The Long Roll
thundered, the minies sang. One of the latter struck a tree above his
head and severed a leafy twig. It came floating down, touched his
shoulder like an accolade and rested on the pine needles by his foot. He
gave it no attention, sitting like a graven image with clasped hands,
listening to the South Carolinian's report. Hampton ceased to speak and
waited. It was the height of the afternoon. He stood three minutes in
silence, perhaps, then glanced toward the man on the log. Jackson's eyes
were closed, his head slightly lifted. "Praying?" thought the South
Carolinian. "Well, there's a time for everything--" Jackson opened his
eyes, drew the forage cap far down over them, and rose from the pine.
The other looked for him to speak, but he said nothing. He walked a
little way down the road and stood among the whistling minies, looking
at the slowly, slowly building bridge.
Hampton did as Wright and Munford had done before him--went back to his
men. D. H. Hill, after an interview of his own, had retired to the
artillery. "Yes, yes, Rhett, go ahead! Do something--make a noise--do
something! Infantry's kept home from school to-day--measles, I reckon,
or maybe it's lockjaw!"
About three o'clock there was caught from the southward, between the
loud wrangling of the batteries above White Oak, another sound,--first
two or three detonations occurring singly, then a prolonged and
continuous roar. The batteries above White Oak Swamp, the sharpshooters
and skirmishers, the grey chafing cavalry, the grey masses of unemployed
infantry, all held breath and listened. The sound was not three miles
away, and it was the sound of the crash of long battle-lines. There was
a curious movement among the men nearest the grey general-commanding.
With their bodies bent forward, they looked his way, expecting short,
quick orders. He rested immobile, his eyes just gleaming beneath the
down-drawn cap, Little Sorrel cropping the marsh grass beside him.
Munford, coming up, ventured a remark. "General Longstreet or General A.
P. Hill has joined with their centre, I suppose, general? The firing is
very heavy."
"Yes. The troops that have been lying before Richmond. General Lee will
see that they do what is right."
Stafford, near him, spoke again. "The sound comes, I think, sir, from a
place called Glendale--Glendale or Frayser's Farm."
"Yes, sir," said Jackson; "very probably."
The thunder never lessened. Artillery and infantry, Franklin's corps on
the south bank of White Oak, began again to pour an iron hail against
the opposing guns and the working party at the bridge, but in every
interval between the explosions from these cannon there rolled louder
and louder the thunder from Frayser's Farm. A sound like a grating wind
in a winter forest ran through the idle grey brigades. "It's A. P.
Hill's battle again!--A. P. Hill or Longstreet! Magruder and Huger and
Holmes and A. P. Hill and Longstreet--and we out of it again, on the
wrong side of White Oak Swamp! And they're looking for us to help--_Wish
I was dead!_"
The 65th Virginia had its place some distance up the stream, in a
tangled wood by the water. Facing southward, it held the extreme right;
beyond it only morass, tall trees, swaying masses of vine. On the left
an arm of the creek, thickly screened by tree and bush, divided it from
the remainder of the brigade. It rested in semi-isolation, and its ten
companies stared in anger at the narrow stream and the deep woods
beyond, listening to the thunder of Longstreet and A. P. Hill's
unsupported attack and the answering roar of the Federal 3d Army Corps.
It was a sullen noise, deep and unintermittent. The 65th, waiting for
orders, could have wept as the orders did not come. "Get across? Well,
if General Jackson would just give us leave to try!--Oh, hell! listen to
that!--Colonel, can't you do something for us?--Where's the colonel
gone?"
Cleave was beyond their vision. He had rounded a little point of land
and now, Dundee's hoofs in water, stood gazing at the darkly wooded
opposite shore. He stood a moment thus, then spoke to the horse, and
they entered the stream. It was not deep, and though there were
obstructions, old stakes and drowned brushwood, Cleave and Dundee
crossed. The air was full of booming sound, but there was no motion in
the wood into which they rose from the water. All its floor was marshy,
water in pools and threads, a slight growth of cane, and above, the tall
and solemn trees. Cleave saw that there was open meadow beyond.
Dismounting, he went noiselessly to the edge of the swamp. An open
space, covered with some low growth; beyond it a hillside. Wood and
meadow and hill, all lay quiet and lonely in the late sunlight.
He went back to Dundee, remounted, passed again through the sombre wood,
over the boggy earth, entered the water and recrossed. Turning the
little point of the swamp, he rode before his regiment on his way to
find Winder. His men greeted him. "Colonel, if you could just get us
over there we'd do anything in the world for you! This weeping-willow
place is getting awful hard to bear! Look at Dundee! Even he's drooping
his head. You know we'd follow you through hell, sir; and if you could
just manage it so's we could follow you through White Oak Swamp--"
Cleave passed the arm of the creek separating the 65th from the rest of
the brigade, and asked of Winder from the first troops beyond the screen
of trees. "General Winder has ridden down to the bridge to see General
Jackson."
Cleave, following, found his leader indeed before Jackson, just
finishing his representations whatever they were, and somewhat perturbed
by the commanding general's highly developed silence. This continuing
unbroken, Winder, after an awkward minute of waiting, fell a little
back, a flush on his cheeks and his lips hard together. The action
disclosed Cleave, just come up, his hand checking Dundee, his grey eyes
earnestly upon Jackson. When the latter spoke, it was not to the
brigadier but to the colonel of the 65th. "Why are you not with your
regiment, sir?"
