The Long Roll
itself, regiment by regiment, from the wide meadow and the chestnut
wood, swept out upon the turnpike--and found its head turned toward the
south! There was stupefaction, then tongues were loosed. "What's
this--what's this, boys? Charlestown ain't in this direction. Old Joe's
lost his bearings! Johnny Lemon, you go tell him so--go ask Old Jack if
you can't. Whoa, there! The fool's going!! Come back here quick,
Johnny, afore the captain sees you! O hell! we're going right back
through 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. "Close
up, men, close up! No, I don't know any more than you do--maybe it's
some roundabout way. Close up--close up!" The colonel rode along the
line. "What's the matter here? You aren't going to a funeral! Think it's
a fox hunt, boys, and step out lively!" A courier arrived from the head
of the column. "General Jackson's compliments to Colonel Brooke, and he
says if this regiment isn't in step in three minutes he'll leave it with
the sick in Winchester!"
The First Brigade, followed by Bee, Bartow, and Elzey, marched sullenly
down the turnpike, into Winchester, and through its dusty streets. The
people were all out, old men, boys, and women thronging the brick
sidewalks. The army had seventeen hundred sick in the town. Pale faces
looked out of upper windows; men just recovering from dysentery, from
measles, from fever, stumbled out of shady front yards and fell into
line; 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 be
left to Patterson? We've done our best by you--and you go marching
away!" Several of the older women were weeping, the younger looked
scornful. _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 great
pike, a hundred and twenty miles of road, traversing as fair, rich, and
happy a region as war ever found a paradise and left a desolation. To
the east towered the Blue Ridge, to west the Great North and Shenandoah
Mountains, twenty miles to the south Massanutton rose like a Gibraltar
from the rolling fields of wheat and corn, the orchard lands and
pleasant pastures. The region was one of old mills, turning flashing
wheels, of comfortable red brick houses and well-stored barns, of fair
market towns, of a noble breed of horses, and of great, white-covered
wagons, of clear waters and sweet gardens, of an honest, thrifty, brave,
and intelligent people. It was a fair country, and many of the army
were at home there, but the army had at the moment no taste for its
beauties. It wanted to see Patterson's long, blue lines; it wanted to
drive them out of Virginia, across the Potomac, back to where they came
from.
The First Brigade was dispirited and critical, and as it had not yet
learned to control its mood, it marched as a dispirited and critical
person would be apt to march in the brazen middle of a July day. Every
spring and rivulet, every blackberry bush and apple tree upon the road
gathered recruits. The halts for no purpose were interminable, the
perpetual _Close up, close up, men!_ of the exasperated officers as
unavailing as the droning in the heat of the burnished June-bugs. The
brigade had no intention of not making known its reluctance to leave
Patterson. It took an hour to make a mile from Winchester. General
Jackson rode down the column on Little Sorrel and said something to the
colonel of each regiment, which something the colonels passed on to the
captains. The next mile was made in half an hour.
The July dust rose from the pike in clouds, hot, choking, thick as the
rain of ash from a volcano. It lay heavy upon coat, cap, haversack, and
knapsack, 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, sullenly
southward, hot without and hot within! The knapsack was heavy, the
haversack was heavy, the musket was heavy. Sweat ran down from under cap
or felt hat, and made grimy trenches down cheek and chin. The men had
too thick underwear. They carried overcoat and blanket--it was hot, hot,
and every pound like ten! _To keep--to throw away? To keep--to throw
away?_ 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 the
valley appeared as brown smudges against an ochreish sky. The farther
hills and the mountains were not seen at all. The stone fences on either
side the road, the blackberry bushes, the elder, the occasional apple or
cherry tree were all but dun lines and blotches. Oh, hot, hot! A man
swung his arm and a rolled overcoat landed in the middle of a briar
patch. A second followed suit--a third, a fourth. A great, raw-boned
fellow from some mountain clearing jerked at the lacing of his shoes and
in a moment was marching barefoot, the offending leather swinging from
his arm. To right and left he found imitators. A corpulent man, a
merchant 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 in
wheezing gasps. His overcoat went first, then his roll of blanket.
