The Long Roll
remained. Fatigue was the abominable thing. "Gawd!" thought Steve. "I
can't stand it any longer. I got ter quit, and ef I could shoot that
lieutenant, I would." The man whom the closing of the ranks had brought
upon his left began to speak in a slow, refined voice. "There was a
book published in England a year or so ago. It brings together old
observations, shoots and theories, welds them, and produces a Thor's
hammer that's likely to crack some heads. Once upon a time, it seems, we
went on four feet. It's a pity to have lost so valuable a faculty. Oh,
Jupiter! we are tired!"
A man behind put in his word. "To-morrow's Sunday. Two Sundays ago we
were at Meechum's River, and since then we've marched most two hundred
miles, and fought two battles and a heap of skirmishes! I reckon
there'll be a big fight to-morrow, with Old Jack jerking his hand in the
air as they say he's been doing! 'N all to the sound of church bells!
Oh, Moses, I'm tired!"
At sunset the bugles blew halt. The men dropped down on the tarnished
earth, on the vast, spectacular road to Winchester. They cared not so
much for supper, faint as they were; they wanted sleep. Supper they
had--all that could be obtained from the far corners of haversacks and
all that, with abounding willingness, the neighbouring farmhouses could
scrape together--but when it came to sleep--. With nodding heads the men
waited longingly for roll call and tattoo, and instead there came an
order from the front. "_A night march!_ O Lord, have mercy, for
Stonewall Jackson never does." _Fall in! Fall in! Column Forward!_
When they came to the Opequon they had a skirmish with a Massachusetts
regiment which fired a heavy volley into the cavalry ahead, driving it
back upon the 33d Virginia, next in column. The 33d broke, then rallied.
Other of the Stonewall regiments deployed in the fields and the 27th
advanced against the opposing force, part of Banks's rearguard. It gave
way, disappearing in the darkness of the woods. The grey column, pushing
across the Opequon, came into a zone of Federal skirmishers and
sharpshooters ambushed behind stone fences.
Somewhere about midnight Steve, walking in about the worst dream he had
ever had, determined that no effort was too great if directed toward
waking. It was a magic lantern dream--black slides painted only with stars
and fireflies, succeeded by slides in which there was a moment's violent
illumination, stone fences leaping into being as the musket fire ran along.
A halt--a company deployed--the foe dispersed, streaming off into the
darkness--the hurt laid to one side for the ambulances--_Column Forward!_
Sometimes a gun was unlimbered, trained upon the threatening breastwork and
fired. Once a shell burst beneath a wagon that had been drawn into the
fields. It held, it appeared, inflammable stores. Wagon and contents shot
into the air with a great sound and glare, and out of the light about the
place came a frightful crying. Men ran to right and left to escape the rain
of missiles; then the light died out, and the crying ceased. The column
went on slowly, past dark slides. Its progress seemed that of a snail army.
Winchester lay the fewest of miles away, but somewhere there was
legerdemain. The fewest of miles stretched like a rubber band. The troops
marched for three minutes, halted, marched again, halted, marched, halted.
To sleep--to sleep! _Column Forward!--Column Forward!_
There was a bridge to cross over a wide ditch. Steve hardly broke his
dream, but here he changed the current. How he managed he could scarce
have told, but he did find himself under the bridge where at once he lay
down. The mire and weed was like a blissful bed. He closed his eyes.
Three feet above was the flooring, and all the rearguard passing over.
It was like lying curled in the hollow of a drum, a drum beaten
draggingly and slow. "Gawd!" thought Steve. "It sounds like a Dead
March."
He slept, despite the canopy of footsteps. He might have lain like a log
till morning but that at last the flooring of the bridge rebelled. A
section of a battery, kept for some hours at Middletown, found itself
addressed by a courier, jaded, hoarse as a raven of the night. "General
Jackson says, 'Bring up these guns.' He says, 'Make haste.'" The battery
limbered up and came with a heavy noise down the pike, through the
night. Before it was the rearguard; the artillery heard the changed
sound as the men crossed the wooden bridge. The rearguard went on; the
guns arrived also at the ditch and the overtaxed bridge. The Tredegar
iron gun went over and on, gaining on the foot, with intent to pass. The
howitzer, following, proved the last straw. The bridge broke. A gun
wheel went down, and amid the oaths of the drivers a frightened screech
came from below. "O Gawd! lemme get out of this!"
Pulled out, he gave an account of his cut foot, piteous enough. The
lieutenant listened. "The 65th? Scamp, I reckon, but flesh is weak!
Hasn't been exactly a circus parade for any of us. Let him ride, men--if
ever we get this damned wheel out! Keep an eye on him, Fleming!--Now,
all together!--Pull, White Star!--Pull, Red Star!"
The column came to Kernstown about three o'clock in the morning. Dead as
were the troops the field roused them. "Kernstown! Kernstown! We're back
again."
"Here was where we crossed the pike--there's the old ridge. Griffin
tearing up his cards--and Griffin's dead at McDowell."
"That was Fulkerson's wall--that shadow over there! There's the bank
where the 65th fought.--Kernstown! I'm mighty tired, boys, but I've got
a peaceful certainty that that was the only battle Old Jack's ever going
to lose!"
"Old Jack didn't lose it. Garnett lost it."
"That ain't a Stonewall man said that! General Garnett's in trouble. I
reckon didn't anybody lose it. Shields had nine thousand men, and he
just gained it!--Shields the best man they've had in the Valley.
