XXXII
MANASSAS
Femininely enough, our little borrowed book, Miranda's and Victorine'scompilation of letters from the front, gives no more than a few lines tothe first great battle of the war.
Fred Greenleaf was one of its wounded prisoners. Hilary cared for himand sought his exchange; but owing to some invisible wire-pulling byFlora Valcour, done while with equal privacy she showed the captive muchgraciousness, he was still in the Parish Prison, New Orleans, inFebruary, '62, when the book was about to be made, though recovered ofwounds and prison ills and twice or thrice out on his parole, after duskand in civilian's dress, at Callender House.
The Callenders had heard the combat's proud story often, of course, notonly from battery lads bringing home dead comrades, or coming to getwell of their own hurts, or never to get well of them, but also fromgold-sleeved, gray-breasted new suitors of Anna (over-staying theirfurloughs), whom she kept from tenderer themes by sprightly queries thatnever tired and constantly brought forth what seemed totally unsoughtmentions of the battery. And she had gathered the tale from Greenleaf aswell. Constance, to scandalized intimates, marvelled at her sister'stolerance of his outrageous version; but Miranda remembered how easy itis to bear with patience (on any matter but one) a rejected lover whohas remained faithful, and Flora, to grandma, smiled contentedly.
Anna's own private version (sum of all), though never written even inher diary, was illustrated, mind-pictured. Into her reveries hadgradually come a tableau of the great field. Inaccurate it may havebeen, incomplete, even grotesquely unfair; but to her it was at leastclear. Here--through the middle of her blue-skied, pensivecontemplation, so to speak--flowed Bull Run. High above it, circling ineagle majesty under still, white clouds, the hungry buzzard, vainly asyet, scanned the green acres of meadow and wood merry with the lark, thethrush, the cardinal. Here she discerned the untried graybrigades--atom-small on nature's face, but with Ewell, Early,Longstreet, and other such to lead them--holding the frequent fords,from Union Mills up to Lewis's. Here near Mitchell's, on a lonesomeroadside, stood Kincaid's Battery, fated there to stay for hours yet, inhateful idleness and a fierce July sun, watching white smoke-lines ofcrackling infantry multiply in the landscape or bursting shells makewhite smoke-rings in the bright air, and to listen helplessly to theboom, hurtle and boom of other artilleries and the far away cheering andcounter-cheering of friend and foe. Yonder in the far east glimmeredCenterville, its hitherward roads, already in the sabbath sunrise, fullof brave bluecoats choking with Virginia dust and throwing away theirhot blankets as they came. Here she made out Stone Bridge, guarded by abrigade called Jackson's; here, crossing it east and west, the Warrentonturnpike, and yonder north of them that rise of dust above the treeswhich meant a flanking Federal column and crept westward as Evanswatched it, toward Sudley Springs, ford, mill, and church, where alreadymuch blue infantry had stolen round by night from Centerville. Here,leading south from these, she descried the sunken Sudley road, that witha dip and a rise crossed the turnpike and Young's Branch. There eastwardof it the branch turned north-east and then southeast between thosesloping fields beyond which Evans and Wheat were presently fightingBurnside; through which Bee, among bursting shells, pressed to their aidagainst such as Keyes and Sherman, and back over which, after a long,hot struggle, she could see--could hear--the aiders and the aided sweptin one torn, depleted tumult, shattered, confounded, and made the moreimpotent by their own clamor. Here was the many-ravined, tree-dotted,southward rise by which, in concave line, the Northern brigades andbatteries, pressing across the bends of the branch, advanced to thefamed Henry house plateau--that key of victory where by midday fell allthe horrid weight of the battle; where the guns of Ricketts and Griffenfor the North and of Walton and Imboden for the South crashed and mowed,and across and across which the opposing infantries volleyed and bled,screamed, groaned, swayed, and drove each other, staggered, panted,rallied, cheered, and fell or fought on among the fallen. Here cried Beeto the dazed crowd, "Look at Jackson's brigade standing like a stonewall." Here Beauregard and Johnson formed their new front of half adozen states on Alabama's colours, and here a bit later the Creolegeneral's horse was shot under him. Northward here, down the slope andover the branch, rolled the conflict, and there on the opposite rise,among his routed blues, was Greenleaf disabled and taken.
All these, I say, were in Anna's changing picture. Here from the left,out of the sunken road, came Howard, Heintzelman, and their like, andhere in the oak wood that lay across it the blue and gray lines spentlong terms of agony mangling each other. Here early in that part of thestruggle--sent for at last by Beauregard himself, they say--cameKincaid's Battery, whirling, shouting, whip-cracking, sweating, withHilary well ahead of them and Mandeville at his side, to the groundbehind the Henry house when it had been lost and retaken and all butlost again. Here Hilary, spurring on away from his bounding guns tochoose them a vantage ground, broke into a horrid melee alone and wasfor a moment made prisoner, but in the next had handed his captors overto fresh graycoats charging; and here, sweeping into action with all thegrace and precision of the drill-ground at Camp Callender, came hisbattery, his and hers! Here rode Bartleson, here Villeneuve, Maxime withthe colors, Tracy, Sam Gibbs; and here from the chests sprang Violett,Rareshide, Charlie and their scores of fellows, unlimbered, sighted,blazed, sponged, reloaded, pealed again, sent havoc into the enemy andgot havoc from them. Here one and another groaned, and another andanother dumbly fell. Here McStea, and St. Ange, Converse, Fusilier,Avendano, Ned Ferry and others limbered up for closer work, galloped,raced, plunged, reared, and stumbled, gained the new ground and made ita worse slaughter-pen than the first, yet held on and blazed, pealed,and smoked on, begrimed and gory. Here was Tracy borne away to fieldhospital leaving Avendano and McStea groveling in anguish under thewheels, and brave Converse and young Willie Calder, hot-headed Fusilierand dear madcap Jules St. Ange lying near them out of pain forever. Yethere their fellows blazed on and on, black, shattered, decimated, shortof horses, one caisson blown up, and finally dragged away to bivouac,proud holders of all their six Callender guns, their silken flagshot-torn but unsoiled and furled only when shells could no longer reachthe flying foe.