The Long Roll
above the heads of his fellows, read aloud the Northern papers.
_McClellan has one hundred and twelve thousand men. Yesterday his
advance reached the White House on the Pamunkey. McDowell has forty
thousand men, and at last advice was but a few marches from the
treasonable capital. Our gunboats are hurrying up the James. Presumably
at the very hour this goes to press Richmond is fallen._
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from her high estate,
And weltering in her blood.
Elsewhere brave, true, and simple men attended to their duties, wrote
their letters home, and, going their rounds or walking their beats,
looked upward to the silver stars. They looked at the stars in the west,
over the Alleghenies where Fremont, where Milroy and Schenck should be;
and at those in the south, over the long leagues of the great Valley,
over Harrisonburg, somewhere the other side of which Stonewall Jackson
must be; and at those in the east, over the Massanuttons, with the Blue
Ridge beyond, and Front Royal in between, where Colonel Kenly was; and
at the bright stars in the North, over home, over Connecticut and
Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, over Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maine.
They who watched the stars from Strasburg dwelt least of all, perhaps,
upon the stars in the east. Yet under those lay that night, ten miles
from Front Royal, Stonewall Jackson and seventeen thousand men.
CHAPTER XX
FRONT ROYAL
In the hot, bright morning, Cleave, commanding four companies of the
65th thrown out as skirmishers, entered the band of forest lying between
the Blue Ridge and Front Royal. The day was hot, the odour of the pines
strong and heady; high in heaven, in a still and intense blue, the
buzzards were slowly sailing. A long, thin line of picked men, keen,
watchful, the reserve a hundred yards or two behind, the skirmishers
moved forward over a rough cart track and over the opposing banks. Each
man stepped lightly as a cat, each held his gun in the fashion most
convenient to himself, each meant to do good hunting. Ahead was a
thicker belt of trees, and beyond that a gleam of sky, a promise of a
clearing. Suddenly, out of this blue space, rose the neigh of a horse.
The skirmishers halted beneath the trees. The men waited, bent forward,
holding breath, recognizing the pause on the rim of action, the moment
before the moment. The clearing appeared to be several hundred yards
away. Back from it, upon the idle air, floated loud and careless
talking, then laughter. Allan Gold came out of the thicker wood, moved,
a tawny shadow, across the moss and reported to Cleave. "Two companies,
sir--infantry--scattered along a little branch. Arms stacked."
The line entered the wood, the laughter and talking before it growing
louder. Each grey marksman twitched his cartridge box in place, glanced at
his musket, glanced toward his immediate officer. Across the intervals ran
an indefinable spark, a bracing, a tension. Some of the men moistened their
lips, one or two uttered a little sigh, the hearts of all beat faster. The
step had quickened. The trees grew more thinly, came down to a mere
bordering fringe of sumach. Cleave motioned to the bugler; the latter
raised the bugle to his lips. _Forward!--Commence--Firing!_ The two
companies in blue, marched down that morning superfluously to picket a
region where was no danger, received that blast and had their moment of
stupour. Laughter died suddenly. A clock might have ticked twice while they
sat or stood as though that were all there was to do. The woods blazed, a
long crackle of musketry broke the spell. A blue soldier pitched forward,
lay with his head in the water. Another, seated in the shade, his back to a
sugar maple, never more of his own motion left that resting place; a third,
undressing for a bath, ran when the others ran, but haltingly, a red mark
upon his naked thigh. All ran now, ran with cries and oaths toward the
stacked rifles. Ere they could snatch the guns, drop upon their knees, aim
at the shaken sumach bushes and fire, came a second blaze and rattle and a
leaden hail.
Out of the wood burst the long skirmish line. It yelled; it gave the
"rebel yell." It rushed on, firing as it came. It leaped the stream, it
swallowed up the verdant mead, it came on, each of its units yelling
death, to envelop the luckless two companies. One of these was very near
at hand, the other, for the moment more fortunate, a little way down the
stream, near the Front Royal road. Cleave reached, a grey brand, the
foremost of the two. "Surrender!"
The blue captain's sword lay with other paraphernalia on the grass
beneath the trees, but he signified assent to the inevitable. The
reserve, hurrying down from the wood, took the captured in charge. The
attack swept on, tearing across the meadow to the Front Royal road,
where the second company had made a moment's stand, as brave as futile.
It fired two rounds, then broke and tore down the dusty road or through
the bordering fields toward Front Royal. Cleave and his skirmishers
gained. They were mountain men, long of limb; they went like Greek
runners, and they tossed before them round messengers of death. The
greater number of blue soldiers, exhausted, slackened in their pace,
halted, threw down their arms. Presently, trailing their feet, they
returned to the streamlet and their companions in misfortune.
The grey swept on, near now to Front Royal; before them a few blue
fugitives, centre of a swiftly moving cloud of dust, a cloud into which
the Thunder Run men fired at short intervals. Behind them they heard the
tramp of the army. The Louisiana Brigade, leading, was coming at a
double-quick. On a parallel road to the left a dust cloud and dull
thunder proclaimed a battery, making for the front. Out of the wood
which the skirmishers had left came like a whirlwind the 65th Virginia,
Jackson riding with Flournoy at the head.
