The Long Roll
the bridge guarded by Ashby's men. There were pickets enough between the
river and the camp; north, south, and east rose the mountains, and on
the other side of Swift Run Gap, near Stanardsville, lay Ewell and his
eight thousand. The encampment occupied low and flat ground, through
which ran a swollen creek. The spring had been on the whole inclement,
and now, with suddenness, winter came back for a final word. One day
there was a whirl of snow, another was cold and harsh, on the third
there set in a chilly rain. It rained and rained, and all the mountain
streams came down in torrents and still further swelled the turbid
creek. One night, about halfway through their stay, the creek came out
of its banks and flooded the surrounding land. All tents, huts, and
shelters of boughs for a hundred feet each side acquired a liquid
flooring. There arose an outcry on the midnight air. Wet and cursing,
half naked and all a-shiver, men disentangled themselves from their
soaked blankets, snatched up clothing and accoutrements, and splashed
through a foot of icy water to slightly dryer quarters on the rising
ground.
Snow, rain, freeze, thaw, impatience, listlessness, rabid conjecture,
apathetic acquiescence, quarrels, makeups, discomfort, ennui, a deal of
swearing (carefully suppressed around headquarters), drill whenever
practicable, two Sunday services and one prayer meeting!--the last week
of April 1862 in Elk Run Valley was one to be forgotten without a pang.
There was an old barn which the artillery had seized upon, that leaked
like a sieve, and there was a deserted tannery that still filled the air
with an evil odour, and there was change of pickets, and there were
rain-sodden couriers to be observed coming and going (never anything to
be gotten out of them), and there were the mountains hung with grey
clouds. The wood was always wet and would not burn. Coffee was so low
that it was served only every other day, besides being half chicory, and
the commissary had been cheated into getting a lot of poor tobacco. The
guardhouse accommodated more men than usual. A squad of Ashby's brought
in five deserters, all found on the backward road to the Valley. One
said that he was sick and that his mother had always nursed him; another
that he was only going to see that the Yankees hadn't touched the farm,
and meant to come right back; another that the war was over, anyhow;
another that he had had a bad dream and couldn't rest until he saw that
his wife was alive; the fifth that he was tired of living; and the sixth
said nothing at all. Jackson had the six put in irons, and it was
thought that after the court martial they would be shot.
On the twenty-ninth Ashby, from the other side of the Shenandoah, made a
demonstration in force against the enemy at Harrisonburg, and the next
day, encountering the Federal cavalry, drove them back to the town. That
same afternoon the Army of the Valley, quitting without regret Elk Run
Valley, found itself travelling an apparently bottomless road that wound
along the base of the mountains.
"For the Lord's sake, where are we going now?"
"This is the worst road to Port Republic."
"Why are we going to Port Republic?"
"Boys, I don't know. Anyway, we ain't going through the Gap. We're still
in the Valley."
"By gosh, I've heard the captain give some mighty good guesses! I'm
going to ask him.--Captain, what d' ye reckon we camped ten days in that
mud hole for?"
Hairston Breckinridge gave the question consideration. "Well, Tom, maybe
there were reasons, after all. General Ewell, for instance--he could
have joined us there any minute. They say he's going to take our place
at Elk Run to-night!"
"That so? Wish him joy of the mud hole!"
"And we could have been quickly reinforced from Richmond. General Banks
would know all that, and 't would make him even less eager than he seems
to be to leave the beaten way and come east himself. Nobody wants _him_,
you know, on the other side of the Blue Ridge."
"That's so--"
"And for all he knew, if he moved north and west to join Fremont we
might pile out and strike Milroy, and if he went south and west to meet
Milroy he might hear of something happening to Fremont."
"That's so--"
"And if he moved south on Staunton he might find himself caught like a
scalybark in a nut cracker--Edward Johnson on one side and the Army of
the Valley on the other."
"That's so--"
"The other day I asked Major Cleave if General Jackson never amused
himself in any way--never played any game, chess for instance. He said,
'Not at all--which was lucky for the other chess player.'"
"Well, he ought to know, for he's a mighty good chess player himself.
And you think--"
"I think General Banks has had to stay where he is."
"And where are we going now--besides Port Republic?"
"I haven't any idea. But I'm willing to bet that we're going somewhere."
The dirt roads, after the incessant rains, were mud, mud, mud!
ordinarily to the ankles, extraordinarily to the knees of the marching
infantry. The wagon train moved in front, and the heavy wheels made for
the rest a track something like Christian's through the Slough of
Despond. The artillery brought up the rear and fared worst of all. Guns
and caissons slid heavily into deep mud holes. The horses strained--poor
brutes! but their iron charges stuck fast. The drivers used whip and
voice, the officers swore, there arose calls for Sergeant Jordan.
Appearing, that steed tamer picked his way to the horses' heads, spoke
to them, patted them, and in a reasonable voice said, "Get up!" They did
it, and the train dragged on to the next bog, deeper than before. Then
_da capo_--stuck wheels, straining teams, oaths, adjuration, at last
"Sergeant Jordan!"
