The Long Roll
"Old Dick" squatted by a camp-fire, was broiling a bit of bacon, head on
one side, as he looked up with bright round eyes at Cleave, whom he
liked. "That you, Richard Cleave? By God, sir, if I were as excellent a
major-general as I am a cook!--Have a bit?--Well, we wolloped them! They
fought like men, and we fought like men, and by God, I can't get the
cannon out of my ears! General Jackson?--I thought he was in front with
D. H. Hill. Going to do anything more to-night? It's pretty late, but
I'm ready."
"Nothing--without General Jackson," said Cleave. "Thank you, general--if
I might have a mouthful of coffee? I haven't the least idea when I have
eaten."
Ewell handed him the tin cup. He drank hastily and went on. Now it was
by a field hospital, ghastly sights and ghastly sounds, pine boughs set
for torches. He shut his eyes in a moment's faintness. It looked a
demoniac place, a smoke-wreathed platform in some Inferno circle. He met
a staff officer coming up from the plain. "General Lee has ridden to the
right. He is watching for McClellan's next move. There's a rumour that
everything's in motion toward the James. If it's true, there's a chase
before us to-morrow, eh?--A. P. Hill suffered dreadfully. 'Prince John'
kept McClellan beautifully amused.--General Jackson? On the slope of the
hill by the breastworks."
A red light proclaimed the place as Cleave approached it. It seemed a
solitary flame, night around it and a sweep of scarped earth. Cleave,
coming into the glow, found only the old negro Jim, squat beside it like
a gnome, his eyes upon the jewelled hollows, his lips working. Jim rose.
"De gineral, sah? De gineral done sont de staff away ter res'. Fo' de
Lawd, de gineral bettah follah dat 'zample! Yaas, sah,--ober dar in de
big woods."
Cleave descended the embankment and entered a heavy wood. A voice
spoke--Jackson's--very curtly. "Who is it, and what is your business?"
"It is the colonel of the 65th Virginia, sir. General Winder sends me,
with the approval of General D. H. Hill, from the advance by the McGehee
house."
A part of the shadow detached itself and came forward as Jackson. It
stalked past Cleave out of the belt of trees and over the bare red earth
to the fire. The other man followed, and in the glare faced the general
again. The leaping flame showed Jackson's bronzed face, with the brows
drawn down, the eyes looking inward, and the lips closed as though no
force could part them. Cleave knew the look, and inwardly set his own
lips. At last the other spoke. "Well, sir?"
"The enemy is cramped between us and the Chickahominy, sir. Our pickets
are almost in touch of theirs. If we are scattered and disorganized,
they are more so,--confused--distressed. We are the victors, and the
troops still feel the glow of victory."
"Well?"
"There might be a completer victory. We need only you to lead us, sir."
"You are mistaken. The men are wearied. They worked very hard in the
Valley. They need not do it all."
"They are not so wearied, sir. There is comment, I think, on what the
Army of the Valley has not done in the last two days. We have our chance
to refute it all to-night."
"General Lee is the commander-in-chief. General Lee will give orders."
"General Lee has said to himself: 'He did so wonderfully in the Valley,
I do not doubt he will do as wonderfully here. I leave him free. He'll
strike when it is time.'--It is time now, sir."
"Sir, you are forgetting yourself."
"Sir, I wish to rouse you."
Jackson walked past the fire to a fallen tree, sat himself down and
looked across to the other man. The low flame more deeply bronzed his
face. His eyes looked preternaturally sunken. He sat, characteristically
rigid, a figure in grey stone. There was about him a momentary air of an
Indian, he looked so ruthless. If it was not that, thought Cleave, then
it was that he looked fanatic. Whichever it might be, he perceived that
he himself stood in arctic air. He had been liked, he knew; now he saw
the mist of disfavour rise. Jackson's voice came gratingly. "Who sent
you?"
"General Winder and General D. H. Hill."
"You will tell General Hill that I shall make no further attack
to-night. I have other important duties to perform."
"I know what I risk," said Cleave, "and I do not risk it lightly. Have
you thought of how you fell on them at Front Royal and at Winchester?
Here, too, they are confused, retreating--a greater force to strike, a
greater result to win, a greater service to do for the country, a
greater name to make for yourself. To-morrow morning all the world may
say, 'So struck Napoleon--'"
"Napoleon's confidence in his star was pagan. Only God rules."
"And the man who accepts opportunity--is he not His servant? May we not,
sir, may we not make the attack?"
"No, sir; not to-night. We have marred too many Sundays--"
"It is not Sunday!"
Jackson looked across with an iron countenance. "So little the fighter
knows! See, what war does! But I will keep, in part at least, the
Sabbath. You may go, sir."
"General Jackson, this is Friday evening."
"Colonel Cleave, did you hear my order? Go, sir!--and think yourself
fortunate that you do not go under arrest."
"Sir--Sir--"
Jackson rose. "One other word, and I take your sword. It occurs to me
that I have indulged you in a freedom that--Go!"
Cleave turned with sharp precision and obeyed. Three paces took him out
of the firelight into the overhanging shadow. He made a gesture of
sorrow and anger. "Who says that magic's dead? Now, how long will that
potion hold him?" He stumbled in the loose, bare earth, swamp and creek
below him. He looked down into that trough of death. "I gained nothing,
and I have done for myself! If I know him--Ugh!"
