The Long Roll
and all the dogs of war to fawn upon you at the end! And here's a paltry
three-foot hedge and a bad tumble! Never you mind! You'll pick yourself
up. Old Jack likes you first-rate."
Cleave laughed. "It doesn't much look like it, sir! Well--I'm back with
the regiment, anyway!"
All that night it snowed, snowed hard. When the day broke the valley had
the seeming of a crowded graveyard--numberless white mounds stretching
north and south in the feeble light. A bugle blew, silver chill;--the
men beneath the snow stirred, moaned, arose all white. All that day they
marched, and at dusk crossed the Capon and bivouacked below the shoulder
of Sand Mountain. In the morning they went up the mountain. The road was
deep sand, intolerably toilsome. The column ascended in long curves,
through a wood of oak and hickory, with vast tangles of grape hanging
from the trees. Cavalry, infantry, artillery, wagon train, stragglers,
the army came slowly, slowly down Sand Mountain, crossed the slender
levels, and climbed Lovett's Mountain. Lovett's was long and high, but
at last Lovett's, too, was overpassed. The column crept through a ravine
with a stream to the left. Grey cliffs appeared; fern and laurel growing
in the clefts. Below lay deep snowdrifts with blue shadows. Ahead,
overarching the road, appeared a grey mass that all but choked the
gorge. "Hanging Rock!" quoth some one. "That's where the guns were
lost!" The army woke to interest. "Hanging Rock!... How're we going to
get by? That ain't a road, it's just a cow path!--Powerful good place
for an ambush--"
The column passed the rock, and leaving the pass came into open country.
Before the leading brigade was a creek, an old covered bridge now almost
burned away, and the charred ruin of a house. By the roadside lay a dead
cow; in the field were others, and buzzards were circling above a piece
of woods. A little farther a dog--a big, brown shepherd--lay in the
middle of the road. Its throat had been cut. By the blackened chimney,
on the stone hearth drifted over by the snow, stood a child's cradle.
Nothing living was to be seen; all the out-houses of the farm and the
barn were burned.
It was the beginning of a track of desolation. From Hanging Rock to
Romney the Confederate column traversed a country where Kelly's troops
had been before it. To well-nigh all of the grey rank and file the
vision came with strangeness. They were to grow used to such sights,
used, used! but now they flamed white with wrath, they exclaimed, they
stammered. "What! what! Just look at that thar tannery! They've slit the
hides to ribbons!--That po' ole white horse! What'd he done, I
wonder?... What's that trampled in the mud? That's a doll baby. O Lord!
Pick it up, Tom!--Maybe 'twas a mill once, but won't never any more
water go over that wheel!... Making war on children and doll babies and
dumb animals and mills!"
Now as hereafter the immediate effect was almost that of warmth and
rest, food and wine. Suddenly the men began to say, "Old Jack. Wait till
Old Jack gets there! Just wait till Old Jack and us gets there. I reckon
there'll be something doing! There'll be some shooting, I reckon, that
ain't practised on a man's oxen!--I reckon we'd better step up,
boys!--Naw, my foot don't hurt no more!"
A mounted officer came by. "General Jackson says, 'Press forward, men!'"
The men did their best. It was very cold, with a high, bitter wind.
Another low mountain presented itself; the road edged by banks of
purplish slate, to either hand great stretches of dogwood showing
scarlet berries, or sumach lifting torches in which colour yet
smouldered. The column came down a steep descent, crossed a creek, and
saw before it Jersey Mountain. Jersey Mountain proved ghastly; long,
high, bare, blown against by all the winds. There had been upon Jersey a
few cabins, a smithy, a mountain school--now there were only blackened
chimneys. The men panted as they climbed; the wind howled along the
crest, the snow began to swirl. At a turn of the road where had been a
cabin, high upon the bank above the men, stood a mountain woman, her
linsey skirt wrapped about her by the wind, her thick, pale Saxon hair
lifted and carried out to its full length, her arms raised above her
head. "Air ye going against them? Air ye going against them? The
lightning go with ye--and the fire go with ye--and the hearts of your
mothers go with ye! Oh-h!--Oh-h-h-h!--Oh-h! Shoot them down!"
It was as though Jersey would never be overpassed. There grew before the
men's eyes, upon the treeless plateau which marked the summit, a small
country church and graveyard. Inexpressibly lonely they looked against
the stormy sky, lonely and beckoning. From company to company ran a
statement. "When you get to that church you're just three miles from
Romney." Up and up they mounted. The cavalry and advance guard, seen for
a moment against a level horizon, disappeared beyond the church, over
the brink of the hill. The main column climbed on through the wind and
the snow; the rear came far behind. The Stonewall Brigade led the main
body. As it reached the crest of Jersey, a horse and rider, a courier of
Jackson's coming from the west, met it, rose in his stirrups, and
shouted, "The damned vandals have gone! The Yankees have gone! They've
gotten across the river, away to Cumberland! You weren't quick enough.
General Jackson says, 'By God, you are too slow!'" The courier even in
his anger caught himself. "_I_ say, 'By God!' General Jackson says, 'You
are too slow.' They've gone--only Ashby at their heels! They've left
their stores in Romney, but they've gone, every devil of them! By God,
General Jackson says, 'you should have marched faster!'"