Finally he gazed a moment, sorrowfully enough, at his knapsack, then
dropped 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 Colour
Company of the 65th a boy began to cough, uncontrollably, with a hollow
sound. 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 march
down this pike longer, we'll all land home!--If you listen right hard
you can hear Thunder Run!--And that thar Yank hugging himself back thar
at Charlestown!--dessay he's telegraphin' right this minute that we've
run 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 that
coughing?"
"Andrew Kerr, sir."
"Andrew Kerr, you go to the doctor the first thing after roll-call
to-night. Cheer up, men! No one's going to send you home without
fighting."
From the rear came a rumble, shouted orders, a cracking of whips. The
column swerved to one side of the broad road, and the Rockbridge
Artillery passed--a vision of horses, guns, and men, wrapped in a dun
whirlwind and disappearing in the blast. They were gone in thunder
through the heat and haze. The 65th Virginia wondered to a man why it
had not chosen the artillery.
Out of a narrow way stretching westward, came suddenly at a gallop a
handful of troopers, black plumed and magnificently mounted, swinging
into the pike and disappearing in a pillar of dust toward the head of
the 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 of
them, 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's
Gap? Wish this pike was shady like that!"
A bugle blew; the command to halt ran down the column. The First Brigade
came to a stand upon the dusty pike, in the heat and glare. The 65th was
the third in column, the 4th and the 27th leading. Suddenly from the 4th
there burst a cheer, a loud and high note of relief and exultation. A
moment, and the infection had spread to the 27th; it, too, was cheering
wildly. Apparently there were several couriers--No! staff officers, the
65th saw the gold lace--with some message or order from the commanding
general, now well in advance with his guard of Black Horse. They were
riding down the line--Old Jack was with them--the 4th and the 27th were
cheering like mad. The colonel of the 65th rode forward. There was a
minute's parley, then he turned, "Sixty-fifth! It isn't a fox hunt--it's
a bear hunt! 'General Johnston to the 65th'--" He broke off and waved
forward 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 to
Piedmont, and from Piedmont by rail to Manassas Junction. General Stuart
is still at Winchester amusing General Patterson. At Manassas our
gallant army under General Beauregard is attacked by McDowell with
overwhelming numbers. The commanding general hopes that his troops will
step 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. They
passed the shouting 65th, and presently from down the line came the
cheers of the 2d, 21st, and 33d Virginia. Old Jack rode back alone the
length of his brigade; and so overflowing was the enthusiasm of the men
that 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 cry
the First Brigade wheeled into the road that led eastward through the
Blue Ridge by Ashby's Gap.
Two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock came and passed. Enthusiasm
carried the men fast and far, but they were raw troops and they
suffered. The sun, too, was enthusiastic, burning with all its might.
The road proved neither cool nor shady. All the springs seemed suddenly
to have dried up. Out of every hour there was a halt of ten minutes, and
it was needed. The men dropped by the roadside, upon the parched grass,
beneath the shadow of the sumach and the elder bushes, and lay without
speaking. The small farmers, the mountaineers, the hunters, the
ploughmen fared not so badly; but the planters of many acres, the
lawyers, the doctors, the divines, the merchants, the millers, and the
innkeepers, the undergraduates from the University, the youths from
classical academies, county stores, village banks, lawyers' offices, all
who led a horseback or sedentary existence, and the elderly men and the
very young,--these suffered heavily. The mounted officers were not
foot-weary, but they also had heat, thirst, and hunger, and, in
addition, responsibility, inexperience, and the glance of their
brigadier. The ten minutes were soon over. _Fall in--fall in, men!_ The
short rest made the going worse, the soldiers rose so stiff and sore.
The men had eaten before leaving the camp above Winchester--but that was
days ago. Now, as they went through Clarke County, there appeared at
cross-roads, at plantation gates, at stiles leading into green fields,
ladies young and old, bearing baskets of good things hastily snatched
from pantry and table. They had pitchers, too, of iced tea, of cold
milk, even of raspberry acid and sangaree. How good it all was! and how
impossible to go around! But, fed or hungry, refreshed or thirsty, the
men blessed the donors, and that reverently, with a purity of thought, a
chivalrousness of regard, a shade of feeling, youthful and sweet and yet