The Long Roll
when he fought in the morning. He sat as usual, bolt upright, large feet
squarely planted, large hands stiff at sides. On the table before him
were his sabre and Bible. Before him stood a group of officers. The
adjutant, Colonel Paxton, finished his report. The general nodded.
"Good! good! Well, Major Harman?"
The chief quartermaster saluted. "The trains, sir, had a good night.
There are clover fields on either side of the Staunton road and the
horses are eating their fill. A few have sore hoof and may have to be
left behind. I had the ordnance moved as you ordered, nearer the river.
An orderly came back last night from the convoy on the way to Staunton.
Sick and wounded standing it well. Prisoners slow marchers, but
marching. I sent this morning a string of wagons to Cross Keys, to
General Ewell. We had a stampede last night among the negro teamsters.
They were sitting in a ring around the fire, and an owl hooted or a bat
flitted. They had been telling stories of ha'nts, and they swore they
saw General Ashby galloping by on the white stallion."
"Poor, simple, ignorant creatures!" said Jackson. "There is no witch of
Endor can raise that horse and rider!--Major Hawks!"
The chief commissary came forward. "General Banks's stores are holding
out well, sir. We are issuing special rations to the men to-day--Sunday
dinner--fresh beef, rice and beans, canned fruits, coffee, sugar--"
"Good! good! They deserve the best.--Colonel Crutchfield--"
"I have posted Wooding's battery as you ordered, sir, on the brow of the
hill commanding the bridge. There's a gun of Courtney's disabled. I have
thought he might have the Parrott we captured day before yesterday.
Ammunition has been issued as ordered. Caissons all filled."
"Good!--Captain Boswell--Ah, Mr. Hotchkiss."
"Captain Boswell is examining the South Fork, sir, with a view to
finding the best place for the foot bridge you ordered constructed. I
have here the map you ordered me to draw."
"Good! Put it here on the table.--Now, Doctor McGuire."
"Very few reported sick this morning, sir. The good women of the village
are caring for those. Three cases of fever, two of pneumonia, some
dysentery, measles among the recruits. The medicines we got at
Winchester are invaluable; they and the better fare the men are getting.
Best of all is the consciousness of victory,--the confidence and
exaltation that all feel."
"Yes, doctor. God's shield is over us.--Captain Wilbourne--"
"I brought the signal party in from Peaked Mountain last night, sir. A
Yankee cavalry company threatened to cut us off. Had we stayed we should
have been captured. I trust, sir, that I acted rightly?"
"You acted rightly. You saw nothing of General Shields?"
"Nothing, sir. It is true that the woods for miles are extremely thick.
It would perhaps be possible for a small force to move unseen. But we
made out nothing."
Jackson rose and drew closer the sabre and the Bible. "That is all,
gentlemen. After religious services you will return to your respective
duties."
The sun was now above the mountain tops, the mist beginning to lift. It
lay heavily, however, over the deep woods and the bottom lands of the
South Fork, through which ran the Luray road, and on the South Fork
itself.--Clatter, clatter! Shots and cries! Shouting the alarm as they
came, splashing through the ford, stopping on the hither bank for one
scattering volley back into the woolly veil, came Confederate infantry
pickets and vedettes. "Yankee cavalry! Look out! Look out! Yankees!" In
the mist the foremost man ran against the detail from the 65th. Coffin
seized him. "Where? where?" The other gasped. "Coming! Drove us in!
Whole lot of them! Got two guns. All of Shields, I reckon, right
behind!" He broke away, tearing with his fellows into the village.
Sergeant Coffin and his men stared into the mist. They heard a great
splashing, a jingling and shouting, and in another instant were aware of
something looming like a herd of elephants. From the village behind them
burst the braying of their own bugles--headquarters summoning, baggage
train on the Staunton road summoning. The sound was shrill, insistent.
The shapes in the mist grew larger. There came a flash of rifles, pale
yellow through the drift as of lawn. Zzzzzz! Zzzzzz! sang the balls. The
twenty men of the 65th proceeded to save themselves. Some of them tore
down a side street, straight before the looming onrush. Others leaped
fences and brushed through gardens, rich and dank. Others found house
doors suddenly and quietly opening before them, houses with capacious
dark garrets and cellars. All the dim horde, more and more of it, came
splashing through the ford. A brazen rumbling arose, announcing guns.
The foremost of the horde, blurred of outline, preternaturally large,
huzzaing and firing, charged into the streets of Port Republic.
In a twinkling the village passed from her Sunday atmosphere to one of a
highly work-a-day Monday. The blue cavalry began to harry the place. The
townspeople hurried home, trumpets blared, shots rang out, oaths, shouts
of warning! Men in grey belonging with the wagon train ran headlong
toward their posts, others made for headquarters where the flag was and
Stonewall Jackson. A number, headed off, were captured at once. Others,
indoors when the alarm arose, were hidden by the women. Three staff
officers had walked, after leaving Jackson's council, toward a house
holding pretty daughters whom they meant to take to church. When the
clangour broke out they had their first stupefied moment, after which
they turned and ran with all their might toward headquarters. There was
fighting up and down the street. Half a dozen huzzaing and sabring
troopers saw the three and shouted to others nearer yet. "Officers! Cut
them off, you there!" The three were taken. A captain, astride of a
great reeking horse, towered above them. "Staff? You're staff? Is
Jackson in the town?--and where? Quick now! Eh--what!"
