open to the afternoon breeze and the birds were singing in arosebush outside. There were three men in the room. One having a largeframe and a somewhat heavy face kept the chair beside the table with akind of granite and stubborn air. He rested like a boulder on a mountainslope; marked with old scars, only waiting to be set in motion again togrind matters small. The second man, younger, slender, with a short redbeard, leaned against the window, smelled the roses, and listened to thebirds. The third, a man of forty, with a gentle manner and very honestand kindly eyes, studied the engravings. All three wore the stars ofmajor-generals. 

The man from the Valley, entering, dropped his cloak and showed the sameinsignia. D. H. Hill, leaving the engravings, came forward and took himby both hands. The two had married sisters; moreover each was possessedof fiery religious convictions; and Hill, though without the genius ofthe other, was a cool, intelligent, and determined fighter. The two hadnot met since Jackson's fame had come upon him. 

It clothed him now like a mantle. The man sitting by the table gotponderously to his feet; the one by the window left the contemplation ofthe rosebush. "You know one another by name only, I believe, gentlemen?"said D. H. Hill. "General Jackson--General Longstreet, General AmbrosePowell Hill. "

The four sat down, Jackson resting his sabre across his knees. He hadupon him the dust of three counties; he was all one neutral hue like afaded leaf, save that his eyes showed through, grey-blue, intenseenough, though quiet. He was worn to spareness. 

Longstreet spoke in his heavy voice. "Well, general, Fate is making ofyour 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 thatFlanders--"

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 wentstraight to Stonewall Jackson, laid one hand on his shoulder, the otheron his breast. The two had met, perhaps, in Mexico; not since. Now theylooked each other in the eyes. Both were tall men, though Lee was thetallest; both in grey, both thin from the fatigue of the field. Here theresemblance ended. Lee was a model of manly beauty. His form, like hischaracter, was justly proportioned; he had a great head, grandly based, a face of noble sweetness, a step light and dauntless. There breathedabout him something knightly, something kingly, an antique glamour, sunny shreds of the Golden Age. "You are welcome, General Jackson, " hesaid; "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 yourValley will never forget you. " He took a chair beside the table. "Sitdown, gentlemen. I have called this council, and now the sun is sinkingand General Jackson has far to ride, and we must hasten. Here are themaps. "

The major-generals drew about the table. Lee pinned down a map with thesmall objects upon the board, then leaned back in his chair. "This isour first council with General Jackson. We wait but for the Army of theValley to precipitate certainly one great battle, perhaps many battles. I think that the fighting about Richmond will be heavier than all thathas 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 thewindow. The four at table spoke together in low tones. 

"It is the most difficult ground in the world, " said A. P. Hill. "You'llhave another guess-time of it than in your Valley, general! No broadpike 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 todraw them accurately with a hundred and ten thousand Yankees lyingaround loose. They should have been made last year. "

Lee returned. "Yes, the next ten days will write a page in blood. " Hesighed. "I do not like war, gentlemen. Now, to begin again! We areagreed that to defend Richmond is imperative. When Richmond falls theConfederacy falls. It is our capital and seat of government. Here onlyhave we railroad communications with the far South. Here are ourarsenals 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 withdrawfrom Virginia. Abandon Virginia, and we can on our part no longerthreaten the northern capital. Then General Jackson cannot create apanic every other day, nor will Stanton then withdraw on every freshalarm a division from McClellan. "

He leaned his head on his hand, while with the firm fingers of the otherhe measured the edge of the table. "No! It is the game of the twocapitals, and the board is the stretch of country between. To the endthey will attempt to reach Richmond. To the end we must prevent thatmate. Let us see their possible roads. Last year McDowell tried it byManassas, and he failed. It is a strategic point, --Manassas. There maywell be fighting there again. The road by Fredericksburg . . . They havenot tried that yet, and yet it has a value. Now the road that McClellanhas taken, --by sea to Fortress Monroe, and so here before us by theYork, seeing that the Merrimac kept him from the James. It is the bestway yet, though with a modification it would be better! There is a keyposition which I trust he'll not discover--"

"He won't, " said D. H. Hill succinctly. "The fairies at his cradledidn't give him intuition, and they made him extremely cautious. He's agood fellow, though!"

Lee nodded. "I have very genuine respect for General McClellan. He is agentleman, a gallant soldier, and a good general. " He pushed the mapbefore him away, and took another. "Of late Richmond's strongest defencehas been General Jackson in the Valley. Well! McDowell and Fremont andBanks may be left awhile to guard that capital which is so very certainit is in danger. I propose now to bring General Jackson suddenly uponMcClellan's right--"

Jackson, who had been holding himself with the rigidity of a warrior ona tomb, slightly shifted the sabre and drew his chair an inch nearer thecommander-in-chief. "His right is on the north bank of theChickahominy--"

"Yes. General Stuart brought me much information that I desired. FitzJohn Porter commands there--the 5th Army Corps--twenty-five thousandmen. I propose, general, that you bring your troops as rapidly aspossible from Frederickshall to Ashland, that from Ashland you march bythe Ashcake road and Merry Oaks Church to the Totopotomoy Creek road andthat, moving by this to Beaver Dam Creek, you proceed to turn anddislodge Porter and his twenty-five thousand, crumpling them back uponMcClellan's centre--here. " He pointed with a quill which he took fromthe ink-well. 

"Good! good! And the frontal attack?"

"General A. P. Hill and his division will make that. The batteries onthe Chickahominy will cover his passage of the bridge. GeneralLongstreet will support him. General Magruder with General Huger and thereserve artillery will be left before Richmond. They will so demonstrateas to distract General McClellan's attention from the city and from hisright and General Porter. General Stuart will take position on your lineof 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 themap 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 manoeuvredelicate. You and your troops are at the close of a campaign as arduousas it is amazing. The fatigue and the strain must be great. You andGeneral Hill are far apart and the country between is rough andunmapped. Yet victory depends on the simultaneous blow. "

Jackson sat rigid again, his hand stiffly placed upon the sabre. "It isnot given to man to say with positiveness what he can do, sir. But itis necessary that this right be turned before McClellan is aware of hisdanger. Each day makes it more difficult to conceal the absence of myarmy from the Valley. Between the danger of forced marching and theobvious danger that lies in delay, I should choose the forced marching. Better lose one man in marching than five in a battle not of ourselecting. A straw may bring failure as a straw may bring victory. I mayfail, but the risk should be taken. Napoleon failed at Eylau, but hisplan 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. Iwill get back. The army was to advance this morning to Beaver DamStation. "

He rode hard through the country all night, it being the second he hadspent in the saddle. Beaver Dam Station and the bivouacking Army of theValley saw him on Tuesday morning the twenty-fourth. "Old Jack's backfrom wherever he's been!" went the rumour. Headquarters was establishedin a hut or two near the ruined railroad. Arriving here, he summoned hisstaff and sent for Ewell. While the former gathered he read a report, forwarded from Munford in the rear. "Scout Gold and Jarrow in from theValley. Fremont still fortifying at Strasburg--thinks you may be atFront Royal. Shields at Luray considers that you may have gone toRichmond, 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 toRichmond--but that Ewell is moving west on Moorefield!"

"Good! good!" said Jackson. Staff arrived, and he proceeded to issuerapid and precise orders. All given, staff hurried off, and the generalspoke to Jim. "Call me when General Ewell comes. " He stretched himselfon a bench in the hut. "I am suffering, " he said, "from fever and afeeling 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, forEwell was fiery prompt. 

The Army of the Valley entered upon a forced march through country bothdifficult and strange. It had been of late in the possession of theenemy, and the enemy had stretched felled trees across forest roads andburned the bridges spanning deep and sluggish creeks. Guides were atfault, cross-roads directions most uncertain. The wood grew intolerablythick, and the dust of the roads was atrocious; the air cut away by thetall green walls on either hand; the sun like a furnace seven timesheated. Provisions had not come up in time at Beaver Dam Station and thetroops marched upon half-rations. Gone were the mountains and themountain air, present was the languorous breath of the low country. Ithad an upas quality, dulling the brain, retarding the step. The men werevery 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 wakedthem 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 morestifling, the water was bad, gnats and mosquitoes made a painful cloud, the feet in the ragged shoes were more stiff, more swollen, moreabraded. The moisture in the atmosphere weakened like a vapour bath. Theentire army, "foot cavalry" and all, marched with a dreadful slowness. _Press Forward--Press Forward--Press Forward--Press Forward!_ It grew tobe 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 toRichmond--unless, indeed, we're going a roundabout way against McDowellat Fredericksburg! Richmond will keep. It has kept a long time--eversince William Byrd founded it. General Lee is there--and so it is allright--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 thisway. _Press Forward--Press Forward--Press Forward. If that noise don'tstop 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 fellupon the earth. Even under the bronze there could be seen dark circlesunder their eyes, and their lips were without colour. Jackson rode alongthe lines and looked. There were circles beneath his own eyes, and hislips shut thin and grey. "Let them rest, " he said imperturbably, "untildawn. " There rode beside him an officer from Lee. He had now thelatter'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 circumspectionI knows you didn't go ter bed las' night--nurr de night befo'--nurr denight befo' dat--'n' I don' see no preperation for yo' gwine ter beddish-yer night! Now, dat ain' right. W'at Miss Anna gwine say w'en sheheah erbout hit? She gwine say you 'stress her too much. She gwine sayyou'll git dar quicker, 'n' fight de battle better, ef you lie downerwhile '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 afterhim with a troubled countenance. "Gwine talk wif de Lawd--talk all nightlong! Hit ain' healthy. Pray an' pray 'n' look up ter de sky 'twel hegits paralysis! De gineral better le' me tek his boots off, 'n' go terbed 'n' dream ob Miss Anna!"

At three the bugles blew. Again there was incalculable delay. The sunwas up ere the Army of the Valley left Ashland. It was marching now indouble column, Jackson by the Ashcake road and Merry Oaks Church, Ewellstriking across country, the rendezvous Pole Green Church, a littlenorth and east of Mechanicsville and the Federal right. The distancethat each must travel was something like sixteen miles. 

The spell of yesterday persisted and became the spell of to-day. Sixteenmiles would have been nothing in the Valley; in these green and glamourylowlands 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 ofwater, dark, still, and clear. Time was when the Army of the Valleywould have been curious and excited enough over Jeb Stuart's troopers, but now it regarded them indifferently with eyes glazed with fatigue. Atnine the army crossed the ruined line of the Virginia Central, Hood'sTexans leading. An hour later it turned southward, Stuart on the longcolumn's left flank, screening it from observation, and skirmishinghotly through the hours that ensued. The army crossed Crump's Creek, passed Taliaferro's Mill, crossed other creeks, crept southward throughhot, thick woods. Mid-day came and passed. The head of the column turnedeast, and came shortly to a cross-roads. Here, awaiting it, was Stuarthimself, in his fighting jacket. Jackson drew up Little Sorrel besidehim. "Good-morning, general. "

"Good-morning, general--or rather, good-afternoon. I had hoped to seeyou many hours ago. "

"My men are not superhuman, sir. There have occurred delays. But God isover us still. "

He rode on. Stuart, looking after him, raised his brows. "In my opinionA. 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 themen, thick, pungent, told a tale to which they were used. "Bridge onfire!" It was, and on the far side of the creek appeared a party in blueengaged in obstructing the road. Hood's Texans gave a faint cheer anddashed across, disappearing in flame, emerging from it and falling uponthe blue working party. Reilly's battery was brought up; a shell or twofired. The blue left the field, and the grey pioneers somehow fought theflames and rebuilt the bridge. An hour was gone before the advance couldcross 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 tohalt. The Army of the Valley went into bivouac three miles north of thatright which, hours before, it was to have turned. It was near sunset. Asthe troops stacked arms, to the south of them, on the other side ofBeaver Dam Creek, burst out an appalling cannonade. Trimble, a veteranwarrior, 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 onthe Chickahominy covering General Hill's passage of the stream. He willbivouac over there, and to-morrow will see the battle--Have you evergiven 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 ahospital. Conveniently situated, it had received many of the moredesperately wounded from Williamsburg and Seven Pines and from theskirmishes about the Chickahominy and up and down the Peninsula. Typhoidand malarial cases, sent in from the lines, were also here inabundance. To a great extent, as June wore on, the wounded fromWilliamsburg and Seven Pines had died and been buried, or recovered andreturned to their regiments, or, in case of amputations, been carriedaway after awhile by their relatives. Typhoid and malaria could hardlybe said to decrease, but yet, two days before the battle ofMechanicsville, the warehouse seemed, comparatively speaking, a cool andempty place. 

It was being prepared against the battles for which the beleaguered citywaited--waited heartsick and aghast or lifted and fevered, as the casemight be. On the whole, the tragic mask was not worn; the citydeterminedly smiled. The three floors of the warehouse, roughly dividedinto wards, smelled of strong soap and water and home-madedisinfectants. The windows were wide; swish, swish! went the mops uponthe floors. A soldier, with his bandaged leg stretched on a chair beforehim, took to scolding: "Women certainly are funny! What's the sense ofwiping down walls and letting James River run over the floors? Might besome sense in doing it _after_ the battle! Here, Sukey, don't splashthat water this a-way!--Won't keep the blood from the floor when theyall come piling in here to-morrow, and makes all of us damneduncomfortable 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 islandto play on!"

The day wore on in the hospital. Floors and walls were all scrubbed, window-panes glistening, a Sunday freshness everywhere. The men agreedthat housecleaning was all right--after it was over. The remnant of thewounded occupied the lower floor; typhoid, malaria, and other ills wereupstairs. Stores were being brought in, packages of clothing and lintreceived at the door. A favorite surgeon made his rounds. He was cooland jaunty, his hands in his pockets, a rose in his buttonhole. "Whatare you malingerers doing here, anyhow? You're eating your white bread, with honey on it--you are! Propped up and walking around--Mrs. McGuirereading to you--Mrs. Randolph smilingly letting you beat her at her owngame--Miss Cooper writing beautiful letters for you--Miss Cary leavingreally ill people upstairs just because one of you is an Albemarle manand 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 afight!" 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. "Thisis going, " said the surgeon crisply, "to be an awful big war. Ishouldn't be surprised if it makes a Napoleonic thunder down theages--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 acomposition 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 everlastingrefutation 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, therewere on the plantations faithlessness to trust, hatred, violence, outrage--if there were among us, in Virginia alone, half a millionincendiaries! There aren't, thank God! Instead we owe a great debt ofgratitude to a dark foster-brother. The world knows pretty well what arethe armies in the field. But for the women, Miss Cary, I doubt if theworld knows that the women keep plantations, servants, armies, andConfederacy 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 theman from Albemarle--not one of those who would go away to-morrow. He laygaunt and shattered, with strained eyes and fingers picking at thesheet. "Don't you know me, Mocket?"

Mocket roused himself for one moment. "Course I know you, general! Cropsmighty fine this year! Never saw such wheat!" The light sank in hiseyes; his face grew as it was before, and his fingers picked at thesheet. He spoke in a monotone. "We've had such a hard time since we lefthome--We've had such a hard time since we left home--We've had such ahard time since we left home--We--"

Judith dashed her hand across her eyes. "Come away! He says just thatall the time!"

They moved through the ward, Warwick Cary speaking to all. "No, men! Ican't tell you just when will be the battle, but we must look for itsoon--for one or for many. Almost any day now. No, I cannot tell you ifGeneral Jackson is coming. It is not impossible. 'Washington Artillery?'That's a command to be proud of. Let me see your Tiger Head. " He lookedat 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 NorthCarolina? Wounded at Williamsburg!--King William Artillery?--Did youhear what General D. H. Hill said at Seven Pines? He said that he wouldrather be captain of the King William Artillery than President of theConfederate States. --Barksdale's Mississippians? Why, men, you are allby-words!"

The men agreed with him happily. "You've got pretty gallant fellowsyourself, general!" The King William man cleared his throat. "He's got adaughter, 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 oldblock. "

Father and daughter laughed and went on--out of this ward and intoanother, quite empty. The two stood by the door and looked, and thatsadly enough. "All the cots, all the pallets, " said Cary, in a lowvoice. "And out in the lines, they who will lie upon them! And theycannot see them stretching across their path. I do not know which placeseems now the most ghostly, here or there. "

"It was hard to get mattresses enough. So many hospitals--and every onehas given and given--and beds must be kept for those who will be takento private houses. So, at last, some one thought of pew cushions. Theyhave been taken from every church in town. See! sewed together, they dovery well. "

They passed into a room where a number of tables were placed, and fromthis into another where several women were arranging articles on broadwooden shelves. "If you will wait here, I will go slip on my outdoordress. " One of the women turned. "Judith!--Cousin Cary!--come look atthese quilts which have been sent from over in Chesterfield!" She washalf laughing, half crying. "Rising Suns and Morning Stars and Jonah'sGourds! Oh me! oh me! I can see the poor souls wrapped in them! Theworst of it is, they'll all be used, and we'll be thankful for them, andwish for more! Look at this pile, too, from town! Tarletan dresses cutinto nets, and these surgeons' aprons made from damask tablecloths! Andthe last fringed towels that somebody was saving, with the monogram sobeautifully done!" She opened a closet door. "Look! I'll scrape lint inmy sleep every night for a hundred years! The young girls rolled allthese bandages--" Another called her attention. "Will you give me thestoreroom key? Mrs. Haxall has just sent thirty loaves of bread, andsays she'll bake again to-morrow. There's more wine, too, fromLaburnum. "

The first came back. "The room seems full of things, and yet we haveseen how short a way will go what seems so much! And every home getsbarer 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 andbales of cotton goods. We made them up into these--" She ran her handover great piles of nightshirts and drawers. "But now we see that wehave nothing like enough, and the store has given as much again, and inevery lecture room in town we are sewing hard to get more and yet moredone in time. The country people are so good! They have sent inquantities of bar soap--and we needed it more than almost anything!--andcandles, and coarse towelling, and meal and bacon--and hard enough tospare I don't doubt it all is! And look here, Cousin Cary!" Sheindicated a pair of crutches, worn smooth with use. To one a slip ofpaper was tied with a thread. Her kinsman bent forward and read it: "_Ikin mannedge with a stick_. "

Judith returned, in her last year's muslin, soft and full, in the shadyEugenie hat which had been sent her from Paris two years ago. It wentwell with the oval face, the heavy bands of soft dark hair, the mouth ofsweetness and strength, the grave and beautiful eyes. Father anddaughter, 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. Behindrode a squad or two of troopers. The people on the sidewalk called tothe cannoneers cheerful greetings and inquiries, and the cannoneers andthe troopers returned them in kind. The whole rumbled and clattered by, then turned into Ninth Street. "Ordered out on Mechanicsvillepike--that's all they know, " said a man. 

The two Carys, freeing themselves from the throng, mounted toward theCapitol Square, entered it, and walked slowly through the terraced, green, and leafy place. There was passing and repassing, but on thewhole the place was quiet. "I return to the lines to-morrow, " saidWarwick Cary. "The battle cannot be long postponed. I know that you willnot repeat what I say, and so I tell you that I am sure General Jacksonis 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, brightturbaned, aproned, ample formed, and capable. With them were theircharges, in perambulators, or, if older, flitting like white butterfliesover the slopes of grass. A child of three, in her hand a nut for thesquirrel, started to cross the path, tripped and fell. General Carypicked her up, and, kneeling, brushed the dust from her frock, wooingher to smiles with a face and voice there was no resisting. Shepresently fell in love with the stars on his collar, then transferredher 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 desquirl. 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 withme--"

"If you think so, father--"

"I know, dear child!--That poor brave boy in his cadet grey andwhite. --But Richard is a brave man--and their mother is heroic. It is ofthe living we must think, and this cause of ours. We are on the eve ofsomething terrible, Judith. When Jackson comes General Lee will haveeighty-five thousand men. Without reinforcements, with McDowell stillaway, McClellan must number an hundred and ten thousand. North andSouth, we are going to grapple, in swamp, and poisoned field, and darkforest. We are gladiators stripped, and which will conquer the godsalone can tell! But we ourselves can tell that we are determined--thateach 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 thePresident's House with these thoughts in mind. To-morrow we return tothe lines; and a great battle chant will be written before we treadthese streets again. For us it may be a paean or it may be a dirge, andonly the gods know which! We salute our flag to-night--the governmentthat may last as lasted Greece or Rome, or the government which mayperish, not two years old! I think that General Lee will be there for ashort time. It is something like a recognition of the moment--alibation; and whether to life or to death, to an oak that shall live athousand years or to a dead child among nations, there is not one livingsoul 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 issomething I wish to see the governor about, at the mansion. "

He kissed her and let her go; stood watching her out of the square andacross 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 anafternoon 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 asthey came from the Capitol or from office or department. Judith, too, mounted the steps. She was very tired, and her religion was anout-of-door one, but there came upon her a craving for the quiet withinSt. Paul's and for the beautiful, old, sonorous words. She entered, found a shadowy pew beneath the gallery, and knelt a moment. As she roseanother, having perhaps marked her as she entered, paused at the door ofthe pew. She saw who it was, put out a hand and drew her in. MargaretCleave, in her black dress, smiled, touched the younger woman's foreheadwith her lips, and sat beside her. The church was not half filled; therewere no people very near them, and when presently there was singing, thesweet, old-world lines beat distantly on the shores of theirconsciousness. They sat hand in hand, each thinking of battlefields; theone with a constant vision of Port Republic, the other of someto-morrow's vast, melancholy, smoke-laden plain. 

As was not infrequently the case in the afternoon, an army chaplain readthe service. One stood now before the lectern. "Mr. Corbin Wood, "whispered Judith. Margaret nodded. "I know. We nursed him last winter inWinchester. He came to see me yesterday. He knew about Will. He told melittle things about him--dear things! It seems they were together in anambulance on the Romney march. "

Her whisper died. She sat pale and smiling, her beautiful hands lightlyfolded in her lap. For all the years between them, she was in many waysno older than Judith herself. Sometimes the latter called her "CousinMargaret, " sometimes simply "Margaret. " Corbin Wood read in a mellowvoice that made the words a part of the late sunlight, slanting in thewindows. He raised his arm in an occasional gesture, and the sunbeamsshowed the grey uniform beneath the robe, and made the bright buttonsbrighter. _Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, yechildren of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterdaywhen it is past, and as a watch in the night. _

The hour passed, and men and women left St. Paul's. The two beneath thegallery waited until well-nigh all were gone, then they themselvespassed 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! Butshe is rousing herself--she will be brave at last. "

Judith softly took the hand beside her and lifted it to her lips. "Idon't see how your children could help being brave. You are well caredfor where you are?"

"Yes, indeed. Though if my old friend had not taken us in, I do not knowwhat we should have done. The city is fearfully crowded. "

"I walked from the hospital with father. He says that the battle will bevery 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 butone thing! Now it is time to wake up--only remembering that the onething is true. ' But the dream goes on, and it gets heavier and morepainful. "

"Yes, " said Margaret. "But there are great flashes of light through it, Judith. "

They were walking beneath linden trees, fragrant, and filled withmurmurous sound. The street here was quiet; only a few passing people. As the two approached the corner there turned it a slight figure, a girldressed in homespun with a blue sunbonnet. In her hands was a cheapcarpet-bag, covered with roses and pansies. She looked tired anddiscouraged, and she set the carpet-bag down on the worn brick pavementand waited until the two ladies came near. "Please, could you tell me--"she began in a soft, drawling voice, which broke suddenly. "Oh, it'sMrs. Cleave! it's Mrs. Cleave!--Oh! oh!"

"Christianna Maydew!--Why, Christianna!"

Christianna was crying, though evidently they were joyful tears. "I--Iwas so frightened in this lonely place!--an'--an' Thunder Run's so faraway--an'--an' Billy an' Pap an' Dave aren't here, after all--an' Inever saw so many strange people--an' then I saw _you_--oh! oh!"

So brushed aside in this war city were all unnecessary conventions, thatthe three sat down quite naturally upon a wide church step. An old andwrinkled nurse, in a turban like a red tulip, made room for them, movingaside 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 lookedlike a wild rose dashed with dew. "I am such a fool to cry!" saidChristianna. "I ought to be laughin' an' clappin' my hands. I reckonI'm tired. Streets are so hard an' straight, an' there's such a terriblenumber of houses. "

"How did you come, Christianna, and when, and why?"

"It was this a-way, " began Christianna, with the long mountain daybefore her. "It air so lonesome on Thunder Run, with Pap gone, an' Davegone, an' Billy gone, an'--an' Billy gone. An' the one next to me, she'sgrown up quick this year, an' she helps mother a lot. She planted, " saidChristianna, with soft pride, "she planted the steep hillside with cornthis spring--yes, Violetta did that!"

"And so you thought--"

"An' Pap has--had--a cousin in Richmond. Nanny Pine is her name. An' sheused to live on Thunder Run, long ago, an' she wasn't like the rest ofthe 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 thecountry, an' she came to Richmond an' learned millinery--"

"Millinery!"

"Yes'm. To put roses an' ribbons on bonnets. An' she married here, a mannamed Oak, an' she wrote back to Thunder Run, to mother, a real prettyletter, 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' itsaid that she had now a shop of her own, an' if ever any Thunder Runpeople 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' thesun 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 asthough God Almighty had made a ball of gold with green trees on it andhad thrown it away, away! higher than the moon, an' had left it therewith nothin' on it but a dronin', dronin' wheel. An' it was like theworld was where the armies are. An' it was like I had to get theresomehow, an' see Pap again an' Dave an' Billy an'--an' see Billy. Therewa'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 tome, she says, 'You don't know where they are. ' An' I says to her, Isays, 'I'll find out. ' An' I took my sunbonnet, an' I went down themountain to the tollgate and asked Mr. Cole. An' he had a letterfrom--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 hethought the army was goin' to Richmond an' that there would be terriblefightin' if it did. An' I went back up the mountain, an' I said tomother, 'Violetta can do most as much as I can now, an' I am goin' toRichmond 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 bythe bonnets in the window. ' Mother was always like that, " saidChristianna, again, with soft pride. "Always quick-minded! She sees thesquirrel in the tree quicker'n any of us--'ceptin' it's Billy. An' shesays, '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 fiftymiles, an' we ain't trained to march, an' it would have taken me solong. No, ma'am. Mrs. Cole heard about my goin' an' she sent a boy totell me to come see her, an' I went, an' she gave me a dollar (I surelyam goin' to pay it back, with interest) an' a lot of advice, an' shecouldn't tell me how to find Pap an' Dave an' Billy, but she said a dealof people would know about Allan Gold, for he was a great scout, an' shegave me messages for him; an' anyhow the name of the regiment was the65th, an' the colonel was your son, ma'am, an' he would find the othersfor me. An' she got a man to take me in his wagon, twenty miles towardLynchburg, for nothin'. An' I thanked him, an' asked him to have some ofthe dinner mother an' Violetta had put in a bundle for me; but he saidno, he wasn't hungry. An' that night I slept at a farmhouse, an' theywouldn't take any pay. An' the next day and the next I walked toLynchburg, an' there I took the train. " Her voice gathered firmness. "Ihad never seen one before, but I took it all right. I asked if it wasgoin' to Richmond, an' I climbed on. An' a man came along an' asked mefor my ticket, an' I said that I didn't have one, but that I wanted topay if it wasn't more than a dollar. An' he asked me if it was a golddollar 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 orConfederate, and that the conductor didn't want it anyhow. An' theconductor--that was what the first man was called--said he didn'treckon I'd take up much room, an' that the road was so dog-goned tiredthat one more couldn't make it any tireder, an' the soldier made me sitdown on one of the benches, an' the train started. " She shut her eyestightly. "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, makinga lot of noise, an' it was so dirty; an' then last night we gothere--an' I slept on a bench in the house where we got out--only Ididn't sleep much, for soldiers an' men an' women were going in and outall night long--an' then in the mahnin' a coloured woman there gave me aglass of milk an' showed me where I could wash my face--an' then I cameout 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'tfind her, an' nobody that I asked knew. An' they all said that the armyfrom the Valley hadn't come yet, an' they didn't even know if it wascoming. An' I was tired an' frightened, an' then at last I saw a windowwith 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 gothis leg cut off in the battle, an' she boarded up her windows an' wentto Williamsburg to nurse him--an' God knows I might as well board upmine, for there's nothin' doin' in millinery!' An' she gave me mydinner, 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 threecousins' wives an' their children, refugeein' from Alexandria way an'stayin' with her, an' there wasn't a morsel of room. An' so I rested foran hour, an' then I came out to look for some place to stay. An' it'smortal hard to find. " Her soft voice died. She wiped her eyes with thecape of her sunbonnet. 

"She had best come with me, " said Margaret to Judith. "Yes, there isroom--we will make room--and it will not be bad for Miriam to have someone. . . . Are we not all looking for that army? And her people are inRichard's regiment. " She rose. "Christianna, child, neighbours musthelp one another out! So come with me, and we shall manage somehow!"

Hospitality rode well forward in the Thunder Run creed. Christiannaaccepted with simplicity what, had their places been changed, she wouldas simply have given. She began to look fair and happy, a wild rose insunshine. She was in Richmond, and she had found a friend, and the armywas surely coming! As the three rose from the church step, there passeda knot of mounted soldiers. It chanced to be the President's staff, withseveral of Stuart's captains, and the plumage of these was yet bright. The Confederate uniform was a handsome one; these who wore it were youngand handsome men. From spur to hat and plume they exercised a charm. Somewhere, in the distance, a band was playing, and their noble, mettledhorses pranced to the music. As they passed they raised their hats. One, who recognized Judith, swept his aside with a gesture appropriate to aminuet. With sword and spur, with horses stepping to music, by theywent. Christianna looked after them with dazzled eyes. She drew afluttering breath. "I didn't know things like that were in the world!"

A little later the three reached the gate of the house which shelteredMargaret and Miriam. "I won't go in, " said Judith. "It is growinglate. . . . Margaret, I am going to the President's to-night. Father wishesme to go with him. He says that we are on the eve of a great battle, andthat it is right--" Margaret smiled upon her. "It _is_ right. Of courseyou must go, dear and darling child! Do not think that I shall evermisunderstand 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 brighteyes--like the women in Brussels when 'There was revelry bynight'--Isn't it fortunate that the heart doesn't show?"

The town was all soft dusk when she came to the kinsman's house whichhad opened to her. Crowded though it was with refugee kindred, withsoldier sons coming and going, it had managed to give her a small quietniche, a little room, white-walled, white-curtained, in the very armsof a great old tulip tree. The window opened to the east, and the viewwas obstructed only by the boughs of the tree. Beyond them, throughleafy openings, night by night she watched a red glare on the easternhorizon--McClellan's five-mile-distant camp-fires. Entering presentlythis room, she lit two candles, placed them on the dressing table, andproceeded to make her toilette for the President's House. 

Through the window came the sound of the restless city. It was like thebeating of a distant sea, with a ground swell presaging storm. The wind, blowing from the south, brought, too, the voice of the river, passionateover its myriad rocks, around its thousand islets. There were odours offlowers; somewhere there was jasmine. White moths came in at the window, and Judith, rising, put glass candle-shades over the candles. She satbrushing her long hair; fevered with the city's fever, she saw notherself in the glass, but all the stress that had been and the stressthat was to be. Cleave's latest letter had rested in the bosom of herdress; now the thin oblong of bluish paper lay before her on thedressing table. The river grew louder, the wind from the south stirredthe masses of her hair, the jasmine odour deepened. She bent forward, spreading her white arms over the dark and smooth mahogany, drooped herhead upon them, rested lip and cheek against the paper. The sound of thewarrior city, the river and the wind, beat out a rhythm in thewhite-walled room. _Love--Death! Love--Death! Dear Love--DarkDeath--Eternal Love_--She rose, laid the letter with others from him inan old sandalwood box, coiled her hair and quickly dressed. A littlelater, descending, she found awaiting her, in the old, formal, quaintparlour, Fauquier Cary. 

The two met with warm affection. Younger by much than was the master ofGreenwood, he was to the latter's children like one of their owngeneration, an elder brother only. He held her from him and looked ather. "You are a lovely woman, Judith! Did it run the blockade?"

Judith laughed: "No! I wear nothing that comes that way. It is an olddress, 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 arehard 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 thenext 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 asplain! and at night I hear the river reading the bulletin!"

"Poor child!--Yes, we make all nature a partner. Judith, I was glad tohear of Richard Cleave's happiness--as glad as I was surprised. Why, Ihardly know, and yet I had it firmly in mind that it was MauryStafford--"

Judith spoke in a pained voice. "I cannot imagine why so many peopleshould have thought that. Yes, and Richard himself. It never was; and Iknow I am no coquette!"

"No. You are not a coquette. Ideas like that arrive, one never knowshow--like thistledown in the air--and suddenly they are planted and hardto 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 othersmisread it. Well, I am sorry for him! But I like Richard best, and hewill 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 atthe Officer's Hospital this morning to see Carewe. He was wounded atPort Republic, and his son and an old servant got him here somehow. Hewas talking about Richard. He knew his father. He says he'll be abrigadier the first vacancy, and that, if the war lasts, he won't stopthere. 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 ofdumb, heroic race. Lot of iron ore in that soil, some gold, too. Onlyneeded the prospector, Big Public Interest, to come along. Shouldn'twonder if he carved his name pretty high on the cliff. '--Now, Judith, Ihave stopped beneath this lamp just to see you look the transfiguredlover--happier at praise of him than at garlands and garlands foryourself!--Hm! Drawn to the life. Now we'll go on to the President'sHouse. "

The President's House on Shockoe Hill was all alight, men and womenentering between white pillars, from the long windows music floating. Beyond the magnolias and the garden the ground dropped suddenly. Far andwide, a vast horizon, there showed the eastern sky, and far and wide, below the summer stars, there flared along it a reddish light--thecamp-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 theflicker of fireflies in magnolias and roses and the gush of light fromthe tall, white-pillared house. The violins within were playing"Trovatore. " Warwick Cary, an aide with him, came from the direction ofthe Capitol and joined his daughter and brother. The three enteredtogether. 

There was little formality in these gatherings at the White House of theConfederacy. The times were too menacing, the city too conversant withalarm bells, sudden shattering bugle notes, thunderclaps of cannon, menand women too close companions of great and stern presences, for theexhibition of much care for the minuter social embroidery. No necessaryand fitting tracery was neglected, but life moved now in a very intensewhite light, so deep and intense that it drowned many things which inother days had had their place in the field of vision. There was an oldbutler at the President's door, and a coloured maid hovered near to helpwith scarf or flounce if needed. In the hall were found two volunteeraides, young, handsome, gay, known to all, striking at once the note ofwelcome. Close within the drawing-room door stood a member of thePresident's Staff, Colonel Ives, and beside him his wife, a young, graceful, and accomplished woman. These smilingly greeted the coming orsaid farewell to the parting guest. 

The large drawing-room was fitted for conversation. Damask-covered sofaswith carved rosewood backs, flanked and faced by claw-foot chairs, werefound in corners and along the walls; an adjoining room, not so brightlylit, afforded further harbourage, while without was the pillaredportico, with roses and fireflies and a view of the flare upon thehorizon. From some hidden nook the violins played Italian opera. On themantles and on one or two tables, midsummer flowers bloomed in Parianvases. 

Scattered in groups, through the large room, were men in uniform andcivilians in broadcloth and fine linen. So peculiarly constituted werethe Confederate armies that it was usual to find here a goodly number ofprivate soldiers mingling with old schoolmates, friends, kindred wearingthe bars and stars of lieutenants, captains, majors, colonels, andbrigadiers. But to-night all privates and all company officers were withtheir regiments; there were not many even of field and staff. It wasknown to be the eve of a fight, a very great fight; passes into townwere not easy to obtain. Those in uniform who were here counted; theywere high in rank. Mingling with them were men of the civilgovernment, --cabinet officers, senators, congressmen, judges, heads ofbureaus; and with these, men of other affairs: hardly a man but wasformally serving the South. If he were not in the field he was of herlegislatures; if not there, then doing his duty in some civil office; ifnot there, wrestling with the management of worn-out railways; or, cooland keen, concerned in blockade running, bringing in arms andammunition, or in the Engineer Bureau, or the Bureau of Ordnance or theMedical Department, or in the service of the Post, or at the Treasuryissuing beautiful Promises to Pay, or at the Tredegar moulding cannon, or in the newspaper offices wrestling with the problem of worn-out typeand wondering where the next roll of paper was to come from, or in thetelegraph service shaking his head over the latest raid, the latest cutwires; or he was experimenting with native medicinal plants, withballoons, with explosives, torpedoes, submarine batteries; or thinkingof probable nitre caves, of the possible gathering of copper from olddistilleries, 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 howto get paper, of how to get salt for the country at large; or he wasrunning sawmills, building tanneries, felling oak and gum for artillerycarriages, working old iron furnaces, working lead mines, busy withfoundry and powder mill. . . . If he was old he was enlisted in the CityGuard, a member of the Ambulance Committee, a giver of his worldlysubstance. All the South was at work, and at work with a courage towhich were added a certain colour and _elan_ not without value on herpage of history. The men, not in uniform, here to-night were doing theirpart, 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. Withsoft, Southern voices, with flowers banded in their hair, with barethroat and arms, with wide, filmy, effective all-things-but-new dresses, they moved through the rooms, or sat on the rosewood sofas, or walkingon the portico above the roses looked out to the flare in the east. Somehad come from the hospitals, --from the Officer's, from Chimborazo, Robinson's, Gilland's, the St. Charles, the Soldier's Rest, the SouthCarolina, the Alabama, --some from the sewing-rooms, where they cut andsewed uniforms, shirts, and underclothing, scraped lint, rolledbandages; several from the Nitre and Mining Bureau, where they madegunpowder; several from the Arsenal, where they made cartridges andfilled shells. These last would be refugee women, fleeing from thecounties overrun by the enemy, all their worldly wealth swept away, benton earning something for mother or father or child. One and all had comefrom work, and they were here now in the lights and flowers, not so muchfor their own pleasure as that there might be cheer, music, light, laughter, flowers, praise, and sweetness for the men who were going tobattle. Men and women, all did not come or go at once; they passed inand 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 ofmen, --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 halfmilitary man, half student, with a demeanour to all of perfect ifsomewhat chilly courtesy, by temperament a theorist, able with theability of the field marshal or the scholar in the study, not with thatof 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 toilsof 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 powerlaboured for it day and night--Mr. Davis stood speaking of Indianaffairs and of the defences of the Western waters. 

Warwick Cary, his daughter on his arm, spoke to the President's wife, acomely, able woman, with a group about her of strangers whom she wasputting at their ease, then moved with Judith to the windows. ThePresident stepped a little forward to meet them. "Ah, General Cary, Iwish you could bring with you a wind from the Blue Ridge this stiflingnight! We must make this good news from the Mississippi refresh usinstead! I saw your troops on the Nine-Mile road to-day. They cheeredme, but I felt like cheering them! Miss Cary, I have overheard sixofficers ask to-night if Miss Cary had yet come. "

Warwick began to talk with Judge Campbell. Judith laughed. "It was notof 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 aleaf blown from the Blue Ridge. "

"Gold leaf, " said Wade Hampton. 

The President used toward all women a stately deference. "I hope, " hesaid, "that, having come once to rest in this room, you will often let agood 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 BlackTroop came back to camp yesterday. Says he, 'They've got an angel in theStonewall Hospital! She came from Albemarle, and her name is Judith. IfI were Holofernes and a Judith like that wanted my head, by George, I'dcut it off myself to please her!'--Yes, yes, my friend!--Miss Cary, mayI present my Chief of Staff, Major the Baron Heros von Borcke? Talkpoetry with him, won't you?--Ha, Fauquier! that was a pretty dash youmade yesterday! Rather rash, I thought--"

The other withered him with a look. "That was a carefully planned, cautiously executed manoeuvre; modelled it after our oldreconnoissance 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. Thoseof the former who were seated rose, and one of the latter put out an armand 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 isgoing to sing--"

Judith greeted the circle. A gentleman pushed forward a chair. "Thankyou, 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 ishere, Colonel Gordon--there, speaking with Judge Campbell and GeneralHill. --How is the general to-day, Mrs. Johnston?"

"Better, dear, or I should not be here. I am here but for a moment. Hemade me come--lying there on Church Hill, staring at that light in thesky!--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 heardspeaking with a strong French accent--Colonel the Count Camille dePolignac, tall, gaunt, looking like a Knight of Malta--begging that theharp might be placed in the middle of the room. It was put there. JebStuart led to it the lovely Louisianian. Mrs. Fitzgerald drew off hergloves and gave them to General Magruder to hold, relinquished her fanto Mr. Jules de Saint Martin, her bouquet to Mr. Francis Lawley of theLondon _Times_, and swept her white hand across the strings. She was amistress of the harp, and she sang to it in a rich, throbbingly sweetvoice, song after song as they were demanded. Conversation through thelarge room did not cease, but voices were lowered, and now and then camea complete lull in which all listened. She sang old Creole ditties andthen Scotch and Irish ballads. 

Judith found beside her chair the Vice-President. "Ah, Miss Cary, whenyou are as old as I am, and have read as much, you will notice howemphatic is the testimony to song and dance and gaiety on the eve ofevents which are to change the world! The flower grows where in an hourthe volcano will burst forth; the bird sings in the tree which theearthquake will presently uproot; the pearly shell gleams where willpass the tidal wave--" He looked around the room. "Beauty, zeal, love, devotion--and to-morrow the smoke will roll, the cannon thunder, and thebrute emerge all the same--just as he always does--just as he alwaysdoes--stamping the flower into the mire, wringing the bird's neck, crushing the shell! Well, well, let's stop moralizing. What's shesinging now? Hm! 'Kathleen Mavourneen. ' Ha, Benjamin! What's the newswith you?"

Judith, turning a little aside, dreamily listened now to the singer, nowto phrases of the Vice-President and the Secretary of State. "Afterthis, if we beat them now, a treaty surely. . . . Palmerston--TheEmperour--The Queen of Spain--Mason says . . . Inefficiency of theblockade--Cotton obligations--Arms and munitions. . . . " Still talking, they moved away. A strident voice reached her from the end of theroom--L. Q. C. Lamar, here to-night despite physicians. "The fight hadto come. We are men, not women. The quarrel had lasted long enough. Wehate each other, so the struggle had to come. Even Homer's heroes, afterthey had stormed and scolded long enough, fought like brave men, longand 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 awell-filled stage, places a figure now here, now there, shifts thegrouping and the lights. Now Judith was one of a knot of younger women. In the phraseology of the period, all were "belles"; Hetty and ConstanceCary, Mary Triplett, Turner MacFarland, Jenny Pegram, the three Fishers, Evelyn Cabell, and others. About them came the "beaux, "--the youngerofficers who were here to-night, the aides, the unwedded legislators. Judith listened, talked, played her part. She had a personal success inRichmond. Her name, her beauty, the at times quite divine expression ofher face, made the eye follow, after which a certain greatness of mindwas 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, severaltoward the smaller room and its softly lowered lights. A very young man, an artillerist, tall and fair, lingered beside Judith. "'Auld langSyne!' I do not think that she ought to sing that to-night! I havenoticed that when you hear music just before battle the strain is apt torun 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 RanTucker! 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 ofpowder. The inference is that it will make the horse artillerychicken-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 verymarked. "If we strike McClellan's right, " said the artillerist, "allthis hill and the ground to the north of it will be the place from whichto watch the battle. If it lasts after nightfall, you will see theexploding shells beautifully. " They stood at the eastern end, Judithleaning against one of the pillars. Here a poet and editor of the_Southern Literary Messenger_ joined them; with him a young man, asculptor, Alexander Galt. A third, Washington the painter, came, too. The violins had begun again--Mozart now--"The Magic Flute. " "Oh, smellthe roses!" said the poet. "To-night the roses, to-morrow thethorns--but roses, too, among the thorns, deep and sweet! There willstill be roses, will there not, Miss Cary?"

"Yes, still, " said Judith. "If I could paint, Mr. Washington, I wouldtake that gleam on the horizon. "

"Yes, is it not fine? It is a subject, however, for a mystic. I have anidea 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. "Whatwould you paint?"

"A thing that happened ten days ago. The burial of Latane. The womenburied him, you know. At Summer Hill. --Mrs. Brockenborough, and herdaughter-in-law and grandchildren. Somebody read me a letter aboutit--so simple it wrung your heart! 'By God, ' I said, 'what Roman thingshappen still!' And I thought I'd like to paint the picture. "

"I read the letter, too, " said the poet. "I am making some verses aboutit--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? AndI hope that you will find the tent-cloth, Mr. Washington. "

Reentering, presently, the large room, they found a vague stir, peoplebeginning 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 upto her and drew her hand through his arm. "Here is General Lee now. Wewill wait a moment longer, then go. "

They stood in the shadow of the curtains watching the Commander-in-Chiefjust pausing to greet such and such an one in his progress toward thePresident. 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 aman!"

"He looks what he is, " said Warwick Cary. "Now let us go, too, and saygood-night. "

CHAPTER XXXI

THE FIRST OF THE SEVEN DAYS

Miriam and Christianna sat at the window, watching. The day wasparching, the sky hot blue steel, the wind that blew the dust throughthe streets like a breath from the sun himself. People went by, allkinds of people, lacking only soldiers. There seemed no soldiers intown. Miriam, alternately listless and feverishly animated, explainedmatters to the mountain girl. "When there's to be a battle, every onegoes to the colours. --Look at that old, old, old man, hobbling on hisstick. You'd think that death was right beside him, wouldn't you?--readyto tap him on the shoulder and say, 'Fall, fall, old leaf! But it isn'tso; death is on the battlefield looking for young men. Listen to hisstick--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 youwas to drink this--Yes, Miss Miriam, do!--There now! Don't you want tolie down?"

"No, no!" said Miriam. "I don't want to do anything but sit here andwatch. --Look at that old, old woman with the basket on her arm! I knowwhat is in it--Things for her son; bread and a little meat and shirtsshe 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 inwhich the two girls sat was on the ground floor of a small, old-fashioned house. Outside the window was a tiny balcony, with agraceful ironwork railing, and heavy ropes and twists of wistaria shadedthis and the window. The old brick sidewalk was almost immediatelybelow. For the most part the people who passed went by silently, butwhen there was talking the two behind the wistaria could hear. A nursegirl with her charges came by. "What's a 'cisive battle, honey? Yo'dbetter ask yo' pa that. Reckon it's where won't neither side let go. Whywon'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 youto 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 anelderly man, stout and amiable-looking. His face was pale, his eyestroubled; he took off his straw hat, and wiped his forehead with a largewhite handkerchief. Appearing from the opposite direction, a young man, a case of surgeon's instruments in his hand, met him, and in passingsaid good-day. The elder stopped him a moment, on the hot brick pavementbefore 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 atGilland's, didn't I, yesterday?"

"Yes, I am there--"

"Well, if by ill luck my boy is wounded and brought there, you'll lookout for him, eh? Youngest boy, you know--Blue eyes, brown hair. I'm onthe Ambulance Committee. We've got a string of wagons ready on theNine-Mile road. You look out for him if he's brought in--"

The surgeon promised and each went his way. Three women passed thewindow. One was knitting as she walked, one was in deep black, and athird, a girl, carried a great silver pitcher filled with iced drink forsome near-by convalescent. Two men came next. A negro followed, bearinga spade. One of the two was in broadcloth, with a high silk hat. "I toldthem, " he was saying, "better bury her this morning, poor little thing, before the fighting begins. _She_ won't mind, and it will be hard toarrange it then--" "Yes, yes, " said the second, "better so! Leaveto-morrow for the Dead March from 'Saul. '"

They passed. A church bell began to ring. Miriam moved restlessly. "Isnot mother coming back? She ought to have let me go with her. I can'tknit any more, --the needles are red hot when I touch them, --but I cansew. 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 asoldier 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 restagainst a sycamore at the edge of the pavement. Miriam bent out from theframe 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 tohim. "Oh, but that's nectar!" he said, and drank it. "Yes--just out ofhospital. Said I might go and snuff the battle from afar. Needed mypallet for some other poor devil. Glad I'm through with it, and sorry heisn't!--Yes, I've got some friends down the street. Going there now andget out of this sun. Reckon the battle'll begin presently. Hope theAccomac 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 asa bean pole, an' calling things an' people out of their names--"

Men and women continued to pass, the church bell to ring, the hot windto 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 CousinHarriet neither. She says tell Sarindy to give you two just what youlike 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 acustard 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'sgot er maid what's got de impidence ob sin! What you reckon dat yallergal 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 SouthCallina 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' efdat'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 overVirginia fer fightin' 'n' never will! 'N' ef Virginia don' mek 'em runebery time, South Callina needn't hope ter!' 'N' I asks her how come shenever hear ob Gineral Stonewall Jackson? Yaas'm. 'N' I curtsy ter herebery 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 knowshe is--but ain' she never heard ob Gineral Johnston? 'N' how erboutGineral 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 erVirginia woman ob South Callina!"

The two went back to the large room. The air was scorching. Miriamundressed, slipped her thin, girlish arms into a muslin sacque, and laydown. Christianna drew the blinds together, took a palm-leaf fan and satbeside 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 youwant me to croon you 'Shining River'?"

Miriam lay with closed eyes. A fly buzzed in the darkened room. The fanwent monotonously to and fro. Christianna crooned "Shining River" andthen "Shady Grove. " Outside, on the brick pavement, the sound of feetwent 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 lookedover her shoulder, then at Miriam. The latter's long lashes lay on hercheek. Beneath them glistened a tear, but her slight, girlish bosom roseand 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 voicecalled 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 cameback 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 eyeswere narrowed, her fingers rapid and steady. Christianna opened thewindow-blinds. The sound of the hurrying feet came strongly in, and withit voices. "The top of the Capitol!--see best from there--I think thehills 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, MissMiriam, you mustn't go--"

Miriam, a changed creature, steady and sure as a fine rapier, turnedupon her. "Yes, I am going, Christianna. If you like, you may come withme. Yes, I am well enough. --No, mother wouldn't keep me back. She wouldunderstand. If I lay there and listened, I should go mad. Get yourbonnet and come. "

The cannon shook the air. Christianna got her sunbonnet and tied thestrings with trembling fingers. All the wild rose had fled from hercheeks, her lips looked pinched, her eyes large and startled. Miriamglanced her way, then came and kissed her. "I forgot it was your firstbattle. I got used to them in Winchester. Don't be afraid. "

They went out into the hot sunshine. By now the greater part of thestream had hurried by. They saw that it flowed eastward, and theyfollowed. The sun blazed down, the pavement burned their feet. Themountain girl walked like a piece of thistledown; Miriam, light andquick in all her actions, moved beside her almost as easily. It was asthough the hot wind, rushing down the street behind them, carried themon with the dust and loosened leaves. There were other women, withchildren clinging to their hands. One or two had babes in their arms. There were old men, too, and several cripples. The lighter-limbed andunencumbered were blown ahead. The dull sound rocked the air. This was aresidence portion of the city, and the houses looked lifeless. The doorswere wide, the inmates gone. Only where there was illness, were therefaces at the window, looking out, pale and anxious, asking questions ofthe hurrying pale and anxious folk below. The cannonading was not yetcontinuous. It spoke rather in sullen thunders, with spaces between inwhich the heart began to grow quiet. Then it thundered again, and theheart 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. Beforethe door were five saddle horses, with a groom or two. The staff camefrom the house, then the President in grey Confederate cloth and softhat. He spoke to one of the officers in his clear, incisive voice, thenmounted his grey Arab. A child waved to him from an upper window. Hewaved back, lifted his hat to the two girls as they passed, then, hisstaff behind him, rode rapidly off toward the sound of the firing. 

