The Long Roll
your presence, please let me know, that you may unite at the
decisive moment with the army near Richmond._"
It may be safely assumed that these directions could have been given to
no man more scrupulously truthful in the least of his personal
relations, and to no commander in war more gifted in all that pertains
to "deceiving the enemy and impressing him with an idea of your
presence." Infantry and artillery, the Army of the Valley rested at Mt.
Meridian under noble trees. The cavalry moved to Harrisonburg. Munford
had succeeded Ashby in command, and Munford came to take his orders from
his general. He found him with the dictionary, the Bible, the Maxims,
and a lemon.
"You will draw a cordon quite across, north of Harrisonburg. See, from
here to here." He drew a map toward him and touched two points with a
strong, brown finger.
"Very well, sir."
"You will arrest all travellers up and down the Valley. None is to pass,
going north or going south."
"Very well, sir."
"I wish the cavalry outposts to have no communication with the infantry.
If they know nothing of the latter's movements they cannot accidentally
transmit information. You will give this order, and you will be held
accountable for its non-obedience."
"Very well, sir."
"You will proceed to act with boldness masking caution. Press the
outposts of the enemy and, if possible, drive him still further
northward." He broke off and sucked the lemon.
"Very well, sir."
"Create in him the impression that you are strongly supported. Drive it
into his mind that I am about to advance against him. General Lee is
sending reinforcements from Richmond. I do not object to his knowing
this, nor to his having an exaggerated idea of their number. You will
regard these instructions as important."
"I will do my best, sir."
"Good, good! That is all, colonel."
Munford returned to Harrisonburg, drew his cordon across the Valley, and
pushed his outposts twelve miles to the northward. Here they encountered
a Federal flag of truce, an officer with several surgeons, and a demand
from Fremont for the release of his wounded men. The outposts passed the
embassy on to Munford's headquarters at Harrisonburg. That cavalryman
stated that he would take pleasure in forwarding General Fremont's
demand to General Jackson. "Far? Oh, no! it is not far." In the mean
time it was hoped that the Federal officers would find such and such a
room comfortable lodging. They found it so, discovered, too, that it was
next to Munford's own quarters, and that the wall between was
thin--nothing more, indeed, than a slight partition. An hour or two
later the Federal officers, sitting quietly, heard the Confederate
cavalryman enter, ask for writing materials, demand of an aide if the
courier had yet returned from General Jackson, place himself at a table
and fall to writing. One of the blue soldiers tiptoed to the wall, found
a chair conveniently placed and sat down with his ear to the boards. For
five minutes, scratch, scratch! went Munford's pen. At the expiration of
this time there was heard in the hall without a jingling of spurs and a
clanking of a sabre. The scratching ceased; the pen was evidently
suspended. "Come in!" The listeners in the next room heard more
jingling, a heavy entrance, Munford's voice again.
"Very good, Gilmer. What did the general say?"
"He says, sir, that General Fremont is to be told that our surgeons will
continue to attend their wounded. As we are not monsters they will be as
carefully attended to as are our own. The only lack in the matter will
be medicines and anaesthetics."
"Very good, Gilmer, I will so report to the officer in charge of the
flag of truce.--Well, what is it, man? You look as though you were
bursting with news!"
"I am, sir! Whiting, and Hood, and Lawton, and the Lord knows who
besides, are coming over the Rockfish Gap! I saw them with my own eyes
on the Staunton road. About fifteen thousand, I reckon, of Lee's best.
Gorgeous batteries--gorgeous troops--Hood's Texans--thousands of
Georgians--all of them playing 'Dixie,' and hurrahing, and asking
everybody they see to point out Jackson!--No, sir, I'm not dreaming! I
know we thought that they couldn't get here for several days yet--but
here they are! Good Lord! I wouldn't, for a pretty, miss the hunting
down the Valley!"
The blue soldiers heard Munford and the courier go out. An hour later
they were conducted to the colonel's presence. "I am sorry, major, but
General Jackson declines acceding to General Fremont's request. He
says--"
The party with the flag of truce went back to Fremont. They went like
Lieutenant Gilmer, "bursting with news." The next day Munford pushed his
advance to New Market. Fremont promptly broke up his camp, retired to
Strasburg, and began to throw up fortifications. His spies brought
bewilderingly conflicting reports. A deserter, who a little later
deserted back again, confided to him that Stonewall Jackson was simply
another Cromwell; that he was making his soldiers into Ironsides: that
they were Presbyterian to a man, and believed that God Almighty had
planned this campaign and sent Jackson to execute it; that he--the
deserter--being of cavalier descent, couldn't stand it and "got out."
There was an affair of outposts, in which several prisoners were taken.
These acknowledged that a very large force of cavalry occupied
Harrisonburg, and that Jackson was close behind, having rebuilt the
bridge at Fort Republic across the Shenandoah, and advanced by the
Keezletown road. An old negro shambled one morning into the lines.
