The Long Roll
regiments formed in line of battle. A fifth moved to the left, its
purpose to flank the Federal battery. As for the cavalry, it appeared to
have sunk into the earth--and yet, even with the thought, out of the
blue distance toward McCoy's Ford, on the South Fork arose a tremendous
racket! A railway station, Buckton--was there, and a telegraph line, and
two companies of Pennsylvania infantry, and two locomotives with steam
up. At the moment there were also Ashby and the 7th Virginia, bent upon
burning the railroad bridge, cutting the telegraph, staying the
locomotives, and capturing the Pennsylvanians. The latter tried to
escape by the locomotives; tried twice and failed twice. The forming
infantry before Front Royal knew by the rumpus that Ashby was over
there, below the Massanuttons. There ran a rumour, too, that the 2d
Virginia cavalry under Munford was somewhere to the northeast, blocking
the road to Manassas Gap, closing the steel trap on that quarter. The
6th with Jackson remained sunken.
In the hot sunshine blared the Louisianian trumpets. An aide, stretched
like an Indian along the neck of his galloping horse, came to the
skirmishers. "All right, Cleave! Go ahead! The Louisianians are pawing
the ground!--Shade of Alexander Hamilton, listen to that!"
"That" was the "Marseillaise," grandly played. _Tramp, tramp!_ the
Louisianians came on to its strains. The skirmish line left the sunny
stone fence where slender ferns filled the chinks, and lizards ran like
frightened flames, and brown ants, anxious travellers, sought a way
home. Cleave, quitting the shadow of a young locust tree, touched with
his foot a wren's nest, shaken from the bough above. The eggs lay in it,
unbroken. He stooped swiftly, caught it up and set it on the bough
again, then ran on, he and all his men, under a storm of shot and shell.
Kenly, a gallant soldier, caught, through no fault of his, in a powerful
trap, manoeuvred ably. His guns were well served, and while they
stayed for a moment the Confederate advance, he made dispositions for a
determined stand. The longer delay here, the greater chance at
Strasburg! A courier dispatched in hot haste to warn the general there
encountered and hurried forward a detachment of the 7th New York Cavalry
as well as a small troop of picked men, led by a sometime aide of
General Banks. These, crossing the wagon bridge over the Shenandoah and
coming down the road at a double, reported to Kenly and were received by
the anxious troops with cheering. The ground hereabouts was rolling,
green eminences at all points breaking the view. Kenly used the cavalry
skilfully, making them appear now here, now there between the hills, to
the end that to the attackers they might appear a regiment. His guns
thundered, and his few companies of infantry fired with steadiness,
greeting with hurrahs every fall of a grey skirmisher.
But the skirmishers pressed on, and behind them came the chanters of the
"Marseillaise." Moreover a gasping courier brought news to Kenly. "A
great force of cavalry, sir--Ashby, I reckon, or the devil himself--on
the right! If they get to the river first--" There was small need of
further saying. If Ashby or the devil got to the river first, then
indeed was the trap closed on the thousand men!
_Face to the Rear! March!_ ordered Kenly. Atwell's Battery limbered up
in hot haste, turned, and dashed in thunder up the road. It must cross
the bridge, seize some height, from there defend the crossing. Where the
battery had been the cavalry now formed the screen, thin enough and
ragged, yet menacing the grey infantry.
The grey skirmishers rallied, fixed bayonets and advanced, the
Louisianians close behind. The blue horsemen attempted a charge, an
action more bold than wise, they were so small a force. The men in grey
sprang at the bridles of the foremost, wrapped long mountain arms about
the riders. Despite sabre, despite pistol, several were dragged down,
horse and man made captive. The most got back to safer ground. Kenly's
bugles rang out again, palpably alarmed, shrilly insistent. Horse and
foot must get across the Shenandoah or there would be the devil to pay!
Beside the imperious trumpet came something else, an acrid smell and
smoke, then a great flame and crackle. Torch had been put to the camp;
all the Federal tents and forage and stores were burning. _To the rear!
To the rear!_
In the middle of the road, out of one of the scuffling groups, a
whirling pillar of dust and clamour, sabre strokes, rifle and pistol
cracks, oaths, cries, plunging of a maddened horse, Cleave saw a flushed
face lift itself from the ground, a powerful shoulder thrust away the
surging grey shapes, a sabre flash in the sun, a hand from which blood
was streaming catch at the horse's mane. The owner of the hand swung
himself again into the saddle from which Dave Maydew had plucked him.
Remounted, he made a downward thrust with his sabre. Dave, keeping
warily out of reach of the horse's lashing heels, struck up the arm with
his bayonet. The sabre clattered to the ground; with an oath the man--an
officer--drew a revolver. The ball whizzed past Cleave's temple; a
second might have found his heart but that Allan Gold, entering somehow
the cleared circle made by the furious horse, hung upon the arm sleeved
in fine blue cloth, and wrenched the Colt's from the gauntleted hand.
Cleave, at the bridle, laughed and took his hands away. "Christmas
Carols again!" he said.
God save you, merry gentlemen!
Let nothing you dismay--
"Give him way, men! He's a friend of mine."
Marchmont's horse bounded. "Lieutenant McNeill," said the rider. "I
profess that in all this dust and smoke I did not at first recognize
you. I am your obedient servant. If my foe, sir, then I dub you my
dearest foe! To our next meeting!"
