The Long Roll
Federal intrenchments. "If those fellows look right hard they can see
us, too! Can't help it--march fast and get past.--Oh, that's what the
officers think, too! _Double quick_!"
The column crossed the tiny vale. Beyond it the narrow road of bends and
turns plunged due south. Now, General Birney, stationed on the high
level of Hazel Grove, observed, though somewhat faintly, that movement.
He sent a courier to Hooker at Chancellorsville. "Rebel column seen to
pass across my front. All arms and wagon train. It has turned to the
southward."
"To the south!" said Hooker. "Turned southward. Now what does that mean?
It might mean that Sedgwick at Fredericksburg has seized and is holding
the road to Richmond. It might mean that Lee contemplated an
unobstructed retreat through this Wilderness section southward to
Gordonsville, which is not far away. From Gordonsville, he would fall
back on Richmond. Say that is what he planned. Then, finding me in
strength across his path, he would naturally make some demonstration,
and behind it inaugurate a forced march, southward out of this wild
place. A retreat to Gordonsville. It's the most probable move. I will
send General Sickles toward Catherine Furnace to find out exactly."
Birney from Hazel Grove, Sickles from Chancellorsville, advanced. At
Catherine Furnace they found the 23d Georgia, and on both sides of the
Plank road discovered Anderson's division. Now began hot fighting in the
Wilderness. The brigades of Anderson did gloriously. The 23d Georgia,
surrounded at the Furnace, saw fall, in that square of the Wilderness,
three hundred officers and men; but those Georgians who yet stood did
well, did well! Full in the front of Chancellorsville, McLaws, with his
able, Roman air, his high colour, short black beard and crisp speech,
handled his troops like a rightly trusted captain of Caesar's. He kept
the enemy's attention strained in his direction. Standing yet upon the
little hillock, in the midst of the flowering dogwood, a greater than
McLaws overlooked and directed all the grey pieces upon the board before
Chancellorsville, played, all day, like a master, a skilfully
complicated game.
Far in the Wilderness, miles now to the westward, the rolling musketry
came to the ears of Stonewall Jackson. He was riding with Rodes at the
head of the column. "Good! good!" he said. "That musketry is at the
Furnace. General Hooker will attempt to drive between me and General
Lee."
An aide of A. P. Hill's approached at a gallop. He saluted, gained
breath and spoke. "They're cutting the 23d Georgia to pieces, sir!
General Anderson is coming into action--"
A deeper thunder rolling now through the Wilderness corroborated his
words. "Good! good!" said Jackson imperturbably. "My compliments to
General Hill, and he will detach Archer's and Thomas's brigades and a
battalion of artillery. They are to cooperate with General Anderson and
protect our rear. The remainder of the Light Division will continue the
march."
On past the noon point swung light and shadow. On through the languorous
May warmth travelled westward the long column. It went with marked
rapidity, emphatic even for the "foot cavalry," went without swerving,
without straggling, went like a long, gleaming thunderbolt firmly held
and swung. Behind it, sank in the distance the noise of battle. The Army
of Northern Virginia knew itself divided, cut in two. Far back in the
flowering woods before Chancellorsville, the man on the grey horse,
directing here, directing there his twelve thousand men, played his
master game with equanimity, trusting in Stonewall Jackson rushing
toward the Federal right. Westward in the Wilderness, swiftly nearing
the Brock road, the man on the sorrel nag travelled with no backward
look. In his right hand was the thunderbolt, and near at hand the place
from which to hurl it. He rode like incarnate Intention. The officer
beside him said something as to that enormous peril in the rear, driving
like a wedge between this hurrying column and the grey twelve thousand
before Chancellorsville. "Yes, sir, yes!" said Jackson. "But I trust
first in God, and then in General Lee."
The infantry swung into the Brock road. It ran northward; it lay bare,
sunny, sleepy, walled in by emerald leaves and white and purple bloom.
The grey thunderbolt travelled fast, fast, and at three o'clock its head
reached the Plank road. Far to the east, in the Wilderness, the noise of
the battle yet rolled, but it came fainter, with a diminishing sound.
Anderson, Thomas, and Archer had driven back Sickles. There was a pause
by Chancellorsville and Catherine Furnace. Through it and all the while
the man on grey Traveller kept with a skill so exquisite that it shaded
into a grave simplicity those thousands and thousands and thousands of
hostile eyes turned quite from their real danger, centred only on a
finely painted mask of danger.
At the intersection of the Brock and the Plank roads, Stonewall Jackson
found massed the 1st Virginia cavalry. Upon the road and to either side
in the flowering woods, roan and bay and black tossed their heads and
moved their limbs amid silver dogwood and rose azalea. The horses
chafed, the horsemen looked at once anxious and exultant. Fitzhugh Lee
met the general in command. The latter spoke. "Three o'clock. Proceed at
once, general, down the Plank road."
"I beg, sir," said the other, "that you will ride with me to the top of
this roll of ground in front of us. I can show you the strangest
thing!"
