Chapter 87
"Yes, he is. You haven't got any cathedrals here, General Jackson, but you've got about the most interesting army on the globe. Will McClellan--"
"I like the solidity of the early Norman. The foundations were laid in 1093, I believe?"
"Very probably, general. Has General Lee--"
"It has a commanding situation--an advantage which all of your cathedrals do not possess. I liked the windows best at York. What do you think, colonel?"
"I think that you are right, general. When your wars are over, I hope that you will visit England again. I suppose that you cannot say how soon that will be, sir?"
"No, sir. Only G.o.d can say that. I should like to see Ely and Canterbury." He rose. "Gentlemen, it has been pleasant to meet you. I hear the adjutant's call. If you would like to find out how my men _drill_, Colonel Johnson may take you to the parade-ground."
Later, there arrived beneath the crimson gum four of Jeb Stuart's officers, gallantly mounted and equipped, young and fine. To-day their usual careless dash was tempered by something of important gravity; if their eyes danced, it was beneath half-closed lids; they did not smile outright, but their lips twitched. Behind them an orderly bore a long pasteboard box. The foremost officer was Major Heros von Borcke, of General Stuart's staff. All dismounted. Jackson came out of his tent.
The air was golden warm; the earth was level before the tent, and on the carpet of small bright leaves was yet the table, the chair, the camp-stool, and the boxes. It made a fine, out-of-door room of audience.
The cavalry saluted. Jackson touched the forage cap, and sat down. The staff officer, simple, big, and genuine, stood forward. "Major Von Borcke, is it not? Well, major, what is General Stuart about just now?"
"General, he is watching his old schoolmate, General McClellan. My general, I come on a graceful errand, a little gift from General Stuart bearing. He has so great an esteem and friends.h.i.+p for you, general; he asks that you accept so slight a token of that esteem and friends.h.i.+p and he would say affection, and he does say reverence. He says that from Richmond he has for this sent--"
Major Heros von Borcke made a signal. The orderly advanced and placed upon the pine table the box. The other cavalry officers stepped a little nearer; two or three of Stonewall Jackson's military family came also respectfully closer; the red gum leaves made a rustling underfoot.
"General Stuart is extremely kind," said Jackson. "I have a high esteem for Jeb Stuart. You will tell him so, major."
Slowly, slowly, came off the lid. Slowly, slowly came away a layer of silver paper. Where on earth they got--in Richmond in 1862--the gay box, the silver paper, pa.s.ses comprehension. The staff thought it looked Parisian, and nursed the idea that it had once held a ball gown. Slowly, slowly, out came the gift.
A startled sound, immediately suppressed, was uttered by the military family. Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson merely looked a stone wall. The old servant Jim was now also upon the scene. "Fo' de Lawd!" said Jim.
"Er new nuniform!"
Fine grey cadet cloth, gold lace, silken facings, beautiful bright b.u.t.tons, sash, belt, gauntlets--the leaves rustled loudly, but a chuckle from Jim in the background and a murmured "Dat are sumpin' like!" was the only audible utterance. With empress.e.m.e.nt each article was lifted from the box by Major Heros von Borcke and laid upon the pine boards beneath Stonewall Jackson's eyes. The box emptied, Von Borcke, big, simple, manly, gravely beaming, stepped back from the table. "For General Jackson, with General Stuart's esteem and admiration!"
Stonewall Jackson, big, too, and to appearance simple, looked under the forage cap, smiled, and with one lean brown finger touched almost timidly the beautiful, spotless cadet cloth. "Major von Borcke, you will give General Stuart my best thanks. He is, indeed, good. All this," he gravely indicated the loaded table, "is much too fine for the hard work I'd have to give it, and I shall have it put away for the present. But you tell General Stuart, major, that I will take the best care of his beautiful present, and that I will always prize it highly as a souvenir.
It is, I think, about one o'clock. You will stay to dinner with me, I hope, major."
But the banks of the Opequon uttered a protest. "Oh, general!"--"My general, you will hurt his feelings."--"General, just try it on, at least!" "Let us have our way, sir, just this once! We have been right good, haven't we? and we do so want to see you in it!"--"General Stuart will certainly want to know how it fits--" "Please, sir,"--"_Gineral, Miss Anna sholy would like ter see you in hit!_"
Ten minutes elapsed while the Opequon rippled by and the crimson gum leaves drifted down, then somewhat bashfully from the tent came forth Stonewall Jackson metamorphosed. Triumph perched upon the helms of the staff and the visiting cavalry. "Oh!--Oh!--" "General Stuart will be so happy!" "General, the review this afternoon! General, won't you review us _that way_?"
