The Long Roll
thought the voice with which he answered them unusually gentle. He
almost always spoke to his troops gently, but to-night there was almost
a fatherly tone. And though he jerked his hand into the air, it was
meditatively done, a quiet salute to some observant commander up there.
Later, in the deep darkness, the army bivouacked near New Market.
Headquarters was established in an old mill. Here a dripping courier
unwrapped from a bit of cloth several leaves of the whitey-brown
telegraph paper of the Confederacy and gave them into the general's
hand.
Next morning, at roll call, each colonel spoke to his regiment. "Men!
There has been a great battle before Richmond--at a place called Seven
Pines. Day before yesterday General Johnston attacked General McClellan.
The battle raged all day with varying fortune. At sunset General
Johnston, in the thickest of the fight, was struck from his horse by a
shell. He is desperately wounded; the country prays not mortally.
General Lee is now in command of the Armies of Virginia. The battle was
resumed yesterday morning and lasted until late in the day. Each side
claims the victory. Our loss is perhaps five thousand; we hold that the
enemy's was as great. General McClellan has returned to his camp upon
the banks of the Chickahominy. Richmond is not taken.--The general
commanding the Army of the Valley congratulates his men upon the part
they have played in the operations before our capital. At seven in the
morning the chaplains of the respective regiments will hold divine
services."
CHAPTER XXV
ASHBY
Flournoy and Munford, transferred to Ashby's command, kept with him in
the Confederate rear. The army marching from the Shenandoah left the
cavalry behind in the wind and rain to burn the bridge and delay
Fremont. Ashby, high on the eastern bank, watched the slow flames seize
the timbers, fight with the wet, prevail and mount. The black stallion
planted his fore feet, shook his head, snuffed the air. The wind blew
out his rider's cloak. In the light from the burning bridge the scarlet
lining glowed and gleamed like the battle-flag. The stallion neighed.
Ashby's voice rose ringingly. "Chew, get the Blakeley ready! Wyndham's
on the other side!"
The flames mounted high, a great pyre streaming up, reddening the night,
the roaring Shenandoah, the wet and glistening woods. Out of the
darkness to the north came Maury Stafford with a scouting party. He
saluted. "There is a considerable force over there, sir, double-quicking
through the woods to save the bridge. Cavalry in front--Wyndham, I
suppose, still bent on 'bagging' you."
"Here they are!" said Ashby. "But you are too late, Colonel Sir Percy
Wyndham!"
The blazing arch across the river threw a wine-red light up and down and
showed cavalry massing beneath walnut, oak, and pine. There were trumpet
signals and a great trampling of hoofs, but the roaring flames, the
swollen torrent, the pattering rain, the flaws of wind somewhat dulled
other sounds. A tall man with sash and sabre, thigh boots and
marvellously long moustaches, sat his horse beneath a dripping,
wind-tossed pine. He pointed to the grey troopers up and down the
southern bank. "There's the quarry! _Fire!_"
Two could play at that game. The flash from the northern bank and the
rattle of the carbines were met from the southern by as vivid a leaping
spark, as loud a sound. With the New Jersey squadrons was a Parrott gun.
It was brought up, placed and fired. The shell exploded as it touched
the red-lit water. There was a Versailles fountain costing nothing. The
Blakeley answered. The grey began to sing.
"If you want to have a good time--
If you want to have a good time--
If you want to catch the devil,
Jine the cavalry!"
A courier appeared beside Ashby. "General Jackson wants to know, sir, if
they can cross?"
"Look at the bridge and tell him, No."
"Then he says to fall back. Ammunition's precious."
The cavalry leader put to his lips the fairy clarion slung from his
shoulder and sounded the retreat. The flaming bridge lit all the place
and showed the great black horse and him upon it. The English adventurer
across the water had with him sharpshooters. In the light that wavered,
leaped and died, and sprang again, these had striven in vain to reach
that high-placed target. Now one succeeded.
The ball entered the black's side. He had stood like a rock, now he
veered like a ship in a storm. Ashby dropped the bugle, threw his leg
over the saddle, and sprang to the earth as the great horse sank. Those
near him came about him. "No! I am not hurt, but Black Conrad is. My
poor friend!" He stroked Black Conrad, kissed him between the eyes and
drew his pistol. Chew fired the Blakeley again, drowning all lesser
sound. Suddenly the supports of the bridge gave way. A great part of the
roaring mass fell into the stream; the remainder, toward the southern
shore, flamed higher and higher. The long rattle of the Federal carbines
had an angry sound. They might have marched more swiftly after all,
seeing that Stonewall Jackson would not march more slowly! Build a
bridge! How could they build a bridge over the wide stream, angry
itself, hoarsely and violently thrusting its way under an inky,
tempestuous sky! They had no need to spare ammunition, and so they fired
recklessly, cannon, carbine, and revolvers into the night after the
grey, retiring squadrons.
Stafford, no great favourite with the mass of the men, but well liked by
some, rode beside a fellow officer. This was a man genial and shrewd,
who played the game of war as he played that of whist, eyes half closed
and memory holding every card. He spoke cheerfully. "Shenandoah
beautifully swollen! Don't believe Fremont has pontoons. He's out of the
reckoning for at least a day and a night--probably longer. Nice for us
all!"
"It has been a remarkable campaign."
"'Remarkable'! Tell you what it's like, Stafford. It's like
1796--Napoleon's Italian campaign."