Miriam and Christianna, turning a little northward, found themselves ona hillside thronged with people. It was like a section of anamphitheatre, and it commanded a great stretch of lowland broken hereand there by slight elevations. Much of the plain was in forest, but insome places the waist-deep corn was waving, and in others the wheatstood in shocks. There were marshes and boggy green meadows and oldfields of pine and broom sedge. Several roads could be seen. They allran 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 cloudmade by the bursting shell, then to the ear rushed the thunder. On theplain, from the defences which rimmed the city northward to the battlecloud, numbers of grey troops were visible, some motionless, somemarching. They looked like toy soldiers. The sun heightened red splashesthat were known to be battle-flags. Horsemen could be seen gallopingfrom point to point. In the intervals between the thunders the hillsideheard the tap of drum and the bugles blowing. The moving soldiers weregoing toward the cloud. 

Miriam and Christianna sank down beneath a little tree. They were on afacet of the hill not quite so advantageous as others. The crowdedslopes were beyond. However, one could see the smoke cloud and hear thecannon, and that was all that could be done anyhow. There were men andwomen about them, children, boys. The women were the most silent, --paleand silent; the men uttered low exclamations or soliloquies, or talkedtogether. The boys were all but gleeful--save when they looked at thegrown people, and then they tried for solemnity. Some of the childrenwent to sleep. A mother nursed her babe. Near the foot of this hill, through a hollow, there ran a branch, --Bacon Quarter Branch. Here, inthe seventeenth century, had occurred an Indian massacre. The heavy, primeval woods had rung to the whoop of the savage, the groan of thesettler, the scream of English woman and child. To-day the woods hadbeen long cut, and the red man was gone. War remained--he had onlychanged his war paint and cry and weapons. 

Miriam clasped her thin brown hands about her knee, rested her chin onthem, 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? Itwas thicker than the morning mist in the hollow below Thunder RunMountain, and it was not fleecy, pure, and white. It was yellowish, fierce, and ugly, and the sound that came from it made her heart beatthick and hard. Was he there--Was Allan Gold there in the cloud? Shefelt that she could not sit still; she wished to walk toward it. Thatbeing impossible, she began to make a little moaning sound. A woman inblack, 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 letgo, it would be like Rachel weeping. Try to be quiet. "

Christianna, who had moaned as she crooned, hardly knowing it, at oncefell silent. Another woman spoke to her. "Would you mind holding mybaby? My head aches so. I must lie down here on the grass, just aminute. " Christianna took the baby. She handled it skilfully, and it waspresently cooing against her breast. Were Pap and Dave over there, shooting and cutting? And Billy--Billy with a gun now instead of thespear the blacksmith had made him? And Allan Gold was not teaching inthe schoolhouse on Thunder Run. . . . 

The woman took the baby back. The sun blazed down, there came a louderburst of sound. A man with a field-glass, standing near, uttered a"Tchk!" of despair. "Impenetrable curtain! The ancients managed thingsbetter--they did not fight in a fog!"

He seemed a person having authority, and the people immediately abouthim 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'msure--with Longstreet to support him. It's A. P. Hill's brigades thatare moving into the smoke. Most of that firing is from our batteriesalong the Chickahominy. We are going undoubtedly to cross to the northbank--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 andChristianna, near their tree. He gave his voice. "Surely! He'll havecome down from Ashland and A. P. Hill is crossing here. That's an armynorth, and a big lot of troops south, and Fitz John Porter is betweenlike a nut in a nut cracker. The cracker has only to work all right, andcrush goes the filbert!" He raised himself and peered under puckeredbrows at the smoke-draped horizon. "Yes, he's surely overthere--Stonewall. --Going to flank Fitz John Porter--Then we'll hear ahell 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, thinkit is the Purcell. Don't you worry, sir! They're all right. Artillerymenare 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 itbecame a beautiful iridescent bubble, large as the moon. "Oh, oh!" criedthe boy. "Look at the balloon!"

The hillside kept silence for a moment while it gazed, then--"Is itours?--No; it is theirs!--It is going up from the hill behind Beaver DamCreek. --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. LangonCheves. Maybe they'll send it up to-day, maybe not. I've seen it. It'slike Joseph's coat in the Bible. They say the ladies gave their silkdresses for it. Here'll be a strip of purple and here one of white withroses on it, and here it is black, and here it is yellow as gold. Theymelted rubber car-springs in naphtha and varnished it with that, andthey're going to fill it with city gas at the gas works--"

The bubbles floated in the clear air, above and beyond the zone ofsmoke. It was now between four and five in the afternoon. The slant raysof the sun struck them and turned them mother-of-pearl. An old manlifted a dry, thin voice like a grasshopper's. "Once I went to Niagara, and there was a balloon ascension. Everybody held their breath when thefellow went up, and he got into some trouble, I don't remember just whatit was, and we almost died of anxiety until he came down; and when helanded we almost cried we were so glad, and we patted him on the backand hurrahed--and he was a Yankee, too! And now it's war time, andthere's nothing I 'd like better than to empty a revolver into that finewindbag!"

The sound in the air became heavier. A man on horseback spurred alongthe base of the hill. The people nearest stopped him. "Tell you? Ican't tell you! Nobody ever knows anything about a battle till it'sover, and not much then. Is Jackson over there? I don't know. He oughtto be, so I reckon he is! If he isn't, it's A. P. Hill's battle, allalone. "

He was gone. "I don't believe it's much more than long-range firingyet, " said the soldier. "Our batteries on the Chickahominy--and they areanswering from somewhere beyond Beaver Dam Creek. No musketry. Hello!The tune's changing!"

It changed with such violence that after a moment's exclamation thepeople sat or stood in silence, pale and awed. Speculation ceased. Theplunging torrent of sound whelmed the mind and stilled the tongue. Thesoldier held out a moment. "Close range now. The North's always going tobeat us when it comes to metal soldiers. I wonder how many they've gotover there, anyhow!" Then he, too, fell silent. 

The deep and heavy booming shook air and earth. It came no longer indistinct shocks but with a continuous roar. The smoke screen grew denserand taller, mounting toward the balloons. There was no seeing for thatcurtain; it could only be noted that bodies of grey troops moved towardit, went behind it. A thin, elderly man, a school-teacher, borrowed theglass, fixed it, but could see nothing. He gave it back with a shake ofthe head, sat down again on the parched grass, and veiled his eyes withhis hand. "'Hell is murky, '" he said. 

No lull occurred in the firing. The sun as it sank reddened the battlecloud that by now had blotted out the balloons. "When it is dark, " saidthe soldier, "it will be like fireworks. " An hour later the man with theglass discovered a string of wagons on one of the roads. It was comingcitywards. "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 awayin the twilight like blown leaves. The air was rocking; orange and redlights began to show as the shells exploded. Christianna put her hand onMiriam's. "Miss Miriam--Miss Miriam! Mrs. Cleave'll say I didn't takecare of you. Let's go--let's go. They're bringing back the wounded. Papmight be there or Dave or Billy or--Miss Miriam, Miss Miriam, yourbrother might be there. "

The long June dusk melted into night, and still the city shook to thefurious cannonading. With the dark it saw, as it had not seen in thesunshine. 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, theyrumbled over the cobblestones with the sound of the tumbrels in theTerror. It was stated that a number of the wounded were in the fieldhospitals. In the morning the knowledge was general that very many hadlain, crying for water, all night in the slashing before Beaver DamCreek. 

All the houses in Richmond were lighted. Through the streets poured atide of fevered life. News--News--News!--demanded from chance couriers, from civilian spectators of the battle arriving pale and exhausted, fromthe drivers of wagon, cart, and carriage, from the less badlywounded--"Ours the victory--is it not? is it not?--Who led?--whofought?--who is fighting now? Jackson came? Jackson certainly came? Weare winning--are we not? are we not?" Suspense hung palpable in the hotsummer night, suspense, exaltation, fever. It breathed in the hot wind, it flickered in the lights, it sounded in the voice of the river. Formany there sounded woe as well--woe and wailing for the dead. Forothers, for many, many others, there was a misery of searching, aheart-breaking going from hospital to hospital. "Is he here?--Are theyhere?" The cannon stopped at nine o'clock. 

The Stonewall Hospital was poorly lighted. In ward number 23 the oillamps, stuck in brackets along the walls, smoked. At one end, where twopine tables were placed, the air from the open window blew the flamesdistractingly. A surgeon, half dead with fatigue, strained well-nigh tothe point of tears, exclaimed upon it. "That damned wind! Shut thewindow, Miss Cary. Yes, tight! It's hell anyhow, and that's what you doin hell--burn up!"

Judith closed the window. As she did so she looked once at the light onthe northern horizon. The firing shook the window-pane. The flame of thelamp now stood straight. She turned the wick higher, then lifted apitcher and poured water into a basin, and when the surgeon had washedhis hands took away the reddened stuff. Two negroes laid a man on thetable--a gaunt North Carolinian, his hand clutching a shirt allstiffened blood. Between his eyelids showed a gleam of white, his breathcame with a whistling sound. Judith bent the rigid fingers open, drewthe 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'thurt you much. Come this side, Miss Cary--No, wait a moment!--It's nouse. He's dying. "

The North Carolinian died. The negroes lifted him from the table and putanother in his place. "Amputation, " said the surgeon. "Hold it firmly, Miss Cary; just there. " He turned to the adjoining table where a youngerman was sewing up a forearm, ripped from wrist to elbow by a piece ofshell. "Lend me your saw, will you, Martin?--Yes, I know the heat'sfearful! but I can't work by a lamp that has Saint Vitus!" He turnedback to his table. "Now, my lad, you just clench your teeth. Miss Caryand I aren't going to hurt you any more than we can help. Yes, above theknee. " The younger surgeon, having finished the cut, wiped away with atowel the sweat that blinded him. "The next. --Hm! Doctor, will you lookhere a moment?--Oh, I see you can't! It's no use, Mrs. Opie. Better havehim taken back. He'll die in an hour. --The next. "

The ward was long, low ceiled, with brown walls and rafters. Between thepatches of lamplight the shadows lay wide and heavy. The cots, thepallets, the pew cushions sewed together, were placed each close byeach. A narrow aisle ran between the rows; by each low bed there wasjust standing room. The beds were all filled, and the wagons bringingmore rumbled on the cobblestones without. All the long place wasreekingly hot, with a strong smell of human effluvia, of sweat-dampenedclothing, 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 screamfrom some form under the surgeon's knife. But the place seemed onegroan, a sound that swelled or sank, but never ceased. The shadows onthe wall, fantastically dancing, mocked this with nods and becks andwaving arms, --mocked the groaning, mocked the heat, mocked the smell, mocked the thirst, mocked nausea, agony, delirium, and the rattle in thethroat, mocked the helpers and the helped, mocked the night and theworld 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, slowlyturning to chill ethereal meads of violets, the violet more slowly yetgiving place to Adonis gardens of rose and daffodil. The forests stooddew-drenched and shadowy, solemn enough, deep and tangled woodlands thatthey were, under the mysterious light, in the realm of the hour whosefinger is at her lips. The dawn made them seem still, and yet they werenot still. They and the old fields and the marshes and the wild andtangled banks of sluggish water-courses, and the narrow, hidden roads, and the low pine-covered hilltops, and all the vast, overgrown, andsombre lowland were filled with the breathing of two armies. In the coldglory of the dawn there faced each other one hundred and eighty thousandmen bent on mutual destruction. 

A body of grey troops, marching toward Cold Harbour, was brought to ahalt within a taller, deeper belt than usual. Oak and sycamore, pine andelm, beech, ash, birch and walnut, all towered toward the violet meads. A light mist garlanded their tops, and a graceful, close-set underbrushpressed against their immemorial trunks. It was dank and still, dim andsolemn within such a forest cavern. Minutes passed. The men sat down onthe wet, black earth. The officers questioned knew only that Fitz JohnPorter was falling back from Beaver Dam Creek, presumably on his nextline of intrenchments, and that, presumably, we were following. "HasJackson joined?" "Can't tell you that. If he hasn't, well, we'll beatthem anyhow!"

This body of troops had done hard fighting the evening before and wastired enough to rest. Some of the men lay down, pillowing their heads ontheir arms, dozing, dozing in the underbrush, in the misty light, beneath the tall treetops where the birds were cheeping. In the meantimea Federal balloon, mounting into the amethyst air, discovered thatthis stretch of woodland was thronged with grey soldiers, and signalledas much to Fitz John Porter, falling back with steadiness to his secondline at Gaines's Mill. He posted several batteries, and ordered them toshell the wood. 

In the purple light the guns began. The men in grey had to take thestorm; they were in the wood and orders had not come to leave it. Theytook it in various ways, some sullenly, some contemptuously, some withnervous twitchings of head and body, many with dry humour and aquizzical front. The Confederate soldier was fast developing acharacteristic which stayed with him to the end. He joked with death andgave a careless hand to suffering. A few of the more imaginative andaesthetically minded lost themselves in open-mouthed contemplation of thebestormed forest and its behaviour. 

The cannonade was furious, and though not many of the grey soldierssuffered, 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 shelland torn twig from twig, they fell in a shower of slivers, or, choppedclean from the trunk, down they crashed from leafy level to level tillthey reached the forest floor. Beneath them rose shouts of warning, camea scattering of grey mortals. Younger trees were cut short off. Theirwoodland race was run; down they rushed with their festoons of vines, crushing the undergrowth of laurel and hazel. Other shells struck thered brown resinous bodies of pines, set loose dangerous mists of barkand splinter. As by a whirlwind the air was filled with torn and flyinggrowth, 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 violetfields and the vermeil gardens were blotted out, and in the shrieking ofthe shells the birds could not have been heard to sing even were theythere. They were not there; they were all flown far away. It was dark inthe wood, dark and full of sound and of moving bodies charged withdanger. The whirlwind swept it, the treetops snapped off. "_Attention!_"The grey soldiers were glad to hear the word. "_Forward! March!_" Theywere blithe to hear the order and to leave the wood. 

They moved out into old fields, grown with sedge and sassafras, here andthere dwarf pines. Apparently the cannon had lost them; at any rate fora time the firing ceased. The east was now pink, the air here very pureand cool and still, each feather of broom sedge holding its row ofdiamond dewdrops. The earth was much cut up. "Batteries been alonghere, " said the men. "Ours, too. Know the wheel marks. Hello! What yougot, Carter?"

"Somebody's dropped his photograph album. "

The man in front and the man behind and the man on the other side alllooked. "One of those folding things! Pretty children! one, two, three, four, and their mother. --Keep it for him, Henry. Think the Crenshawbattery, or Braxton's, or the King William, or the Dixie was over thisway. "

Beyond the poisoned field were more woods, dipping to one of theinnumerable sluggish creeks of the region. There was a bridge--weak andshaken, but still a bridge. This crossed at last, the troops climbed aslippery bank, beneath a wild tangle of shrub and vine, and camesuddenly into view of a line of breastworks, three hundred yards away. There was a halt; skirmishers were thrown forward. These returnedwithout a trigger having been pulled. "Deserted, sir. They've fallenback, 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 littlegreen, boggy place commanded by the breastworks. Apparently grey troopshad made a charge here, the evening before. The trees that fringed thesmall, irregular oval, and the great birds that sat in the trees, andthe column whose coming had made the birds to rise, looked upon a meadowset as thick with dead men as it should have been with daisies. They laythick, thick, two hundred and fifty of them, perhaps, heart pierced, temple pierced by minie balls, or all the body shockingly torn by grapeand canister. The wounded had been taken away. Only the dead were here, watched by the great birds, the treetops and the dawn. They layfantastically, some rounded into a ball, some spread eagle, some withtheir arms over their eyes, some in the posture of easy sleep. At oneside was a swampy place, and on the edge of this a man, sunk to thethigh, kept upright. The living men thought him living, too. More thanone started out of line toward him, but then they saw that half his headwas blown away. 

They left the meadow and took a road that skirted another great piece offorest. The sun came up, drank off the vagrant wreaths of mist and driedthe dew from the sedge. There was promise of a hot, fierce, dazzlingday. Another halt. "What's the matter this time?" asked the men. "God! Iwant to march on--into something happening!" Rumour came back. "Woods infront of us full of something. Don't know yet whether it's buzzards orYankees. Get ready to open fire, anyway. " All ready, the men waiteduntil she came again. "It's men, anyhow. Woods just full of bayonetsgleaming. Better throw your muskets forward. "

The column moved on, but cautiously, with a strong feeling that it, inits turn, was being watched--with muskets thrown forward. Then suddenlycame 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 upthere in the blessed old Valley!' 'Hello, boys! If you don't look outyou'll be getting your names in the papers!' 'Hello, boys! come to helpus kill mosquitoes? Haven't got any quinine handy, have you?' 'Hello, boys! Hello Kernstown, McDowell, Front Royal, Winchester, Harper'sFerry, Cross Keys, Port Republic! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihh!' 'Hello, you damnedCohees! 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 bestgun'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 inthe flesh!--Oh, we're going to halt. You halted, too?--Regular lovefeast, by jiminy! Got any tobacco?"

A particularly ragged private, having gained permission from hisofficer, came up to the sycamore beneath which his own colonel and thecolonel of the 65th were exchanging courtesies. The former glanced hisway. "Oh, Cary! Oh, yes, you two are kin--I remember. Well, colonel, I'mwaiting for orders, as you are. Morally sure we're in for an awfulscrap. Got a real respect for Fitz John Porter. McClellan's got thisarmy trained, too, till it isn't any more like the rabble at Manassasthan a grub's like a butterfly! Mighty fine fighting machine now. FitzJohn's got our old friend Sykes and the Regulars. That doesn't mean whatit did at Manassas--eh? We're all Regulars now, ourselves. --Yes, ColdHarbour, I reckon, or maybe a little this way--Gaines's Mill. That'stheir second line. Wonderful breastworks. Mac's a master engineer!--NowI'll clear out and let you and Cary talk. "

The two cousins sat down on the grass beneath the sycamore. For a littlethey eyed each other in silence. Edward Cary was more beautiful thanever, and apparently happy, though one of his shoes was nothing morethan a sandal, and he was innocent of a collar, and his sleeve demandeda patch. He was thin, bright-eyed, and bronzed, and he handled his riflewith lazy expertness, and he looked at his cousin with a genuine respectand liking. "Richard, I heard about Will. I know you were like a fatherto 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 likehis cousin, though not ragged. Dundee grazed at hand, and scattered uponthe edge of the wood, beneath the little dogwood trees, lay like acornshis men, fraternizing with the "Tuckahoe" regiment. "Your father andFauquier--?"

"Both somewhere in this No-man's Land. What a wilderness of creeks andwoods it is! I slept last night in a swamp, and at reveille a beautifulmoccasin lay on a log and looked at me. I don't think either father orFauquier were engaged last evening. Pender and Ripley bore the brunt ofit. 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 feelreassured as to the meaning and goal of humanity. "

"I know--I love her dearly, dearly. If I outlive this battle I will tryto get to see her--"

Off somewhere, on the left, a solitary cannon boomed. The grey soldiersturned 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?" saidEdward. Cleave regarded the forest somewhat frowningly. "We are not, " hesaid, "in a very good humour this morning. Yesterday was a day in whichthings went wrong. "

"It was a sickening disappointment, " acknowledged Edward. "We listenedand listened. He's got a tremendous reputation, you know--Jackson. Foreordained and predestined to be at the crucial point at the criticalmoment! Backed alike by Calvin and God! So we looked for a comet tostrike Fitz John Porter, and instead we were treated to an eclipse. Itwas 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 ofus. For him, as for you and me, there's the heel undipped and theunlucky 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 weshall see. Good-bye, Richard!" The two shook hands warmly; Cary ran tohis place in the line; the "Tuckahoe" regiment, cheered by the 65th, swung from the forest road into a track leading across an expanse ofbroom sedge. It went rapidly. The dew was dried, the mist lifted, thesun blazing with all his might. During the night the withdrawingFederals had also travelled this road. It was cut by gun-wheels, it wasstrewn with abandoned wagons, ambulances, accoutrements of all kinds. There were a number of dead horses. They lay across the road, or toeither hand in the melancholy fields of sedge. From some dead trees thebuzzards watched. One horse, far out in the yellow sedge, lifted hishead and piteously neighed. 

The troops came into the neighbourhood of Gaines's Mill. Through grilleafter grille of woven twig and bamboo vine they descended to anothercreek, sleeping and shadowed, crossed it somehow, and came up intoforest again. Before them, through the trees, was visible a great openspace, hundreds of acres. Here and there it rose into knolls, and onthese were planted grey batteries. Beyond the open there showed ahorseshoe of a creek, fringed with swamp growth, a wild and tangledwoodland; beyond this again a precipitous slope, almost a cliff, mounting to a wide plateau. All the side of the ascent was occupied byadmirable breastworks, triple lines, one above the other, while at thebase between hill and creek, within the enshadowing forest, was planteda great abattis of logs and felled trees. Behind the breastwork and onthe plateau rested Fitz John Porter, reinforced during the night bySlocum, and now commanding thirty-five thousand disciplined andcourageous troops. Twenty-two batteries frowned upon the plain below. The Federal drums were beating--beating--beating. The grey soldiers laydown in the woods and awaited orders. They felt, rather than saw, thatother troops were all about them, --A. P. Hill--Longstreet--couched inthe 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 shellwent singing on its errand, exploded before one of the triple tiers. Theplateau answered with a hundred-pounder. The missile came toward thebattery, overpassed it, and exploded above the wood. It looked as largeas a beehive; it came with an awful sound, and when it burst theatmosphere seemed to rock. The men lying on the earth beneath jerkedback their heads, threw an arm over their eyes, made a dry, clickingsound with their tongue against their teeth. The howitzer and this shellopened the battle--again A. P. Hill's battle. 

Over in the forest on the left, near Cold Harbour, where StonewallJackson had his four divisions, his own, D. H. Hill's, Ewell's, andWhiting's, there was long, long waiting. The men had all the rest theywanted, and more besides. They fretted, they grew querulous. "Oh, goodGod, why don't we move? There's firing--heavy firing--on the right. Arewe going to lie here in these swamps and fight mosquitoes all day?Thought we were brought here to fight Yankees! The general walking inthe forest and saying his prayers?--Oh, go to hell!"

A battery, far over on the edge of a swamp, broke loose, tearing thesultry air with shell after shell tossed against a Federal breastwork onthe other side of the marsh. The Stonewall Brigade grew vividlyinterested. "That's D. H. Hill over there! D. H. Hill is a fighter fromway 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'sguns opened, full-mouthed, on the adventurous battery. 

It had nerve, _elan_, sheer grit enough for a dozen, but it wasout-metalled. One by one its guns were silenced, --most of the horsesdown, most of the cannoneers. Hill recalled it. A little later hereceived an order from Jackson. "General Hill will withdraw his troopsto the left of the road, in rear of his present position, where he willawait further orders. " Hill went, with shut lips. One o'clock--twoo'clock--half-past two. "O God, have mercy! _Is_ this the Army of theValley?"

Allan Gold, detached at dawn on scout duty, found himself about thistime nearer to the Confederate centre than to his own base of operationsat the left. He had been marking the windings of creeks, observing wherethere were bridges and where there were none, the depth of channels andthe infirmness of marshes. He had noted the Federal positions and theamount 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. Hehad given the wounded drink. He had killed with the butt of his rifle ahissing and coiled snake. He had turned his eyes away from the black andwinged covering of a dead horse and rider. Kneeling at last to drink ata narrow, hidden creek, slumbering between vine-laden trees, he hadraised 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; thenAllan said, "Don't fire! I won't. Why should we? Drink and forget. " Theblue 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 ontheir heels for a moment's conversation. "Awful weather, " said the bluescout. "Didn't know there could be such withering heat! Andmalaria--lying out of nights in swamps, with owls hooting andjack-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 yourwelcome out and had better go home?--Look out there! Your gun's slippinginto the water. "

The blue recovered it. "It's give out this morning that StonewallJackson's arrived on the scene. "

"Yes, he has. "

"Well, he's a one-er! Good many of you we wish would desert. --No; weain't going home till we go through Richmond. "

"Well, " said Allan politely, "first and last, a good many folk havesettled hereabouts since Captain John Smith traded on the Chickahominywith the Indians. There's family graveyards all through these woods. Ihope you'll like the country. "

The other drank again of the brown water. "It wasn't so bad in thespring time. We thought it was awful lovely at first, all spangled withflowers 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 smiledblissfully, 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 wonderif history isn't going to repeat itself--" He rose, also, tall andblonde. "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, Idon't know that they are especially low. "

The blue scout dipped a hand into his pocket. "Well, I've got a packetof 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'twant it. We've got plenty. --Well, good-bye. "

"I hope you'll get back safe, " said Allan, "and have a beautifulwedding. "

The blue vanished in the underbrush, the grey went on his way throughthe heavy forest. He was moving now toward sound, heavy, increasing, presaging a realm of jarred air and ringing ear-drums. Ahead, he saw acolumn of swiftly moving troops. Half running, he overtook the rearfile. "Scout?"--"Yes--Stonewall Brigade--" "All right! all right! Thisis 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 wherebatteries were planted. The regiment to which Allan had attached himselflay down on the edge of the wood, near one of the cannon-crownedeminences. Allan stretched himself beneath a black gum at the side ofthe road. Everywhere was a rolling smoke, everywhere terrific sound. Abattery thundered by at a gallop, six horses to each gun, straining, red-nostrilled, fiery-eyed. It struck across a corner of the plain. Overit burst the shells, twelve-pounders--twenty-pounders. A horse wentdown--the drivers cut the traces. A caisson was struck, exploded withfrightful glare and sound. About it, when the smoke cleared, writhed menand horses, but the gun was dragged off. Through the rain of shells thebattery gained a lift of ground, toiled up it, placed the guns, unlimbered and began to fire. A South Carolina brigade started with ayell from the woods to the right, tore in a dust cloud across the oldfields, furrowed with gullies, and was swallowed in the forest about thecreek which laved the base of the Federal position. This rose from thelevel like a Gibraltar, and about it now beat a wild shouting and rattleof musketry. Allan rose to his knees, then to his feet, then, drawn asby a magnet, crept through a finger of sumach and sassafras, outstretched from the wood, to a better vantage point just in rear ofthe battery. 

Behind him, through the woods, came a clatter of horses' hoofs. It wasmet and followed by cheering. Turning his head, he saw a general and hisstaff, and though he had never seen Lee he knew that this was Lee, andhimself began to cheer. The commander-in-chief lifted his grey hat, camedown the dim, overarched, aisle-like road, between the cheering troops. With his staff he left the wood for the open, riding beneath the shelterby the finger of sumach and sassafras, toward the battery. He saw Allan, and reined up iron-grey Traveller. "You do not belong to thisregiment. --A scout? General Jackson's?--Ah, well, I expect GeneralJackson to strike those people on the right any moment now!" He rode upto the battery. The shells were raining, bursting above, around. In theshelter of the hill the battery horses had at first, veteran, undisturbed, cropped the parched grass, but now one was wounded and nowanother. An arm was torn from a gunner. A second, stooping over a limberchest, was struck between the shoulders, crushed, flesh and bone, intopulp. The artillery captain came up to the general-in-chief. "GeneralLee, won't you go away? Gentlemen, won't you tell him that there'sdanger?"

The staff reinforced the statement, but without avail. General Lee shookhis head, and with his field-glasses continued to gaze toward the left, whence should arise the dust, the smoke, the sound of Jackson's flankingmovement. There was no sign on the left, but here, in the centre, thenoise from the woods beyond the creek was growing infernal. He loweredthe glass. "Captain Chamberlayne, will you go tell General Longstreet--"

Out of the thunder-filled woods, back from creek and swamp and briar andslashing, from abattis of bough and log, from the shadow of that bluffhead with its earthworks one above the other, from the scorching flameof twenty batteries and the wild singing of the minies, rushed the SouthCarolina troops. The brigadier--Maxey Gregg--the regimental, the companyofficers, with shouts, with appeals, with waved swords, strove to stopthe 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 disorderedthrong. "Men, men! Remember your State--Do your duty!" They recognizedhim, rallied, formed on the colours, swept past him with a cheer andreentered the deep and fatal wood. 

The battery in front of Allan began to suffer dreadfully. The horsesgrew infected with the terror of the plain. They jerked their headsback; they neighed mournfully; some left the grass and began to gallopaimlessly across the field. The shells came in a stream, great, hurtlingmissiles. Where they struck flesh or ploughed into the earth, it waswith a deadened sound; when they burst in air, it was like cracklingthunder. The blue sky was gone. A battle pall wrapped the thousands andthousands of men, the guns, the horses, forest, swamp, creeks, oldfields; the great strength of the Federal position, the grey brigadesdashing against it, hurled back like Atlantic combers. It should beabout three o'clock, Allan thought, but he did not know. Every nerve wastingling, the blood pounding in his veins. Time and space behaved likewaves charged with strange driftwood. He felt a mad excitement, was surethat if he stood upright or tried to walk he would stagger. An order randown 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 asthough he trod the path by Thunder Run. _Forward! March!_ The brigadecleared the wood, and in line of battle passed the exhausted battery. Allan noted a soldier beneath a horse, a contorted, purple, frozen faceheld between the brute's fore-legs. The air was filled with whistlingshells; the broom sedge was on fire. _Right shoulder. Shift Arms!Charge!_

Somewhere, about halfway over the plain, he became convinced that hisright leg from the hip down was gone to sleep. He had an idea that hewas not keeping up. A line passed him--another; he mustn't let theothers get ahead! and for a minute he ran quite rapidly. There was ayellow, rain-washed gulley before him; the charge swept down one sideand up the other. This crack in the earth was two thirds of the wayacross the open; beyond were the wood, the creek, the abattis, theclimbing lines of breastworks, the thirty-five thousand in blue, and thetremendous guns. The grey charge was yelling high and clear, preparingto 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 wasanother thing to climb the other. However, up he got, almost to thetop--and then pitched forward, clutching at the growth of sedge alongthe crest. It held him steady, and he settled into a rut of yellow earthand tried to think it over. Endeavouring to draw himself a littlehigher, a minie ball went through his shoulder. The grey charge passedhim, roaring on to the shadowy wood. 

He helped himself as best he could, staunched some blood, drew his ownconclusions as to his wounds. He was not suffering much; not over much. By nature he matched increasing danger with increasing coolness. Allthat he especially wanted was for that charge to succeed--for the greyto succeed. His position here, on the rim of the gully, was an admirableone for witnessing all that the shifting smoke might allow to bewitnessed. It was true that a keening minie or one of the monstrousshells might in an instant shear his thread of life, probably would doso; 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 ofGaines's Mill, a passionate desire that Victory should wear grey, dominated all other feeling. Half in the seam of the gully, half in thesedge at the top, he made himself as easy as he could and rested aspectator. 

The battle smoke, now heavily settling, now drifting like clouds beforea wind, now torn asunder and lifting from the scene, made the greatfield to come and go in flashes, or like visions of the night. He sawthat A. P. Hill was sending in his brigades, brigade after brigade. Helooked to the left whence should come Jackson, but over there, just seenthrough the smoke, the forest stood sultry and still. Behind him, however, in the wood at the base of the armed hill, there rose a clamourand deep thunder as of Armageddon. Like a grey wave broken against aniron shore, the troops with whom he had charged streamed backdisordered, out of the shadowy wood into the open, where in the goldsedge lay many a dead man and many a wounded. Allan saw the crimson flagwith the blue cross shaken, held on high, heard the officers crying, "Back, men, back! Virginians, do your duty!" The wave formed again. Hetried to rise so that he might go with it, but could not. It returnedinto the wood. Before him, racing toward the gully, came anotherwave--Branch's brigade, yelling as it charged. He saw it a moment like agrey wall, with the colours tossing, then it poured down into the gullyand up and past him. He put up his arms to shield his face, but the menswerved a little and did not trample him. The worn shoes, digging intothe loose earth covered him with dust. The moving grey cloth, the smellof sweat-drenched bodies, of powder, of leather, of hot metal, thepanting breath, the creak and swing, the sudden darkening, heat andpressure--the passage of that wave took his own breath from him, lefthim white and sick. Branch went on. He looked across the gully and sawanother wave coming--Pender, this time. Pender came without yelling, grim and grey and close-mouthed. Pender had suffered before Beaver DamCreek; 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. Hewas tormented with thirst. Three yards from the gully lay stretched thetrunk of a man, the legs blown away. He was almost sure he caught theglint of a canteen. He lay flat in the sedge and dragged himself to thecorpse. There was the canteen, indeed; marked with a great U. S. , spoiltaken perhaps at Williamsburg or at Seven Pines. It was empty, draineddry as a bone. There was another man near. Allan dragged himself on. Hethought this one dead, too, but when he reached him he opened large blueeyes and breathed, "Water!" Allan sorrowfully shook his head. The blueeyes did not wink nor close, they glazed and stayed open. The scoutdropped beside the body, exhausted. Field's charge passed over him. Whenhe opened his eyes, this portion of the plain was like a sea betweencross winds. All the broken waves were wildly tossing. Here theyrecoiled, 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 himselfin the tangled slashing, on the treacherous banks of the slow-movingcreek. A. P. Hill was a superb fighter. He sent in his brigades. Theyreturned, broken; he sent them in again. They went. The 16th and 22dNorth Carolina passed the three lines of blazing rifles, got to the headof the cliff, found themselves among the guns. In vain. Morrell'sartillerymen, Morrell's infantry, pushed them back and down, down thehillside, back into the slashing. The 35th Georgia launched itself likea thunderbolt and pierced the lines, but it, too, was hurled down. Gregg's South Carolinians and Sykes Regulars locked and swayed. Archerand Pender, Field and Branch, charged and were repelled, to chargeagain. Save in marksmanship, the Confederate batteries could not matchthe Federal; strength was with the great, blue rifled guns, and yet thegrey cannoneers wrought havoc on the plateau and amid the breastworks. The sound was enormous, a complex tumult that crashed and echoed in thehead. The whole of the field existed in the throbbing, expandedbrain--all battlefields, all life, all the world and other worlds, allproblems solved and insoluble. The wide-flung grey battlefront was nowsickle-shaped, convex to the foe. The rolling dense smoke flushedmomently with a lurid glare. In places the forest was afire, in othersthe stubble of the field. From horn to horn of the sickle galloped theriderless horses. Now and again a wounded one among them screamedfearfully. 

Allan dragged himself back to the gully. It was safer there, because thecharging lines must lessen speed, break ranks a little; they would notbe so resistlessly borne on and over him. He was not light-headed, or hethought he was not. He lay on the rim of the gully that was now trampledinto a mere trough of dust, and he looked at the red light on therolling vapour. Where it lifted he saw, as in a pageant, war inmid-career. Sound, too, had organized. He could have beaten time to thegigantic rhythm. It rose and sank; it was made up of groaning, shouting, breathing of men, gasping, and the sounds that horses make, with louderand louder the thunder of the inanimate, the congregated sound of theallies man had devised, --the saltpetre he had digged, the powder he hadmade, the rifles he had manufactured, the cannon he had moulded, thesolid shot, grape, canister, shrapnel, minie balls. The shells werefearful, Allan was fain to acknowledge. They passed like whistlingwinds. They filled the air like great rocks from a blasting. Thestaunchest troops blanched a little, jerked the head sidewise as theshells burst and showered ruin. There came into Allan's mind a picturein the old geography, --rocks thrown up by Vesuvius. He thought he wasspeaking to the geography class. "I'll show you how they look. I waslying, 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 RunMountain--Sairy and Tom--Was Sairy baking gingerbread?--Of course not;they didn't have gingerbread now. Besides, you didn't want gingerbreadwhen you were thirsty. . . . _Oh, water, water, water, water!. . . _ Tom mightbe taking the toll--if there was anybody to pay it, and if they kept theroads 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 theblue sky. The water-bucket on the porch, with the gourd. He began tomutter a little. "Time to take in, children--didn't you hear the bell? Irang it loudly. I am ringing it now. Listen! Loud, loud--like churchbells--and cannons. The old lesson. . . . Curtius and the gulf. "

In the next onrush a man stumbled and came to his knees beside him. Notbadly hurt, he was about to rise. Allan caught his arm. "For God'ssake--if you've got any water--" The man, a tall Alabamian, looked down, nodded, jerked loose another U. S. Canteen, and dropped it into theother's hand. "All right, all right--not at all--not at all--" He ranon, joining the hoar and shouting wave. Allan, the flask set to hislips, found not water, but a little cold and weak coffee. It wasnectar--it was happiness--it was life--though he could have drunk tentimes the amount!

The cool draught and the strength that was in it revived him, drew hiswandering mind back from Thunder Run to Gaines's Mill. Again he wishedto know where was the Army of the Valley. It might be over there, in thesmoke pall, turning Fitz John Porter's right . . . But he did not believeit. Brigade after brigade had swept past him, had been broken, hadreformed, had again swept by into the wood that was so thick with thedead. A. P. Hill continued to hurl them in, standing, magnificentfighter! his eyes on the dark and bristling stronghold. On the hill, behind the climbing breastworks and the iron giants atop, Fitz JohnPorter, good and skilful soldier, withdrew from the triple lines hisdecimated regiments, put others in their places, scoured with the hailof his twenty-two batteries the plain of the Confederate centre. All theattack was here--all the attack was here--and the grey brigades werethinning like mist wreaths. The dead and wounded choked field and gullyand wood and swamp. Allan struck his hands together. What hadhappened--what was the matter? How long had he lain here? Two hours, atthe least--and always it was A. P. Hill's battle, and always the greybrigades with a master courage dashed themselves against the slope offire, and always the guns repelled them. It was growing late. The suncould not be seen. Plain and woods were darkening, darkening and filledwith groaning. It was about him like a melancholy wind, the groaning. Heraised himself on his hands and saw how many indeed were scattered inthe sedge, or in the bottom of the yellow gully, or slanted along itssides. 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 airwas less filled with missiles, that the long musketry rattle and thebaying of the war dogs was a little hushed. Even as he marked this thelull grew more and more perceptible. He heard the moaning of thewounded, because now the ear could take cognizance. 

The shadow deepened. A horse, with a blood-stained saddle, unhurthimself, approached him, stood nickering for a moment, then panic-struckagain, lashed out with his heels and fled. All the plain, the sedgebelow, the rolling canopy above, was tinged with reddish umber. Thesighing wind continued, but the noise of firing died and died. For allthe moaning of the wounded, there seemed to fall a ghastly silence. 

Over Allan came a feeling as of a pendulum forever stopped, as of Timebut a wreck on the shore of Space, and Space a deserted coast, anexperiment of some Power who found it ineffective and tossed it away. The Now and Here, petrified forever, desolate forever, an obscure bubblein the sea of being, a faint tracing on the eternal Mind to be overlaidand forgotten--here it rested, and would rest. The field would stay andthe actors would stay, both forever as they were, standing, lying, inmotion or at rest, suffering, thirsting, tasting the sulphur and feelingthe heat, held here forever in a vise, grey shadows suffering likesubstance, knowing the lost battle. . . . A deadly weakness and horror cameover him. "O God!--Let us die--"

From the rear, to A. P. Hill's right, where was Longstreet, broke a faintyelling. It grew clearer, came nearer. From another direction--from theleft--burst a like sound, increasing likewise, high, wild, and clear. Likea breath over the field went the conviction--_Jackson--Jackson at last!_Allan dropped in the broom sedge, his arm beneath his head. The grey sleevewas wet with tears. The pendulum was swinging; he was home in the dear anddread world. 

The sound increased; the earth began to shake with the tread of men; thetremendous guns began again their bellowing. Longstreet swung intoaction, with the brigades of Kemper, Anderson, Pickett, Willcox, Pryor, and Featherstone. On the left, with his own division, with Ewell's, withD. H. Hill's, Jackson struck at last like Jackson. Whiting, with twobrigades, should have been with Jackson, but, missing his way in thewood, came instead to Longstreet, and with him entered the battle. Theday was descending. All the plain was smoky or luridly lit; a vastShield of Mars, with War in action. With Longstreet and with Jackson upat last, Lee put forth his full strength. Fifty thousand men in grey, thirty-five thousand men in blue, were at once engaged--in three hundredyears there had been in the Western Hemisphere no battle so heavy asthis one. The artillery jarred even the distant atmosphere, and the highmounting clouds were tinged with red. Six miles away, Richmond listenedaghast. 

Allan forgot his wounds, forgot his thirst, forgot the terror, sick andcold, of the minute past. He no longer heard the groaning. The storm ofsound swept it away. He was a fighter with the grey; all his soul was inthe prayer. "Let them come! Let them conquer!" He thought, _Let the warbleed and the mighty die_. He saw a charge approaching. Willingly wouldhe have been stamped into the earth would it further the feet on theirway. The grey line hung an instant, poised on the further rim of thegully, then swept across and onward. Until the men were by him, it wasthick night, thick and stifling. They passed. He heard the yelling asthey charged the slope, the prolonged tremendous rattle of musketry, theshouts, 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 battleline of tall men, led by a tall, gaunt general, with blue eyes andflowing, tawny hair. In front was the battle-flag, red ground and bluecross. Beside it dipped and rose a blue flag with a single star. Thesmoke rolled above, about the line. Bursting overhead, a great shell litall 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! FourthTexas!--Fourth--"

The frieze rushed down the slope of the gully, up again, and on. A footcame 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 amighty stride. Gun-barrel and bayonet gleamed like moon on water. Thebattle-flag with the cross, the flag with the single star, spread redand blue wings. Past him they sped, gigantic, great ensigns of desperatevalour, war goddesses, valkyries, . . . Rather the great South herself, the eleven States, Rio Grande to Chesapeake, Potomac to the Gulf! Allthe shells were bursting, all the drums were thundering--

The Texans passed, he sank prone on the earth. Other waves he knew werefollowing--all the waves! Jackson with Ewell, Longstreet, the two Hills. He thought he saw his own brigade--saw the Stonewall. But it was inanother quarter of the field, and he could not call to it. All the earthwas rocking like a cradle, blindly swinging in some concussion andconflagration as of world systems. 

As dusk descended, the Federal lines were pierced and broken. The Texansmade the breach, but behind them stormed the other waves, --D. H. Hill, Ewell, the Stonewall Brigade, troops of Longstreet. They blotted out thetriple breastworks; from north, west, and south they mounted in thunderupon the plateau. They gathered to themselves here twenty-two guns, tenthousand small arms, twenty-eight hundred prisoners. They took theplateau. Stubbornly fighting, Fitz John Porter drew off his exhaustedbrigades, 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 infront 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. Theregion was one where Nature set traps. In the darkness it was not easyto tell friend from foe. Grey fired on grey, blue on blue. The bluestill pressed, here in disorder, here with a steady front, toward thegrapevine bridge across the Chickahominy. French and Meagher arrived toform a strong rearguard. Behind, on the plateau, the grey advancepaused, uncertain in the darkness and in its mortal fatigue. Here, andabout the marshy creek and on the vast dim field beyond, beneath thestill hanging battle cloud, lay, of the grey and the blue, fourteenthousand dead and wounded. The sound of their suffering rose like amonotonous wind of the night. 

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE HEEL OF ACHILLES

The Stonewall Brigade, a unit in Jackson's advance, halted on theplateau near the McGehee house. All was dark, all was confused. In thefinal and general charge, regiments had become separated from brigades, companies from regiments. Fragments of many commands were on theplateau, --Whiting, Ewell, D. H. Hill, Jackson's own division, portionsof Longstreet's brigades, even a number of A. P. Hill's broken, exhausted fighters. Many an officer lay silent or moaning, on thescarped slope, in the terrific tangle about the creek, or on themelancholy 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 butdimly through the smoke. Bodies of men, and men singly or in twos andthrees, wandered like ghosts in Hades. "This way, Second Virginia!""Fall in here, Hood's Texans!"--"Hampton's men, over here!"--"FifteenthAlabama! Fifteenth Alabama!"--"I'm looking for the MilledgevilleHornets. "--"Iverson's men! Iverson's men!"--"Fall in here, Cary'sLegion!"--"First Maryland!"--"Fifth Virginia over here!"--"Where in hellis the Eleventh Mississippi!"--"Lawton! Lawton!"--"Sixty-fifth Virginia, fall in here!"

East and south, sloping toward the Chickahominy, ran several miles ofheavy forest. It was filled with sound, --the hoofs of horses, therumbling of wheels, the breaking through undergrowth of masses ofmen, --sound that was dying in volume, rolling toward the Chickahominy. On the trampled brow of the plateau, beneath shot-riddled trees, GeneralD. H. Hill, coming from the northern face, found General Winder of theFirst Brigade standing with several of his officers, trying to piercethe murk toward the river. "You rank here, General Winder?" said Hill. 

"I think so, general. Such a confusion of troops I have never seen! Theyhave 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'stemptatious! And yet. . . . Very dark. Thick woods. Don't know whatobstructions. Men exhausted. Our centre and right not come up. Artillerystill 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 shouldpress on at once. "

"If we had cavalry!" said Winder impatiently. "However, General Stuarthas swept down toward the Pamunkey. That will be their line ofretreat--to the White House. "

"There is the chance, " said Cleave, "that General McClellan will abandonthat line, and make instead for the James and the gunboats at Harrison'sLanding. "

Hill nodded. "Yes, it's a possibility. General Lee is aware of it. He'llnot unmask Richmond and come altogether on this side the Chickahominyuntil he knows. All that crowd down there may set to and crossto-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 twoare burned. I believe that the Grapevine is their only road--"

"You believe, colonel, but you do not know. What do you think, GeneralWinder?"

"I think, sir, with Colonel Cleave, that we should push down through thewoods to the right of the Grapevine Bridge. They, too, are exhausted, their horses jaded, their ammunition spent. We could gather a littleartillery--Poague's battery is here. They are crushed together, in greatmasses. If we could fall upon them, cause a great panic there at thewater, much might come of it. "

Hill looked with troubled eyes about the plateau. "And two or threethousand men, perhaps, be swallowed up and lost! A grand charge thattook this plateau--yes! and a grand charge at Beaver Dam Creek yesterdayat dark, and a grand charge when Albert Sidney Johnston was killed, anda grand charge when Ashby was killed, and on a number of otheroccasions, and now a grand night-time charge with worn-out troops. Allgrand--just the kind of grandeur the South cannot afford!. . . An army yetof blue troops and fresh, shouting brigades, and our centre and right onthe other side of the creek. . . . I don't dare do it, gentlemen!--not onmy 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 donot repent--"

"They are defeated and retreating, sir, " said Cleave. "If they arecrossing the river, it is at least in the realm of probability that theyhave but the one path. No one knows better than you what resolutepressure might now accomplish. Every moment that we wait they gain insteadiness, and other reserves will come up. Make their junction withtheir centre, and to-morrow we fight a terrific battle where to-night alesser struggle might secure a greater victory. "

"Speaking largely, that is true, " said Hill. "But--I wish GeneralJackson were here! I think you know, gentlemen, that, personally, Icould wish, at this minute, to be down there in the woods, beside theGrapevine Bridge. But with the knowledge that the enemy is bringing upreserves, with the darkness so thick, with no great force, and thatexhausted, and with no artillery, I cannot take the responsibility ofthe 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'tone of you be happier than I. "

"We know that, general. --Cleave, I am going to send you. You're far thelikeliest. We want him to come and lead us to the completest victory. ByGod, 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 intothe woods to see what I can see myself. " He went, Lawton with him. Before many minutes had passed they were back. "Nearly walked into theirlines! Strung across the Grapevine road. Massed thick between us and theChickahominy. Scattered like acorns through the woods. Pretty miserable, I gather. Passed party hunting water. Speech bewrayeth the man, sodidn't say anything. Heard the pickets talking. 'Twas Meagher and Frenchcame up. They're building great fires by the water. Looks as though theymeant 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 themoment you hear anything. I wish the artillery were up. Who's this?Colonel Fauquier Cary? In the darkness, couldn't tell. Yes, GeneralWinder 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 wewere fighting against--George Sykes! Remember he was my roommate at thePoint?"

The short path to McGehee's house was not trodden without difficulty. All the great plateau was cumbered with debris of the struggle. On thecut and furrowed ground one stumbled upon abandoned stores and arms. There were overturned wagons and ambulances with dead horses; there wereruined gun-carriages; there were wrecked litters, fallen tents, dead menand the wounded. Here, and on the plain below, the lanterns of thesurgeons and their helpers moved like glowworms. They gathered thewounded, blue and grey. "Treat the whole field alike, " had said Lee. Everywhere were troops seeking their commands, hoarsely calling, joiningat last their comrades. Fires had been kindled. Dim, dim, in thesouthwestern sky beyond the yet rolling vapour, showed a gleaming wherewas Richmond. D. H. Hill and Fauquier Cary went indoors. An aide managedto find some biscuits, and there was water from the well. "I haven'ttouched food since daybreak, " said the general. 

"Nor I. Much as I like him, I am loath to let Fitz John Porter strikedown the York River line to-night, if that's his road, or cross theChickahominy if that's the road! We have a victory. Press it home andfix 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 stilland sultry; through the windows they heard, afar off, the bugles--theirown 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. Onelit on his sleeve. "I wonder what you think of it, " he said, and put himout of window. There was a stir at the door. A sergeant appeared. "We'regathering up the wounded, general--and we found a Yankee officer underthe trees just here--and he said you'd know him--but he's fainted deadaway--" 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 uponit, came into the room. The Confederate officers looked. "No, I don'tknow him. Why, wait--Yes, I do! It's Clitz--Clitz that was so young andred-cheeked and our pet at the Point!. . . Yes, and one day in Mexico hisregiment filed past, going into a fight, and he looked so like a gallantboy that I prayed to God that Clitz might not be hurt!. . . Reid, have himput 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. Helooked at me out of a cloud, and I looked at him out of one, and thebattle roared between. I always liked him. " He walked across the room, looked out of the window upon the battlefield, and came back. "But, " hesaid grimly, "it is a war of invasion. What do you think is wrong withJackson?"

The other looked at him with his fine, kindly eyes. "Why, let me tellyou, Cary, --since it won't go any further, --I am as good a Presbyterianas 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 myown just now. --Delay! Delay! We have set opportunity against a wall andcalled out the firing party. " He rose. "Thanks for the biscuits. I feelanother man. I'll go now and look after my wounded. There are enough ofthem, poor souls!"

Another stir occurred at the door. The aide appeared. "They've takensome prisoners in the wood at the foot of the hill, sir. One of themsays 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 facewith his hands. Presently he let them drop. "Hill, we ought not to beenemies! Messmates and tent-mates for a year!. . . It's ghastly. "

"I'll agree with you there, Reynolds. It's ghastlier than ghastly. --Youaren'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 ruddylight went up like pillars to sustain a cloudy roof. There weretreetops, burnished, high in air; then all the land fell to the swampyshores of the creek, and beyond to the vast and sombre battle plain, where the shells had rained. The masses of grey troops upon it, restingon their arms, could be divined by the red points of camp-fires. Lanterns, also, were wandering like marsh lights, up and down and to andfro. Here, on the plateau, it was the same. They danced like giantfireflies. He passed a blazing log about which were gathered a dozenmen. Some wag of the mess had said something jocular; to a man they werelaughing convulsively. Had they been blamed, they would perhaps haveanswered that it was better to laugh than to cry. Cleave passed themwith no inclination to blame, and came to where, under the trees, the65th was gathered. Here, too, there were fires; his men were droppedlike acorns on the ground, making a little "coosh, " frying a littlebacon, attending to slight hurts, cognizant of the missing but notreferring to them loudly, glad of victory, burying all loss, with a wideswing of courage making the best of it in the darkness. When they sawCleave they suspended all other operations long enough to cheer him. Hesmiled, waved his hand, spoke a short word to Hairston Breckinridge, andhurried on. He passed the 2d Virginia, mourning its colonel--ColonelAllen--fallen in the front of the charge. He passed other bivouacs--menof Rodes's, of Garland's, of Trimble's. "Where is GeneralJackson?"--"Can't tell you, sir--" "Here is General Ewell. "

"Old Dick" squatted by a camp-fire, was broiling a bit of bacon, head onone side, as he looked up with bright round eyes at Cleave, whom heliked. "That you, Richard Cleave? By God, sir, if I were as excellent amajor-general as I am a cook!--Have a bit?--Well, we wolloped them! Theyfought like men, and we fought like men, and by God, I can't get thecannon out of my ears! General Jackson?--I thought he was in front withD. H. Hill. Going to do anything more to-night? It's pretty late, butI'm ready. "

"Nothing--without General Jackson, " said Cleave. "Thank you, general--ifI might have a mouthful of coffee? I haven't the least idea when I haveeaten. "

Ewell handed him the tin cup. He drank hastily and went on. Now it wasby a field hospital, ghastly sights and ghastly sounds, pine boughs setfor torches. He shut his eyes in a moment's faintness. It looked ademoniac place, a smoke-wreathed platform in some Inferno circle. He meta staff officer coming up from the plain. "General Lee has ridden to theright. He is watching for McClellan's next move. There's a rumour thateverything's in motion toward the James. If it's true, there's a chasebefore us to-morrow, eh?--A. P. Hill suffered dreadfully. 'Prince John'kept McClellan beautifully amused. --General Jackson? On the slope of thehill by the breastworks. "

A red light proclaimed the place as Cleave approached it. It seemed asolitary flame, night around it and a sweep of scarped earth. Cleave, coming into the glow, found only the old negro Jim, squat beside it likea 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' deLawd, de gineral bettah follah dat 'zample! Yaas, sah, --ober dar in debig woods. "

Cleave descended the embankment and entered a heavy wood. A voicespoke--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 McGeheehouse. "

A part of the shadow detached itself and came forward as Jackson. Itstalked past Cleave out of the belt of trees and over the bare red earthto the fire. The other man followed, and in the glare faced the generalagain. The leaping flame showed Jackson's bronzed face, with the browsdrawn down, the eyes looking inward, and the lips closed as though noforce could part them. Cleave knew the look, and inwardly set his ownlips. At last the other spoke. "Well, sir?"