He did. At first the men did not know him, then there mounted a wild excitement. Suppressed with difficulty during the actual evolutions, it burst into flower when the ranks were broken. The sun was setting in a flood of gold; there hung a fairy light over the
Stonewall! Old Jack! Old Jack! Old Jack!"
Old Jack touched his beautiful hat of a lieutenant-general. Little Sorrel beneath him moved with a jerk of the head and a distended nostril. The men noticed that, too. "He don't know him either! Oh, Lord!
Oh, Lord! Ain't life worth while? Ain't it grand?--Stonewall!
Stonewall!"
On went the gold October, pa.s.sing at last in a rain and drift of leaves into a russet November. The curls of wood smoke showed plainer down the glades, the crows were cawing, the migratory birds going south, but the days were yet mild and still, wrapped in a balm of pale suns.h.i.+ne, a faint, purplish, Indian summer haze. The 2d Corps was hale and soberly happy.
It was the chaplain's season. There occurred in the Army of Northern Virginia a religious revival, a far-spread and lasting deepening of feeling. For many nights in many forest glades there were "meetings"
with prayer and singing. "Old Hundred" floated through the air. From tents and huts of boughs came the soldiers. They sat upon the earth, thick carpeted now with the faded leaves, or upon gnarled, out-cropping roots of oak and beech. Above shone the moon; there was a touch of frost in the air. The chaplain had some improvised pulpit; a great fire, or perhaps a torch fastened to a bough, gave light whereby to read the Book. The sound of the voice, the sound of the singing, blended with the voice of the Opequon rus.h.i.+ng--all rus.h.i.+ng toward the great Sea.
"Come, humble sinner, in whose breast A thousand thoughts revolve--"
It made a low thunder, so many soldiers' voices. Always, on these nights, in some glade or meadow, with some regiment or other, there was found the commander of the 2d Corps. Beneath the cathedral roof of the forest, or beneath the stars in the open, sat Stonewall Jackson, wors.h.i.+pping the G.o.d of Battles. Undoubtedly he was really and deeply happy. His place is on the Judean hills, with Joab and David and Abner.
Late in this November there came to him another joy. In North Carolina, where his wife had gone, a child was born to him, his only child, a daughter.
In the first half of October had occurred Jeb Stuart's brilliant Monocacy raid, two days and a half within McClellan's lines. On the twenty-sixth McClellan began the pa.s.sage of the Potomac. He crossed near Berlin, and Lee, a.s.sured now that the theatre of war would be east of the Blue Ridge, dispatched Longstreet with the 1st Corps to Culpeper. On the seventh of November McClellan was removed from the command of the Army of the Potomac. It was given over to Burnside, and he took the Fredericksburg route to Richmond.
The Army of the Potomac numbered one hundred and twenty-five thousand men and officers and three hundred and twenty guns. At Was.h.i.+ngton were in addition eighty thousand men, and up and down the Potomac twenty thousand more. The Army of Northern Virginia in all, 1st and 2d Corps, had seventy-two thousand men and officers and two hundred and seventy-five guns. Lee called Stonewall Jackson to join Longstreet at Fredericksburg.
On the twenty-second the 1st Corps quitted, amid smiles and tears, many a "G.o.d keep you!" and much cheering, Winchester the beloved. Out swung the long column upon the Valley pike. Advance and main and rear, horse and foot and guns, Stonewall Jackson and his twenty-five thousand took the old road. The men were happy. "Old road, old road, old road, howdy do! How's your health, old lady? Haven't you missed us? Haven't you missed us? We've missed _you_!"
It was Indian summer, violet, dream-like. By now there had been burning and harrowing in the Valley; war had laid his mailed hand upon the region. It was not yet the straining clutch of later days, but it was bad enough. The Indian summer wrapped with a soft touch of mourning purple much of desolation, much of untilled earth, and charred roof-tree, and broken walls. The air was soft and gentle, lying balmy and warm on the road and ragged fields, and the haze so hid the distances that the column thought not so much of how the land was scarred as of the memories that thronged on either side of the Valley pike. "Kernstown! The field of Kernstown. There's Fulkerson's wall.
