CHAPTER XV
KERNSTOWN
The brigade was halted before a stretch of forest white with dogwood.Ahead began a slow cannonade. Puffs of smoke rose above the hill thathid the iron combatants. "Ashby's Horse Artillery," said the men."That's the Blakeley now! Boys, I reckon we're in for it!"
An aide passed at a gallop. "Shields and nine thousand men. Ashby wasmisinformed--more than we thought--Shields and nine thousand men."
Along the line the soldiers slightly moved their feet, moistened theirlips. The 65th occupied a fairy dell where Quaker ladies, blue as theheavens, bloomed by every stone. A Federal battery opened from a hill tothe right. A screaming shell entered the wood, dug into earth, andexploded, showering all around with mould. There came a great burst ofmusic--the Northern bands playing as the regiments deployed. "That's'Yankee Doodle!'" said the men. "Everybody's cartridge-box full? JohnnyLemon, don't you forgit to take your ramrod out before you fire!"
The colonel came along the line. "Boys, there is going to be aconsiderable deer drive!--Now, I am going to tell you about this quarry.Its name is Banks, and it wants to get across country to the Shenandoah,and so out of the Valley to join McClellan. Now General Johnston'smoving from the Rapidan toward Richmond, and he doesn't want Banksbothering him. He says, 'Delay the enemy as long as you can.' NowGeneral Jackson's undertaken to do it. We've got thirty-five hundredmen, and that ought to be enough.--_Right face! Forward march!_"
As the troops crossed the Valley pike the men hailed it. "Howdy, oldRoad! Pleased to meet you again. Lord! jest as fresh as a daisy--jest asthough we hadn't tramped them thirty-six miles from New Market sinceyesterday daybreak! My Lord! wish I had your staying qualities--_Aure-vo-ree!_"
Stone fences bordered the pike. The infantry, moving in double column,climbed them and entered another strip of springtime woods. Theartillery--McLaughlin's, Carpenter's, and Waters's batteries--found across-roads and thundered by, straining to the front. Ashby, togetherwith Chew's battery of horse artillery, kept the pike the other side ofKernstown. In front of the infantry stretched a great open marshymeadow, utterly without cover. Beyond this to the north, rose low hills,and they were crowned with Federal batteries, while along the slopes andin the vales between showed masses of blue infantry, clearly visible, inimposing strength and with bright battle-flags. It was high noon,beneath a brilliant sky. There were persistent musicians on the northernside; all the blue regiments came into battle to the sound of first-ratemilitary bands. The grey listened. "They sure are fond of 'YankeeDoodle!' There are three bands playing it at once.... There's the 'StarSpangled Banner'--
Oh, say can you see, Through the blue shades of evening--
I used to love it!... Good Lord, how long ago!"
Hairston Breckinridge spoke, walking in front of his company. "We'rewaiting for the artillery to get ahead. We're going to turn the enemy'sright--Shields's division, Kimball commanding. You see that wooded ridgeaway across there? That's our objective. That's Pritchard's Hill, whereall the flags are--How many men have they got? Oh, about ninethousand.--There goes the artillery now--there goes Rockbridge!--Yes,sir!--_Attention! Fall in!_"
In double column almost the entire fighting force of the Army of theValley crossed the endless open meadow beneath Kimball's batteries. Thatthe latter's range was poor was a piece of golden fortune. The shellscrossed to the wood or exploded high in blue air. Harmless they mightbe, but undeniably they were trying. Involuntarily the men stared,fascinated, at each round white cloud above them; involuntarily jerkedtheir heads at each rending explosion. From a furrowed ridge below theguns, musketry took a hand. The Army of the Valley here first met withminie balls. The sound with which they came curdled the blood. "What'sthat? What's that?... That's something new. _The infernal things!_"Billy Maydew, walking with his eyes on the minies, stumbled over afairy's ring and came to his knees. Lieutenant Coffin swore at him."---- ----! Gawking and gaping as though 'twere Christmas and Romancandles going off! Getup!" Billy arose and marched on. "I air a-going tokill him. Yes, sir; I air a-going to kill him yet." "Shoo!" said the manbeside him. "He don't mean no harm. He's jest as nervous as a two-yearfilly, and he's got to take it out on some one! Next 'lection ofofficers he'll be down and out.--Sho! how them things do screech!"
