The Long Roll
papers told the army that was what it was going to do,--"invade Maryland
and move on Washington--sixty thousand bloody-minded rebels!"--"Look
here, boys, look here. Multiplication by division! The Yanks have split
each of us into four!" Richmond papers, received by way of Staunton,
divulged the fact that troops had been sent to the Valley, and opined
that the other side of Mason and Dixon needed all the men at home. The
engineers received an order to prepare a new and elaborate series of
maps of the Valley. They were not told to say nothing about it, so
presently the army knew that Old Jack was having every rabbit track and
rail fence put down on paper. "Poor old Valley! won't she have a
scouring!"
The sole question was, when would the operations begin. The "foot
cavalry" grew tired of verdant meads, June flowers, and warbling birds.
True, there were clear streams and Mr. Commissary Banks's soap, and the
clothes got gloriously washed! Uniforms, too, got cleaned and patched.
"Going calling. Must make a show!" and shoes were cobbled. (Cartridge
boxes surreptitiously cut to pieces for this.) Morning drills occurred
of course, and camp duties and divine services; but for all these
diversions the army wearied of Mt. Meridian, and wanted to march. Twenty
miles a day--twenty-five--even thirty if Old Jack put a point on it! The
foot cavalry drew the line at thirty-five. It had tried this once, and
once was enough! In small clasped diaries, the front leaves given over
to a calendar, a table of weights and measures, a few 1850 census
returns, and the list of presidents of the United States, stopping at
James Buchanan, the army recorded that nothing of interest happened at
Mt. Meridian and that the boys were tired of loafing.
"How long were they going to stay?" The men pestered the company
officers, the company asked the regimental, field asked staff, staff
shook its head and had no idea, a brigadier put the question to
Major-General Ewell and Old Dick made a statement which reached the
drummer boys that evening. "We are resting here for just a few days
until all the reinforcements are in, and then we will proceed to beat up
Banks's quarters again about Strasburg and Winchester."
On the morning of the seventeenth there was read a general order. "_Camp
to be more strictly policed. Regimental and brigade drill ordered.
Bridge to be constructed across the Shenandoah. Chapel to be erected.
Day of fasting and prayer for the success of our arms on the
Mississippi._"--"Why, we are going to stay here forever!" The regimental
commanders, walking away from drill, each found himself summoned to the
presence of his brigadier. "Good-morning, colonel! Just received this
order. 'Cook two days' rations and pack your wagons. Do it quietly.'"
By evening the troops were in motion, Ewell's leading brigade standing
under arms upon a country road, the red sunset thrown back from every
musket barrel. The brigadier approached Old Dick where he sat Rifle
beneath a locust tree. "Might I be told in which direction, sir--"
Ewell looked at him with his bright round eyes, bobbed his head and
swore. "By God! General Taylor! I do not know whether we are to march
north, south, east, or west, or to march at all!" There was shouting
down the line. "Either Old Jack or a rabbit!" Five minutes, and Jackson
came by. "You will march south, General Ewell."
The three brigades of Whiting, Hood, and Lawton, having, like the King
of France, though not with thirty thousand men, marched up the hill and
down again, found at Staunton lines of beautifully shabby Virginia
Central cars, the faithful, rickety engines, the faithful, overworked,
thin-faced railroad men, and a sealed order from General Jackson. "_Take
the cars and go to Gordonsville. Go at once._" The reinforcements from
Lee left the Valley of Virginia without having laid eyes upon the army
they were supposed to strengthen. They had heard its bugles over the
hilltops--that was all.
The Army of the Valley marched south, and at Waynesboro struck the road
through Rockfish Gap. Moving east through magnificent scenery, it passed
the wall of the Blue Ridge and left for a time the Valley of Virginia.
Cavalry went before the main body, cavalry guarded the rear, far out on
the northern flank rode Munford's troopers. At night picket duty proved
heavy. In the morning, before the bivouacs were left, the troops were
ordered to have no conversation with chance-met people upon the road.
"If anybody asks you questions, you are to answer, I don't know." The
troops went on through lovely country, through the June weather, and
they did not know whither they were going. "Wandering in the
wilderness!" said the men. "Good Lord! they wandered in the wilderness
for forty years!" "Oh, that was Moses! Old Jack'll double-quick us
through on half-rations in three days!"
The morning of the nineteenth found the army bivouacked near
Charlottesville. An impression prevailed--Heaven knows how or why--that
Banks had also crossed the Blue Ridge, and that the army was about to
move to meet him in Madison County. In reality, it moved to
Gordonsville. Here it found Whiting, Hood, and Lawton come in by train
from Staunton. Now they fraternized, and now the army numbered
twenty-two thousand men. At Gordonsville some hours were spent in
wondering. One of the chaplains was, however, content. The Presbyterian
pastor of the place told him in deep confidence that he had gathered at
headquarters that at early dawn the army would move toward Orange Court
House and Culpeper, thence on to Washington. The army moved at early
dawn, but it was toward Louisa Court House.
Cavalry, artillery, and wagon trains proceeded by the red and heavy
roads, but from Gordonsville on the Virginia Central helped the infantry
as best it might. The cars were few and the engine almost as overworked
as the train men, but the road did its best. The trains moved back and
forth, took up in succession the rear brigade and forwarded them on the
march. The men enjoyed these lifts. They scrambled aboard, hung out of
the window, from the platform and from roof, encouraged the engine,
offered to push the train, and made slighting remarks on the tameness of
the scenery. "Not like God's country, back over the mountains!" They
yelled encouragement to the toiling column on the red roads. "Step
spryer! Your turn next!"