Kernstown!--Heard what the boys at Middletown called Banks? _Mr.
Commissary Banks._ Oh, law! that pesky rearguard again!"
The skirmish proved short and sharp. The Federal rearguard gave way,
fell back on Winchester; the Confederate column, advance, main and rear,
heard in the cold and hollow of the night the order: _Halt. Stack arms!
Break ranks!_ From regiment to regiment ran a further word. "One hour.
You are to rest one hour, men. Lie down."
In the first grey streak of dawn a battery which had passed in turn each
segment of the column, came up with the van, beyond Kernstown
battlefield, and halted upon a little rise of ground. All around
stretched grey, dew-wet fields and woods, and all around lay an army,
sleeping, strange sight in the still and solemn light, with the birds
cheeping overhead! The guns stopped, the men got down from limber and
caisson, the horses were unhitched. "An hour's sleep--Kernstown
battlefield!"
An officer whose command lay in the field to the left, just beyond a
great breach that had been made in the stone fence, arose from the cloak
he had spread in the opening and came over to the guns. "Good-morning,
Randolph! Farmers and soldiers see the dawn!
Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood.
The poor guns! Even they look overmarched." As he spoke he stroked the
howitzer as though it had been a living thing.
"We've got with us a stray of yours," said the artilleryman. "Says he
has a cut foot, but looks like a skulker. Here you, Mr.
Under-the-Bridge! come from behind that caisson--"
Out of a wood road, a misty opening overarched by tall and misty trees,
came two or three horsemen, the foremost of whom rode up to the battery.
"Good-morning, Randolph! General Jackson will be by in a moment. General
Ewell lies over there on the Front Royal road. He has eaten breakfast,
and is clanking his spurs and swearing as they swore in Flanders." He
pointed with his gauntleted hand, turning as he did so in the saddle.
The action brought recognition of Cleave's presence upon the road.
Stafford ceased speaking and sat still, observing the other with
narrowed eyes.
Cleave addressed the figure, which, there being no help for it, had come
from behind the caisson. "You, Dagg, of course! Straggling or
deserting--I wonder which this time! Are you not ashamed?"
"Gawd, major! I just couldn't keep up. I got a cut foot--"
"Sit down on that rock.--Take off your shoe--what is left of it. Now,
let me see. Is that the cut, that scratch above the ankle?"
"It ain't how deep it is. It's how it hurts."
"There is no infantryman to-day who is not footsore and tired. Only the
straggler or deserter has as few marks as you to show. There is the
company, down the road, in the field. To-night I shall find out if you
have been with it all the day. Go! You disgrace the very mountains where
you were born--"
Beyond the guns was a misty bend of the road. The light was stronger, in
the east a slender streamer of carnation; the air dank, cool and still.
On the edge of Kernstown battlefield a cock crew; a second horn came
faintly. Very near at hand sounded a jingle of accoutrement; Stonewall
Jackson, two or three of the staff with him, came around the turn and
stopped beside the guns. The men about them and the horses, and on the
roadside, drew themselves up and saluted. Jackson gave his slow quiet
nod. He was all leaf bronze from head to foot, his eyes just glinting
beneath the old forage cap. He addressed the lieutenant. "You will
advance, sir, in just three quarters of an hour. There are batteries in
place upon the ridge before us. You will take position there, and you
will not leave until ordered." His eyes fell upon Stafford. "Have you
come from General Ewell?"
"Yes, general. He sends his compliments, and says he is ready."
"Good! Good!--What is this soldier doing here?" He looked at Steve.
"It is a straggler, sir, from my regiment. Lieutenant Randolph picked
him up--"
"Found him under a bridge, sir. I'd call him a deserter--"
Steve writhed as though, literally, the eyes were cold steel and had
pinned him down. "Gawd, general! I didn't desert! Cross my heart and may
I go to hell if I did! I was awful tired--hungry and thirsty--and my
head swimming--I just dropped out, meaning to catch up after a bit! I
had a sore foot. Major Cleave's awful hard on me--"
"You're a disgrace to your company," said Cleave. "If we did not need
even shadows and half men you would be drummed home to Thunder Run,
there to brag, loaf, and rot--"
Steve began to whine. "I meant to catch up, I truly did!" His eyes,
shifting from side to side, met those of Stafford. "Gawd, I'm lost--"
Stafford regarded his quondam prisoner curiously enough. His gaze had in
it something of cruelty, of pondering, and of question. Steve writhed.
"I ain't any better 'n anybody else. Life's awful! Everybody in the
world's agin me. Gawd knows Major Cleave's so--" Cleave made a sound of
contempt.
Stafford spoke. "I do not think he's actually a deserter. I remember his
face. I met him near Middletown, and he gave me his regiment and
company. There are many stragglers."
Steve could have fallen and worshipped. "Don't care whether he did it
for me, or jest 'cause he hates that other one! He does hate him! 'N I
hate him, too--sending me to the guardhouse every whip-stitch!" This to
himself; outside he tried to look as though he had carried the colours
from Front Royal, only dropping them momentarily at that unfortunate
bridge. Jackson regarded him with a grey-blue eye unreconciled, but
finally made his peculiar gesture of dismissal. The Thunder Run man
saluted and stumbled from the roadside into the field, the dead Tiger's
musket in the hollow of his arm, his face turned toward Company A. Back
in the road Jackson turned his eyes on Cleave. "Major, in half an hour