The Long Roll
the south the James. A wind had sprung up and was blowing the battle
smoke hither and yon. Here it hung heavily, and here a long lane was
opened. The sun was low and red behind a filmy veil, dark and ragged
like torn crape. He saw four gunboats on the river; they were throwing
the long, howling shells. The Monitor was there, an old foe--the cheese
box on a shingle. Edward shut his eyes and saw again Hampton Roads, and
how the Monitor had looked, darting from behind the Minnesota. The old
turtle, the old Merrimac ... and now she lay, a charred hull, far, far
beneath the James, by Craney Island.
The private on his right was a learned man. Edward addressed him. "Have
you ever thought, doctor, how fearfully dramatic is this world?"
"Yes. It's one of those facts that are too colossal to be seen.
Shakespeare says all the world's a stage. That's only a half-truth. The
world's a player, like the rest of us."
Below this niche stretched the grey battle-lines; above it, on the
hilltop, by the cannon and over half the slope beneath, spread the blue.
A forest stood behind the grey; out of it came the troops to the charge,
the flags tossing in front. The upward reaching fingers of coppice and
brush had their occupants, fragments of commands under cover, bands of
sharpshooters. And everywhere over the open, raked by the guns, were
dead and dying men. They lay thickly. Now and again the noise of the
torment of the wounded made itself heard--a most doleful and ghostly
sound coming up like a wail from the Inferno. There were, too, many dead
or dying horses. Others, still unhurt, galloped from end to end of the
field of death. In the wheat-field there were several of the old,
four-footed warriors, who stood and ate of the shocked grain. There
arrived a hush over the battlefield, one of those pauses which occur
between exhaustion and renewed effort, effort at its height. The guns
fell silent, the musketry died away, the gunboats ceased to throw those
great shells. By contrast with the clangour that had prevailed, the
stillness seemed that of a desert waste, a dead world. Over toward a
cross-road there could be made out three figures on horseback. The
captain of Edward's company was an old college mate; lying down with his
men, he now drew himself over the ground and loaned Cary his
field-glass. "It's General Lee and General Jackson and General D. H.
Hill."
A body of grey troops came to occupy a finger of woods below the three
captured guns. "That's Cary's Legion," said the captain. "Here comes the
colonel now!"
The two commands were but a few yards apart. Fauquier Cary, dismounting,
walked up the sedgy slope and asked to speak to his nephew. The latter
left the ranks, and the two found a trampled space beside one of the
great thirty-two pounders. A dead man or two lay in the parched grass,
but there was nothing else to disturb. The quiet yet held over North and
South and the earth that gave them standing room. "I have but a moment,"
said the elder man. "This is but the hush before the final storm. We
came by Jackson's troops, and one of his officers whom I knew at the
Point rode beside me a little way. They all crossed White Oak Swamp by
starlight this morning, and apparently Jackson is again the Jackson of
the Valley. It was a curious eclipse. The force of the man is such that,
while his officers acknowledge the eclipse, it makes no difference to
them. He is Stonewall Jackson--and that suffices. But that is not what
I have to tell--"
"I saw father a moment this morning. He said there was a rumour about
one of the Stonewall regiments--"
"Yes. It was the 65th."
"Cut to pieces?"
"Yes."
"Richard--Richard was not killed?"
"No. But many were. Hairston Breckinridge was killed--and some of the
Thunder Run men--and very many others. Almost destroyed, Carlton said.
They crossed at sunset. There were a swamp and a wood and a hollow
commanded by hills. The enemy was in force behind the hill, and there
was beside a considerable command in ambush, concealed in the woods by
the swamp. These had a gun or two. All opened on the 65th. It was cut to
pieces in the swamp and in a little marshy meadow. Only a remnant got
back to the northern side of the creek. Richard is under arrest."
"He was acting under orders!"
"So Carlton says he says. But General Jackson says there was no such
order; that he disobeyed the order that was given, and now tries to
screen himself. Carlton says Jackson is more steel-like than usual, and
we know how it fared with Garnett and with others. There will be a
court-martial. I am very anxious."
"I am not," said Edward stoutly. "There will be an honourable acquittal.
We must write and tell Judith that she's not to worry! Richard Cleave
did nothing that he should not have done."
"Of course, we know that. But Carlton says that, on the face of it, it's
an ugly affair. And General Jackson--Well, we can only await
developments."
"Poor Judith!--and his sister and mother.... Poor women!"
The other made a gesture of assent and sorrow. "Well, I must go back.
Take care of yourself, Edward. There will be the devil's own work
presently."
He went, and Edward returned to his fellows. The silence yet held over
the field; the westering sun glowed dull red behind the smoke; the
three figures rested still by the cross-roads; the mass of frowning
metal topped Malvern Hill like a giant, smoke-wreathed _chevaux de
frise_. Out of the brushwood to the left of the regiment, straight by
it, upward towards the guns, and then at a tangent off through the
fields to the woods, sped a rabbit. Legs to earth, it hurried with all
its might. The regiment was glad of a diversion--the waiting was growing
so intolerable. The men cheered the rabbit. "Go it, Molly
Cottontail!--Go it, Molly!--Go it, Molly!--Hi! Don't go that-away!