"The enemy is cramped between us and the Chickahominy, sir. Our picketsare almost in touch of theirs. If we are scattered and disorganized, they are more so, --confused--distressed. We are the victors, and thetroops 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 theValley. They need not do it all. "

"They are not so wearied, sir. There is comment, I think, on what theArmy of the Valley has not done in the last two days. We have our chanceto 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'llstrike 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 andlooked across to the other man. The low flame more deeply bronzed hisface. His eyes looked preternaturally sunken. He sat, characteristicallyrigid, a figure in grey stone. There was about him a momentary air of anIndian, he looked so ruthless. If it was not that, thought Cleave, thenit was that he looked fanatic. Whichever it might be, he perceived thathe himself stood in arctic air. He had been liked, he knew; now he sawthe mist of disfavour rise. Jackson's voice came gratingly. "Who sentyou?"

"General Winder and General D. H. Hill. "

"You will tell General Hill that I shall make no further attackto-night. I have other important duties to perform. "

"I know what I risk, " said Cleave, "and I do not risk it lightly. Haveyou thought of how you fell on them at Front Royal and at Winchester?Here, too, they are confused, retreating--a greater force to strike, agreater result to win, a greater service to do for the country, agreater name to make for yourself. To-morrow morning all the world maysay, '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 fighterknows! See, what war does! But I will keep, in part at least, theSabbath. You may go, sir. "

"General Jackson, this is Friday evening. "

"Colonel Cleave, did you hear my order? Go, sir!--and think yourselffortunate that you do not go under arrest. "

"Sir--Sir--"

Jackson rose. "One other word, and I take your sword. It occurs to methat I have indulged you in a freedom that--Go!"

Cleave turned with sharp precision and obeyed. Three paces took him outof the firelight into the overhanging shadow. He made a gesture ofsorrow and anger. "Who says that magic's dead? Now, how long will thatpotion hold him?" He stumbled in the loose, bare earth, swamp and creekbelow 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, alternatelantern-slides of glare and darkness, to the eastern face of theplateau. 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! Maybethey'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? Thegeneral?--Edward?"

"I think so. I saw Warwick for a moment. A minie had hurt his hand--notserious, 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, itseems not a large thing to-night. "

Beyond the main battlefield where A. P. Hill's and Longstreet'sshattered brigades lay on their arms, beyond the small farmhouse whereLee waked and watched, beyond the Chickahominy and its swamps, beyondforest and farm land, lay Richmond under the stars. Eastwardly, withinand without its girdling earthworks, that brilliant and histrionicgeneral, John Bankhead Magruder, El Capitan Colorado, with a lispingtongue, a blade like Bayard's, and a talent for drama and strategy, keptGeneral McClellan under the impression, confirmed by the whole Pinkertonforce, that "at least eighty thousand men" had remained to guardRichmond, when Lee with "at least eighty thousand men" had crossed theChickahominy. Richmond knew better, but Richmond was stoically calm asto the possibility of a storming. What it had been hard to be calm overwas 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 irongrip. All the loved ones there--all the loved ones there!--and heavierand heavier toward night grew the fearful sound. . . . Then began thecoming of the wounded. In the long dusk of the summer evening, thecannonading ceased. A little after nine arrived couriers, announcing thevictory. The church bells of Richmond, not yet melted into cannon, beganto ring. "It was a victory--it was a victory, " said the people to oneanother. . . . But the wounded continued to come in, ambulance, cart, andwagon rolling like tumbrels over the stones. To many a mother wasbrought tidings of the death of her son, and many a wife must say, "I amwidowed, " and many children cried that night for their father. The heatwas frightful. The city tossed and moaned, without sleep, or nursed, orwatched, or wandered fevered through the streets. The noise of the Jamesaround its rocky islands was like the groaning of the distantbattlefield. The odour of the June flowers made the city like a chamberof 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 mightbe here. "--"He might be at this one. " Sometimes, before such or such ahouse, cart or carriage or wagon stopped. "Oh, God! wounded or--?" Allnight long fared the processions from the field of Gaines's Mill to thehospitals. Toward dawn it began to be "No room. Try Robinson's--try theDe Sales. "--"Impossible here! We can hardly step between the rows. Thebeds 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 privatehouse. 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 resolutelyclosed her eyes. She must sleep, she knew, --must gather strength for theafternoon and night. The house was quiet. Last night the eldest son hadbeen 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 thehospitals, delirious, unable to tell where he belonged, calling uponher, and no one understanding. She was gone, in the feverish heat, uponher search. There came no sounds from below. After the thunder which hadbeen in the ear, after the sounds of the hospital, all the world seemedas silent as a cavern or as the depth of the sea. Judith closed hereyes, determinedly stilled her heart, drew regular breath, put herselfout of Richmond back in a certain cool and green forest recess which sheloved, 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 AuntLucy. The two said they were tired and would rest, and entered thegraveyard 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 weretaught at Greenwood that there was nothing mournful there. Shells layabout them, beneath the earth, but the beneficent activities hadescaped, and were active still, beneficent still. . . . The word "shells"in the dream turned the page. She was upon a great sea beach and quitealone. She sat and looked at the waves coming rolling in, and presentlyone 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 theocean, into the ocean, " he said. "All of us. A going forth and areturning. " She felt herself, in the dream, in his arms, and found itsweet. The waves were beneath them; they lay now on the crests, now inthe hollows, and there seemed no port. This endured a long while, untilshe thought she heard the sea-fairies singing. Then there came a boomingsound, and she thought, "This is the port, or perhaps it is an islandthat we are passing. " She asked Richard which it was, but he did notanswer, and she turned upon the wave and found that he was not there. . . . It was seaweed about her arms. The booming grew louder, rattled thewindow-glass. She opened her eyes, pushed her dark loosened hair fromher arms and bosom, and sat up. "The cannon again!"

She looked at her watch. It was two o'clock. Rising, she put on herdark, thin muslin, and took her shady hat. The room seemed to throb tothe booming guns. All the birds had flown from the tulip tree outside. She went downstairs and tapped at her cousin's door. "How ishe?"--"Conscious now, thank God, my dear! The doctor says he will bespared. How the house shakes! And Walter and Ronald out there. You aregoing 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! Youmust 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 wherethe 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, wasstilled at last, --at nine, as had happened the night before. The mazedcity shook the mist from before its eyes, and settled to the hot night'swork, with the wagons, bringing the dead and the wounded, dull on thecobblestones to the ear, but loud, loud to the heart. All that night theStonewall Hospital was a grisly place. By the next morning everyhospital in town was choked with the wounded, and few houses but hadtheir quota. The surgeons looked like wraiths, the nursing women haddark rings beneath their eyes, set burningly in pale faces, the negroeswho 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 theburden, so inadequate the small, beleaguered city's provision for theweight of helpless anguish, that at first there was a moment ofparalysis. As easy to strive with the tornado as with this wind of painand death! Then the people rallied and somewhat outstripped a people'sbest. 

From the troops immediately about the city came the funeral escorts. Allday the Dead March from "Saul" wailed through the streets, out toHollywood. The churches stayed open; old and young, every man in thecity, white or black, did his part, and so did all the women. The needwas so great that the very young girls, heretofore spared, found placenow in hospital or house, beside the beds, the pallets, the mereblanket, or no blanket, on the floor. They could keep away thetormenting flies, drawn by the heat, the glare, the blood and effluvia, could give the parched lips water, could watch by the less terrificallyhurt. All the city laboured; putting aside the personal anguish, theprivate loss known, suspected, or but fearfully dreaded. Glad of thevictory but with only calamity beneath its eyes, the city wrestled withcrowding 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 toit. Hold this bandage so, until the doctor comes. If it growsblood-soaked--like this one--call some one at once. Christianna, you arestrong. --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 cannotlift themselves, help them--so!"

Christianna took the wooden bucket and the tin dipper. For all shelooked like a wild rose she was strong, and she had a certain mountainskill 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 lightpossible must be had. Some lay outstretched and rigid, some muchcontorted. Some were delirious, others writhed and groaned, some weremost pathetically silent and patient. Nearly all were thirsty; clutchedthe dipper with burning fingers, drank, with their hollow eyes now onthe 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 thelips 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 lightlybetween the huddled, painful rows, among the hurrying forms of nursesand surgeons and coloured helpers. 

At the very end of the long lane, she came upon a blanket spread on theblood-stained floor. On it lay a man, blond and straight, closed eyeswith a line between them, hand across his breast touching his shirtwhere it was stiff with dried blood. "Air you thirsty?" beganChristianna, then set the bucket suddenly down. 

Allan opened his eyes. "Very thirsty. . . . I reckon I am light-headed. I'mnot on Thunder Run, am I?"

The frightful day wore on to late afternoon. No guns shook the air inthese hours. Richmond understood that, out beyond the entrenchments, there was a pause in the storm. McClellan was leaving his own wonderfulearthworks. But would he retreat down the Peninsula by the way he hadcome, or would he strike across and down the James to his gunboats byWestover? The city gathered that General Lee was waiting to find out. Inthe meantime the day that was set to the Dead March in "Saul" passedsomehow, in the June heat and the odour of flowers and blood. 

Toward five o'clock Judith left the Stonewall Hospital. She had notquitted it for twenty-four hours, and she came now into the light andair like a form emerging from Hades, very palely smiling, with the greyof the underworld, its breath and its terror still about her. There washardly yet a consciousness of fatigue. Twelve hours before she hadthought, "If I do not rest a little, I shall fall. " But she had not beenable to rest, and the feeling had died. For the last twelve she hadmoved like an automaton, swift, sure, without a thought of herself. Itwas as though her will stood somewhere far above and swayed her bodylike a wand. Even now she was going home, because the will said shemust; must rest two hours, and come back fresher for the night. 

As she came out into the golden light, Cleave left the group of youngand old about the door and met her. In the plane along which life nowmoved, nothing was unnatural; certainly Richmond did not find it so, that a lover and his beloved should thus encounter in the street, amoment between battles. Her dark eyes and his grey ones met. To find himthere seemed as natural as it had been in her dream; the street was nomore to her than the lonely beach. They crossed it, went up toward theCapitol Square, and, entering, found a green dip of earth with a benchbeneath a linden tree. Behind them rose the terraced slope to thepillared Capitol; as always, in this square children's voices were heardwith their answering nurses, and the squirrels ran along the grass orupon the boughs above. But the voices were somewhat distant and thesquirrels did not disturb; it was a leafy, quiet nook. The few men orwomen who passed, pale, distrait, hurrying from one quarter of the cityto another, heeded as little as they were heeded. Lovers'meetings--lovers' partings--soldiers--women who loved them--faces paleand grave, yet raised, hands in hands, low voices in leafy places--manand woman together in the golden light, in the breathing space beforethe cannon should begin again--Richmond was growing used to that. Alllife was now in public. For the most part a clear altruism swayed theplace and time, and in the glow smallness of comment or of thought wasdrowned. Certainly, it mattered not to Cleave and Judith that it was theCapitol Square, and that people went up and down. 

"I have but the shortest while, " he said. "I came this morning withAllen's body--the colonel of the 2d. I ride back directly. I hope thatwe 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 havelived else. "

"Many have fallen; many are hurt. I found Allan Gold in the hospital. Hewill not die, however. . . . Judith, how often do I see your face besidethe flag!"

"When I was asleep I dreamed of you. We were drifting together, far outat 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, understandingperfectly, but weary from battling, and with great issues towering tothe inner vision. They would have been less nobly minded had their ownpassion inexorably claimed them. All about them were suffering and deathand the peril of their cause. For one half-hour they drew happiness fromthe darkly gigantic background, but it was a quiet and lofty form, though sweet, sweet! with whom they companioned. When the time waspassed the two rose, and Cleave held her in his arms. "Love--Love--"

When he was gone she waited awhile beneath the trees, then slowlycrossed the Capitol Square and moved toward the small room behind thetulip tree. The streets were flooded with a sunset glow. Into Franklinfrom Main came marching feet, then, dull, dull! the muffled drums. Soldiers and furled colours and the coffin, atop it the dead man's capand gauntlets and sword; behind, pacing slowly, his war horse, stirrupscrossed over saddle. Soldiers, soldiers, and the drums beating likebreaking hearts. She moved back to a doorstep and let the Dead Marchfrom "Saul" go by. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE RAILROAD GUN

The troops, moving at dawn to the Chickahominy, over a road and throughwoods which testified in many ways of the blue retreat, found theGrapevine Bridge a wreck, the sleepers hacked apart, framework andmiddle structure cast into the water. Fitz John Porter and the 5th ArmyCorps were across, somewhere between the river and Savage Station, leaving only, in the thick wood above the stream, a party ofsharpshooters and a battery. When the grey pioneers advanced to theirwork, these opened fire. The bridge must be rebuilt, and the grey workedon, but with delays and difficulties. D. H. Hill, leading Jackson'sadvance, brought up two batteries and shelled the opposite side. Theblue guns and riflemen moved to another position and continued, at shortintervals, to fire on the pioneers. It was Sunday the twenty-ninth;fearfully hot by the McGehee house, and on Turkey Hill, and in the densemidsummer woods, and in the mosquito-breeding bogs and swamps throughwhich meandered the Chickahominy. The river spread out as many arms asBriareus; short, stubby creeks, slow waters prone to overflow and creep, between high knotted roots of live-oak and cypress, into thickets of bogmyrtle. The soil hereabouts was black and wet, further back light andsandy. The Valley troops drew the most uncomplimentary comparisons. To aman they preferred mountains, firm rolling champaign, clean rivers withrocky bottoms, sound roads, and a different vegetation. They were not ina good humour, anyhow. 

Ewell was at Dispatch Station, seven miles below, guarding Bottom'sBridge and tearing up the York River Railroad. Stuart was before him, sweeping down on the White House, burning McClellan's stations andstores, making that line of retreat difficult enough for an encumberedarmy. But McClellan had definitely abandoned any idea of return uponYorktown. The head of his column was set for the James, for Harrison'sLanding and the gunboats. There were twenty-five difficult miles to go. He had something like a hundred thousand men. He had five thousandwagons, heavy artillery trains, enormous stores, a rabble of campfollowers, a vast, melancholy freight of sick and wounded. He left hiscamps and burned his depots, and plunged into the heavy, still, andtorrid forest. This Sunday morning, the twenty-ninth, the entrenchmentsbefore Richmond, skilful, elaborate pieces of engineering, were found byMagruder's and Huger's scouts deserted by all but the dead and a fewscore of sick and wounded, too far gone to be moved. Later, columns ofsmoke, rising from various quarters of the forest, betrayed otherburning camps or depots. This was followed by tidings which served tomake his destination certain. He was striking down toward White OakSwamp. There the defeated right, coming from the Chickahominy, wouldjoin him, and the entire great force move toward the James. Lee issuedhis 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, andtook the Darbytown road. A courier, dispatched to Ewell, ordered him torejoin Jackson. The latter was directed to cross the Chickahominy withall his force by the Grapevine Bridge, and to pursue with eagerness. Hehad the directest, shortest road; immediately before him the corps whichhad been defeated at Gaines's Mill. With D. H. Hill, with Whiting andLawton, he had now fourteen brigades--say twenty thousand men. 

The hours passed in languid sunshine on the north bank of theChickahominy. The troops were under arms, but the bridge was notfinished. The smoke and sound of the rival batteries, the crack of thehidden rifles on the southern side, concerned only those immediately atissue and the doggedly working pioneers. Mere casual cannonading, amusement of sharpshooters, no longer possessed the slightest tang ofnovelty. Where the operation was petty, and a man in no extreme personaldanger, he could not be expected to be much interested. The troopsyawned; some of the men slept; others fretted. "Why can't we swim thedamned old trough? They'll get away! Thank the Lord, I wasn't born inTidewater Virginia! Oh, I'd like to see the Shenandoah!"

The 65th Virginia occupied a rise of sandy ground covered with hazelbushes. Company A had the brink of it, looking out toward the enormouslytall trees towering erect from the river's margin of swamp. The hazelbushes gave little shade and kept off the air, the blue above wasintense, the buzzards sailing. Muskets were stacked, the men sprawlingat ease. A private, who at home was a Sunday School superintendent, readhis Bible; another, a lawyer, tickled a hop toad with a spear of grass;another, a blacksmith, rebound the injured ankle of a schoolboy. Someslept, 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 shortenough! And Garland rode along it, and he said, said he, 'Boys, you arenot many, but you are a noble few. '" Some listened to the booming of thesparring batteries; two or three who had lost close friends or kinsmenmoped 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 farewhen dinner was called; a collection of tobacco had been taken andquietly pushed their way. Some examined knapsack and haversacks, goodoilcloths, belts, rolled blankets, canteens, cartridge-boxes andcartridges, picked up upon the road. Others seriously did incline tosearch for certain intruders along the seams of shirt and trousers;others merely lay on their backs and looked up into Heaven. Billy Maydewwas 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! pictersand pincushions and Testaments with United States flags in them--I neverdid have any luck, anyhow!--in this here war nor on Thunder Runneither!"

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 theGrapevine crossing. "If anybody finds any letter-paper and doesn't wantit--"

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 outloud! Wait, I'll show you how. _Darling Chloe_--Don't get angry! He'smost gotten over getting angry and it becomes him beautifully--_DarlingChloe_--What're _you_ coming into it for, Billy Maydew? 'Don't teasehim!'--My son, he loves to be teased. All lovers love to be teased. _Darling Chloe. _ It is Sunday morning. The swans are warbling your nameand so are half a dozen pesky Yankee Parrotts. The gentle zephyrs speakof thee, and so does the hot simoom that blows from Chickahominy, bringing an inordinate number of mosquitoes. I behold thy sinuous gracein the curls of smoke from Reilly's battery, and also in the slide andswoop 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 calla hill, and why in hell we don't swim the river is more than at themoment I can tell you. It's rumoured that Old Jack's attending church inthe neighbourhood, but we are left outside to praise God from whom allblessings flow. Darling Chloe, this company is not so unpopular with meas once it was. War is teaching it a damned lot, good temper and prettyways and what not--It is teaching it! Who says it is not?--DarlingChloe, if you could see how long and lean and brown we are and howragged 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'snot--Darling Chloe, if I could rise like one of those damned crows downthere and sail over these damned flats and drop at your feet in God'scountry beyond the mountains, you wouldn't walk to church to-day withme. You'd turn up your pretty little nose, and accept the arm of somedamned bombproof--Look out! What's the matter here? 'The last straw!shan't slander her!'--I'm not slandering her. I don't believe eithershe'd do it. Needn't all of you look so glum! I'll take it back. Weknow, God bless every last woman of them, that they don't do it! Theyhaven't got any more use for a bombproof than we have!--I can't retracthandsomer than that!--Darling Chloe, the Company's grown amiable, but itdon't think much so far of its part in this campaign. Heretofore intableaux and amateur theatricals it has had a star role, and in thisdamned Richmond play it's nothing but a walking shadow! Darling Chloe, we want somebody to whoop things up. We demand the centre of thestage--"

It was so hot on the little sandy hill that there was much stragglingdown through the woods to some one of the mesh of water-courses. The mennearest Steve were all turned toward the discourser to Chloe, who sat ona lift of sand, cross-legged like an Eastern scribe. Mathew Coffin, nearhim, looked half pleased, half sulky at the teasing. Since Port Republiche was a better-liked non-commissioned officer. Billy Maydew, again flaton his back, stared at the blue sky. Steve stole a tin cup and slippedquietly off through the hazel bushes. 

He found a muddy runlet straying off from the river and quenched histhirst, then, turning, surveyed through the trees the hump of earth hehad left and the company upon it. Beyond it were other companies, theregiment, the brigade. Out there it was hot and glaring, in here therewas 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 ofthis country and afraid now of his colonel; he merely lingered androamed about a little, beneath the immensely tall trees and in the thickundergrowth. In doing this he presently came, over quaking soil andbetween the knees of cypresses, flush with the Chickahominy itself. Hesat down, took his own knees in his arms and looked at it. It was not sowide, but it looked stiller than the sky, and bottomless. The banks wereso low that the least rain lifted it over. It strayed now, here andthere, between tree roots. There was no such word as "sinister" inSteve's vocabulary. He only said, "Gawd! I wouldn't live here forchoice!" The country across the stream engaged his attention. Seen fromthis bank it appeared all forest clad, but where his own existence frommoment to moment was in question Steve could read the signboards as wellas another. Certain distant, southward moving, yellowish streaks hepronounced dust clouds. There were roads beneath, and moving troops andwagon trains. He counted four columns of smoke of varying thickness. Theheavier meant a cluster of buildings, holding stores probably, thethinner some farmhouse or barn or mill. From other signs he divined thatthere were clearings over there, and that the blue troops were burninghayricks and fences as well as buildings. Sound, too--it seemed deathlystill here on the brim of this dead water, and yet there was sound--thebatteries, of course, down the stream where they built the bridge, butalso a dull, low, dreary murmur from across, --from the thick forest andthe lost roads, and the swamps through which guns were dragged; from theclearings, the corn and wheat fields, the burning depots and encampmentsand houses of the people--the sound of a hostile army rising from thecountry where two months before it had settled. All was blended; therecame simply a whirring murmur out of the forest beyond the Chickahominy. 

Steve rose, yawned, and began again to prowl. Every rood of this regionhad been in possession of that humming army over there. All manner ofdesirable 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 mustbe turned in to the field ordnance officer. The South gleaned herbattlefields of every ounce of lead or iron, every weapon or part of aweapon, every manufactured article of war. This done, the men mightappropriate or themselves distribute apparel, food, or other matters. Steve, wandering now, his eyes on earth, saw nothing. The black wetsoil, the gnarled roots, the gloomy meanders of the stream, lookedterribly lonely. "Gawd! even the water-rats don't come here!" thoughtSteve, and on his way back to the hill entered a thicket of low busheswith shiny green leaves. Here he all but stumbled over a dead soldier ina blue uniform. He lay on his face, arms out, hands clutching at somereed-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 deadmen, but there were several things about this one that he wanted. He sawthat the shoes wouldn't fit, and so he left them alone. His own riflewas back there, stacked with the others on the hot hillside, and he hadno intention of bothering with this one. If the ordnance officer wantedit, let him come himself and get it! He exchanged cartridge-boxes, andtook 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 creepyloneliness. Taking the haversack, he left the thicket and went back tothe brink of Chickahominy. Here he sat down between the cypress kneesand drew out of the haversack the prize of prizes. It fixed a grin uponhis lean, narrow face, the sight and smell of it, the black, squatbottle. He held it up to the light; it was three quarters full. The corkcame out easily; he put it to his lips and drank. "Gawd! it ain't sodamned lonely, after all!"

The sun climbed to the meridian. The pioneers wrought as best they mighton the Grapevine Bridge. The blue battery and the blue sharpshooterspersisted in their hindering, and the grey battery continued tointerfere with the blue. In the woods and over the low hills back of theChickahominy the grey brigades of Stonewall Jackson rested, impatientlywondering, staring at the river, staring at the smoke of conflagrationson the other side and the dust streaks moving southward. Down on theswampy bank, squat between the cypress knees, Steve drank again, andthen again, --in fact, emptied the squat, black bottle. The stuff filledhim with a tremendous courage, and conferred upon him great fluency ofthought. He waxed eloquent to the cypress roots upon the conduct of thewar. "Gawd! if they'd listen ter me I'd te--tell them how!--I'dbui--build a bridge for the whole rotten army to cross on! Ef it brokeI'd bui--build another. Yah! They don't 'pre--'preciate a man when theysee him. Gawd! they're damn slow, and ain't a man over here got anythingto drink! It's all over there. " He wept a little. "O Gawd, make themhurry up, so's I kin git across. " He put the bottle to his lips andjerked his head far back, but there was not a drop left to trickleforth. He flung it savagely far out into the water. "Ef I thought therewas another like you over there--" His courage continued to mount as hewent further from himself. He stood up and felt a giant; stretched outhis arm and admired the muscle, kicked a clod of black earth into thestream and rejoiced in the swing of his leg. Then he smiled, asatyr-like grin wrinkling the cheek to the ear; then he took off hisgrey jacket, letting it drop upon the cypress roots; then he waded intothe Chickahominy and began to swim to the further shore. The stream wasdeep but not swift; he was lank and lean but strong, and there was onthe other side a pied piper piping of bestial sweetnesses. Several timesarms and legs refused to cooperate and there was some likelihood of adeath by drowning, but each time instinct asserted herself, rightedmatters, and on he went. She pulled him out at last, on the southernbank, and he lay gasping among the tree roots, somewhat sobered by thedrenching, but still on the whole a courageous giant. He triumphed. "Yah! I got across! Goo'--goo-'bye, ye darned fools squattin' on thehillside!"

He left the Chickahominy and moved through the woods. He went quite atrandom and with a peculiar gait, his eyes on the ground, looking foranother haversack. But just hereabouts there showed nothing of the kind;it was a solemn wood of pines and cedars, not overtrampled as yet bywar. Steve shivered, found a small opening where the sun streamed in, planted himself in the middle of the warmth, and presently toppled overon the pine needles and went to sleep. He slept an hour or more, when hewas 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 andthe 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 Istraggle is a liar--exceptin' the colonel, and he's mistaken. I'm one ofStonewall's men. "

"Thtonewall! Ith Jackthon acwoss?"

"They're building a bridge. I don't know if they air across yet. Iswum. "

"What did you thwim for? Where'th your jacket? What's yourwegiment?--'65th Virginia?'--Well, 65th Virginia, you appear to me adetherter--"

Steve began to whine. "Gawd, general, I ain't no deserter. If you'lljest have patience and listen, I kin explain--"

"Time'th lacking, thir. You get up behind one of my couriers, and ifJackthon'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 anyother water-spaniel? He's wet and dhirty, sor. "

"All wight, all wight, O'Brien. Come on, Gwiffith. Nine-Mile road andThavage Thation!"

The officers rode on. The courier regarded with disfavour the unluckySteve. "Forward march, dhirty, desartin', weak-kneed crayture that yebe! Thrott!"

Beyond the pine wood the two came into an area which had beenovertrampled. Indescribably dreary under the hot sun looked thesmouldering heaps and mounds of foodstuffs, the wrecked wagons, theabandoned picks and spades and shovels, the smashed camp equipage, broken kettles, pots and pans, the blankets, bedding, overcoats, tornand trampled in the mire, or piled together and a dull red fire slowcreeping through the mass. Medicine-chests had been split by a blow ofthe axe, the vials shivered, and a black mire made by the liquids. Ruined weapons glinted in the sun between the furrows of a ruinedcornfield; bags of powder, boxes of cartridges, great chests of shot andshell showed, half submerged in a tortuous creek. At the edge of thefield, there was a cannon spiked and overturned. Here, too, were deadhorses, and here, too, were the black, ill-omened birds. There was atrench as well, a long trench just filled, with two or three little headboards bearing some legend. "Holy Virgin!" said the courier, "if I was ahorse, 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! Myfoot's awful sore. Gawd don't look my way, if it ain't! I ain'tdesertin'. Who'd I desert to? They've all gone. I wanted a bath an' Iswum the river. The regiment'll be over directly an' I'll rejoin. Takemy oath, I will!"

"You trot along out of this plundering mess, " ordered the courier. "I'mthinking I'll drop you soon, but it won't be just here! Step livelynow!"

The two went on through the blazing afternoon sunshine, and in astraggling wood came upon a deserted field hospital. It was a ghastlyplace. The courier whistled reflectively, while the imaginative Stevefelt a sudden sinking at the pit of the stomach, together with a colddizziness and perspiration on the backs of his hands. The mind of thecourier, striking out vigorously for some kind of a stimulant, laid holdof anger as the nearest efficient. "Bedad, " he cried, "ye desartin', dhirty hound! it's right here I'll be afther lavin' ye, with the nakeddead and the piles of arms and legs! Let go of my bridle or I'll strikeyou 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 regardto an in truth not mythical sore foot. He ran after the disappearingcourier, and when presently he reached a vast patch of whitenedraspberry bushes giving on a not wide and very dusty road and haltedpanting, it was settled forever that he couldn't go back to theplundering possibilities or to his original station by the Chickahominy, since to do so would be to pass again the abandoned field hospital. Hekept his face turned from the river and somewhat to the east, andstraggled on. A signpost told him that the dusty ribbon was theNine-Mile road. Presently, among the berry bushes, he came upon a greyartilleryman sitting winding a strip of cloth around a wound in his leg. The artilleryman gave him further information. "Magruder's moving thisway. I was ahead with my battery, --Griffith's brigade, --and somestinking sharpshooters sitting with the buzzards in the trees let fly atus! Result, I've got to hobble in at the end of the parade!--What's thematter with you?"

"Captain, " said Steve, "asked for a volunteer to swim the river (we'reon 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'llbe over after awhile I reckon. "

The two sat down among the berry bushes. The road was visible, and uponit a great approaching pillar of dust. "Head of our column, " said theartilleryman. "Four roads and four pursuing forces, and if we can onlyall 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 theChickahominy we might do for Fitz John Porter--eh?"

"We might, " agreed Steve. "I'll lie a little flatter, because the sunand the wetting has made my head ache. They're fine troops. "

The grey regiments went by, long swinging tread and jinglingaccoutrements. A major-general, riding at the head of the column, hadthe air of a Roman consul, round, strong, bullet head, which he hadbared to the breeze that was springing up, close-cropped black hair, short black beard, high nose, bold eyes, a red in his cheeks. "That'sGeneral Lafayette McLaws, " volunteered the artilleryman. "That's GeneralKershaw with him. It's Kershaw's brigade. See the palmetto on theflags. "

Kershaw's went by. Behind came another high and thick dust cloud. "Cobband Toombs and Barksdale and Kemper and Semmes, " said the artilleryman. "Suppose we canter on? I'll break a staff from those little heaven treesthere. We might get to see the show, after all. York River Railroad'sjust over there. "

They went on, first to the ailanthus bushes, then, leaving the road tothe troops, they struck across a ruined cornfield. Stalk and blade andtassel, and the intertwining small, pale-blue morning-glory, all weredown. Gun-wheels, horses' hoofs, feet of men had made of naught thesower's pains. The rail fence all around was burning. In a furrow thetwo found a knapsack, and in it biscuit and jerked beef. "My Aunt Eliza!I was hungry!" said the artilleryman. "Know how the Israelites felt whenthey gathered manna off the ground!" Out of the cornfield they passedinto a shaggy finger of forest. Suddenly firing broke out ahead. Stevestarted like a squirrel. "That's close to us!"

"There's the railroad!" said the other. "There's Fair Oaks Station. Theyhad entrenchments there, but the scouts say they evacuated them thismorning. If they make a stand, reckon it'll be at Savage Station. Thatmusketry popping's down the line! Come on! I can go pretty fast!"

He plied his staff. They came into another ragged field, narrow andsloping to a stretch of railroad track and the smoking ruins of a woodenstation. Around were numerous earthworks, all abandoned. Beyond thestation, on either side the road, grey troops were massing. The firingahead 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 theretreating army a very considerable barricade. Broken wagons, felledtrees, logs and a great mass of earth spanned it like a landslide. Overand about it worked a grey company detailed to clear the way. From theedge 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 getby--"

 "A railroad gun on a flat car placed--"

The artilleryman began to crow. "It's Lieutenant Barry and the railroadgun! Siege piece run on a car. Iron penthouse over it, muzzle stickingout--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'tstay here burning diamonds like this all day!"

"Come on!" said the artilleryman. "I can sit down and dig. We've got toclear that thing away in a hurry. " A shell from a hidden blue batteryburst over the working party. Steve held back. "Gawd, man, we can't dono good! We're both lame men. If we got back a little into the wood wecould see fine. That's better than fighting--when you're all used uplike us--"

The artilleryman regarded him. "No, it isn't better than fighting. I'vebeen suspicioning you for some time, and I've stopped liking the companyI'm in. All the same, I'm not going to drop it. Now you trot along infront. Being artillery I haven't a gun any more than you have, but I'vea 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 whomhe had sent to the Grapevine Bridge three miles away. The shell whichhad burst over the party clearing the railroad track was but the firstof many. Concealed by the heavy woods, the guns of the Federal rearguardopened on the grey brigades. Kershaw and Griffith, to the right of theroad, suffered most. Stephen D. Lee sent forward Carlton's battery, andKemper's guns came to its aid. They took position in front of the centreand began to answer the blue guns. A courier arrived from theskirmishers thrown out toward the dense wood. "Enemy in force andadvancing, sir. Sumner and Franklin's corps, say the scouts. "

"All wight!" said Magruder. "Now if Jackthon's over, we'll cwush themlike a filbert. "

The staff officer returned. "Well, thir, well, thir? Ith GeneralJackthon acroth? Will he take them in the rear while I thrikehere?--Bryan, you look intolerably thober! What ith it?"

"The bridge will not be finished for two hours, sir. Two or threeinfantry companies have crossed by hook or crook, but I should say itwould 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 dutiesto perform'"--

There was a dead silence. Then McLaws spoke with Roman directness. "Inmy opinion there are two Jacksons. The one that came down here left theother one in the Valley. "

A great shell came with a shriek and exploded, a fragment mortallywounding General Griffith at the head of the Mississippi brigade. TheMississippians uttered a loud cry of anger. Carleton's battery thundereddefiantly. Magruder drew a long breath. "Well, gentlemen; philothophy tothe 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, theworking party cleared away the last layer of earth and log and stoodback 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 therewas hold for foot or hand. There was a momentary pause, filled with aninterchange of affectionate oaths and criticism. The lame artillerymanlaid hold of the flat car. "Take me along, won't you, and shuck me at mybattery! 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. Hevolunteered to swim the Chickahominy, and now he wants to get back so'she can report to Stonewall Jackson. Sh! don't deny it now. You're toomodest. 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 lightand 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 greypressed them back. A deep cut appeared, over which ran a railroadbridge; then woods, fields, a second ruined railroad station, besidewhich were burning cars filled with quartermaster's stores; beyond thesea farmhouse, a peach orchard, and a field crossed by long rows ofhospital tents. Before the farmhouse appeared a strong Federal line ofbattle, and from every little eminence the blue cannon blazed. Kershawcharged furiously; the two lines clashed and clanged. Semmes' brigadecame into action on the right, Kemper's battery supporting. Griffith's, now Barksdale's--joined battle with a yell, the Mississippians bent onavenging Griffith. The air filled with smoke, the roar of guns and therattle of musketry. There occurred, in the late afternoon, a bloodyfight between forces not large, and fairly matched. 

The engine pushing the railroad gun alternately puffed and shriekedthrough dark woodland and sunset-flooded clearing. A courier appeared, signalling with his hat. "General Magruder's there by the bridge overthe cut! Says, 'Come on!' Says, 'Cross the bridge and get into batteryin the field beyond, ' Says, 'Hurry up!'"

The siege-piece and the engine hurried. With a wild rattle and roar, thecrew all yelling, black smoke everywhere, and the whistle screaming likea new kind of shell, the whole came out of the wood upon the railroadbridge. Instantly there burst from the blue batteries a tremendous, raking fire. Shot and shell struck the engine, the iron penthouse roofover the siege-piece, the flat car, the bridge itself. From the car andthe bridge slivers were torn and hurled through the air. A man waskilled, two others wounded, but engine and gun roared across. Theypassed Magruder standing on the bank. "Here we are, general, here weare! Yaaih! Yaaaih!"

"Th' you are. Don't thop here! Move down the track a little. OtherRichmond 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, driversshouting, came all in thunder on the bridge and across. The blue shellsflew like harpies, screaming, swooping, scattering ruin. A red gleamfrom the declining sun bathed the wild train. In a roar of sound thewhole 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 andKemper, advancing under an iron hail by deserted camp and earthwork, ordered the 2d, 3d and 7th South Carolina to charge. They did so, with ahigh, ringing cry, through the sunset wood into the fields, by the farmand 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 theloss was heavy; the action remained indecisive. The grey rested on thefield; the blue presently took up again their line of retreat towardWhite Oak Swamp. They left in the hands of the grey their dead, severalhundred prisoners, and twenty-five hundred men in hospital. In the hotand sultry night, dark, with presage of a storm, through a ruinedcountry, by the light of their own burning stores, the blue columnwound slowly on by the single road toward White Oak Swamp and its singlebridge. The grey brigades lit their small camp-fires, gathered up thewounded, grey and blue, dug trenches for the dead, found food where theymight and went hungry where there was none, answered to roll call andlistened to the silence after many names, then lay down in field andwood beneath the gathering clouds. 

Some time between sunset and the first star Steve Dagg found himself, hehardly knew how, crouching in a line of pawpaw bushes bordering ashallow ravine. The clay upon his shirt and trousers made it seemprobable that he had rolled down the embankment from the railroad gun tothe level below. That he was out of breath, panting in hard painfulgasps, might indicate that he had run like a hare across the field. Hecould not remember; anyhow here he was, a little out of hell, justfringing it as it were. Lying close to earth, between the smooth pawpawstems, the large leaves making a night-time for him, Steve felt deadlysick. "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 thebottom of the ravine, and exploded. The earth came pattering upon thepawpaw leaves. Steve curled up like a hedgehog. "O Gawd! I ain't got afriend in the world. Why didn't I stay on Thunder Run and marry LucindaHeard?"

At dark the guns ceased. In the silence his nausea lessened and thechill sweat dried upon him. He lay quiet for awhile, and then he partedthe pawpaw bushes and crept out. He looked over his shoulder at thefield of battle. "I ain't going that-a-way and meet that gunneragain--damn him to everlasting hell!" He looked across the ravine towardthe west, but a vision came to him of the hospital in the wood, and ofhow the naked dead men and the severed legs and arms might stir atnight. He shivered and grew sick again. Southward? There was a glareupon all that horizon and a sound of distant explosions. The Yankeeswere sweeping through the woods that way, and they might kill him onsight without waiting for him to explain. A grey army was also overthere, --Lee and Longstreet and A. P. Hill. He was as afraid of the greyas 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 massesof clouds rising swiftly from the horizon and blotting out the stars. They hung low, they pressed heavily, beneath them a sulphur-tainted andbreathless air. Lightnings began to flash, thunder to mutter. "Yah!"whimpered Steve. "I'm going to get wet again! It's true. Everything'sagin me. "

He came again upon the swampy margin of the Chickahominy. It was wide, threaded by motionless waters, barred and banded with low-growing swampshrubs, set with enormously tall and solemn trees. Steve, creepingbetween protruding roots, heard a screech owl in the distance. It criedand cried, but then the thunder rolled more loudly and drowned itshooting. He came flush with the dark stretch of the river. "Gawd, do Iwant to get across, or do I want to stay here? I wish I was dead--no, Idon't!" He faced the lightning. "Gawd, that was jes' a mistake--don'ttake 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 theowl's he drew back and squeezed himself, trembling, between the roots ofa live-oak. He concluded that he would stay here until the dawn. 

The storm drew nearer, with long lightnings and thunder that crashed androlled through the swamp. A vivid flash, holding a second or more, showed the stretch of the river, and several hundred yards above Steve'snook a part of a high railroad bridge. The gaunt trestle ran out pastmidstream, then stopped, all the portion toward the northern shoreburned away. It stood against the intensely lit sky and stream like theskeleton of some antediluvian monster, then vanished into Stygiandarkness. The thunder crashed at once, an ear-splitting clap followed bylong reverberations. As these died, in the span of silence before shouldcome the next flash and crash, Steve became conscious of another sound, dull and distant at first, then nearer and rushingly loud. "Train on thetrack down there! What in hell--It can't cross!" He stood up, held by asapling, and craned his neck to look up the river. A great flash showedthe bridge again. "Must be Yankees still about here--last of therearguard we've been fighting. What they doing with the train? They musthave burned the bridge themselves! Gawd!"

A wildly vivid orange flash lit water, wood and sky, and the gaunt halfof a bridge, stopping dead short in the middle of the Chickahominy. Thethunder crashed and rolled, then out of that sound grew another--thenoise of a rushing train. Something huge and dark roared from the woodedbanks out upon the bridge. It belched black smoke mingled with sparks;behind it were cars, and these were burning. The whole came full uponthe broken bridge. It swayed beneath the weight; but before it couldfall, and before the roaring engine reached the gap, the flames of thekindled cars touched the huge stores of ammunition sent thus todestruction by the retreating column. In the night, over theChickahominy, occurred a rending and awful explosion. . . . Steve, comingto himself, rose to his knees in the black mire. The lightning flashed, and he stared with a contorted face. The bridge, too, was gone. Therewas only the churned water, filled with scantlings and torn branches oftrees. The rain was falling, a great hissing sweep of rain, and the windhowled beneath the thunder. Steve turned blindly; he did not know wherehe was going, but he had a conviction that the river was rising andwould come after him. A hundred yards from the water, in the midnightwood, as he hurried over earth that the rain was fast turning intomorass, 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 ascreech, southwardly now, in the direction of White Oak Swamp. 

CHAPTER XXXV

WHITE OAK SWAMP

The Grapevine Bridge being at last rebuilt, Stonewall Jackson's fourteenbrigades crossed the Chickahominy, the movement occupying a great partof the night. Dawn of the thirtieth found the advance at Savage Station. 

The storm in the night had swelled the myriad creeks, and extended allmorasses. The roads were mud, the wild tangles of underwood held waterlike a sponge. But the dawn was glorious, with carmine and purple towersand the coolest fresh-washed purity of air and light. Major-GeneralRichard Ewell, riding at the head of his division, opined that it was asclear as the plains. A reconnoitring party brought him news aboutsomething or other to the eastward. He jerked his head, sworereflectively, 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. Hefound Jackson and Magruder at the edge of the peach orchard. All aroundwere Magruder's troops, and every man's head was turned toward the starkand dust-hued figure on the dust-hued nag. The first had come from theValley with a towering reputation, nor indeed did the last lack bards tosing of him. Whatever tarn cap the one had worn during the past threedays, however bewildering had been his inaction, his reputation held. This was Jackson. . . . There must have been some good reason . . . This wasStonewall Jackson. Magruder's brigades cheered him vehemently, and helooked at them unsmiling, with a mere motion of his hand toward therusty old cadet cap. Magruder, magnificently soldierly, with much ofmanner and rich colour, magnanimously forgetful this morning of "otherimportant duties" and affably debonair though his eyelids dropped forwant 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 theheavietht weight of hith time. "--Jackson gathered up his reins, noddedand rode off, the troops cheering as he went by. 

Stafford, coming up with him, saluted and gave his message. Jacksonreceived it with impassivity and rode on. Conceiving it to be his dutyto attend an answer, the staff officer accompanied him, though a littlein the rear. Here were an aide and a courier, and the three rodesilently behind their silent chief. At the Williamsburg road there camea halt. Jackson checked Little Sorrel, and sat looking toward Richmond. Down the road, in the sunrise light, came at a canter a knot of horsemenhandsomely mounted and equipped, the one in front tall and riding aniron-grey. Stafford recognized the commander-in-chief. Jackson sat verystill, beneath a honey locust. The night before, in a wood hard by, the17th Mississippi had run into a Federal brigade. The latter had fired, at point blank, a withering volley. Many a tall Mississippian hadfallen. Now in the early light their fellow soldiers had gone seekingthem in the wood, drawn them forth, and laid them in a row in the wetsedge 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 pureconcave of the sky. Two or three soldiers were moving slowly up and downthe line, bent on identifications. Presumably Jackson was aware of thatcompany of the dead, but their presence could not be said to disturbhim. He sat with his large hands folded over the saddle-bow, with theforage cap cutting all but one blue-grey gleam of his eyes, still asstone wall or mountain or the dead across the way. As the horsemen camenearer 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 himselfstiffly out of the saddle and stepped forward. The two met. Leestretched out his hand, said something in his gracious voice. Thepiteous row of dead men, with their open eyes, caught his glance. Hedrew his brows together, pressed his lips hard, parted them in a sighand went on with his speech. The two men, so different in aspect, talkednot long together. The staff could not hear what was said, but Lee spokethe most and very earnestly. Jackson nodded, said, "Good!" severaltimes, and once, "It is in God's hands, General Lee!"

The courier holding Traveller brought him up. Lee mounted, tarried, agreat and gallant figure, a moment longer, then rode toward Magruder atthe peach orchard. His staff followed, saluting Stonewall Jackson asthey passed. He, too, remounted in his stiff and awkward fashion, andturned 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, andin the shaggy, bordering growth, were witnesses enough to the Federalretreat--a confused medley of abandoned objects. Broken and half-burnedwagons appeared, like wreckage from a storm. There did not lack dead ordying horses, nor, here and there, dead or wounded men. In the thickerwoods or wandering through the ruined fields appeared, forlornly, stragglers from the Federal column. D. H. Hill, leading the greyadvance, swept up hundreds of these. From every direction spirals ofsmoke rose into the crystal air, --barns and farmhouses, mills, fences, hayricks, and monster heaps of Federal stores set on fire in thatmemorable "change of base. " For all the sunshine of the June morning, the rain-washed air, the singing birds in the jewelled green of theforest, there was something in the time and place inexpressibly sinisterand sad. 

Or so thought Maury Stafford, riding silently with the aide and thecourier. At Gaines's Mill he had won emphatic praise for a cool anddaring ride across the battlefield, and for the quick rallying andleading into action of a command whose officers were all down. WithEwell at Dispatch Station, he had volunteered for duty at the crossingof the Chickahominy, and in a hand-to-hand fight with a retiring Federalregiment he and his detachment had acquitted themselves supremely well. As far as this warfare went, he had reason to be satisfied. But he wasnot so, and as he rode he thought the morning scene of a twilightdreariness. He had no enthusiasm for war. In every aspect of life, saveone, that he dealt with, he carried a cool and level head, and hethought war barbarous and its waste a great tragedy. Martial music andearth-shaking charges moved him for a moment, as they moved others foran hour or a day. The old, instinctive response passed with swiftness, and he settled to the base of a steadfast conclusion that humanityturned aside to the jungle many times too often in a century. That, individually, he had turned into a certain other allied jungle, he wasconscious--not sardonically conscious, for here all his judgment waswarped, but conscious. His mind ranged in this jungle with an unhappyfury hardly modern. 

As he rode he looked toward Richmond. He knew, though he scarcely knewhow he knew, that Judith Cary was there. He had himself meant to ride toRichmond that idle twenty-eighth. Then had come the necessity ofaccompanying Ewell to Dispatch Station, and his chance was gone. TheStonewall Brigade had been idle enough. . . . Perhaps, the colonel of the65th had gone. . . . It was a thick and bitter jungle, and he gatheredevery 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 theon-coming column; D. H. Hill leading, then Jackson's own division. Thesun was above the treetops, the sky cloudless, all the forestglistening. The minutes passed. Jackson sat like a stone. At last, fromthe heavy wood pierced by the cross-road, came a rapid clatter of hoofs. Munford appeared, behind him fifty of his cavalry. The fifty checkedtheir horses; the leader came on and saluted. Jackson spoke in thepeculiar voice he used when displeased. "Colonel Munford, I ordered youto be here at sunrise. "

Munford explained. "The men were much scattered, sir. They don't knowthe country, and in the storm last night and the thick wood theycouldn't see their horses' ears. They had nothing to eat and--"

He came to a pause. No amount of good reasons ever for long rolledfluently off the tongue before Jackson. He spoke now, still in theconcentrated monotony of his voice of displeasure. "Yes, sir. But, colonel, I ordered you to be here at sunrise. Move on with your men. Ifyou meet the enemy drive in his pickets, and if you want artilleryColonel Crutchfield will furnish you. "

Munford moved on, his body of horse increasing in size as the losttroopers emerged in twos and threes or singly from the forest and turneddown the road to join the command. The proceeding gave an effect ofdisordered ranks. Jackson beckoned the courier. "Go tell Colonel Munfordthat 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'tstraggling. We were all separated in the dark night and--"

"Yes, sir. But I ordered you to be here at sunrise. Move on now, anddrive in the enemy's pickets, and if you want artillery ColonelCrutchfield will furnish you. "

Munford and the 2d Virginia went on, disappearing around a bend in theroad. The sound of the artillery coming up was now loud in the clearair. Jackson listened a moment, then left the shadow of the pine, andwith the two attending officers and the courier resumed the way to WhiteOak Swamp. 

Brigade by brigade, twenty-five thousand men in grey passed SavageStation and followed Stonewall Jackson. The air was fresh, the troops inspirits. Nobody was going to let McClellan get to the James, after all!The brigades broke into song. They laughed, they joked, they cheeredevery popular field officer as he passed, they genially discussed theheretofore difficulties of the campaign and the roseate promise of theday. They knew it was the crucial day; that McClellan must be stoppedbefore sunset or he would reach the shelter of his gunboats. They werein a Fourth of July humour; they meant to make the day remembered. Lifeseemed bright again and much worth while. They even grudgingly agreedthat there was a curious kind of attractiveness about all this flatcountry, and the still waters, and the very tall trees, and labyrinthinevivid 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 tothe Valley. Going back to the Valley? Well, we should think so! Thiscountry's got an eerie kind of good looks, and it raises sweet potatoesall right, but for steady company give us mountains! We'll dropMcClellan in one of these swamps, and we'll have a review at the fairgrounds at Richmond so's all the ladies can see us, and then we'll goback to the Valley pike and Massanutton and Mr. Commissary Banks! Theymust 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, fromwhich the fence had been burned. A little further on they came to aburned smithy; the blacksmith's house beside it also a ruin, black andcharred. 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. Thegirl raised a sweet and vibrant voice: "Send them to hell, men, sendthem 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, brokenby deep creeks and bits of swamp. All about were evidences enough thatan army had travelled before them, and that that army was exceedinglycareless of its belongings. All manner of impediments lay squandered;waste and ruin were everywhere. Sometimes the men caught an odour ofburning meat, of rice and breadstuffs. In a marshy meadow a number ofwrecked, canvas-topped wagons showed like a patch of mushrooms, giantand dingy. In a forest glade rested like a Siegfried smithy an abandonedtravelling forge. Camp-kettles hacked in two were met with, and boxes ofsutlers' wares smashed to fragments. The dead horses were many, andthere was disgust with the buzzards, they rose or settled in suchclouds. The troops, stooping to drink from the creeks, complained thatthe water was foul. 

Very deep woods appeared on the horizon. "Guide says that's White OakSwamp!--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, undependablearm--infantry of the Army of the Valley, anyway! God knows the moss hasbeen growing on us for a week!"