He was gone, past the brigade, on to Loring's with his tidings. The
Stonewall Brigade left behind the graveyard and the church and began the
long descent. At first a great flame of anger kept up the hearts of the
men. But as they marched, as they toiled down Jersey, as the realization
of the facts pressed upon them, there came a change. The enemy had been
gone from Bath; the enemy had been inaccessible at Hancock; now the
enemy was not at Romney. Cumberland! Cumberland was many a wintry mile
away, on the other side of the Potomac. Here, here on Jersey, there were
cold, hunger, weariness, sickness, clothing grown ragged, shoes between
a laugh and a groan, the snow falling, the wind rising, the day
declining, and misery flapping dark wings above the head of the Army of
the Northwest! Over the troops flowed, resistless, a wave of reaction,
nausea, disappointment, melancholy. The step changed. Toward the foot of
Jersey came another courier. "Yes, sir. On toward New Creek. General
Jackson says, 'Press forward!'"
The Stonewall Brigade tried to obey, and somewhat dismally failed. How
could it quicken step again? Night was coming, the snow was falling,
everybody was sick at heart, hobbling, limping, dog-tired. The _Close
up, men_, the _Get on, men!_ of the officers, thin, like a child's
fretful wail, was taken up by the wind and lost. With Romney well in
sight came a third courier. "General Jackson says, 'Press forward!'--No,
sir. He didn't say anything else. But I've been speaking with a courier
of Ashby's. _He_ says there are three railroad bridges,--one across
Patterson's Creek and two across the river. If they were destroyed the
enemy's communications would be cut. He thinks we're headed that way.
It's miles the other side of Romney." He passed down the column.
"General Jackson says, 'Press forward!'"
_Press forward--Press forward!_ It went like the tolling of a bell, on
and on toward the rear, past the Stonewall Brigade, past the artillery,
on to Loring yet climbing Jersey. Miles beyond Romney! Railroad bridges
to cut!--Frozen creeks, frozen rivers, steel in a world of snow--Kelly
probably already at Cumberland, and Rosecrans beyond at
Wheeling--hunger, cold, winter in the spurs of the Alleghenies, disease,
stragglers, weariness, worn-out shoes, broken-down horses,
disappointment, disillusion, a very, very strange commanding
general--Suddenly confidence, heretofore a somewhat limping attendant of
the army, vanished quite away. The shrill, derisive wind, the grey
wraiths of snow, the dusk of the mountains took her, conveyed her from
sight, and left the Army of the Northwest to the task of following
without her "Fool Tom Jackson."
CHAPTER XIV
THE IRON-CLADS
Miss Lucy Cary, knitting in hand, stood beside the hearth and surveyed
the large Greenwood parlour. "The lining of the window curtains," she
said, "is good, stout, small figured chintz. My mother got it from
England. Four windows--four yards to a side--say thirty-two yards.
That's enough for a dozen good shirts. The damask itself?--I don't know
what use they could make of it, but they can surely do something. The
net curtains will do to stretch over hospital beds. Call one of the
boys, Julius, and have them all taken down.--Well, what is it?"
"Miss Lucy, chile, when you done sont de curtains ter Richmon', how is
you gwine surmantle de windows?"
"We will leave them bare, Julius. All the more sunlight."
Unity came in, knitting. "Aunt Lucy, the velvet piano cover could go."
"That's a good idea, dear. A capital blanket!"
"A soldier won't mind the embroidery. What is it, Julius?"
"Miss Unity, when you done sont dat kiver ter Richmon', what you gwine
investigate dat piano wif?"
"Why, we'll leave it bare, Julius! The grain of the wood shows better
so."
"The bishop," said Miss Lucy thoughtfully--"the bishop sent his study
carpet last week. What do you think, Unity?"
Unity, her head to one side, studied the carpet. "Do you reckon they
would really sleep under those roses and tulips, Aunt Lucy? Just imagine
Edward!--But if you think it would do any good--"
"We might wait awhile, seeing that spring is here. If the war should
last until next winter, of course we shall send it."
Unity laughed. "Julius looks ten years younger! Why, Uncle Julius, we
have bare floors in summer, anyhow!"
"Yaas, Miss Unity," said Julius solemnly. "An' on de hottes' day ob July
you hab in de back ob yo' haid dat de cyarpets is superimposin' in de
garret, in de cedar closet, ready fer de fust day ob November. How you
gwine feel when you see November on de road, an' de cedar closet bar ez
er bone? Hit ain' right ter take de Greenwood cyarpets an' curtains, an'
my tablecloths an' de blankets an' sheets an' Ole Miss's fringed
counterpanes--no'm, hit ain't right eben if de ginerals do sequesterate
supplies! How de house gwine look when marster come home?"
Molly entered with her knitting. "The forsythia is in bloom! Aunt Lucy,
please show me how to turn this heel. Car'line says you told her not to
make sugar cakes for Sunday?"
"Yes, dear, I did. I am sorry, for I know that you like them. But
everything is so hard to get--and the armies--and the poor people. I've
told Car'line to give us no more desserts."
"Oh!" cried Molly. "I wasn't complaining! It was Car'line who was
fussing. I'd give the army every loaf of sugar, and all the flour. Is
that the way you turn it?
Knit--knit--knit--
The soldiers' feet to fit!"
She curled herself up on the long sofa, and her needles went click,
click! Unity lifted the music from the piano lid, drew off the velvet
cover, and began to fold it. Muttering and shaking his head, Julius left
the room. Miss Lucy went over and stood before the portrait of her
mother. "Unity," she said, "would you send the great coffee urn to
Richmond for the Gunboat Fair, or would you send lace?"
Unity pondered the question. "The lace would be easier to send, but
maybe they would rather have the silver. I don't see who is to buy at