The Long Roll
Stonewall Jackson and his army waited for half an hour while John
Simpson was looked for. At the end of that time the cross roads saw him
coming, riding behind the aide. Tall and lank, in butternut still, and
red as a beet, he slipped from the horse, and saluted the general, then,
almost crying, gathered up the checked apron and the sunbonnet and the
basket and the old woman. "Maw, Maw! jes' look what you have done!
Danged ef you haven't stopped the whole army! Everybody cryin' out 'John
Simpson'!"
On went the column through the bright August forenoon. The day grew hot
and the dust whirled up, and the cavalry skirmished at intervals with
detached blue clouds of horsemen. On the horizon appeared at some
distance a conical mountain. "What's that sugar loaf over there?"
"That's Slaughter's Mountain south of Culpeper. Cedar Run's beyond."
The day wore on. Slaughter Mountain grew larger. The country between was
lovely, green and rolling; despite the heat and the dust and the delay
the troops were in spirits. They were going against Major-General John
Pope and they liked the job. The old Army of the Valley, now a part of
the Army of Northern Virginia, rather admired Shields, had no especial
objection to McDowell, and felt a real gratitude toward Mr. Commissary
Banks, but it was prepared to fight Pope with a vigour born of
detestation. A man of the old Army, marching with Ewell, began to
sing:--
"Pope told a flattering tale
Which proved to be bravado,
About the streams that spout like ale
On the Llano Estacado!
"That's the Staked Plains, you know. Awful hot out there! Pretty
hot here, too. Look at them lovely roasting ears! Can't touch 'em.
Old Jack says so. Pope may live on the country, but we mayn't."
"That mountain is getting pretty big." "Hello! Just a cavalry
scrimmage--Hello! hello! Artillery's more serious!" "Boys, boys!
we've struck Headquarters-in-the-saddle!--What's that awful
noise?--Old Jack's coming--Old Jack's coming to the front!--Mercy!
didn't know even we could cheer like that!--Yaaaih! Yaaaaaaihhh!
Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Yaaaaaaiiiihhh!"
As the day declined the battle swelled in smoke and thunder. The blue
batteries were well placed, and against them thundered twenty-six grey
rifled guns: two Parrotts of Rockbridge with a gun of Carpenter's
appeared at the top of the hill, tore down the long slope and came into
battery in an open field, skirted by a wood. Behind was the Stonewall
Brigade in column of regiments. The guns were placed _en echelon_, the
horses taken away, the ball opened with canister. Immediately the
Federal guns answered, got the range of the grey, and began to do deadly
mischief. All around young trees were cut off short. The shells came,
thick, black, and screaming. The place proved fatal to officers.
Carpenter was struck in the head by a piece of shell--mortally wounded.
The chief of artillery, Major Snowden Andrews fell, desperately injured,
then Captain Caskie was hurt, then Lieutenant Graham. The gunners worked
like mad. The guns thundered, recoiled, thundered again. The blue shells
arrived in a deadly stream. All was smoke, whistling limbs of trees,
glare and roar. General Winder came up on foot. Standing by a grey
Parrott he tried with his field glass to make out the Federal batteries.
Lowering the glass he shouted some direction to the men about the gun
below him. The noise was hideous, deafening. Seeing that he was not
understood he raised his arm and hollowed his hand above his mouth. A
shell passed beneath his arm, through his side. He fell stiffly back,
mangled and dying.
There was a thick piece of woods, deep and dark, stretching westward.
The left of Jackson's division rested here. Ewell's brigades and
batteries were on the mountain slope; the Light Division, A. P. Hill in
his red battle shirt at its head, not yet up; Jubal Early forming a line
of battle in the rolling fields. An aide came to "Old Jube." "General
Jackson's compliments to General Early, and he says you will advance on
the enemy, and General Winder's troops will support you." Early had a
thin, high, drawling voice. "My compliments to General Jackson, and tell
him I will do it."
The Stonewall Brigade, drawn up in the rear of the Artillery, stood
waiting its orders from Winder. There came a rumor. "The general is
killed! General Winder is killed!" The Stonewall chose to be
incredulous. "It is not so! We don't believe it."
The 65th, cut to pieces at White Oak Swamp, had renewed itself.
Recruits--boys and elderly men--a few melancholy conscripts, a number of
transferals from full commands had closed its ranks. The 65th, smaller
now, of diluted quality, but even so, dogged and promising well,--the
65th, waiting on the edge of a wheat field, looked across it to
Taliaferro's and Campbell's brigades and the dark wood in front. Billy
Maydew was sergeant now and Matthew Coffin was first lieutenant of
Company A. The two had some talk under a big walnut tree.
"Artillery's been shouting for two hours," said Coffin. "They've got a
hell lot of cavalry, too, but if there's any infantry I can't see it."
"There air a message gone to Campbell and Taliaferro. I heard Old Jack
send it. 'Look well to your left,' he says, says he. That thar wood's
the left," said Billy. "It looks lonesomer than lonesome, but thar! when
lonesome things do blaze out they blaze out the worst!"
The colonel of the 65th--Colonel Erskine--came along the front. "It's
too true, men. We've lost General Winder. Well, we'll avenge him!--Look!
there is Jubal Early advancing!"
