The Long Roll
It is very strong. An assault upon their centre? Well-nigh impossible! I
sent Major Talcott and Captain Boswell again to reconnoitre. They report
the front fairly impregnable, and I agree with them that it is so. The
right--Here is General Stuart, now, to tell us something of that!"
In fighting jacket and plume Jeb Stuart came into the light. He saluted.
"General Lee, their right rests on the Brock road, and the Brock road is
as clean of defences as if gunpowder had never been invented, nor
breastworks thought of!" He knelt and took up the map. "Here, sir, is
Hunting Creek, and here Dowdall's Tavern and the Wilderness church, and
here, through the deep woods, runs the old Furnace road, intersecting
with the Brock road--"
Lee and his great lieutenant looked and nodded, listening to his further
report. "Thank you, General Stuart," said at last the commander-in-chief.
"You bring news upon which I think we may act. A flanking movement by the
Furnace and Brock roads. It must be made with secrecy and in great strength
and with rapidity. General Jackson, will you do it?"
"Yes, sir. Turn his right and gain his rear. I shall have my entire
command?"
"Yes, general. Generals McLaws and Anderson will remain with me,
demonstrate against these people and divert their attention. When can
you start?"
"I will start at four, sir."
Lee rose. "Very good! Then we had better try to get a little sleep. I
see Tom spreading my blanket now.--The Wilderness! General, do you
remember, in Mexico, the _Noche Triste_ trees and their great scarlet
flowers? They grew all about the Church of our Lady of Remedies.--I
don't know why I think of them to-night.--Good-night! good-night!"
A round of barren ground, towered over by pines, hedged in by the
all-prevailing oak scrub, made the headquarters of the commander of the
2d Corps. Jim had built a fire, for the night wind was strengthening,
blowing cool. He had not spared the pine boughs. The flames leaped and
made the place ruddy as a jewel. Jackson entered, an aide behind him.
"Find out if a soldier named Deaderick is here."
The soldier named Deaderick appeared. Jackson nodded to the aide who
withdrew, then crossing to the fire, he seated himself upon a log. It
was late; far and wide the troops lay sleeping. A pale moon looked down;
somewhere off in the distance an owl hooted. The Wilderness lay still as
the men, then roused itself and whispered a little, then sank again into
deathlike quiet.
The two men, general and disgraced soldier, held themselves for a moment
quiet as the Wilderness. Cleave knew most aspects of the man sitting on
the log, in the gleam of the fire. He saw that to-night there was not
the steel-like mood, cold, convinced, and stubborn, the wintry
harshness, the granite hardness which Stonewall Jackson chiefly used
toward offenders. He did not know what it was, but he thought that his
general had softened.
With the perception there came a change in himself. He had entered this
ring in the Wilderness with a constriction of the heart, a quick
farewell to whatever in life he yet held dear, a farewell certainly to
the soldier's life, to the army, to the guns, to the service of the
country, an iron bracing of every nerve to meet an iron thrust. And now
the thrust had not yet come, and the general looked at him quietly, as
one well-meaning man looks at another who also means well. He had
suffered much and long. Something rose into his throat, the muscles of
his face worked slightly, he turned his head aside. Jackson waited
another moment,--then, the other having recovered himself, spoke with
quietness.
"You did, at White Oak Swamp, take it upon yourself to act, although
there existed in your mind a doubt as to whether your orders--the orders
you say you received--would bear that construction?"
"Yes, general."
"And your action proved a wrong action?"
"It proved a mistaken action, sir."
"It is the same thing. It entailed great loss with peril of greater."
"Yes, general."
"Had the brigade followed there might have ensued a general and
disastrous engagement. The enemy were in force there--_as I knew_. Your
action brought almost the destruction of your regiment. It brought the
death of many brave men, and to a certain extent endangered the whole.
That is so."
"Yes, general. It is so."
"Good! There was an order delivered to you. The man from whose lips you
took it is dead. His reputation was that of a valiant, intelligent, and
trustworthy man--hardly one to misrepeat an important order. That is
so?"
"It is entirely so, sir."
"Good! You say that he brought to you such and such an order, the order,
in effect, which, even so, you improperly construed and improperly acted
upon, an order, however, which was never sent by me. A soldier who was
by testifies that it was that order. Well?"
"That soldier, sir, was a known liar, with a known hatred to his
officers."
"Yes. He repeated the order, word for word, as I sent it. How did that
happen?"
"Sir, I do not know."
"The officer to whom I gave the order, and who, wrongly enough,
transferred it to another messenger, swears that he gave it thus and
so."
"Yes, general. He swears it."
A silence reigned in the fire-lit ring. The red light showed form and
feature clearly. Jackson sitting on the log, his large hands resting on
the sabre across his knees, was full within the glow. It beat even more
strongly upon Cleave where he stood. "You believe," said Jackson, "that
he swore falsely?"
"Yes, general."
"It is a question between your veracity and his?"
"Yes, general."
"There was enmity between you?"
"Yes, general."
"Where is he now?"
"He is somewhere in prison. He was taken at Sharpsburg."