Munford sent back a courier to Jackson, riding well before the head ofthe column. "Bridge is burned, sir. They're in strong force on the otherside--"

"Good!" said Jackson. "Tell Colonel Crutchfield to bring up the guns. "

He rode on, the aide, the courier, and Maury Stafford yet with him. Theypassed a deserted Federal camp and hospital, and came between tall treesand through dense swamp undergrowth to a small stream with many arms. Itlay still beneath the blue sky, overhung by many a graceful, vine-drapedtree. The swamp growth stretched for some distance on either side, andthrough openings in the foliage the blue glint of the arms could beseen. To the right there was some cleared ground. In front the roadstopped short. The one bridge had been burned by the retreating Federalrearguard. Two blue divisions, three batteries--in all over twentythousand men--now waited on the southern bank to dispute the White OakCrossing. 

Stafford again pushed his horse beside Jackson's. "Well, sir?"

"I hunted once through this swamp, general. There is an old crossingnear the bridge--"

"Passable for cavalry, sir?"

"Passable by cavalry and infantry, sir. Even the guns might somehow begotten 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 seehim. "

Crutchfield appeared. "Where are your guns, colonel?"

"General, their batteries on the ridge over there command the road, andthe thick woods below their guns are filled with sharpshooters. I wantto get the guns behind the crest of the hill on this side, and I amopening a road through the wood over there. They'll be updirectly--seven batteries, Carter's, Hardaway's, Nelson's, Rhett's, Reilly's, and Balthis'. We'll open then at a thousand yards, and we'lltake them, I think, by surprise. "

"Very good, colonel. That is all. "

The infantry began to arrive. Brigade by brigade, as it came up, turnedto right or to left, standing under arms in the wood above the White OakSwamp. As the Stonewall Brigade came, under tall trees and over earththat gave beneath the feet, flush with the stream itself, the greyguns, now in place upon the low ridge to the right, opened, thirty-oneof them, with simultaneous thunder. Crutchfield's manoeuvre had notbeen observed. The thirty-one guns blazed without warning, and the blueartillery fell into confusion. The Parrotts blazed in turn, four times, then they limbered up in haste and left the ridge. Crutchfield sentWooding's battery tearing down the slope to the road immediately infront of the burned bridge. Wooding opened fire and drove out theinfantry support from the opposite forest. Jackson, riding toward thestream, encountered Munford. "Colonel, move your men over the creek andtake 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 truthnarrow enough, and though it was deep here, with a shifting bottom, andthough the debris from the ruined bridge made it full of snares, thehorsemen got across and pushed up the shore toward the guns. A thick andleafy wood to the right leaped fire--another and unsuspected body ofblue infantry. The echoes were yet ringing when, from above, an unseenbattery opened on the luckless cavalry. The blue rifles cracked again, the horses began to rear and plunge, several men were hit. There wasnothing to do but to get somehow back to the north bank. Munford and hismen pushed out of the rain of iron, through the wood for some distancedown the stream, and there recrossed, not without difficulty. 

The thirty-one guns shelled the wood which had last spoken, and droveout the skirmishers with whom it was filled. These took refuge inanother deep and leafy belt still commanding the stream and the ruinedcauseway. A party of grey pioneers fell to work to rebuild the bridge. From the crest on the southern side behind the deep foliage two Federalbatteries, before unnoted, opened on the grey cannoneers. Wooding, onthe road before the bridge, had to fall back. Under cover of the gunsthe blue infantry swarmed again into the wood. Shell and bullet hissedand pattered into the water by the abutments of the ruined bridge. Theworking party drew back. "Damnation! They mustn't fling them miniesround 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. Gottwo companies over by the skin of our teeth. They drove in some picketson the other side. Road through the swamp over there covered by felledtrees. Beyond is a small meadow and beyond that rising ground, almostfree of trees. There are Yankee batteries on the crest, and a largeforce of infantry lying along the side of the ridge. They command themeadow and the swamp. "

So tall were the trees, so thick the undergrowth, so full the midsummerfoliage that the guns, thundering at each other across the narrowstream, never saw their antagonists. Sharpshooters and skirmishers wereas hidden. Except as regarded the pioneers striving with the bridge, neither side could see the damage that was done. The noise wastremendous, echoing loudly from the opposing low ridges and rollingthrough the swamp. The hollow filled with smoke; above the treetops adull saffron veil was drawn across the sky. The firing was withoutintermission, a monotonous thunder, beneath which the working partystrove spasmodically at the bridge, the cavalry chafed to and fro, andthe infantry, filling all the woods and the little clearings to therear, began to swear. "Is it the Red Sea down there? Why can't we crosswithout a bridge? Nobody's going to get drowned! Ain't more'n a hundredmen been drowned since this war began! O Great Day in the Morning! I'mtired of doing nothing!"

General Wade Hampton of D. H. Hill's division, leaving his brigade in apine wood, went with his son and with an aide, Rawlins Lowndes, on areconnoitring expedition of his own. He was a woodsman and hunter, withexperience of swamps and bayous. Returning, he sought out Jackson, andfound him sitting on a fallen pine by the roadside near the slowly, slowly mending bridge. Hampton dismounted and made his report. "We gotover, three of us, general, a short way above. It wasn't difficult. Thestream's clear of obstructions there and has a sandy bottom. We couldsee through the trees on the other side. There's a bit of level, and ahillside covered with troops--a strong position. But we got across thestream, 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 thestream where he had traversed it. He returned and reported. "They arequiet and unsuspecting beyond, sir. The crossing would be slow, andthere may be an accident, but cross we certainly can. "

Jackson, still seated on the fallen pine, sat as though he had beenthere through eternity, and would remain through eternity. The gunthundered, the minies sang. One of the latter struck a tree above hishead and severed a leafy twig. It came floating down, touched hisshoulder like an accolade and rested on the pine needles by his foot. Hegave it no attention, sitting like a graven image with clasped hands, listening to the South Carolinian's report. Hampton ceased to speak andwaited. It was the height of the afternoon. He stood three minutes insilence, perhaps, then glanced toward the man on the log. Jackson's eyeswere closed, his head slightly lifted. "Praying?" thought the SouthCarolinian. "Well, there's a time for everything--" Jackson opened hiseyes, 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 alittle way down the road and stood among the whistling minies, lookingat the slowly, slowly building bridge. 

Hampton did as Wright and Munford had done before him--went back to hismen. D. H. Hill, after an interview of his own, had retired to theartillery. "Yes, yes, Rhett, go ahead! Do something--make a noise--dosomething! 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 theloud wrangling of the batteries above White Oak, another sound, --firsttwo or three detonations occurring singly, then a prolonged andcontinuous roar. The batteries above White Oak Swamp, the sharpshootersand skirmishers, the grey chafing cavalry, the grey masses of unemployedinfantry, all held breath and listened. The sound was not three milesaway, and it was the sound of the crash of long battle-lines. There wasa 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 thedown-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 isvery heavy. "

"Yes. The troops that have been lying before Richmond. General Lee willsee that they do what is right. "

Stafford, near him, spoke again. "The sound comes, I think, sir, from aplace called Glendale--Glendale or Frayser's Farm. "

"Yes, sir, " said Jackson; "very probably. "

The thunder never lessened. Artillery and infantry, Franklin's corps onthe south bank of White Oak, began again to pour an iron hail againstthe opposing guns and the working party at the bridge, but in everyinterval between the explosions from these cannon there rolled louderand louder the thunder from Frayser's Farm. A sound like a grating windin 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 andHolmes and A. P. Hill and Longstreet--and we out of it again, on thewrong side of White Oak Swamp! And they're looking for us to help--_WishI was dead!_"

The 65th Virginia had its place some distance up the stream, in atangled wood by the water. Facing southward, it held the extreme right;beyond it only morass, tall trees, swaying masses of vine. On the leftan arm of the creek, thickly screened by tree and bush, divided it fromthe remainder of the brigade. It rested in semi-isolation, and its tencompanies stared in anger at the narrow stream and the deep woodsbeyond, listening to the thunder of Longstreet and A. P. Hill'sunsupported attack and the answering roar of the Federal 3d Army Corps. It was a sullen noise, deep and unintermittent. The 65th, waiting fororders, 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 tothat!--Colonel, can't you do something for us?--Where's the colonelgone?"

Cleave was beyond their vision. He had rounded a little point of landand now, Dundee's hoofs in water, stood gazing at the darkly woodedopposite shore. He stood a moment thus, then spoke to the horse, andthey entered the stream. It was not deep, and though there wereobstructions, old stakes and drowned brushwood, Cleave and Dundeecrossed. The air was full of booming sound, but there was no motion inthe 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 talland solemn trees. Cleave saw that there was open meadow beyond. Dismounting, he went noiselessly to the edge of the swamp. An openspace, covered with some low growth; beyond it a hillside. Wood andmeadow 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 thelittle point of the swamp, he rode before his regiment on his way tofind Winder. His men greeted him. "Colonel, if you could just get usover there we'd do anything in the world for you! This weeping-willowplace is getting awful hard to bear! Look at Dundee! Even he's droopinghis head. You know we'd follow you through hell, sir; and if you couldjust 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 ofthe brigade, and asked of Winder from the first troops beyond the screenof trees. "General Winder has ridden down to the bridge to see GeneralJackson. "

Cleave, following, found his leader indeed before Jackson, justfinishing his representations whatever they were, and somewhat perturbedby the commanding general's highly developed silence. This continuingunbroken, Winder, after an awkward minute of waiting, fell a littleback, a flush on his cheeks and his lips hard together. The actiondisclosed Cleave, just come up, his hand checking Dundee, his grey eyesearnestly upon Jackson. When the latter spoke, it was not to thebrigadier but to the colonel of the 65th. "Why are you not with yourregiment, sir?"

"I left it but a moment ago, sir, to bring information I thought it myduty to bring. "

"What information?"

"The 65th is on General Winder's extreme right, sir. The stream beforeit is fordable. "

"How do you know, sir?"

"I forded it. The infantry could cross without much difficulty. The 65thwould 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. Histone had been heard before by the latter--in his own case on the nightof the twenty-seventh as well as once before, and in the case of otherswhere there had been what was construed as remonstrance or negligence ordisobedience. He had heard him speak so to Garnett after Kernstown. Thewords were simple enough--they always were. "You will return to yourduty, sir. It lies where your regiment is, and that is not here. Go!"

Cleave obeyed. The ford was there. His regiment might have crossed, therest of the Stonewall following. Together they might traverse the swampand the bit of open, pass the hillside, and strike Franklin upon theflank, while, brigade by brigade, the rest of the division followed bythat ford. Rout Franklin, and push forward to help A. P. Hill. It hadappeared his duty to give the information he was possessed of. He hadgiven it, and his skirts were cleared. There was anger in him as heturned away; he had a compressed lip, a sparkling eye. Not till heturned did he see Stafford, sitting his horse in the shadow behindJackson. 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 wasfull of anger for the tragedy of the inaction. At the moment he gavesmall 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. Heturned from the road into the wood, and pushed the great bay over spongyground toward the isolated 65th. Stafford saw that he gave him nothought, and it angered him. On the highroad of his life it would nothave done so, but he had left the road and was lost in the jungle. Therewere few things that Richard Cleave might do which would not now worklike madness on the mind astray in that place. 

The cannonading over White Oak Swamp continued, and the sound of thebattle of Frayser's Farm continued. On a difficult and broken groundLongstreet attacked, driving back McCall's division. McCall wasreinforced and Longstreet hard pressed. Lee loosed A. P. Hill, and thebattle became furious. He looked for Jackson, but Jackson was at WhiteOak Swamp; for Huger, but a road covered with felled trees delayedHuger; 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 troopsin hearing of their guns. The battle swayed to and fro, long, loud, andsanguinary, 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 thenorthern, blue and grey alike caught the noise of battle. Theythemselves were cannonading loudly and continuously. One Federal batteryused fifteen hundred rounds. The grey were hardly less lavish. Not muchdamage was done except to the trees. The trough through which crept thesluggish water was filled with smoke. It drifted through the swamp andthe woods and along the opposing hillsides. It drifted over and aboutthe idle infantry, until one command was hidden from another. 

Stonewall Jackson, seated on the stump of a felled oak, his sabre acrosshis knees, his hands rigid upon it, his great booted feet squarelyplanted, his cap drawn low, sent the aide beside him with some order tothe working party at the bridge. A moment later the courier went, too, to D. H. Hill, with a query about prisoners. The thunders continued, thesmoke drifted heavily, veiling all movements. Jackson spoke withoutturning. "Whoever is there--"

No one was there at the moment but Maury Stafford. He came forward. "Youwill find the 1st Brigade, " said Jackson. "Tell General Winder to moveit nearer the stream. Tell him to cross from his right, with caution, asmall reconnoitring party. Let it find out the dispositions of theenemy, return and report. "

Stafford went, riding westward through the smoke-filled forest, and camepresently to the Stonewall Brigade and to Winder, walking up and downdisconsolately. "An order from General Jackson, sir. You will move yourbrigade nearer the stream. Also you will cross, from your right, withcaution, a small reconnoitring party. It will discover the dispositionsof the enemy, return and report. "

"Very good, " said Winder. "I'll move at once. The 65th is already on thebrink--there to the right, beyond the swamp. Perhaps, you'll take theorder on to Colonel Cleave?--Very good! Tell him to send a picked squadquietly across and find out what he can. I hope to God there'll comeanother order for us all to cross at its heels!"

Stafford, riding on, presently found himself in a strip of bog andthicket and tall trees masking a narrow, sluggish piece of water. Thebrigade 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 theground gave beneath his horse's feet, became aware of a slight movementin a laurel thicket and of two eyes gleaming behind the leaves. Hereined in his horse. "What are you doing in there? Straggling ordeserting? Come out!" There was a pause; then Steve Dagg emerged. "Major, I ain't either stragglin' or desertin'. I was just seperated--Igot seperated last night. The regiment's jes' down there--I crept downan' saw it jes' now. I'm goin' back an' join right away--send me to hellif I ain't!--though Gawd knows my foot's awful sore--"

Stafford regarded him closely. "I've seen you before. Ah, I remember! Onthe 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 frommarkin' time on a barrel-head, major--an' my foot _was_ sore--an' Iwasn't desertin' that time any more'n this time--an' I was as obleegedto 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 forholding conference with this poor thief; or, rather, some fibre in hisbrain told him that, out of this jungle, if ever he came out of it, hewould despise himself. Had he really done so now, he would have turnedaway. He did not so; he sat in the heart of the jungle and comparedhatreds with Steve. 

The latter glanced upward a moment with his ferret eyes, then turned hishead aside and spat. "If there's any of my way of thinkin' they don'tlike him--But they're all fools! Crept down through the swamp a littleago an' heard it! 'Colonel, get us across, somehow, won't you? We'llfight like hell!' 'I can't, men. I haven't any orders. ' Yaah! I wishhe'd take the regiment over without them, and then be court-martialledand shot for doing it!" Steve spat again. "I seed long ago that youdidn't like him either, major. He gets along too fast--all the prizescome his way. "

"Yes, " said Stafford, from the heart of the jungle. "They come hisway. . . . And he's standing there at the edge of the water, hoping fororders to cross. "

Steve, beneath the swamp magnolia, had a widening of the lips. "Luck'sturned agin him one way, though. He's out of favour with Old Jack. Theregiment don't know why, but it saw it mighty plain day beforeyesterday, after the big battle! Gawd knows I'd like to see him so deepin trouble he'd never get out--and so would you, major. Prizes wouldstop coming his way then, and he might lose those he has--"

"If I entertain a devil, " said Stafford, "I'll not be hypocrite enoughto object to his conversation. Nor, if I take his suggestion, is thereany sense in covering him with reprobation. So go your way, miserableimp! while I go mine!"

But Steve kept up with him, half-running at his stirrup. "I got torejoin, 'cause it's jest off one battlefield on to another, and thereain't nowhere else to go! This world's a sickenin' place for men likeme. 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 ahorseman, and waited for a courier to come up. "You are going on to the65th?"

"Yes, sir. I belong there. I was kept by General Winder for some specialduty, and I'm just through it--"

"I have an order, " said Stafford, "from General Winder to ColonelCleave. There are others to carry and time presses. I'll entrust it toyou. Listen now, and get it straight. "

He gave an order. The courier listened, nodded energetically, repeatedit after him, and gathered up the reins. "I am powerfully glad to carrythat order, sir! It means 'Cross, ' doesn't it?"

He rode off, southward to the stream, in which direction Steve hadalready shambled. Stafford returned, through wood and swamp, to the roadby the bridge. Above and around the deep inner jungle his intellectworked. 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 inmiasmas and primal heat, captive to a master and consuming passion. Tocreate a solitude where he alone might reach one woman's figure, hewould have set a world afire. He rode back now, through the woods, to ageneral commanding who never forgave nor listened overmuch toexplanations, and he rode with quietude, the very picture of a gallantsoldier. 

Back on the edge of White Oak Swamp, Richard Cleave considered the orderhe had received. He found an ambiguity in the wording, a choice ofconstructions. He half turned to send the courier again to Winder, tomake absolutely sure that the construction which he strongly preferredwas correct. As he did so, though he could not see the brigade beyondthe belt of trees, he heard it in motion, _coming down through the woodsto cross the stream in the rear of the 65th_. He looked at the ford andthe 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 steppedin front of his colour company. _Attention! Into column. Forward!_

On the road leading down to the bridge Stafford met his own divisiongeneral, riding Rifle back to his command. "Hello, Major Stafford!" saidOld 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'scoming 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. Hillthinks he's been broken down and ill--and somebody else is poetical andsays his star never shines when another's is above it, which isnonsense--and somebody else thinks he thought we did enough in theValley, which is damned nonsense--eh?"

"Of course, sir. Damned nonsense. "

Ewell jerked his head. "Yes, sir. No man's his real self all thetime--whether he's a Presbyterian or not. Old Jackson simply hasn't beenin this cursed low country at all! But ----! I've been trying to giveadvice down there, and, by God, sir, he's approaching! If it was aspell, it's lifting! That bridge'll be built pretty soon, I reckon, andwhen we cross at last we'll cross with Stonewall Jackson going onbefore!"

CHAPTER XXXVI

MALVERN HILL

Star by star the heavens paled. The dawn came faintly and mournfully upfrom the east. Beneath it the battlefield of Frayser's Farm lay hushedand motionless, like the sad canvas of a painter, the tragic dream of apoet. 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 beenheavy--lay stretched in the ghostly light, and beside them dead anddying horses. Eighteen Federal guns had been taken. They rested onridged earth, black against the cold, grey sky. Stark and silent, farand wide, rolled the field beneath the cold, mysterious, changing light. Beside the dead men there were sleeping troops, regiments lying on theirarms, fallen last night where they were halted, slumbering heavilythrough the dew-drenched summer night. As the sky grew purple and thelast star went out, the bugles began to blow. The living men rose. Ifthe others heard a reveille, it was in far countries. 

Edward Cary, lying down in the darkness near one of the guns, had putout a hand and touched a bedfellow. The soldier seemed asleep, andEdward slept too, weary enough to have slept in Hades. Now, as thebugles 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 thedank earth, beside the still, grey figure. The gun stood a little abovehim; 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 thegun-wheel at the dawn. Edward closed them. "I never could take deathseriously, " he said; "which is fortunate, I suppose. "

Two hours later his regiment, moving down the Quaker road, came to ahalt before a small, pillared, country church. A group of officers sattheir horses near the portico. Lee was in front, quiet and grand. Out ofthe cluster Warwick Cary pushed his horse across to the halted regiment. Father and son were presently holding converse beneath a dusty roadsidecedar. "I am thankful to see you!" said Edward. "We heard of the greatcharge you made. Please take better care of yourself, father!"

"The past week has been like a dream, " answered the other; "one of thosedreams in which, over and over, some undertaking, vital to you andtremendous, is about to march. Then, over and over, comes some pettiestobstacle, 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 crushedMcClellan. Instead, we fought alone--and we lost four thousand men; andthough we made the enemy lose as many, he has again drawn himself outof our grasp and is before us. I think that to-day we will have afearful fight. "

"Jackson is over at last. "

"Yes, close behind us. Whiting is leading; I saw him a moment. There's areport that one of the Stonewall regiments crossed and was cut in pieceslate yesterday afternoon--"

"I hope it wasn't Richard's!"

"I hope not. I have a curious, boding feeling about it. --There beat yourdrums! Good-bye, again--"

He leaned from his saddle and kissed his son, then backed his horseacross the road to the generals by the pillared church. The regimentmarched away, and as it passed it cheered General Lee. He lifted hishat. "Thank you, men. Do your best to-day--do your best. "

"We'll mind you, Marse Robert, we'll mind you!" cried the troops, andwent by shouting. 

Somewhere down the Quaker Road the word "Malvern Hill" seemed to dropfrom the skies. "Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill. They're all massed onMalvern Hill. Three hundred and forty guns. And on the James thegunboats. Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill. "

A man in line with Edward described the place. "My last year at Williamand 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. Aboutthe base there are thick forests and swamps, and Turkey Creek goeswinding, winding to the James. You see the James--the wide, old, yellowriver, with the birds going screaming overhead. There were no gunboatson it that day, no Monitors, or Galenas, or Maritanzas, and if you'dtold us up there on Malvern Hill that the next time we climbed it--! AtWestover, after supper, they told Indian stories and stories ofTarleton's troopers, and in the night we listened for the tap of EvelynByrd's slipper on the stair. We said we heard it--anyhow, we didn't heargunboats 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 railfence; and there was a wheat field, where the grain stood in shocks. Because of the smoke, however, nothing could be seen plainly; andbecause of the most awful sound, few orders were distinctly heard. Evidently officers were shouting; in the rents of the veil one saw wavedarms, open mouths, gesticulations with swords. But the loud-mouthed gunsspoke by the score, and the blast bore the human voice away. Theregiment in which was Edward Cary divined an order and ceased firing, lying flat in sedge and sassafras, while a brigade from the rear roaredby. 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 bewhen you read Plutarch that you were all for the peaceful heroes! Youhaven'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 horribleshells arrived with a noise that was indescribable. A thousand shriekingrockets, perhaps, with at the end an explosion and a rain of fragmentslike rocks from Vesuvius. They had a peculiar faculty for getting on thenerves. The men watched their coming with something like shrinking, withraised arms and narrowed eyes. "Look out for the lamp-post--look out forthe lamp-post--look out--Aaahhhh!"

Before long the regiment was moved a hundred yards nearer thewheat-field. Here it became entangled in the ebb of a charge--thebrigade which had rushed by coming back, piecemeal, broken and driven byan iron flail. It would reform and charge again, but now there wasconfusion. All the field was confused, dismal and dreadful, beneath theorange-tinted smoke. The smoke rolled and billowed, a curtain of strangetexture, now parting, now closing, and when it parted disclosingimmemorial Death and Wounds with some attendant martial pageantry. Thecommands were split as by wedges, the uneven ground driving themasunder, and the belching guns. They went up to hell mouth, brigade bybrigade, even regiment by regiment, and in the breaking and reformingand twilight of the smoke, through the falling of officers and thesurging to and fro, the troops became interwoven, warp of one division, woof of another. The sound was shocking; when, now and then there fell abriefest interval it was as though the world had stopped, had falleninto 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'sprotection. "Hot work!" said Edward, with his fine camaraderie. "Youmade a beautiful charge. We almost thought you would take them. "

The other looked at him vacantly. "I added up figures in the oldwarehouse, " he said, in a high, thin voice. "I added up figures in theold warehouse, and when I went home at night I used to read plays. Iadded up figures in the old warehouse--Don't you remember Hotspur? Ialways 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 himdown. "It's enough to make you crazy, I'll confess--but you mustn'tstand up like that!"

The downward drawing hand was too late. There were blue sharpshooters ina wood in front. A ball entered the clerk's breast and he sank downbehind the wheat. "I added up figures in the old warehouse, " he againtold Cary, "and when I went home at night I read plays--"

The figure stiffened in Edward's grasp. He laid it down, and from behindthe wheat shock watched a grey battery in process of being knocked topieces. 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 ofa little crest topped with sumach, taking pains meanwhile to assure theinfantry that now it was safe. The infantry had grinned. "Like youfirst-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 theiron rows that made a great triple crown for Malvern Hill. The greygunners cheered, and the appreciative infantry cheered, and the firstbegan to reload while the second, flat in scrub and behind the wheat, condescended to praise. "Artillery does just about as well as can beexpected! Awful old-fashioned arm--but well-meaning. . . . Lookout--look. . . Eeehhh!"

The iron crown that had been blazing toward other points of the compassnow blazed toward this. Adversity came to the insouciant grey battery, adversity quickening to disaster. The first thunder blast thickened to ahowling storm of shrapnel, grape, and canister. 

At the first gun gunner No. 1, ramming home a charge, was blown intofragments; at the second the arm holding the sponge staff was severedfrom gunner No. 3's shoulder. A great shell, bursting directly over thethird, killed two men and horribly mangled others; the carriage of thefourth was crushed and set on fire. This in the beginning of the storm;as it swelled, total destruction threatened from the murk. The captainwent 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 inquality, you know. Marse Robert's looking--I see him over there! Try ita 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 reasonfor being, now here, and now in quite a different place, or ever knewexactly how the places had been exchanged. Edward was practicallycertain that he had taken part in a charge, that his brigade had drivena body of blue infantry from a piece of woods. At any rate they were nolonger in the wheat field, but in a shady wood, where severed twigs andbranches floated pleasantly down. Lying flat, chin on hand, he watched aregiment storm and take a thick abattis--felled trees filled withsharpshooters--masking a hastily thrown up earthwork. The regiment wasreserving its fire and losing heavily. An elderly man led it, riding alarge old steady horse. "That's Ex-Governor Smith, " said the regiment inthe wood. "That's Extra Billy! He's a corker! Next time he runs he'sgoing 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; itobeyed, but sulkily enough. Men were dropping; the colour-bearer wentdown. There was an outcry. "Colonel! we can't stand this! We'll all getkilled 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 noddedvigorous assent. "Of course you can't stand it, boys! You oughtn't to beexpected 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 andearthwork had succumbed. At any rate, the old governor and his regimentwere gone. He was of the colour-guard, and all the colour-guard werelaughing. "Didn't you ever see him go into battle with his old blueumbrella up! Trotting along same as to a caucus--whole constituencyfollowing! Fine old political Roman! Look out, Yedward! Whole pine treecoming down. "

The scene changed again, and it was the side of a ravine, with a fineview of the river and with Morell and Couch blazing somewhere above. Theshells went overhead, bellowing monsters charging a grey battery on ahillock 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?" askedanother. "Sun's so hidden there's no guessing. Don't believe we'll eversee his blessed light again. "

A fisherman from the Eastern Shore stated that it was nearly fiveo'clock. "Fogs can't fool me. Day's drawing down, and tide's goingout--"

The lieutenant-colonel appeared. "Somebody with an order has been shot, coming through the cornfield toward us. Three volunteers to bring himin!"

Edward and the Eastern Shore man and a lean and dry and middle-agedlawyer from King and Queen bent their heads beneath their shoulders andplunged into the corn. All the field was like a miniature abattis, stalk and blade shot down and crossed and recrossed in the wildesttangle. To make way over it was difficult enough, and before the threehad gone ten feet the minies took a hand. The wounded courier laybeneath his horse, and the horse screamed twice, the sound rising abovethe roar of the guns. A ball pierced Edward's cap, another drew bloodfrom the lawyer's hand. The fisherman was a tall and wiry man; as he ranhe swayed like a mast in storm. The three reached the courier, draggedhim from beneath the horse, and found both legs crushed. He looked atthem with lustreless eyes. "You can't do anything for me, boys. Thegeneral says please try to take those three guns up there. He's going tocharge the line beyond, and they are in the way. "

"All right, we will, " said the lawyer. "Now you put one arm round Cary'sneck and one round mine--"

But the courier shook his head. "You leave me here. I'm awful tired. Yougo take the guns instead. Ain't no use, I tell you. I'd like to see thechildren, but--"

In the act of speaking, as they lifted him, a ball went through histhroat. The three laid the body down, and, heads bent between shoulders, ran over and through the corn toward the ravine. Two thirds of the wayacross, the fisherman was shot. He came to his knees and, in falling, clutched Edward. "Mast's overboard, " he cried, in a rattling voice. "Cuther loose, damn you!--I'll take the helm--" He, too, died. Cary and thelawyer got back to the gully and gave the order. 

The taking of those guns was no simple matter. It resembled child's playonly in the single-mindedness and close attention which went to itsaccomplishment. The regiment that reached them at last and took them, andtook what was left of the blue gunners, was not much more than half aregiment. The murk up here on this semi-height was thick to choking; theodour and taste of the battle poisoned brass on the tongue, the colour thatof a sand storm, the heat like that of a battleship in action, and all theplace 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, bythe half regiment. "Mississippi! Mississippi!--Well, even Mississippi isn'tgoing to do the impossible!" As the line went by, tall and swinging andyelling itself hoarse, the colonel was wounded and fell. The charge went onwhile the officer--he was an old man, very stately looking--dragged himselfaside, and sitting in the sedge tied a large bright handkerchief above awound in his leg. The charge dashed itself against the hillside, and thetier 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 brighthandkerchief, 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 takethose guns!"

The 21st mended its gaps and charged again. The old man set his hat onhis sword, waved it in the air, and cheered his men as they passed. Theypassed him but to return. To go up against those lines of bellowing gunswas mere heroic madness. Bleeding, exhausted, the men put out theirhands for the old man. He drew his revolver. "I'll shoot anybody whotouches me! Tell the 21st they can't get their colonel till they takethose guns!"

The 21st charged a third time, in vain. It came back--a part of it cameback. 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 EdwardCary looked out over Malvern Hill, the encompassing lowland, marsh andforest and fields, the winding Turkey Creek and Western Creek, and tothe south the James. A wind had sprung up and was blowing the battlesmoke hither and yon. Here it hung heavily, and here a long lane wasopened. The sun was low and red behind a filmy veil, dark and raggedlike torn crape. He saw four gunboats on the river; they were throwingthe long, howling shells. The Monitor was there, an old foe--the cheesebox on a shingle. Edward shut his eyes and saw again Hampton Roads, andhow the Monitor had looked, darting from behind the Minnesota. The oldturtle, the old Merrimac . . . And now she lay, a charred hull, far, farbeneath the James, by Craney Island. 

The private on his right was a learned man. Edward addressed him. "Haveyou 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. Theworld's a player, like the rest of us. "

Below this niche stretched the grey battle-lines; above it, on thehilltop, 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 andbrush had their occupants, fragments of commands under cover, bands ofsharpshooters. And everywhere over the open, raked by the guns, weredead and dying men. They lay thickly. Now and again the noise of thetorment of the wounded made itself heard--a most doleful and ghostlysound coming up like a wail from the Inferno. There were, too, many deador dying horses. Others, still unhurt, galloped from end to end of thefield of death. In the wheat-field there were several of the old, four-footed warriors, who stood and ate of the shocked grain. Therearrived a hush over the battlefield, one of those pauses which occurbetween exhaustion and renewed effort, effort at its height. The gunsfell silent, the musketry died away, the gunboats ceased to throw thosegreat shells. By contrast with the clangour that had prevailed, thestillness seemed that of a desert waste, a dead world. Over toward across-road there could be made out three figures on horseback. Thecaptain of Edward's company was an old college mate; lying down with hismen, he now drew himself over the ground and loaned Cary hisfield-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 threecaptured guns. "That's Cary's Legion, " said the captain. "Here comes thecolonel 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 latterleft the ranks, and the two found a trampled space beside one of thegreat 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 andSouth 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. Wecame by Jackson's troops, and one of his officers whom I knew at thePoint rode beside me a little way. They all crossed White Oak Swamp bystarlight this morning, and apparently Jackson is again the Jackson ofthe Valley. It was a curious eclipse. The force of the man is such that, while his officers acknowledge the eclipse, it makes no difference tothem. He is Stonewall Jackson--and that suffices. But that is not whatI have to tell--"

"I saw father a moment this morning. He said there was a rumour aboutone 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 theThunder Run men--and very many others. Almost destroyed, Carlton said. They crossed at sunset. There were a swamp and a wood and a hollowcommanded by hills. The enemy was in force behind the hill, and therewas beside a considerable command in ambush, concealed in the woods bythe swamp. These had a gun or two. All opened on the 65th. It was cut topieces in the swamp and in a little marshy meadow. Only a remnant gotback 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 suchorder; that he disobeyed the order that was given, and now tries toscreen himself. Carlton says Jackson is more steel-like than usual, andwe know how it fared with Garnett and with others. There will be acourt-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 Cleavedid nothing that he should not have done. "

"Of course, we know that. But Carlton says that, on the face of it, it'san ugly affair. And General Jackson--Well, we can only awaitdevelopments. "

"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 workpresently. "

He went, and Edward returned to his fellows. The silence yet held overthe field; the westering sun glowed dull red behind the smoke; thethree figures rested still by the cross-roads; the mass of frowningmetal topped Malvern Hill like a giant, smoke-wreathed _chevaux defrise_. Out of the brushwood to the left of the regiment, straight byit, upward towards the guns, and then at a tangent off through thefields to the woods, sped a rabbit. Legs to earth, it hurried with allits might. The regiment was glad of a diversion--the waiting was growingso intolerable. The men cheered the rabbit. "Go it, MollyCottontail!--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! Goit, Molly! Damn! If't wasn't for my character, I'd go with you!"

The rabbit disappeared. The regiment settled back to waiting, a veryintolerable employment. The sun dipped lower and lower. The hush grewportentous. The guns looked old, mailed, dead warriors; the gunboatssleeping forms; the grey troops battle-lines in a great war picture, thethree horsemen by the cross-roads a significant group in the same; thedead and wounded over all the fields, upon the slope, in the woods, bythe marshes, the jetsam, still and heavy, of war at its worst. For amoment longer the wide and dreary stretch rested so, then with a wildsuddenness sound and furious motion rushed upon the scene. The gunboatsrecommenced with their long and horrible shells. A grey battery openedon Berdan's sharpshooters strung in a line of trees below the greatcrown of guns. The crown flamed toward the battery, scorched and mangledit. By the cross-roads the three figures separated, going in differentdirections. Presently galloping horses--aides, couriers--crossed theplane of vision. They went from D. H. Hill in the centre to Jackson'sbrigades on the left and Magruder's on the right. They had a mile ofopen to cross, and the iron crown and the sharpshooters flamed againstthem. Some galloped on and gave the orders. Some threw up their arms andfell, or, crashing to earth with a wounded horse, disentangledthemselves and stumbled on through the iron rain. The sun drew close tothe vast and melancholy forests across the river. Through a rift in thesmoke, there came a long and crimson shaft. It reddened the river, thenstruck across the shallows to Malvern Hill, suffused with a bloody tingewood and field and the marshes by the creeks, then splintered againstthe hilltop and made a hundred guns to gleam. The wind heightened, lifting the smoke and driving it northward. It bared to the last redlight the wild and dreary battlefield. 

From the centre rose the Confederate yell. Rodes's brigade, led byGordon, charged. It had half a mile of open to cross, and it was caughtat once in the storm that howled from the crest of Malvern Hill. Everyregiment suffered great loss; the 3d Alabama saw half its number slainor wounded. The men yelled again, and sprang on in the teeth of thestorm. They reached the slope, almost below the guns. Gordon lookedbehind for the supporting troops which Hill had promised. They werecoming, that grim fighter leading them, but they were coming far off, under clanging difficulties, through a hell of shrapnel. Rodes's brigadealone could not wrest that triple crown from the hilltop--no, not if themen had been giants, sons of Anak! They were halted; they lay down, putmuskets to shoulder and fired steadily and fired again on the blueinfantry. 

It grew darker on the plain. Brigades were coming from the left, theright, the centre. There had been orders for a general advance. Perhapsthe aides carrying them were among the slain, perhaps this, perhapsthat. The event was that brigades charged singly--sometimes evenregiments crossed, with a cry, the twilight, groaning plain and chargedMalvern Hill unsupported. The place flamed death and destruction. Hill'sten thousand men pressed forward with the order of a review. The shotand shell met them like a tornado. The men fell by hundreds. The linesclosed, rushed on. The Federal infantry joined the artillery. Musketryand cannon, the din became a prolonged and fearful roar of battle. 

The sun disappeared. There sprang out in the western sky three long redbands of clouds. On the darkening slope and plain Hill was crushed back, before and among his lines a horror of exploding shells. Jackson threwforward Lawton and Whiting, Winder and the Louisiana troops, while onthe right, brigade after brigade, Magruder hurled across the plain ninebrigades. After Hill, Magruder's troops bore the brunt of the lastfearful fighting. 

They stormed across the plain in twilight that was lit by the redflashes from the guns. The clouds of smoke were red-bosomed; the redbars stayed in the west. The guns never ceased their thundering, themusketry to roll. Death swung a wide scythe in the twilight of thatfirst day of July. Anderson and Armistead, Barksdale, Semmes andKershaw, Wright and Toombs and Mahone, rushed along the slope ofMalvern Hill, as Ripley and Garland and Gordon and all the brigadiers ofD. H. Hill had rushed before them. Death, issuing from that great powerof artillery, laid the soldiers in swathes. The ranks closed, again andagain the ranks closed; with diminished numbers but no slackening ofcourage, the grey soldiers again dashed themselves against Malvern Hill. The red bars in the west faded slowly to a deep purple; above them, in aclear space of sky, showed the silver Venus. Upon her cooling globe, ina day to come, intelligent life might rend itself as here--the oldhorror, the old tragedy, the old stained sublimity over again! All thedrifting smoke was now red lit, and beneath it lay in their bloodelderly men, and men in their prime, and young men--very many, oh, verymany 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, alow and grievous sound. The blue lost heavily, for the charges werewildly heroic; but the guns were never disabled, and the loss of thegrey was the heaviest. Brigade by brigade, the grey faced the storm andwere beaten back, only again to reel forward upon the slope where Deathstood and swung his scythe. The last light dwelt on their colours, onthe deep red of their battle-flags; then the western sky became nowarmer than the eastern. The stars were out in troops; the battlestopped. 

D. H. Hill, an iron fighter with a mania for personal valour, standingwhere he had been standing for an hour, in a pleasantly exposed spot, clapped on his hat and beckoned for his horse. The ground about himshowed furrowed as for planting, and a neighbouring oak tree was soriddled with bullets that the weight of a man might have sent itcrashing 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 hishead toward the high window. It showed him little, merely a long stripof blue sky above housetops. The window was open, and the noises of thestreet came in. He knew them, checked them off in his mind. He was doingwell. A body, superbly healthful, might stand out boldly against aminie ball or two, just as calm nerves, courage and serene judgementwere 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 pasther 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 layon the floor, on a blanket as he had done that first morning. In theafternoon of that day a wide bench had been brought into his corner, athin 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 tolying on the earth--but Christianna had been firm. He wondered why shedid not come. 

Chickahominy, Gaines's Mill, Garnett's and Golding's farms, PeachOrchard, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Frayser's Farm, MalvernHill--dire echoes of the Seven Days' fighting had thronged into thishospital as into all others, as into the houses of citizens and thepublic buildings and the streets! All manner of wounded soldiers toldthe 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 thenheard in the streets; not often, for the women were mostly silent, withpressed lips. And the ambulances jolting by--and the sound offunerals--and the church bells tolling, tolling--all these bore witness. And day and night there was the thunder of the cannon. FromMechanicsville and Gaines's Mill it had rolled near and loud, fromSavage Station somewhat less so; White Oak Swamp and Frayser's Farm hadcarried the sound yet further off, and from Malvern Hill it came butdistantly. 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'sheart, like a giant hand on giant strings. But at last the tune grew oldand the town went about its business. There was so much to do! One couldnot stop to listen to cannon. Richmond was a vast hospital; pain andfever in all places, and, around, the shadow of death. Hardly a housebut mourned a kinsman or kinsmen; early and late the dirges wailedthrough the streets. So breathlessly filled were the days, that oftenthe dead were buried at night. The weather was hot--days and nights hot, close and still. Men and women went swiftly through them, swift anddirect as weavers' shuttles. Privation, early comrade of the South, washere; scant room, scant supplies, not too much of wholesome food for thecrowded town, few medicines or alleviatives, much to be done and doneat once with the inadequatest means. There was little time in which tothink in general terms; all effort must go toward getting done theimmediate thing. The lift and tension of the time sloughed off theimmaterial weak act or thought. There were present a heroic simplicity, a naked verity, a full cup of service, a high and noble altruism. Theplane was epic, and the people did well. 

The sky within Allan's range of vision was deep blue; the old brickgable-ends of houses, mellow and old, against it. A soldier with abroken leg and a great sabre cut over the head, just brought into theward, brought with him the latest news. He talked loudly, and all downthe long room, crowded to suffocation, the less desperately woundedraised themselves on their elbows to hear. Others, shot through stomachor bowels, or fearfully torn by shells, or with the stumps of amputatedlimbs not doing well, raved on in delirium or kept up their pitifulmoaning. The soldier raised his voice higher, and those leaning onelbows listened with avidity. "Evelington Heights? Where's EvelingtonHeights?"--"Between Westover and Rawling's millpond, near MalvernHill!"--"Malvern Hill! That was ghastly!"--"Go on, sergeant-major! We'rebeen 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! Thatman over there--and that one--and that one--oh, a middling lot! They'repretty badly off--poor boys!"

From a pallet came a hollow voice. "I was at Malvern Hill, and I ain'tnever going there again--I ain't never going there again--I ain'tnever. . . . 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'tgot any voice anyhow. We know about Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill waspretty bad. And we heard there'd been a cavalry rumpus--Jeb Stuart andSweeney 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 anythingcould 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 therewasn't any moon, and we stopped. And in the night-time the damn Yankeescontinued to retreat away. There was an awful noise of gun-wheels allthe night long--so the sentries said, and the surgeons and the woundedand, I reckon, the generals. The rest of us, we were asleep. I don'treckon there ever was men any more tired. Malvern Hill was--I can'tswear because there are ladies nursing us, but Malvern Hill was--Well, dawn blew at reveille--No, doctor, I ain't getting light-headed. I justget my words a little twisted. Reveille blew at dawn, and there weresheets of cold pouring rain, and everywhere there were dead men, deadmen, dead men lying there in the wet, and the ambulances were wanderinground like ghosts of wagons, and the wood was too dripping to make afire, and three men out of my mess were killed, and one was a boy thatwe'd all adopted, and it was awful discouraging. Yes, we were righttired, damn Yankees and all of us. . . . Doctor, if I was you I wouldn'tbother about that leg. It's all right as it is, and you might hurtme. . . . Oh, all right! Kin I smoke?. . . Yuugh! Well, boys, the damnYankees continued their retreat to Harrison's Landing, where theirhell-fire gunboats could stand picket for them. . . . Say, ma'am, would youkindly tell me why that four-post bed over there is all hung withwreaths 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 gunsup there, too. . . . If the beehive's there, then the apple tree'shere--Grandma, if you'll ask him not to whip me I'll never take themagain, and I'll hold your yarn every time you want me to--"

The ward heard no more about Evelington Heights. It knew, however, thatit had been no great affair; it knew that McClellan with his exhaustedarmy, less many thousand dead, wounded, and prisoners, less fifty-twoguns and thirty-five thousand small arms, less enormous stores capturedor destroyed, less some confidence at Washington, rested down the Jamesby Westover, in the shadow of gunboats. The ward guessed that, for atime at least, Richmond was freed from the Northern embrace. It knewthat Lee and his exhausted army, less even more of dead and wounded thanhad fallen on the other side, rested between that enemy and Richmond. Lee was watching; the enemy would come no nearer for this while. For allits pain, for all the heat, the blood, the fever, thirst and woe, theward, the hospital, all the hospitals, experienced to-day a sense oftriumph. It was so with the whole city. Allan knew this, lying, lookingwith sea-blue eyes at the blue summer sky and the old and mellow roofs. The city mourned, but also it rejoiced. There stretched the blackthread, but twisted with it was the gold. A paean sounded as well as adirge. Seven days and nights of smoke and glare upon the horizon, of theheart-shaking cannon roar, of the pouring in of the wounded, ofprocessions to Hollywood, of anguish, ceaseless labour, sick waiting, dizzy hope, descending despair. . . . Now, at last, above it all the bellsrang for victory. A young girl, coming through the ward, had an armfulof flowers, --white lilies, citron aloes, mignonette, and phlox--She gaveher posies to all who stretched out a hand, and went out with hersmiling face. Allan held a great stalk of garden phlox, white and sweet. It carried him back to the tollgate and to the log schoolhouse byThunder Run. . . . Twelve o'clock. Was not Christianna coming at all?

This was not Judith Cary's ward, but now she entered it. Allan, watchingthe 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 handand had a sense of strength and sweetness, of something nobleapproaching nearer. She paused to ask a question of one of the women;answered, she came straight on. He saw that she was coming to thecut-off corner by the stair, and instinctively he straightened a littlethe covering over him. In a moment she was standing beside him, in hercool hospital dress, with her dark hair knotted low, with a flower ather breast. "You are Allan Gold?" she said. 

"Yes. "

"My name is Judith Cary. Perhaps you have heard of me. I have been toLauderdale 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 bedand sat down. "You have been looking for Christianna? I came to tell youabout poor little Christianna--and--and other things. Christianna'sfather has been killed. "

Allan uttered an exclamation. "Isham Maydew! I never thought of hisgoing!. . . Poor child!"

"So she thought she ought not to come to-day. Had there been strongreason, many people dependent upon her, she would have come. "

"Poor Christianna--poor wild rose!. . . It's ghastly, this war! There isnothing too small and harmless for its grist. "

"I agree with you. Nothing too great; nothing too small. Nothing toobase, 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 MalvernHill. "

Allan looked at her. There was more in her voice than the non-coming ofChristianna, 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 wassimple and direct, and he spoke at once out of his thought. He knew thatall the men of her house were at the front. "You have had a loss of yourown?--"

She shook her head. "I? No. I have had no loss. "

"Now, " thought Allan, "there's something proud in it. " He looked at herwith his kindly, sea-blue eyes. In some chamber of the brain thereflashed out a picture--the day of the Botetourt Resolutions, winter duskafter winter sunset and Cleave and himself going homeward over the longhilltop--with talk, among other things, of visitors at Lauderdale. Thiswas "the beautiful one. " He remembered the lift of Cleave's head and hisvoice. Judith's large dark eyes had been raised; transparent, showingalways 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, inthe 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 themoment cut away from the world, met on desert sands to tell and hear adreadful thing. "Cut to pieces, " breathed Allan. "The 65th cut topieces!"

The movement which he made displaced the bandage about his shoulder. Sheleft the box, kneeled by him and straightened matters, then went back toher seat. "It was this way, " she said, --and told him the story as shehad heard it from her father and from Fauquier Cary. She spoke withsimplicity, in the low, bell-like tone that held the ache of the world. Allan listened, with his hand over his eyes. His regiment that heloved!. . . All the old, familiar faces. 

"Yes, he was killed--Hairston Breckinridge was killed, fightinggallantly. He died, they say, before he knew the trap they were caughtin. And Christianna's father was killed, and others of the Thunder Runmen, and very many from the county and from other counties. I do notknow how many. Fauquier called it slaughter, said no worse thing hashappened to any single command. Richard got what was left back acrossthe swamp. "

Allan groaned. "The 65th! General Jackson himself called it 'thefighting 65th!' Just a remnant of it left--left of the 65th!"

"Yes. The roll was called, and so many did not answer. They say otherStonewall regiments wept. "

Allan raised himself upon the bench. She started forward. "Don't dothat!" and with her hand pressed him gently down again. "I knew, " shesaid, "that you were here, and I have heard Richard speak of you and sayhow 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 loveshim or I will die. ' And so I came. I knew that the ward might hear ofthe 65th any moment now and begin to talk of it, so I was not afraid ofhurting you. But you must lie quiet. "

"Very well, I will. I want to know about Richard Cleave--about mycolonel. "

Her dark eyes met the sea-blue ones fully. "He is under arrest, " shesaid. "General Jackson has preferred charges against him. "

"Charges of what?"

"Of disobedience to orders--of sacrificing the regiment--of--ofretreating at last when he should not have done so and leaving his mento perish--of--of--. I have seen a copy of the charge. _Whereas the saidcolonel 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 acrossthe strip of blue sky; the stalk of phlox on the soldier's narrow bedlay withering in the light. Allan spoke. "General Jackson is very sternwith failure. He may believe that charge. I don't see how he can; but ifhe made it he believes it. But you--you don't believe it?--"

"Believe it?" she said. "No more than God believes it! The question isnow, how to help Richard. "

"Have you heard from him?"

She took from her dress a folded leaf torn from a pocket-book. "You arehis friend. You may read it. Wait, I will hold it. " She laid it beforehim, holding it in her slight, fine, strong fingers. 

He read. _Judith: You will hear of the fate of the 65th. How it happenedI 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 besideyou 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 hereflects--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, itdoesn'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 besidehim, with her cheek on her hand, the blue sky and old house roofs aboveher. When he ceased her eyes were full of tears. She would not let themfall. "If I began to cry I should never stop, " she said, and smiled themaway. Presently she rose. "I must go now. Christianna will be backto-morrow. "

She went away, passing up the narrow path between the wounded and out atthe further door. Allan watched her going, then turned a little on theflock bed, and lifting his unbandaged arm laid it across his eyes. _The65th cut to pieces--The 65th cut to pieces--_

At sunset Judith went home. The small room up in the branches of thetulip tree--she hardly knew how many months or years she had inhabitedit. There had passed, of course, only weeks--but Time had widened itsmeasure. To all intents and purposes she had been a long while inRichmond. This high, quiet niche was familiar, familiar! familiar theold, slender, inlaid dressing-table and the long, thin curtains and theengraving of Charlotte Corday; familiar the cool, green tree without thewindow and the nest upon a bough; familiar the far view and widehorizon, by day smoke-veiled, by night red-lit. The smoke was liftednow; the eye saw further than it had seen for days. The room seemed asquiet as a tomb. For a moment the silence oppressed her, and then sheremembered 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 thesoldier sons of the house were gathering. They brought comrades withthem. The wounded eldest son was doing well, the army was victorious, the siege was lifted, the house must be made gay for "the boys. " Nohouse was ever less bright for Judith. Now she smiled and listened, andthe young men thought she did not realize the seriousness of the armytalk about the 65th. They themselves were careful not to mention thematter. They talked of a thousand heroisms, a thousand incidents of theSeven Days; but they turned the talk--if any one, unwary, drew it thatway--from White Oak Swamp. They mistook her feeling; she would ratherthey had spoken out. Her comfort was when, afterwards, she went for amoment into the "chamber" to see the wounded eldest. He was awarm-hearted, rough diamond, fond of his cousin. 

"What's this damned stuff I hear about Richard Cleave and acourt-martial? What--nonsense! I beg your pardon, Judith. " Judith kissedhim, and finding "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" face down on the counterpaneoffered to read to him. 

