The Long Roll
He lay at midnight in a room of an old house of the place. They had laid
him upon a narrow bed, an old, single four-poster, with tester and
valance. The white canopy above, the fall of the white below had an
effect of sculptured stone. The whole looked like an old tomb in some
dim abbey. The room was half in light, half in darkness. The village
women had brought flowers; of these there was no lack. All the blossoms
of June were heaped about him. He lay in uniform, upon the red-lined
cloak, his plumed hat beside him, his sword in his hand. His staff
watched in the room, seated with bowed heads beside the open window. An
hour before dawn some one spoke to the sentry without the door, then
gently turned the handle and entered the chamber. The watchers arose,
stood at salute. "Kindly leave General Ashby and me alone together for a
little while, gentlemen," said the visitor. The officers filed out. The
last one turning softly to close the door saw Jackson kneel.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE BRIDGE AT PORT REPUBLIC
The seventh of June was passed by the Army of the Valley in a quiet that
seemed unnatural. For fifteen days, north from Front Royal to Harper's
Ferry, south from Harper's Ferry to Port Republic, cannon had thundered,
musketry rattled. Battle here and battle there, and endless skirmishing!
"One male and three foights a day," said Wheat's Irishmen. But this
Saturday there was no fighting. The cavalry watched both flanks of the
Massanuttons. The main army rested in the rich woods that covered the
hills above the North Fork of the Shenandoah. Headquarters were in the
village across the river, spanned by a covered bridge. Three miles to
the northwest Ewell's division was strongly posted near the hamlet of
Cross Keys. From the great south peak of the Massanuttons a signal party
looked down upon Fremont's road from Harrisonburg, and upon the road by
which Shields must emerge from the Luray Valley. The signal officer,
looking through his glass, saw also a road that ran from Port Republic
by Brown's Gap over the Blue Ridge into Albemarle, and along this road
moved a cortege--soldiers with the body of Ashby. The dead general's
mother was in Winchester. They would have taken him there, but could
not, for Fremont's army was between. So, as seemed next most fit, they
carried him across the mountains into Albemarle, to the University of
Virginia. Up on Massanutton the signal officer's hand shook. He lowered
his glass and cleared his throat: "War's a short word to say all it
says--"
Fremont rested at Harrisonburg after yesterday's repulse. On the other
side of Massanutton was Shields, moving south from Luray under the
remarkable impression that Jackson was at Rude's Hill and Fremont
effectively dealing with the "demoralized rebels." On the sixth he began
to concentrate his troops near where had been Columbia Bridge. On the
seventh he issued instructions to his advance guard.
_"The enemy passed New Market on the 5th. Benker's Division in pursuit.
The enemy has flung away everything, and their stragglers fill the
mountains. They need only a movement on the flank to panic-strike them,
and break them into fragments. No man has had such a chance since the
war commenced. You are within thirty miles of a broken, retreating
enemy, who still hangs together. Ten thousand Germans are on his rear,
who hang on like bull dogs. You have only to throw yourself down on
Waynesborough before him, and your cavalry will capture thousands, seize
his train and abundant supplies."_
In chase of this so beautiful a chance Shields set forth down the
eastern side of Massanutton, with intent to round the mountain at Port
Republic, turn north again, and somewhere on the Valley pike make that
will-o'-the-wisp junction with Fremont and stamp out rebellion. But of
late it had rained much, and the roads were muddy and the streams
swollen. His army was split into sections; here a brigade and there a
brigade, the advance south of Conrad's Store, the rear yet at Luray. He
had, however, the advantage of moving through leagues of forest, heavy,
shaggy, dense. It was not easy to observe the details of his operations.
Sunday morning dawned. A pearly mist wrapped the North Fork and the
South Fork of the Shenandoah, and clung to the shingle roofs and bowery
trees of the village between. The South Fork was shallow and could be
forded. The North Fork was deep and strong and crossed by a covered
bridge. Toward the bridge now, winding down from the near-by height on
which the brigade had camped, came a detail from the 65th--twenty men
led by Sergeant Mathew Coffin. They were chiefly Company A men, and they
were going to relieve the pickets along the South Fork. Thanks to Mr.
Commissary Banks, they had breakfasted well. The men were happy, not
hilariously so, but in a placid, equable fashion. As they came down,
over the wet grass, from the bluff, they talked. "Mist over the
Shenandoah's just like mist over the James"--"No, 'tisn't! Nothing's
like mist over the James."--"Well, the bridge's like the bridge at home,
anyway!"--"'Tisn't much like it. Hasn't got sidewalks inside."--"Yes, it
has!"--"No, it hasn't!"--"I know better, I've been through it."--"I've
been through it twice't--was through it after Elk Run, a month
ago!"--"Well, it hasn't got sidewalks, anyway,"--"I tell you it
has."--"You 're mistaken!"--"I'm not."--"You never did see straight
nohow!"--"If I was at home I'd thrash you!"
Mathew Coffin turned his head. "Who's that jowering back there? Stop it!
Sunday morning and all!"
He went on, holding his head straight, a trig, slender figure, breathing
irritation. His oval face with its little black moustache was set as
hard as its boyish curves permitted, and his handsome dark eyes had two
parallel lines above them. He marched as he marched always nowadays,
with a mien aggrieved and haughty. He never lost the consciousness that
he was wearing chevrons who had worn bars, and he was quite convinced
that the men continually compared his two states.