Early's line of battle was a beautiful sight. It moved through the
fields and up a gentle hillside, and pushed before it bright clusters of
Federal cavalry. When the grey lines came to the hilltop the Federal
batteries opened fiercely. Early posted Dement and Brown and loudly
answered. To the left rolled great wheat fields, the yellow grain
standing in shocks. Here gathered the beautiful blue cavalry, many and
gallant. Ewell with Trimble's South Carolinians and Harry Hayes's
Louisianians held the slope of the mountain, and from these heights
bellowed Latimer's guns. Over hill and vale the Light Division was seen
coming, ten thousand men in grey led by A. P. Hill.
"It surely air a sight to see," said Billy. "I never even dreamed it,
back thar on Thunder Run."
"There the Yankees come!" cried Coffin. "There! a stream of them--up
that narrow valley!--Now--now--now Early has touched them!--Damn you,
Billy! What's the matter?"
"It's the wood," answered Billy. "Thar's something coming out of the
lonesome wood."
On the left the 1st and 42d Virginia were the advance regiments. Out of
the forest, startling, unexpected, burst a long blue battle line. Banks,
a brave man if not a wise one, interpreted Pope's orders somewhat to
suit himself, and attacked without waiting for Sigel or McDowell. In
this instance valor seemed likely to prove the better part of
discretion. Of the grey generals, Hill was not up, Early was hotly
engaged, the artillery fire, grey and blue alike, sweeping the defile
before Ewell kept him on the mountain side. Bayonets fixed, bright
colours tossing, skirmishers advanced, on with verve and determination
came Banks's attack. As it crossed the yellow stubble field Taliaferro
and Campbell, startled by the apparition but steady, poured in a
withering fire. But the blue came on, swung its right and partly
surrounded the 1st Virginia. Amid a hell of shots, bayonet work, shouts,
and cries 1st Virginia broke; fell back upon the 42d, that in its turn
was overwhelmed. Down came the blue wave on Taliaferro's flank. The
wheat field filled with uproar. Taliaferro broke, Campbell broke.
The Stonewall stirred like leaves in autumn. Ronald, colonel of the 2d,
commanding in Winder's place, made with despatch a line of battle. The
smoke was everywhere, rolling and thick. Out of it came abruptly a
voice. "I have always depended upon this brigade. Forward!"
Billy had an impression of wheat stubble beneath his feet, wheat stubble
thick strewn with men, silent or lamentably crying out, and about his
ears a whistling storm of minies. There was, too, a whirl of grey forms.
There was no alignment--regiments were dashed to pieces--everybody was
mixed up. It was like an overturned beehive. Then in the swirling smoke,
in the swarm and shouting and grey rout, he saw Little Sorrel, and
Stonewall Jackson standing in his stirrups. He had drawn his sabre; it
flashed above his head like a gleam from the sinking sun. Billy spoke
aloud. "I've been with him from the first, and this air the first time I
ever saw him do that." As he spoke he caught hold of a fleeing grey
soldier. "Stand still and fight! Thar ain't nothing in the rear but
damned safety!"
The grey surge hung poised, the tide one moment between ebb and flow.
The noise was hellish; sounds of triumph, sounds of panic, of anger,
encouragement, appeal, despair, woe and pain, with the callous roar of
musketry and the loud indifference of the guns. Above it all the man on
the quaint war horse made himself heard. From the blue line of steel
above his head, from the eyes below the forage cap, from the bearded
lips, from the whole man there poured a magic control. He shouted and
his voice mastered the storm. "Rally, brave men! Rally and follow me! I
will lead you. Jackson will lead you. Rally! Rally!"
Billy saw the 21st Virginia, what was left of it, swing suddenly around,
give the Confederate yell, and dash itself against the blue. Taliaferro
rallied, Campbell rallied, the Stonewall itself under Ronald rallied.
The first of the Light Division, Branch's North Carolinians came on with
a shout, and Thomas's Georgians and Lane and Archer and Pender. Early
was up, Ewell sweeping down from the mountain. Jackson came along the
restored front. The soldiers greeted him with a shout that tore the
welkin. He touched the forage cap. "Give them the bayonet! Give them the
bayonet! _Forward, and drive them!_"
The cavalry with Banks was fine and staunch. At this moment it undertook
a charge useless but magnificent. With clarion sound, with tossing
colours, with huzzas and waving sabres, a glorious and fearful sight,
the cavalry rushed diagonally across the trampled field, its flank
exposed to the North Carolinians. These opened a blasting fire while
Taliaferro's brigade met it full, and the 13th Virginia, couched behind
a grey zigzag of fence, gave volley after volley. Little more than half
of those horsemen returned.
Dusk fell and the blue were in full retreat. After them swept the
grey--the Light Division, Jubal Early, Ewell, Jackson's own. In the corn
fields, in the wheat fields, in the forest thick, thick! lay the dead
and wounded, three thousand men, grey and blue, fallen in that fight of
an hour and a half. The blue crossed Cedar Run, the grey crossed it
after them. The moon, just past the full, rose above the hilltops. On
the whole the summer night was light enough. Stonewall Jackson brought
up two fresh brigades and with Pegram's battery pressed on by moonlight.
That dauntless artillerist, a boy in years, an old wise man in command,
found the general on Little Sorrel pounding beside him for some time
through the moonlit night. Jackson spoke but once. "Delightful
excitement," he said.
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE FIELD OF MANASSAS
The column, after an extraordinary march attended by skirmishes, most
wearily winding through a pitch black night, heard the "Halt!" with
rejoicing. "Old Jack be thanked! So we ain't turning on our tail and
going back through Thoroughfare Gap after all! See anything of Marse
Robert?--Go away! he ain't any nearer than White Plains. He and