The Long Roll
the edge of the wood, beneath the little dogwood trees, lay like acorns
his men, fraternizing with the "Tuckahoe" regiment. "Your father and
Fauquier--?"
"Both somewhere in this No-man's Land. What a wilderness of creeks and
woods it is! I slept last night in a swamp, and at reveille a beautiful
moccasin lay on a log and looked at me. I don't think either father or
Fauquier were engaged last evening. Pender and Ripley bore the brunt of
it. Judith is in Richmond."
"Yes. I had a letter from her before we left the Valley."
"I am glad, Richard, it is you. We were all strangely at sea,
somehow--She is a noble woman. When I look at her I always feel
reassured as to the meaning and goal of humanity."
"I know--I love her dearly, dearly. If I outlive this battle I will try
to get to see her--"
Off somewhere, on the left, a solitary cannon boomed. The grey soldiers
turned their heads. "A signal somewhere! We're spread over all creation.
Crossing here and crossing there, and every half-hour losing your way!
It's like the maze we used to read about--this bottomless, mountainless,
creeky, swampy, feverish, damned lowland--"
The two beneath the sycamore smiled. "'Back to our mountains,' eh?" said
Edward. Cleave regarded the forest somewhat frowningly. "We are not," he
said, "in a very good humour this morning. Yesterday was a day in which
things went wrong."
"It was a sickening disappointment," acknowledged Edward. "We listened
and listened. He's got a tremendous reputation, you know--Jackson.
Foreordained and predestined to be at the crucial point at the critical
moment! Backed alike by Calvin and God! So we looked for a comet to
strike Fitz John Porter, and instead we were treated to an eclipse. It
was a frightful slaughter. I saw General Lee afterwards--magnanimous,
calm, and grand! What was really the reason?"
Cleave moved restlessly. "I cannot say. Perhaps I might hazard a guess,
but it's no use talking of guesswork. To-day I hope for a change."
"You consider him a great general?"
"A very great one. But he's sprung from earth--ascended like the rest of
us. For him, as for you and me, there's the heel undipped and the
unlucky day."
The officers of the first grey regiment began to bestir themselves.
_Fall in--Fall in--Fall in!_ Edward rose. "Well, we shall see what we
shall see. Good-bye, Richard!" The two shook hands warmly; Cary ran to
his place in the line; the "Tuckahoe" regiment, cheered by the 65th,
swung from the forest road into a track leading across an expanse of
broom sedge. It went rapidly. The dew was dried, the mist lifted, the
sun blazing with all his might. During the night the withdrawing
Federals had also travelled this road. It was cut by gun-wheels, it was
strewn with abandoned wagons, ambulances, accoutrements of all kinds.
There were a number of dead horses. They lay across the road, or to
either hand in the melancholy fields of sedge. From some dead trees the
buzzards watched. One horse, far out in the yellow sedge, lifted his
head and piteously neighed.
The troops came into the neighbourhood of Gaines's Mill. Through grille
after grille of woven twig and bamboo vine they descended to another
creek, sleeping and shadowed, crossed it somehow, and came up into
forest again. Before them, through the trees, was visible a great open
space, hundreds of acres. Here and there it rose into knolls, and on
these were planted grey batteries. Beyond the open there showed a
horseshoe of a creek, fringed with swamp growth, a wild and tangled
woodland; beyond this again a precipitous slope, almost a cliff,
mounting to a wide plateau. All the side of the ascent was occupied by
admirable breastworks, triple lines, one above the other, while at the
base between hill and creek, within the enshadowing forest, was planted
a great abattis of logs and felled trees. Behind the breastwork and on
the plateau rested Fitz John Porter, reinforced during the night by
Slocum, and now commanding thirty-five thousand disciplined and
courageous troops. Twenty-two batteries frowned upon the plain below.
The Federal drums were beating--beating--beating. The grey soldiers lay
down in the woods and awaited orders. They felt, rather than saw, that
other troops were all about them,--A. P. Hill--Longstreet--couched in
the wide woods, strung in the brush that bordered creek and swamp,
massed in the shelter of the few low knolls.
They waited long. The sun blazed high and higher. Then a grey battery,
just in front of this strip of woods, opened with a howitzer. The shell
went singing on its errand, exploded before one of the triple tiers. The
plateau answered with a hundred-pounder. The missile came toward the
battery, overpassed it, and exploded above the wood. It looked as large
as a beehive; it came with an awful sound, and when it burst the
atmosphere seemed to rock. The men lying on the earth beneath jerked
back their heads, threw an arm over their eyes, made a dry, clicking
sound with their tongue against their teeth. The howitzer and this shell
opened the battle--again A. P. Hill's battle.
Over in the forest on the left, near Cold Harbour, where Stonewall
Jackson had his four divisions, his own, D. H. Hill's, Ewell's, and
Whiting's, there was long, long waiting. The men had all the rest they
wanted, and more besides. They fretted, they grew querulous. "Oh, good
God, why don't we move? There's firing--heavy firing--on the right. Are
we going to lie here in these swamps and fight mosquitoes all day?
Thought we were brought here to fight Yankees! The general walking in
the forest and saying his prayers?--Oh, go to hell!"
A battery, far over on the edge of a swamp, broke loose, tearing the
sultry air with shell after shell tossed against a Federal breastwork on
the other side of the marsh. The Stonewall Brigade grew vividly
interested. "That's D. H. Hill over there! D. H. Hill is a fighter from
way back! O Lord, why don't we fight too? Holy Moses, what a racket!"