The meadow closed with a wooded hill. The grey lines, reaching shelter,gasped with relief. The way was steep, however, and the shells stillrained. An oak, struck and split by solid shot, fell across the way. Aline of ambulances coming somehow upon the hillside fared badly. Up themen strained to the top, which proved to be a wide level. TheRockbridge battery passed them at a gallop, to be greeted by a shellthrown from a thirty-two pounder on the Federal right. It struck a wheelhorse of one of the howitzers, burst, and made fearful havoc. Torn fleshand blood were everywhere; a second horse was mangled, only lesshorribly than the first; the third, a strong white mare, was so coveredwith the blood of her fellows and from a wound of her own, that shelooked a roan. The driver's spine was crushed, the foot of a gunner wastaken off--clean at the ankle as by a scythe. The noise was dreadful;the shriek that the mare gave echoed through the March woods. The otherguns of the battery, together with Carpenter's and Waters's, swept roundthe ruin and over the high open ground toward a stone wall that randiagonally across. The infantry followed and came out on an old field,strewn with rocks and blackberry bushes. In the distance stretchedanother long stone wall. Beyond it, on the gentle slopes, were gunsenough and blue soldiers enough--blue soldiers, with bright flags abovethem and somewhere still that insistent music. They huzzahed when theysaw the Confederates, and the Confederates answered with that strangestbattle shout, that wild and high and ringing cry called the "rebelyell."
In the woods along the ridge and in the old field itself the infantrydeployed. There were portions of three brigades,--Fulkerson's, Burk's,and the Stonewall. Fulkerson held the left, Burk with the IrishBattalion the right, and Garnett the centre. The position wascommanding, the Confederate strength massed before the Federal right,Shields's centre well to the eastward, and his left under Sullivan inthe air, on the other side of the pike. It was Stonewall Jackson'sdesire to turn that right flank, to crumple it back upon the centre, andto sweep by on the road to Winchester--the loved valley town so nearthat one might see its bourgeoning trees, hear its church bells.
He rode, on Little Sorrel, up and down the forming lines, and he spokeonly to give orders, quiet and curt, much in his class-room tone. He wasall brown like a leaf with Valley dust and sun and rain. The old cadetcap was older yet, the ancient boots as grotesquely large, the curiouslift of his hand to Heaven no less curious than it had always been. Hewas as awkward, as hypochondriac, as literal, as strict as ever.Moreover, there should have hung about him the cloud of disfavour andhostility raised by that icy march to Romney less than three months ago.And yet--and yet! What had happened since then? Not much, indeed. Thereturn of the Stonewall Brigade to Winchester, Loring's representations,the War Department's interference, and Major-General T. J. Jackson'sresignation from the service and request to be returned to the VirginiaMilitary Institute. General Johnston's remonstrance, Mr. Benjamin's_amende honorable_, and the withdrawal of "Old Jack's" resignation.There had been some surprise among the men at the effect upon themselvesof this withdrawal. They had greeted the news with hurrahs; they hadbeen all that day in extraordinary spirits. Why? To save them they couldnot have told. He had not won any battles. He had been harsh, hostile,pedantic, suspected, and detested upon that unutterable Bath and Romneytrip. And yet--and yet! He was cheered when, at Winchester, it was knownthat the Army of the Valley and not the Virginia Military Institute wasto have Major-General T. J. Jackson's services. He was cheered when, atshort intervals, in the month or two there in camp, he reviewed hisarmy. He was cheered when, a month ago, the army left Winchester, leftthe whole-hearted, loving, and loved town to be occupied by the enemy,left it and moved southward to New Market! He was cheered loudly when,two days before, had come the order to
march--to march northward, backalong the pike, back toward Winchester.
