Chapter 62
The cannonade was furious, and though not many of the grey soldiers suffered, the grey trees did. Great and small branches were lopped off.
In the dim light they came tumbling down. They were borne sideways, tearing through the groves and coverts, or, caught by an exploding sh.e.l.l and torn twig from twig, they fell in a shower of slivers, or, chopped clean from the trunk, down they crashed from leafy level to level till they reached the forest floor. Beneath them rose shouts of warning, came a scattering of grey mortals. Younger trees were cut short off. Their woodland race was run; down they rushed with their festoons of vines, crus.h.i.+ng the undergrowth of laurel and hazel. Other sh.e.l.ls struck the red brown resinous bodies of pines, set loose dangerous mists of bark and splinter. As by a whirlwind the air was filled with torn and flying growth, with the dull crash and leafy fall of the forest non-combatants.
The light was no longer pure; it was murky here as elsewhere. The violet fields and the vermeil gardens were blotted out, and in the shrieking of the sh.e.l.ls the birds could not have been heard to sing even were they there. They were not there; they were all flown far away. It was dark in the wood, dark and full of sound and of moving bodies charged with danger. The whirlwind swept it, the treetops snapped off. "_Attention!_"
The grey soldiers were glad to hear the word. "_Forward! March!_" They were blithe to hear the order and to leave the wood.
They moved out into old fields, grown with sedge and sa.s.safras, here and there dwarf pines. Apparently the cannon had lost them; at any rate for a time the firing ceased. The east was now pink, the air here very pure and cool and still, each feather of broom sedge holding its row of diamond dewdrops. The earth was much cut up. "Batteries been along here," said the men. "Ours, too. Know the wheel marks. h.e.l.lo! What you got, Carter?"
"Somebody's dropped his photograph alb.u.m."
The man in front and the man behind and the man on the other side all looked. "One of those folding things! Pretty children! one, two, three, four, and their mother.--Keep it for him, Henry. Think the Crenshaw battery, or Braxton's, or the King William, or the Dixie was over this way."
Beyond the poisoned field were more woods, dipping to one of the innumerable sluggish creeks of the region. There was a bridge--weak and shaken, but still a bridge. This crossed at last, the troops climbed a slippery bank, beneath a wild tangle of shrub and vine, and came suddenly into view of a line of breastworks, three hundred yards away.
There was a halt; skirmishers were thrown forward. These returned without a trigger having been pulled. "Deserted, sir. They've fallen back, guns and all. But there's a meadow between us and the earthworks, sir, that--that--that--"
The column began to move across the meadow--not a wide meadow, a little green, boggy place commanded by the breastworks. Apparently grey troops had made a charge here, the evening before. The trees that fringed the small, irregular oval, and the great birds that sat in the trees, and the column whose coming had made the birds to rise, looked upon a meadow set as thick with dead men as it should have been with daisies. They lay thick, thick, two hundred and fifty of them, perhaps, heart pierced, temple pierced by minie b.a.l.l.s, or all the body shockingly torn by grape and canister. The wounded had been taken away. Only the dead were here, watched by the great birds, the treetops and the dawn. They lay fantastically, some rounded into a ball, some spread eagle, some with their arms over their eyes, some in the posture of easy sleep. At one side was a swampy place, and on the edge of this a man, sunk to the thigh, kept upright. The living men thought him living, too. More than one started out of line toward him, but then they saw that half his head was blown away.
They left the meadow and took a road that skirted another great piece of forest. The sun came up, drank off the vagrant wreaths of mist and dried the dew from the sedge. There was promise of a hot, fierce, dazzling day. Another halt. "What's the matter this time?" asked the men. "G.o.d! I want to march on--into something happening!" Rumour came back. "Woods in front of us full of something. Don't know yet whether it's buzzards or Yankees. Get ready to open fire, anyway." All ready, the men waited until she came again. "It's men, anyhow. Woods just full of bayonets gleaming. Better throw your muskets forward."
The column moved on, but cautiously, with a strong feeling that it, in its turn, was being watched--with muskets thrown forward. Then suddenly came recognition. "Grey--grey!--See the flag! They're ours! See--"
Rumour broke into jubilant shouting. "It's the head of Jackson's column!
It's the Valley men! Hurrah! Hurrah! Stonewall! Stonewall Jackson!
Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihhhh!--'h.e.l.lo, boys! You've been doing pretty well up there in the blessed old Valley!' 'h.e.l.lo, boys! If you don't look out you'll be getting your names in the papers!' 'h.e.l.lo, boys! come to help us kill mosquitoes? Haven't got any quinine handy, have you?' 'h.e.l.lo, boys! h.e.l.lo Kernstown, McDowell, Front Royal, Winchester, Harper's Ferry, Cross Keys, Port Republic! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihh!' 'h.e.l.lo, you d.a.m.ned Cohees! Are you the foot cavalry?'--65th Virginia, Stonewall Brigade?
Glad to see you, 65th! Welcome to these here parts. What made you late?
We surely did hone for you yesterday evening. Oh, shucks! the best gun'll miss fire once in a lifetime. Who's your colonel? Richard Cleave?
Oh, yes, I remember! read his name in the reports. We've got a good one, too,--real proud of him. Well, we surely are glad to see you fellows in the fles.h.!.+--Oh, we're going to halt. You halted, too?--Regular love feast, by jiminy! Got any tobacco?"
A particularly ragged private, having gained permission from his officer, came up to the sycamore beneath which his own colonel and the colonel of the 65th were exchanging courtesies. The former glanced his way. "Oh, Cary! Oh, yes, you two are kin--I remember. Well, colonel, I'm waiting
The two cousins sat down on the gra.s.s beneath the sycamore. For a little they eyed each other in silence. Edward Cary was more beautiful than ever, and apparently happy, though one of his shoes was nothing more than a sandal, and he was innocent of a collar, and his sleeve demanded a patch. He was thin, bright-eyed, and bronzed, and he handled his rifle with lazy expertness, and he looked at his cousin with a genuine respect and liking. "Richard, I heard about Will. I know you were like a father to the boy. I am very sorry."
"I know that you are, Edward. I would rather not talk about it, please.
When the country bleeds, one must put away private grief."
He sat in the shade of the tree, thin and bronzed and bright-eyed like his cousin, though not ragged. Dundee grazed at hand, and scattered upon 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 n.o.ble woman. When I look at her I always feel rea.s.sured 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, d.a.m.ned 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 G.o.d! 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 Sloc.u.m, 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, ma.s.sed 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 sh.e.l.l 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, overpa.s.sed 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 sh.e.l.l 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 G.o.d, 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 h.e.l.l!"
A battery, far over on the edge of a swamp, broke loose, tearing the sultry air with sh.e.l.l after sh.e.l.l 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 G.o.d, 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 b.u.t.t 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."