Little Sorrel swerved toward the skirmishers and paused a moment abreast
of Cleave. Jackson spoke from the saddle. "How many?"
"Two companies, sir. Several killed, the rest prisoners, save six or
eight who will reach the town."
"Good! Press on. If they open with artillery, get under cover until our
guns are placed." He jerked his hand into the air and rode on, galloping
stiffly, his feet stuck out from the nag's sides. The cavalry
disappeared to the right in a storm of yellow dust.
The village of Front Royal that had been dozing all the summer forenoon,
woke with a vengeance. Kenly's camp lay a mile or two west, but in the
town was quartered a company or so. Soldiers off duty were lounging on
the shady side of the village street, missing the larger delights of
Strasburg, wondering if Richmond had fallen and where was Stonewall
Jackson, when the fracas, a mile away, broke upon their ears. Secure
indolence woke with a start. Front Royal buzzed like an overturned hive.
In the camp beyond the town bugles blared and the long roll was
furiously beaten. The lounging soldiers jerked up their muskets; others
poured out of houses where they had been billeted. All put their legs to
good use, down the road, back to the camp! Out, too, came the village
people, though not to flee the village. In an instant men and women were
in street or porch or yard, laughing, crying, hurrahing, clapping hands,
waving anything that might serve as a welcoming banner. "Stonewall
Jackson! It's Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Bless the Lord, O my
soul!--Can't you all stop and tell a body?--No; you can't, of course. Go
along, and God bless you!--Their camp's this side the North Fork--about
a thousand of them.--Guns? Yes, they've got two guns. Cavalry? No, no
cavalry.--Don't let them get away! If they fall back they'll try to burn
the bridges. Don't let them do that. The North Fork's awful rough and
swollen. It'll be hard to get across.--Yes, the railroad bridge and the
wagon bridge. I can't keep up with you any longer. I ain't as young as I
once was. You're welcome, sir."
Cleave and his men came out of the village street at a run. Before them
stretched level fields, gold with sunshine and with blossoming mustard,
crossed and cumbered with numerous rail fences. Beyond these, from
behind rolling ground lightly wooded, rang a great noise of preparation,
drums, trumpets, confused voices. As the skirmishers poured into the
open and again deployed, a cannon planted on a knoll ahead spoke with
vehemence. The shell that it sent struck the road just in front of the
grey, exploded, frightfully tore a man's arm and covered all with a dun
mantle of dust. Another followed, digging up the earth in the field,
uprooting and ruining clover and mustard. A third burst overhead. A
stone wall, overtopped by rusty cedars, ran at right angles with the
road. To this cover Cleave brought the men, and they lay behind it
panting, welcoming the moment's rest and shelter, waiting for the
battery straining across the fields. The Louisianians, led by Taylor,
were pouring through the village--Ewell was behind--Jackson and the
cavalry had quite disappeared.
Lying in the shadow of the wall, waiting for the order forward, Cleave
suddenly saw again and plainly what at the moment he had seen without
noting--Stafford's face, very handsome beneath soft hat and plume,
riding with the 6th. It came now as though between eyelid and ball. The
eyes, weary and tragic, had rested upon him with intentness as he stood
and spoke with Jackson. Maury Stafford--Maury Stafford! Cleave's hand
struck the sun-warmed stone impatiently. He was not fond of deep
unhappiness--no, not even in the face of his foe! Why was it necessary
that the man should have felt thus, have thought thus, acted thus? The
fact that he himself could not contemplate without hot anger that other
fact of Stafford's thought still dwelling, dwelling upon Judith had made
him fight with determination any thought of the man at all. He could not
hurt Judith, thank God! nor make between them more misunderstanding and
mischief! Then let him go--let him go! with his beauty and his fatal
look, like a figure out of an old, master canvas!--Cleave wrenched his
thought to matters more near at hand.
The battery first seen and heard was now up. It took position on a rise
of ground and began firing, but the guns were but smoothbore
six-pounders and the ammunition was ghastly bad. The shells exploded
well before they reached the enemy's lines. The opposing blue
battery--Atwell's--strongly posted and throwing canister from
ten-pounder Parrotts--might have laughed had there not been--had there
not been more and more and yet more of grey infantry! Taylor with his
Louisianians, the First Maryland, Ewell, Winder with the Stonewall,
grey, grey, with gleaming steel, with glints of red, pouring from the
woods, through the fields--the Pennsylvanians, working the battery, did
not laugh; they were pale, perhaps, beneath the powder grime. But pale
or sanguine they bravely served their guns and threw their canister,
well directed, against the mediaeval engines on the opposite knoll.
Shouting an order, there now galloped to these Jackson's Chief of
Artillery, Colonel Crutchfield. The outclassed smoothbores limbered up
and drew sulkily away; Courtenay's Battery, including a rifled gun,
arrived in dust and thunder to take their place. Behind came
Brockenborough. The reeking battery horses bent to it; the drivers
yelled. The rumbling wheels, the leaping harness, the dust that all
raised, made a cortege and a din as of Dis himself. The wheel stopped,
the men leaped to the ground, the guns were planted, the limbers
dropped, the horses loosed and taken below the hill. A loud cannonade
began.
Behind the screen of smoke, in the level fields, four Louisiana