He was cheered now as he rode quietly to and fro, forming his line ofbattle--Fulkerson's 23d and 37th Virginia on the left, then the 27thsupported by the 21st, in the second line the 4th, the 33d, the 2d, the65th, a little back the Irish Battalion, and at the bottom of the ridgethe 5th, keeping touch with Ashby toward the pike. It was two of theafternoon, beautiful and bright. A brigadier, meeting him, said, "Wewere not sure, general, that you would fight to-day! It is Sunday."
The other fastened upon him his steady grey-blue eyes. "The God ofBattles, sir, as a great general, will understand. I trust that everyregiment may have service to-morrow in Winchester. Advance yourskirmishers, and send a regiment to support Carpenter's battery."
The 27th Virginia, target for a withering artillery fire, crossed theopen and disappeared in a strip of March wood, high and keen and brownagainst the fleckless sky. Behind it two long grey lines moved slowlyforward, out now in the old field. The men talked as they went. "Wishthere was nice ripe blackberries on these bushes! Wish I was a littleboy again with a straw hat and a tin bucket, gathering blackberries andlistenin' to the June bugs! _Zoon--Zoon--Zoon!_ O Lord! listen to thatshell!--Sho! that wasn't much. I'm getting to kind of like the fuss.There ain't so many of them screeching now, anyhow!"
A lieutenant raised his voice. "Their fire is slackening.--Don't reckonthey're tired of it, sir? Hope their ammunition's out!"
From the rear galloped a courier. "Where's General Jackson?--They'redrawing off!--a big body, horse and foot, is backing towardWinchester--"
"Glory hallelujah!" said the men. "Maybe we won't have to fight onSunday after all!"
Out of the March woods ahead broke a thunderclap of sound, settling intoa roar of musketry. It endured for some minutes, then forth from thethickets and shadow of the forest, back from Barton's Woods into theragged old field, reeled the 27th Virginia. Its colonel, Colonel JohnEchols, was down; badly hurt and half carried now by his men; there werefifty others, officers and men, killed or wounded. The wounded, most ofthem, were helped back by their comrades. The dead lay where they fellin Barton's Woods, where the arbutus was in bloom and the purpleviolets.
The 21st swept forward. The 27th rallied, joined the 21st. The twocharged the wood that was now filling with clouds of blue skirmishers.Behind came hurrying Garnett with the 2d, the 4th, and the 33d.
Fulkerson on the left, facing Tyler, had two regiments, the 23d and 37thVirginia. He deployed his men under cover, but now they were out in agreat and ragged field, all up and down, with boggy hollows, scarred tooby rail fences and blurred by low-growing briar patches. Diagonallyacross it, many yards away, ran one of the stone fences of the region, along dike of loosely piled and rounded rock. Beyond it the ground keptthe same nature, but gradually lifted to a fringe of tall trees.Emerging from this wood came now a Federal line of battle. It came withpomp and circumstance. The sun shone on a thousand bayonets; brightcolours tossed in the breeze, drums rolled and bugles blew. Kimball,commanding in Shields's absence, had divined the Confederate intention.He knew that the man they called Stonewall Jackson meant to turn hisright, and he began to mass his regiments, and he sent for Sullivan fromthe left.
The 23d and 37th Virginia eyed the on-coming line and eyed the stonefence. "That's good cover!" quoth a hunter from the hills. "We'd a longsight better have it than those fellows!--Sh! the colonel's speaking."
Fulkerson's speech was a shout, for there had arisen a deafening noiseof artillery. "Run for your lives, men--toward the enemy! Forward, andtake the stone fence!"
The two regiments ran, the Federal line of battle ran, the stone coverthe prize. As they ran the grey threw forward their muskets and fired.That volley was at close range, and it was discharged by born marksmen.The grey fired again; yet closer. Many a blue soldier fell; thecolour-bearer pitched forward, the line wavered, gave back. The charginggrey reached and took the wall. It was good cover. They knelt behind it,laid their musket barrels along the stones, and fired. The blue linewithstood that volley, even continued its advance, but a secondfusillade poured in their very faces gave them check at last. Indisorder, colours left upon the field, they surged back to the wood andto the cover of a fence at right angles with that held by theConfederates. Now began upon the left the fight of the stone wall--hoursof raging battle, of high quarrel for this barrier. The regimentscomposing the grey centre found time to cheer for Fulkerson; the rumourof the fight reached the right where Ashby's squadron held the pike.Jackson himself came on Little Sorrel, looked at the wall and the lineof men, powder grimed about the lips, plying the ramrods, shoulderingthe muskets, keeping back Tyler's regiments, and said "Good! good!"
