The Long Roll
life; one must make a good appearance in the field! Allan's was small
and modest enough, God knows! but such as it was it had not occurred to
him to doubt the propriety of taking it. It stood there neatly packed,
the shirts that Sairy had been ironing laid atop. The young man,
kneeling beside it, placed in this or that corner the last few articles
of his outfit. All was simple, clean, and new--only the books that he
was taking with him were old. They were his Bible, his Shakespeare, a
volume of Plutarch's Lives, and a Latin book or two beside. In a place
to themselves were other treasures, a daguerreotype of his mother, a
capacious huswife that Sairy had made and stocked for him, the little
box of paper "to write home on" that had been Tom's present, various
trifles that the three had agreed might come in handy. Among these he
now placed Christianna's gift. It was soft and full and bright--he had
the same pleasure in handling it that he would have felt in touching a
damask rose. He shut it in and rose from his knees.
He had on his uniform. They had been slow in coming--the uniforms--from
Richmond. It was only Cleave's patient insistence that had procured them
at last. Some of the companies were not uniformed at all. So enormous
was the press of business upon the authorities, so limited was the power
of an almost purely agricultural, non-manufacturing world suddenly to
clothe alike these thousands of volunteers, suddenly to arm them with
something better than a fowling-piece or a Revolutionary flintlock, that
the wonder is, not that they did so badly, but that they did so well.
Pending the arrival of the uniforms the men had drilled in strange
array. With an attempt at similarity and a picturesque taste of their
own, most of them wore linsey shirts and big black hats, tucked up on
one side with a rosette of green ribbon. One man donned his
grandfather's Continental blue and buff--on the breast was a dark stain,
won at King's Mountain. Others drilled, and were now ready to march, as
they came from the plough, the mill, or the forge. But Cleave's company,
by virtue of Cleave himself, was fairly equipped. The uniforms had come,
and there was a decent showing of modern arms. Billy Maydew's
hunting-knife and spear would be changed on the morrow for a musket,
though in Billy's case the musket would certainly be the old smoothbore,
calibre sixty-nine.
Allan's own gun, left him by his father, rested against the wall. The
young man, for all his quietude, his conscientious ways, his daily work
with children, his love of flowers, and his dreams of books, inherited
from frontiersmen--whose lives had depended upon watchfulness--quickness
of wit, accuracy of eye, and steadiness of aim. He rarely missed his
mark, and he read intuitively and easily the language of wood, sky, and
road. On the bed lay his slouch hat, his haversack, knapsack, and
canteen, cartridge-box and belt, and slung over the back of a chair was
his roll of blanket. All was in readiness. Allan went over to the
window. Below him were the flowers he had tended, then the great forests
in their May freshness, cataracts of green, falling down, down to the
valley. Over all hung the sky, divinely blue. A wind went rustling
through the forest, joining its voice to the voice of Thunder Run. Allan
knelt, touching with his forehead the window-sill. "O Lord God," he
said, "O Lord God, keep us all, North and South, and bring us through
winding ways to Thy end at last." As he rose he heard the wagon coming
down the road. He turned, put the roll of blanket over one shoulder,
and beneath the other arm assumed knapsack, haversack, and canteen,
dragged the hair trunk out upon the landing, returned, took up his
musket, looked once again about the small, familiar room, then left it
and went downstairs.
Sairy and Tom were upon the porch, the owner of the wagon with them.
"I'll tote down yo' trunk," said the latter, and presently emerged from
the house with that article upon his shoulder. "I reckon I'll volunteer
myself, just as soon 's harvest's over," he remarked genially. "But,
gosh! you-all'll be back by then, telling how you did it!" He went down
the path whistling, and tossed the trunk into the wagon.
"I hate good-byes," said Allan. "I wish I had stolen away last night."
"Don't ye get killed!" answered Sairy sharply. "That's what I'm afraid
of. I know you'll go riskin' yourself!"
"God bless you," said Tom. "You've been like a son to us these five
years. Don't you forget to write."
"I won't," answered Allan. "I'll write you long letters. And I won't get
killed, Aunt Sairy. I'll take the best of care." He took the old woman
in his arms. "You two have been just as good as a father and mother to
me. Thank you for it. I'll never forget. Good-bye."
Toward five o'clock the wagon rolled into the village whence certain of
the Botetourt companies were to march away. It was built beside the
river--two long, parallel streets, one upon the water level, the other
much higher, with intersecting lanes. There were brick and frame houses,
modest enough; there were three small, white-spired churches, many
locust and ailanthus trees, a covered bridge thrown across the river to
a village upon the farther side and, surrounding all, a noble frame of
mountains. There was, in those days, no railroad.
Cleave's hundred men, having the town at large for their friend, stood
in no lack of quarters. Some had volunteered from this place or its
neighbourhood, others had kinsmen and associates, not one was so forlorn
as to be without a host. The village was in a high fever of hospitality;
had the companies marching from Botetourt been so many brigades, it
would still have done its utmost. From the Potomac to the Dan, from the
Eastern Shore to the Alleghenies the flame of patriotism burned high and
clear. There were skulkers, there were braggarts, there were knaves and
fools in Virginia as elsewhere, but by comparison they were not many,
and theirs was not the voice that was heard to-day. The mass of the
people were very honest, stubbornly convinced, showing to the end a most
heroic and devoted ardour. This village was not behindhand. All her
young men were going; she had her company, too. She welcomed Cleave's
men, gathered for the momentarily expected order to the front, and
lavished upon them, as on two other companies within her bounds, every
hospitable care.