"You would rather talk about Richard, " he said. "I know you would. Soshould I. It's all the damnedest nonsense! Such a charge as that!--Tellyou what, Judith. D'ye remember 'Woodstock' and Cromwell in it? Well, Stonewall Jackson's like Cromwell--of course, a better man, and agreater general, and a nobler cause, but still he's like him! Don't youfret! Cromwell had to listen to the truth. He did it, and so willStonewall Jackson. Such damned stuff and nonsense! It hurts me worsethan that old bayonet jab ever could! I'd like to hear what Edwardsays. "

"He says, 'Duck your head and let it go by. The grass'll grow as greento-morrow. '"

"You aren't crying, are you, Judith?--I thought not. You aren't thecrying 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 goneto 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, _Ihad fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in theland of the living. . . . Be of good courage and He shall strengthen thyheart. _"

Later, in her room again, she sat by the window through the greater partof the night. The stars were large and soft, the airs faint, the jasminein the garden below smelled sweet. The hospital day stretched beforeher; she must sleep so that she could work. She never thought--in thatcity and time no woman thought--of ceasing from service because ofprivate grief. Moreover, work was her salvation. She would be betimes atthe hospital to-morrow, and she would leave it late. She bent once morea long look upon the east, where were the camp-fires of Lee andStonewall Jackson. In imagination she passed the sentries; she movedamong the sleeping brigades. She found one tent, or perhaps it would beinstead 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 earlyand 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 waywithout the city; it had come back to the seven hills after the sevendays. It had come back the hero, the darling. Richmond took the cypressfrom her doors; put off the purple pall and tragic mask. Last JulyRichmond was to fall, and this July Richmond was to fall, and lo! shesat secure on her seven hills and her sons did her honour, and for themshe 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 moreand more she wondered whence were to appear the next day's yard of clothand measure of flour. But in these days she overlaid her life withgladness and made her house pleasant for her sons. The service at St. Paul's this afternoon was one of thankfulness; the hymns rangtriumphantly. There were many soldiers. Two officers came in together. Judith knew General Lee, but the other?. . . In a moment she saw that itwas General Jackson. Her heart beat to suffocation. She sank down in thegold dusk of her corner. "O God, let him see the truth. O God, let himsee the truth--"

Outside, as she went homeward in the red sunset, she paused for a momentto speak to an old free negro who was begging for alms. She gave himsomething, and when he had shambled on she stood still a moment here atthe 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 shestood, with the light upon her face, Maury Stafford rode by. He saw heras she saw him. His brooding face flushed; he made as if to check hishorse, but did not so. He lifted his hat high and rode on, out of thetown, back to the encamped army. Judith had made no answering motion;she stood with lifted face and unchanged look, the rosy light floodingher, 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 washappy I never felt like this. I hate him. He is _glad_ of Richard'speril. "

That night she did not sleep at all but sat bowed together in thewindow, her arms about her knees, her forehead upon them, and her darkhair loose about her. She sat like a sibyl till the dawn, then rose andbathed and dressed, and was at the hospital earliest of all the workersof 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 thecamp-fires was beginning to show. 

There was a knock at the door. Judith rose and opened to a turbanedcoloured girl. "Yes, Dilsey?"

"Miss Judith, de gin'ral air downstairs. He say, ax you kin he come upto 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 wasupon her; indefinably, with her hands so, the wall behind her and herlifted head, she looked a soldier facing a firing party. "Tell mequickly, " she said, "the exact truth. "

Warwick Gary closed the door behind him and came toward her. "The courtfound him guilty, Judith. "

As she still stood, the light from without upon her face, he took her inhis arms, drew her from the wall and made her sit in the chair by thewindow, then placed himself beside her, and leaning over took her handsin 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 tellme--"

They sat still in the soft summer air. The stars were coming out. Off tothe east showed the long red light where was the army. Judith's eyesrested here. He saw it, and saw, presently, courage lift into her face. It came steady, with a deathless look. "Now, " she said, and loosed herhands. 

"It is very bad, " he answered slowly. "The evidence was more adversethan 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 agleam of reason. "

The other uttered a short laugh, proud and troubled. "Yes. It would nothave occurred to me--just that accusation. . . . Well, he stood cleared ofthat. But the other charges, Judith, the others--" He rested his handson his sword hilt and gazed broodingly into the deepening night. "Thecourt could only find as it did. I myself, sitting there, listening tothat testimony. . . . It is inexplicable!"

"Tell me all. "

"General Jackson's order was plain. A staff officer carried it toGeneral Winder with perfect correctness. Winder repeated it to thecourt, and word for word Jackson corroborated it. The same officer, carrying it on from Winder to the 65th came up with a courier belongingto the regiment. To this man, an educated, reliable, trusted soldier, hegave the order. "

"He should not have done so?"

"It is easy to say that--to blame because this time there's a snarl tounravel! The thing is done often enough. It should not be done, but itis. Staff service with us is far too irregular. The officer stands toreceive a severe reprimand--but there is no reason to believe that hedid not give the order to the courier with all the accuracy with whichhe had already delivered it to Winder. He testified that he did so giveit, repeated it word for word to the court. He entrusted it to thecourier, taking the precaution to make the latter say it over to him, and then he returned to General Jackson, down the stream, before thebridge they were building. That closed his testimony. He received thecensure 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 ThunderRun man--Steven Dagg--testified that he had been separated from theregiment. Returning to it along the wooded bank of the creek, he arrivedjust 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 hehad said. It was, 'We ought never all of us to have crossed. Tell OldJack I carried the order straight. '"

He rose and with a restless sigh began to pace the little room. "I see atangle--something not understood--some stumbling-block laid by lawsbeyond our vision. We cannot even define it, cannot even find its edges. We do not know its nature. Things happen so sometimes in this strangeworld. I do not think that Richard himself understands how the thingchanced. He testified--"

"Yes, oh, yes--"

"He repeated to the court the order he had received. It was not theorder that Jackson had given and that Winder had sent on to him, thoughit differed in only two points. And neither--and there, Judith, there isa trouble!--neither was it with entire explicitness an order to do thatwhich he did do. He acknowledged that, quite simply. He had found at thetime an ambiguity--he had thought of sending again for confirmation toWinder. And then--unfortunate man! something happened to strengthen theinterpretation which, when all is said, he preferred to receive, andupon which he acted. Time pressed. He took the risk, if there was arisk, 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 sensein blaming where, had there followed success, you would have praised?Then it would have been proper daring; now--I could say that he had beenwiser 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 anotherinterpretation and delayed, and been mistaken, then, too, comminationwould 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. Evenaccepting his statement of the order he received, he took it uponhimself to decide. "

"They did not accept his statement--"

"No, Judith. They judged that he had received General Jackson's orderand had disobeyed it. --I know--I know! To us it is monstrous. But thecourt must judge by the evidence--and the verdict was to be expected. Itwas his sole word, and where his own safety was at stake. 'Had not thedead courier a reputation for reliability, for accuracy?' 'He had, andhe 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 theorder'--Judith, Judith! I have rarely seen truth so helpless as in thiscase. "

She drew a difficult breath. "No help. And they said--"

"He was pronounced guilty of the first charge. That carried with it theverdict as to the second--the sacrifice of the regiment. There, too--guilty. Only the third there was no sustaining. The loss wasfearful, 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 remnantof the command which, in weaker hands, might have been utterly swallowedup. On that count he is clear. But on the others--guilty, and withoutmitigation. "

He came back to the woman by the window. "Judith, I would rather put thesword 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 forcomfort. Do not be afraid for me; I feel as strong as the hills, theair, the sea--anything. What is the sentence?"

"Dismissal from the army. "

Judith rose and, with her hands on the window-sill, leaned out into thenight. Her gaze went straight to the red light in the eastern sky. Therewas 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 chainsheld 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 verysilent--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 knowwhat I want to do then? To do just as soon as I shall have seen him andmade 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 willlet me do it. "

He regarded her with a grave, compassionate face. "No. You need not fearme, Judith. It is hardly father and child with you and me. It is souland soul, and I trust your soul with its own concerns. Moreover, if itis pain to consider what you would do, the pang would be greater to findyou not capable. . . . Yes, I would let you do it. But I do not think thatRichard will. "

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CEDAR RUN

The Seven Days brought a sterner temper into this war. The two sidesgrew to know each other better; each saw how determined was the other, and either foe, to match the other, raised the bronze in himself toiron. The great army, still under McClellan, at Harrison's Landing, became the Army of the Potomac. The great army guarding Richmond underLee, became the Army of Northern Virginia. President Lincoln calledupon the Governors of the Northern States for three hundred thousandmen, and offered bounties. President Davis called upon the Governors ofthe Southern States for conscripts, and obtained no great number, forthe mass of the men had volunteered. The world at large looked on, nowand henceforth, with an absorbed regard. The struggle promised to beHomeric, memorable. The South was a fortress beleaguered; seven hundredthousand square miles of territory lost and inland as the steppes ofTartary, for all her ports were blocked by Northern men-of-war. Littlenews from the fortress escaped; the world had a sense of gigantic greyfigures moving here and there behind a great battle veil, of a pushagainst the fortress, a push from all sides, with approved batteringrams, scaling ladders, hooks, grapples, mines, of blue figures, allknown and described in heroic terms by the Northern public prints, apush repelled by the voiceless, printless, dimly-discerned grey figures. Not that the grey, too, were not described to the nations in the printsabove. They were. The wonder was that the creatures could fight--even, it appeared, fight to effect. Around and over the wide-flung fortressthe battle smoke rolled and eddied. Drums were distantly heard, nowrallying, now muffled. A red flag with a blue cross rose and fell androse again; grey names emerged, floated, wraith-like, over the sea, notto be stopped by blue men-of-war, names and picturesque nicknames, lovedof soldiers. It grew to be allowed that there must be courage in thefortress, and a gift of leadership. All was seen confusedly, but with amounting, mounting interest. The world gaped at the far-borne clang andsmoke and roar. Military men in clubs demonstrated to a nicety just howlong the fortress might hold out, and just how it must be taken at last. Schoolboys fought over again in the schoolyards the battles with theheathenish names. The Emperor of the French and the King of Prussia andthe Queen of Spain and the Queen of England and the Czar and the Sultanand the Pope at Rome asked each morning for the war news, and so didgaunt cotton-spinners staring in mill towns at tall smokeless chimneys. 

Early in June Halleck was appointed commander-in-chief of all the armiesof the United States. What to do with McClellan, at present summering onthe James twenty-five miles below Richmond, came upon the board. McClellan claimed, quite rightly, that here and now, with his army onboth sides of the James, he held the key position, and that withsufficient reinforcements he could force the evacuation of Richmond. Only give him reinforcements with which to face Lee's "not less than twohundred thousand!" Recall the Army of the Potomac, and it might be sometime before it again saw Richmond! Halleck deliberated. General Pope hadcome out of the west to take concentrated command of the old forces ofBanks, Sigel, Fremont, and McDowell. He had an attitude, had Pope, atthe head of his forty thousand men behind the Rappahannock! The armieswere too widely separated, McClellan's location notoriously unhealthy. Impossible to furnish reinforcements to the tune asked for, Washingtonmight, at any moment, be in peril. It was understood that StonewallJackson had left Richmond on the thirteenth, marching towardGordonsville. 

The James River might be somewhat unhealthy for strangers that summer, and Stonewall Jackson had marched toward Gordonsville. The desire at themoment most at the heart of General Robert Edward Lee was that GeneralMcClellan should be recalled. Therefore he guarded Richmond withsomething less than sixty thousand men, and he made rumours to spread ofgunboats building, and he sent Major-General T. J. Jackson northwardwith twelve thousand men. 

In this July month there was an effect of suspense. The fortress wastaking muster, telling its strength, soldering its flag to the staff andthe staff to the keep. The besiegers were gathering; the world waswatching, expectant of the grimmer struggle. There came a roar and clangfrom the outer walls, from the Mississippi above Vicksburg, from theGeorgian coast, from Murfreesboro in Tennessee, from Arkansas, fromMorgan's raids in Kentucky. There was fire and sound enough, but thebattles that were to tell were looked for on Virginia soil. Hot andstill were the July days, hot and still was the air, and charged with acertain sentiment. Thunderbolts were forging; all concerned knew that, and very subtly life and death and the blue sky and the green leavescame freshlier across the senses. Jackson, arriving at Gordonsville thenineteenth of July, found Pope before him with forty-seven thousand men. He asked for reinforcements and Lee, detaching yet another twelvethousand from the army at Richmond, sent him A. P. Hill and the LightDivision. Hill arrived on the second of August, splendid fighter, in hishunting 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 toJackson sitting sucking a lemon. "Well, general, here's a new candidatefor your attention!"

Jackson looked up. "Yes, sir. By God's blessing he shall have it. " Hesucked on, studying a map of the country between Slaughter Mountain andManassas which Hotchkiss had made him. In a letter to his wife fromRichmond he had spoken of "fever and debility" attending him during hisstay in that section of the country. If it were so he had apparentlyleft them in the rear when he came up here. He sat now tranquil as astone wall, in sight of the mountains, sucking his lemon and studyinghis maps. 

This was the second. On the sixth of August Pope began to cross theRappahannock. On the afternoon of the seventh the grey army was inmotion. All the eighth it was in column, the heat intense, the duststifling, an entanglement of trains and a misunderstanding of orders onthe 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 withstatements as to the reeking heat, the dust, the condition of theirshoes and the impertinence of the cavalry. The latter was moreirritating than were the flapping soles, the dust in the throat, and thesweat pouring into the eyes. The infantry swore, swerving again andagain to one side of the narrow road to let small bodies of horsemen goby. It was dark, the road going through an interminable hot, close wood. Officers and men were liberal in their vituperation. "Thank the Lord, itain't my arm!"--"Here you fellows--damn you! look where you are going!Trampling innocent bystanders that way!--Why in hell didn't you stayback where you belong?"--"Of course if you've positively got to get tothe front and can't find any other road it's our place to give you thisone!--Just wait a moment and we'll ask the colonel if we can't _liedown_. 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 onthe dark road, the column wound on through the hot, midnight wood. Morehoof-beats--another party of cavalry to be let by! They passed theinfantry in the darkness, pushing the broken line into the ditch andscrub. In the pitchy blackness an impatient command lost at thisjuncture its temper. The men swore, an officer called out to thehorsemen a savage "Halt!" The party pressed on. The officer furious, caught a bridle rein. "Halt, damn you! Stop them, men! Now you cavalryhave got to learn a thing or two! One is, that the infantry is theimportant thing in war! It's the aristocracy, damn you! The other isthat we were on this road first anyhow! Now you just turn out into thewoods 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 thevoice 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 farmhousewith a cool, grassy yard surrounded by an ornamental fence, white palinggleaming in the waved lights, flung wide its doors to Stonewall Jackson. The troops bivouacked around, in field and meadow. A rain came up, achilly downpour. An aide appeared before the brigade encampedimmediately about the farmhouse. "The general says, sir, that the menmay take the rail fence over there, but the regimental officers are tosee that under no circumstances is the fence about Mrs. Wilson's yard tobe touched. "

The night passed. Officers had had a hard day; they slept perhapssomewhat soundly, wrapped in their oilcloths, in the chilly rain, by thesmallest of sputtering camp-fires. The rain stopped at three o'clock;the August dawn came up gloriously with a cool freshness. Reveillesounded. Stonewall Jackson came from the farmhouse, looked about him andthen walked across the grassy yard. A little later five colonels of fiveregiments found themselves ordered to report to the general commandingthe brigade. 

"Gentlemen, as you came by did you notice the condition of theornamental fence about the yard?"

"Not especially, sir. "

"I did, sir. One panel is gone. I suppose the men were tempted. It was aconfounded cold rain. "

The brigadier pursed his lips. "Well, colonel, you heard the order. Allof you heard the order. I regret to say, so did I. Dog-gone tirednessand profound slumber are no excuse. You ought--we ought--to have heardthem 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'dadvise 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 faircountry, with all the harvest fields and the deep wooded hills and theAugust sky. After the rain the roads were just pleasantly wet; dewdropshung on the corn blades, blackberries were ripening, ox-eye daisiesfringed the banks of red earth. The head of the column, coming to aby-road, found awaiting it there an old, plain country woman in a fadedsunbonnet and faded check apron. She had a basket on her arm, and shestepped into the middle of the road before Little Sorrel. "Air thisGeneral Jackson?"

Stonewall Jackson checked the horse. The staff and a division general ortwo stopped likewise. Behind them came on the infantry advance, long andjingling. "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 somesocks an' two shirts an' a chicken, an' a pot of apple butter. An' efyou'll call John I'll be obleeged to you, sir. "

A young man in the group of horsemen laughed, but stopped abruptly asJackson looked round. The latter turned to the old woman with thegentlest blue eyes, and the kindliest slow smile. "I've got a great manycompanies, ma'am. They are all along the road from Gordonsville. I don'tbelieve I know your son. "

But the old woman would not have that. "My lan', general! I reckon youall know John! I reckon John wuz the first man to jine the army. He wuzchopping down the big gum by the crick, an' the news come, an' hechopped on twel the gum wuz down, an' he says, says he, 'I'll cut it upfor you, Maw, an' then I'm goin'. ' An' he went. --He's about your makean' 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 GeneralJackson's company. "We never larned to write, John an' me. He wuzpowerful good to me--en I reckon he's been in all the battles 'cause hewuz 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 waslittle--an' won't you please find him for me, sir?" The old voicequavered 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 thelast wagon train had its orders for expedition. He sent for hisadjutant. "Companies from Orange County, sir? Yes, there are a number indifferent regiments and brigades. "

"Well, you will go, colonel, and halt the advance. See if there is anOrange company and a private named John Simpson. "

There was not. The woman with the basket was old and tired. She sat downon 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, findthe 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 notin the main column go on to the rear. "

The aide spurred his horse. Jackson explained matters. "You'll have towait a while, Mrs. Simpson. If your son's in the army he'll be broughtto you. I'll leave one of my aides with you!" He spoke to Little Sorreland 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 knowhim like you will! They'll just come back an' say they can't findhim!--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 JohnSimpson was looked for. At the end of that time the cross roads saw himcoming, riding behind the aide. Tall and lank, in butternut still, andred as a beet, he slipped from the horse, and saluted the general, then, almost crying, gathered up the checked apron and the sunbonnet and thebasket and the old woman. "Maw, Maw! jes' look what you have done!Danged ef you haven't stopped the whole army! Everybody cryin' out 'JohnSimpson'!"

On went the column through the bright August forenoon. The day grew hotand the dust whirled up, and the cavalry skirmished at intervals withdetached blue clouds of horsemen. On the horizon appeared at somedistance 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 waslovely, green and rolling; despite the heat and the dust and the delaythe troops were in spirits. They were going against Major-General JohnPope and they liked the job. The old Army of the Valley, now a part ofthe Army of Northern Virginia, rather admired Shields, had no especialobjection to McDowell, and felt a real gratitude toward Mr. CommissaryBanks, but it was prepared to fight Pope with a vigour born ofdetestation. A man of the old Army, marching with Ewell, began tosing:--

 "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! Prettyhot 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 cavalryscrimmage--Hello! hello! Artillery's more serious!" "Boys, boys!we've struck Headquarters-in-the-saddle!--What's that awfulnoise?--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 bluebatteries were well placed, and against them thundered twenty-six greyrifled guns: two Parrotts of Rockbridge with a gun of Carpenter'sappeared at the top of the hill, tore down the long slope and came intobattery in an open field, skirted by a wood. Behind was the StonewallBrigade in column of regiments. The guns were placed _en echelon_, thehorses taken away, the ball opened with canister. Immediately theFederal guns answered, got the range of the grey, and began to do deadlymischief. 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 workedlike mad. The guns thundered, recoiled, thundered again. The blue shellsarrived in a deadly stream. All was smoke, whistling limbs of trees, glare and roar. General Winder came up on foot. Standing by a greyParrott he tried with his field glass to make out the Federal batteries. Lowering the glass he shouted some direction to the men about the gunbelow him. The noise was hideous, deafening. Seeing that he was notunderstood he raised his arm and hollowed his hand above his mouth. Ashell 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 andbatteries were on the mountain slope; the Light Division, A. P. Hill inhis red battle shirt at its head, not yet up; Jubal Early forming a lineof battle in the rolling fields. An aide came to "Old Jube. " "GeneralJackson's compliments to General Early, and he says you will advance onthe enemy, and General Winder's troops will support you. " Early had athin, high, drawling voice. "My compliments to General Jackson, and tellhim I will do it. "

The Stonewall Brigade, drawn up in the rear of the Artillery, stoodwaiting its orders from Winder. There came a rumor. "The general iskilled! General Winder is killed!" The Stonewall chose to beincredulous. "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 oftransferals from full commands had closed its ranks. The 65th, smallernow, of diluted quality, but even so, dogged and promising well, --the65th, waiting on the edge of a wheat field, looked across it toTaliaferro's and Campbell's brigades and the dark wood in front. BillyMaydew was sergeant now and Matthew Coffin was first lieutenant ofCompany A. The two had some talk under a big walnut tree. 

"Artillery's been shouting for two hours, " said Coffin. "They've got ahell 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 Jacksend it. 'Look well to your left, ' he says, says he. That thar wood'sthe left, " said Billy. "It looks lonesomer than lonesome, but thar! whenlonesome things do blaze out they blaze out the worst!"

The colonel of the 65th--Colonel Erskine--came along the front. "It'stoo 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 thefields and up a gentle hillside, and pushed before it bright clusters ofFederal cavalry. When the grey lines came to the hilltop the Federalbatteries opened fiercely. Early posted Dement and Brown and loudlyanswered. To the left rolled great wheat fields, the yellow grainstanding in shocks. Here gathered the beautiful blue cavalry, many andgallant. Ewell with Trimble's South Carolinians and Harry Hayes'sLouisianians held the slope of the mountain, and from these heightsbellowed Latimer's guns. Over hill and vale the Light Division was seencoming, 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--upthat 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 thelonesome wood. "

On the left the 1st and 42d Virginia were the advance regiments. Out ofthe forest, startling, unexpected, burst a long blue battle line. Banks, a brave man if not a wise one, interpreted Pope's orders somewhat tosuit himself, and attacked without waiting for Sigel or McDowell. Inthis instance valor seemed likely to prove the better part ofdiscretion. Of the grey generals, Hill was not up, Early was hotlyengaged, the artillery fire, grey and blue alike, sweeping the defilebefore Ewell kept him on the mountain side. Bayonets fixed, brightcolours tossing, skirmishers advanced, on with verve and determinationcame Banks's attack. As it crossed the yellow stubble field Taliaferroand Campbell, startled by the apparition but steady, poured in awithering fire. But the blue came on, swung its right and partlysurrounded the 1st Virginia. Amid a hell of shots, bayonet work, shouts, and cries 1st Virginia broke; fell back upon the 42d, that in its turnwas overwhelmed. Down came the blue wave on Taliaferro's flank. Thewheat 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. Thesmoke was everywhere, rolling and thick. Out of it came abruptly avoice. "I have always depended upon this brigade. Forward!"

Billy had an impression of wheat stubble beneath his feet, wheat stubblethick strewn with men, silent or lamentably crying out, and about hisears a whistling storm of minies. There was, too, a whirl of grey forms. There was no alignment--regiments were dashed to pieces--everybody wasmixed up. It was like an overturned beehive. Then in the swirling smoke, in the swarm and shouting and grey rout, he saw Little Sorrel, andStonewall Jackson standing in his stirrups. He had drawn his sabre; itflashed above his head like a gleam from the sinking sun. Billy spokealoud. "I've been with him from the first, and this air the first time Iever saw him do that. " As he spoke he caught hold of a fleeing greysoldier. "Stand still and fight! Thar ain't nothing in the rear butdamned 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 ofmusketry and the loud indifference of the guns. Above it all the man onthe quaint war horse made himself heard. From the blue line of steelabove his head, from the eyes below the forage cap, from the beardedlips, from the whole man there poured a magic control. He shouted andhis voice mastered the storm. "Rally, brave men! Rally and follow me! Iwill 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. Taliaferrorallied, Campbell rallied, the Stonewall itself under Ronald rallied. The first of the Light Division, Branch's North Carolinians came on witha shout, and Thomas's Georgians and Lane and Archer and Pender. Earlywas up, Ewell sweeping down from the mountain. Jackson came along therestored front. The soldiers greeted him with a shout that tore thewelkin. He touched the forage cap. "Give them the bayonet! Give them thebayonet! _Forward, and drive them!_"

The cavalry with Banks was fine and staunch. At this moment it undertooka charge useless but magnificent. With clarion sound, with tossingcolours, with huzzas and waving sabres, a glorious and fearful sight, the cavalry rushed diagonally across the trampled field, its flankexposed to the North Carolinians. These opened a blasting fire whileTaliaferro's brigade met it full, and the 13th Virginia, couched behinda grey zigzag of fence, gave volley after volley. Little more than halfof those horsemen returned. 

Dusk fell and the blue were in full retreat. After them swept thegrey--the Light Division, Jubal Early, Ewell, Jackson's own. In the cornfields, in the wheat fields, in the forest thick, thick! lay the deadand wounded, three thousand men, grey and blue, fallen in that fight ofan hour and a half. The blue crossed Cedar Run, the grey crossed itafter them. The moon, just past the full, rose above the hilltops. Onthe whole the summer night was light enough. Stonewall Jackson broughtup 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 timethrough the moonlit night. Jackson spoke but once. "Delightfulexcitement, " he said. 

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE FIELD OF MANASSAS

The column, after an extraordinary march attended by skirmishes, mostwearily winding through a pitch black night, heard the "Halt!" withrejoicing. "Old Jack be thanked! So we ain't turning on our tail andgoing back through Thoroughfare Gap after all! See anything of MarseRobert?--Go away! he ain't any nearer than White Plains. He andLongstreet won't get through Thoroughfare until to-morrow--_Breakranks!_ Oh Lord, yes! with pleasure. "

Under foot there was rough, somewhat rolling ground. In the dark nightmen dropped down without particularity as to couch or bedchamber. Natureand the time combined to spread for them a long and echoing series ofsleeping 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 withoutremark. To-night there was little speech of any kind before falling intodreamless slumber. "O hell! Hungry as a dog!"--"Me, too!"--"Can't youjust _see_ Manassas Junction and Stuart's and Trimble's fellows gorgingthemselves? Biscuit and cake and pickles and 'desecrated' vegetables andcanned peaches and sardines and jam and coffee!--freight cars and wagonsand storehouses just filled with jam and coffee and canned peaches andcigars and--" "I wish that fool would hush! I wasn't hungrybefore!"--"and nice cozy fires, and rashers of bacon broiling, andplenty of coffee, and all around just like daisies in the field, cleannew shirts, and drawers and socks, and handkerchiefs and shoes andwriting paper and soap. "--"Will you go to hell and stop talking as yougo?"--"Seems somehow an awful lonely place, boys!--dark and a wind. Hearthat whippoorwill? Just twenty thousand men sloshin' round--and Pope maybe right over there by the whippoorwill. Jarrow says that with McCalland Heintzelman and Fitz John Porter, there are seventy thousand ofthem. Well? They've got Headquarters-in-the-saddle and we've gotStonewall Jackson--That's so! that's so! Good-night. "

Dawn came calmly up, dawn of the twenty-eighth of August. The ghostlytrumpets blew--the grey soldiers stirred and rose. In the sky were yet astar or two and a pale quarter moon. These slowly faded and the faintestcoral tinge overspread that far and cold eastern heaven. The men werebusied about breakfast, but now this group and presently that suspendedoperations. "What's there about this place anyhow? It has an awful, familiar look. The stream and the stone bridge and the woods and thehill--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 longago, and yet it comes back. Do you remember how we crashed together atthe Stone Bridge? There's the Mathews Hill where we first met Sykes andRicketts--seen them often since. The Henry Hill--there's the house--Mrs. Henry was killed. Hampton and Cary came along there and Beauregard withhis sword out and Old Joe swinging the colours high, restoring thebattle!--and Kirby Smith, just in time--just in time, and the yell hiscolumn 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 byjiminy! we've got something to tell our grandchildren!' The ravinerunning 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 thecharred trees. There's where we charged, there's where we came down onGriffin and Ricketts!--the 33d, the 65th. The 65th made its fight there. Richard Cleave--" "Don't!"--"Well, that's where we came down on Griffinand 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. Alltogether, north of the Warrenton turnpike. Where's Marse Robert andLongstreet?"

Colonel Fauquier Cary, riding by, heard the last remark and answered it. "Marse Robert and Longstreet are marching by the road we've marchedbefore 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 Leewants is an immediate battle. "

He rode on. The men to whom he had been speaking looked after himapprovingly. "He's a fine piece of steel! Always liked that wholefamily--Isn't he a cousin of ----? Yes. Wonder what he thinks about thatmatter! Heigho! Look at the stealing light and the grey shadows!Manassas!"

Cary, riding by Ewell's lines, came upon Maury Stafford lying stretchedbeneath an oak, studying, too, the old battlefield. The sun was up; themorning cool, fresh, and pure. Dismounting, Cary seated himself besidethe other. "You were not in the battle here? On the Peninsula, were younot?"

"Yes, with Magruder. Look at that shaft of light. "

"Yes. It strikes the crest of the hill--just where was the StonewallBrigade. "

Silence fell. The two sat, brooding over the scene, each with his ownthoughts. "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 havenot 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. Theyare, 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 thehospital lessening, she went home. Yes, she is at Greenwood. "

"Thank you. I am going to ask another question. Answer it or not as yousee fit. Does she know that--most unfortunately--it was I who carriedthat order from General Jackson to General Winder?"

"I do not think that she knows it. " He rose. "The bugles are sounding. Imust get back to Hill. General Lee will be up, I hope, to-night. Untilhe comes we are rather in the lion's mouth. Happily John Pope is hardlythe desert king. " He mounted his horse, and went. Stafford laid himselfdown beneath the oak, looked sideways a moment at Bull Run and the hillsand the woods, then flung his arm upward and across his eyes, and wentin mind to Greenwood. 

The day passed in a certain still and steely watchfulness. In the Augustafternoon, Jeb Stuart, feather in hat, around his horse's neck a garlandof purple ironweed and yarrow, rode into the lines and spoke for tenminutes with General Jackson, then spurred away to the Warrentonturnpike. Almost immediately Ewell's and Taliaferro's divisions wereunder arms and moving north. 

Near Groveton they struck the force they were going against--King'sdivision of McDowell's corps moving tranquilly toward Centreville. Thelong blue column--Doubleday, Patrick, Gibbon, and Hatch'sbrigades--showed its flank. It moved steadily, with jingle and creak ofaccoutrements, with soldier chat and laughter, with a band playing aquickstep, with the rays of the declining sun bright on gun-stock andbayonet, and with the deep rumble of the accompanying batteries. Thehead of the column came in the gold light to a farmhouse and an appleorchard. Out of the peace and repose of the scene burst a roar of greyartillery. 

The fight was fierce and bloody, and marked by a certain savagepicturesqueness. Gibbon and Doubleday somehow deployed and seized aportion of the orchard. The grey held the farmhouse and the larger partof the fair, fruit-bearing slopes. The blue brought their artillery intoaction. The grey batteries, posted high, threw their shot and shell overthe 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 wasno charging this golden afternoon. They merely stood, blue and grey, onehundred yards apart, in the sunset-flooded apple orchard, and then in atwilight apple orchard, and then in an apple orchard with the starsconceivably shining above the roof of smoke, and directed each againstthe other a great storm of musketry, round shot, and canister. 

It lasted two and a half hours, that tornado, and it never relaxed inintensity. It was a bitter fight, and there was bitter loss. Doubledayand Gibbon suffered fearfully, and Ewell and Taliaferro suffered. Greyand blue, they stood grimly, and the tornado raged. The ghosts of thequiet husbandmen who had planted the orchard, of the lovers who may havewalked there, of the children who must have played beneath thetrees--these were scared far, far from the old peaceful haunt. It was abitter fight. 

Stafford was beside Ewell when the latter fell, a shell dreadfullyshattering his leg. The younger man caught him, drew him quite from poorold 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 facetwitched, but he could speak. "Of course I've lost thatleg! ----! ---- ----! Old Jackson isn't around, is he? Never mind! Occasionmust excuse. Go along, gentlemen. Need you all there. Doctors andchaplains and the teamsters, and Dick Ewell will forgather allright ----! ----! Damn you, Maury, I don't want you to stay! What's thatthat man says? Taliaferro badly wounded ----! ---- ----! Gentlemen, oneand all you are ordered back to your posts. I've lost a leg, but I'm notgoing to lose this battle!"

Night came with each stark battle line engaged in giving and receivingas deadly a bombardment as might well be conceived. The orchard grew aplace tawny and red and roaring with sound. And then at nine o'clock thesound dwindled and the light sank. The blue withdrew in good order, taking with them their wounded. The battle was drawn, the grey rested onthe field, the loss of both was heavy. 

Back of the apple orchard, on the long natural terrace where he hadposted his six guns, that tall, blond, very youthful officer whom, alittle later, Stuart called "the heroic chivalric Pelham, " whom Leecalled "the gallant Pelham, " of whom Stonewall Jackson said, "Every armyshould have a Pelham on each flank"--Major John Pelham surveyed thehavoc among his men and horses. Then like a good and able leader, hebrought matters shipshape, and later announced that the Horse Artillerywould 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 thatmight be saved were carefully tended, the others shot. The pickets wereplaced. Fires were kindled, and from a supply wagon somewhere in therear 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 sator lay between them, tasting rest after battle. Below this platform, inthe orchard and on the turnpike and in the woods beyond, showed alsofires and moving lights. The air was yet smoky, the night close andwarm. There were no tents nor roofs of any nature. Officers and menrested in the open beneath the August stars. Pelham had a log beneath aLombardy 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 itthrough and through that there is going to be heavy fighting. We'll haveto fill up somehow. "

"Everybody from this region's in already. We might get somefifteen-year-olds or some sixty-five-year-olds, though, or we might askthe department for conscripts--"

"Don't like the latter material. Prefer the first. Well, we'll thinkabout 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 alittle line of woods dark against the starlit sky, was acornfield--between it and the log and the poplar only a little grassydepression. A man had come out of the cornfield. He stood ten feetaway--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. Andwhen I got into this county I found it chock full of armies. I didn'twant to be taken up by the Yankees, and so I've been mostly travellingby night. I was in that wood up there while you all were fighting. I hada good view of the battle. When it was over I said to myself, 'Afterall they're my folk, ' and I came down through the corn. I was lyingthere between the stalks; I heard you say you needed gunners. I said tomyself, 'I might as well join now as later. We've all got to join oneway 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 headin a saw mill on Briony Creek and it made me just as useless as a bit ofpith. The doctor says I am all right now, sir. I got tired of staying onBriony--"

"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 haveput 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 tolearn, and learn quickly, by watching the others. Take him and enrollhim, Haralson, and turn him over to Dreux and the Howitzer. Now, Deaderick, the Horse Artillery is heaven to a good man who does hisduty, 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 anunfinished railroad. It was bordered by woods and rolling fields. Therewere alternate embankments and deep railroad cuts. Behind was the longridge and Catharpin Run, in front, sloping gently to the little stream, green fields broken to the north by one deep wood. Stonewall Jacksonlaid his hand on the railroad with those deep cuts and on the rough andrising ground beyond. In the red dawn there stretched a battle front ofnearly two miles. A. P. Hill had the left. Trimble and Lawton of Ewell'shad the centre, Jackson's own division the right, Jubal Early and Fornoof Ewell's a detached force on this wing. There were forty guns, andthey were ranged along the rocky ridge behind the infantry. Jeb Stuartguarded the flanks. 

The chill moisture of the morning, the dew-drenched earth, the quietwoods, the rose light in the sky--the troops moving here and there totheir assigned positions, exchanged opinions. "Ain't it like thetwenty-first of July, 1861?"--"It air and it ain't--mostlyain't!"--"That's true! Hello! they are going to give us the railroadcut! God bless the Manassas Railroad Company! If we'd dug a whole day wecouldn't have dug such a ditch as that!"--"Look at the boys behind theembankment! Well, if that isn't the jim-dandiest breastwork! 'N look atthe forty guns up there against the sky!"--"Better tear those vines awayfrom the edge. Pretty, aren't they? All the blue morning glories. Regiment's swung off toward Manassas Junction! Now if Longstreet shouldcome up!"--"Maybe he will. Wouldn't it be exciting? Come up with a yellsame as Kirby Smith did last year! Wonder where the Yankees are?""Somewhere in the woods, the whole hell lot of them. "--"Some of themaren't a hell lot. Some of them are right fine. Down on the ChickahominyI acquired a real respect for the Army of the Potomac--and a lot ofit'll be here to-day. Yes, sir, I like Fitz John Porter and Sykes andReynolds and a lot of them first rate! They can't help being commandedby The-Man-without-a-Rear. That's Washington's fault, nottheirs. "--"Yes, sir, Ricketts and Meade and Kearney and a lot of themare all right. "--"Good Lord, what a shout! That's either Old Jack or arabbit. "--"It's Old Jack! It's Old Jack! He's coming along the front. Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! He's passed. OGod! I wish that Bee and Bartow and all that fell here could see him andus now. "--"There's Stuart passing through the fields. What guns arethose 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 amovement 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 sowit. All right, men! General Jackson's looking!--and General Lee will behere to-night to tell the story to. I suppose you'd like Marse Robert tosay, 'Well done!' All right, then, do well!--I don't think we're any toorich, 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 powerfullong line. There isn't but one thing I envy them and that's thosebeautiful 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 themanything--our batteries are doing all right! We've got a lot of theirguns, and to-night we'll have more. Artillery's done fine to-day. "--"Soit has! so it has!"--"Listen, they're opening again. That's Pelham--nowPegram--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 itbefore. 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 theValley! We've heard it several times. It's 'Der Wacht am Rhein. '"--"Allright, sir! All right. Now!"

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, after the third great bluecharge, Edward Cary, lips blackened from tearing cartridges, lock andbarrel of his rifle hot within his hands, his cap shot away, his sleevetorn to ribbons where he had bared and bandaged a flesh wound in thearm, Edward Cary straightened himself and wiped away the sweat andpowder 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 headof one was gone, the legs of another; the third was disembowelled, thefourth had his breast crushed in. Their cartridge boxes when opened werefound to be half full. Edward emptied them into the haversack he carriedand 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 wasin his canteen, took four cartridges from his box, and crept on. A miniesang by him, struck a yard away, full in the forehead of the dead mantoward whom he was making. The dead man had a smile upon his lips; itwas as though he mocked the bullet. All the field running back from therailroad cuts and embankment was overstormed by shot and shell, andeverywhere 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 gatheredcartridges steadily. All manner of things were wont to come into hismind. Just now it was a certain field behind Greenwood covered withblackberry bushes--and the hot August sunshine--and he and Easter's Jimgathering blackberries while Mammy watched from beneath a tree. He heardagain the little thud of the berries into the bucket. He took thecartridges from two young men--brothers from the resemblance and fromthe fact that, falling together, one, the younger, had pillowed his headon the other's breast, while the elder's arm was around him. They laylike children in sleep. The next man was elderly, a lonely, rugged-looking person with a face slightly contorted and a great hole inhis breast. The next that Edward came to was badly hurt, but not toobadly to take an interest. "Cartridges?--yes, five. I'm awfulthirsty!--Well, never mind. Maybe it will rain. Who's charging now?Heintzelman, Kearney, and Reno--Got 'em all? You can draw one from mygun, 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. Ashe turned to resume the cartridge quest there arose a cry. "Steady, men!steady! Hooker hasn't had enough!" Edward, too, saw the blue wall comingthrough the woods on the other side of the railroad. He took a musketfrom a dead man near by and with all the other grey soldiers lay flat inthe 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. TheAugust grass was long and dry. Sparks set it afire. Flames arose andcaught the oak scrub. Through it all and through the storm of bulletsthe 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 greyline atop. The grey gave back, the colours fell and rose; the airrocked, so loud was the din. Stonewall Jackson appeared. "General Hill, order in your second line. " Field's Virginians, Thomas's Georgianscharged forward. They yelled, all their rifles flashed at once, theydrove Hooker down into the cut, across the track, up into the burningbrushwood and the smoke-filled woods. But the blue were staunch andseasoned troops; they reformed, they cheered. Hooker brought up a freshbrigade. They charged again. Down from the woods plunged the blue wave, through the fire, down the bank, across and up. Again din and smoke andflame, all invading, monstrous. Jackson's voice rose higher. "GeneralHill, order in General Pender. "

North Carolina was, first and last, a stark fighter. Together with Greggand Field and Thomas, Pender drove Hooker again down the red escarpment, across the railroad, through the burning brush, into the wood; evendrove him out of the wood, took a battery and dashed into the openbeyond. Then from the hills the blue artillery opened and from theplains below volleyed fresh infantry. Pender was borne back through thewood, across the railroad, up the red side of the cut. 

Hooker had a brigade in column behind a tree-clad hill. Screened fromsight it now moved forward, swift and silent, then with suddenness brokefrom the wood in a splendid charge. With a gleam of bayonets, with aflash of colours, with a loud hurrah, with a staggering volley itsregiments plunged into the cut, swarmed up the red side and fell upon A. P. Hill's weakened lines. The grey wavered. Stonewall Jackson's voicewas heard again. "General Hill, I have ordered up Forno from the rightand a regiment of Lawton's. " He jerked his hand into the air. "Here theyare. Colonel Forno, give them the bayonet!"

Louisiana and Georgia swept forward, Tennessee, Alabama, and Virginiasupporting. They swept Grover's brigade down and back. There was bitterfighting, hand-to-hand, horrible work: the dead lay in the railroad cutthick as fallen leaves. The dead lay thick on either bank and thick inthe 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 SouthCarolinians when a courier came up. "General Jackson wishes to know eachbrigade's amount of ammunition, " and he heard Gregg's answer, "TellGeneral Jackson that this brigade has one round to the man, but I'llhold 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 ninehours of fighting. "Nine hours--ninety hours--ninety minutes?" thoughtEdward. "Time's plastic like everything else. Double it, fold it back onitself, stretch it out, do anything with it--" He took the cartridgesfrom a trunk of a man, crept on to a soldier shot through the hip. Thelatter clutched him with a blackened hand. "Has Marse Robert come? HasGeneral Lee come?"

"They say he has. Over there on Stuart's Hill, holding Reynolds andMcDowell and Fitz John Porter in check. "

The man fell back. "Oh, then it is all right. Stonewall Jackson andRobert 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 blackagainst the sun. As he looked they blazed and thundered. He turned hiseyes. Kearney and Reno, five brigades, were coming at a double acrossthe open. As he looked they broke into the charge. With his bag ofcartridges he made for the nearest grey line. The blue came on, aformidable wave indeed. Stonewall Jackson rode along the grey front. 

"Men, General Early and two regiments of Lawton's are on their way. Youmust stand it till they come. If you have only one cartridge, save ituntil they are up from the cut. Then fire, and use your bayonets. Don'tcheer! It makes your hand less steady. "

The blue wave plunged into the railroad cut. "I think, " said a greysoldier, "that I hear Jubal Early yelling. " The blue wave mounted to thelevel. "_Yaaaiih! Yaaaaiih!_" came out of the distance. "We know that wedo, " said the men. "Now, our friend, the enemy, you go back!" Out of thedun cloud and roar came a deep "Steady, men! You've got your bayonetsyet. Stand it for five minutes. General Early's coming. This isManassas--Manassas--Manassas! God is over us! Stand it for fiveminutes--for three minutes. --General Early, drive them with thebayonet. "

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 remarkabletelegram to Halleck at Washington. _"We fought a terrific battle hereyesterday with the combined forces of the enemy, which lasted withcontinuous fury from daylight until dark, by which time the enemy wasdriven from the field which we now occupy. The enemy is still in ourfront, but badly used up. We lost not less than eight thousand menkilled and wounded, but from the appearance of the field the enemy losttwo to one. The news has just reached me from the front that the enemyis retreating toward the mountains. "_

The delusion holding, he, at noon of the thirtieth, ordered a generaladvance. "The troops to be immediately thrown forward in pursuit of theenemy and to press him vigorously. " One of his officers undertook acomment. "By the Lord Harry, it will be the shortest pursuit that evenhe ever saw! Why, damn it all! they're still here! I tell you the placeis unlucky!"

Twenty thousand blue soldiers formed the front that came down from thehills and moved toward the Groveton wood and the railroad track. Behindthem were supporting masses, forty thousand strong. On every slopegleamed the great blue guns. The guns opened; they shelled withvehemence the wood, the railroad cut, and embankment, the fieldimmediately beyond. A line of grey pickets was seen to leave the woodand make across the track and into cover. Pope at the Stone House sawthese with his field glass. "The last of their rear guard, " he said. 

One of his generals spoke. "Their guns are undoubtedly yet on thatridge, sir. "

"I am perfectly well aware of that, sir. But they will not be there longafter our line has crossed the track. Either we will gloriously takethem, 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 themost a brigade, thrown out from Jackson's right. I have positiveinformation. Fitz John Porter is mistaken--arrogantly mistaken. --Ah, therebel guns are going to indulge in a little bravado. "

The twenty thousand gleaming bayonets passed the turnpike, passedDogan's house, moved on toward the wood. It rose torn and thin and blackfrom yesterday's handling. Immediately beyond was the railroad cut. Onthe other side of the railroad ran a stretch of field and scrub, mounting to Stony Ridge, that rose from the base of the woods. StonyRidge looked grey itself and formidable, and all about it was the smokeof the forty grey guns. The twenty thousand bayonets pressed on. 

There came a blare of bugles. Loud and high they rang--the bugles of theLight Division, of Ewell's, of Jackson's own. They pierced the thunderof the guns, they came from the wood at the base of Stony Ridge. Therewas a change in the heart-beat below the twenty thousand bayonets. Porter and Ricketts and Hatch stared, and saw start from the wood adownward moving wall. It moved fast; it approached with a certainimpetuous steadiness. Behind it were shorter lines, detached masses. Together all came down from Stony Ridge like an avalanche. The avalanchecame to and took the field of yesterday, and stood revealed, --StonewallJackson holding the railroad cut. "I thought as much, " said Fitz JohnPorter. "Go ask him to give us Reynolds. "

After the third charge the 65th and another regiment of the StonewallBrigade, finding their ammunition exhausted, armed themselves withstones. Those of the Thunder Run men who had not fallen at White OakSwamp proved themselves expert. Broken rock lay in heaps by the railroadbed. They brought these into the lines, swung and threw them. Withstones and bayonets they held the line. Morell and Sykes were greatfighters; the grey men recognized worthy foes. The battle grew Titanic. Stonewall Jackson signalled to Lee on the Warrenton turnpike, "Hill hardpressed. Every brigade engaged. Would like more guns. "

Lee sent two batteries, and Stephen D. Lee placed them. There arose aterrific 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 Leehad sent, strewed the green field beyond the Groveton wood with shot andshrapnel. 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 drivethem!"

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 andprotect 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 leaderinto simultaneous action, the Army of Northern Virginia moved as in avast parade over plain and hill. Four miles in length, swept the firstwave with, in the centre, seven grey waves behind it. It was late. Thegrey sea moved in the red and purple of a great sunset. From Stony Ridgethe forty guns thundered like grey breakers, while the guns ofLongstreet galloped toward the front. Horses and men and guns were atthe martial height of passion. To the right Jeb Stuart appeared, magnificent. On swept the resistless sea. A master mind sent it overthose 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 andbreaking 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 RunMountains. 

 "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 windowshad been, the old mansion stood against the turmoil of the sky. Itlooked a desolation, a poignant gloom, an unrelieved sorrow. A courierappeared. "The enemy's rearguard is near Ox Hill, sir. They've driven insome of our patrols. The main body is moving steady toward Fairfax CourtHouse. General Jackson has sent the Light Division forward. GeneralStuart's going, too. He says, 'Come on. '"

The clouds mounted high and dark, thunder began to mutter; by the time apart of the Light Division and a brigade of Ewell's came into touch withReno and Kearney, the afternoon, already advanced, was of the hue oftwilight. Presently there set in a violent storm of thunder andlightning, wind and rain. The trees writhed like wounded soldiers, therain came level against the face, stinging and blinding, the artilleryof the skies out-thundered man's inventions. It grew darker and darker, save for the superb, far-showing lightning flashes. Beneath these theblue and the grey plunged into an engagement at short range. 

What with the howling of the storm, the wind that took voices andwhirled them high and away, the thunder above and the volleying musketrybelow, 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 Jacksonstanding in the middle of the road, a piece of bronze played round bylightning. One of the brigadiers was speaking to him. "The cartridgesare 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 musketswon't go off, neither will the enemy's. You are to hold it, whether youcan or not. Go and do it. "

The brigadier went. Stafford gave his information, and received anorder. "Go back along the road until you find the horse artillery. TellMajor Pelham to bring his guns to the knoll yonder with the blastedtree. "

Stafford turned his horse and started. The rain and wind were now at hisback--a hundred paces, and the road, lonely save for stragglers, thegrey troops, the battle in front, was all sheeted and shrouded in thedarkly drifting storm. The fitful bursts of musketry were lost beneaththe artillery of the clouds. He travelled a mile, found Pelham and gavehis order, then stood aside under the tossing pines while the horseartillery went by. It went by in the dusk of the storm, in the long howlof the wind and the dash of the rain, like the iron chariots of Pluto, the horses galloping, the gunners clinging wherever they might placehand or foot, the officers and mounted men spurring alongside. Staffordlet 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 earlierpart 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 weredark objects, which might be mounds of turf or huge twisted roots, orwhich might be dead men and horses. Stafford, riding through wind andrain, had no sooner thought this than he saw, indeed, what seemed a merehummock beneath a clump of cedars undoubtedly move. He looked as closelyas he might for the war of water, air, and fire, and made out a horseoutstretched 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 caughtbeneath 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 bluesoldier. "There! That position must have been no joke! How long--"

The blue cavalryman proceeded to feel bone and flesh, slowly andcautiously to move the imprisoned limbs. He drew a breath of relief. "Nothing broken!--How long? Well, to reckon by one's feeling I shouldsay about a week. Say, however, since about noon. We drove against aparty 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 ofbrandy--eh?"

"Yes, I have. I should have thought of that before. " He gave the other asmall flask. The cavalryman drank. "Ah! in '55, when I was with Walkerin Nicaragua, I got pinned like that beneath a falling cottonwood. " Hegave the flask back. "You are the kind of Samaritan I like to meet. Ifeel 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 holdout, perhaps, until we beat you and I was again in the house of myfriends. I don't, however, object to acknowledging that you're hard tobeat. Couldn't manage it. Growing cold and faint--head ringing. Waitedas 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 thatwe feed and clothe our armies in the field. As for medicines with whichto fight disease, you will not let them pass, not for our women andchildren and sick at home, and not for your own men in prison. And, forall our representations, you will not exchange prisoners. If there isundue 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. Mightescape 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"--helaughed--"Invincibles. "

"I am Maury Stafford, serving on General Ewell's staff. --Yes, that'sPelham. "

He straightened himself. "I must be getting back to the front. It ishard to hear for the wind and rain and thunder, but I think the musketryis recommencing. " He looked about him. "We came through these woodsthis morning. Stuart has patrols everywhere, but I think that dipbetween the hills may be clear. You are pretty pale yet. You had betterkeep 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'tdeprive you of your flask--but if I might have another mouthful--Thankyou. " He rose stiffly. "If at any time I can serve you, I trust that youwill remember my name--Francis Marchmont, colonel Marchmont Invincibles. Send me a slip of paper, a word, anything. _Ox Hill_ will do--and youwill find me at your service. Yes, the firing is beginning again--"

Stafford, once more upon the road, travelled northward in an unabatedstorm. Tree and bush, weed, flower and grass, writhed and shrank beneaththe anger of the air; the rain hissed and beat, the lightning glared, the thunder crashed. Between the flashes all was dusk. Before him therattle of musketry, the booming of the guns grew louder. He saw to theright, on a bare rise of ground, Pelham's guns. 

There came an attempted flanking movement of the blue--a dash of cavalrymet by Stuart and followed by a movement of two of Hill's brigades. Theaction barred the road and fields before Stafford. He watched it amoment, then turned aside and mounted the rise of ground to Pelham'sguns. A great lightning-flash lit them, ranged above him. All their wetmetal gleamed; about them moved the gunners; a man with a lifted spongestaff looked an unearthly figure against the fantastic castles andbattlements, the peaks and abysses of the boiling clouds. The lightvanished; 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 upanother battery--"

Stafford dismounted. One of the guns had the vent so burned and enlargedthat it was useless. It rested cold and silent beside its bellowingfellows. Stafford seated himself on the limber, and watched the doublestorm. It raged above the little hill, with its chain lightnings, withwind, with reverberations of thunder; and it raged below, between somethousands of grey and blue figures, small, small, in the dusk, shadowymanikins sending from metal tubes glow-worm flashes! He sat, with hischin in his hand, pondering the scene. 

