CHAPTER XXV
ASHBY
Flournoy and Munford, transferred to Ashby's command, kept with him inthe Confederate rear. The army marching from the Shenandoah left thecavalry behind in the wind and rain to burn the bridge and delayFremont. Ashby, high on the eastern bank, watched the slow flames seizethe timbers, fight with the wet, prevail and mount. The black stallionplanted his fore feet, shook his head, snuffed the air. The wind blewout his rider's cloak. In the light from the burning bridge the scarletlining glowed and gleamed like the battle-flag. The stallion neighed.Ashby's voice rose ringingly. "Chew, get the Blakeley ready! Wyndham'son the other side!"
The flames mounted high, a great pyre streaming up, reddening the night,the roaring Shenandoah, the wet and glistening woods. Out of thedarkness to the north came Maury Stafford with a scouting party. Hesaluted. "There is a considerable force over there, sir, double-quickingthrough the woods to save the bridge. Cavalry in front--Wyndham, Isuppose, still bent on 'bagging' you."
"Here they are!" said Ashby. "But you are too late, Colonel Sir PercyWyndham!"
The blazing arch across the river threw a wine-red light up and down andshowed cavalry massing beneath walnut, oak, and pine. There were trumpetsignals and a great trampling of hoofs, but the roaring flames, theswollen torrent, the pattering rain, the flaws of wind somewhat dulledother sounds. A tall man with sash and sabre, thigh boots andmarvellously long moustaches, sat his horse beneath a dripping,wind-tossed pine. He pointed to the grey troopers up and down thesouthern bank. "There's the quarry! _Fire!_"
Two could play at that game. The flash from the northern bank and therattle of the carbines were met from the southern by as vivid a leapingspark, as loud a sound. With the New Jersey squadrons was a Parrott gun.It was brought up, placed and fired. The shell exploded as it touchedthe red-lit water. There was a Versailles fountain costing nothing. TheBlakeley answered. The grey began to sing.
"If you want to have a good time-- If you want to have a good time-- If you want to catch the devil, Jine the cavalry!"
A courier appeared beside Ashby. "General Jackson wants to know, sir, ifthey can cross?"
"Look at the bridge and tell him, No."
"Then he says to fall back. Ammunition's precious."
The cavalry leader put to his lips the fairy clarion slung from hisshoulder and sounded the retreat. The flaming bridge lit all the placeand showed the great black horse and him upon it. The English adventureracross the water had with him sharpshooters. In the light that wavered,leaped and died, and sprang again, these had striven in vain to reachthat high-placed target. Now one succeeded.
The ball entered the black's side. He had stood like a rock, now heveered like a ship in a storm. Ashby dropped the bugle, threw his legover the saddle, and sprang to the earth as the great horse sank. Thosenear him came about him. "No! I am not hurt, but Black Conrad is. Mypoor friend!" He stroked Black Conrad, kissed him between the eyes anddrew his pistol. Chew fired the Blakeley again, drowning all lessersound. Suddenly the supports of the bridge gave way. A great part of theroaring mass fell into the stream; the remainder, toward the southernshore, flamed higher and higher. The long rattle of the Federal carbineshad an angry sound. They might have marched more swiftly after all,seeing that Stonewall Jackson would not march more slowly! Build abridge! How could they build a bridge over the wide stream, angryitself, hoarsely and violently thrusting its way under an inky,tempestuous sky! They had no need to spare ammunition, and so they firedrecklessly, cannon, carbine, and revolvers into the night after thegrey, retiring squadrons.
Stafford, no great favourite with the mass of the men, but well liked bysome, rode beside a fellow officer. This was a man genial and shrewd,who played the game of war as he played that of whist, eyes half closedand memory holding every card. He spoke cheerfully. "Shenandoahbeautifully swollen! Don't believe Fremont has pontoons. He's out of thereckoning for at least a day and a night--probably longer. Nice for usall!"
"It has been a remarkable campaign."
"'Remarkable'! Tell you what it's like, Stafford. It's like1796--Napoleon's Italian campaign."
"You think so? Well, it may be true. Hear the wind in the pines!"
"Tell you what you lack, Stafford. You lack interest in the war. You aretoo damned perfunctory. You take orders like an automaton, and you goexecute them like an automaton. I don't say that they're notbeautifully executed; they are. But the soul's not there. The other dayat Tom's Brook I watched you walk your horse up to the muzzle of thatfellow Wyndham's guns, and, by God! I don't believe you knew any morethan an automaton that the guns were there!"
"Yes, I did--"
"Well, you may have known it with one half of your brain. You didn'twith the other half. To a certain extent, I can read your hand. You'vegot a big war of your own, in a country of your own--eh?"
"Perhaps you are not altogether wrong. Such things happen sometimes."