Across a mile of field thundered an artillery duel, loud and prolonged.The blue had many guns; the grey eighteen in action. There were indeedbut seventeen, for a Tredegar iron gun was disabled in crossing themeadow. The blue were the stronger cannon, modern, powerful. The greywere inferior there; also the grey must reach deeper and deeper intocaisson and limber chest, must cast anxious backward glances towardordnance wagons growing woefully light. The fire of the blue wasextremely heavy; the fire of the grey as heavy as possible consideringthe question of ammunition. Rockbridge worked its guns in a narrowclearing dotted with straw stacks. A section under Lieutenant Poague wassent at a gallop, half a mile forward, to a point that seemed ofvantage. Here the unlimbering guns found themselves in infantry company,a regiment lying flat, awaiting orders. "Hello, 65th!" said the gunners."Wish people going to church at home could see us!"
A shell fell beside the howitzer and burst with appalling sound. The gunwas blown from position, and out of the smoke came a fearful cry ofwounded men. "O God!--O God!" The smoke cleared. All who had served thatgun were down. Their fellows about the six-pounder, the other gun of thesection, stood stupefied, staring, their lips parted, sponge staff orrammer or lanyard idle in their hands. A horse came galloping. An aideof Jackson's--Sandy Pendleton it was said--leaped to the ground. He wasjoined by Richard Cleave. The two came through the ring of the woundedand laid hold of the howitzer. "Mind the six-pounder, Poague! We'llserve here. Thunder Run men, three of you, come here and help!"
They drew the howitzer in position, charged it, and fired. In a very fewmoments after the horror of the shell, she was steadily sending canisteragainst the great Parrott on the opposite hill. The six-pounder besideher worked as steadily. A surgeon came with his helpers, gathered up thewounded, and carried them beneath a whistling storm of shot and shell toa field hospital behind the ridge.
Out of the woods came fresh regiments of the enemy. These bore down uponthe guns and upon the 5th Virginia now forming behind them. Poague'ssection opened with canister at one hundred and fifty yards. All theValley marksmen of the 5th let fall the lids of their cartridge boxes,lifted their muskets, and fired. The blue withstood the first volley andthe second, but at the third they went back to the wood. An orderarrived from McLaughlin of the Rockbridge, "Lieutenant Poague back tothe straw stacks!" The battery horses, quiet and steadfast, were broughtfrom where they had stood and cropped the grass, the guns were limberedup, Jackson's aide and the men of the 65th fell back, the six-poundershared its men with the howitzer, off thundered the guns. There was astir in the 65th. "Boys, I heard say that when those fellows show again,we're going to charge!"
The battle was now general--Fulkerson on the left behind the stone wall,Garnett in the centre, the artillery and Burk with three battalions onthe right. Against them poured the regiments of Kimball and Tyler, withSullivan coming up. The sun, could it have been seen through the rollingsmoke, would have showed low in the heavens. The musketry wascontinuous, and the sound of the cannon shook the heart of Winchesterthree miles away.
The 65th moved forward. Halfway up the slope, its colonel received anugly wound. He staggered and sank. "Go on! go on, men! Fine hunt! Don'tlet the stag--" The 65th went on, led by Richard Cleave.
Before it stretched a long bank of springtime turf, a natura
l breastworkseized by the blue soldiers as the stone fence on the left had beentaken by Fulkerson. From behind this now came a line of leaping flame.Several of the grey fell, among them the colour-bearer. The man nearestsnatched the staff. Again the earthwork blazed and rang, and again thecolour-bearer fell, pitching forward, shot through the heart. BillyMaydew caught the colours. "Thar's a durned sharpshooter a-settin' inthat thar tree! Dave, you pick him off."