"That's a lovely horse. Looks exactly, I imagine, like Rozinante--"
"On the whole I should say that McClellan might be finding Richmond like
those mirages travellers tell about. The nearer he gets to it the
further it is away."
"It has occurred to me that if after the evacuation of Corinth
Beauregard should come back to Virginia--"
The captain in blue, hot and breathless, bewildered by the very success
of the dash into town, kept saying, "Where is Jackson? What? Quick
there, you! Where--" Behind him a corporal spoke out cavalierly. "They
aren't going to tell you, sir. There's a large house down there that's
got something like a flag before it--I think, too, that we ought to go
take the bridge."
The streams of blue troopers flowed toward the principal street and
united there. Some one saw the flag more plainly. "That's a
headquarters!--What if Jackson were there? Good Lord! what if we took
Jackson?" A bugler blew a vehement rally. "_All of you, come on! All of
you, come on!_" The stream increased in volume, began to move, a compact
body, down the street. "There are horses before that door! Look at that
nag! That's Jackson's horse!--No."--"Yes! Saw it at Kernstown! Forward!"
Stonewall Jackson came out of the house with the flag before it. Behind
him were those of his staff who had not left headquarters when the
invasion occurred, while, holding the horses before the door, waited,
white-lipped, a knot of most anxious orderlies. One brought Little
Sorrel. Jackson mounted with his usual slow deliberation, then, turning
in the saddle, looked back to the shouting blue horsemen. They saw him
and dug spurs into flanks. First he pulled the forage cap over his eyes
and then he jerked his hand into the air. These gestures executed he
touched Little Sorrel with the rowel and, his suite behind him, started
off down the street toward the bridge over the Shenandoah. One would not
have said that he went like a swift arrow. There was, indeed, an effect
of slowness, of a man traversing, in deep thought, a solitary plain. But
for all that, he went so fast that the space between him and the enemy
did not decrease. They came thunderingly on, a whole Federal charge--but
he kept ahead. Seeing that he did so, they began to discharge carbine
and pistol, some aiming at Little Sorrel, some at the grey figure riding
stiffly, bolt upright and elbows out. Little Sorrel shook his head,
snorted, and went on. Ahead loomed the bridge, a dusky, warm, gold-shot
tunnel below an arch of weather-beaten wood. Under it rolled with a
heavy sound the Shenandoah. Across the river, upon the green hilltops,
had arisen a commotion. All the drums were beating the long roll.
Stonewall Jackson and Little Sorrel came on the trodden rise of earth
leading to the bridge mouth. The blue cavalry shouted and spurred. Their
carbines cracked. The balls pockmarked the wooden arch. Jackson dragged
the forage cap lower and disappeared within the bridge. The four or five
with him turned and drew across the gaping mouth.
The blue cavalry came on, firing as they came. Staff and orderlies, the
grey answered with pistols. Behind, in the bridge, sounded the hollow
thunder of Little Sorrel's hoofs. The sound grew fainter. Horse and
rider were nearly across. Staff and orderlies fired once again, then,
just as the blue were upon them, turned, dug spur, shouted, and
disappeared beneath the arch.
The Federal cavalry, massed before the bridge and in the field to either
side, swore and swore, "He's out!--Jackson's out! There he goes--up the
road! Fire!--Damn it all, what's the use? He's charmed. We almost got
him! Good Lord! We'd all have been major-generals!"
A patrol galloped up. "They've got a great wagon train, sir, at the
other end of the village--ordnance reserve, supply, everything! It is in
motion. It's trying to get off by the Staunton road."
The cavalry divided. A strong body stayed by the bridge, while one as
large turned and galloped away. Those staying chafed with impatience.
"Why don't the infantry come up--damned creeping snails!"--"Yes, we
could cross, but when we got to the other side, what then?--No, don't
dare to burn the bridge--don't know what the general would
say."--"Listen to those drums over there! If Stonewall Jackson brings
all those hornets down on us!"--"If we had a gun--Speak of the
angels!--Unlimber right here, lieutenant!--Got plenty of canister? Now
if the damned infantry would only come on! Thought it was just behind us
when we crossed the ford--What's that off there?"
"That" was a sharp sputter of musketry. "Firing! Who are they firing at?
There aren't any rebels--we took them all prisoners--"
"There's fighting, anyway--wagon escort, maybe. The devil! Look across
the river! Look! All the hornets are coming down--"
Of the detail from the 65th Coffin and two others stood their ground
until the foremost of the herd was crossing the ford near at hand,
large, threatening, trumpeting. Then the three ran like hares, hearts
pounding at their sides, the ocean roaring in their ears, and in every
cell in their bodies an accurate impression that they had been seen, and
that the trumpeting herd meant to run down, kill or capture every grey
soldier in Port Republic! Underfoot was wet knot grass, difficult and
slippery; around was the shrouding mist. They thought the lane ran
through to another street, but it proved a cul-de-sac. Something rose
mistily before them; it turned out to be a cowshed. They flung
themselves against the door, but the door was padlocked. Behind the
shed, between it and a stout board fence, sprang a great clump of wet
elder, tall and rank, with spreading leaves; underneath, black, miry
earth. Into this they crowded, squatted on the earth, turned face toward
the passage up which they had come, and brought their rifles to the