Being largely Valley of Virginia Virginians, Louisianians, Georgians,
Texans, and North Carolinians, the army had acquaintance slight or none
with the country through which it was passing. Gordonsville left behind,
unfamiliarity began. "What's this county? What's that place over there?
What's that river? Can't be the Potomac, can it? Naw, 't aint wide
enough!"--"Gentlemen, I think it is the Rappahannock."--"Go away! it is
the headwaters of the York."--"Rapidan maybe, or Rivanna."--"Probably
Pamunkey, or the Piankatank,
Where the bullfrogs jump from bank to bank."
"Why not say the James?"--"Because it isn't. We know the James."--"Maybe
it's the Chickahominy! I'm sure we've marched far enough! Think I hear
McClellan's cannon, anyhow!"--"Say, captain, is that the river
Dan?"--"_Forbidden to give names!_"--"Good Lord! I'd like to see--no, I
wouldn't like to see Old Jack in the Inquisition!"--"I was down here
once and I think it is the South Anna."--"It couldn't be--it couldn't be
Acquia Creek, boys?"--"Acquia Creek! Absurd! You aren't even warm!"--"It
might be the North Anna."--"Gentlemen, cease this idle discussion. It is
the Tiber!"
On a sunny morning, somewhere in this _terra incognita_, one of Hood's
Texans chanced, during a halt, to stray into a by-road where an
ox-heart cherry tree rose lusciously, above a stake and rider fence. The
Texan looked, set his musket against the rails, and proceeded to mount
to a green and leafy world where the cherries bobbed against his nose. A
voice came to him from below. "What are you doing up there, sir?"
The Texan settled himself astride a bough. "I don't really know."
"Don't know! To what command do you belong?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know! What is your State?"
"Really and truly, I don't--O Lord!" The Texan scrambled down, saluted
most shamefacedly. The horseman looked hard and grim enough. "Well, sir,
what is the meaning of this? And can you give me any reason why you
should not mount guard for a month?"
Tears were in the Texan's eyes. "General, general! I didn't know 't was
you! Give you my word, sir, I thought it was just anybody! We've had
orders every morning to say, 'I don't know'--and it's gotten to be a
joke--and I was just fooling. Of course, sir, I don't mean that it has
gotten to be a joke--only that we all say 'I don't know' when we ask
each other questions, and I hope, sir, that you'll understand that I
didn't know that 't was you--"
"I understand," said Jackson. "You might get me a handful of cherries."
On the twenty-first the leading brigades reached Fredericksburg.
"To-morrow is Sunday," said the men. "That ought to mean a battle!"
While wood and water were being gotten that evening, a rumour went like
a zephyr from company to company: "We'll wait here until every regiment
is up. Then we'll move north to Fredericksburg and meet McDowell."
The morrow came, a warm, bright Sunday. The last brigade got up, the
artillery arrived, the head of the ammunition train appeared down the
road. There were divine services, but no battle. The men rested,
guessing Fredericksburg and McDowell, guessing Richmond and McClellan,
guessing return to the Valley and Shields, Fremont, Banks, and Sigel.
They knew now that they were within fifty miles of Richmond; but if they
were going there anyhow, why--why--why in the name of common sense had
General Lee sent Whiting, Hood, and Lawton to the Valley? Was it
reasonable to suppose that he had marched them a hundred and twenty
miles just to march them back a hundred and twenty miles? The men agreed
that it wasn't common sense. Still, a number had Richmond firmly fixed
in their minds. Others conceived it not impossible that the Army of the
Valley might be on its way to Tennessee to take Memphis, or even to
Vicksburg, to sweep the foe from Mississippi. The men lounged beneath
the trees, or watched the weary Virginia Central bringing in the fag end
of things. Fredericksburg was now the road's terminus; beyond, the line
had been destroyed by a cavalry raid of McClellan's.
Stonewall Jackson made his headquarters in a quiet home, shaded with
trees and with flowers in the yard. Sunday evening the lady of the house
sent a servant to the room where he sat with his chief of staff. "Ole
Miss, she say, gineral, dat she hope fer de honour ob yo' brekfastin'
wif her--"
The general rolled a map and tied it with a bit of pink tape. "Tell Mrs.
Harris, with my compliments, that if I am here at breakfast time I shall
be most happy to take it with her."
"Thank you, sah. An' what hour she say, gineral, will suit you bes'?"
"Tell her, with my compliments, that I trust she will breakfast at the
usual hour."
Morning came and breakfast time. "Ole Miss" sent to notify the general.
The servant found the room empty and the bed unslept in--only the
dictionary and Napoleon's Maxims (the Bible was gone) on the table to
testify to its late occupancy. Jim, the general's body servant, emerged
from an inner room. "Gineral Jackson? Fo' de Lawd, niggah! yo' ain't
looking ter fin' de gineral heah at dis heah hour? He done clar out
'roun' er bout midnight. Reckon by now he's whipping de Yankees in de
Valley!"
In the dark night, several miles from Frederickshall, two riders, one
leading, one following, came upon a picket. "Halt!" There sounded the
click of a musket. The two halted.
"Jest two of you? Advance, number one, and give the countersign!"