The Long Roll
down, hidden, upon a gentle slope and the Port Republic road. Ashby's
post was in front of the silver bole of a great beech. With one
gauntleted hand he held the bay stallion quiet, with the other he shaded
his eyes and gazed at the westerly wood into which ran the road. Chew,
to his right, touched the Blakeley lovingly. Gunner number 1 handed the
powder. Number 2 rammed it home, took the shell from Number 1 and put it
in. All along the ridge the horsemen handled their carbines, spoke each
in a quiet, genial tone to his horse. Sound of the approaching force
made itself heard and increased.
"About a thousand, shouldn't you think, sir?" asked an aide.
"No. Between seven and eight hundred. Do you remember in 'Ivanhoe'--"
Out of the western wood, in order of charge, issued a body of horse. It
was yet a little distant, horses at a trot, the declining sun making a
stirring picture. Rapidly crescent to eye and ear, they came on. Their
colours flew, the sound of their bugles raised the blood. Their pace
changed to a gallop. The thundering hoofs, the braying trumpets, shook
the air. Colours and guidons grew large.
"By God, sir, Wyndham is coming to eat you up! This time he knows he's
caught the hare."
"Do all John Bulls ride like that? Shades of the Revolution! did we all
ride like that before we came to Virginia?"
"God! what a noise!"
Ashby spoke. "Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes."
The charge began to swallow up the gentle slope, the sunny road, the
green grass to either hand. The bugles blew at height, the sabres
gleamed, the tall man in front rode rising in his stirrups, his sabre
overhead. "Huzzah! huzzah! huzzah!" shouted the blue cavalry.
"Are you ready, Captain Chew?" demanded Ashby. "Very well, then, let
them have it!"
The Blakeley and the two Parrott guns spoke in one breath. While the
echoes were yet thundering, burst a fierce volley from all the
Confederate short rifles. Down went the Federal colour-bearer, down went
other troopers in the front rank, down went the great gaunt horse
beneath the Englishman! Those behind could not at once check their
headlong gallop; they surged upon and over the fallen. The Blakeley
blazed again and the grey carbines rang. The Englishman was on his feet,
had a trooper's horse and was shouting like a savage, urging the
squadrons on and up. For the third time the woods flamed and rang. The
blue lines wavered. Some horsemen turned. "Damn you! On!" raged Wyndham.
Ashby put his bugle to his lips. Clear and sweet rose the notes, a
silver tempest. "_Ashby! Ashby!_" shouted the grey lines and charged.
"_Ashby! Ashby!_" Out of the woods and down the hill they came like
undyked waters. The two tides met and clashed. There followed a wild
melee, a shouting, an unconscious putting forth of great muscular
energy, a seeing as through red glasses besmirched with powder smoke, a
poisonous odour, a sense of cotton in the mouth, a feeling as of
struggle on a turret, far, far up, with empty space around and below.
The grey prevailed, the blue turned and fled. For a moment it seemed as
though they were flying through the air, falling, falling! the grey had
a sense of dizziness as they struck spur in flank and pursued headlong.
All seemed to be sinking through the air, then, suddenly, they felt
ground, exhaled breath, and went thundering up the Port Republic road,
toward Harrisonburg. In front strained the blue, presently reaching the
wood. A gun boomed from a slope beyond. Ashby checked the pursuit and
listened to the report of a vedette. "Fremont pushing forward. Horse
and guns and the German division. Hm!" He sat the bay stallion, looking
about him, then, "Cuninghame, you go back to General Ewell. Rear guard
can't be more than three miles away. Tell General Ewell about the
Germans and ask him to give me a little infantry. Hurry now, and if he
gives them, bring them up quickly!"
The vedette galloped eastward. Ashby and his men rode back to the ridge,
the Horse Artillery, the dead, the wounded, and the prisoners. The
latter numbered four officers and forty men. They were all in a group in
the sunshine, which lay with softness upon the short grass and the
little pine trees. The dead lay huddled, while over them flitted the
butterflies. Ashby's surgeons were busy with the wounded. A man with a
shattered jaw was making signs, deliberately talking in the
deaf-and-dumb alphabet, which perhaps he had learned for some friend or
relative's sake. A younger man, his hand clenched over a wound in the
breast, said monotonously, over and over again, "I am from Trenton, New
Jersey, I am from Trenton, New Jersey." A third with glazing eyes made
the sign of the cross, drew himself out of the sun, under one of the
little pine trees, and died. Some of the prisoners were silent. Others
talked with bravado to their captors. "Salisbury, North Carolina! That's
not far. Five hundred miles not far--Besides, Fremont will make a rescue
presently. And if he doesn't, Shields will to-morrow! Then off you
fellows go to Johnson's Island!" The officer who had led the charge sat
on a bank above the road. In the onset he had raged like a Berserker,
now he sat imperturbable, ruddy and stolid, an English philosopher on a
fallen pine. Ashby came back to the road, dismounting, and leading the
bay stallion, advanced. "Good-day, Colonel Wyndham."
"Good-day, General Ashby. War's a game. Somebody's got to lose. Only way
to stop loss is to stop war. You held the trumps--Damn me! You played
them well, too." His sword lay across his knees. He took it up and held
it out. Ashby made a gesture of refusal. "No. I don't want it. I am
about to send you to the rear. If there is anything I can do for you--"
"Thank you, general, there is nothing. Soldier of fortune. Fortune of
war. Bad place for a charge. Ought to have been more wary. Served me
right. You've got Bob Wheat with you? Know Bob Wheat. Find him in the
rear?"