So abominable was the road that the army went like a tortoise, a mud
tortoise. Twilight found it little more than five miles from its
starting-point, and the bivouac that night was by the comfortless
roadside, in the miry bushes, with fires of wet wood, and small and poor
rations. Clouds were lowering and a chilly wind fretted the forests of
the Blue Ridge. Around one of the dismal, smoky fires an especially
dejected mess found a spokesman with a vocabulary rich in comminations.
"Sh!" breathed one of the ring. "Officer coming by. Heard you too,
Williams--all that about Old Jack."
A figure wrapped in a cloak passed just upon the rim of the firelight.
"I don't think, men," said a voice, "that you are in a position to
judge. If I have brought you by this road it is for your own good."
He passed on, the darkness taking him. Day dawned as best it might
through grey sheets of rain. Breakfast was a mockery, damp hardtack
holding the centre of the stage. A very few men had cold coffee in their
canteens, but when they tried to heat it the miserable fire went out. On
marched the Army of the Valley, in and out of the great rain-drenched,
mist-hidden mountains, on the worst road to Port Republic. Road,
surrounding levels, and creek-bed had somehow lost identity. One was
like the other, and none had any bottom. Each gun had now a corps of
pioneers, who, casting stone and brushwood into the morass, laboriously
built a road for the piece. Whole companies of infantry were put at this
work. The officers helped, the staff dismounted and helped, the
commanding general was encountered, rain-dripping, mud-spattered, a log
on his shoulder or a great stone in his hands. All this day they made
but five miles, and at night they slept in something like a lake, with a
gibing wind above to whisper _What's it for?_--_What's it for?_
May the second was of a piece with May the first. On the morning of May
the third the clouds broke and the sun came out. It found the troops
bivouacked just east of the village of Port Republic, and it put into
them life and cheer. Something else helped, and that was the fact that
before them, clear and shining in the morning light, stretched, not the
neglected mountain road they had been travelling, but a fair Valley
road, the road to Staunton.
Jackson and his staff had their quarters at the neighbouring house of
General Lewis. At breakfast one of the ladies remarked that the Staunton
road was in good condition, and asked the guest of honour how long it
would take the army to march the eighteen miles.
"Is that the exact distance?" asked the general. "Eighteen miles?"
"Yes, sir; just about eighteen. You should get there, should you not, by
night?"
"You are fortunate," said the general, "in having a great natural
curiosity at your very doors. I have long wanted to see Weyers's Cave. A
vast cavern like that, hollowed out by God's finger, hung with
stalactites, with shells and banners of stone, filled with sounding
aisles, run through by dark rivers in which swim blind fish--how
wonderful a piece of His handiwork! I have always wished to see it--the
more so that my wife has viewed it and told me of its marvels. I always
wish, madam, to rest my eyes where my wife's have rested."
The bugles ringing "Fall in!" were positively sweet to the ears of the
soldiers of the Valley. "Fall in? with pleasure, sir! Eighteen miles?
What's eighteen miles when you're going home? It's a fine old road
anyhow, with more butterflies on it! We'll double-quick it all the way
if Old Jack wants us!"
"That man back there says Staunton's awfully anxious. Says people all
think we've gone to reinforce Richmond without caring a damn what
becomes of the Valley. Says Milroy is within ten miles of Staunton, and
Banks's just waiting a little longer before he pulls up stakes at
Harrisonburg and comes down the pike to join him. Says Edward Johnson
ain't got but a handful, and that the Staunton women are hiding their
silver. Says--Here's Old Jack, boys! going to lead us himself back to
Goshen! One cheer ain't enough--_three cheers for General Jackson!_"
Jackson, stiffly lifting the old forage cap, galloped by upon Little
Sorrel. His staff behind him, he came to the head of the column where it
was drawn up on the fair road leading through Port Republic, south and
west to Staunton. Close on the eastern horizon rose the Blue Ridge. To
this side turned off a rougher, narrower way, piercing at Brown's Gap
the great mountain barrier between the Valley and Piedmont Virginia.
The column was put into motion, the troops stepping out briskly. Warm
and lovely was the sunshine, mildly still the air. Big cherry trees were
in bloom by the wayside: there was a buzzing of honey bees, a slow
fluttering of yellow butterflies above the fast drying mud puddles.
Throughout the ranks sounded a clearing of throats; it was evident that
the men felt like singing, presently would sing. The head of the column
came to the Brown's Gap Road.
"What's that stony old road?" asked a Winchester man.
"That's a road over the mountains into Albemarle. Thank the Lord--"
"_Column left._ MARCH!"
It rang infernally. _Column left._ MARCH!--Not a freight boat horn
winding up the James at night, not the minie's long screech, not
Gabriel's trump, not anything could have sounded at this moment so
mournfully in the ears of the Army of the Valley. It wheeled to the
left, it turned its back to the Valley, it took the stony road to
Brown's Gap, it deeply tasted the spring of tragic disappointment.
The road climbed and climbed through the brilliant weather. Spur and wall,
the Blue Ridge shimmered in May greenery, was wrapped in happy light and
in sweet odours, was carpeted with wild flowers and ecstatic with singing
birds. Only the Army of the Valley was melancholy--desperately melancholy.
Here and there through openings, like great casements in the foliage,
wide views might be had of the Valley they were leaving. Town and farm
and mill with turning wheel were there, ploughed land and wheat fields,