The Long Roll
up. The horses slipped and fell; the weight of gun and caisson came upon
them; together they rolled to the foot, where they must be helped up and
urged to the next ascent. Oaths went here and there upon the wind, hurt
whinnies, words of encouragement, cracking of whips, straining and
groaning of gun carriages.
Stafford left the artillery behind, slowly climbed another hill, and
more slowly yet picked his way down the glassy slope. Before him lay a
great stretch of meadow, white with sleet, and beyond it he saw the
advance guard disappearing in a fold of the wrinkled hills. As he rode
he tried to turn his thoughts from the physical cold and wretchedness to
some more genial chamber of the brain. He had imaginative power, ability
to build for himself out of the void. It had served him well in the
past--but not so well the last year or two. He tried now to turn the
ring and pass from the bitter day and road into some haunt of warmth and
peace. Albemarle and summer--Greenwood and a quiet garden. That did not
answer! Harassment, longing, sore desire, check and bitterness--unhappiness
there as here! He tried other resting places that once had
answered, poets' meadows of asphodel, days and nights culled like a
bouquet from years spent in a foreign land, old snatches
out of boyhood. These answered no longer, nor did a closing of the eyes
and a sinking downward, downward through the stratas of being into some
cavern, reckonless and quiet, of the under-man. It as little served to
front the future and try to climb, like Jack of the Beanstalk, to some
plane above and beyond war and disappointment and denying. He was
unhappy, and he spoke wearily to his horse, then shut his lips and faced
the Siberian road. Entering in his turn the fold of the hills, he soon
came up with the advance. As he passed the men on foot a sudden swirl of
snow came in larger flakes from the leaden skies. Before him were a
dozen horsemen, riding slowly. The air was now filled with the great
white flakes; the men ahead, in their caped overcoats, with their hats
drawn low, plodding on tired horses between the hills, all seen vaguely
through the snow veil, had a sudden wintry, desolate, and far-away
seeming. He said to himself that they were ghosts from fifty years back,
ghosts of the Grand Army in the grasp of General January. He made what
haste he could and came up with Stonewall Jackson, riding with Ashby and
with his staff. All checked their horses, the general a little advanced,
Stafford facing him. "From General Loring, sir."
"Good! What does he want?"
"There is much suffering among his men, sir. They have seen hard service
and they have faced it gallantly--"
"Are his men insubordinate?"
"Not at all, sir. But--"
"You are, I believe, the officer whom General Loring sent me once
before?"
"Yes, general. Many of the men are without rations. Others are almost
barefoot. The great number are unused to mountain work or to so
rigorous a climate."
The commanding general sat regarding the emissary with a curious chill
blankness. In peace, to the outward eye he was a commonplace man; in war
he changed. The authority with which he was clothed went, no doubt, for
much, but it was rather, perhaps, that a door had been opened for him.
His inner self became visible, and that imposingly. The man was there; a
firm man, indomitable, a thunderbolt of war, a close-mouthed,
far-seeing, praying and worshipping, more or less ambitious, not always
just, patriotically devoted fatalist and enthusiast, a mysterious and
commanding genius of an iron sort. When he was angered it was as though
the offender had managed to antagonize some natural law, or force or
mass. Such an one had to face, not an irritated human organism, but a
Gibraltar armed for the encounter. The men who found themselves
confronted by this anger could and did brace themselves against it, but
it was with some hopelessness of feeling, as of hostility upon a plane
where they were at a disadvantage. The man now sitting his horse before
him on the endless winter road was one not easily daunted by outward
aspects. Nevertheless he had at this moment, in the back of his head, a
weary consciousness that war was roseate only to young boys and girls,
that the day was cold and drear, the general hostile, the earth overlaid
with dull misery, that the immortals, if there were any, must be
clamouring for the curtain to descend forever upon this shabby human
stage, painful and sordid, with its strutting tragedians and its
bellman's cry of _World Drama_! The snow came down thickly, in large
flakes; a horse shook himself, rubbed his nose against his fellow's
neck, and whinnied mournfully. The pause, which had seemed long, was not
really so. Jackson turned toward the group of waiting officers. "Major
Cleave."
Cleave pushed his horse a little into the road. "Sir."
"You will return with this officer to General Loring's command. It is
far in the rear. You will give General Loring this note." As he spoke he
wrote upon a leaf torn from his pocket-book. The words as he traced them
read: "_General Jackson's compliments to General Loring. He has some
fault to find with the zeal of General Loring, his officers and men.
General Loring will represent to himself that in war soldiers are
occasionally called upon to travel in winter weather. Campaigns cannot
always be conducted in seasons of roses. General Loring will urge his
men forward, without further complaint. T. J. Jackson, Major-General._"
He folded the leaf and gave it to Richard Cleave, then touched Little
Sorrel with his heavy spur and with Ashby and the staff rode on through
the falling snow, between the hills. The small cavalry advance passed,
too, grey and ghost-like in the grasp of General January, disappearing
within the immense and floating veil of the snow. When all were gone
Stafford and Cleave turned their horses' heads toward the distant
column, vaguely seen in the falling day. Stafford made an expressive
sound.
"I am sorry," said Cleave gravely. "But when you have been with him
longer you will understand him better."
"I think that he is really mad."