"Yes, they do. But I think it a pity! This war"--he jerked his headtoward the environing night--"is big enough, with horribly big stakes.If I were you, I'd drum the individual out of camp."
"Think only of the general? I wish I could!"
"Well, can't you?"
"No, not yet."
"There are only two things--barring disease--which can so split thebrain in two--send the biggest part off, knight-errant or Saracen, intosome No-Man's Country, and keep the other piece here in Virginia tocrack invaders' skulls! One's love and one's hate--"
"Never both?"
"Knight-errant and Saracen in one? That's difficult."
"Nothing is so difficult as life, nor so strange. And, perhaps, love andhate are both illnesses. Sometimes I think so."
"A happy recovery then! You are too good a fellow--"
"I am not a good fellow."
"You are not at least an amiable one to-night! Don't let the fever gettoo high!"
"Will you listen," said Stafford, "to the wind in the pines? and did youever see the automatic chess-player?"
Two days later, Fremont, having bridged the Shenandoah, crossed, andpushed his cavalry with an infantry support southward by the pike. Aboutthree in the afternoon of the sixth, Ashby's horses were grazing in thegreen fields south of Harrisonburg, on the Port Republic road. To thewest stretched a belt of woodland, eastward rose a low ridge clad withbeech and oak. The green valley lay between. The air, to-day, was softand sweet, the long billows of the Blue Ridge seen dreamily, through anamethyst haze. The men lay among dandelions. Some watched the horses;others read letters from home, or, haversack for desk, wrote some vivid,short-sentenced scrawl. A number were engaged by the rim of the clearpool. Naked to the waist, they knelt like washerwomen, and rubbed thesoapless linen against smooth stones, or wrung it wrathfully, orturning, spread it, grey-white, upon the grass to dry. Four played pokerbeneath a tree, one read a Greek New Testament, six had found a smallturtle, and with the happy importance of boys were preparing a brushwoodfire and the camp kettle. Others slept, head pillowed on arm, soft felthat drawn over eyes. The rolling woodland toward Harrisonburg andFremont was heavily picketed. A man rose from beside the pool,straightened himself, and holding up the shirt he had been washinglooked at it critically. Apparently it passed muster, for hepainstakingly stretched it upon the grass and taking a pair of cottondrawers turned again to the water. A blue-eyed Loudoun youth whistling"Swanee River" brought a brimming bucket from the stream that made thepool and poured it gleefully into the kettle. A Prince Edward man, lyingchest downward, blew the fire, another lifted the turtle. The horsesmoved toward what seemed lusher grass, one of the poker players said"Damn!" the reader turned a leaf of the Greek Testament. One of thesleepers sat up. "I thought I heard a shot--"
Perhaps he had heard one; at any rate he now heard many. Down the roadand out from under the great trees of the forest in front burst thepickets driven in by a sudden, well-directed onslaught of bluecavalry--Fremont's advance wit
h a brigade of infantry behind. In amoment all was haste and noise in the green vale. Men leaped to theirfeet, left their washing, left the turtle simmering in the pot, the gaycards upon the greensward, put up the Greek Testament, the home letters,snatched belt and carbine, caught the horses, saddled them with speed,swung themselves up, and trotted into line, eyes front--Ashby's men.
The pickets had their tale to tell. "Burst out of the wood--the damnedBriton again, sir, with his squadrons from New Jersey! Rode usdown--John Ferrar killed--Gilbert captured--You can see from the hilltopthere. They are forming for a charge. There's infantry behind--Blinker'sDutch from the looks of them!"
"Blinker's Dutch," said the troopers. "'Hooney,' 'Nix furstay,' 'BagJackson,' 'Kiss und steal,' 'Hide under bed,' 'Rifle bureau drawers,''Take lockets und rings'--Blinker's Dutch! We should have dog whips!"
To the rear was the little ridge clothed with beech and oak. The roadwound up and over it. Ashby's bugle sounded. "_Right face. Trot!March!_" The road went gently up, grass on either side with here andthere a clump of small pines. Butterflies fluttered; all was gay andsweet in the June sunshine. Ashby rode before on the bay stallion. TheHorse Artillery came also from the meadow where it had beencamped--Captain Chew, aged nineteen, and his three guns and histhreescore men, four of them among the best gunners in the whole army.All mounted the ridge, halted and deployed. The guns were postedadvantageously, the 6th, the 7th, and the 2d Virginia Cavalry in tworanks along the ridge. Wide-spreading beech boughs, growing low, smalloak scrub and branchy dogwood made a screen of the best; they lookeddown, hidden, upon a gentle slope and the Port Republic road. Ashby'spost was in front of the silver bole of a great beech. With onegauntleted hand he held the bay stallion quiet, with the other he shadedhis eyes and gazed at the westerly wood into which ran the road. Chew,to his right, touched the Blakeley lovingly. Gunner number 1 handed thepowder. Number 2 rammed it home, took the shell from Number 1 and put itin. All along the ridge the horsemen handled their carbines, spoke eachin a quiet, genial tone to his horse. Sound of the approaching forcemade itself heard and increased.