The two went, attended only by a courier. The slight eminence, all clad
with scrub-oak, all carpeted with wild flowers, was reached. The
horsemen turned and looked eastward, the breast-high scrub, the few
tender-foliaged young trees sheltering them from view. They looked
eastward, and in the distance they saw Dowdall's Tavern. But it was not
Dowdall's Tavern that was the strangest thing. The strangest thing was
nearer than Dowdall's; it was at no great distance at all. It was a long
abattis, and behind the abattis long, well-builded breastworks. Behind
the breastworks, overlooked by the little hill, and occupying an old
clearing in the Wilderness, was a large encampment--the encampment, in
short, of the 11th Army Corps, Howard commanding, twenty regiments, and
six batteries. From the little hill where the violets purpled the
ground, Stonewall Jackson and the cavalry leader looked and looked in
silence. The blue soldiers lay at ease on the tender sward. It was
_dolce far niente_ in the Wilderness. The arms were stacked, the arms
were stacked. There were cannon planted by the roadside, but where were
the cannoneers? Not very near the guns, but asleep on the grass, or
propped against trees smoking excellent tobacco, or in the square on the
greensward playing cards with laughter! Battery horses were grazing
where they would. Far and wide were scattered the infantry, squandered
like plums on the grass. They lay or strolled about in the slant
sunshine, in the balmy air, in the magic Wilderness--they never even
glanced toward the stacked arms.
On the flowery slope across the road, Stonewall Jackson sat Little
Sorrel and gazed upon the pleasant, drowsy scene. His eyes had a glow,
his cheek a warm colour beneath the bronze. Staff, and indeed the entire
2d Corps, had remarked from time to time this spring upon Old Jack's
evident good health. "Getting younger all the time! This war climate
suits him. Time the peace articles are signed he'll be just a boy again!
Arrived at--what do you call it? perennial youth." Now he and Little
Sorrel stood upon the flowering hilltop, and his lips moved. "Old Jack's
praying--Old Jack's praying!" thought the courier.
Fitz Lee said something, but the general did not attend. In another
moment, however, he spoke curt, decisive, final. He spoke to the
courier. "Tell General Rodes to move _across_ the Plank road. He is to
halt at the turnpike. I will join him there. Move quietly."
The courier turned and went. Stonewall Jackson regarded again the scene
before him--abattis and breastworks and rifle-pits untenanted, guns
lonely in the slanting sunlight, lines of stacked arms, tents,
fluttering flags, the horses straying at their will, cropping the tender
grass, in a corner of a field men butchering beeves--regarded the German
regiments, Schimmelpfennig and Krzyzancerski, regarded New York and
Wisconsin, camped about the Wilderness church. Up from the clearing,
across to the thick forest, floated an indescribable humming sound, a
confused droning as from a giant race of bees. The shadows of the trees
were growing long, the sun hung just above the pines of the Wilderness.
"Good! good!" said Stonewall Jackson. His eyes, beneath the old, old
forage cap, had a sapphire depth and gleam. A colour was in his cheek.
"Good! good!" he said, and jerked his hand into the air. Suddenly
turning Little Sorrel, he left the hill--riding fast, elbows out, and
big feet, down into the woods, his sabre leaping as he rode.
CHAPTER XLVIII
THE RIVER
It yet lacked of six o'clock when the battle lines were finally formed.
Only the treetops of the Wilderness now were in gold, below, in the
thick wood, the brigades stood in shadow. In front were Rodes's
skirmishers, and Rodes's brigades formed the first line. The troops of
Raleigh Colston made the second line, A. P. Hill's men the third. A
battery--four Napoleons--were advanced; the other guns were coming up.
The cavalry, with Stonewall Brigade supporting, took the Plank road,
masking the actual movement. On the old turnpike Stonewall Jackson sat
his horse beside Rodes. At six o'clock he looked at his watch, closed
it, and put it in his pocket. "Are you ready, General Rodes?"
"Yes, sir."
"You can go forward, sir."
High over the darkening Wilderness rang a bugle-call. The sound soared,
hung a moment poised, then, far and near, thronged the grey echoes,
bugles, bugles, calling, calling! The sound passed away; there followed
a rush of bodies through the Wilderness; in a moment was heard the
crackling fire of the skirmishers. From ahead came a wild beating of
Federal drums--the long roll, the long roll! _Boom!_ Into action came
the grey guns. Rodes's Alabamian's passed the abattis, touched the
breastworks. Colston two hundred yards behind, A. P. Hill the third
line. _Yaaai! Yaaaiiih! Yaaaaaiiihh!_ rang the Wilderness.
Several miles to the eastward the large old house of Chancellorsville,
set upon rising ground, reflected the sun from its westerly windows. All
about it rolled the Wilderness, shadowy beneath the vivid skies. It lay
like a sea, touching all the horizon. On the deep porch of the house,
tasting the evening coolness, sat Fighting Joe Hooker and several of his
officers. Eastward there was firing, as there had been all day, but it,
too, was decreased in volume, broken in continuity. The main rebel body,
thought the Federal general, must be about ready to draw off, follow the
rebel advance in its desperate attempt to get out of the Wilderness, to
get off southward to Gordonsville. The 12th Corps was facing the "main
body". The interchange of musketry, eastward there, had a desultory,
waiting sound. From the south, several miles into the depth of the
Wilderness, came a slow, uninterrupted booming of cannon. Pleasanton and
Sickles were down there, somewhere beyond Catherine Furnace. Pleasanton
and Sickles were giving chase to the rebel detachment,--whatever it was;
Stonewall Jackson and a division probably--that was trying to get out of
the Wilderness. At any rate, the rebel force was divided. When morning
dawned it should be pounded small, piece by piece, by the blue impact!
"We've got the men, and we've got the guns. We've got the finest army on
the planet!"