Pelham came heavily into action. There was a blue battery on theopposite hill. The two spoke in whispers beneath the storm. The gunners, now in darkness, now in the vivid lightning, moved about the guns. Nowthey bent low, now they stood upright. The officer gestured to them andthey to each other. Several were killed or wounded; and as now thissection, now that, was more deeply engaged, there was some shiftingamong the men, occasional changes of place. The dusk increased; it wasevident 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 inthe tossing woods and boggy meadows were showing less and less theirglow-worm fires, were beginning to move apart. The guns above themboomed more slowly, with intervals between their speech. The thundercame now, not in ear-splitting cracks but with long rolling peals, withspaces between filled only by the wind and the rain. The human voicemight be heard, and the officers shouted, not gestured their orders. Thetwilight deepened. The men about the gun nearest Stafford looked butshadows, bending, leaning across, rising upright. They talked, however, and the words were now audible. "Yes, if you could handlelightning--take one of them zigzags and turn it loose on bluepeople!"--"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 apretty behaving gun--" "That's so! and she's got good men. They dofirst-rate. "--"That's so! Even the new one's good"--"Good! He learnedthat 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. Thegunners continued their movements about the guns, stooping, handling, lifting themselves upright. It was all but night, the lightning less andless violent, revealing little beyond mere shape and action. Staffordsank back. "Storm within and storm without. They breed delusions!"

The blue battery opposite limbered up and went away. The musketry firein the hollows between the hills grew desultory. A slow crackle of shotswould be followed by silence; then might come with fierce energy asudden volley; silence followed it, too, --or what, by comparison, seemedsilence. The thunder rolled more and more distantly, the wind lashed thetrees, the rain beat upon the guns. Officers and men of the horseartillery were too tired, too wet, and too busy for much conversation, but still human voices came and went in the lessening blast, in thesemi-darkness and the streaming rain. 

There was a gunner near Stafford who worked in silence and rested fromhis work in silence. Stafford became conscious of him during one of thelatter periods--a silent man, leaning against his gun. He was not tenfeet away, but the twilight was now deep, and he rested indistinct, ashadow against a shadow. Once there came a pale lightning flash, but hisarm was raised as if to shield his eyes, and there was seen but astrongly made gunner with a sponge staff. Darkness came again at once. The impression that remained with Stafford was that the gunner's facewas turned toward him, that he had, indeed, when the flash came, beenregarding him somewhat closely. That was nothing--a man not of thebattery, a staff officer sitting on a disabled gun, waiting till hecould make his way back to his chief--a moment's curiosity on anartilleryman's part, exhibited in a lull between fighting. Stafford hada certain psychic development. A thinker, he was adventurous in thatworld; to him, the true world of action. The passion that had seized andbound him had come with the force of an invader, of a barbaric horde, from a world that he ordinarily ignored. It held him helpless, anenslaved spirit, but around it vaguely worked the old habits of mind. Now it interested him--though only to a certain degree--that, in somesubtle fashion and for some reason which he could not explain, thegunner with the sponge staff could so make himself felt across space. Hewondered a little about this man; and then, insensibly, he began toreview the past. He had resolution enough, and he did not always chooseto review the past. To-night it was perhaps the atmosphere, thecommotion of the elements, the harp of the wind, the scourging rain--atany rate, he reviewed it and fully. When the circle was completed andhis attention touched again the storm and the twilight hill nearChantilly, and he lifted his eyes from the soaked and trodden ground, itwas to find the double shadow still before him. He felt that the eyesof the gunner with the sponge staff were on him, had been on him forsome time. Quite involuntarily he moved, with a sudden gesture, asthough 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 restedbeside him, turned in the darkness and went away. 

A little later Stafford left the hilltop. The cannon had ceased theirbooming, except for here and there a fitful burst; the musketry fire hadceased. Pope's rearguard, Lee's advance, the two drew off and theengagement rested indecisive. Blue and grey, a thousand or two mensuffered death or wounding. They lay upon the miry earth, beneath thepelting storm. Among the blue, Kearney and Stevens were killed. Throughthe darkness that wrapped the scene, Stafford found at last his way tohis general. He found him with Stuart, who was reporting to StonewallJackson. "They're retreating pretty rapidly, sir. They'll reach FairfaxCourt 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 HousePope telegraphed to Halleck. "There is undoubted purpose on the part ofthe enemy to keep on slowly turning my position so as to come in on theright. 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 andWashington. 

CHAPTER XLI

THE TOLLGATE

On Thunder Run Mountain faint reds and yellows were beginning to show inthe maple leaves, while the gum trees dwelling in the hollows had adeeper tinge of crimson. But the mass of the forest was yet green. TheSeptember sun was like balm, amber days, at once alert and dream-like. The September nights were chilly. But the war, that pinched and starvedand took away on all hands, left the forest and the wood for fires. OnThunder Run the women cut the wood, and the children gathered deadboughs and pine cones. 

The road over the mountain was in a bad condition. It had not beenworked for a year. That mattered the less perhaps, that it was now solittle travelled. All day and every day Tom Cole sat in the sunshine onthe toll gate porch, the box for the toll beside him, and listened forwheels or horses' hoofs. It was an event now when he could hobble out tothe gate, take the toll and pass the time of day. He grew querulous overthe state of the road. "There'd surely be more travel if 't warn't sobad! Oh, yes, I know there aren't many left hereabouts to travel, andwhat there are, haven't got the means. But there surely would be moregoing over the mountain if the road wan't so bad!" He had a touch offever, and he babbled about the road all night, and how hard it was notto see or talk to anybody! He said that he wished that he had died whenhe fell out of Nofsinger's hayloft. The first day that he was wellenough to be left, Sairy went round to the Thunder Run women, beginningwith Christianna Maydew's mother. Several days afterward, Tom hobblingout on the porch was most happily welcomed by the noise of wheels. "Tharnow!" said Sairy, "ain't it a real picnic feeling to get back tobusiness?" 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 roadfine! Big hole down there filled up and the bridge that was just amantrap new floored! The news? Well, Stonewall Jackson's after them!"

But despite the filled-up holes travel was slight, slight! To-day fromdawn 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 inthe tiny yard. Sairy was drying apples. She had them spread on boards inthe sun. Now and then she came from the kitchen to look at them, andwith a peach bough to drive the bees away. The close of summer found, asever, Thunder Run shrunken to something like old age; but even so hismurmur was always there like a wind in the trees. This morning there wasa fleet of clouds in the September sky. Their shadows drove across thegreat landscape, the ridges and levels of the earth, out upon whichThunder 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 isshe?"--"She's dead. "--"Sho! You don't say so! Poor thing, poor thing! Ireckon 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 awfuldreams. Somebody was fool enough to tell her 'bout how dreadful thirstywounded 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 downthar at Richmond. Mrs. Cole, she thought she was a soldier. An' when shebegun to suffer she thought she was wounded. She thought she was allmangled and torn by a cannon ball. Yes'm, it was pitiful. An' she saidthar was a high hill. It was five miles high, she said. An' she saidthar was water at the top, which was foolish, but she couldn't helpthat, 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 onit, an' she couldn't make them understand. She begged us all night totell the children thar was a wounded soldier wantin' to get by. An' atdawn she said the water was cold an' died. "

The woman went on up Thunder Run Mountain. Sairy turned again the dryingapples, then brought her patching out upon the porch and sat down in alow split-bottomed chair opposite Tom. The yellow cat at her feetyawned, stretched, and went back to sleep. The china asters bloomed; thesun drew out the odours of thyme and rue and tansy. Tom read a lastweek's newspaper. _General Lee crosses the Potomac. _

Christianna came down the road and unlatched the gate. "Come in, comein, Christianna!" said Tom. "Come in and take a cheer! Letter cameyesterday--"

Christianna sat down on the edge of the porch, her back against thepillar. She took off her sunbonnet. "Violetta learned to do a heap ofthings 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 jestwander round--"

Tom took a tin box from beside the tobacco box. "'T would be awful ifthe letter didn't come once't every ten days or two weeks! Reckon I'd goplumb 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 thatmost of the light would go out of things. Stop imaginin' an' readChristianna what he says about furin' parts. "

"After Gaines's Mill it was twelve days, " said Tom, "an' the twelfth daywe didn't say a word, only Sairy read the Bible. An' now he's well andrejoined at Leesburg. "

He cleared his throat. "DEAR AUNT SAIRY AND TOM:--It's fine to get backto the Army! It's an Army that you can love. I do love it. But I loveThunder Run and the School House and Tom and Sairy Cole, too, andsometimes I miss them dreadfully! I rejoined at Leesburg. The 65th--Ican't speak of the 65th--you know why. It breaks my heart. But it'sreorganized. 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 doesfine. 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 apicture book. All a pretty silver morning, with grey plovers wheelingoverhead, and the Maryland shore green and sweet, and the water cool toyour waist, and the men laughing and calling and singing 'Maryland, myMaryland!' Fitzhugh Lee was ahead with the cavalry. It was pretty to seethe horses go over, and the blessed guns that we know and love, everyiron man of them, and all the white covered wagons. Our division crossedlast, Old Jack at the head. When we came up from the river into Marylandwe turned toward Frederick. The country's much like our own and thepeople pleasant enough. You know we've got the Maryland Line, and anumber besides. They're fine men, a little dashing, but mighty steady, too. They've expressed themselves straight along as positively certainthat 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 amatter of course we aren't giving them any reason to. But their farmsare all nice and green and well tilled, and we haven't seen a burnedhouse or mill, and the children are going to school, and the stock isall sleek and well fed--and if they haven't seen they've heard of thedesolation on our side of the river. They've got a pretty good idea ofwhat War is and they're where more people would be if they had that ideabeforehand. 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 GeneralLee and General Jackson, but they don't volunteer--not in shoals as theMarylanders said they would! The Maryland Line looks disdain at them. Mathew Coffin is dreadfully fretted about the way we're dressed. He saysthat's the reason Maryland won't come. But the mess laughs at him. Itsays that if Virginia doesn't mind, Maryland needn't. I wish you couldsee us, Aunt Sairy. When I think of how I went away from you and Tomwith that trunk full of lovely clean things!--Now we are gaunt andragged and shoeless and dirty--" Tom stopped to wipe his spectacles. 

Sairy threaded a needle. "All that's less lasting than some otherthings, they air. I reckon they'll leave a brighter streak than a dealof folk who aren't gaunt an' ragged an' shoeless an' dirty. "

"I don't ever see them so, " said Christianna, in her soft drawlingvoice. "I see them just like a piece we had in a book of reading piecesat 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 andrest on the green grass. The Army has had hard fighting and hardmarching. Second Manassas was a big battle. It's in the air that we'llhave 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 forme and that I loved you and thought of you at the very last. Is livinggetting hard on Thunder Run? I fear so sometimes, for it's getting hardeverywhere, and you can't see the end--I wish I had some pay to sendyou, but we aren't getting any now. This war's going to be foughtwithout food or pay. Tell me, Aunt Sairy, just right honestly how youare getting on. It's getting toward winter. When I say my prayers I praynow that it won't be a hard winter. A lot of us are praying that. It'sright pitiful, the men with wives and children at home, and the countrygrowing to look like a desert. --But that's gloomy talk, and if there'sone thing more than another we've got to avoid it's being gloomy!--Tellme everything when you write. Write to Winchester--that's our base ofsupplies and rendezvous now. Tell me about everybody on Thunder Run, butmost of all tell me about yourselves. Give my very best regards toChristianna. She surely was good to me in Richmond. I don't know what Iwould have done without her. At first, before I--"

Sairy put out her hand. "Give it to me, Tom. I'll read the rest. You'retired. "

"No, I'm not, " said Tom. --"At first, before I came up with the Army, Imissed her dreadfully. "

Sairy rose, stepped from the porch, and turned the drying apples. Comingback, she touched the girl on the shoulder--very gently. "They're allfools, Christianna. Once I met a woman who did not know her thimblefinger. 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 cameup with the Army, I missed her dreadfully. Billy reminds me of her attimes. --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 ofthe others in the tin box, and took off and wiped his glasses. "Yes, ifa letter didn't come every two weeks I'd go plumb crazy! I've got tohear 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 upthe mountain. Violetta an' Rosalinda are pulling fodder and mother isploughing for wheat. I do the spinning mostly. You've got lovely chinaasters, Mrs. Cole. They have a flower they called magnolia down 'tRichmond--like a great sweet white cup, an' they had pink crapemyrtles. I liked it in Richmond, for all the death an' mourning. ThunderRun'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 catslept on, the bees buzzed and droned, the sweet mountain air brushedthrough the trees, a robin sang. Half an hour passed. Tom raised hishead. "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, withhis 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 tollgatekeeper a two hours' nap every day and not to get too excited over warnews, Tom read him Allan's letter, and they got into a hot discussion ofthe next battle. Sairy turned the drying apples, brushed away the bees, and brought fresh water from the well, then sat down again with hermending. "Doctor, how's the girl at Three Oaks?"

The doctor came back from Maryland to his own county and to the foldwhich he tended without sleep, without rest, and with little pay save inloving 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 willbring 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 youare 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 farsouth, down somewhere on the Gulf. He may have gone there. "

"I reckon, " said Tom, "he couldn't stand it in Virginia. All the earthbeginnin' to tremble under marchin' feet and everybody askin', 'Where'sthe army to-day?' I reckon he couldn't stand it. I couldn't. Allan don'tbelieve 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 youor me. An' he sat there in his lawyer's clothes, with his back to thatthar pillar, an' he told Sairy an' me all about Allan. He told us howgood he was an' how all the men loved him an' how valuable he was to theservice. An' he said that the wound he got at Gaines's Mill wasn't sobad after all as it might have been, and that Allan would soon berejoining. An' he said that being a scout wasn't as glorious, maybe, butit was just as necessary as being a general. An' that he had alwaysloved Allan an' always would. An' he told us about something Allan didat 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 thecrops, 'n he went down the mountain. An' Sairy an' I don't believe hedid 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'talways decide. There's always a chance of an important witness calledTruth having been absent. I didn't see Richard Cleave but once while hewas at Three Oaks. He looked and acted then just like RichardCleave, --only older and graver. It was beautiful to see him and hismother together. " The doctor rose. "But I reckon it's as Tom says and hecouldn't stand it, and has gone where he doesn't hear 'the army--thearmy--the army'--all day long. Mrs. Cleave hasn't said anything, and Iwouldn't ask. The last time I saw her--and I think he had just gone--shelooked 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 pureserene of the heavens, and then at his old, patient white horse with thesaddle bags across the saddle. "Mrs. Cole, all you've got to do is tokeep Tom from getting excited. I'll be back this way the first of theweek 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 aboutas 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 tostop and rest and talk, and as for giving you a bit of opinion andadvice, Lord! I'm not so poor that I can't do that. If you want to giveme something in return I certainly could use three pounds of driedapples. "

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 sether washtub on a box in the yard beneath the peach trees. Tom didn'tsleep long; he said every time he was about to drop off he thought heheard wheels. He came back to his split-bottomed chair on the porch, thetobacco box for the toll, the tin box with Allan's letters, and the viewacross 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. Theyellow cat had had his dinner, too, and after sauntering around theyard, and observing the robin on the locust tree again curled himself onthe porch and slept. 

Sairy straightened herself from the washtub. "Somebody's comin' up theroad. It's a man!" She came toward the porch, wiping her hands, whiteand crinkled, upon her apron. "He's a soldier, Tom! Maybe one of theboys air come back--"

Tom rose too, quickly. He staggered and had to catch at the sapling thatmade the pillar. "Maybe it's--"

"No, no! no, no! Don't you think that, an' have a set-back when you findit 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 towelcome Steve Dagg back to Thunder Run. 

Tom Cole forgot that he had no opinion of Steve anyway. Sairy pursed herlips, but a soldier was a soldier. Steve came and sat down on the edgeof the porch, beside the china asters, "Gawd! don't Thunder Run soundnatural! 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 itgets well. It's awful sore. Gawd! ef Thunder Run had seen what I'veseen, an' heard what I've heard, an' done what I've done, an' beenthrough 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 acouncil of war, --Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet, Jeb Stuart. Lee satbeside the table, Jackson faced him, sabre across knees, Longstreet hadhis place a little to one side, and Stuart stood, his shoulder againstthe tent pole. The last-named had been speaking. He now ended with "Ithink 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 youcouldn't exactly call him swift as lightning. He's still a score ofmiles 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 hascrossed or only part of it has crossed. He does not know whether we aregoing to move against Washington, or move against Baltimore, or invadePennsylvania. Always mystify, mislead, and deceive the enemy as far aspossible. "

Longstreet spoke. "Well, by the time he makes those twenty miles thetroops should be rested and in condition. We'll have another battle andanother 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, thenspoke to all. "McClellan will not be up for several days. Across theriver, in Virginia, are yet fourteen thousand of the enemy. I had hopedthat, scattered as they are, Washington would withdraw them when itheard of our crossing. It has not done so, however. It is not well tohave 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 SecondManassas. "

Stonewall Jackson hitched his chair closer. Stuart chuckled joyously. Longstreet looked dubious. "Do you mean, general, that you would againdivide the army?"

Lee rested his crossed hands on the table before him. "Gentlemen, did Ihave the Northern generals' numbers, I, too, might be cautious. Havingonly Robert E. Lee's numbers, I advance another policy. It is my ideaagain to divide the army. "

"In the enemy's country? We have not fifty-five thousand fightingstrength. "

"Yes, in the enemy's country. And I know that we have not fifty-fivethousand fighting strength. My plan is this, gentlemen. General Stuarthas proved his ability to hold all roads and mask all movements. We willform two columns, and behind the screen which his cavalry provides, onecolumn will move north and one column will move south. By advancingtoward Hagerstown the first will create the impression that Pennsylvaniais to be invaded. Moreover Catoctin and South Mountain are strongdefensive positions. The other column will move with expedition. Recrossing the Potomac, it will invest and capture Harper's Ferry. Thatdone, it will return at once into Maryland, rejoining me beforeMcClellan is up. "

Longstreet swore. "By God, that is a bold plan!--What if McClellanshould learn it?"

"As against that, we must trust in General Stuart. These people must bedriven out of Harper's Ferry. All our communications are threatened. "

Longstreet was blunt. "Well, sir, I think it is madness. Pray don't sendme on any such errand!"

Lee smiled. "General Jackson, what is your opinion?"

Jackson spoke with brevity. "I might prefer, sir, to attack McClellanfirst and then turn upon Harper's Ferry. But I see no madness in theother plan--if the movement is rapid. Sometimes to be bold is the sanestthing you can do. It is necessary of course that the enemy should bekept 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 haveMcLaws's and Anderson's divisions. The remainder of the army will leaveFrederick an hour or two later. Colonel Chilton will at once issue theorder of march. " He drew a piece of paper toward him and with a pencilmade a memorandum--SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 191. 

The remainder of the ninth of September passed. The tenth of Septemberpassed, and the eleventh, mild, balmy and extremely still. The twelfthfound the landscape for miles around Frederick still dozing. At noon, however, upon this day things changed. McClellan's strong cavalryadvance came into touch with Jeb Stuart a league or two to the east. There ensued a skirmish approaching in dignity to an engagement. Finallythe grey drew off, though not, to the Federal surprise, in the directionof Frederick. Instead they galloped north. 

The blue advance trotted on, sabre to hand, ready for the dash intoFrederick. Pierced at last was the grey, movable screen! Now with theinfantry close behind, with the magnificent artillery rumbling up, withMcClellan grim from the Seven Days--now for the impact which shouldwipe out the memory of the defeat of a fortnight ago, of the second BullRun, an impact that should grind rebellion small! They came to Frederickand found a quiet shell. There was no one there to sabre. 

Information abounded. McClellan, riding in with his staff towardevening, found himself in a sandstorm of news, through which nothingcould be distinctly observed. Prominent citizens were brought beforehim. "Yes, general; they undoubtedly went north. Yes, sir, the morningof the tenth. Two columns, but starting one just after the other and onthe same road. Yes, sir, some of our younger men did follow on horsebackafter an hour or two. They could just see the columns still movingnorth. Then they ran against Stuart's cordon and they had to turn back. Frederick's been just like a desert island--nobody coming and nobodygetting away. For all he's as frisky as a puppy, Jeb Stuart's a mightygood watch dog!"

McClellan laughed. "'Beauty' Stuart!--I wish I had him here. " He grewgrave 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 acollection 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. Itwas the avenin' of the eighth, and I was sittin' in my parlour afterJudy O'Flaherty's funeral, and having just parted with Father Lavalle atthe Noviciate. And there came a rap, and an aide of StonewallJackson's--But whisht! maybe I am taking up your time, general, withthings 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 collectionof maps. '

"'And that's thrue enough, ' says I, 'and what then, my son?' Whereuponhe lays down his sword and cap and says, 'May I look at thim?'"

Father Tierney coughed. "There's a number of gentlemen waiting in theentrry. Maybe, general, you'd be afther learning of the movement of theribils with more accuracy from thim. And I could finish about the mapsanother time. You aren't under any obligation to be listenin' to me. "

"Shut the door, Ames, " said the general. "Now Father. --'May I look atthem, ' he said. "

"'Why, av course, ' said I, 'far be it from Benedict Tierney to put alock on knowledge!' and I got thim down. 'There's one that was made forLeonard 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 rareone of the Chesapeake--'

"'Extremely interesting' he says, 'but for General Jackson's purposes1862 will answer. You have recent maps also?'

"'Yes, I have, ' I said, and I got thim down, rather disappointed, havingthought him interested in Colonial Maryland and maybe in the location ofmissions. 'What do you wish?' said I, still polite, though I had lostinterest. '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 thismap to General Jackson?' 'Yes, ' said I, 'but I hope you'll soon be sogood as to return it. ' 'I will, ' said he. 'Bedad, ' said I, 'you ribilsare right good at returning things! I'll say that for you!' said I--andhe rolled up the map and put it under his arm. "

The general drew a long breath. "Pennsylvania invaded by way ofWaynesboro. I am much obliged, Father--"

"Wait, wait, my son, I'm not done, yet! And thin, says he, 'GeneralJackson 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, andhe looked at it carefully and long. 'I see, ' says he, 'that by goingnorth from Frederick to Double Pipe Creek you would strike there theturnpike 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 hereand Washington?'. . . Don't be afther apologizing, general! There aretimes when I want a strong word meself. So I got that map, too, and helooked at it steadily. 'I understand, ' says he, 'that going west bynorth you would strike a road that leads you south again?'--'And that'sthrue, ' said I. And he looked at the map long and steadily again, and heasked 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 returnthim in good order. (Which he did. ) And thin he took up his cap andsword and said good avenin' and went. That's all that I know of thematter, general, saving and excepting, that the ribil columns certainly_started_ next morning with their faces toward the great State ofPennsylvania. Don't mention it, general!--though if you are interestedin good works, and I'm not doubting the same, there's an orphan asylumhere--"

Having arrived at a cross-roads without a signpost McClellancharacteristically hesitated. The activity of the next twelve hours wasprincipally electrical and travelled by wire from Frederick toWashington and Washington to Frederick. The cavalry, indeed was pushedforward toward Boonsboro, but for the remainder of the army, as it cameup, corps by corps, the night passed in inaction, and morning dawned oninaction. March north toward Pennsylvania, and leave Washington to bebombarded!--turn south and east toward Washington and hear a cry ofprotest and anger from an invaded state!--turn due east to Baltimore andbe awakened by the enemy's cannon thundering against the other sides ofthe figure!--leave Baltimore out of the calculation and lose, perhaps, the whole of Maryland! McClellan was disturbed enough. And then, in thegreat drama of real life there occurred an incident. 

An aide appeared in the doorway of the room in which were gatheredMcClellan and several of his generals. The discussion had been a heatedone; all the men looked haggard, disturbed. "What is it?" askedMcClellan sharply. 

The aide held something in his hand. "This has just been found, sir. Itseems to have been dropped at a street corner. Leaves and rubbish hadbeen blown over it. The soldier who found it brought it here. He thoughtit important--and I think it is, sir. "

He crossed the floor and gave it to the general. "Three cigars wrappedin a piece of paper! Why, what--A piece of paper wrapped around threecigars. 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 hishands upon the sill, and looked out at the bright blue sky. He turnedpresently. "Gentlemen, the longer I live, the more firmly I believe thatold saying, 'Truth is stranger than fiction!'--By the HagerstownRoad--General Hooker, General Reno--"

On the morning of the tenth Stonewall Jackson, leaving Frederick, marched west by the Boonsboro Road. Ahead, Stuart's squadrons stoppedall traffic. The peaceful Maryland villages were entered without warningand 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 beginningto turn. In the fields were farmers ploughing, in the orchards gatheringapples. They stopped and stared. "Well, ain't that a sight?--And half ofthem 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 thebugles rang halt. Brigade by brigade Stonewall Jackson's command leftthe road, stacked arms, broke ranks in fair, rolling autumn fields andwoods. A mile or two ahead was the village of Boonsboro. Jackson sentforward to make enquiries Major Kyd Douglas of his staff. That officertook a cavalryman with him and trotted off. 

The little place looked like a Sweet Auburn of the vale, so tranquillyinnocent did it lie beneath the rosy west. The two officers commentedupon it, and the next moment ran into a Federal cavalry company sent toSweet Auburn from Hancock for forage or recruits or some such matter. The blue troopers set up a huzzah, and charged. The two in grey turnedand dug spur, --past ran the fields, past ran the woods! The thunderingpursuit fired its revolvers; the grey turned in saddle and emptiedtheirs, then bent head to horse's neck and plied the spur. Before themthe road mounted. "Pass the hill and we are safe!--Pass the hill and weare safe!" thought the grey, and the spur drew blood. Behind came theblue--a dozen troopers. "Stop there, you damned rebels, stop there! Ifyou don't, when we catch you we'll cut you to pieces!" Almost at thehilltop one of the grey uttered a cry. "Good God! the general!"

Stonewall Jackson was coming toward them. He was walking apparently indeep thought, and leading Little Sorrel. He was quite alone. The twoofficers shouted. They saw him look up, take in the situation, and puthis 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 theensuing action. There must, of course, be coming over the hill a greyforce detached on some reconnoissance or other from the rebel hordeknown to be reposing at Frederick. Presumably it would be cavalry--andcoming at a gallop! To stop to cut down these two yelling grey devilsmight be to invite destruction. The blue troopers first emptied theirrevolvers, then wheeled horse, and retired to Sweet Auburn, out of whicha little later the grey cavalry did indeed drive them. 

In the last of the rosy light the two officers, now again at thehilltop, saw the camp outspread below it and coming at a double quickthe regiment which Jackson had sent to the rescue. One checked hishorse. "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, hewent to headquarters. Jackson was talking ammunition with his chief ofordnance, 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, theordnance train will cross first. As the batteries come up from the riversee that every caisson is filled. That is all. Now, CaptainScarborough--"

"General Hill very earnestly asks, sir, that he may be permitted tospeak 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, GeneralHill, " said Jackson. 

Hill stood very straight, his red beard just gleaming a little in thedusky 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 underarrest for what you conceived--for disobedience to orders. Since thenGeneral Branch has commanded the Light Division. "

"Yes. "

"I feel certain, sir, that battle is imminent. General Branch is a goodand brave soldier, but--but--I am come to beg, sir, that I may bereleased 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 beinga 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 beenthere. "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'sFerry crossed the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal at Williamsport and fordedthe 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 anddreamy woods against the Virginia sky. "We know this place, " said theold Army of the Valley. "Dam No. 5's just above there!" Regiment byregiment, 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 Jacksonsent A. P. Hill down by the turnpike; he himself made a detour and cameupon the town from the west. The thirty-five hundred blue troops couldretire southward, a thing hardly to their liking, or they could hasteneastward and throw themselves into Harper's Ferry. As was anticipated, they chose the latter course. 

Stonewall Jackson entered Martinsburg amid acclaim. Here he rested histroops a few hours, then in the afternoon swung eastward and bivouackedupon the Opequon. "At early dawn, " he marched again. Ahead rode hiscavalry, and they kept the roads on two sides of Harper's Ferry. Adispatch came from General Lafayette McLaws. _General Jackson:--Aftersome fighting I have got the Maryland Heights. Loudoun Heights inpossession 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'sFerry, Lee likewise received a report--brought in haste by a courier ofStuart's. _General:--The enemy seems to have waked up. McClellanreported moving toward South Mountain with some rapidity. I am holdingCrampton and Turner's Gaps. What are my orders?_

Lee looked eastward toward South Mountain and southward to Harper'sFerry. "General McClellan can only be guessing. We must gain time forGeneral Jackson at Harper's Ferry. " He sent word to Stuart. "D. H. Hill's division returning to South Mountain General Longstreet orderedback from Hagerstown. We must gain time for General Jackson. Hold thegaps. "

D. H. Hill and Stuart held them. High above the valleys ran theroads--and all the slopes were boulder-strewn, crested moreover bybroken stone walls. Hooker and Reno with the First and Ninth corpsattacked Turner's Gap, Franklin's corps attacked Crampton's Gap. Highabove the country side, bloody and determined, eight thousand againstthirty thousand, raged the battle. 

Stonewall Jackson, closely investing Harper's Ferry, posting hisbatteries on both sides of the river, on the Maryland Heights andLoudoun Heights, heard the firing to the northward. He knit his brows. He knew that McClellan had occupied Frederick, but he knew nothing ofthe copy of an order found wrapped around three cigars. "What do youthink of it, general?" ventured one of his brigadiers. 

"I think, sir, it may be a cavalry engagement. Pleasanton came intotouch 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 addedenergy and a knowledge of our plans. --Captain Page, this order toGeneral McLaws: _General:--You will attack so as to sweep with yourartillery the ground occupied by the enemy, take his batteries inreverse, and otherwise operate against him as circumstances mayjustify. _ Lieutenant Byrd, this to General Walker: _General:--You willtake in reverse the battery on the turnpike and sweep with yourartillery the ground occupied by the enemy, and silence the batteries onthe island of the Shenandoah. _ Lieutenant Daingerfield, this to GeneralA. P. Hill: _General:--You will move along the left bank of theShenandoah, and thus turn the enemy's flank and enter Harper's Ferry. _"

This was Sunday. From every hilltop blazed the grey batteries, and downupon the fourteen thousand blue soldiers cooped in Harper's Ferry theysent an iron death. All afternoon they thundered, and the dusk knew nocessation. Harper's Ferry was flame-ringed, there were flames among thestars. The air rocked and rang, the river shivered and hurried by. Deepnight came and a half silence. There was a feeling as if the earth werepanting for breath. All the air tasted powder. 

A. P. Hill, struggling over ground supposed impassable, was in line ofbattle behind Bolivar Heights. Lawton and Jones were yet furtheradvanced. All the grey guns were ready--at early dawn they opened. Irondeath, iron death!--they rained it down on Harper's Ferry and thefourteen thousand in garrison there. They silenced the blue guns. Thenthe bugles blew loudly, and Hill assaulted. There were lines ofbreastworks and before them an abattis. The Light Division tore throughthe latter, struck against the first. From the height behind thunderedthe 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, therewas shaken a white flag. A. P. Hill received the place's surrender, andStonewall 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 cameinto his hand with Harper's Ferry. 

On the Bolivar turnpike the Federal General White and his staff met theconqueror. The first, general and staff, were handsomely mounted, finelyequipped, sparklingly clean and whole. The last was all leaf brown--dustand rain and wear and tear, scarfed and stained huge boots, and shabbyforage cap. The surrender was unconditional. Formalities over, therefollowed some talk, a hint on the side of the grey of generous terms, some expression on the side of the blue of admiration for greatfighters, some regret from both for the mortal wound of Miles, theofficer in command. Stonewall Jackson rode into the town with theFederal 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 thegeneral commanding sat writing a dispatch to Lee. Jackson finished thething in hand, then looked up. "General Hill, the Light Division didwell. I move almost at once, but I shall leave you here in command untilthe prisoners and public property are disposed of. You will useexpedition. "

"I am not, then, sir, to relinquish the command to General Branch?"

"You are not, sir. Battle will follow battle, and you will lead theLight 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 wererepeating 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 rapidlyas possible. Sharpsburg on the Antietam. Seventeen miles. "

CHAPTER XLIII

SHARPSBURG

"Sharpsburg!" said long afterwards Stephen D. Lee. "Sharpsburg wasArtillery Hell!"

"Sharpsburg, " said the infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia. "Sharpsburg! That was the field where an infantryman knew that he stoodon the most dangerous spot on the earth!"

Through the passes of the South Mountain, over Red Hill, out upon thebroken ground east of the Antietam poured the blue torrent--McClellanand his eighty-seven thousand. Lee met it with a narrow grey sea--notthirty thousand men, for A. P. Hill was yet upon the road from Harper'sFerry. In Berserker madness, torrent and uproar, clashed the twocolours. 

There was a small white Dunkard church with a background of dark woods. It was north of Sharpsburg, near the Hagerstown turnpike, and it markedthe Confederate left. Stonewall Jackson held the left. Before him wasFighting Joe Hooker with Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts. 

From a knoll behind Sharpsburg the commander-in-chief looked fromLongstreet on the right to D. H. Hill, and from Hill to Jackson. Helooked to the Harper's Ferry Road, but he did not see what he wished tosee--A. P. Hill's red battle shirt. "Artillery Hell" had begun. Therewas enormous thunder, enormous drifting murk. All the country side, allthe little Maryland villages and farmhouses blenched beneath that sound. Lee put down his field glass. He stood, calm and grand, the smoke anduproar at his feet. The Rockbridge Guns came by, going to some indicatedquarter of the field. In thunder they passed below the knoll, the ironwar-beasts, the gunners with them, black with powder and grime! Allsaluted; but one, a very young, very ragged, very begrimed private atthe guns, lingered a moment after his fellows, stood very straight atthe salute and with an upward look, then with quickened step caught upwith his gun and disappeared into the smoke ahead. Lee answered a glanceof 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 ghastlybattles surged about small country churches! The Prince of Peace, if heindwelled here, must have bowed his head and mourned. Sunrise struckupon its white walls; then came a shell and pierced them. The churchbecame the core of the turmoil, the white, still reef against which beatthe wild seas in storm. 

Fighting Joe Hooker came out of the North Wood. His battle flags werebright and he had drums and brazen horns. Loud and in time, regular as abeat in music, came the Huzzah! Huzzah! of his fourteen thousand men. Hecrossed the turnpike, he came down on the Dunkard church. "Yaii! Yaaaii!Yaaaaaaaaiihhh!" yelled the grey sea, --no time at all, only fiercedetermination. Sometimes a grey drum beat, or bugle called, but therewas no other music, save the thunder of the guns and the long rattle, never ceasing, of the musketry. There were battle flags, squares ofcrimson with a starry Andrew's cross. They went forward, they shrankback. Standard-bearers were killed. Gaunt, powder-grimed hands caught atthe staves, lifted them; the battle-flags went forward again. 

Doubleday struck and Ricketts. They charged against Stonewall Jacksonand 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 theDunkard church! Then Stonewall Jackson came along the front, riding in apelting, leaden rain. "Steady, men. Steady! God is over us!" His menreceived him with a cry of greeting and enthusiasm that was like ashriek, it was so wild and high. His power upon them had grown andgrown. He was Stonewall Jackson! He was Stonewall Jackson! First, theywould die for those battle-flags and the cause they represented; second, they would die for one another, comrades, brethren! third, they woulddie for Stonewall Jackson! They lifted their voices for him now, gauntand ragged troops with burning eyes. _Stonewall Jackson! StonewallJackson! Virginia! Virginia! Virginia! the South! the South!_ He turnedhis horse, standing in the whistling, leaden rain. "Forward, and drivethem!"

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 writhelike Dante's wood, it was so full of groaning, of maimed men beside thetree trunks. The dead lay where they fell, and the living stepped uponthem. Meade gave back, back--and then Mansfield came in thunder toreinforce the blue. 

The grey fought as even in this war they had hardly fought before. Theywere so gaunt, they were so ragged, they were so tired! But somethingethnic was coming more and more rapidly to the front. They were nearagain to savage nature. The Maryland woods might have been thicker, darker, the small church might have been some boulder altar beside someearly Old World river. They were a tribe again, and they were fightinganother and much larger tribe whom they had reason, reason, reason tohate! Their existence was at stake and the existence of all that theirhearts held dear. They fought with fury. About each were histribesmen--all were brothers! Brother fought for brother, brother sawbrother fall, brother sprang to avenge brother. Their lips wereblackened from tearing cartridges; their eyes, large in their thin, bronzed faces, burned against the enemy; their fingers were quick, quickat the musket lock; the spirit was the spirit behind hurled stones ofold, swung clubs, thrown javelins! They had a loved leader, a greatstrong head man who ruled them well and led them on to victory. Theyfought 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 theirtribe, their possessions, for women at home and children, for theirbrethren, their leader, their cause. Something else, too, of the pastwas there in force--hatred of him who opposed. They fought for hate atSharpsburg, as they fought for love. The great star drew, the iron thongfell. Led and driven, the tribe fought gigantically. 

 * * * * *

The battle became furious. Within the din of artillery and musketry humanvoices, loud, imperative, giving orders, shouting, wailing, died like a lowmurmur in the blast. Out of the wildly drifting smoke, now dark, nowflame-lit, forms emerged, singly or in great bodies, then the smoke drewtogether, hiding the struggle. There was blackness and grime as from theash of a volcano. The blood pounded behind the temples, the eyeballsstarted, the tongue was thick in the mouth, battle smell and battle taste, a red light, and time in crashes like an earthquake-toppling city! Theinequalities of the ground became exaggerated. Mere hillocks changed intorocky islands. Seize them, fortify them, take them before the blue can! Thetall maize grew gigantically taller. Break through these miles of cane asoften before we have broken through them, the foemen crashing before usdown to their boats! The narrow tongues of woods widened, widened. Takethese deep forests, use them for shelter, from them send forth these newarrows of death--fight, fight! in the rolling murk, the red light andcrying!

Before the Dunkard church Starke, commanding Jackson's old division, waskilled, Jones was wounded, Lawton wounded. Many field officers weredown, many, many of lesser rank. Of the blue, Mansfield was killed, Hooker was wounded, and Hartsuff and Crawford. The grey had pressed theblue back, back! Now in turn the blue drove the grey. The walls of thewhite church were splashed with blood, pocked with bullets. Dead men layat the door; within were those of the wounded who could get there. Butthe shells came too, the shells pierced the roof and entered. War camein, ebon, blood-stained, and grinning. The Prince of Peace was crowdedout. 

The artillery was deafening. In the midst of a tremendous burst of soundD. H. Hill flung in the remainder of his division. Sumner came throughthe smoke. The grey and blue closed in a death grapple. From toward thecentre, 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 otherbrigades 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 athunderbolt, grey as steel, all his men moving up as one, against theopposing, roaring sea. The sea gave back. Then Sumner called inSedgwick's fresh troops. 

Allan Gold, fighting with the 65th, took the colours from the last ofthe colour guard. He was tall and strong and he swung them high. Theglare from an exploding shell showed him and the battle flag. Gone wasthe quiet school-teacher, gone even the scout and woodsman. He stood agreat Viking, with yellow hair, and the battle rage had come to him. Hebegan to chant, unconscious as a harp through which strikes a strongwind. "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. Deadand dying choked the cornfield as the dead and dying had choked the canebrake. Blade and stalks were beaten down, the shells tore up the earth. The blue reformed and came again, a resistless mass. Heavier andheavier, Fighting Joe Hooker, with Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts andSumner, struck against Stonewall Jackson! Back came the grey to thelittle Dunkard church. All around it, wood and open filled withclangour. The blue pressed in--the grey were giving way, were givingway! An out-worn company raised a cry, "They're flanking us!" Somethinglike a shiver passed over the thinning lines, then, grey and haggard, they tore another cartridge. Stonewall Jackson's voice came from behinda reef of smoke. "Stand fast, men! Stand fast. There are troops on theroad from Harper's Ferry. It is General McLaws. Stand fast!"

It was McLaws, with his black bullet head, his air of a Roman Consul! Inhe thundered with his twenty-five hundred men, tawny with the dust ofthe seventeen miles from Harper's Ferry. He struck Sedgwick full. Forfive minutes there was brazen clangour and shouting and an agony ofeffort, 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, crossedin one prolonged risk of life from the wild left to the only lessstormed-against centre. Here a strong blue current, French andRichardson, strove against a staunch grey ledge--a part of D. H. Hill'sline, with Anderson to support. Here was a sunken road, that, later, wasgiven a descriptive name. Here was the Bloody Lane. Lee was foundstanding upon a knoll, calm and grand. "I yet look for A. P. Hill, " hesaid. "He has a talent for appearing at identically the right moment. "

Stafford gave his statement. All over the field the staff had sufferedheavily. Some were dead, many were wounded. Those who were left didtreble duty. Lee sent this officer on to Longstreet, holding the longridge 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 theguns. He marked, through a rift in the smoke, a battery where it stoodupon a height, above felled trees. He thought it was Pelham's--the HorseArtillery. It stood for a moment, outlined against the orange-bosomedcloud, 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 plungingwere unusual, and the rider looked to see the reason. The soldier haddrawn letters from his breast and had died with them in his hands. Theunfolded, fluttering sheets stirred as though they had life. Stafford, riding on, found the right and found Longstreet looking sombrely, likean old eagle from his eyrie. "I told General Lee, " he said "that weought never to have divided. I don't see A. P. Hill. You tell GeneralLee that I've only got D. R. Jones and the knowledge that we fight likehell, 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 wasin a barren place, tasting of powder, smelling of smoke, now lit, nowdarkened, 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 waswhere fighting had been and there was left a wrack of the dead anddying. He reached the centre and gave his message, then turned towardthe left again. A few yards and his horse was killed under him. Hedisengaged himself and presently caught at the bridle and stayedanother. There were many riderless horses on the field of Sharpsburg, but he had hardly mounted before this one, too, was killed. He went onafoot. He entered a sunken road, dropped between rough banks overhung bya few straggling trees. The road was filled with men lying down, all inshadow beneath the rolling battle smoke. Stafford thought it a regimentwaiting for orders; then he saw that they were all dead men. He must goback to the Dunkard wood, and this seemed his shortest way. He enteredthe lane and went up it as quickly as he might for the forms that laythick in the discoloured light. It looked as though the earth werebleeding, and all the people were fantastic about him. Some lay asstraight as on a sculptured tomb, and some were hooped, and some laylike a cross, and some were headless. As he stepped with what care hemight, 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! Hemoved to the further side of the sunken road and braced himself againstthe bank, putting his arm about a twisted, protruding cedar. D. H. Hill's North Carolinians hung a moment, tall, gaunt, yelling, thenswooped down into the sunken lane, passed over the dead, mounted theother ragged bank and went on. Stafford waited to hear the shock. Itcame; full against a deep blue wave. Richardson had been killed andHancock commanded here. The blue wave was strong. The sound of the meleewas frightful; then out of it burst a loud huzzahing. Staffordstraightened himself. The grey were coming back, and after them theblue. Almost before he could unclasp his arm from the cedar, the firstspray of gaunt, exhausted, bleeding men came over and down into thesunken lane. All the grey wave followed. At the moment there outburst arenewed and tremendous artillery battle. The smoke drifting across theBloody Lane was like the fall of night, a night of cloud and storm. Orange flashes momentarily lit the scene, and the sullen thundersrolled. The grey, gaunt and haggard, but their colours with them, overpassed the dead and wounded, now choking the sunken road. Behindthem were heard the blue, advancing and huzzahing. The grey waveremounted the bank down which it plunged fifteen minutes before. At thetop it stayed a moment, thin and grey, spectral in the smoke pall, thebattle flags like hovering, crimson birds. A line of flame leaped, onelong crackle of musketry, then it resumed its retreat, falling back onthe west wood. The blue, checked a moment by that last volley, nowpoured down into the sunken road, overpassed the thick ranks of the deadand wounded, mounted, and swept on in a counter charge. 

Maury Stafford had left the cedar and started across with the lastbroken line of the grey. Going down the crumbling bank his spur caughtin a gnarled and sprawling root. The check was absolute, and broughthim violently to his knees. Before he could free himself the grey hadreached the opposite crest, fired its volley, and gone on. He started tofollow. He heard the blue coming, and it was expedient to get out ofthis trap. Before him, from the figures covering the earth like thrownjackstraws, 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'mdying. You'll take it and put a stamp on it and mail it, won't you? I'mdying. People ought to do things when the dying ask them to. "

Stafford looked behind him, then down again. "Do what? Quick! They'recoming. "

The hand would not relax its clasp, but its fellow fumbled at the greyjacket. "It's my letter. They won't know if they don't get it. My sidehurts, but it don't hurt like knowing they won't know . . . That I wassorry. " 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'tbelieve you've got so hard a heart. Take it and stamp it and mail it. Ifthey don't know they'll never understand and I'll die knowing they'llnever understand. For God's sake!"

Stafford knelt beside him, opened the grey jacket, and took out theletter. Blood was upon it, but the address was legible. "Die easy. I'llstamp 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 theprodigal son, but that I'm going home--I'm going home--"

The arms fell, the breast ceased to heave, the head drew backward. Deathcame and stamped the light upon the face. Before Stafford could get tohis feet, the blue wave had plunged into the trough. He remembered usinghis pistol, and he remembered a dizziness of being borne backward. Heremembered that a phrase had gone through his mind "the instability ofall material things. " Then came a blank. He did not assume that he hadlost consciousness, but simply he could not remember. He had beenwrecked in a turbulent, hostile ocean. It had made him and otherscaptives, and now they were together at a place which he remembered wascalled the Roulette House. An hour might have passed, two hours; hereally could not tell. There were a number of prisoners, most of thembadly wounded. They lay in the back yard of the place, on the steps ofout-houses, with blue soldiers for guards. A surgeon came through theyard, and helped a little the more agonizedly hurt. He glanced atStafford's star and sash, came across and offered to bind up the cutacross his forehead. "An awful field, " he said. "This war is gettinghorrible. You're a Virginian, aren't you?"

"Yes. "

"Used to know a lot of Virginia doctors. Liked them first rate! Now weare 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 anawful foolishness. That cornfield out there is sickening--Now! thatbleeding's stopped--"

On the left, around and before the Dunkard church, the very fury of thestorm brought about at last a sudden failing, a stillness and cessationthat seemed like those of death. Sound enough there was undoubtedly, andin the centre the battle yet roared, but by comparison there seemed adark and sultry calm. Far and near lay the fallen. It was now noon, andsince dawn twelve thousand men had been killed or wounded on this left, attacked by Fighting Joe Hooker, held by Stonewall Jackson. Fifteengeneral officers were dead or disabled. Hardly a brigade, not manyregiments, were officered as they had been when the sun rose. There wasan exhaustion. Franklin had entered on the field, and one might havethought that the grey would yet be overpowered. But all the blue forceswere broken, disorganized; there came an exhaustion, a lassitude. McClellan sent an order forbidding another attack. Cornfield and woodlay heavy, hot, and dark, and by comparison, still. 

Stonewall Jackson sat Little Sorrel near the Dunkard church. Theybrought him reports of the misery of the wounded and their greatnumbers. His medical director, of whom he was fond, came to him. "General, it is very bad! The field hospital looks as though all thefields of the world had given tribute. I know that you do not likehospitals--but would you come and look, sir?"

The general shook his head. "What is the use of looking? There have tobe wounded. Do the utmost that you can, doctor. "

"I have thought, sir, that, seeing the day is not ended, and they are sooverwhelmingly in force, and the Potomac is not three miles in ourrear--I have thought that we might manage to get the less badly hurtacross. 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 youlike--"

"Yes. I breakfasted very early. " He took the rosy fruit and began toeat. His eyes, just glinting under the forage cap, surveyed the scenebefore him, --trampled wood where the shells had cut through bough andbranch, trampled cornfields where it seemed that a whirlwind had passed, his resting, shattered commands, the dead and the dying, the deadhorses, the disabled guns, the drifting sulphurous smoke, and, acrossthe turnpike, in the fields and by the east wood, the masses of blue, overcanopied also by sulphurous smoke. He finished the apple, took out ahandkerchief, and wiped fingers and lips. "Dr. McGuire, they have donetheir 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 thecentre to see General Lee. "

Behind the wood, in a grassy hollow moderately sheltered from theartillery fire, at the edge of the ghastly field hospital, a youngsurgeon, sleeves rolled up and blood from head to foot, met the medicaldirector. "Doctor, the Virginia Legion came on with General McLaws. They've just brought their colonel in--Fauquier Cary, you know. I wishyou would look at his arm. "

The two looked. "There's but one thing, colonel. "

"Amputation? Very well, very well. Get it over with. " He straightenedhimself on the boards where the men had laid him. "Sedgwick, too!Sedgwick and I striking at each other like two savages decked with beadsand scalps! Fratricidal strife if ever there was fratricidal strife! Allright, doctor. I had a great-uncle lost his arm at Yorktown. Can'tremember him, --my father and mother loved to talk of him--old UncleEdward. All right--it's all right. "

The two doctors were talking together. "Only a few ounces left. Betteruse 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 amountwe could use! Now. "

The man stretched on the boards motioned with the hand that had not beentorn by the exploding shell. "No, no! I don't want it. Keep it for someone 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 asmuch 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 theright. McClellan had apparently chosen to launch three battles in oneday; in the early morning against the Confederate left, at middayagainst its centre, now against its right. A message came fromLongstreet. "Burnside is in motion. I've got D. R. Jones and twenty-fivehundred men. "

It was evident that Burnside was in motion. With fourteen thousand menhe came over the stone bridge across the Antietam. They were freshtroops; their flags were flying, their drums were beating, their buglesbraying. The line moved with huzzahs toward the ridge held byLongstreet. From the left came tearing past the knoll the Confederatebatteries. Lee was massing them in the centre, training them against theeastern foot of the ridge. There had been a lull in the storm, nowPelham opened with loud thunders. Other guns followed. The Federalbatteries began to blaze; there broke out a madness of sound. In themidst of it D. R. Jones with his twenty-five hundred men clashed withBurnside's leading brigades. 

Stonewall Jackson pulled the forage cap lower, jerked his hand into theair. "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 thebattle smoke, drove it somewhat to one side and showed for a few secondsa long and sunlit road, the road from Harper's Ferry. One of the staffbegan a low uncontrollable laughter. "By God! I see his red battleshirt! 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 thesound of marching men came along it, distinguishable even beneath theartillery fire. "Good, good!" said Jackson. "A. P. Hill is a goodsoldier. "

Tawny with the dust of the seventeen miles, at a double quick andyelling, the crimson battle flags slanting forward, in swung the LightDivision! D. R. Jones rallied. Decimated, out-worn, but dangerous, theaiding regiments from the left did well. The grey guns worked with acertain swift and steadfast grimness. From all the ridges of theAntietam the blue cannon thundered, thundered. Blue and grey, themusketry rolled. Sound rose into terrific volume, the eddying smokeblotted out the day. Artillery Hell--Infantry Inferno--the field ofSharpsburg roared now upon the right. 

The Horse Artillery occupied a low ridge like a headland jutting into agrassy field. Below, above, behind, the smoke rolled; in front the flameleaped from their guns, the shells sped. There was a great background ofbattle cloud, lit every ten seconds by the glare from an opposingbattery. John Pelham stood directing. Six guns were in fierce andcontinuous action. The men serving them were picked artillery men. Toand fro they moved, down they stooped, up they stood, stepped backwardfrom the gun at fire, moved forward at recoil, fell again to the loadingwith the precision of the drill ground. They were half naked, they wereblack with powder, glistening with sweat, some were bleeding. In thelight from the guns all came boldly into relief; in the intermediatedeep murk they sank from sight, became of the clouds, cloudy, mereshapes in the semi-darkness. 

