The Long Roll
Valley roads and Valley orchards, green hills and vales and noble woods,
all the great vale between mountain chains, two hundred miles from north
to south, twenty-five from Blue Ridge to Alleghenies! The men looked
wistfully, with grieved, children's faces.
At the top of the mountain there was a short halt. The up-hill pull had
been hard enough, heavy hearts and all! The men dropped upon the earth
between the pine trees of the crest. For the most part they lay in the
sullen silence with which they had climbed. Some put their heads upon
their arms, tilted hat or cap over their eyes. Others chewed a twig or
stalk of grass and gazed upon the Valley they were leaving, or upon the
vast eastward stretch of Piedmont, visible also from the mountain top.
It was bright and quiet up here above the world. The sunshine drew out
the strong, life-giving odour of the pines, the ground was dry and warm,
it should have been a pleasant place to drowse in and be happy. But the
Valley soldiers were not happy. Jackson, riding by a recumbent group,
spoke from the saddle. "That's right, men! You rest all over, lying
down." In the morning this group had cheered him loudly; now it saluted
in a genuine "Bath to Romney" silence. He rode by, imperturbable. His
chief engineer was with him, and they went on to a flat rock commanding
both the great views, east and west. Here they dismounted, and between
them unfurled a large map, weighting its corners with pine cones. The
soldiers below them gazed dully. Old Jack--or Major-General T. J.
Jackson--or Fool Tom Jackson was forever looking at maps. It was a trick
of his, as useless as saying "Good! good!" or jerking his hand in the
air in that old way.
* * * * *
That evening the Army of the Valley slept in emerald meadows beside
Meechum's River in Albemarle. Coming down the mountain it had caught
distant glimpses of white spirals of smoke floating from the overworked
engines of the Virginia Central; and now it lay near a small country
station, and there on the switch were empty cars and empty cars!--_cars
to go to Richmond on_. The army groaned and got its supper, took out its
pipe and began, though reluctantly enough, to regard the situation with
a philosophic eye. What was done was done! The Blue Ridge lay between
it and the Valley, and after all Old Joe must be wanting soldiers pretty
badly down at Richmond! The landscape was lovely, the evening tranquil
and sweet. The army went to bed early, and went in a frame of mind
approaching resignation. This was Saturday evening; Old Jack would rest
to-morrow.
Sunday dawned clear and sweet. Pleasant morning--no drill, and light
camp duties--coffee, hot biscuits, good smoke--general Sunday
atmosphere--bugler getting ready to sound "Church!"--regimental
chaplains moving toward chosen groves--"Old Hundred" in the air.--"Oh,
come on and go! All the people are going at home."
And, after all, no one in the Army of the Valley went to church! The
bugler blew another call, the chaplains stopped short in their sedate
stride, short as if they had been shot, "Old Hundred" was not sung.
_Break camp--Break camp!_
The regiments, marching down to Meechum's Station, were of one mind.
_Old Jack was losing his religion._ Manassas on Sunday--Kernstown on
Sunday--forced marches on Sunday--Sunday train to Richmond. Language
failed.
There were long lines of cars, some upon the main track, others on the
siding. The infantry piled in, piled atop. Out of each window came three
or four heads. "You fellows on the roof, you're taller'n we are! Air we
the first train? That's good, we'll be the first to say howdy to
McClellan. You all up there, don't dangle your legs that-a-way! You're
as hard to see through as Old Jack!"
Company after company filed into the poor old cars that were none too
large, whose ante-bellum days were their best days, who never had time
now to be repaired or repainted, or properly cleaned. Squad by squad
swung itself up to the cindery roof and sat there in rows, feet over the
edge, the central space between heaped with haversacks and muskets.
"2d--4th--5th--65th--Jerusalem! the whole brigade's going on this train!
Another's coming right behind--why don't they wait for it? Crowding
gentlemen in this inconsiderate fashion! Oh, ain't it hot? Wish I was
going to Niagara, to a Know-Nothing Convention! Our train's full.
There's the engine coming down the siding! You all on top, can you see
the artillery and the wagons?"
"Yes. Way over there. Going along a road--nice shady road. Rockbridge's
leading--"
"That's the road to Rockfish Gap."
"Rockfish Gap? Go 'way! You've put your compass in the wrong pocket.
Rockfish Gap's back where we came from. Look out!"
The backing engine and the waiting cars came together with a grinding
bump. An instant's pause, a gathering of force, a mighty puffing and,
slow and jerkily, the cars began to move. The ground about Meechum's
Station was grey with soldiers--part of the Stonewall, most of Burk's
and Fulkerson's brigades, waiting for the second train and the third
train and their turn to fill the cars. They stood or leaned against the
station platform, or they sat upon the warm red earth beneath the locust
trees, white and sweet with hanging bloom. "Good-bye, boys! See you in
Richmond--Richmond on the James! Don't fight McClellan till we get
there! That engine's just pulling them beyond the switch. Then that one
below there will back up and hitch on at the eastern end.--That's
funny!" The men sitting on the warm red earth beneath the locust trees
sprang to their feet. "That train ain't coming back! Before the Lord,
they're going _west_!"
Back to Meechum's Station, from body and top of the out-going train
floated wild cheering. "Staunton! We're going to Staunton! We're going
back to the Valley! We're going home! We're going to get there first!
