Chapter 86
Horse and rider, Traveller and Robert Edward Lee, stood in the pale light above the Antietam. "Gentlemen, we will not cross the Potomac to-night. If General McClellan wants to fight in the morning I will give him battle again.--And now we are all very tired. Good-night.
Good-night!"
The sun came up, dim behind the mist. The mist rose, the morning advanced. The September suns.h.i.+ne lay like vital warmth upon the height and vale, upon the Dunkard church and the wood about it, upon the cornfields, and Burnside's bridge and the b.l.o.o.d.y Lane, and upon all the dead men in the cornfields, in the woods, upon the heights, beside the stream, in the lane. The suns.h.i.+ne lay upon the dead, as the prophet upon the Shunamite's child, but it could not reanimate. Grey and blue, the living armies gazed at each other across the Antietam. Both were exhausted, both shattered, the blue yet double in numbers. The grey waited for McClellan's attack. It did not come. The ranks, lying down, began to talk. "He ain't going to attack! He's cautious."--"He's had enough."--"So've I. O G.o.d!"--"Never saw such a fight. Wish those buzzards would go away from that wood over there! They're so dismal."--"No, McClellan ain't going to attack!"--"Then why don't we attack?"--"Go away, Johnny! We're mighty few and powerfully tired."--"Well, _I_ think so, too. We might just as well attack. Great big counter stroke! Crumple up Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts over there! Turn their right!"--"'T ain't impossible! Ma.r.s.e Robert and Old Jack could manage it."--"No, they couldn't!"--"Yes, they could!"--"You're a fool! Look at that position, stronger 'n Thunder Run Mountain, and Hooker's got troops he didn't have in yesterday! 'N those things like beehives in a row are Parrotts 'n Whitworths' 'n Blakeley's.
'N then look at _us_. Oh, yes! we've got _spirit_, but spirit's got to have a body to rush those guns."--"Thar ain't anything Old Jack couldn't do if he tried!"--"Yes, there is!" "Thar ain't! How _dast_ you say that?"--"There is! He couldn't be a fool if he tried--and he ain't a-going to try!"
The artillerist, Stephen D. Lee, came to headquarters on the knoll by Sharpsburg. "General Lee sent for me. Tell him, please, I am here." Lee appeared. "Good-morning, Colonel Lee. You are to go at once to General Jackson. Tell him that I sent you to report to him." The officer found Stonewall Jackson at the Dunkard church. "General, General Lee sent me to report to you."
"Good, good! Colonel, I wish you to take a ride with me. We will go to the top of the hill yonder."
They went up to the top of the hill, past dead men and horses, and much wreckage of caissons and gun wheels. "There are probably sharpshooters in that wood across the stream," said Jackson. "Do not expose yourself unnecessarily, colonel." Arrived at the level atop they took post in a little copse, wildly torn and blackened, a wood in Artillery h.e.l.l. "Take your gla.s.ses, colonel, and examine the enemy's line of battle."
The other lifted the field-gla.s.s and with it swept the Antietam, and the fields and ridges beyond it. He looked at the Federal left, and he looked at the Federal centre, and he looked along the Federal right, which was opposite, then he lowered the gla.s.ses. "General, they have a very strong position, and they are in great force."
"Good! I wish you to take fifty pieces of artillery and crush that force."
Stephen D. Lee was a brave man. He said nothing now, but he stood a moment in silence, and then he took his field-gla.s.s and looked again. He looked now at the many and formidable Federal batteries cl.u.s.tered like dark fruit above the Antietam, and now at the ma.s.ses of blue infantry, and now at the positions, under artillery and musketry fire, which the Confederate batteries must take. He put the gla.s.s down again. "Yes, general. Where shall I get the fifty guns?"
"How many have you?"
"I had thirty. Some were lost, a number disabled. I have twelve."
"Just so. Well, colonel, I could give you a few, and General Lee tells me he can furnish some."
The other fingered a b.u.t.ton on his coat for a moment, then, "Yes, general. Shall I go for the guns?"
"No, not yet." Stonewall Jackson laid his large hands in their worn old brown gauntlets, one over the other, upon his saddle bow. He, too, looked at the Federal right and the guns on the heights like dark fruit.
His eyes made just a glint of blue light below the forage cap. "Colonel Lee, can you crush the Federal right with fifty guns?"
