The Long Roll
kill him. Yes, sir; I air a-going to kill him yet." "Shoo!" said the man
beside him. "He don't mean no harm. He's jest as nervous as a two-year
filly, and he's got to take it out on some one! Next 'lection of
officers he'll be down and out.--Sho! how them things do screech!"
The meadow closed with a wooded hill. The grey lines, reaching shelter,
gasped with relief. The way was steep, however, and the shells still
rained. An oak, struck and split by solid shot, fell across the way. A
line of ambulances coming somehow upon the hillside fared badly. Up the
men strained to the top, which proved to be a wide level. The
Rockbridge battery passed them at a gallop, to be greeted by a shell
thrown from a thirty-two pounder on the Federal right. It struck a wheel
horse of one of the howitzers, burst, and made fearful havoc. Torn flesh
and blood were everywhere; a second horse was mangled, only less
horribly than the first; the third, a strong white mare, was so covered
with the blood of her fellows and from a wound of her own, that she
looked a roan. The driver's spine was crushed, the foot of a gunner was
taken off--clean at the ankle as by a scythe. The noise was dreadful;
the shriek that the mare gave echoed through the March woods. The other
guns of the battery, together with Carpenter's and Waters's, swept round
the ruin and over the high open ground toward a stone wall that ran
diagonally across. The infantry followed and came out on an old field,
strewn with rocks and blackberry bushes. In the distance stretched
another long stone wall. Beyond it, on the gentle slopes, were guns
enough and blue soldiers enough--blue soldiers, with bright flags above
them and somewhere still that insistent music. They huzzahed when they
saw the Confederates, and the Confederates answered with that strangest
battle shout, that wild and high and ringing cry called the "rebel
yell."
In the woods along the ridge and in the old field itself the infantry
deployed. There were portions of three brigades,--Fulkerson's, Burk's,
and the Stonewall. Fulkerson held the left, Burk with the Irish
Battalion the right, and Garnett the centre. The position was
commanding, the Confederate strength massed before the Federal right,
Shields's centre well to the eastward, and his left under Sullivan in
the air, on the other side of the pike. It was Stonewall Jackson's
desire to turn that right flank, to crumple it back upon the centre, and
to sweep by on the road to Winchester--the loved valley town so near
that one might see its bourgeoning trees, hear its church bells.
He rode, on Little Sorrel, up and down the forming lines, and he spoke
only to give orders, quiet and curt, much in his class-room tone. He was
all brown like a leaf with Valley dust and sun and rain. The old cadet
cap was older yet, the ancient boots as grotesquely large, the curious
lift of his hand to Heaven no less curious than it had always been. He
was as awkward, as hypochondriac, as literal, as strict as ever.
Moreover, there should have hung about him the cloud of disfavour and
hostility raised by that icy march to Romney less than three months ago.
And yet--and yet! What had happened since then? Not much, indeed. The
return of the Stonewall Brigade to Winchester, Loring's representations,
the War Department's interference, and Major-General T. J. Jackson's
resignation from the service and request to be returned to the Virginia
Military Institute. General Johnston's remonstrance, Mr. Benjamin's
_amende honorable_, and the withdrawal of "Old Jack's" resignation.
There had been some surprise among the men at the effect upon themselves
of this withdrawal. They had greeted the news with hurrahs; they had
been all that day in extraordinary spirits. Why? To save them they could
not have told. He had not won any battles. He had been harsh, hostile,
pedantic, suspected, and detested upon that unutterable Bath and Romney
trip. And yet--and yet! He was cheered when, at Winchester, it was known
that the Army of the Valley and not the Virginia Military Institute was
to have Major-General T. J. Jackson's services. He was cheered when, at
short intervals, in the month or two there in camp, he reviewed his
army. He was cheered when, a month ago, the army left Winchester, left
the whole-hearted, loving, and loved town to be occupied by the enemy,
left it and moved southward to New Market! He was cheered loudly when,
two days before, had come the order to march--to march northward, back
along the pike, back toward Winchester.
He was cheered now as he rode quietly to and fro, forming his line of
battle--Fulkerson's 23d and 37th Virginia on the left, then the 27th
supported by the 21st, in the second line the 4th, the 33d, the 2d, the
65th, a little back the Irish Battalion, and at the bottom of the ridge
the 5th, keeping touch with Ashby toward the pike. It was two of the
afternoon, beautiful and bright. A brigadier, meeting him, said, "We
were not sure, general, that you would fight to-day! It is Sunday."
The other fastened upon him his steady grey-blue eyes. "The God of
Battles, sir, as a great general, will understand. I trust that every
regiment may have service to-morrow in Winchester. Advance your
skirmishers, and send a regiment to support Carpenter's battery."
The 27th Virginia, target for a withering artillery fire, crossed the
open and disappeared in a strip of March wood, high and keen and brown
against the fleckless sky. Behind it two long grey lines moved slowly
forward, out now in the old field. The men talked as they went. "Wish
there was nice ripe blackberries on these bushes! Wish I was a little
boy again with a straw hat and a tin bucket, gathering blackberries and
listenin' to the June bugs! _Zoon--Zoon--Zoon!_ O Lord! listen to that
shell!--Sho! that wasn't much. I'm getting to kind of like the fuss.
There ain't so many of them screeching now, anyhow!"