He shook himself, went on through the sultry, smoky night, alternate
lantern-slides of glare and darkness, to the eastern face of the
plateau. Here he found Winder, reported, and with him encountered D. H.
Hill coming with Fauquier Cary from the McGehee house. "What's that?"
said Hill. "He won't pursue to-night? Very well, that settles it! Maybe
they'll be there in the morning, maybe not. Look here, Winder!
Reynolds's taken--you remember Reynolds?"
Cary and Cleave had a moment apart. "All well, Fauquier? The
general?--Edward?"
"I think so. I saw Warwick for a moment. A minie had hurt his hand--not
serious, he said. Edward I have not seen."
"I had a glimpse of him this morning.--This morning!"
"Yes--long ago, is it not? You'll get your brigade after this."
The other looked at him oddly. "Will I? I strongly doubt it. Well, it
seems not a large thing to-night."
Beyond the main battlefield where A. P. Hill's and Longstreet's
shattered brigades lay on their arms, beyond the small farmhouse where
Lee waked and watched, beyond the Chickahominy and its swamps, beyond
forest and farm land, lay Richmond under the stars. Eastwardly, within
and without its girdling earthworks, that brilliant and histrionic
general, John Bankhead Magruder, El Capitan Colorado, with a lisping
tongue, a blade like Bayard's, and a talent for drama and strategy, kept
General McClellan under the impression, confirmed by the whole Pinkerton
force, that "at least eighty thousand men" had remained to guard
Richmond, when Lee with "at least eighty thousand men" had crossed the
Chickahominy. Richmond knew better, but Richmond was stoically calm as
to the possibility of a storming. What it had been hard to be calm over
was the sound, this Friday, of the guns beyond the Chickahominy.
Mechanicsville, yesterday, was bad enough, but this was frightful.
Heavy, continuous, it took away the breath and held the heart in an iron
grip. All the loved ones there--all the loved ones there!--and heavier
and heavier toward night grew the fearful sound.... Then began the
coming of the wounded. In the long dusk of the summer evening, the
cannonading ceased. A little after nine arrived couriers, announcing the
victory. The church bells of Richmond, not yet melted into cannon, began
to ring. "It was a victory--it was a victory," said the people to one
another.... But the wounded continued to come in, ambulance, cart, and
wagon rolling like tumbrels over the stones. To many a mother was
brought tidings of the death of her son, and many a wife must say, "I am
widowed," and many children cried that night for their father. The heat
was frightful. The city tossed and moaned, without sleep, or nursed, or
watched, or wandered fevered through the streets. The noise of the James
around its rocky islands was like the groaning of the distant
battlefield. The odour of the June flowers made the city like a chamber
of death. All windows were open wide to the air, most houses lighted.
Sometimes from these there came forth a sharp cry; sometimes womens'
forms, restless in the night, searching again the hospitals. "He might
be here."--"He might be at this one." Sometimes, before such or such a
house, cart or carriage or wagon stopped. "Oh, God! wounded or--?" All
night long fared the processions from the field of Gaines's Mill to the
hospitals. Toward dawn it began to be "No room. Try Robinson's--try the
De Sales."--"Impossible here! We can hardly step between the rows. The
beds gave out long ago. Take him to Miss Sally Tompkins."--"No room. Oh,
the pity of it! Take him to the St. Charles or into the first private
house. They are all thrown open."
Judith, kept at the Stonewall all the night before, had gone home,
bathed, drawn the shutters of her small room, lain down and resolutely
closed her eyes. She must sleep, she knew,--must gather strength for the
afternoon and night. The house was quiet. Last night the eldest son had
been brought in wounded. The mother, her cousin, had him in her chamber;
she and his mammy and the old family doctor. His sister, a young wife,
was possessed by the idea that her husband might be in one of the
hospitals, delirious, unable to tell where he belonged, calling upon
her, and no one understanding. She was gone, in the feverish heat, upon
her search. There came no sounds from below. After the thunder which had
been in the ear, after the sounds of the hospital, all the world seemed
as silent as a cavern or as the depth of the sea. Judith closed her
eyes, determinedly stilled her heart, drew regular breath, put herself
out of Richmond back in a certain cool and green forest recess which she
loved, and there wooed sleep. It came at last, with a not unhappy dream.
She thought she was walking on the hills back of Greenwood with her Aunt
Lucy. The two said they were tired and would rest, and entered the
graveyard and sat down upon the bank of ivy beside Ludwell Cary's grave.
That was all natural enough; a thing they had done many times. They were
taught at Greenwood that there was nothing mournful there. Shells lay
about them, beneath the earth, but the beneficent activities had
escaped, and were active still, beneficent still.... The word "shells"
in the dream turned the page. She was upon a great sea beach and quite
alone. She sat and looked at the waves coming rolling in, and presently
one laid Richard at her feet. She bandaged the cut upon his forehead,
and called him by his name, and he looked at her and smiled. "Out of the
ocean, into the ocean," he said. "All of us. A going forth and a
returning." She felt herself, in the dream, in his arms, and found it
sweet. The waves were beneath them; they lay now on the crests, now in
the hollows, and there seemed no port. This endured a long while, until
she thought she heard the sea-fairies singing. Then there came a booming
sound, and she thought, "This is the port, or perhaps it is an island
that we are passing." She asked Richard which it was, but he did not
answer, and she turned upon the wave and found that he was not there....