Stonewall Jackson, returning to the Dunkard church and passing behindthis headland, turned Little Sorrel's head and came upon the plateau. Pelham met him. "Yes, general, we're doing well. Yes, sir, it's holdingout. Caissons were partly filled during the lull. "

"Good, good!" said Jackson. He dismounted and walked forward to theguns. 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 theguns and turned his eyes upon the battle on the right. "Longstreetstrikes 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 wasfired, reloaded, fired again. The men beside it stood back. It blazed, thundered, recoiled. A great, black, cylindrical shell came with ademoniac shriek. At the moment the platform was lit with the battleglare. Its fall was seen. It fell, smoking, immediately beside StonewallJackson. Such was the concussion of the air that for a moment he wasstunned. Involuntarily his arm went up before his eyes; he made abackward step. Pelham, returning from the further guns and still someyards away, gave a shout of warning and horror; from all the men who hadseen the thing there burst a similar cry. With the motion almost of theshell itself, a man of the crew of the howitzer reached the torn earthand the cylinder. His body half naked, blackened, brushed, in passing, the general. He put his hands beneath the heated, smoking bottle ofdeath, lifted it, and rushed on to the edge of the escarpment fifty feetaway. 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 manwho 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 heburned his hands badly and he asked the lieutenant if he could go to therear--"

"Good, good!" said Stonewall Jackson. "He did well. But there are manybrave men in this army. " He went back to Little Sorrel, where he stoodcropping the dried grass, and stiffly mounted. As he turned from theplatform and the guns, all lit again by the orange glare, there camefrom the right an accession of sound, then high, shrill, and triumphantthe Confederate yell. A shout arose from the Horse Artillery. "They'rebreaking! 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, forNorth nor South. With the sinking of the sun ceased the bloody, prolonged, and indecisive struggle. Blue and grey, one hundred andthirty thousand men fought that battle. When the pale moon came up shelooked on twenty-one thousand dead and wounded. 

The living ranks sank down and slept beside the dead. Lee on Travellerwaited by the highroad until late night. Man by man his generals came tohim and made their report--their ghastly report. "Very good, general. What is your opinion?"--"I think, sir, that we should cross the Potomacto-night. "--"Very well, general. What is your opinion?"--"General Lee, we should cross the Potomac to-night. "--"Yes, general, it has been ourheaviest field. What is your advice?"--"General Lee, I am here to dowhat you tell me to do. "

Horse and rider, Traveller and Robert Edward Lee, stood in the palelight above the Antietam. "Gentlemen, we will not cross the Potomacto-night. If General McClellan wants to fight in the morning I will givehim 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 morningadvanced. The September sunshine lay like vital warmth upon the heightand vale, upon the Dunkard church and the wood about it, upon thecornfields, and Burnside's bridge and the Bloody Lane, and upon all thedead men in the cornfields, in the woods, upon the heights, beside thestream, in the lane. The sunshine lay upon the dead, as the prophet uponthe Shunamite's child, but it could not reanimate. Grey and blue, theliving armies gazed at each other across the Antietam. Both wereexhausted, both shattered, the blue yet double in numbers. The greywaited 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 hadenough. "--"So've I. O God!"--"Never saw such a fight. Wish thosebuzzards would go away from that wood over there! They're sodismal. "--"No, McClellan ain't going to attack!"--"Then why don't weattack?"--"Go away, Johnny! We're mighty few and powerfullytired. "--"Well, _I_ think so, too. We might just as well attack. Greatbig counter stroke! Crumple up Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts overthere! Turn their right!"--"'T ain't impossible! Marse Robert and OldJack could manage it. "--"No, they couldn't!"--"Yes, theycould!"--"You're a fool! Look at that position, stronger 'n Thunder RunMountain, and Hooker's got troops he didn't have in yesterday! 'N thosethings 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 tohave a body to rush those guns. "--"Thar ain't anything Old Jack couldn'tdo if he tried!"--"Yes, there is!" "Thar ain't! How _dast_ you saythat?"--"There is! He couldn't be a fool if he tried--and he ain'ta-going to try!"

The artillerist, Stephen D. Lee, came to headquarters on the knoll bySharpsburg. "General Lee sent for me. Tell him, please, I am here. " Leeappeared. "Good-morning, Colonel Lee. You are to go at once to GeneralJackson. Tell him that I sent you to report to him. " The officer foundStonewall Jackson at the Dunkard church. "General, General Lee sent meto report to you. "

"Good, good! Colonel, I wish you to take a ride with me. We will go tothe top of the hill yonder. "

They went up to the top of the hill, past dead men and horses, and muchwreckage of caissons and gun wheels. "There are probably sharpshootersin that wood across the stream, " said Jackson. "Do not expose yourselfunnecessarily, colonel. " Arrived at the level atop they took post in alittle copse, wildly torn and blackened, a wood in Artillery Hell. "Takeyour glasses, colonel, and examine the enemy's line of battle. "

The other lifted the field-glass and with it swept the Antietam, and thefields and ridges beyond it. He looked at the Federal left, and helooked at the Federal centre, and he looked along the Federal right, which was opposite, then he lowered the glasses. "General, they have avery strong position, and they are in great force. "

"Good! I wish you to take fifty pieces of artillery and crush thatforce. "

Stephen D. Lee was a brave man. He said nothing now, but he stood amoment in silence, and then he took his field-glass and looked again. Helooked now at the many and formidable Federal batteries clustered likedark fruit above the Antietam, and now at the masses of blue infantry, and now at the positions, under artillery and musketry fire, which theConfederate 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 tellsme 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 oldbrown 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. "ColonelLee, can you crush the Federal right with fifty guns?"

The artillerist drew a quick breath, let the button alone, and raisedhis 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 youcrush the Federal right?"

The other hesitated. "General, I don't know what you want of me. Is itmy technical opinion as an artillery officer? or do you want to know ifI will make the attempt? If you give me the order of course I will makeit!"

"Yes, colonel. But I want your positive opinion, yes or no. Can youcrush the Federal right with fifty guns?"

The artillerist looked again, steadying arm and glass against a charredbough. "General, it cannot be done with fifty guns and the troops youhave here. "

Hilltop and withered wood hung a moment silent in the air, sunny but yetwith 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 putthe case. "You forced me, general, to say what I did say. If you sendthe guns, I beg of you not to give them to another! I will fight them tothe last extremity--" He looked to the other anxiously. To say toStonewall Jackson that you must despair and die where he sent you in toconquer!

But Jackson had no grimness of aspect. He looked quietly thoughtful. Itwas even with a smile of sweetness that he cut short the other'spleading. "It's all right, colonel, it's all right! Everyone knows thatyou are a brave officer and would fight the guns well. " At the foot ofthe hill he checked Little Sorrel. "We'll part here, colonel. You go atonce to General Lee. Tell him all that has happened since he sent you tome. Tell him that you examined the Federal position. Tell him that Iforced you to give the technical opinion of an artillery officer, andtell him what that opinion is. That is all, colonel. "

The September day wore on. Grey and blue armies rested inactive savethat they worked at burying the dead. Then, in the afternoon, information came to grey headquarters. Humphrey's division, pouringthrough the gaps of South Mountain, would in a few hours be atMcClellan's service. Couch's division was at hand--there were troopsassembling on the Pennsylvania border. At dark Lee issued his orders. During the night of the eighteenth the Army of Northern Virginia leftthe banks of the Antietam, wound silently down to the Potomac, andcrossed to the Virginia shore. 

All night there fell a cold, fine, chilling rain. Through it the wagontrains crossed, the artillery with a sombre noise, the wounded who mustbe carried, the long column of infantry, the advance, the main, therear. The corps of Stonewall Jackson was the last to ford the river. Hesat on Little Sorrel, midway of the stream, and watched his troops goonward in the steady, chilling rain. Daybreak found him there, motionless as a figure in bronze, needing not to care for wind or sun orrain. 

The Army of Northern Virginia encamped on the road to Martinsburg. Thirty guns on the heights above Boteler's Ford guarded its rear, andJeb Stuart and his cavalry watched from the northern bank atWilliamsport. McClellan pushed out from Sharpsburg a heavyreconnoissance, and on his side of the river planted guns. Fitz JohnPorter, in command, crossed during the night a considerable body oftroops. These advanced against Pendelton's guns, took four of them, anddrove the others back on the Martinsburg road. Pendleton reported toGeneral Lee; Lee sent an order to Stonewall Jackson. The courier foundhim upon the bank of the Potomac, gazing at the northern shore. "Good!"he said. "I have ordered up the Light Division. " Seventy guns thunderedfrom across the water. A. P. Hill in his red battle shirt advancing inthat iron rain, took, front and flank, the Federal infantry. He drovethem down from the bluff, he pushed them into the river; they showedblack on the current. Those who got across, under the shelter of theguns, did not try again that passage. McClellan looked toward Virginia, but made no further effort, this September, to invade her. The Army ofNorthern Virginia waited another day above Boteler's Ford, then withdrewa few miles to the banks of the Opequon. 

The Opequon, a clear and pleasing stream, meandered through the lowerreaches of the great Valley, through a fertile, lovely country, as yetnot greatly scored and blackened by war's torch and harrow. An easy rideto the westward and you arrived in Winchester, beloved ofLieutenant-General T. J. Jackson and the 2d Army Corps. As the autumnadvanced, the banks of the Opequon, the yet thick forests that stretchedtoward the Potomac, the great maples, and oaks and gums and hickoriesthat rose, singly or in clusters, from the rolling farm lands, put on amost gorgeous colouring. The air was mellow and sunny. From thecamp-fires, far and near, there came always a faint pungent smell ofwood smoke. Curls of blue vapour rose from every glade. The land seemedbathed in Indian summer. 

Through it in the mellow sunlight, beneath the crimson of the gums, thelighter red of the maples, the yellow of the hickories, the 2d ArmyCorps found itself for weeks back on the drill ground. The old Army ofthe 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 atWinchester! Chirk up, you fellows! Your drill's improving every day. OldJack'll let up on you after a while. Lord! it used to be _seven_ hours aday!"

Not only did the 2d Corps drill, it refitted. Mysteriously there camefrom Winchester a really fair amount of shoes and clothing. Only thefewest 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 wasput in that position. Uniforms were patched and cleaned, and every daywas washing day. All the hillsides were spread with soldiers' shirts. The red leaves drifting down on them looked like blood-stains, but theleaves could be brushed away. The men, standing in the Opequon, whistledas they rubbed and wrung. Every day the recovered from hospitals, andthe footsore stragglers, and the men detached or furloughed, came hometo 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 goesFather 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. GoodLord, 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 thosechildren fight's a caution!"

October drifted on, smooth as the Opequon. Red and yellow leaves drifteddown, wood smoke arose, sound was wrapped as in fine wool, dulledeverywhere to sweetness. Whirring insects, rippling water, thewood-chopper's axe, the whistling soldiers, the drum-beat, thebugle-call, all were swept into a smooth current, steady, almostdroning, somewhat dream-like. The 2d Corps would have said that it was along time on the Opequon, but that on the whole it found the place apleasing land of drowsy-head. 

Visitors came to the Opequon; parties from Winchester, officers from the1st Corps commanded by Longstreet and encamped a few miles to theeastward, officers from the headquarters of the commander-in-chief. General Lee came himself on Traveller, and with Stonewall Jackson rodealong the Opequon, under the scarlet maples. One day there appeared acluster of Englishmen, Colonel the Honourable Garnet Wolseley; theSpecial Correspondent of the _Times_, the Honourable Francis Lawley, andthe Special Correspondent of the _Illustrated London News_, Mr. FrankVizetelly. General Lee had sent them over under the convoy of anofficer, with a note to Stonewall Jackson. 

MY DEAR GENERAL, --These gentlemen very especially wish to make youracquaintance. Yours, R. E. LEE. 

They made it, beneath a beautiful, tall, crimson gum tree, where on afloor of fallen leaves Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson's tent waspitched. A camp-stool, a wooden chair, and two boxes were placed. Therewas a respectful silence while the Opequon murmured by, then GarnetWolseley spoke of the great interest which England--Virginia's mothercountry--was taking in this struggle. 

"Yes, sir, " said Jackson. "It would be natural for a mother to take aneven greater interest. "

"And the admiration, general, with which we have watched yourcareer--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 idealplace for a camp, general! But, I suppose, before these coloured leavesall 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 himeast 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 meanMr. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation?"

"The leaves are, " said Jackson, "a beautiful colour. I was in Englandone autumn, Colonel Wolseley, but I did not observe our autumn coloursin your foliage. Climate, doubtless. But what was my admiration wereyour cathedrals. "

"Yes, general; wonderful, are they not? Music in stone. Should McClellancross, would the Fredericksburg route--"

"Good! good! Music in stone! Which of your great church structures doyou prefer, sir?"

"Why, sir, I might prefer Westminster Abbey. Would--"

"Good! Westminster Abbey. A soldier's answer. I remember that Iespecially liked Durham. I liked the Galilee chapel and the tomb of theVenerable 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, butyou've got about the most interesting army on the globe. WillMcClellan--"

"I like the solidity of the early Norman. The foundations were laid in1093, I believe?"

"Very probably, general. Has General Lee--"

"It has a commanding situation--an advantage which all of yourcathedrals do not possess. I liked the windows best at York. What do youthink, colonel?"

"I think that you are right, general. When your wars are over, I hopethat you will visit England again. I suppose that you cannot say howsoon that will be, sir?"

"No, sir. Only God can say that. I should like to see Ely andCanterbury. " He rose. "Gentlemen, it has been pleasant to meet you. Ihear 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'sofficers, gallantly mounted and equipped, young and fine. To-day theirusual careless dash was tempered by something of important gravity; iftheir eyes danced, it was beneath half-closed lids; they did not smileoutright, but their lips twitched. Behind them an orderly bore a longpasteboard box. The foremost officer was Major Heros von Borcke, ofGeneral 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 thecarpet of small bright leaves was yet the table, the chair, thecamp-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. Thestaff officer, simple, big, and genuine, stood forward. "Major VonBorcke, is it not? Well, major, what is General Stuart about just now?"

"General, he is watching his old schoolmate, General McClellan. Mygeneral, I come on a graceful errand, a little gift from General Stuartbearing. He has so great an esteem and friendship for you, general; heasks that you accept so slight a token of that esteem and friendship andhe would say affection, and he does say reverence. He says that fromRichmond he has for this sent--"

Major Heros von Borcke made a signal. The orderly advanced and placedupon the pine table the box. The other cavalry officers stepped a littlenearer; two or three of Stonewall Jackson's military family came alsorespectfully closer; the red gum leaves made a rustling underfoot. 

"General Stuart is extremely kind, " said Jackson. "I have a high esteemfor Jeb Stuart. You will tell him so, major. "

Slowly, slowly, came off the lid. Slowly, slowly came away a layer ofsilver paper. Where on earth they got--in Richmond in 1862--the gay box, the silver paper, passes comprehension. The staff thought it lookedParisian, 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 militaryfamily. Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson merely looked a stone wall. Theold 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 brightbuttons, sash, belt, gauntlets--the leaves rustled loudly, but a chucklefrom Jim in the background and a murmured "Dat are sumpin' like!" wasthe only audible utterance. With empressement each article was liftedfrom the box by Major Heros von Borcke and laid upon the pine boardsbeneath Stonewall Jackson's eyes. The box emptied, Von Borcke, big, simple, manly, gravely beaming, stepped back from the table. "ForGeneral Jackson, with General Stuart's esteem and admiration!"

Stonewall Jackson, big, too, and to appearance simple, looked under theforage cap, smiled, and with one lean brown finger touched almosttimidly the beautiful, spotless cadet cloth. "Major von Borcke, you willgive General Stuart my best thanks. He is, indeed, good. All this, " hegravely indicated the loaded table, "is much too fine for the hard workI'd have to give it, and I shall have it put away for the present. Butyou tell General Stuart, major, that I will take the best care of hisbeautiful 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, Ihope, major. "

But the banks of the Opequon uttered a protest. "Oh, general!"--"Mygeneral, you will hurt his feelings. "--"General, just try it on, atleast!" "Let us have our way, sir, just this once! We have been rightgood, haven't we? and we do so want to see you in it!"--"General Stuartwill 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 gumleaves drifted down, then somewhat bashfully from the tent came forthStonewall Jackson metamorphosed. Triumph perched upon the helms of thestaff and the visiting cavalry. "Oh!--Oh!--" "General Stuart will be sohappy!" "General, the review this afternoon! General, won't you reviewus _that way_?"

He did. At first the men did not know him, then there mounted a wildexcitement. Suppressed with difficulty during the actual evolutions, itburst into flower when the ranks were broken. The sun was setting in aflood of gold; there hung a fairy light over the green fields and theOpequon and the vivid woods. The place rang to the frolic shouting. Ithad 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. LittleSorrel beneath him moved with a jerk of the head and a distendednostril. 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 leavesinto a russet November. The curls of wood smoke showed plainer down theglades, the crows were cawing, the migratory birds going south, but thedays were yet mild and still, wrapped in a balm of pale sunshine, afaint, purplish, Indian summer haze. The 2d Corps was hale and soberlyhappy. 

It was the chaplain's season. There occurred in the Army of NorthernVirginia a religious revival, a far-spread and lasting deepening offeeling. For many nights in many forest glades there were "meetings"with prayer and singing. "Old Hundred" floated through the air. Fromtents and huts of boughs came the soldiers. They sat upon the earth, thick carpeted now with the faded leaves, or upon gnarled, out-croppingroots of oak and beech. Above shone the moon; there was a touch of frostin the air. The chaplain had some improvised pulpit; a great fire, orperhaps a torch fastened to a bough, gave light whereby to read theBook. The sound of the voice, the sound of the singing, blended with thevoice 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 thesenights, in some glade or meadow, with some regiment or other, there wasfound the commander of the 2d Corps. Beneath the cathedral roof of theforest, or beneath the stars in the open, sat Stonewall Jackson, worshipping the God of Battles. Undoubtedly he was really and deeplyhappy. 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, adaughter. 

In the first half of October had occurred Jeb Stuart's brilliantMonocacy raid, two days and a half within McClellan's lines. On thetwenty-sixth McClellan began the passage of the Potomac. He crossed nearBerlin, and Lee, assured now that the theatre of war would be east ofthe Blue Ridge, dispatched Longstreet with the 1st Corps to Culpeper. Onthe seventh of November McClellan was removed from the command of theArmy of the Potomac. It was given over to Burnside, and he took theFredericksburg route to Richmond. 

The Army of the Potomac numbered one hundred and twenty-five thousandmen and officers and three hundred and twenty guns. At Washington werein addition eighty thousand men, and up and down the Potomac twentythousand more. The Army of Northern Virginia in all, 1st and 2d Corps, had seventy-two thousand men and officers and two hundred andseventy-five guns. Lee called Stonewall Jackson to join Longstreet atFredericksburg. 

On the twenty-second the 1st Corps quitted, amid smiles and tears, manya "God keep you!" and much cheering, Winchester the beloved. Out swungthe long column upon the Valley pike. Advance and main and rear, horseand foot and guns, Stonewall Jackson and his twenty-five thousand tookthe old road. The men were happy. "Old road, old road, old road, howdydo! How's your health, old lady? Haven't you missed us? Haven't youmissed us? We've missed _you_!"

It was Indian summer, violet, dream-like. By now there had been burningand harrowing in the Valley; war had laid his mailed hand upon theregion. It was not yet the straining clutch of later days, but it wasbad enough. The Indian summer wrapped with a soft touch of mourningpurple much of desolation, much of untilled earth, and charredroof-tree, and broken walls. The air was soft and gentle, lying balmyand warm on the road and ragged fields, and the haze so hid thedistances that the column thought not so much of how the land wasscarred as of the memories that thronged on either side of the Valleypike. "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 hismemories, too. He did not express them. He was using expedition, and hesent back orders. "Press forward, men! Press forward. " He rode quietly, forage cap pulled low; or, standing with Little Sorrel on some waysideknoll, he watched for a while his thousands passing. Stuart's gaypresent 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 wornoff. Here were the old boots, the sabre, the forage cap; here were theblue glint of the eye and the short "Good! good!" as the men passed. Themarching men shouted for him. He nodded, and having noted whatever itwas he had paused to note, shook Little Sorrel's bridle and stifflygalloped to the van again. 

Past Newtown, past Middletown, on to Strasburg--the Massanuttons loomedahead, all softly coloured yet with reds and golds. "Massanutton!Massanutton!" said the troops. "We've seen you before, and you've seenus 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 stillNovember 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 Jacksonriding at its head. The people--the people were mostly women andchildren--flocked to the great highroad to bring the army things, towave it onward, to say "God bless you!"--"God keep you!"--"God make youto conquer!"

The 2d Corps passed Woodstock, and Edenburg, and Mt. Jackson, and cameto New Market, and here it turned eastward. "Going to leave you, "chanted the troops. "Going to leave you, old road, old road! Take careof 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 thetop of the pass the view was magnificent. Down and down wound the columnto 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 wasdreamy, the sun sloping to the west, the crows cawing in the mountainclearings. The column was leaving the Valley, and a silence fell uponit. Stonewall Jackson rode ahead, on the mountain path, in the last goldlight. At the summit of the pass there was a short halt. It went by in astrange 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 sunsent out great rays of purple and rose. Between the mountain ranges thevast landscape lay in shadow, though here and there a high hilltop, amountain spur had a coronet of gold. The 2d Corps, twenty-five thousandmen, high on the Blue Ridge, looked and looked. "Some of us will not seeyou again. Some of us will not see you again, O loved Valley ofVirginia!" _Column Forward! Column Forward!_

CHAPTER XLV

THE LONE TREE HILL

The three beautiful Carys walked together from the road gate toward thehouse. Before them, crowning the low hill, showed the white pillarsbetween oaks where the deep coloured leaves yet clung. The sun was down, the air violet, the negro children burning brush and leaves in thehollow behind the house quarter. Halfway to the pillars, there ran backfrom the drive a long double row of white chrysanthemums. The threesisters 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 camepresently and sat beside her. "Dear Judith, dear Judith!" she said, inher soft little voice, and stroked her sister's dress. 

Judith put her arm about her, and drew her close. "Molly, isn't it asthough the earth were dying? Just the kind of fading light and hush onethinks of going in--I don't know why, but I don't like chrysanthemumsany more. "

"I know, " said Molly, "there's a feel of mould in them, and of deadleaves and chilly nights. But the soldiers are so used to lying out ofdoors! I don't believe they mind it much, or they won't until the snowcomes. Judith--"

"Yes, honey. "

"The soldiers that I have dreadful dreams about are the soldiers inprison. Judith, I dreamed about Major Stafford the other night! He hadblood upon his forehead and he was walking up and down, walking up anddown in a place with a grating. "

"You mustn't dream so, Molly. --Oh, yes, yes, yes! I'm sorry for him. Onthe 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 adreadful 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, wewent with Aunt Lucy over the storeroom and the smoke-house, and then wewent down to the quarter and got them all together, and told them howcareful now we would all have to be with meal and bacon. And Susan'sbaby had died in the night, and we had to comfort Susan, and thisafternoon we buried the baby. After breakfast we scraped almost the lastof the tablecloths into lint, and Molly made envelopes, and Daddy Benand I talked about shoes and how we could make them at home. Then AuntLucy and I went into town to the hospitals. There is a rumour ofsmallpox, but I am sure it is only a rumour. It has been a hard day. Anumber 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 notthere. Probably he was killed. And Unity went to the sewing-rooms, andhas been there sewing hard all day. And then we came home, and foundJulius almost in tears, and Molly triumphant with the parlour carpet allup and ready to be cut into squares--soldiers sleeping in the snowywinter under tulips and roses. And then we read father's letter, andthat was a comfort, a comfort! And then we took Susan's little baby andburied it, and did what we could for Susan; and then we walked down tothe gate and stopped to gather chrysanthemums. And now we are going backto the house, and I dare say there'll be some work to do between now andbedtime. We're doing something pretty nearly all the time, Unity. "

Unity lifted with strength the mass of bloom above her head. "I know, Iknow! But it's in me to want a brass band to do it by! I want to see theflag waving! I want to hear the _sound_ of our work. Oh, I know I amtalking foolishness!" She took Judith by the hands, and lifted her toher 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 woodfire. They reached the steps almost together, soberly mounted them, andentered the hall. Miss Lucy called to them from the library. "The papershave come. "

The old room, quiet, grave, book-lined, stored with records of oldstruggles, lent itself with fitness to the papers nowadays. TheGreenwood Carys sat about the wood fire, Judith in an old armchair, Unity on an old embroidered stool, Molly in the corner of a great oldsofa. Miss Lucy pushed her chair into the ring of the lamplight and readaloud in her quick, low, vibrant voice. The army at Fredericksburg--thatwas what they thought of now, day and night. She read first of the armyat Fredericksburg--of Lee on the southern side of the Rappahannock, andBurnside on the northern, and the cannon all planted, and of the womenand children beginning to leave. She read all the official statements, all the rumours, all the guesses, all the prophecies of victory and therecord 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 fromCorinth. She read all the Richmond news--hot criticism, hot defence ofthe President, of the Secretary of War, of the Secretary of State;echoes from the House, from the Senate; determined optimism as toforeign intervention; disdain, as determined, of Burnside's "On toRichmond"; passionate devotion to the grey armies in the field--all theloud war song of the South, clear and defiant! She read everything inthe 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 perloaf. Chickens $10. Turkeys $50. 

"Oh, " cried Molly. "We have chickens yet, beside what we send to thehospitals! And we have eggs and milk and butter, and I was looking atthe turkeys to-day. I feel _wicked_!"

"A lot of the turkeys will die, " said Unity consolingly. "They alwaysdo. I spoke to Sam about the ducks and the guinea-hens the other day. Itold him we were going to send them to Fredericksburg. He didn't likeit. 'Miss Unity, what fer you gwine ter send all dem critturs away lakdat? You sen' 'em from Greenwood, dey gwine die ob homesickness!' And wedon't use many eggs ourselves, honey, and we've no way to send themilk. "

Miss Lucy having read the paper through, the Greenwood ladies went tosupper. That frugal meal over, they came back to the library, theparlour looking somewhat desolate with the carpet up and rolled in onecorner, waiting for the shears to-morrow. "The shepherds andshepherdesses look, " said Unity, "as though they were shivering alittle. I don't suppose they ever thought they'd live to see a Wiltoncarpet cut into blankets for Carys and other soldiers gone to war! It'simpossible not to laugh when you think of Edward drawing one of thosecoverlets over him! Oh, me!"

"If Edward gets a furlough this winter, " said Judith suddenly, "we mustgive him a party. With the two companies in town, and some of thesurgeons, there will be men enough. Then Virginia and Nancy and Deb andMaria and Betty and Agatha and all the refugeeing girls--we could have areal party once more--"

"Just leaving out the things to eat, " said Unity; "and wearing very oldclothes. We'll do it, won't we, Aunt Lucy?"

Aunt Lucy thought it an excellent idea. "We mustn't get old before ourtime! We must keep brightness about the place. I have seen my motherlaugh and look all the gayer out of her beautiful black eyes when otherfolk would have been weeping!--I hear company coming, now! It's CousinWilliam, I think. "

Cousin William it was, not gone to the war because of sixty-eight yearsand a rich inheritance of gout. He came in, ruddy as an apple, riddenover to cheer up the Greenwood folk and hear and tell news from thefront. He had sons there himself, and a letter which he would read forthe 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 hadtrimmed the light, and Molly replenished the fire, he read, and as inthese days no one ever read anything perfunctorily, the reading was moretelling than an actor could have made it. In places Cousin Williamhimself and his hearers laughed, and in places reader and listenerbrushed hand across eyes. "Your loving son, " he read, and folded thesheets carefully, for they were becoming a little worn. "Now, what'syour news, Lucy? Have you heard from Fauquier?"

"Yes, yesterday. He has reached Fredericksburg from Winchester. It isone of his old, dry, charming letters, only--only a little hard to makeout 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 acertain high courage and sweetness, and taking the letter from herwork-basket read it to Cousin William. He listened, nodding his head atintervals. "Yes, yes, to be sure, to be sure! You can't remember UncleEdward Churchill, Lucy, but I can. He used to read Swift to me, though Ididn't care for it much, except for Gulliver. Fauquier reminds me of himoften, except that Uncle Edward was bitter--though it wasn't because ofhis empty sleeve; it was for other things. --Fredericksburg! There'll beanother 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 Greenwoodlibrary. Then said Cousin William softly, "It is worth while to get suchletters. There aren't many like Warwick Cary. He's the kind that provesthe 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; "therewasn't a thing about war in it. "

Unity stirred the fire, making the sparks go up chimney. "Five pagesabout Massanutton in her autumn robes, and a sonnet to the Shenandoah! Ilike Edward. "

At ten o'clock Cousin William rode away. The Greenwood women hadprayers, and then, linked together, they went up the broad, old shallowstairs to the gallery above, and kissed one another good-night. 

In her own room Judith laid pine knots upon the brands. Up flared thelight, 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 herrosewood box, and in the light from the hearth read them for thethousandth time. There was none from Richard Cleave after July, none, none! Sitting in a low chair that had been her mother's, she bowedherself over the June-time letters, over the May-time letters. There hadbeen but two months of bliss, two months! She read them again, althoughshe had them all by heart; she held her hand as though it held a pen andtraced 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 herknees, 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 loverhast 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 sinceJuly, a letter every fortnight. Judith read again the later ones, theones 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, heloves you, loves you! No; I do not know that his is the course that Ishould take, but then women are different. I do not think I would everthink of pride or of the world and the world's opinion. If you cried tome I would go, and the world should not hold me back. But men have beentrained to uphold that kind of pride. I did not think that Richard hadit, but I see now all his father in him. Darling child, I do not thinkthat it will last, but just now, oh, just now, you must possess yourheart in patience!"

The words blurred before Judith's eyes. She sunk her head upon herknees. "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. Icannot 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 mustwork. 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 mustrest--rest and wait. "

Judith put the letters in the rosewood box. She arose, locked her handsbehind her head and walked softly up and down the room. "Rest--rest andwait. Patience--quietude--tranquillity--strength--fortitude--endurance. --Rest--patience--calm quietude--"

It worked but partially. Presently, when she lay down it was to liestill enough, but sleepless. Late in the night she slept, but it was todream again, much as she had dreamed during the Seven Days, great andtragic 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, yetwrapped and warmed and softened with the memories of summer. Judithlooked out of the window. There was a glow in the eastern sky, the treeswere motionless, the brown path over the hills showed like a beckoningfinger. She dressed, put a cloak about her, went softly downstairs andleft the house. 

The path across the meadow, through the wood, up the lone tree hill--shewould see the sunrise, she would get above the world. She walkedquickly, lightly, through the dank stillness. There was mist in themeadow, above the little stream. The wood was shadowy; mist, likeghosts, between the trees. She passed through it and came out on thebare hillside, rising dome-like to the one tree with the bench aroundit. The eastern sky was burning gold. Judith stood still. There was aman seated upon the bench, on the side that overlooked Greenwood. He satwith his head buried in his hands. She could not yet tell, but shethought he was in uniform. 

With the thought she moved onward. She never remembered afterwards, whether she recognized him then, or whether she thought, "A soldiersleeping 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 withinthirty 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 across-country road. She called to him. "Richard!"

It was rapture--all beneath the rising sun forgotten save only thisgold-lit hilltop, with its tree from Eden garden! But since it wasearth, and Paradise not yet real, and there were checks and bars enoughin their human lot, they came back from that seraph flight. This was thelone tree hill above Greenwood, and a November day, though gold-touched, and Philip Deaderick must get back to the section of Pelham's artilleryrefitting at Gordonsville. --"What do you mean? You are a soldier--youare back in the army?--but you have another name? Oh, Richard, I see, Isee! Oh, I might have known! A gunner with Pelham. Oh, my gunner withPelham, 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 thetruest comrade ever man had! What would you do--what would you havedone--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 thearmy as you have reentered it. I would serve again as you are servingagain. If it were necessary--Oh, I see that it was necessary!--I wouldserve disguised as you are disguised. But--but--when it came to JudithCary--"

"Judith, say that it was not you and I, but some other disgraced soldierand 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; mykinspeople and certain friends believe it; but all the rest of thecountry--the army, the people--they don't believe it. Let my name beknown to-morrow, and by evening a rougher dismissal than before! Do younot see, do you not see, Judith?"

"I see partly. I see that you must serve. I see that you walk withdangers. I see that--that you could not even write. I see that I mustpossess my soul in patience. I see that we must wait--Oh, God, it is allwaiting, waiting, waiting! But I do not see--and I _refuse_ to see, Richard--anything at the end of it all but love, happiness, union, homefor you and me!"

He held her close. "Judith, I do not know the right. I am not sure thatI see the right, my soul is so tempest-tossed. That day at White OakSwamp. If I could cleanse that day, bring it again into line with theother 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 awhole--one life, not two. He had no twin, a disobedient soldier, a liarand betrayer, as it was said he had. '--If I could do that, Judith! I donot see how I will do it, and yet it is my intention to do it. Thatdone, then, darling, darling! I will make true love to you. If it is notdone--but I will not think of that. Only--only--how to do it, how to doit! That maddens me at times--"

"Is it that? Then we must think of that. They are not all dead who couldtell?--"

"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 withit?--with that order which he carried from General Jackson to GeneralWinder, 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 mighthave 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 wehear that Major Stafford was among those taken prisoner at Sharpsburg. "

Judith stood upright, her hand at her breast, her eyes narrowed. "Untilthis 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 thesemonths I have thought of it as a mistake--as one of thosemisunderstandings, mishappenings, accidental, incomprehensible, thatwound and blister human life! I never saw it in a lightning flash forwhat it was till now!"

She looked about her, still with an intent and narrowed gaze. "The lonetree hill. It is a good place to see it from. There is nothing to bedone 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 averitable lightning glare, then dropped them. She stood very straight, young, slender, finely and strongly fibred. "He said he would do theworst he could, and he has done it. And I said, 'At your peril!' and athis 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 overGreenwood! I thought, sitting here, 'I will not wait for the sunshine; Iwill go while all things are in shadow. ' And I turned to go. And thencame the sunshine. I must go now--away from the sunshine. I had but anhour, and half of it was gone before the sunshine came. "

"How shall I know, " she said, "if you are living? There is a battlecoming. "

"Yes. Judith, I will not write to you. Do not ask me; I will not. Butafter each battle I have managed somehow to get a line to my mother. Shewill tell you that I am living, well and living. I do not think that Ishall die--no, not till Maury Stafford and I have met again!"

"He is in prison. They say so many die there. . . . Oh, Richard, write tome--"

But Cleave would not. "No! To do that is to say, 'All is as it was, andI let her take me with this stain!' I will not--I will not. Circumstancehas betrayed us here this hour. We could not help it, and it has been aglory, a dream. That is it, a dream. I will not wake till I have saidgood-bye!"

They said good-bye, still in the dream, as lovers might, when one goesforth to battle and the other stays behind. He released her, turnedshort and sharp, and went down from the lone tree hill, down the sidefrom Greenwood, to the country road. A piece of woods hid him fromsight. 

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 narrowedand 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 anddown the river, on the plain about the little city, on the bold heightsof the northern shore, on the hills of the southern, commanding theplain. 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 troopsappointed this day to pass the Rappahannock, a stream that flowed acrossthe road to Richmond. He had been responsible for choosing this route tothe keep of the fortress, and he must make good his reiterated, genialassurances of success. The Rappahannock, Fredericksburg, and a line ofhills masked the onward-going road and its sign, _This way to Richmond_. "Well, the Rappahannock can be bridged! A brigade known to be occupyingthe town? Well, a hundred and forty guns admirably planted on StaffordHeights will drive out the rebel brigade! The line of hills, bleak anddesolate with fir woods?--hares and snow birds are all the life overthere! General Lee and Stonewall Jackson? Down the Rappahannock belowMoss Neck. At least, undoubtedly, Stonewall Jackson's down there. Theballoon people say so. General Lee's got an idea that Port Royal's ourpoint of attack. The mass of his army's there. The gunboat people sayso. Longstreet may be behind those hills. Well, we'll crush Longstreet!We'll build our bridges under cover of this fortunate fog, and go overand defeat Longstreet and be far down the road to Richmond before a mancan say Jack Robinson!"

"Jack Robinson!" said the brigade from McLaws's division--Barksdale'sMississippians--drawn up on the water edge of Fredericksburg. They weretall men--Barksdale's Mississippians--playful bear-hunters from the canebrakes, young and powerfully made, and deadly shots. "Old Barksdale"knew how to handle them, and together they were a handful for any enemywhatsoever. Sixteen hundred born hunters and fighters, they opened fireon the bridge-builders, trying to build four bridges, three above, onebelow the town. Barksdale's men were somewhat sheltered by the houses onthe river brink; the blue had the favourable fog with which to coveroperations. It did not wholly help; the Mississippians had keen eyes;the rifles blazed, blazed, blazed! Burnside's bridge-builders weregallant men; beaten back from the river they came again and again, butagain and again the eyes of the swamp hunters ran along the gleamingbarrels and a thousand bronzed fingers pulled a thousand triggers. Pastthe middle of the day the fog lifted. The town lay defined and helplessbeneath a pallid sky. 

The artillery of the Army of the Potomac opened upon it. One hundred andforty heavy guns, set in tiers upon the heights to the north, fired eachinto Fredericksburg fifty rounds. Under that terrible cover the bluebegan to cross on pontoons. 

A number of the women and children had been sent from the town duringthe preceding days. Not all, however, were gone. Many had no place to goto; some were ill and some were nursing the ill; many had husbands, sons, brothers, there at hand in the Army of Northern Virginia and wouldnot go. Now with the beginning of the bombardment they must go. Therewere 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 theshells shrieking behind them. They carried the children, they halfcarried the sick and the very old. They stumbled on, between the frozenhills by the dark pointed cedars, over the bare white fields. Behindthem home was being destroyed; before them lay desolation, and allaround was winter. They had perhaps thought it out, and were headed--thevarious forlorn lines--for this or that country house, but they lookedlost, remnant of a world become glacial, whirled with suddenness intothe sidereal cold, cold! and the loneliness of cold. The older childrenwere very brave; but there were babes, too, and these wailed and wailed. Their wailing made a strange, futile sound beneath the thundering of theguns. 

One of these parties came through the snow to a swollen creek on whichthe ice cakes were floating. Cross!--yes, but how? The leaders consultedtogether, then went up the stream to find a possible ford, and came insight 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 thesaddle, a child in front, a child behind, the old steady horses plantingtheir 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 theircaps, wished with all their hearts that they had at command fire-litpalaces and a banquet set! Having neither, being themselves withoutshelter or food and ordered not to build fires, they could only baretheir heads and watch the other soldiers out of sight, carrying thechildren, half carrying the old and sick, stumbling through the snow, bythe dark pointed cedars, and presently lost to view among the frozenhills. 

The shells rained destruction into Fredericksburg. Houses were batteredand broken; houses were set on fire. Through the smoke and uproar, theexplosions and detonations and tongues of flame, the Mississippians beatback another attempt at the bridges and opened fire on boat after boatnow pushing from the northern shore. But the boats came bravely on, bravely manned; hundreds might be driven from the bridge-building, butother hundreds sprang to take their places--and always from the heightscame the rain of iron, smashing, shivering, setting afire, tearing upthe streets, bringing down the walls, ruining, wounding, slaying! McLawssent an order to Barksdale, Barksdale gave it to his brigade. "Evacuate!" said the Mississippians. "We're going to evacuate. What'sthat in English? 'Quit?'--What in hell should we quit for?"

Orders being orders, the disgust of the bear-hunters did not count. "OldBarksdale" was fairly deprecating. "Men, I can't help it! General McLawssays, 'General Barksdale, withdraw your men to Marye's Hill. ' Well, I'vegot to do it, haven't I? General McLaws knows, now doesn'the?--Yes, --just one more round. _Load! Kneel! Commence firing!_"

In the late afternoon the town was evacuated, Barksdale drawing off ingood order across the stormed-upon open. He disappeared--the Mississippibrigade disappeared--from the Federal vision. The blue column, the 28thMassachusetts leading, entered Fredericksburg. "We'll get them allto-morrow--Longstreet certainly! Stonewall Jackson's from twelve toeighteen miles down the river. Well! this time Lee will find that he'sdivided his army once too often!"

By dark there were built six bridges, but the main army rested all nighton the northern bank. December the twelfth dawned, another foggy day. The fog held hour after hour, very slow, still, muffled weather, throughwhich, corps by corps, all day long, the army slowly crossed. In theafternoon there was a cavalry skirmish with Stuart, but nothing elsehappened. Thirty-six hours had been consumed in crossing and resting. The Rappahannock, however, _was_ crossed, and the road to Richmondstretched plain between the hills. 

But the grey army was not divided. Certain divisions had been down theriver, but they were no longer down the river. The Army of NorthernVirginia, a vibrant unit, intense, concentrated, gaunt, bronzed, andhighly efficient, waited behind the hills south and west of the town. There was a creek running through a ravine, called Deep Run. On one sideof Deep Run stood Longstreet and the 1st Corps, on the other, almost atright angles, Stonewall Jackson and the 2d. Before both the heavilytimbered ridge sank to the open plain. In the woods had been thrown upcertain breastworks. 

Longstreet's left, Anderson's division, rested on the river. ToAnderson's right were posted McLaws, Pickett, and Hood. He had hisartillery on Marye's Hill and Willis Hill, and he had Ransom's infantryin 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 StonewallJackson. A. P. Hill's division with the brigades of Pender, Lane, Archer, Thomas, and Gregg made his first line of battle, the divisionsof Taliaferro and Early his second, and D. H. Hill's division hisreserve. His artillery held all favourable crests and headlands. Stuart's cavalry and Stuart's Horse Artillery were gathered by theMassaponax. Hills and forest hid them all, and over the plain and riverrolled the fog. 

It hid the North as it hid the South. Burnside's great force rested thenight of the twelfth in and immediately about Fredericksburg--Hooker andSumner and Franklin, one hundred and thirteen thousand men. "The balloonpeople" now reported that the hills south and west were held by aconsiderable rebel force--Longstreet evidently, Lee probably with him. Burnside repeated the infatuation of Pope and considered that StonewallJackson was absent from the field of operations. Undoubtedly he hadbeen, but the shortest of time before, down the river by Port Royal. Noone had seen him move. Jackson away, there was then onlyLongstreet--strongly posted, no doubt. Well! Form a great line ofbattle, advance in overwhelming strength across the plain, the guns onStafford 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 thewooded hills, the grey artillery holding the bluff heads, the greyskirmishers holding embankment and cut of the Richmond, Fredericksburgand Potomac Railroad, the grey cavalry by the Massaponax, all staredinto 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 longroll! My Lord! How many drums have they got, anyway?"--"Listen! If youlisten right hard you can hear them shouting orders! Hush up, youinfantry, down there! We want to hear. "--"They're moving guns, too! Wishthere'd come a little sympathizing earthquake and help them--'speciallythose siege guns on the heights over there!"--"No, no! I want to fightthem. Look! it's lifting a little! the fog's lifting a little! Look atthe guns up in the air like that! It's closed again. "--"Well, if thatwasn't fantastic! Ten iron guns in a row, posted in space!"--"Hm! brassbands. 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 menhas General Ambrose Everett Burnside got, anyhow?"--"Burnside's been todances before in Fredericksburg! Some of the houses are burning now thathe's danced in, and some of the women he has danced with are wanderingover the snow. I hope he'll like the reel presently. "--"He's a goodfellow himself, though not much of a general! He can't help fightinghere if he's put here to fight. "--"I know that. I was just statingfacts. Hear that music, music, music!"

Up from Deep Run, a little in the rear of the grey centre, rose a boldhill. Here in the clinging mist waited Lee on Traveller, his staffbehind him, in front an ocean of vapour. Longstreet came from the left, Stonewall Jackson from the right. Lee and his two lieutenants talkedtogether, three mounted figures looming large on the hilltop above DeepRun. With suddenness the fog parted, was upgathered with swiftness bythe great golden sun. 

That lifted curtain revealed a very great and martial picture, --War in amoment of vastness and grandeur, epic, sublime. The town was afire;smoke and flame went up to a sky not yet wholly azure, banded and barredwith 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 dungeongrating. Beyond the burning town was the river, crossed now by sixpontoon bridges. On each there were troops; one of the long sun rayscaught the bayonets. From the river, to the north, rose the heights, andthey had an iron crown from which already came lightnings and thunders. There were paths leading down to the river and these showed blue, movingstreams, bright points which were flags moving with them. That for thefar side of the Rappahannock, but on this side, over the plain thatstretched south and west of the smoke-wreathed town, there moved a bluesea indeed. Eighty thousand men were on that plain. They moved here, they moved there, into battle formation, and they moved to the crash ofmusic, to the horn and to the drum. The long rays that the sun wassending made a dazzle of bayonet steel, thousands and thousands andthousands of bayonets. The gleaming lines went here, went there, crossed, recrossed, formed angles, made a vast and glittering net. Outof it soared the flags, bright hovering birds, bright giant blossoms inthe air. Batteries moved across the plain. Officers, couriers, gallopedon fiery horses; some general officer passed from end to end of aforming line and was cheered. The earth shook to marching feet. Thegreat brazen horns blared, the drums beat, the bugles rang. The gleamingnet folded back on itself, made three pleats, made three great lines ofbattle. 

The grey leaders on the hill to the south gazed in silence. Then saidLee, "It is well that war is so terrible. Were it not so, we should growtoo fond of it. " Longstreet, the "old war horse, " stared at thetremendous pageant. "This wasn't a little quarrel. It's been brewing forseventy-five years--ever since the Bill-of-Rights day. Things that takeso long in brewing can't be cooled by a breath. It's getting to be ahuge war. " Said Jackson, "Franklin holds their left. He seems to beadvancing. I will return to Hamilton's Crossing, sir. "

The guns on the Stafford Heights which had been firing slowly and singlynow opened mouth together. The tornado, overpassing river and plain, burst on the southern hills. In the midst of the tempest, Burnsideordered Franklin to advance a single division, its mission the seizingthe _unoccupied_ ridge east of Deep Run. Franklin sent Meade withforty-five hundred Pennsylvania troops. 

Meade's brigades advanced in three lines, skirmishers out, a bandplaying a quickstep, the stormy sunlight deepening the colours, making agleaming of bayonets. His first line crossed the Richmond road. To theleft 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 camefiercely into action. When they got his range, Pelham moved his two gunsand began again a raking fire. Again the blue gunners found the rangeand again he moved with deliberate swiftness, and again he opened with ahot and raking fire. One gun was disabled; he fought with the other. Hefought until the limber chests were empty and there came an imperiousmessage from Jeb Stuart, "Get back from destruction, you infernal, gallant fool, John Pelham!"

The guns across the river and the blue field batteries steadily shelledfor half an hour the heavily timbered slopes beyond the railroad. Exceptfor the crack and crash of severed boughs the wood gave no sign. At theend of this period Meade resumed his advance. 

On came the blue lines, staunch, determined troops, seasoned now as thegrey were seasoned. They meant to take that empty line of hills, willy-nilly a few Confederate guns. That done, they would be in aposition to flank Longstreet, already attacked in front by Sumner'sGrand Division. On they came, with a martial front, steady, swinging. Uninterrupted, they marched to within a few hundred yards of ProspectHill. Suddenly the woods that loomed before them so dark and quietblazed and rang. Fifty guns were within that cover, and the fifty casttheir thunderbolts full against the dark blue line. From either side thegrey artillery burst the grey musketry, and above the crackling thunderrose the rebel yell. Stonewall Jackson was not down the river; StonewallJackson was here! Meade's Pennsylvanians were gallant fighters; but theybroke beneath that withering fire, --they fell back in strong disorder. 

Grey and blue, North and South, there were gathered upon and above thefield of Fredericksburg four hundred guns. All came into action. Whereearlier, there had been fog over the plain, fog wreathing the hillsides, there was now smoke. Dark and rolling it invaded the ruined town, itmantled the flowing Rappahannock, it surmounted the hills. Red flashespierced it, and over and under and through roared the enormous sound. There came reinforcements to Meade, division after division. In themeantime Sumner was hurling brigades against Marye's Hill and Longstreetwas hurling them back again. 

The 2d Corps listened to the terrible musketry from this front. "Old Pete'ssurely 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. "--"Neverheard such hullabaloo as the great guns are making!"--"What're themPennsylvanians down there doing? It's time for them to come on! They've gotenough reinforcements--old friends, Gibbon and Doubleday. "--"Goodfighters. "--"Yes, Lord! we're all good fighters now. Glad of it. Like tofight a good fighter. Feel real friendly toward him. "--"Athirty-two-pounder Parrott in the battery on the hill over there explodedand raised hell. General Lee standing right by. He just spoke on, calm andimperturbable, and Traveller looked sideways. "--"Look! Meade's moving. _Doyou know, I think we ought to have occupied that tongue of land?_"

So, in sooth, thought others presently. It was a marshy, dense, andtangled coppice projecting like a sabre tooth between the brigades ofLane and Archer. So thick was the growth, so boggy the earth, that atthe last it had been pronounced impenetrable and left unrazed. Now themistake was paid for--in bloody coin. 

Meade's line of battle rushed across the open, brushed the edge of thecoppice, discovered that it was empty, and plunging in, found cover. Thegrey batteries could not reach them. Almost before the situation wasrealized, forth burst the blue from the thicket. Lane was flanked; inuproar and confusion the grey gave way. Meade sent in another brigade. It left the first to man-handle Lane, hurled itself on, and at theoutskirt of the wood, struck Archer's left, taking Archer by surpriseand creating a demi-rout. A third brigade entered on the path of thefirst and second. The latter, leaving Archer to this new strength, hurled itself across the military road and upon a thick and tall woodheld by Maxey Gregg and his South Carolinians. Smoke, cloud, and forestgrowth--it was hard to distinguish colours, hard to tell just what washappening! Gregg thought that the smoke-wrapped line was Archer fallingback. He withheld his fire. The line came on and in a moment, amidshouts, struck his right. A bullet brought down Gregg himself, mortallywounded. His troops broke, then rallied. A grey battery near Bernard'sCabin brought its guns to bear upon Gibbon, trying to follow the bluetriumphant rush. Archer reformed. Stonewall Jackson, standing onProspect Hill, sent orders to his third line. "Generals Taliaferro andEarly, advance and clear the front with bayonets. "

_Yaaaiih! Yaaaiiih! Yaaaaihh!_ yelled Jubal Early's men, and did as theywere bid. _Yaaaaiiih! Yaaiiihhh! Yaaaaiiihhhh!_ yelled the StonewallBrigade and the rest of Taliaferro's, and did as they were bid. Back, back were borne Meade's brigades. Darkness of smoke, denseness of forestgrowth, treachery of swampy soil!--all order was lost, and there came nosupport. Back went the blue--all who could go back. A. P. Hill's secondline was upon them now; Gibbon was attacked. The grey came down the longslopes like a torrent loosed. Walker's guns joined in. The uproar wasinfernal. The blue fought well and desperately--but there was nosupport. Back they went, back across the Richmond Road--all who couldget back. They left behind in the marshy coppice, and on the woodedslopes and by the embankment, four thousand dead and wounded. The LightDivision, Taliaferro and Early, now held the railroad embankment. Beforethem was the open plain, and the backward surge to the river of thebroken foe. It was three o'clock of the afternoon. Burnside sent anorder 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 WashingtonArtillery, loomed impregnable. Against it the North tossed todestruction division after division. They marched across the bare andsullen plain, they charged; the hill flashed into fire, a thunderrolled, the smoke cloud deepened. When it lifted the charge was seen tobe broken, retreating, the plain was seen to be strewed with dead. Theblue soldiers were staunch and steadfast. They saw that their case washapless, yet on they came across the shelterless plain. Ordered tocharge, they charged; charged very gallantly, receded with a stubbornslowness. They were good fighters, worthy foes, and the grey atFredericksburg hailed them as such. Forty thousand men charged Marye'sHill--six great assaults--and forty thousand were repulsed. The winterday closed in. Twelve thousand men in blue lay dead or wounded at thefoot of the southern hills, before Longstreet on the left and StonewallJackson on the right. 