Again the bank blazed. A western regiment was behind it, a regiment ofhunters and marksmen. Moreover a fresh body of troops could be seenthrough the smoke, hurrying down from the tall brown woods. The greyline broke, then rallied and swept on. The breastwork was now but a fewhundred feet away. A flag waved upon it, the staff planted in the softearth. Billy, moving side by side with Allan Gold, clutched closer thegreat red battle-flag with the blue cross. His young face was set, hiseyes alight. Iron-sinewed he ran easily, without panting. "I aira-goin'," he announced, "I air a-goin' to put this here one in the placeof that thar one."
"'T isn't going to be easy work," said Allan soberly. "What's the use ofducking, Steve Dagg? If a bullet's going to hit you it's going to hityou, and if it isn't going to hit you it isn't--"
A minie ball cut the staff of the flag in two just above Billy's head.He caught the colours as they came swaying down, Allan jerked a musketfrom a dead man's grasp, and together he and Billy somehow fastened theflag to the bayonet and lifted it high. The line halted under amomentary cover, made by the rising side of a hollow rimmed by a fewyoung locust trees. Cleave came along it. "Close ranks!--Men, all ofyou! that earthwork must be taken. The 2d, the 4th, and the 33d arebehind us looking to see us do it. General Jackson himself is looking._Attention! Fix bayonets! Forward! Charge!_"
Up out of the hollow, and over the field went the 65th in a wild charge.The noise of a thousand seas was in the air, and the smoke of thebottomless pit. The yellow flashes of the guns came through it, and ablur of colour--the flag on the bank. On went their own greatbattle-flag, slanting forward as Billy Maydew ran. The bank flamed androared. A bullet passed through the fleshy part of the boy's arm. Helooked sideways at the blood. "Those durned bees sure do sting! I aira-goin' to plant this here flag on that thar bank, jest the same as if't was a hop pole in Christianna's garden!"
Fulkerson fought on grimly by the stone wall; Garnett and the otherStonewall regiments struggled with desperation to hold the centre, theartillery thundered from every height. The 65th touched the earthwork.Cleave mounted first; Allan followed, then Billy and the Thunder Runmen, the regiment pouring after. Hot was the welcome they got, andfierce was their answering grip. In places men could load and fire, butbayonet and musket butt did much of the work. There was a great clamour,the acrid smell of powder, the indescribable taste of battle. The flagwas down; the red battle-flag with the blue cross in its place. Therewas a surge of the western regiment toward it, a battle around it thatstrewed the bank and the shallow ditch beneath with many a blue figure,many a grey. Step by step the grey pushed the blue back, away from thebank, back toward the wood arising, shadowy, from a base of eddyingsmoke.
Out of the smoke, suddenly, came hurrahing. It was deep and loud,issuing from many throats. The western regiment began to hurrah, too."They're coming to help! They're coming to help! Indiana, ain'tit?--Now, you rebs, you go back on the other side!"
The blue wave from the wood came to reinforce the blue wave in front.The 65th struggled with thrice its numbers, and there was a noise fromthe wood which portended more. Back, inch by inch, gave the grey,fighting desperately. They loaded, fired, loaded, fired. They usedbayonet and musket stock. The blue fell thick, but always others came totake their places. The grey fell, and the ranks must close with none toreinforce. In the field to the left the 4th and the 33d had their handsvery full; the 2d was gone to Fulkerson's support, the 5th and the 42dwere not yet up. Out of the wood came a third huzzahing blue line.Cleave, hatless, bleeding from a bayonet thrust in the arm, ordered theretreat.
On the crest of the bank there was confusion and clamour, shots andshouts, the groans of the fallen, a horrible uproar. Out of the stormcame a high voice, "It air a-goin' to stay, and I air a-goin' to staywith it!"
Billy Maydew had the flag. He stood defiant, half enveloped in itsfolds, his torn shirt showing throat and breast, his young head thrownback against the red ground. "I ain't a-goin' to quit--I ain't a-goin'to quit! Thunder Run and Thunder Mountain hear me what I am a-sayin'! Iain't a-goin' to quit!"