About five hundred years ago!"
Stonewall Jackson, riding in the van, may be supposed to have had his memories, too. He did not express them. He was using expedition, and he sent back orders. "Press forward, men! Press forward." He rode quietly, forage cap pulled low; or, standing with Little Sorrel on some wayside knoll, he watched for a while his thousands pa.s.sing. Stuart's gay present had taken the air but once. Here was the old familiar, weather-worn array, leaf brown from sun and wind and dust and rain, patched here and patched there, dull of b.u.t.tons, and with the lace worn off. Here were the old boots, the sabre, the forage cap; here were the blue glint of the eye and the short "Good! good!" as the men pa.s.sed. The marching men shouted for him. He nodded, and having noted whatever it was he had paused to note, shook Little Sorrel's bridle and stiffly galloped to the van again.
Past Newtown, past Middletown, on to Strasburg--the Ma.s.sanuttons loomed ahead, all softly coloured yet with reds and golds. "Ma.s.sanutton!
Ma.s.sanutton!" said the troops. "We've seen you before, and you've seen us before! Front Royal's at your head and Port Republic's at your feet."
"In Virginia there's a Valley, Valley, Valley!
Where all day the war drums beat, Beat, Beat!
And the soldiers love the Valley Valley, Valley!
And the Valley loves the soldiers, Soldiers, soldiers!"
Past Strasburg, past Tom's Brook, past Rude's Hill--through the still November days, in the Indian summer weather, the old Army of the Valley, the old Ewell's Division, the Light Division, D. H. Hill's Division, moved up the Valley Pike. All were now the 2d Corps, Stonewall Jackson riding at its head. The people--the people were mostly women and children--flocked to the great highroad to bring the army things, to wave it onward, to say "G.o.d bless you!"--"G.o.d keep you!"--"G.o.d make you to conquer!"
The 2d Corps pa.s.sed Woodstock, and Edenburg, and Mt. Jackson, and came to New Market, and here it turned eastward. "Going to leave you,"
chanted the troops. "Going to leave you, old road, old road! Take care of yourself till we come again!"
Up and up and over Ma.s.sanutton wound the 2d Corps. The air was still, not cold. The gold leaves drifted on the troops, and the red. From the top of the pa.s.s the view was magnificent. Down and down wound the column to the cold, swift Shenandoah. The men forded the stream. "Oh, Shenandoah! Oh, Shenandoah! when will we ford you again?"
Up and up the steeps of the Blue Ridge to Fisher's Gap! All the air was dreamy, the sun sloping to the west, the crows cawing in the mountain clearings. The column was leaving the Valley, and a silence fell upon it. Stonewall Jackson rode ahead, on the mountain path, in the last gold light. At the summit of the pa.s.s there was a short halt. It went by in a strange quietness. The men turned and gazed. "The Valley of Virginia!
The Valley of Virginia! _Which of us will not see you again?_"
The Alleghenies lay faint, faint, beneath the flooding light. The sun sent out great rays of purple and rose. Between the mountain ranges the vast landscape lay in shadow, though here and there a high hilltop, a mountain spur had a coronet of gold. The 2d Corps, twenty-five thousand men, high on the Blue Ridge, looked and looked. "Some of us will not see you again. Some of us will not see you again, O loved Valley of Virginia!" _Column Forward! Column Forward!_
CHAPTER XLV
THE LONE TREE HILL
The three beautiful Carys walked together from the road gate toward the house. Before them, crowning the low hill, showed the white pillars between oaks where the deep coloured leaves yet clung. The sun was down, the air violet, the negro children burning brush and leaves in the hollow behind the house quarter. Halfway to the pillars, there ran back from the drive a long double row of white chrysanthemums. The three sisters paused to gather some for the vases.
Unity and Molly gathered them. Judith sat down on the bank by the road, thick with dead leaves. She drew her scarf about her. Molly came presently and sat beside her. "Dear Judith, dear Judith!" she said, in her soft little voice, and stroked her sister's dress.
Judith put her arm about her, and drew her close. "Molly, isn't it as though the earth were dying? Just the kind of fading light and hush one thinks of going in--I don't know why, but I don't like chrysanthemums any more."
"I know," said Molly, "there's a feel of mould in them, and of dead leaves and chilly nights. But the soldiers are so used to lying out of doors! I don't believe they mind it much, or they won't until the snow comes. Judith--"