"Yes. With General Ewell. And now as I am somewhat in haste--"
"You must bid me good-day! See you are caring for my wounded. Much
obliged. Dead will take care of themselves. Pretty little place!
Flowers, butterflies--large bronze one on your hat.--This our escort?
Perfectly true you'll have a fight presently. There's the New York
cavalry as well as the New Jersey--plenty of infantry--Pennsylvania
Bucktails and so forth. Wish I could see the scrimmage! Curious world!
Can't wish you good luck. Must wish you ill. However, good luck's
wrapped up in all kinds of curious bundles. Ready, men! General Ashby,
may I present Major Markham, Captain Bondurant, Captain Schmidt,
Lieutenant Colter? They will wish to remember having met you.--Now,
gentlemen, at your service!"
Prisoners and escort vanished over the hill. Ashby, remounting,
proceeded to make his dispositions, beginning with the Horse Artillery
which he posted on a rise of ground, behind a mask of black thorn and
dogwood. From the east arose the strains of fife and drum. "Maryland
Line," said the 6th, the 7th, and the 2d Virginia Cavalry.
I hear the distant thunder hum,
Maryland!
The old line bugle, fife and drum,
Maryland!
She breathes! She burns! she'll come! she'll come--
"Oh! here's the 58th, too! Give them a cheer, boys! Hurrah! 58th
Virginia! Hurrah! The Maryland Line!"
The two infantry regiments came forward at a double-quick, bright and
brisk, rifle barrels and bayonets gleaming in the now late sunshine,
their regimental flags azure and white, and beside them streaming the
red battle-flag with the blue cross. As they approached there also
began to show, at the edge of the forest which cut the western horizon,
the Federal horse and foot. Before these was a space of rolling fields,
then a ragged line of timber, a straggling copse of underbrush and tall
trees cresting a wave of earth. A body of blue cavalry started out of
the wood, across the field. At once Chew opened with the Blakeley and
the two Parrotts. There ensued confusion and the horse fell back. A blue
infantry regiment issued at a run, crossed the open and attained the
cover of the coppice which commanded the road and the eastern stretch of
fields. A second prepared to follow. The Maryland Line swung through the
woods with orders to flank this movement. Ashby galloped to the 58th.
"Forward, 58th, and clear that wood!" He rode on to Munford at the head
of the squadrons. "I am going to dislodge them from that cover. The
moment they leave it sound the charge!"
The 58th advanced steadily over the open. When it was almost upon the
coppice it fired, then fixed bayonets. The discharge had been aimed at
the wood merely. The shadows were lengthening, the undergrowth was
thick; they could not see their opponents. Suddenly the coppice blazed,
a well-directed and fatal volley. The regiment that held this wood had a
good record and meant to-day to better it. Its target was visible
enough, and close, full before it in the last golden light. A grey
officer fell, the sword that he had brandished described a shining curve
before it plunged into a clump of sumach. Five men lay upon the earth;
the colour-bearer reeled, then pitched forward. The man behind him
caught the colours. The 58th fired again, then, desperately, continued
its advance. Smoke and flame burst again from the coppice. A voice of
Stentor was heard. "Now Pennsylvania Bucktails, you're making history!
Do your durndest!"
"Close ranks!" shouted the officer of the 58th. "Close ranks! Forward!"
There came a withering volley. The second colour-bearer sank; a third
seized the standard. Another officer was down; there were gaps in the
ranks and under feet the wounded. The regiment wavered.
From the left came a bay stallion, devouring the earth, legs and head
one tawny line, distended nostril and red-lit eye. The rider loosened
from his shoulders a scarlet-lined cloak, lifted and shook it in the
air. It flared out with the wind of his coming, like a banner, or a
torch. He sent his voice before him, "Charge, men, charge!"
Spasmodically the 58th started forward. The copse, all dim and smoky,
flowered again, three hundred red points of fire. The sound was
crushing, startling, beating at the ear drum. The Bucktails were
shouting, "Come on, Johnny Reb! Go back, Johnny Reb! Don't know what you
want to do, do you, Johnny Reb?"
Ashby and the bay reached the front of the regiment. There was disorder,
wavering, from underfoot groans and cries. So wrapped in smoke was the
scene, so dusk, with the ragged and mournful woods hiding the low sun,
that it was hard to distinguish the wounded. It seemed as though it was
the earth herself complaining.
"On, on, men!" cried Ashby. "Help's coming--the Maryland Line!" There
was a wavering answer, half cheer, half-wailing cry, "_Ashby! Ashby!_"
Two balls pierced the bay stallion. He reared, screamed loudly, and fell
backward. Before he touched the earth the great horseman of the Valley
was clear of him. In the smoke and din Ashby leaped forward, waving the
red-lined cloak above his head. "Charge, men!" he cried. "For God's
sake, charge!" A bullet found his heart. He fell without a groan, his
hand and arm wrapped in the red folds.
From rank to rank there passed something like a sobbing cry. The 58th
charged. Bradley Johnson with the Maryland Line dislodged the Bucktails,
captured their colonel and many others, killed and wounded many. The
coppice, from soaked mould to smoky treetop, hung in the twilight like a
wood in Hades. It was full dusk when Fremont's advance drew back,
retreating sullenly to its camp at Harrisonburg. The stars were all out
when, having placed the body on a litter, Ashby's men carried Ashby to
Port Republic.