"You think so? Well, it may be true. Hear the wind in the pines!"
"Tell you what you lack, Stafford. You lack interest in the war. You are
too damned perfunctory. You take orders like an automaton, and you go
execute them like an automaton. I don't say that they're not
beautifully executed; they are. But the soul's not there. The other day
at Tom's Brook I watched you walk your horse up to the muzzle of that
fellow Wyndham's guns, and, by God! I don't believe you knew any more
than an automaton that the guns were there!"
"Yes, I did--"
"Well, you may have known it with one half of your brain. You didn't
with the other half. To a certain extent, I can read your hand. You've
got a big war of your own, in a country of your own--eh?"
"Perhaps you are not altogether wrong. Such things happen sometimes."
"Yes, they do. But I think it a pity! This war"--he jerked his head
toward the environing night--"is big enough, with horribly big stakes.
If I were you, I'd drum the individual out of camp."
"Think only of the general? I wish I could!"
"Well, can't you?"
"No, not yet."
"There are only two things--barring disease--which can so split the
brain in two--send the biggest part off, knight-errant or Saracen, into
some No-Man's Country, and keep the other piece here in Virginia to
crack invaders' skulls! One's love and one's hate--"
"Never both?"
"Knight-errant and Saracen in one? That's difficult."
"Nothing is so difficult as life, nor so strange. And, perhaps, love and
hate are both illnesses. Sometimes I think so."
"A happy recovery then! You are too good a fellow--"
"I am not a good fellow."
"You are not at least an amiable one to-night! Don't let the fever get
too high!"
"Will you listen," said Stafford, "to the wind in the pines? and did you
ever see the automatic chess-player?"
Two days later, Fremont, having bridged the Shenandoah, crossed, and
pushed his cavalry with an infantry support southward by the pike. About
three in the afternoon of the sixth, Ashby's horses were grazing in the
green fields south of Harrisonburg, on the Port Republic road. To the
west stretched a belt of woodland, eastward rose a low ridge clad with
beech and oak. The green valley lay between. The air, to-day, was soft
and sweet, the long billows of the Blue Ridge seen dreamily, through an
amethyst haze. The men lay among dandelions. Some watched the horses;
others read letters from home, or, haversack for desk, wrote some vivid,
short-sentenced scrawl. A number were engaged by the rim of the clear
pool. Naked to the waist, they knelt like washerwomen, and rubbed the
soapless linen against smooth stones, or wrung it wrathfully, or
turning, spread it, grey-white, upon the grass to dry. Four played poker
beneath a tree, one read a Greek New Testament, six had found a small
turtle, and with the happy importance of boys were preparing a brushwood
fire and the camp kettle. Others slept, head pillowed on arm, soft felt
hat drawn over eyes. The rolling woodland toward Harrisonburg and
Fremont was heavily picketed. A man rose from beside the pool,
straightened himself, and holding up the shirt he had been washing
looked at it critically. Apparently it passed muster, for he
painstakingly stretched it upon the grass and taking a pair of cotton
drawers turned again to the water. A blue-eyed Loudoun youth whistling
"Swanee River" brought a brimming bucket from the stream that made the
pool and poured it gleefully into the kettle. A Prince Edward man, lying
chest downward, blew the fire, another lifted the turtle. The horses
moved toward what seemed lusher grass, one of the poker players said
"Damn!" the reader turned a leaf of the Greek Testament. One of the
sleepers sat up. "I thought I heard a shot--"
Perhaps he had heard one; at any rate he now heard many. Down the road
and out from under the great trees of the forest in front burst the
pickets driven in by a sudden, well-directed onslaught of blue
cavalry--Fremont's advance with a brigade of infantry behind. In a
moment all was haste and noise in the green vale. Men leaped to their
feet, left their washing, left the turtle simmering in the pot, the gay
cards upon the greensward, put up the Greek Testament, the home letters,
snatched belt and carbine, caught the horses, saddled them with speed,
swung themselves up, and trotted into line, eyes front--Ashby's men.
The pickets had their tale to tell. "Burst out of the wood--the damned
Briton again, sir, with his squadrons from New Jersey! Rode us
down--John Ferrar killed--Gilbert captured--You can see from the hilltop
there. They are forming for a charge. There's infantry behind--Blinker's
Dutch from the looks of them!"
"Blinker's Dutch," said the troopers. "'Hooney,' 'Nix furstay,' 'Bag
Jackson,' 'Kiss und steal,' 'Hide under bed,' 'Rifle bureau drawers,'
'Take lockets und rings'--Blinker's Dutch! We should have dog whips!"
To the rear was the little ridge clothed with beech and oak. The road
wound up and over it. Ashby's bugle sounded. "_Right face. Trot!
March!_" The road went gently up, grass on either side with here and
there a clump of small pines. Butterflies fluttered; all was gay and
sweet in the June sunshine. Ashby rode before on the bay stallion. The
Horse Artillery came also from the meadow where it had been
camped--Captain Chew, aged nineteen, and his three guns and his
threescore men, four of them among the best gunners in the whole army.
All mounted the ridge, halted and deployed. The guns were posted
advantageously, the 6th, the 7th, and the 2d Virginia Cavalry in two
ranks along the ridge. Wide-spreading beech boughs, growing low, small
oak scrub and branchy dogwood made a screen of the best; they looked