"Yaas, sah, dat's de truf! I ain' moughty unlike ol' Brer Eel. I
cert'ny slipped t'roo dat 'cordion Gineral Jackson am er stretchin'! How
many on de oder side, sah? 'Bout er half er million." Fremont
telegraphed and wrote to Washington. "The condition of affairs here
imperatively requires that some position be immediately made strong
enough to be maintained. Reinforcements should be sent here without an
hour's delay. Whether from Richmond or elsewhere, forces of the enemy
are certainly coming into this region. Casualties have reduced my force.
The small corps scattered about the country are exposed to sudden attack
by greatly superior force of an enemy to whom intimate knowledge of
country and universal friendship of inhabitants give the advantage of
rapidity and secrecy of movements. I respectfully submit this
representation to the President, taking it for granted that it is the
duty of his generals to offer for his consideration such impressions as
are made by knowledge gained in operations on the ground."
South of the impenetrable grey curtain stretched across the Valley began
a curious series of moves. A number of Federal prisoners on their way
from Port Republic to Richmond, saw pass them three veteran brigades.
The guards were good-naturedly communicative. "Who are those? Those are
Whiting and Hood and Lawton on their way to reinforce Stonewall. If we
didn't have to leave this railroad you might see Longstreet's
Division--it's just behind. How can Lee spare it?--Oh, Beauregard's up
from the South to take its place!" The prisoners arrived in Richmond. To
their surprise and gratification the officers found themselves paroled,
and that at once. They had a glimpse of an imposing review; they passed,
under escort, lines of entrenchments, batteries, and troops; their
passage northward to McDowell's lines at Fredericksburg was facilitated.
In a remarkably short space of time they were in Washington, insisting
that Longstreet had gone to the Valley, and that Beauregard was up from
the South--they had an impression that in that glimpse of a big review
they had seen him! Certainly they had seen somebody who looked as though
his name ought to be Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard!
In the mean time Hood, Lawton, and Whiting actually arrived in the
Valley. They came into Staunton, in good order, veteran troops, ready
to march against Shields or Fremont or Banks or Sigel, to keep the
Valley or to proceed against Washington, quite as Stonewall Jackson
should desire! Seven thousand troops, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina,
and Virginia, lean, bronzed, growing ragged, tall men, with eyes set
well apart, good marchers, good fighters, good lovers, and good
haters.--There suddenly appeared before them on the pike at Staunton
Stonewall Jackson, ridden through the night from Mt. Meridian.
The three brigades paraded. Jackson rode up and down the line. His fame
had mounted high. To do with a few men and at a little cost what, by all
the rules of war, should have involved strong armies and much
bloodshed--that took a generalship for which the world was beginning to
give him credit. With Cross Keys and Port Republic began that sustained
enthusiasm which accompanied him to the end. Now, on the march and on
the battlefield, when he passed his men cheered him wildly, and
throughout the South the eyes of men and women kindled at his name. At
Staunton the reinforcing troops, the greater number of whom saw him for
the first time, shouted for him and woke the echoes. Grave and
unsmiling, he lifted the forage cap, touched Little Sorrel with the spur
and went on by. It is not to be doubted that he was ambitious, and it
lies not in ambitious man, no, nor in man of any type, to feel no joy in
such a cry of recognition! If he felt it, however, he did not evince it.
He only jerked his hand into the air and went by.
Two hours later he rode back to Mt. Meridian. The three brigades under
orders to follow, stayed only to cook a day's rations and to repack
their wagons. Their certainty was absolute. "We will join the Army of
the Valley _wherever it may be_. Then we will march against Shields or
Fremont, or maybe against Banks or Sigel."
Breaking camp in the afternoon, they moved down the pike, through a
country marvellous to the Georgians and Texans. Sunset came, and still
they marched; dark, and still they marched; midnight, and, extremely
weary, they halted in a region of hills running up to the stars.
Reveille sounded startlingly soon. The troops had breakfast while the
stars were fading, and found themselves in column on the pike under the
first pink streakings of the dawn. They looked around for the Army of
the Valley. A little to the northeast showed a few light curls of
smoke, such as might be made by picket fires. They fancied, too, that
they heard, from behind the screen of hills, faint bugle-calls, bugle
answering bugle, like the cocks at morn. If it were so, they were thin
and far away, "horns of elfland." Evidently the three brigades must
restrain their impatience for an hour or two.
In the upshot it proved that they were not yet to fraternize with the
Army of the Valley. When presently, they marched, it was _up_ the
Valley, back along the pike toward Staunton. The three brigadiers
conferred together. Whiting, the senior, a veteran soldier, staunch and
determined, was angry. "Reasonable men should not be treated so! 'You
will start at four, General Whiting, and march until midnight, when you
will bivouac. At early dawn a courier will bring you further
instructions.' Very good! We march and bivouac, and here's the courier.
'The brigades of Whiting, Hood, and Lawton will return to Staunton.
There they will receive further instructions.'" Whiting swore. "We are
getting a taste of his quality with a vengeance! Very well! very well!
It's all right--if he wins through I'll applaud, too--but, by God! he
oughtn't to treat reasonable men so!--_Column Forward!_"
Under the stately trees at Mt. Meridian, in the golden June weather, the
Army of the Valley settled to its satisfaction that it was about to
invade Maryland. Quite an unusual number of straws showed which way the
wind was blowing. Northern news arrived by grapevine, and Northern