We're going to whip Banks! We've got Old Jack with _us_. You all hurry
up. Banks thinks we've gone to Richmond, but we ain't! _Yaaaih!
Yaaaaihhh! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaaih!_"
At Meechum's Station, beneath the locust trees, it was like bees
swarming. Another train was on the main track, the head beautifully,
gloriously westward! "Staunton! Good-bye, you little old Richmond, we
ain't going to see you this summer!--Feel good? I feel like a shouting
Methodist! My grandmother was a shouting Methodist. I feel I'm going to
shout--anyhow, I've got to sing--"
A chaplain came by with a beaming face. "Why don't we all sing, boys?
I'm sure I feel like it. It's Sunday."
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord--
In Staunton it had been a day of indigo gloom. The comfortable Valley
town, fair-sized and prosperous, with its pillared court house, its old
hotel, its stores, its up and down hill streets, its many and shady
trees, its good brick houses, and above the town its quaintly named
mountains--Staunton had had, in the past twelve months, many an unwonted
throb and thrill. To-day it was in a condition of genuine, dull, steady
anxiety, now and then shot through by a fiercer pang. There had been in
town a number of sick and convalescent soldiers. All these were sent
several days before, eastward, across the mountains. In the place were
public and military stores. At the same time, a movement was made toward
hiding these in the woods on the other side of the twin mountains Betsy
Bell and Mary Grey. It was stopped by a courier from the direction of
Swift Run Gap with a peremptory order. _Leave those stores where they
are._ Staunton grumbled and wondered, but obeyed. And now the evening
before, had come from Port Republic, eighteen miles toward the Blue
Ridge, a breathless boy on a breathless horse, with tidings that Jackson
was at last and finally gone from the Valley--had crossed at Brown's Gap
that morning! "Called to Richmond!" groaned the crowd that accompanied
the boy on his progress toward official Staunton. "Reckon Old Joe and
General Lee think we're small potatoes and few in a row. They ain't,
either of them, a Valley man. Reckon this time to-morrow Banks and
Milroy'll saunter along and dig us up! There's old Watkin's bugle! Home
Guard, come along and drill!"
Staunton did little sleeping that Saturday night. Jackson was
gone--Ashby with him. There was not a Confederate vedette between the
town and Banks at Harrisonburg--the latter was probably moving down the
pike this very night, in the dark of the moon. Soldiers of Edward
Johnson--tall Georgians and 44th Virginians--had been in town that
Saturday, but they two were gone, suddenly recalled to their camp, seven
miles west, on the Parkersburg road. Scouts had reported to Johnson that
Milroy was concentrating at M'Dowell, twenty miles to the westward, and
that Schenck, sent on by Fremont, had joined or would join him. Any hour
they might move eastward on Staunton. Banks--Fremont--Milroy--three
armies, forty thousand men--all converging on Staunton and its Home
Guard, with the intent to make it even as Winchester! Staunton felt
itself the mark of the gods, a mournful Rome, an endangered Athens, a
tottering Carthage.
Sunday morning, clear and fine, had its church bells. The children went
to Sunday School, where they learned of Goliath and the brook Hebron,
and David and his sling. At church time the pews were well
filled--chiefly old men and women and young boys. The singing was
fervent, the prayers were yet more so. The people prayed very humbly and
heartily for their Confederacy, for their President and his Cabinet, and
for Congress, for their Capital, so endangered, for their armies and
their generals, for every soldier who wore the grey, for their blocked
ports, for New Orleans, fallen last week, for Norfolk that the
authorities said must be abandoned, for Johnston and Magruder on the
Peninsula--at that very hour, had they known it, in grips with Hancock
at Williamsburg.
Benediction pronounced, the congregation came out of the churchyards in
time to greet with delight, not unmixed with a sense of the pathos of
it, certain just arrived reinforcements. Four companies of Virginia
Military Institute cadets, who, their teachers at their head, had been
marched down for the emergency from Lexington, thirty-eight miles away.
Flushed, boyish, trig, grey and white uniformed, with shining muskets,
seventeen years old at most, beautifully marching with their band and
their colours, amidst plaudits, tears, laughter, flowers, thrown kisses,
they came down the street, wheeled, and before the court house were
received by the Home Guard, an organization of grey-headed men.
Sunday afternoon brought many rumours. Milroy would march from McDowell
to-morrow--Banks was coming down the turnpike--Fremont hovering closer.
Excited country people flocked into town. Farmers whose sons were with
Jackson came for advice from leading citizens. Ought they to bring in
the women and children?--no end of foreigners with the blue coats, and
foreigners are rough customers! And stock? Better drive the cows up into
the mountains and hide the horses? "Tom Watson says they're awful
wanton,--take what they want and kill the rest, and no more think of
paying!--Says, too, they're burning barns. What d'you think we'd better
do, sir?" There were Dunkards in the Valley who refused to go to war,
esteeming it a sin. Some of these were in town, coming in on horseback
or in their white-covered wagons, and bringing wife or daughter. The men
were long-bearded and venerable of aspect; the women had peaceful Quaker
faces, framed by the prim close bonnet of their peculiar garb. These
quiet folk, too, were anxious-eyed. They would not resist evil, but
their homes and barns were dear to their hearts.
By rights the cadets should have been too leg weary for parade, but if