The artillerist drew a quick breath, let the b.u.t.ton alone, and raised his head higher. "I can try, general. I can do it if any one can."
"That is not what I asked you, sir. If I give you fifty guns can you crush the Federal right?"
The other hesitated. "General, I don't know what you want of me. Is it my technical opinion as an artillery officer? or do you want to know if I will make the attempt? If you give me the order of course I will make it!"
"Yes, colonel. But I want your positive opinion, yes or no. Can you crush the Federal right with fifty guns?"
The artillerist looked again, steadying arm and gla.s.s against a charred bough. "General, it cannot be done with fifty guns and the troops you have here."
Hilltop and withered wood hung a
They turned their horses, but Stephen Lee with some emotion began to put the case. "You forced me, general, to say what I did say. If you send the guns, I beg of you not to give them to another! I will fight them to the last extremity--" He looked to the other anxiously. To say to Stonewall Jackson that you must despair and die where he sent you in to conquer!
But Jackson had no grimness of aspect. He looked quietly thoughtful. It was even with a smile of sweetness that he cut short the other's pleading. "It's all right, colonel, it's all right! Everyone knows that you are a brave officer and would fight the guns well." At the foot of the hill he checked Little Sorrel. "We'll part here, colonel. You go at once to General Lee. Tell him all that has happened since he sent you to me. Tell him that you examined the Federal position. Tell him that I forced you to give the technical opinion of an artillery officer, and tell him what that opinion is. That is all, colonel."
The September day wore on. Grey and blue armies rested inactive save that they worked at burying the dead. Then, in the afternoon, information came to grey headquarters. Humphrey's division, pouring through the gaps of South Mountain, would in a few hours be at McClellan's service. Couch's division was at hand--there were troops a.s.sembling on the Pennsylvania border. At dark Lee issued his orders.
During the night of the eighteenth the Army of Northern Virginia left the banks of the Antietam, wound silently down to the Potomac, and crossed to the Virginia sh.o.r.e.
All night there fell a cold, fine, chilling rain. Through it the wagon trains crossed, the artillery with a sombre noise, the wounded who must be carried, the long column of infantry, the advance, the main, the rear. The corps of Stonewall Jackson was the last to ford the river. He sat on Little Sorrel, midway of the stream, and watched his troops go onward in the steady, chilling rain. Daybreak found him there, motionless as a figure in bronze, needing not to care for wind or sun or rain.
The Army of Northern Virginia encamped on the road to Martinsburg.
Thirty guns on the heights above Boteler's Ford guarded its rear, and Jeb Stuart and his cavalry watched from the northern bank at Williamsport. McClellan pushed out from Sharpsburg a heavy reconnoissance, and on his side of the river planted guns. Fitz John Porter, in command, crossed during the night a considerable body of troops. These advanced against Pendelton's guns, took four of them, and drove the others back on the Martinsburg road. Pendleton reported to General Lee; Lee sent an order to Stonewall Jackson. The courier found him upon the bank of the Potomac, gazing at the northern sh.o.r.e. "Good!"
he said. "I have ordered up the Light Division." Seventy guns thundered from across the water. A. P. Hill in his red battle s.h.i.+rt advancing in that iron rain, took, front and flank, the Federal infantry. He drove them down from the bluff, he pushed them into the river; they showed black on the current. Those who got across, under the shelter of the guns, did not try again that pa.s.sage. McClellan looked toward Virginia, but made no further effort, this September, to invade her. The Army of Northern Virginia waited another day above Boteler's Ford, then withdrew a few miles to the banks of the Opequon.
The Opequon, a clear and pleasing stream, meandered through the lower reaches of the great Valley, through a fertile, lovely country, as yet not greatly scored and blackened by war's torch and harrow. An easy ride to the westward and you arrived in Winchester, beloved of Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson and the 2d Army Corps. As the autumn advanced, the banks of the Opequon, the yet thick forests that stretched toward the Potomac, the great maples, and oaks and gums and hickories that rose, singly or in cl.u.s.ters, from the rolling farm lands, put on a most gorgeous colouring. The air was mellow and sunny. From the camp-fires, far and near, there came always a faint pungent smell of wood smoke. Curls of blue vapour rose from every glade. The land seemed bathed in Indian summer.
Through it in the mellow sunlight, beneath the crimson of the gums, the lighter red of the maples, the yellow of the hickories, the 2d Army Corps found itself for weeks back on the drill ground. The old Army of the Valley crowed and clapped on the back the Light Division and D. H.