Five thousand was the grey loss. The Rockbridge Artillery had foughtnear the Horse Artillery by Hamilton's Crossing. All day the guns hadbeen doggedly at work; horses and drivers and gunners and guns andcaissons; there was death and wounds and wreckage. In the wintry, lateafternoon, when the battle thunders were lessening, Major John Pelhamcame by and looked at Rockbridge. Much of Rockbridge lay on the ground, the rest stood at the guns. "Why, boys, " said Pelham, "you stand killingbetter than any I ever saw!"

They stood it well, both blue and grey. It was stern fighting atFredericksburg, and grey and blue they fought it sternly and well. Theafternoon closed in, cold and still, with a red sun yet veiled by driftsof crape-like smoke. The Army of the Potomac, torn, decimated, restedhuddled in Fredericksburg and on the river banks. The Army of NorthernVirginia rested with few or no camp-fires on the southern hills. Betweenthe two foes stretched the freezing plain, and on the plain lay thickthe Federal dead and wounded. They lay thick, thick, before the stonewall. 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 leavebefore the battle, though warned and warned again to do so. She said shehad an idea that she could help. She stayed, and wounded men draggedthemselves or were dragged upon her little porch, and within her doors. General Cobb of Georgia died there; wherever a man could be laid therewere stretched the ghastly wounded. Past the house shrieked the shells;bullets imbedded themselves in its walls. To and fro went MarthaStevens, doing what she could, bandaging hurts till the bandages gaveout. She tore into strips what cloth there was in the little meagrehouse--her sheets, her towels, her tablecloths, her poor wardrobe. Whenall was gone she tore her calico dress. When she saw from the open doora man who could not drag himself that far, she went and helped him, withas little reck as may be conceived of shell or minie. 

The sun sank, a red ball, staining the snow with red. The dark camerapidly, a very cold dark night, with myriads of stars. The smoke slowlycleared. The great, opposed forces lay on their arms, the one closelydrawn by the river, the other on the southern hills. Between was theplain, and the plain was a place of drear sound--oh, of drear sound!Neither army showed any lights; for all its antagonist knew either mightbe feverishly, in the darkness, preparing an attack. Grey and blue, theguns yet dominated that wide and mournful level over which, to leap uponthe other, either foe must pass. Grey and blue, there was littlesleeping. It was too cold, and there was need for watchfulness, and theplain 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. AFlorida regiment showed alarm. "What's that? Look at that light in thesky! 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 offighting, 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 thembefore, but we never saw them. Having a lot of experiences here inVirginia!"--"Well, it's beautiful, any way, and I think it's terrible. Iwish those northern lights would do something for the northern woundeddown there. Nothing else that's northern seems likely to do it. "--"Lookat 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 astar shoots some one dies. "--"That's not so. If it were, the whole skywould be full of falling stars to-night. Look at that red ray going upto the zenith. O God, make the plain stop groaning!"

The display in the heavens continued, luminous rays, faintlyrose-coloured, shifting from east to west, streaming upward until theywere lost in the starry vault. Elsewhere the sky was dark, intenselyclear, 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 fromthe ranks. Many and many lay still, dead and cold, their marchings andtheir tentings and their battles over. They had fought well; they haddied; they lay here now stark and pale, but in the vast, pictured web ofthe whole their threads are strong and their colour holds. But on theplain of Fredericksburg many and many and many were not dead andresting. Hundreds and hundreds they lay, and could not rest for mortalanguish. They writhed and tossed, they dragged themselves a little wayand 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 theirvoices moaned, moaned. Some had grown delirious, and upon that plainthere was even laughter. All the various notes taken together blendedinto one long, dreary, weird, dull, and awful sound, steady as a wind inmiles of frozen reeds. They were all blue soldiers, and they lay wherethey fell. 

There was a long fringe of them near the stone wall and near the railwayembankment behind which now rested the Light Division and Taliaferro andEarly. 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 nightmocked, and the sound of the Rappahannock mocked. A river moving by likethe 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 anupright, approaching form. "This man could be saved. I have given himwater. I went myself to the general, and he said that if we could getany into the hospital behind the hill we might do so. But I'm not strongenough to lift him. "

"I air, " said Billy. He set down the bucket that he carried. "I jestfilled 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 twentymen out there have got to be very careful. If their sentries see or hearyou moving you'll be thought a skirmish line with the whole of usbehind, and every gun will be opening! Battle's decided on forto-morrow, not for to-night. --Now be careful, or we'll recall everydamned life-in-your-hand blessed volunteer of you!--Oh, it's a fightingchaplain--I beg your pardon, I'm sure, sir! But you'd better all be veryquiet. Old Jack would say that mercy's all right, but you mustn't alarmthe foe. "

All through the night there streamed the boreal lights. The living andthe dying, the ruined town, the plain, the hills, the river lay beneath. The blue army slept and waked, the grey army slept and waked. Thegeneral officers of both made little or no pretence at sleeping. Plansmust be made, plans must be made, plans must be made. Stonewall Jackson, in his tent, laid himself down indeed for two hours and slept, guardedby Jim, like a man who was dead. At the end of that time he rose andasked for his horse. 

It was near dawn. He rode beneath the fading streamers, before hislines, before the Light Division and Early and Taliaferro, before hisold brigade--the Stonewall. The 65th lay in a pine wood, down-sloping toa little stream. Reveille was yet to sound. The men lay in an uneasysleep, but some of the officers were astir, and had been so all night. These, as Jackson checked Little Sorrel, came forward and saluted. Hespoke to the colonel. "Colonel Erskine, your regiment did well. I saw itat the Crossing. "

Erskine, a small, brave, fiery man, coloured with pleasure. "I'm veryglad, sir. The regiment's all right, sir. The old stock wasn't quite cutdown, and it's made the new like it--" He hesitated, then as the generalwith 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 itcame: "Richard Cleave trained us so, sir, that we couldn't go back!"

"See, sir, " said Stonewall Jackson, "that you don't emulate him in allthings. " He looked sternly and he rode away with no other word. He rodefrom the pine wood, crossed the Mine Road, and presently the narrowMassaponax. The streamers were gone from the sky; there was everywherethe hush of dawn. The courier with him wondered where he was going. Theypassed John Pelham's guns, iron dark against the pallid sky. Presentlythey came to the Yerby House, where General Maxey Gregg, a gallantsoldier and gentleman, lay dying. 

As Jackson dismounted Dr. Hunter McGuire came from the house. "I gavehim your message, general. He is dying fast. It seemed to please him. "

"Good!" said Jackson. "General Gregg and I have had a disagreement. Inlife it might have continued, but death lifts us all from under earthlydispleasure. Will you ask him, Doctor, if I may pay him a littlevisit?"

The visit paid, he came gravely forth, mounted and turned back towardheadquarters on Prospect Hill. In the east were red streaks, one aboveanother. The day was coming up, clear and cold. Pelham's guns, crowninga little eminence, showed distinct against the colour. Stonewall Jacksonrode by, and, with a face that was a study, a gunner named Deaderickwatched him pass. 

All this day these two armies stood and faced each other. There wassharpshooting, there was skirmishing, but no full attack. Night came andpassed, and another morning dawned. This day, forty-eight hours afterbattle, Burnside sent a flag of truce with a request that he be allowedto 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 asleety rain. All night long, in cloud and blast and beating wet, theArmy of the Potomac, grand division by grand division, recrossed theRappahannock. 

The storm continued, the rain and snow swelled the river. The Army ofthe Potomac with Acquia creek at hand, Washington in touch, layinactive, went into winter quarters. The Army of Northern Virginia, couched on the southern hills, followed its example. Between the twofoes flowed the dark river. Sentries in blue paced the one bank, sentries in grey the other. A detail of grey soldiers, resting an houropposite Falmouth, employed their leisure in raising a tall signpost, with a wide and long board for arms. In bold letters they painted uponit THIS WAY TO RICHMOND. It rested there, month after month, in view ofthe blue army. 

At the end of January Burnside was superseded. The Army of the Potomaccame under the command of Fighting Joe Hooker. In February Longstreet, with the divisions of Pickett and Hood, marched away from theRappahannock to the south bank of the James. In mid-March was fought thecavalry battle of Kelly's Ford--Averell against Fitz Lee. Averellcrossed, but when the battle rested, he was back upon the northernshore. 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 eastand west, there were now gathered against the fortress with the starsand bars above it some hundreds of thousands under arms. Likewise agreat navy beat against the side which gave upon the sea. The fortresswas under arms indeed, but she had no navy to speak of. Arkansas andLouisiana, Tennessee and North Carolina, vast lengths of the MississippiRiver, Fortress Monroe in Virginia and Suffolk south of theJames--entrance had been made into all these courts of the fortress. Blue forces held them stubbornly; smaller grey forces held as stubbornlythe next bastion. On the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, within fiftymiles of the imperilled Capital, were gathered by May one hundred andthirty thousand men in blue. Longstreet gone, there opposed themsixty-two thousand in grey. 

Late in April Fighting Joe Hooker put in motion "the finest army on theplanet. " There were various passes and feints. Sedgwick attempted acrossing below Fredericksburg. Stonewall Jackson sent an aide to Leewith the information. Lee received it with a smile. "I thought it wastime for one of you lazy young fellows to come and tell me what thatfiring was about! Tell your good general that he knows what to do withthe enemy just as well as I do. "

Flourish and passado executed, Hooker, with suddenness, moved up theRappahannock, crossed at Richard's Ford, moved up the Rapidan, crossedat Ely and Germanna Fords, turned east and south and came into theWilderness. He meant to pass through and, with three great columns, checkmate Lee at Fredericksburg. Before he could do so Lee shook himselffree, left to watch the Rappahannock, and Sedgwick, ten thousand pawnsand an able knight, and himself crossed to the Wilderness. 

CHAPTER XLVII

THE WILDERNESS

Fifteen by twenty miles stretched the Wilderness. Out of a thin soilgrew pine trees and pine trees, scrub oak and scrub oak. The growth wasof the densest, mile after mile of dense growth. A few slight farms andclearings appeared like islands; all around them was the sea, the sea oftree and bush. It stretched here, it stretched there, it touched allhorizons, vanishing beyond them in an amethyst haze. 

Several forest tracks traversed it, but they were narrow and worn, andit was hard to guess their presence, or to find it when guessed. Therewere, however, two fair roads--the old Turnpike and the Plank Road. These also were sunken in the thick, thick growth. A traveller upon themsaw little save the fact that he had entered the Wilderness. Near theturnpike stood a small white church, the Tabernacle church. A littlesouth of the heart of the place lay an old, old, abandoned ironfurnace--Catherine Furnace. As much to the north rose a large oldhouse--Chancellorsville. To the westward was Dowdall's Tavern. Aroundall swept the pine and the scrub oak, just varied by other trees andblossoming shrubs. The ground was level, or only slightly rolling. Lookwhere one might there was tree and bush, tree and bush, a sense ofillimitable woodland, of far horizons, of a not unhappy sameness, ofstillness, of beauty far removed from picturesqueness, of vague, diffused charm, of silence, of sadness not too sad, of mystery not toobaffling, of sunshine very still and golden. A man knew he was in theWilderness. 

Mayday here was softly bright enough, pure sunshine and pine odours, skywithout clouds, gentle warmth, the wild azalea in bloom, here and therewhite stars of the dogwood showing, red birds singing, pine martensbusy, too, with their courtship, pale butterflies flitting, the beehaunting the honeysuckle, the snake awakening. Beauty was everywhere, and in portions of the great forest, great as a principality, quiet. Inthese regions, indeed, the stillness might seem doubled, reinforced, forfrom other stretches of the Wilderness, specifically from those whichhad for neighbour the roads, quiet had fled. 

To right and left of the Tabernacle church were breastworks, Andersonholding them against Hooker's advance. In the early morning, through thedewy Wilderness, came from Fredericksburg way Stonewall Jackson and the2d Corps, in addition Lafayette McLaws with his able Roman air andtroops 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 inadvance on the Plank Road, Jackson himself with the main body followingby the latter road. 

Oh, bright-eyed, oh, bronzed and gaunt and ragged, oh, full of quips andcranks, of jest and song and courage, oh, endowed with all quainthumour, invested with all pathos, ennobled by vast struggle with vastadversity, oh, sufferers of all things, hero-fibred, grim fighters, oh, Army of Northern Virginia--all men and all women who have battled saluteyou, going into the Wilderness this May day with the red birds singing!

On swing the two columns, long, easy, bayonets gleaming, accoutrementsjingling, colours deep glowing in the sunshine. To either hand swept theWilderness, great as a desert, green and jewelled. In the desert to-daywere other bands, great and hostile blue-clad bands. Grey andblue, --there came presently a clash that shook the forest and sentQuiet, a fugitive, to those deeper, distant haunts. Three bands of blue, three grey attacks--the air rocked and swung, the pure sunlight changedto murk, the birds and the beasts scampered far, the Wilderness filledwith shouting. The blue gave back--gave back somewhat too easily. Thegrey followed--would have followed at height of speed, keen andshouting, but there rode to the front a leader on a sorrel nag. "GeneralAnderson, halt your men. Throw out skirmishers and flanking parties andadvance with caution. "

McLaws on the turnpike had like orders. Through the Wilderness, through thegold afternoon, all went quietly. Sound of marching feet, beat of hoof, creak of leather, rumble of wheel, low-pitched orders were there, but nosinging, laughing, talking. Skirmishers and flanking parties were alert, but the men in the main column moved dreamily, the spell of the place uponthem. With flowering thorn and dogwood and the purple smear of the Judastree, with the faint gilt of the sunshine, and with wandering graciousodours, with its tangled endlessness and feel as of old time, its taste ofsadness, its hint of patience, it was such a seven-leagues of woodland asmight have environed the hundred-years-asleep court, palace, and princess. The great dome of the sky sprung cloudless; there was no wind; all thingsseemed halted, as if they had been thus forever. The men almost nodded asthey marched. 

Back, steadily, though slowly, gave the blue skirmishers before the greyskirmishers. So thickly grew the Wilderness that it was somewhat likeIndian fighting, and no man saw a hundred yards in front of him. Stonewall Jackson's eyes glinted under the forage cap; perhaps he sawmore than a hundred yards ahead of him, but if so he saw with the eyesof the mind. He was moving very slowly, more like a tortoise than athunderbolt. The men said that Old Jack had spring fever. 

Grey columns, grey artillery, grey flanking cavalry, all came underslant sunrays to within a mile or two of that old house calledChancellorsville set north of the pike, upon a low ridge in theWilderness. "Open ground in front--open ground in front--open ground infront! 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 goldand misty Wilderness where the shadows were lengthening and the birdswere at evensong. In a moment the evensong was hushed and the birds flewaway. 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. FromChancellorsville, from Hooker's great entrenchments on the high roll ofground, along the road, and on the plateau of Hazel Grove, burst araking artillery fire. The shells shrieked across the open, plunged intothe wood, and exploded before every road-head. Hooker had guns a-many;they commanded the Wilderness rolling on three sides of the formidableposition he had seized; they commanded in iron force the clearing alonghis 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 Wildernessseventy thousand men. His left almost touched the Rappahannock, hisright stretched two miles toward Germanna Ford. He was in greatstrength. 

Jeb Stuart with his cavalry, waiting impatiently near Catherine Furnace, found beside him General Jackson on Little Sorrel. "General Stuart, Iwish you to ride with me to some point from which those guns can beenfiladed. Order Major Beckham forward with a battery. "

This was the heart of the Wilderness. Thick, thick grew the trees andthe all-entangling underbrush. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson, staffbehind them, pursued a span-wide bridle path, overarched by dogwood andJudas tree. It led at last to a rise of ground, covered by mattedgrowth, towered above by a few pines. Four guns of the Horse Artillerystrove, too, to reach the place. They made it at last, over and throughthe wild tangle, but so narrow was the clearing, made hurriedly toeither side of the path, that but one gun at a time could be broughtinto position. Beckham, commanding now where Pelham had commanded, senta shell singing against the not distant line of smoke and flame. Themuzzle had hardly blazed when two masked batteries opened upon the riseof ground, the four guns, the artillerymen and artillery horses, andupon Stonewall Jackson, Stuart, and the staff. 

The great blue guns were firing at short range. A howling storm of shotand shell broke and continued. Through it came a curt order. "MajorBeckham, 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 wasnarrow. Ere the movement could be made there was bitter loss. Horsesreared and fell, dreadfully hurt; men were mown down, falling besidetheir pieces. It was a moment requiring action decisive, desperatelygallant, heroically intelligent. The Horse Artillery drew off theirguns, 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 haltnear him a gun, a Howitzer. He sat Little Sorrel in the last goldenlight, a light that bathed also the piece and its gunners. The Federalbatteries were lessening fire. There was a sense of pause. The two foeshad seen each other; now--Army of Northern Virginia, Army of thePotomac--they must draw breath a little before they struck, before theyclenched. The sun was setting; the cannonade ceased. 

Jackson sat very still in the gold patch where, between two pines, thewest showed clear. The aureate light, streaming on, beat full upon thehowitzer and on the living and unwounded of its men. Stonewall Jacksonspoke to an aide. "Tell the captain of the battery that I should like tospeak to him. "

The captain came. "Captain, what is the name of the gunner there? Theone 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 beforeSharpsburg. --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 afine soldier, but he's a silent kind of a man. He keeps to himself. Hewon't take promotion. "

"Tell him to come here. "

Deaderick came. The gold in this open place, before the clear west, wasvery light and fine. It illuminated. Also the place was a littlewithdrawn, no one very near, and by comparison with the tornado whichhad raged, the stillness seemed complete. The gunner stood before thegeneral, quiet, steady-eyed, broad-browed. Stonewall Jackson, hisgauntleted hands folded over the saddle bow, gazed upon him fully andlong. The gold light held, and the hush of the place; in the distance, in the Wilderness, the birds began again their singing. At last Jacksonspoke. "The army will rest to-night. Headquarters will be yonder, by theroad. Report to me there at ten o'clock. I will listen to what you haveto say. That is all now. "

Night stole over the Wilderness, a night of large, mild stars, ofvagrant airs, of balm and sweetness. Earth lay in a tender dream, allabout her her wild flowers and her fresh-clad trees. The grey and theblue soldiers slept, too, and one dreamed of this and one dreamed ofthat. Alike they dreamed of home and country and cause, of loved womenand loved children and of their comrades. Grey and blue, these twoarmies fought each for an idea, and they fought well, as people fightwho fight for an idea. And that it was not a material thing for whichthey fought, but a concept, lifted from them something of the grossnessof physical struggle, carried away as with a strong wind much of thepettiness of war, brought their strife upon the plane of heroes. Thereis 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, withMeade and Sickles and Slocum and Howard and Couch. Out in theWilderness, near the Plank Road, with the light from a camp-fire turningto bronze and wine-red the young oak leaves about them, there heldcouncil Robert Edward Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Near them a war horseneighed; there came the tramp of the sentry, then quiet stole upon thescene. The staff was near at hand, but to-night staff and couriers heldthemselves stiller than still. There was something in the air of theWilderness; they knew not what it was, but it was there. 

Lee and Jackson sat opposite each other, the one on a box, the other ona great fallen tree. On the earth between them lay an unrolled map, andnow one took it up and pondered it, and now the other, and now theyspoke together in quiet, low voices, their eyes on the map at their feetin 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! Isent Major Talcott and Captain Boswell again to reconnoitre. They reportthe front fairly impregnable, and I agree with them that it is so. Theright--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 isas clean of defences as if gunpowder had never been invented, norbreastworks thought of!" He knelt and took up the map. "Here, sir, isHunting Creek, and here Dowdall's Tavern and the Wilderness church, andhere, through the deep woods, runs the old Furnace road, intersectingwith the Brock road--"

Lee and his great lieutenant looked and nodded, listening to his furtherreport. "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 theFurnace and Brock roads. It must be made with secrecy and in great strengthand with rapidity. General Jackson, will you do it?"

"Yes, sir. Turn his right and gain his rear. I shall have my entirecommand?"

"Yes, general. Generals McLaws and Anderson will remain with me, demonstrate against these people and divert their attention. When canyou start?"

"I will start at four, sir. "

Lee rose. "Very good! Then we had better try to get a little sleep. Isee Tom spreading my blanket now. --The Wilderness! General, do youremember, in Mexico, the _Noche Triste_ trees and their great scarletflowers? They grew all about the Church of our Lady of Remedies. --Idon'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 theall-prevailing oak scrub, made the headquarters of the commander of the2d Corps. Jim had built a fire, for the night wind was strengthening, blowing cool. He had not spared the pine boughs. The flames leaped andmade 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 whowithdrew, then crossing to the fire, he seated himself upon a log. Itwas 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 asthe men, then roused itself and whispered a little, then sank again intodeathlike quiet. 

The two men, general and disgraced soldier, held themselves for a momentquiet as the Wilderness. Cleave knew most aspects of the man sitting onthe log, in the gleam of the fire. He saw that to-night there was notthe steel-like mood, cold, convinced, and stubborn, the wintryharshness, the granite hardness which Stonewall Jackson chiefly usedtoward offenders. He did not know what it was, but he thought that hisgeneral had softened. 

With the perception there came a change in himself. He had entered thisring in the Wilderness with a constriction of the heart, a quickfarewell to whatever in life he yet held dear, a farewell certainly tothe soldier's life, to the army, to the guns, to the service of thecountry, an iron bracing of every nerve to meet an iron thrust. And nowthe thrust had not yet come, and the general looked at him quietly, asone well-meaning man looks at another who also means well. He hadsuffered much and long. Something rose into his throat, the muscles ofhis face worked slightly, he turned his head aside. Jackson waitedanother moment, --then, the other having recovered himself, spoke withquietness. 

"You did, at White Oak Swamp, take it upon yourself to act, althoughthere existed in your mind a doubt as to whether your orders--the ordersyou 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 anddisastrous engagement. The enemy were in force there--_as I knew_. Youraction brought almost the destruction of your regiment. It brought thedeath 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 youtook it is dead. His reputation was that of a valiant, intelligent, andtrustworthy man--hardly one to misrepeat an important order. That isso?"

"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 actedupon, an order, however, which was never sent by me. A soldier who wasby testifies that it was that order. Well?"

"That soldier, sir, was a known liar, with a known hatred to hisofficers. "

"Yes. He repeated the order, word for word, as I sent it. How did thathappen?"

"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 andso. "

"Yes, general. He swears it. "

A silence reigned in the fire-lit ring. The red light showed form andfeature clearly. Jackson sitting on the log, his large hands resting onthe sabre across his knees, was full within the glow. It beat even morestrongly upon Cleave where he stood. "You believe, " said Jackson, "thathe 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 ofthe fire seizing upon pine cone and bough, a low, sighing wind in thewilderness. Jackson spoke briefly. "After this campaign, if matters soarrange themselves, if the officer returns, if you think you can providenew evidence or re-present the old, I will forward, approved, yourappeal for a court of inquiry. "

"I thank you, sir, with all my heart. "

Stonewall Jackson slightly changed his position on the log. Jim tiptoedinto the ring and fed again the fire. There was a whinnying of somenear-by battery horses, the sound of changing guard, then silence againin the Wilderness. Cleave stood, straight and still, beneath the other'spondering, long, and steady gaze. An aide appeared at an opening in thescrub. "General Fitzhugh Lee, sir. " Jackson rose. "You will return toyour battery, Deaderick. --Bring General Lee here, captain. "

The night passed, the dawn came, red bird and wren and robin began acheeping in the Wilderness. A light mist was over the face of the earth;within it began a vast shadowy movement of shadowy troops. Silence wasso strictly ordered that something approaching it was obtained. Therewas a certain eeriness in the hush in which the column was formed--thegrey column in the grey dawn, in the Wilderness where the birds werecheeping, and the mist hung faint and cold. By the roadside, on a littleknoll set round with flowering dogwood, sat General Lee on greyTraveller. A swirl of mist below the two detached them from the wideearth and marching troops, made them like a piece of sculpture seenagainst the morning sky. Below them moved the column, noiseless as mightbe, enwound with mist. In the van were Fitzhugh Lee and the FirstVirginia 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 handsomeman, saluted; Alabama saluted. Regiment by regiment they passed into theflowering woods. Now came the Light Division beneath skies with a coraltinge. Ambrose Powell Hill saluted, and all his brigades, Virginia andSouth Carolina. The guns began to pass, quiet as was constitutionallypossible. The very battery horses looked as though they understood thatpeople who were going to turn the flank of a gigantic army in a strongposition proceed upon the business without noise. Up rose the sun whilethe iron fighting men were yet going by. The level rays gilded allmetal, gilded Traveller's bit and bridle clasps, gilded the spur of Leeand his sword hilt and the stars upon his collar. The sun began to drinkup the mist and all the birds sang loudly. The sky was cloudless, thelow 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 appearedupon the rising ground. He saluted. Lee put out his hand and clasped theother's. "General, I feel every confidence! I am sure that you are goingforth to victory. "

"Yes, sir. I think that I am. --I will send a courier back every halfhour. "

"Yes, that is wise. --As soon as your wagons are by I will makedisposition of the twelve thousand left with me. I propose a certaindisplay of artillery and a line of battle so formed as to deceive--anddeceive greatly--as to its strength. If necessary we will skirmish hotlythroughout the day. I will create the impression that we are about toassault. It is imperative that they do not come between us and cut thearmy in two. "

"I will march as rapidly as may be, sir. The Furnace road, the Brockroad, 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, GeneralJackson!"

"And with you, General Lee. "

Little Sorrel left the hillock. The staff came up. Stonewall Jacksonturned in his saddle, and, the staff following his action, raised hishand in salute to the figure on grey Traveller, above them in thesunlight. Lee lifted his hat, held it so. The others filed by, turnedsharply 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 withStonewall Jackson at their head--the long, long column wound through theWilderness by narrow, hidden roads. Close came the scrub and pine and allthe flowering trees of May. The horsemen put aside vine and bough, the pinkhoneysuckle brushed the gun wheels; long stretches of the road weregrass-grown. Through the woods to the right, by paths nearer yet to thefar-flung Federal front, paced ten guardian squadrons. All went silently, all went swiftly. In the Confederate service there were no automata. Thesethousands of lithe, bronzed, bright-eyed, tattered men knew that something, something, something was being done! Something important that they must allhelp Old Jack with. Forbidden to talk, they speculated inwardly. "South bywest. 'T isn't a Thoroughfare Gap march. They're all here in theWilderness. We're leaving their centre--their right's somewhere over therein the brush. Shouldn't wonder--Allan Gold, what's the Latin for 'toflank'?--Lieutenant, we were just whispering! Yes, sir. --All right, sir. Wewon'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-riddledcolours like flowers amid the tender, all-enfolding green. The head ofthe column came to a dip in the Wilderness through which flowed a littlecreek. It was about nine o'clock in the morning. All the men looked tothe right, for they could see the plateau of Hazel Grove and the greatFederal intrenchments. "If those fellows look right hard they can seeus, too! Can't help it--march fast and get past. --Oh, that's what theofficers think, too! _Double quick_!"

The column crossed the tiny vale. Beyond it the narrow road of bends andturns plunged due south. Now, General Birney, stationed on the highlevel of Hazel Grove, observed, though somewhat faintly, that movement. He sent a courier to Hooker at Chancellorsville. "Rebel column seen topass across my front. All arms and wagon train. It has turned to thesouthward. "

"To the south!" said Hooker. "Turned southward. Now what does that mean?It might mean that Sedgwick at Fredericksburg has seized and is holdingthe road to Richmond. It might mean that Lee contemplated anunobstructed retreat through this Wilderness section southward toGordonsville, which is not far away. From Gordonsville, he would fallback on Richmond. Say that is what he planned. Then, finding me instrength across his path, he would naturally make some demonstration, and behind it inaugurate a forced march, southward out of this wildplace. A retreat to Gordonsville. It's the most probable move. I willsend General Sickles toward Catherine Furnace to find out exactly. "

Birney from Hazel Grove, Sickles from Chancellorsville, advanced. AtCatherine Furnace they found the 23d Georgia, and on both sides of thePlank road discovered Anderson's division. Now began hot fighting in theWilderness. 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 didwell, did well! Full in the front of Chancellorsville, McLaws, with hisable, Roman air, his high colour, short black beard and crisp speech, handled his troops like a rightly trusted captain of Caesar's. He keptthe enemy's attention strained in his direction. Standing yet upon thelittle hillock, in the midst of the flowering dogwood, a greater thanMcLaws overlooked and directed all the grey pieces upon the board beforeChancellorsville, played, all day, like a master, a skilfullycomplicated game. 

Far in the Wilderness, miles now to the westward, the rolling musketrycame to the ears of Stonewall Jackson. He was riding with Rodes at thehead of the column. "Good! good!" he said. "That musketry is at theFurnace. General Hooker will attempt to drive between me and GeneralLee. "

An aide of A. P. Hill's approached at a gallop. He saluted, gainedbreath 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 hiswords. "Good! good!" said Jackson imperturbably. "My compliments toGeneral Hill, and he will detach Archer's and Thomas's brigades and abattalion of artillery. They are to cooperate with General Anderson andprotect our rear. The remainder of the Light Division will continue themarch. "

On past the noon point swung light and shadow. On through the languorousMay warmth travelled westward the long column. It went with markedrapidity, emphatic even for the "foot cavalry, " went without swerving, without straggling, went like a long, gleaming thunderbolt firmly heldand swung. Behind it, sank in the distance the noise of battle. The Armyof Northern Virginia knew itself divided, cut in two. Far back in theflowering woods before Chancellorsville, the man on the grey horse, directing here, directing there his twelve thousand men, played hismaster game with equanimity, trusting in Stonewall Jackson rushingtoward the Federal right. Westward in the Wilderness, swiftly nearingthe Brock road, the man on the sorrel nag travelled with no backwardlook. In his right hand was the thunderbolt, and near at hand the placefrom which to hurl it. He rode like incarnate Intention. The officerbeside him said something as to that enormous peril in the rear, drivinglike a wedge between this hurrying column and the grey twelve thousandbefore Chancellorsville. "Yes, sir, yes!" said Jackson. "But I trustfirst 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 headreached the Plank road. Far to the east, in the Wilderness, the noise ofthe battle yet rolled, but it came fainter, with a diminishing sound. Anderson, Thomas, and Archer had driven back Sickles. There was a pauseby Chancellorsville and Catherine Furnace. Through it and all the whilethe man on grey Traveller kept with a skill so exquisite that it shadedinto a grave simplicity those thousands and thousands and thousands ofhostile eyes turned quite from their real danger, centred only on afinely painted mask of danger. 

At the intersection of the Brock and the Plank roads, Stonewall Jacksonfound massed the 1st Virginia cavalry. Upon the road and to either sidein the flowering woods, roan and bay and black tossed their heads andmoved their limbs amid silver dogwood and rose azalea. The horseschafed, the horsemen looked at once anxious and exultant. Fitzhugh Leemet the general in command. The latter spoke. "Three o'clock. Proceed atonce, general, down the Plank road. "

"I beg, sir, " said the other, "that you will ride with me to the top ofthis roll of ground in front of us. I can show you the strangestthing!"

The two went, attended only by a courier. The slight eminence, all cladwith scrub-oak, all carpeted with wild flowers, was reached. Thehorsemen turned and looked eastward, the breast-high scrub, the fewtender-foliaged young trees sheltering them from view. They lookedeastward, and in the distance they saw Dowdall's Tavern. But it was notDowdall's Tavern that was the strangest thing. The strangest thing wasnearer than Dowdall's; it was at no great distance at all. It was a longabattis, and behind the abattis long, well-builded breastworks. Behindthe breastworks, overlooked by the little hill, and occupying an oldclearing in the Wilderness, was a large encampment--the encampment, inshort, of the 11th Army Corps, Howard commanding, twenty regiments, andsix batteries. From the little hill where the violets purpled theground, Stonewall Jackson and the cavalry leader looked and looked insilence. The blue soldiers lay at ease on the tender sward. It was_dolce far niente_ in the Wilderness. The arms were stacked, the armswere stacked. There were cannon planted by the roadside, but where werethe cannoneers? Not very near the guns, but asleep on the grass, orpropped against trees smoking excellent tobacco, or in the square on thegreensward playing cards with laughter! Battery horses were grazingwhere they would. Far and wide were scattered the infantry, squanderedlike plums on the grass. They lay or strolled about in the slantsunshine, in the balmy air, in the magic Wilderness--they never evenglanced toward the stacked arms. 

On the flowery slope across the road, Stonewall Jackson sat LittleSorrel and gazed upon the pleasant, drowsy scene. His eyes had a glow, his cheek a warm colour beneath the bronze. Staff, and indeed the entire2d Corps, had remarked from time to time this spring upon Old Jack'sevident good health. "Getting younger all the time! This war climatesuits 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 LittleSorrel stood upon the flowering hilltop, and his lips moved. "Old Jack'spraying--Old Jack's praying!" thought the courier. 

Fitz Lee said something, but the general did not attend. In anothermoment, however, he spoke curt, decisive, final. He spoke to thecourier. "Tell General Rodes to move _across_ the Plank road. He is tohalt at the turnpike. I will join him there. Move quietly. "

The courier turned and went. Stonewall Jackson regarded again the scenebefore him--abattis and breastworks and rifle-pits untenanted, gunslonely in the slanting sunlight, lines of stacked arms, tents, fluttering flags, the horses straying at their will, cropping the tendergrass, in a corner of a field men butchering beeves--regarded the Germanregiments, Schimmelpfennig and Krzyzancerski, regarded New York andWisconsin, camped about the Wilderness church. Up from the clearing, across to the thick forest, floated an indescribable humming sound, aconfused droning as from a giant race of bees. The shadows of the treeswere growing long, the sun hung just above the pines of the Wilderness. "Good! good!" said Stonewall Jackson. His eyes, beneath the old, oldforage cap, had a sapphire depth and gleam. A colour was in his cheek. "Good! good!" he said, and jerked his hand into the air. Suddenlyturning Little Sorrel, he left the hill--riding fast, elbows out, andbig 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 thethick wood, the brigades stood in shadow. In front were Rodes'sskirmishers, and Rodes's brigades formed the first line. The troops ofRaleigh Colston made the second line, A. P. Hill's men the third. Abattery--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 sathis horse beside Rodes. At six o'clock he looked at his watch, closedit, 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 followeda rush of bodies through the Wilderness; in a moment was heard thecrackling fire of the skirmishers. From ahead came a wild beating ofFederal drums--the long roll, the long roll! _Boom!_ Into action camethe grey guns. Rodes's Alabamian's passed the abattis, touched thebreastworks. Colston two hundred yards behind, A. P. Hill the thirdline. _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. Allabout it rolled the Wilderness, shadowy beneath the vivid skies. It laylike a sea, touching all the horizon. On the deep porch of the house, tasting the evening coolness, sat Fighting Joe Hooker and several of hisofficers. 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 therebel advance in its desperate attempt to get out of the Wilderness, toget off southward to Gordonsville. The 12th Corps was facing the "mainbody". The interchange of musketry, eastward there, had a desultory, waiting sound. From the south, several miles into the depth of theWilderness, came a slow, uninterrupted booming of cannon. Pleasanton andSickles were down there, somewhere beyond Catherine Furnace. Pleasantonand Sickles were giving chase to the rebel detachment, --whatever it was;Stonewall Jackson and a division probably--that was trying to get out ofthe Wilderness. At any rate, the rebel force was divided. When morningdawned 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 onthe 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 tothe pale northern skies, to the eastern, reflecting light from theopposite quarter, to the southern, to the splendid west. Wave afterwave, purple-hued, velvet-soft, it passed into mist beneath the skies. There was a perception of a vastness not comprehended. One of the menupon the Chancellor's porch cleared his throat. "There's an awfulfeeling about this place! It's poetic, I suppose. Anyhow, it makes youfeel that anything might happen--the stranger it was, the likelier tohappen--"

"I don't feel that way. It's just a great big rolling plain with woodsupon it--no mountains or water--"

"Well, I always thought that if I were a great big thing going to happenI wouldn't choose a chopped up, picturesque place to happen in! I'dchoose 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, rushedthe routed 21st Corps. Soldiers and ambulances, wagons and cattle, gunners lacking their guns, companies out of regiments, squads out ofcompanies, panic-struck and flying units, shouting officers brandishingswords, horsemen, colour-bearers without colours, others with coloursdesperately saved, musicians, sutlers, camp followers, ordnance wagonswith 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--backon 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 fromthe east of Chancellorsville! _Yaaih! Yaaaaiih! Yaaaaaaaiihh!_ yelledthe troops of McLaws and Anderson. "Open fire!" said Lee to hisartillery; and to McLaws, "Move up the turnpike and attack. "

The Wilderness of Spottsylvania laid aside her mantle of calm. Shebecame a maenad, intoxicated, furious, shrieking, a giantess in action, awild handmaid drinking blood, a servant of Ares, a Titanic hostessspreading with lavish hands large ground for armies and battles, aValkyrie gathering the dead, laying them in the woodland hollows amidbloodroot and violets! She chanted, she swayed, she cried aloud to thestars, 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 thegrey victory brought its difficulties. Brigades were far ahead, separated from their division commanders; regiments astray from theirbrigadiers, companies struggling in the dusk through the thickets, seeking the thread from which in the onset and uproar the beads hadslipped. They lost themselves in the wild place; there came perforce apause, a quest for organization and alignment, a drawing together, acompressing of the particles of the thunderbolt; then, then would it behurled again, full against Chancellorsville!

The moon was coming up. She silvered the Wilderness about Dowdall'sTavern. She made a pallor around the group of staff and field officersgathered beside the road. Her light glinted on Stonewall Jackson'ssabre, and on the worn braid of the old forage cap. A body of cavalrypassed on its way to Ely's Ford. Jeb Stuart rode at the head. He wassinging. "_Old Joe Hooker, won't you come out of the Wilderness?_" hesang. An officer of Rodes came up. "General Rodes reports, sir, that hehas taken a line of their entrenchments. He's less than a mile fromChancellorsville. "

"Good! Tell him A. P. Hill will support. As you go, tell the troops thatI wish them to get into line and preserve their order. "

The officer went. An aide of Colston's appeared, breathless from astruggle through the thickets. "From General Colston, sir. He'simmediately behind General Rodes. There was a wide abattis. The troopsare reforming beyond it. We see no Federals between us andChancellorsville. "

"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 inepaulements on the Chancellorsville ridge. The twenty-two answered in aroar of sound, overtowering the cannonade to the east of McLaws andAnderson. The Wilderness resounded; smoke began to rise like the smokeof strange sacrifices; the mood of the place changed to frenzy. Sheswung 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 aislesof 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 offeet, 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. "Pushright ahead, Lane! right ahead!" said Jackson. 

A. P. Hill, in his battle shirt, appeared, his staff behind him. "Yourfinal 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 havingquieted, rolled the thunder of those with Lee. The clamour aboutChancellorsville where, in hot haste, Hooker made dispositions, streamedeast and west, meeting and blending with, westward, a like distractionof forming commands, of battle lines made in the darkness, amongthickets. The moon was high, but not observed; the Wilderness fiercelychanting. Behind him was Captain Wilbourne of the Signal Corps, twoaides and several couriers, Jackson rode along the Plank road. 

There was a regiment drawn across this way through the Wilderness, onthe 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 nowafire, and gave, though uncertainly and dimly, a certain illumination. By it the regiment was perceived. It seemed composed of tall and shadowymen. "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 andlistened. Hooker's reserves were up. About the Chancellor House, on theChancellorsville ridge, they were throwing up entrenchments. They weredigging the earth with bayonets, they were heaping it up with theirhands. There was a ringing of axes. They were cutting down the youngspring growth; they were making an abattis. Tones of command could beheard. "Hurry, hurry--hurry! They mean to rush us. Hurry--hurry!" A deadcreeper mantling a dead tree, caught by some flying spark, suddenlyflared throughout its length, stood a pillar of fire, and showed redlythe enemy's guns. Stonewall Jackson sat his horse and looked. "Cut themoff from the ford, " he said. "Never let them get out of Virginia. " Hejerked his hand into the air. 

Turning Little Sorrel, he rode back along the Plank road toward his ownlines. The light of the burning brush had sunken. The cannon smokefloating 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 suddenrattling fire, sinking, rising, sinking again, the blue and greyskirmishers now in touch. All through the vast, dark, tangled beatingheart of the place, sprang into being a tension. The grey lines listenedfor the word _Advance_! The musket rested on the shoulder, the footquivered, eyes front tried to pierce the darkness. Sound was unceasing;and yet the mind found a stillness, a lake of calm. It was the momentbefore the moment. 

Stonewall Jackson came toward the Carolinians. He rode quickly, past thedark shell of a house sunken among pines. There were with him seven oreight persons. The horses' hoofs made a trampling on the Plank road. Thewoods were deep, the obscurity great. Suddenly out of the brush rang ashot, an accidentally discharged rifle. Some grey soldier among Lane'stensely 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 severalsaddles. Stonewall Jackson, the aides and Wilbourne, wheeled to theleft, dug spur, and would have plunged into the wood. "_Fire!_" said theCarolinians, dressed to the left of the road, and fired. 

Little Sorrel, maddened, dashed into the wood. An oak bough struck hisrider, almost bearing him from the saddle. With his right hand from whichthe blood was streaming, in which a bullet was imbedded, he caught thebridle, managed to turn the agonized brute into the road again. Thereseemed a wild sound, a confusion of voices. Some one had stopped thefiring. "My God, men! You are firing into _us_!" In the road were theaides. 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 thebrushwood for a light. One rode off for Dr. McGuire, and another with apenknife cut away the sleeve from the left arm through which had gonetwo bullets. A mounted man came at a gallop and threw himself from hishorse. 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 myown men. "

Hill drew off the gauntlets that were all blood soaked, and with hishandkerchief tried to bind up the arm, shattered and with the mainartery cut. A courier came up. "Sir, sir! a body of the enemy is closeat hand--"

The aides lifted the wounded general. "No one, " said Hill, "must tellthe troops who was wounded. " The other opened his eyes. "Tell themsimply that you have a wounded officer. General Hill, you are in commandnow. Press right on. "

With a gesture of sorrow Hill went, returning to the front. The othersrested at the edge of the road. At that moment the Federal batteriesopened, a hissing storm of shot and shell, a tornado meant measurably toretard that anticipated, grey onrush. The range was high. Aides andcouriers laid the wounded leader on the earth and made of their bodies ascreen. The trees were cut, the earth was torn up; there was a howlingas of unchained fiends. There passed what seemed an eternity and was butten minutes. The great blue guns slightly changed the direction of theirfire. The storm howled away from the group by the road, and the menagain lifted Jackson. He stood now on his feet; and because troops wereheard 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 cameon--Pender's brigade. Pender, riding in advance, saw the group and askedwho was wounded. "A field officer, " answered one, but there came fromsome direction a glare of light and by it Pender knew. He sprang fromhis 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 musthold 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 thearm of one of the bearers, loosening his hold of the litter. It tilted. The general fell heavily to the ground, injuring afresh the woundedlimb, striking and bruising his side. They raised him, pale, now, andsilent, and at last they struggled through the wood to a littleclearing, where they found an ambulance. Now, too, came the doctor, aman whom he loved, and knelt beside him. "I hope that you are not badlyhurt, 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'tbadly hurt?"

"Yes. Badly hurt. "

Crutchfield groaned. "Oh, my God!" Stonewall Jackson heard and made theambulance 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 guidancethrough the night of the advance upon the roads to the fords, waskilled. That was a fatal cannonade from the ridge of Chancellorsville, fatal and fateful! It continued. The Wilderness chanted a battle chantindeed to the moon, the moon that was pale and wan as if wearied withsilvering battlefields. Hill, lying in a litter, just back of hisadvanced line, dispatched couriers for Stuart. Stuart was far towardEly's Ford, riding through the night in plume and fighting jacket. Thestraining 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 andfound the grey lines waiting. The sky was a glory, the Wilderness rolledin emerald waves, the redbirds sang. Lee and the 2d Corps were yet twomiles apart. Between was Chancellorsville, and all the strongentrenchments and the great blue guns, and Hooker's courageous men. 

Now followed Jeb Stuart's fight. In the dawn, the 2nd Corps, swung fromthe right by a master hand, struck full against the Federal centre, struck full against Chancellorsville. In the clear May morning broke athunderstorm of artillery. It raged loudly, peal on peal, crash oncrash! The grey shells struck the Chancellor house. They set it on fire. It went up in flames. A fragment of shell struck and stunned FightingJoe Hooker. He lay senseless for hours and Couch took command. The greymusketry, the blue musketry, rolled, rolled! The Wilderness was on fire. In places it was like a prairie. The flames licked their way through thescrub; the wounded perished. Ammunition began to fail; Stuart orderedthe ground to be held with the bayonet. There was a great attack againsthis left. His three lines came into one and repulsed it. His right andAnderson's left now touched. The Army of Northern Virginia was again aunit. 

Stuart swung above his head the hat with the black feather. Hisbeautiful horse danced along the grey lines, the lines that were verygrimly determined, the lines that knew now that Stonewall Jackson wasbadly wounded. They meant, the grey lines, to make this day and thisWilderness remembered. "_Forward. Charge!_" cried Jeb Stuart. "RememberJackson!" He swung his plumed hat. _Yaaaii! Yaaaaaaaiihhh! Yaaaaaii!Yaaaiiiihhh!_ yelled the grey lines, and charged. Stuart went at theirhead, and as he went he raised in song his golden, ringing voice. "_OldJoe 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 flowersbloomed, her birds sang, and then came Lee to the front. Oh, the Army ofNorthern 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 hospitalnear Dowdall's Tavern. "_General:--I cannot express my regret. Could Ihave directed events I should have chosen for the good of the country tobe disabled in your stead. I congratulate you upon the victory, which isdue 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 thedeeps 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, atthe Fords of the Rappahannock, again at Fredericksburg. Then theyrested, the Army of the Potomac back on the northern side of theRappahannock, the Army of Northern Virginia holding the southern shoreand the road to Richmond--Richmond no nearer for McDowell, no nearer forMcClellan, no nearer for Pope, no nearer for Burnside, no nearer forHooker, no nearer after two years of war! In the Wilderness andthereabouts Hooker lost seventeen thousand men, thirteen guns, andfifteen hundred rounds of cannon ammunition, twenty thousand rifles, three hundred thousand rounds of infantry ammunition. The Army ofNorthern Virginia lost twelve thousand men. 

On the fifth of May Stonewall Jackson was carefully moved from theWilderness to Guiney's Station. Here was a large old residence--theChandler house--within a sweep of grass and trees; about it one or twosmall buildings. The great house was filled, crowded to its doors withwounded soldiers, so they laid Stonewall Jackson in a rude cabin amongthe trees. The left arm had been amputated in the field hospital. He wasthought to be doing well, though at times he complained of the sidewhich, in the fall from the litter, had been struck and bruised. 

At daylight on Thursday he had his physician called. "I am sufferinggreat 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 herwith love, then sank into something like stupor. From time to time heawakened from this, but there were also times when he was slightlydelirious. He gave orders in a shadow of the old voice. "You must holdout a little longer, men; you must hold out a little longer!. . . Pressforward--press forward--press forward!. . . Give them canister, MajorPelham!"

Friday went by, and Saturday. The afternoon of this day he asked for hischaplain, Mr. Lacy. Later, in the twilight, his wife sang to him, oldhymns that he loved. "Sing the fifty-first psalm in verse, " he said. Shesang, --

 "Show pity, Lord! O Lord, forgive--"

The night passed and Sunday the tenth dawned. He lay quiet, his righthand 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 prayingfor 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 havelost your left arm, but that he would lose his right arm. He says tellyou that he prayed for you last night as he had never prayed forhimself. He repeats what he said in his note that for the good ofVirginia and the South he could wish that he were lying here in yourplace--"

The soldier on the bed smiled a little and shook his head. "Better tenJacksons should lie here than one Lee. "

It was sunny weather, fair and sweet with all the bloom of May, thebright trees waving, the long grass rippling, waters flowing, the skyazure, bees about the flowers, the birds singing piercingly sweet, mother earth so beautiful, the sky down-bending, the light of the sun sogracious, warm, and vital!

A little before noon, kneeling beside him, his wife told StonewallJackson that he would die. He smiled and laid his hand upon her bowedhead. "You are frightened, my child! Death is not so near. I may yet getwell. "

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 allright. "

Throughout the day his mind was now clouded, now clear. In one of thelatter times he said there was something he was trying to remember. There followed a half-hour of broken sleep and wandering, in the courseof which he twice spoke a name, "Deaderick. " Once he said "HorseArtillery, " and once "White Oak Swamp. "

The alternate clear moments and the lapses into stupour or delirium werelike the sinking or rising of a strong swimmer, exhausted at last, theprey at last of a shoreless sea. At times he came head and shoulders outof the sea. In such a moment he opened his grey-blue eyes full on one ofhis staff. All the staff was gathered in grief about the bed. "WhenRichard 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 thestrong swimmer. The day drew on to afternoon. He lay straight upon thebed, silent for the most part, but now and then wandering a little. Hiswife 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 thelast time in this phase of being, the great soldier opened his eyes. Ina moment he spoke, in a very sweet and calm voice. "Let us cross overthe river, and rest under the shade of the trees. " He died. 

 * * * * *

The bells tolled, the bells tolled in Richmond, tolled from each of herseven hills! Sombre was the sound of the minute guns, shaking the heartof the city! Oh, this capital knew the Dead March in Saul as a childknows his lullaby! To-day it had a depth and a height and was a dirgeindeed. To-day it wailed for a Chieftain, wailed through the streetswhere the rose and magnolia bloomed, wailed as may have wailed thetrumpets when Priam brought Hector home. The great throng to either sidethe streets shivered beneath the wailing, beneath the low thunder of thedrums. There was lacking no pomp of War, War who must have gauds withwhich to hide his naked horror. The guns boomed, the bells tolled, themuffled drums beat, beat! Regiments marched with reversed arms, withcolours furled. There was mournful civic pomp, mournful official. Therecame a great black hearse drawn by four white horses. On it lay the bodyof Stonewall Jackson, and over it was drawn the deep blue flag with thearms of Virginia, and likewise the starry banner of the elevenConfederate States. Oh, heart-breaking were the minute guns, and thetolling, tolling bells, and the deep, slow, heroic music, and thesobbing 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 palegrey stucco, by old porches and ironwork balconies, by wistaria andclimbing roses and magnolias with white chalices, the long processionbore Stonewall Jackson. By St. Paul's they bore him, by Washington andthe great bronze men in his company, by Jefferson and Marshall, by Henryand Mason, by Lewis and Nelson. They bore him over the greensward to theCapitol steps, and there the hearse stopped. Six generals lifted thecoffin, Longstreet going before. The bells tolled and the Dead Marchrang, and all the people on the green slopes of the historic placeuncovered their heads and wept. The coffin, high-borne, passed upwardand between the great, white, Doric columns. It passed into the Capitoland into the Hall of the Lower House. Here it rested before theSpeaker's Chair. 

All day Stonewall Jackson lay in state. Twenty thousand people, from thePresident of the Confederacy to the last poor wounded soldier who couldcreep hither, passed before the bier, looked upon the calm face, theflag-enshrouded form, lying among lilies before the Speaker's Chair, inthe Virginia Hall of Delegates, in the Capitol of the Confederacy. Allday the bells tolled, all day the minute guns were fired. 

A man of the Stonewall Brigade, pausing his moment before the deadleader, first bent, then lifted his head. He was a scout, a blondesoldier, 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. Hespoke in a controlled, determined voice. "What Stonewall Jackson alwayssaid was just this: _'Press forward!'_" He passed on. 

Presently in line came a private soldier of A. P. Hill's, a young manlike a beautiful athlete from a frieze, an athlete who was also aphilosopher. "Hail, great man of the past!" he said. "If to-day youconsort with Caesar, tell him we still make war. " He, too, went on. 

Others passed, and then there came an artilleryman, a gunner of theHorse Artillery. Grey-eyed, broad-browed, he stood his moment and gazedupon the dead soldier among the lilies. "Hooker yet upon theRappahannock, " he said. "We must have him across the Potomac, and wemust ourselves invade Pennsylvania. "

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