Allan Gold laid hold of him. "Why, Billy, we're coming back! There's gotto be a lot of times like this in a big war! You come on and carry thecolours out safe. You don't want those fellows to take them!"
Billy chanted on, "I ain't a-goin' to quit! I put it here jest like Iwas putting a hop pole in Christianna's garden, and I ain't a-goin' todig it up again--"
Dave appeared. "Billy boy, don't be such a damned fool! You jestskeedaddle with the rest of us and take it out of them next time. Don'tye want to see Christianna again, an' maw an' the dogs?--Thar, now!"
A bullet split the standard, another--a spent ball coming from thehillside--struck the bearer in the chest. Billy came to his knees, thegreat crimson folds about him. Cleave appeared in the red-lit murk."Pick him up, Allan, and bring him away."
It was almost dusk to the green and rolling world about the field ofKernstown. Upon that field, beneath the sulphurous battle cloud, it wasdusk indeed. The fighting line was everywhere, and for the Confederatesthere were no reinforcements. Fulkerson yet held the left, Garnett withconspicuous gallantry the centre with the Stonewall regiments. Thebatteries yet thundered upon the right. But ammunition was low, and forthree hours Ashby's mistake as to the enemy's numbers had received fulldemonstration. Shields's brigadiers did well and the blue soldiers didwell.
A body of troops coming from the wood and crowding through a gap in astone fence descended upon the Rockbridge battery. Four regiments of theStonewall brigade clung desperately to the great uneven field whichmarked the centre. The musket barrels were burningly hot to the touch ofthe men, their fingers must grope for the cartridges rattling in thecartridge boxes, their weariness was horrible, their eyes were glazed,their lips baked with thirst. Long ago they had fought in a great,bright, glaring daytime; then again, long ago, they had begun to fightin a period of dusk, an age of dusk. The men loaded, fired, loaded,rammed, fired quite automatically. They had been doing this for a long,long time. Probably they would do it for a long time to come. Only thecartridges were not automatically supplied. It even seemed that theymight one day come to an end. The dusk deepened. They had, beneath thered-lit battle clouds, a glimpse of Garnett, a general chivalric andloved, standing in his stirrups, looking out and upward toward the darkwood and Sullivan's fresh regiments.
A sergeant came along the line stretching a haversack open with hishands. In it were cartridges. "I gathered all the dead had. 'T isn'tmany. You've got to shoot to kill, boys!" A man with a ball through theend of his spine, lying not far from a hollow of the earth, half pool,half bog, began to cry aloud in an agonizing fashion. "Water! water! Oh,some one give me water! Water! For the love of God, water!" A greysoldier started out of line toward him; in a second both were killed.Garnett settled down in his saddle and came back to the irregular,smoke-wreathed, swaying line. He spoke to his colonels. "There are threethousand fresh bayonets at the back of these woods. General Jackson doesnot wish a massacre. I will withdraw the brigade."
The troops were ready to go. They had held the centre very long; thecartridges were all but spent, the loss was heavy, they were deadlytired. They wanted water to drink and to hear the command, _Breakranks!_ Garnett was gallant and brave; they saw that he did what he didwith reason, and their judgment acquiesced. There was momently a freshfoe. Without much alignment, fighting in squads or singly, firing asthey went from thicket and hollow at the heavy on-coming masses, theStonewall Brigade fell back upon the wood to the south. The blue wavesaw victory and burst into a shout of triumph. Kimbal's batteries, too,began a jubi
lant thunder.
Over the field, from Fulkerson on the left to the broken centre and thewithdrawing troops came a raw-bone sorrel urged to a furious gallop;upon it a figure all dusk in the dusk, a Cromwell-Quixote of a man,angered now to a degree, with an eye like steel and a voice like ice. Herode up to Garnett, as though he would ride him down. "General Garnett,what are you doing? Go back at once, sir!"
As he spoke he threw himself from the saddle and closed his gauntletedhand with force on the arm of a drummer boy. "Beat the rally!" hecommanded.