A lieutenant raised his voice. "Their fire is slackening.--Don't reckon
they're tired of it, sir? Hope their ammunition's out!"
From the rear galloped a courier. "Where's General Jackson?--They're
drawing off!--a big body, horse and foot, is backing toward
Winchester--"
"Glory hallelujah!" said the men. "Maybe we won't have to fight on
Sunday after all!"
Out of the March woods ahead broke a thunderclap of sound, settling into
a roar of musketry. It endured for some minutes, then forth from the
thickets and shadow of the forest, back from Barton's Woods into the
ragged old field, reeled the 27th Virginia. Its colonel, Colonel John
Echols, was down; badly hurt and half carried now by his men; there were
fifty others, officers and men, killed or wounded. The wounded, most of
them, were helped back by their comrades. The dead lay where they fell
in Barton's Woods, where the arbutus was in bloom and the purple
violets.
The 21st swept forward. The 27th rallied, joined the 21st. The two
charged the wood that was now filling with clouds of blue skirmishers.
Behind came hurrying Garnett with the 2d, the 4th, and the 33d.
Fulkerson on the left, facing Tyler, had two regiments, the 23d and 37th
Virginia. He deployed his men under cover, but now they were out in a
great and ragged field, all up and down, with boggy hollows, scarred too
by rail fences and blurred by low-growing briar patches. Diagonally
across it, many yards away, ran one of the stone fences of the region, a
long dike of loosely piled and rounded rock. Beyond it the ground kept
the same nature, but gradually lifted to a fringe of tall trees.
Emerging from this wood came now a Federal line of battle. It came with
pomp and circumstance. The sun shone on a thousand bayonets; bright
colours tossed in the breeze, drums rolled and bugles blew. Kimball,
commanding in Shields's absence, had divined the Confederate intention.
He knew that the man they called Stonewall Jackson meant to turn his
right, and he began to mass his regiments, and he sent for Sullivan from
the left.
The 23d and 37th Virginia eyed the on-coming line and eyed the stone
fence. "That's good cover!" quoth a hunter from the hills. "We'd a long
sight better have it than those fellows!--Sh! the colonel's speaking."
Fulkerson's speech was a shout, for there had arisen a deafening noise
of artillery. "Run for your lives, men--toward the enemy! Forward, and
take the stone fence!"
The two regiments ran, the Federal line of battle ran, the stone cover
the prize. As they ran the grey threw forward their muskets and fired.
That volley was at close range, and it was discharged by born marksmen.
The grey fired again; yet closer. Many a blue soldier fell; the
colour-bearer pitched forward, the line wavered, gave back. The charging
grey reached and took the wall. It was good cover. They knelt behind it,
laid their musket barrels along the stones, and fired. The blue line
withstood that volley, even continued its advance, but a second
fusillade poured in their very faces gave them check at last. In
disorder, colours left upon the field, they surged back to the wood and
to the cover of a fence at right angles with that held by the
Confederates. Now began upon the left the fight of the stone wall--hours
of raging battle, of high quarrel for this barrier. The regiments
composing the grey centre found time to cheer for Fulkerson; the rumour
of the fight reached the right where Ashby's squadron held the pike.
Jackson himself came on Little Sorrel, looked at the wall and the line
of men, powder grimed about the lips, plying the ramrods, shouldering
the muskets, keeping back Tyler's regiments, and said "Good! good!"
Across a mile of field thundered an artillery duel, loud and prolonged.
The blue had many guns; the grey eighteen in action. There were indeed
but seventeen, for a Tredegar iron gun was disabled in crossing the
meadow. The blue were the stronger cannon, modern, powerful. The grey
were inferior there; also the grey must reach deeper and deeper into
caisson and limber chest, must cast anxious backward glances toward
ordnance wagons growing woefully light. The fire of the blue was
extremely heavy; the fire of the grey as heavy as possible considering
the question of ammunition. Rockbridge worked its guns in a narrow
clearing dotted with straw stacks. A section under Lieutenant Poague was
sent at a gallop, half a mile forward, to a point that seemed of
vantage. Here the unlimbering guns found themselves in infantry company,
a regiment lying flat, awaiting orders. "Hello, 65th!" said the gunners.
"Wish people going to church at home could see us!"
A shell fell beside the howitzer and burst with appalling sound. The gun
was blown from position, and out of the smoke came a fearful cry of
wounded men. "O God!--O God!" The smoke cleared. All who had served that
gun were down. Their fellows about the six-pounder, the other gun of the
section, stood stupefied, staring, their lips parted, sponge staff or
rammer or lanyard idle in their hands. A horse came galloping. An aide
of Jackson's--Sandy Pendleton it was said--leaped to the ground. He was
joined by Richard Cleave. The two came through the ring of the wounded
and laid hold of the howitzer. "Mind the six-pounder, Poague! We'll
serve here. Thunder Run men, three of you, come here and help!"
They drew the howitzer in position, charged it, and fired. In a very few
moments after the horror of the shell, she was steadily sending canister
against the great Parrott on the opposite hill. The six-pounder beside
her worked as steadily. A surgeon came with his helpers, gathered up the
wounded, and carried them beneath a whistling storm of shot and shell to
a field hospital behind the ridge.
Out of the woods came fresh regiments of the enemy. These bore down upon
the guns and upon the 5th Virginia now forming behind them. Poague's