The other shook his head. "He is not mad. Don't get that idea, Stafford.
It _is_ hard on the troops, poor fellows! How the snow falls! We had
better turn out and let the guns pass."
They moved into the untrodden snow lying in the fence corners and
watched the guns, the horses, and men strain past with a sombre noise.
Officers and men knew Richard Cleave, and several hailed him. "Where in
hell are we going, Cleave? Old Jack likes you! Tell him, won't you, that
it's damned hard on the horses, and we haven't much to eat ourselves?
Tell him even the guns are complaining! Tell him--Yes, sir! Get up
there, Selim! Pull, Flora, pull!--Whoa!--Damnation! Come lay a hand to
this gun, boys! Where's Hetterich! Hetterich, this damned wheel's off
again!"
The delay threatening to be considerable, the two men rode on, picking
their way, keeping to the low bank, or using the verge of the crowded
road. At last they left the artillery, and found themselves again upon a
lonely way. "I love that arm," said Cleave. "There isn't a gun there
that isn't alive to me." He turned in his saddle and looked back at the
last caisson vanishing over the hill.
"Shall you remain with the staff?"
"No. Only through this campaign. I prefer the line."
The snow fell so fast that the trampled and discoloured road was again
whitening beneath it. Half a mile ahead was visible the Stonewall
Brigade, coming very slowly, beaten by the wind, blinded by the snow, a
spectral grey serpent upon the winding road.
Stafford spoke abruptly. "I am in your debt for the arrangements I found
made for me in Winchester. I have had no opportunity to thank you. You
were extremely good so to trouble yourself--"
"It was no trouble. As I told you once before, I am anxious to serve
you."
They met the brigade, Garnett riding at the head. "Good-day, Richard
Cleave," he said. "We are all bound for Siberia, I think!" Company by
company the regiments staggered by, in the whirling snow, the colours
gripped by stiffening hands. There were blood stains on the frozen
ground. Oh, the shoes, the shoes that a non-manufacturing country with
closed ports had to make in haste and send its soldiers! Oh, the
muskets, heavy, dull, ungleaming, weighting the fiercely aching
shoulders! Oh, the snow, mounded on cap, on cartridge box, on rolled
blanket and haversack. Oh, the northwest wind like a lash, the pinched
stomach, the dry lips, the wavering sight, the weariness excessive! The
strong men were breathing hard, their brows drawn together and upward.
The weaker soldiers had a ghastly look, as of life shrunk to a point.
_Close up, men! Close up--close up!_
Farther down the line, on the white bank to which they tried to keep,
the column almost filling the narrow road, Cleave checked his horse. "I
have a brother in this regiment, and he has been ill--"
A company came stumbling by, heads bent before the bitter wind. He spoke
to its captain, the captain spoke to a lieutenant, the lieutenant to a
private in the colour guard, who at once fell out of line and sprang
somewhat stiffly across the wayside depression to the two horsemen drawn
up upon the bank. "Well, Richard! It's snowing."
"Have you had anything to eat, Will?"
"Loads. I had a pone of cornbread and a Mr. Rat in my file had a piece
of bacon. We added them and then divided them, and it was lovely, so far
as it went!" He laughed ruefully. "Only I've still that typhoid fever
appetite--"
His brother took from under the cape of his coat a small parcel. "Here
are some slices of bread and meat. I hoped I would see you, and so I
saved them. Where is that comforter Miriam knitted you?"
The boy's eyes glistened as he put out a gaunt young hand and took the
parcel. "Won't Mr. Rat and I have a feast! We were just talking of old
Judge at the Institute, and of how good his warm loaves used to taste!
Seems like an answer to prayer. Thank you, Richard! Miriam's comforter?
There's a fellow, a clerk from the store at Balcony Falls, who hasn't
much stamina and no shoes at all. They were bad when he started, and one
fell to pieces yesterday, and he left most of the other on that bad
piece of road this morning. So at the last halt we cut my comforter in
two and tied up his feet with it--I didn't need it, anyway." He looked
over his shoulder. "Well, I'd better be catching up!"
Richard put a hand upon his arm. "Don't give away any more clothing. You
have your blanket, I see."
"Yes, and Mr. Rat has an oilcloth. Oh, we'll sleep. I could sleep now--"
he spoke dreamily; "right in that fence corner. Doesn't it look soft and
white?--like a feather bed with lovely clean sheets. The fence rails
make it look like my old crib at home--" He pulled himself together with
a jerk. "You take care of yourself, Richard! I'm all right. Mr. Rat and
I were soldiers before the war broke out!" He was gone, stumbling
stiffly across to the road, running stiffly to overtake his company. His
brother looked after him with troubled eyes, then with a sigh picked up
the reins and followed Stafford toward the darkening east.
The two going one way, the haggard regiments another, the line that
seemed interminable came at last toward its end. The 65th held the rear.
There were greetings from many throats, and from Company A a cheer.
Hairston Breckinridge, now its captain, came across. "_Judge Allen's
Resolutions_--hey, Richard! The world has moved since then! I wish
Fincastle could see us now--or rather I don't wish it! Oh, we're holding
out all right! The men are trumps." Mathew Coffin, too, came up. "It
doesn't look much, Major Cleave, like the day we marched away! All the