The progress down hill to the bridge was short. Before the party the
long, tunnel-like, weather-beaten structure loomed through the mist. The
men entered and found it dusk and warm, smelling of horses, the river,
fifteen feet below, showing through the cracks between the heavy logs of
the floor. The marching feet sounded hollowly, voices reverberated.
"Just like our bridge--told you 'twas--Ain't it like, Billy Maydew?"
"It air," said Billy. "I air certainly glad that we air a-crossing on a
bridge. The Shenandoah air a prop-o-si-tion to swim."
"How did you feel, Billy, when you got away?"
"At first, just like school was out," said Billy. "But when a whole
picket post started after me, 'n' I run fer it, 'n' the trees put out
arms to stop me, 'n' the dewberry, crawling on the ground, said to
itself, 'Hello! Let's make a trap'; 'n' when the rail fences all
hollered out, 'We're goin' to turn agin you!' 'n' when a bit of swamp
hollered louder than any, 'Let's suck down Billy Maydew--suck down Billy
Maydew!' 'n' when a lot o' bamboo vines running over cedars, up with
'Hold him fast until you hear a bullet whizzing!' 'n' I got to the
Shenandoah and there wa'n't no bridge, 'n' the Shenandoah says 'I'd just
as soon drown men as look at them!'--when all them things talked so, I
knew just how the critturs feel in the woods; 'n' I ain't so crazy about
hunting as I was--and I say again this here air a most con-ve-ni-ent
bridge."
With his musket butt he struck the boarded side. The noise was so
resoundingly greater than he had expected that he laughed and the men
with him. Now Sergeant Mathew Coffin was as nervous as a witch. He had
been marching along with his thoughts moodily hovering over the battery
he would take almost single-handed, or the ambush he would dislodge and
so procure promotion indeed. At the noise of the stick he started
violently. "Who did that? Oh, I see, and I might have known it! I'll
report you for extra duty--"
"Report ahead," said Billy, under his breath.
Coffin halted. "What was that you said, Maydew?"
"I didn't speak to you--sir."
"Well, you'll speak to me now. What was it you said then?" He came
nearer, his arm thrown up, though but in an angry gesture. "If I struck
you," thought Billy, "I'd be sorry for it, so I won't do it. But one
thing's sure--I certainly should like to!"
"If you don't answer me," said Coffin thickly, "I'll report you for
disobedience as well as for disorderly conduct! What was it you said
then?"
"I said, 'Report ahead--and be damned to you!'"
Coffin's lips shut hard. "Very good! We'll see how three days of
guardhouse tastes to you!--Forward!"
The party cleared the bridge and almost immediately found itself in the
straggling village street. The mist clung here as elsewhere, houses and
trees dim shapes, the surrounding hills and the dense woods beyond the
South Fork hardly seen at all. Coffin marched with flushed face and his
brows drawn together. He was mentally writing a letter on pale blue
paper, and in it he was enlarging upon ingratitude. The men sympathized
with Billy and their feet sounded resentfully upon the stones. Billy
alone marched with elaborate lightness, quite as though he were walking
on air and loved the very thought of the guardhouse.
Headquarters was an old corner house that had flung open its doors to
General Jackson with an almost tremulous eagerness. A flag waved before
the door, and there was a knot beneath of couriers and orderlies, with
staff officers coming and going. Opposite was a store, closed of course
upon Sunday, but boasting a deep porch with benches, to say nothing of
convenient kegs and boxes. Here the village youth and age alike found
business to detain them. The grey-headed exchanged remarks. "Sleep? No,
I couldn't sleep! Might as well see what's to be seen! I ain't got long
to see anything, and so I told Susan. When's he coming out?--Once't when
I was a little shaver like Bob, sitting on the scales there, I went with
my father in the stage-coach to Fredericksburg, I remember just as
well--and I was sitting before the tavern on a man's knee,--old man
'twas, for he said he had fought the Indians,--and somebody came riding
down the street, with two or three others. I jus' remember a blue coat
and a cocked hat and that his hair was powdered--and the man put me down
and got up, and everybody else before the tavern got up--and somebody
holloaed out 'Hurrah for General Washington--'"
There was a stir about the opposite door. An aide came out, mounted and
rode off toward the bridge. An orderly brought a horse from the
neighbouring stable. "That's his! That's General Jackson's!--Don't look
like the war horse in Job, does he now?--Looks like a doctor's
horse--Little Sorrel's his name." The small boy surged forward. "He's
coming out!"--"How do you know him?"--"G' way! You always know generals
when you see them! Great, big men, all trimmed up with gold. Besides, I
saw him last night."--"You didn't!"--"Yes, I did! Saw his shadow on the
curtain."--"How did you know 'twas his?"--"My mother said, 'Look, John,
and don't never forget. That's Stonewall Jackson.' And it was a big
shadow walking up and down, and it raised its hand--"
The church bell rang. A chaplain came out of the house. He had a Bible
in his hand, and he beamed on all around. "There's the first bell,
gentlemen--the bell, children! Church in a church, just like before we
went to fighting! Trust you'll all come, gentlemen, and you, too, boys!
The general hopes you'll all come."
Within headquarters, in a large bare room, Jackson was having his
customary morning half-hour with his heads of departments--an invariably
recurring period in his quiet and ordered existence. It was omitted only