He backed the furious horse, wheeled and was gone like a bolt from a
catapult toward his broken and retiring troop. As he rode he turned in
his saddle, raised his cap, and sang,--
"As the Yankees were a-marching,
They heard the rebel yell--"
Close at the heels of Kenly's whole command poured, resistlessly, the
skirmish line, the Louisiana troops, the First Maryland. A light wind blew
before them the dun and rolling smoke from the burning camp. For all their
haste the men found tongue as they passed that dismal pyre. They sniffed
the air. "Coffee burning!--good Lord, ain't it a sin?--Look at those
boxes--shoes as I am a Christian man!--And all the wall tents--like
'Laddin's palaces! Geewhilikins! what was that? That was oil. There might
be gunpowder somewhere! Captain, honey, don't you want us to _treble-quick_
it?" They passed the fire and waste and ruin, rounded a curve, and came
upon the long downward slope to the river. "Oh, here we are! Thar they are!
Thar's the river. Thar's the Shenandoah! Thar's the covered bridge! They're
on it--they're halfway over! Their guns are over!--We ain't ever going to
let them all get across?--Ain't we going down the hill at them?--Yes.
_Forward!_--Yaaaih!--Yaaih!--Yaaaaaaaihh!--Yaaaaaih!--Thar's the cavalry!
Thar's Old Jack!"
Jackson and the 6th Virginia came at a gallop out of the woods, down the
eastern bank of the stream. The skirmishers, First Maryland,--Louisiana,
--poured down the slope, firing on Kenly as they ran. A number of his men
dropped, but he was halfway across and he pressed on, the New York cavalry
and Marchmont's small troop acting as rear guard. The battery was already
over. The western bank rose steep and high, commanding the eastern. Up this
strained the guns, were planted, and opened with canister upon the swarming
grey upon the other shore. Company by company Kenly's infantry got across
--got across, and once upon the rising ground faced about and opened a
determined fire under cover of which his cavalry entered the bridge. The
last trooper over, his pioneers brought brush and hay, thrust it into the
mouth of the bridge and set all on fire.
Jackson was up just in time to witness the burst of flames. He turned to
the nearest regiment--the 8th Louisiana, Acadians from the Attakapas.
There was in him no longer any slow stiffness of action; his body moved
as though every joint were oiled. He looked a different creature. He
pointed to the railroad bridge just above the wagon bridge. "Cross at
once on the ties." The colonel looked, nodded, waved his sword and
explained to his Acadians. "_Mes enfans! Nous allons traverser le pont
la-bas. En avant!_" In column of twos he led his men out on the ties of
the trestle bridge. Below, dark, rapid, cold, rushed the swollen
Shenandoah. Musketry and artillery, Kenly opened upon them. Many a poor
fellow, who until this war had never seen a railroad bridge, threw up
his arms, stumbled, slipped between the ties, went down into the flood
and disappeared.
Stonewall Jackson continued his orders. "Skirmishers forward! Clear
those combustibles out of the bridge. Cross, Wheat's Battalion! First
Maryland, follow!" He looked from beneath the forage cap at the steep
opposite shore, from the narrow level at the water's edge to the ridge
top held by the Federal guns. Rank by rank on this staircase, showed
Kenly's troops, stubbornly firing, trying to break the trap.
"Artillery's the need. We must take more of their guns."
It was hot work, as the men of the 65th and Wheat's Tigers speedily
found, crossing the wagon bridge over the Shenandoah! One span was all
afire. The flooring burned their feet, flames licked the wooden sides of
the structure, thick, choking smoke canopied the rafters. With musket
butts the men beat away the planking, hurled into the flood below
burning scantling and brand, and trampled the red out of the charring
cross timbers. Some came out of the western mouth of the bridge stamping
with the pain of burned hands, but the point was that they did come
out--the four companies of the 65th, Wheat's Tigers, the First Maryland.
Back to Jackson, however, went a messenger. "Not safe, sir, for horse!
We broke step and got across, but at one place the supports are burned
away--"
"Good! good!" said Jackson. "We will cross rougher rivers ere we are
done." He turned to Flournoy's bugler. "_Squadrons. Right front into
line. March!_"
Kenly, stubbornly firing upon the two columns, that one now quitting,
with a breath of relief, the railway bridge, and that issuing under an
arch of smoke from the wagon bridge, was hailed by a wild-eyed
lieutenant. "Colonel Kenly, sir, look at that!" As he spoke, he tried to
point, but his hand waved up and down. The Shenandoah, below the two
bridges, was thick with swimming horses.
Kenly looked, pressed his lips together, opened them and gave the order.
"_Face to the rear. Forward. March!_" Discretion was at last entirely
the better part of valour. Strasburg was fourteen miles away; over hill
and dale rose and fell the road that ran that way. Off, off! and some
might yet escape--or it might please the gods to let him meet with
reinforcements! His guns ceased with their canister and limbering up
thundered away toward the sun, now low and red in the heavens. The
infantry followed; the small cavalry force bringing up the rear, now
deployed as skirmishers, now rallying and threatening the grey footmen.
The Shenandoah was impetuous, deep, turbid, with many eddies, lifted by
the spring rains almost level with its banks. The horses liked it
not--poor brutes! They shuddered, whinnied, glared with distended,
bloodshot eyes. Once in, they patiently did their best. Each was owned
by its rider, and was his good friend as well as servant. The
understanding between the two could not be disturbed, no, not even by
the swollen Shenandoah! The trooper, floating free upon the down-stream