The wagon driver deposited Allan Gold and his trunk before the porch of
the old, red brick hotel, shook hands with a mighty grip, and rattled on
toward the lower end of town. The host came out to greet the young man,
two negro boys laid hold of his trunk, a passing volunteer in butternut,
with a musket as long as Natty Bumpo's, hailed him, and a cluster of
elderly men sitting with tilted chairs in the shade of a locust tree
rose and gave him welcome. "It's Allan Gold from Thunder Run, isn't it?
Good-day, sir, good-day! Can't have too many from Thunder Run; good
giant stuff! Have you somewhere to stay to-night? If not, any one of us
will be happy to look after you.--Mr. Harris, let us have juleps all
round--"
"Thank you very kindly, sir," said Allan, "but I must go find my
captain."
"I saw him," remarked a gray-haired gentleman, "just now down the
street. He's seeing to the loading of his wagons, showing Jim Ball and
the drivers just how to do it--and he says he isn't going to show them
but this once. They seemed right prompt to learn."
"I was thar too," put in an old farmer. "'They're mighty heavy wagons,'
I says, says I. 'Three times too heavy,' he says, says he. 'This
company's got the largest part of its provisions for the whole war right
here and now,' says he. 'Thar's a heap of trunks,' says I. 'More than
would be needed for the White Sulphur,' he says, says he. 'This time two
years we'll march lighter,' says he--"
There were exclamations. "Two years! Thunderation!--This war'll be over
before persimmons are ripe! Why, the boys haven't volunteered but for
one year--and even that seemed kind of senseless! Two years! He's daft!"
"I dunno," quoth the other. "If fighting's like farming it's all-fired
slow work. Anyhow, that's what he said. 'This time two years we'll march
lighter,' he says, says he, and then I came away. He's down by the old
warehouse by the bridge, Mr. Gold--and I just met Matthew Coffin and he
says thar's going to be a parade presently."
An hour later, in the sunset glow, in a meadow by the river, the three
companies paraded. The new uniforms, the bright muskets, the silken
colours, the bands playing "Dixie," the quick orders, the more or less
practised evolutions, the universal martial mood, the sense of danger
over all, as yet thrilling only, not leaden, the known faces, the loved
faces, the imminent farewell, the flush of glory, the beckoning of great
events--no wonder every woman, girl, and child, every old man and young
boy who could reach the meadow were there, watching in the golden light,
half wild with enthusiasm!
Wish I was in de land ob cotton,
Old times dar am not forgotten
Look away! look away! Dixie Land.
At one side, beneath a great sugar maple, were clustered a number of
women, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts, of those who were going
forth to war. They swayed forward, absorbed in watching, not the
companies as a whole, but one or two, sometimes three or four figures
therein. They had not held them back; never in the times of history were
there more devotedly patriotic women than they of the Southern States.
They lent their plaudits; they were high in the thoughts of the men
moving with precision beneath the great flag of Virginia, to the sound
of music, in the green meadow by the James. The colours of the several
companies had been sewed by women, sitting together in dim old parlours,
behind windows framed in roses. One banner had been made from a wedding
gown.
Look away! look away!
Look away down South to Dixie!
The throng wept and cheered. The negroes, slave and free, belonging to
this village and the surrounding country, were of an excellent type,
worthy and respectable men and women, honoured by and honouring their
"white people." A number of these were in the meadow by the river, and
they, too, clapped and cheered, borne away by music and spectacle,
gazing with fond eyes upon some nursling, or playmate, or young,
imperious, well-liked master in those gleaming ranks. Isaac, son of
Abraham, or Esau and Jacob, sons of Isaac, marching with banners against
Canaan or Moab, may have heard some such acclaim from the servants left
behind. Several were going with the company. Captain and lieutenants,
and more than one sergeant and corporal had their body-servants--these
were the proudest of the proud and the envied of their brethren. The
latter were voluble. "Des look at Wash,--des look at Washington Mayo!
Actin' lak he own er co'te house an' er stage line! O my Lawd! wish I
wuz er gwine! An dat dar Tullius from Three Oaks--he gwine march right
behin' de captain, an' Marse Hairston Breckinridge's boy he gwine march
right behin' him!--Dar de big drum ag'in!"
In Dixie land I'll take my stand,
To live and die in Dixie!
Look away! Look away!
Look away down South to Dixie!
The sun set behind the great mountain across the river. Parade was over,
ranks broken. The people and their heroes, some restless, others tense,
all flushed of cheek and bright of eye, all borne upon a momentous
upward wave of emotion, parted this way and that, to supper, to divers
preparations, fond talk, and farewells, to an indoor hour. Then,
presently, out again in the mild May night, out into High Street and Low