The rapid and continuous rolling filled like a sound of the sea the earsof the Stonewall Brigade. Garnett, in a strange voice, gave thecounter-order. The men uttered a hard and painful gasp. They looked andsaw Stonewall Jackson lifted above them, an iron figure in a storm ofshot and shell. He jerked his hand into the air; he shouted, "Back, men!Give them the bayonet!" The drum beat on. Colonels and captains andlieutenants strove to aid him and to change the retreat into an advance.In vain! the commands were shattered; the fighting line all broken anddispersed. The men did not shamefully flee; they retreated sullenly,staying here and there where there were yet cartridges, to fire upon theon-coming foe, but they continued to go back.
The 5th and the 42d with Funsten's small cavalry command came hasteningto the broken centre and there made a desperate fight. The 5th Virginiaand the 5th Ohio clanged shields. The 84th Pennsylvania broke twice,rallied twice, finally gave way. Two Indiana regiments came up; the 5thVirginia was flanked; other blue reinforcements poured in. The last greycommands gave way. Fulkerson, too, on the left, his right now uncovered,must leave his stone fence and save his men as best he might. Rockbridgeand Carpenter and Waters no longer thundered from the heights. The greyinfantry, wildly scattered, came in a slow surge back through the woodswhere dead men lay among the spring flowers, and down the ridge andthrough the fields, grey and dank in the March twilight, toward theValley pike. Night and the lost battle weighed upon the army. Theshadowy ambulances, the lights of the gatherers of the wounded flittingfew and far over the smoke-clouded field, made for a ghastly depression.Sick at heart, in a daze of weariness, hunger and thirst, drunk withsleep, mad for rest, command by command stumbled down the pike orthrough the fields to where, several miles to the south, stretched themeadows where their trains were parked. There was no pursuit. Woods andfields were rough and pathless; it was now dark night, and Ashby heldthe pike above.
A camp-fire was built for Stonewall Jackson in a field to the right ofthe road, three miles from Kernstown. Here he stood, summoned Garnett,and put him under arrest. The army understood next day that heavycharges would be preferred against this general.
To right and left of the pike camp-fires flamed in the windy night.Passing one of these, Richard Cleave cut short some bewailing on thepart of the ring about it. "Don't be so downcast, people! Sometimes adefeat in one place equals a victory in another. I don't believe thatGeneral Banks will join General McClellan just now. Indeed, it's notimpossible that McClellan will have to part with another division. Theirgovernment's dreadfully uneasy about Washington and the road toWashington. They didn't beat us easily, and if we can lead them up anddown this Valley for a while--I imagine that's what General Johnstonwants, and what General Jackson will procure.--And now you'd better allgo to sleep."
"Where are you going, Cleave?"
"To see about the colonel. They've just brought him to the farmhouseyonder. Dr. McGuire says he will get well--dear old Brooke!"
He went, striding over the furrowed field past groups of men sleepingand moaning as they slept. The stars were very bright in the clear,cold, windy night. He looked at them and thought of the battle and ofthe dead and the wounded, and of Judith and of his mother and sister,and of Will in the 2d, and of to-morrow's movements, and of StonewallJackson. A dark figure came wandering up to him. It proved to be that ofan old negro. "Marster, is you seen Marse Charlie?"
"Marse Charlie whom, uncle?"
"Marse Charlie Armetage, sah, mah young marster. I 'spec you done seedhim? I 'spec he come marchin' wif you down de pike f'om dat damnbattlefield? I sure would be 'bleeged ef you could tell me, sah."
"I wish I could," said Cleave, with gentleness. "I haven't seen him, butmaybe some one else has."
The old negro drew one hand through the other. "I's asked erbout fiftygent'men ... Reckon Marse Charlie so damn tired he jes' lain downsomewhere an' gone ter sleep. Reckon he come down de pike in de mahnin',shoutin' fer Daniel. Don' you reckon so, marster?"
"It's not impossible, Daniel. Maybe you'll find him yet."
"I 'specs ter," said Daniel. "I 'spec ter fin' him howsomever he'sa-lyin'." He wandered off in the darkness, and Cleave heard him speakingto a picket, "Marster, is you seen Marse Charlie?"