There fell another silence. The sentry's tread was heard, the crackle of
the fire seizing upon pine cone and bough, a low, sighing wind in the
wilderness. Jackson spoke briefly. "After this campaign, if matters so
arrange themselves, if the officer returns, if you think you can provide
new evidence or re-present the old, I will forward, approved, your
appeal for a court of inquiry."
"I thank you, sir, with all my heart."
Stonewall Jackson slightly changed his position on the log. Jim tiptoed
into the ring and fed again the fire. There was a whinnying of some
near-by battery horses, the sound of changing guard, then silence again
in the Wilderness. Cleave stood, straight and still, beneath the other's
pondering, long, and steady gaze. An aide appeared at an opening in the
scrub. "General Fitzhugh Lee, sir." Jackson rose. "You will return to
your battery, Deaderick.--Bring General Lee here, captain."
The night passed, the dawn came, red bird and wren and robin began a
cheeping in the Wilderness. A light mist was over the face of the earth;
within it began a vast shadowy movement of shadowy troops. Silence was
so strictly ordered that something approaching it was obtained. There
was a certain eeriness in the hush in which the column was formed--the
grey column in the grey dawn, in the Wilderness where the birds were
cheeping, and the mist hung faint and cold. By the roadside, on a little
knoll set round with flowering dogwood, sat General Lee on grey
Traveller. A swirl of mist below the two detached them from the wide
earth and marching troops, made them like a piece of sculpture seen
against the morning sky. Below them moved the column, noiseless as might
be, enwound with mist. In the van were Fitzhugh Lee and the First
Virginia Cavalry. They saluted; the commander-in-chief lifted his hat;
they vanished by the Furnace road into the heart of the Wilderness.
Rodes's Division came next, Alabama troops. Rodes, a tall and handsome
man, saluted; Alabama saluted. Regiment by regiment they passed into the
flowering woods. Now came the Light Division beneath skies with a coral
tinge. Ambrose Powell Hill saluted, and all his brigades, Virginia and
South Carolina. The guns began to pass, quiet as was constitutionally
possible. The very battery horses looked as though they understood that
people who were going to turn the flank of a gigantic army in a strong
position proceed upon the business without noise. Up rose the sun while
the iron fighting men were yet going by. The level rays gilded all
metal, gilded Traveller's bit and bridle clasps, gilded the spur of Lee
and his sword hilt and the stars upon his collar. The sun began to drink
up the mist and all the birds sang loudly. The sky was cloudless, the
low thick woodland divinely cool and sweet. Violet and bloodroot,
dogwood and purple Judas tree were all bespangled, bespangled with dew.
While the guns were yet quietly rumbling by Stonewall Jackson appeared
upon the rising ground. He saluted. Lee put out his hand and clasped the
other's. "General, I feel every confidence! I am sure that you are going
forth to victory."
"Yes, sir. I think that I am.--I will send a courier back every half
hour."
"Yes, that is wise.--As soon as your wagons are by I will make
disposition of the twelve thousand left with me. I propose a certain
display of artillery and a line of battle so formed as to deceive--and
deceive greatly--as to its strength. If necessary we will skirmish hotly
throughout the day. I will create the impression that we are about to
assault. It is imperative that they do not come between us and cut the
army in two."
"I will march as rapidly as may be, sir. The Furnace road, the Brock
road, then turn eastward on the Plank road and strike their flank.
Good!" He jerked his hand into the air. "I will go now, general."
Lee bent across again. The two clasped hands. "God be with you, General
Jackson!"
"And with you, General Lee."
Little Sorrel left the hillock. The staff came up. Stonewall Jackson
turned in his saddle, and, the staff following his action, raised his
hand in salute to the figure on grey Traveller, above them in the
sunlight. Lee lifted his hat, held it so. The others filed by, turned
sharply southward, and were lost in the jewelled Wilderness.
The sun cleared the tallest pines; there set in a splendid day. The long,
long column, cavalry, Rodes's Division, the Light Division, the artillery,
ordnance wagons and ambulances, twenty-five thousand grey soldiers with
Stonewall Jackson at their head--the long, long column wound through the
Wilderness by narrow, hidden roads. Close came the scrub and pine and all
the flowering trees of May. The horsemen put aside vine and bough, the pink
honeysuckle brushed the gun wheels; long stretches of the road were
grass-grown. Through the woods to the right, by paths nearer yet to the
far-flung Federal front, paced ten guardian squadrons. All went silently,
all went swiftly. In the Confederate service there were no automata. These
thousands of lithe, bronzed, bright-eyed, tattered men knew that something,
something, something was being done! Something important that they must all
help Old Jack with. Forbidden to talk, they speculated inwardly. "South by
west. 'T isn't a Thoroughfare Gap march. They're all here in the
Wilderness. We're leaving their centre--their right's somewhere over there
in the brush. Shouldn't wonder--Allan Gold, what's the Latin for 'to
flank'?--Lieutenant, we were just whispering! Yes, sir.--All right, sir. We
won't make no more noise than so many wet cartridges!"
On they swung through the fairy forest, grey, steady, rapidly moving,
the steel above their shoulders gleaming bright, the worn, shot-riddled
colours like flowers amid the tender, all-enfolding green. The head of
the column came to a dip in the Wilderness through which flowed a little
creek. It was about nine o'clock in the morning. All the men looked to
the right, for they could see the plateau of Hazel Grove and the great