Hill's troops. "Old times come again! Jest like we used to do at Winchester! Chirk up, you fellows! Your drill's improving every day. Old Jack'll let up on you after a while. Lord! it used to be _seven_ hours a day!"
Not only did the 2d Corps drill, it refitted. Mysteriously there came from Winchester a really fair amount of shoes and clothing. Only the fewest were now actually barefoot. In every regiment there went on, too, a careful cobbling. If by any means a shoe could be made to do, it was put in that position. Uniforms were patched and cleaned, and every day was was.h.i.+ng day. All the hillsides were spread with soldiers' s.h.i.+rts.
The red leaves drifting down on them looked like blood-stains, but the leaves could be brushed away. The men, standing in the Opequon, whistled as they rubbed and wrung. Every day the recovered from hospitals, and the footsore stragglers, and the men detached or furloughed, came home to camp. There came in recruits, too--men who last year were too old, boys who last year were not old enough. "Look here, boys! Thar goes Father Time!--No, it's Rip Van Winkle!"--"No, it's Santa Claus!--Anyhow, he's going to fight!" "Look here, boys! here comes another cradle. Good Lord, he's just a toddler! He don't see a razor in his dreams yet!
Quartermaster's out of nursing-bottles!" "Shet up! the way those children fight's a caution!"
October drifted on, smooth as the Opequon. Red and yellow leaves drifted down, wood smoke arose, sound was wrapped as in fine wool, dulled everywhere to sweetness. Whirring insects, rippling water, the wood-chopper's axe, the whistling soldiers, the drum-beat, the bugle-call, all were swept into a smooth current, steady, almost droning, somewhat dream-like. The 2d Corps would have said that it was a long time on the Opequon, but that on the whole it found the place a pleasing land of drowsy-head.
Visitors came to the Opequon; parties from Winchester, officers from the 1st Corps commanded by Longstreet and encamped a few miles to the eastward, officers from the headquarters of the commander-in-chief.
General Lee came himself on Traveller, and with Stonewall Jackson rode along the Opequon, under the scarlet maples. One day there appeared a cl.u.s.ter of Englishmen, Colonel the Honourable Garnet Wolseley; the Special Correspondent of the _Times_, the Honourable Francis Lawley, and the Special Correspondent of the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_, Mr. Frank Vizetelly. General Lee had sent them over under the convoy of an officer, with a note to Stonewall Jackson.
MY DEAR GENERAL,--These gentlemen very especially wish to make your acquaintance. Yours,
R. E. LEE.
They made it, beneath a beautiful, tall, crimson gum tree, where on a floor of fallen leaves Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson's tent was pitched. A camp-stool, a wooden chair, and two boxes were placed. There was a respectful silence while the Opequon murmured by, then Garnet Wolseley spoke of the great interest which England--Virginia's mother country--was taking in this struggle.
"Yes, sir," said Jackson. "It would be natural for a mother to take an even greater interest."
"And the admiration, general, with which we have watched your career--the career of genius, if I may say so! By Jove--"
"Yes, sir. It is not my career. G.o.d has the matter in hand."
"Well, He knows how to pick his lieutenants!--You have the most ideal place for a camp, general! But, I suppose, before these coloured leaves all fall you will be moving?"
"It is an open secret, I suppose, sir," said the correspondent of the _Times_, "that when McClellan does see fit to cross you will meet him east of the Blue Ridge?"
"May I ask, sir," said the correspondent of the _Ill.u.s.trated News_, "what you think of this latest move on the political chess-board--I mean Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation?"
"The leaves are," said Jackson, "a beautiful colour. I was in England one autumn, Colonel Wolseley, but I did not observe our autumn colours in your foliage. Climate, doubtless. But what was my admiration were your cathedrals."
"Yes, general; wonderful, are they not? Music in stone. Should McClellan cross, would the Fredericksburg route--"
"Good! good! Music in stone! Which of your great church structures do you prefer, sir?"
"Why, sir, I might prefer Westminster Abbey. Would--"
"Good! Westminster Abbey. A soldier's answer. I remember that I especially liked Durham. I liked the Galilee chapel and the tomb of the Venerable Bede. St. Cuthbert is buried there, too, is he not?"
"I really don't remember, sir. Is he, Mr. Lawley?"
"I believe so."