Them's Yankees! They'll cut your head off! Go t'other way--that's it! Go
it, Molly! Damn! If't wasn't for my character, I'd go with you!"
The rabbit disappeared. The regiment settled back to waiting, a very
intolerable employment. The sun dipped lower and lower. The hush grew
portentous. The guns looked old, mailed, dead warriors; the gunboats
sleeping forms; the grey troops battle-lines in a great war picture, the
three horsemen by the cross-roads a significant group in the same; the
dead and wounded over all the fields, upon the slope, in the woods, by
the marshes, the jetsam, still and heavy, of war at its worst. For a
moment longer the wide and dreary stretch rested so, then with a wild
suddenness sound and furious motion rushed upon the scene. The gunboats
recommenced with their long and horrible shells. A grey battery opened
on Berdan's sharpshooters strung in a line of trees below the great
crown of guns. The crown flamed toward the battery, scorched and mangled
it. By the cross-roads the three figures separated, going in different
directions. Presently galloping horses--aides, couriers--crossed the
plane of vision. They went from D. H. Hill in the centre to Jackson's
brigades on the left and Magruder's on the right. They had a mile of
open to cross, and the iron crown and the sharpshooters flamed against
them. Some galloped on and gave the orders. Some threw up their arms and
fell, or, crashing to earth with a wounded horse, disentangled
themselves and stumbled on through the iron rain. The sun drew close to
the vast and melancholy forests across the river. Through a rift in the
smoke, there came a long and crimson shaft. It reddened the river, then
struck across the shallows to Malvern Hill, suffused with a bloody tinge
wood and field and the marshes by the creeks, then splintered against
the hilltop and made a hundred guns to gleam. The wind heightened,
lifting the smoke and driving it northward. It bared to the last red
light the wild and dreary battlefield.
From the centre rose the Confederate yell. Rodes's brigade, led by
Gordon, charged. It had half a mile of open to cross, and it was caught
at once in the storm that howled from the crest of Malvern Hill. Every
regiment suffered great loss; the 3d Alabama saw half its number slain
or wounded. The men yelled again, and sprang on in the teeth of the
storm. They reached the slope, almost below the guns. Gordon looked
behind for the supporting troops which Hill had promised. They were
coming, that grim fighter leading them, but they were coming far off,
under clanging difficulties, through a hell of shrapnel. Rodes's brigade
alone could not wrest that triple crown from the hilltop--no, not if the
men had been giants, sons of Anak! They were halted; they lay down, put
muskets to shoulder and fired steadily and fired again on the blue
infantry.
It grew darker on the plain. Brigades were coming from the left, the
right, the centre. There had been orders for a general advance. Perhaps
the aides carrying them were among the slain, perhaps this, perhaps
that. The event was that brigades charged singly--sometimes even
regiments crossed, with a cry, the twilight, groaning plain and charged
Malvern Hill unsupported. The place flamed death and destruction. Hill's
ten thousand men pressed forward with the order of a review. The shot
and shell met them like a tornado. The men fell by hundreds. The lines
closed, rushed on. The Federal infantry joined the artillery. Musketry
and cannon, the din became a prolonged and fearful roar of battle.
The sun disappeared. There sprang out in the western sky three long red
bands of clouds. On the darkening slope and plain Hill was crushed back,
before and among his lines a horror of exploding shells. Jackson threw
forward Lawton and Whiting, Winder and the Louisiana troops, while on
the right, brigade after brigade, Magruder hurled across the plain nine
brigades. After Hill, Magruder's troops bore the brunt of the last
fearful fighting.
They stormed across the plain in twilight that was lit by the red
flashes from the guns. The clouds of smoke were red-bosomed; the red
bars stayed in the west. The guns never ceased their thundering, the
musketry to roll. Death swung a wide scythe in the twilight of that
first day of July. Anderson and Armistead, Barksdale, Semmes and
Kershaw, Wright and Toombs and Mahone, rushed along the slope of
Malvern Hill, as Ripley and Garland and Gordon and all the brigadiers of
D. H. Hill had rushed before them. Death, issuing from that great power
of artillery, laid the soldiers in swathes. The ranks closed, again and
again the ranks closed; with diminished numbers but no slackening of
courage, the grey soldiers again dashed themselves against Malvern Hill.
The red bars in the west faded slowly to a deep purple; above them, in a
clear space of sky, showed the silver Venus. Upon her cooling globe, in
a day to come, intelligent life might rend itself as here--the old
horror, the old tragedy, the old stained sublimity over again! All the
drifting smoke was now red lit, and beneath it lay in their blood
elderly men, and men in their prime, and young men--very many, oh, very
many young men! As the night deepened there sprang, beneath the thunder,
over all the field a sound like wind in reeds. It was a sighing sound, a
low and grievous sound. The blue lost heavily, for the charges were
wildly heroic; but the guns were never disabled, and the loss of the
grey was the heaviest. Brigade by brigade, the grey faced the storm and
were beaten back, only again to reel forward upon the slope where Death
stood and swung his scythe. The last light dwelt on their colours, on
the deep red of their battle-flags; then the western sky became no
warmer than the eastern. The stars were out in troops; the battle
stopped.
D. H. Hill, an iron fighter with a mania for personal valour, standing
where he had been standing for an hour, in a pleasantly exposed spot,