The blazing noon filled with crash and roar. Ten of Fitz John Porter's
guns opened, full-mouthed, on the adventurous battery.
It had nerve, _elan_, sheer grit enough for a dozen, but it was
out-metalled. One by one its guns were silenced,--most of the horses
down, most of the cannoneers. Hill recalled it. A little later he
received an order from Jackson. "General Hill will withdraw his troops
to the left of the road, in rear of his present position, where he will
await further orders." Hill went, with shut lips. One o'clock--two
o'clock--half-past two. "O God, have mercy! _Is_ this the Army of the
Valley?"
Allan Gold, detached at dawn on scout duty, found himself about this
time nearer to the Confederate centre than to his own base of operations
at the left. He had been marking the windings of creeks, observing where
there were bridges and where there were none, the depth of channels and
the infirmness of marshes. He had noted the Federal positions and the
amount of stores abandoned, set on fire, good rice and meat, good shoes,
blankets, harness, tents, smouldering and smoking in glade and thicket.
He had come upon dead men and horses and upon wounded men and horses. He
had given the wounded drink. He had killed with the butt of his rifle a
hissing and coiled snake. He had turned his eyes away from the black and
winged covering of a dead horse and rider. Kneeling at last to drink at
a narrow, hidden creek, slumbering between vine-laden trees, he had
raised his eyes, and on the other side marked a blue scout looking,
startled, out of a hazel bush. There was a click from two muskets; then
Allan said, "Don't fire! I won't. Why should we? Drink and forget." The
blue scout signified acquiescence. "All right, Reb. I'm tired fighting,
anyway! Was brought up a Quaker, and wouldn't mind if I had stayed one!
Got anything to mix with the water?"
"No."
"Well, let's take it just dry so." Both drank, then settled back on
their heels for a moment's conversation. "Awful weather," said the blue
scout. "Didn't know there could be such withering heat! And
malaria--lying out of nights in swamps, with owls hooting and
jack-o'-lanterns round your bed! Ain't you folks most beat yet?"
"No," said the grey scout. "Don't you think you've about worn your
welcome out and had better go home?--Look out there! Your gun's slipping
into the water."
The blue recovered it. "It's give out this morning that Stonewall
Jackson's arrived on the scene."
"Yes, he has."
"Well, he's a one-er! Good many of you we wish would desert.--No; we
ain't going home till we go through Richmond."
"Well," said Allan politely, "first and last, a good many folk have
settled hereabouts since Captain John Smith traded on the Chickahominy
with the Indians. There's family graveyards all through these woods. I
hope you'll like the country."
The other drank again of the brown water. "It wasn't so bad in the
spring time. We thought it was awful lovely at first, all spangled with
flowers and birds.--Are you married?"
"No."
"Neither am I. But I'm going to be, when I get back to where I belong.
Her name's Flora."
"That's a pretty name."
"Yes, and she's pretty, too--" He half closed his eyes and smiled
blissfully, then rose from the laurels. "Well, I must be trotting along,
away from Cold Harbour. Funniest names! What does it mean?"
"It was an inn, long ago, where you got only cold fare. Shouldn't wonder
if history isn't going to repeat itself--" He rose, also, tall and
blonde. "Well, I must be travelling, too--"
"Rations getting pretty low, aren't they? How about coffee?"
"Oh, one day," said Allan, "we're going to drink a lot of it! No, I
don't know that they are especially low."
The blue scout dipped a hand into his pocket. "Well, I've got a packet
of it, and there's plenty more where that came from.--Catch, Reb!"
Allan caught it. "You're very good, Yank. Thank you."
"Have you got any quinine?"
"No."
The blue scout tossed across a small box. "There's for you! No, I don't
want it. We've got plenty.--Well, good-bye."
"I hope you'll get back safe," said Allan, "and have a beautiful
wedding."
The blue vanished in the underbrush, the grey went on his way through
the heavy forest. He was moving now toward sound, heavy, increasing,
presaging a realm of jarred air and ringing ear-drums. Ahead, he saw a
column of swiftly moving troops. Half running, he overtook the rear
file. "Scout?"--"Yes--Stonewall Brigade--" "All right! all right! This
is A. P. Hill's division.--Going into battle. Come on, if you want to."
Through the thinning woods showed a great open plain, with knolls where
batteries were planted. The regiment to which Allan had attached himself
lay down on the edge of the wood, near one of the cannon-crowned
eminences. Allan stretched himself beneath a black gum at the side of
the road. Everywhere was a rolling smoke, everywhere terrific sound. A
battery thundered by at a gallop, six horses to each gun, straining,
red-nostrilled, fiery-eyed. It struck across a corner of the plain. Over
it burst the shells, twelve-pounders--twenty-pounders. A horse went
down--the drivers cut the traces. A caisson was struck, exploded with
frightful glare and sound. About it, when the smoke cleared, writhed men
and horses, but the gun was dragged off. Through the rain of shells the
battery gained a lift of ground, toiled up it, placed the guns,
unlimbered and began to fire. A South Carolina brigade started with a
yell from the woods to the right, tore in a dust cloud across the old
fields, furrowed with gullies, and was swallowed in the forest about the
creek which laved the base of the Federal position. This rose from the
level like a Gibraltar, and about it now beat a wild shouting and rattle
of musketry. Allan rose to his knees, then to his feet, then, drawn as