"I left it but a moment ago, sir, to bring information I thought it my
duty to bring."
"What information?"
"The 65th is on General Winder's extreme right, sir. The stream before
it is fordable."
"How do you know, sir?"
"I forded it. The infantry could cross without much difficulty. The 65th
would be happy, sir, to lead the way."
Winder opened his lips. "The whole Stonewall Brigade is ready, sir."
Jackson, without regarding, continued to address himself to Cleave. His
tone had been heard before by the latter--in his own case on the night
of the twenty-seventh as well as once before, and in the case of others
where there had been what was construed as remonstrance or negligence or
disobedience. He had heard him speak so to Garnett after Kernstown. The
words were simple enough--they always were. "You will return to your
duty, sir. It lies where your regiment is, and that is not here. Go!"
Cleave obeyed. The ford was there. His regiment might have crossed, the
rest of the Stonewall following. Together they might traverse the swamp
and the bit of open, pass the hillside, and strike Franklin upon the
flank, while, brigade by brigade, the rest of the division followed by
that ford. Rout Franklin, and push forward to help A. P. Hill. It had
appeared his duty to give the information he was possessed of. He had
given it, and his skirts were cleared. There was anger in him as he
turned away; he had a compressed lip, a sparkling eye. Not till he
turned did he see Stafford, sitting his horse in the shadow behind
Jackson. The two men stared full at each other for a perceptible moment.
But Stafford's face was in the shadow, and as for Cleave his mind was
full of anger for the tragedy of the inaction. At the moment he gave
small attention to his own life, its heights or depths, past or future.
He saw Stafford, but he could not be said to consider him at all. He
turned from the road into the wood, and pushed the great bay over spongy
ground toward the isolated 65th. Stafford saw that he gave him no
thought, and it angered him. On the highroad of his life it would not
have done so, but he had left the road and was lost in the jungle. There
were few things that Richard Cleave might do which would not now work
like madness on the mind astray in that place.
The cannonading over White Oak Swamp continued, and the sound of the
battle of Frayser's Farm continued. On a difficult and broken ground
Longstreet attacked, driving back McCall's division. McCall was
reinforced and Longstreet hard pressed. Lee loosed A. P. Hill, and the
battle became furious. He looked for Jackson, but Jackson was at White
Oak Swamp; for Huger, but a road covered with felled trees delayed
Huger; for Magruder, but in the tangle of wood and swamp Magruder, too,
went astray; for Holmes, but Fitz John Porter held Holmes in check.
Longstreet and A. P. Hill strove unsupported, fifty thousand grey troops
in hearing of their guns. The battle swayed to and fro, long, loud, and
sanguinary, with much hand-to-hand work, much use of bayonets, and,
over all, a shriek of grape and canister.
Back on White Oak Swamp, Franklin on the southern side, Jackson on the
northern, blue and grey alike caught the noise of battle. They
themselves were cannonading loudly and continuously. One Federal battery
used fifteen hundred rounds. The grey were hardly less lavish. Not much
damage was done except to the trees. The trough through which crept the
sluggish water was filled with smoke. It drifted through the swamp and
the woods and along the opposing hillsides. It drifted over and about
the idle infantry, until one command was hidden from another.
Stonewall Jackson, seated on the stump of a felled oak, his sabre across
his knees, his hands rigid upon it, his great booted feet squarely
planted, his cap drawn low, sent the aide beside him with some order to
the working party at the bridge. A moment later the courier went, too,
to D. H. Hill, with a query about prisoners. The thunders continued, the
smoke drifted heavily, veiling all movements. Jackson spoke without
turning. "Whoever is there--"
No one was there at the moment but Maury Stafford. He came forward. "You
will find the 1st Brigade," said Jackson. "Tell General Winder to move
it nearer the stream. Tell him to cross from his right, with caution, a
small reconnoitring party. Let it find out the dispositions of the
enemy, return and report."
Stafford went, riding westward through the smoke-filled forest, and came
presently to the Stonewall Brigade and to Winder, walking up and down
disconsolately. "An order from General Jackson, sir. You will move your
brigade nearer the stream. Also you will cross, from your right, with
caution, a small reconnoitring party. It will discover the dispositions
of the enemy, return and report."
"Very good," said Winder. "I'll move at once. The 65th is already on the
brink--there to the right, beyond the swamp. Perhaps, you'll take the
order on to Colonel Cleave?--Very good! Tell him to send a picked squad
quietly across and find out what he can. I hope to God there'll come
another order for us all to cross at its heels!"
Stafford, riding on, presently found himself in a strip of bog and
thicket and tall trees masking a narrow, sluggish piece of water. The
brigade behind him was hidden, the regiment in front not yet visible.
Despite the booming of the guns, there was here an effect of stillness.
It seemed a lonely place. Stafford, traversing it slowly because the
ground gave beneath his horse's feet, became aware of a slight movement
in a laurel thicket and of two eyes gleaming behind the leaves. He
reined in his horse. "What are you doing in there? Straggling or