"About a thousand, shouldn't you think, sir?" asked an aide.
"No. Between seven and eight hundred. Do you remember in 'Ivanhoe'--"
Out of the western wood, in order of charge, issued a body of horse. Itwas yet a little distant, horses at a trot, the declining sun making astirring picture. Rapidly crescent to eye and ear, they came on. Theircolours flew, the sound of their bugles raised the blood. Their pacechanged to a gallop. The thundering hoofs, the braying trumpets, shookthe air. Colours and guidons grew large.
"By God, sir, Wyndham is coming to eat you up! This time he knows he'scaught the hare."
"Do all John Bulls ride like that? Shades of the Revolution! did we allride like that before we came to Virginia?"
"God! what a noise!"
Ashby spoke. "Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes."
The charge began to swallow up the gentle slope, the sunny road, thegreen grass to either hand. The bugles blew at height, the sabresgleamed, the tall man in front rode rising in his stirrups, his sabreoverhead. "Huzzah! huzzah! huzzah!" shouted the blue cavalry.
"Are you ready, Captain Chew?" demanded Ashby. "Very well, then, letthem have it!"
The Blakeley and the two Parrott guns spoke in one breath. While theechoes were yet thundering, burst a fierce volley from all theConfederate short rifles. Down went the Federal colour-bearer, down wentother troopers in the front rank, down went the great gaunt horsebeneath the Englishman! Those behind could not at once check theirheadlong gallop; they surged upon and over the fallen. The Blakeleyblazed again and the grey carbines rang. The Englishman was on his feet,had a trooper's horse and was shouting like a savage, urging thesquadrons on and up. For the third time the woods flamed and rang. Theblue lines wavered. Some horsemen turned. "Damn you! On!" raged Wyndham.
Ashby put his bugle to his lips. Clear and sweet rose the notes, asilver tempest. "_Ashby! Ashby!_" shouted the grey lines and charged."_Ashby! Ashby!_" Out of the woods and down the hill they came likeundyked waters. The two tides met and clashed. There followed a wildmelee, a shouting, an unconscious putting forth of great muscularenergy, a seeing as through red glasses besmirched with powder smoke, apoisonous odour, a sense of cotton in the mouth, a feeling as ofstruggle on a turret, far, far up, with empty space around and below.The grey prevailed, the blue turned and fled. For a moment it seemed asthough they were flying through the air, falling, falling! the grey hada sense of dizziness as they struck spur in flank and pursued headlong.All seemed to be sinking through the air, then, suddenly, they feltground, exhaled breath, and went thundering up the Port Republic road,toward Harrisonburg. In front strained the blue, presently reaching thewood. A gun boomed from a slope beyond. Ashby checked the pursuit andlistened to the report of a vedette. "Fremont pushing forward. Horseand guns and the German division. Hm!" He sat the bay stallion, lookingabout him, then, "Cuninghame, you go back to General Ewell. Rear guardcan't be more than three miles away. Tell General Ewell about theGermans and ask him to give me a little infantry. Hurry now, and if hegives them, bring them up quickly!"
The vedette galloped eastward. Ashby and his men rode back to the ridge,the Horse Artillery, the dead, the wounded, and the prisoners. Thelatter numbered four officers and forty men. They were all in a group inthe sunshine, which lay with softness upon the short grass and thelittle pine trees. The dead lay huddled, while over them flitted thebutterflies. Ashby's surgeons were busy with the wounded. A man with ashattered jaw was making signs, deliberately talking in thedeaf-and-dumb alphabet, which perhaps he had learned for some friend orrelative's sake. A younger man, his hand clenched over a wound in thebreast, said monotonously, over and over again, "I am from Trenton, NewJersey, I am from Trenton, New Jersey." A third with glazing eyes madethe sign of the cross, drew himself out of the sun, under one of thelittle pine trees, and died. Some of the prisoners were silent. Otherstalked with bravado to their captors. "Salisbury, North Carolina! That'snot far. Five hundred miles not far--Besides, Fremont will make a rescuepresently. And if he doesn't, Shields will to-morrow! Then off youfellows go to Johnson's Island!" The officer who had led the charge saton a bank above the road. In the onset he had raged like a Berserker,now he sat imperturbable, ruddy and stolid, an English philosopher on afallen pine. Ashby came back to the road, dismounting, and leading thebay stallion, advanced. "Good-day, Colonel Wyndham."
"Good-day, General Ashby. War's a game. Somebody's got to lose. Only wayto stop loss is to stop war. You held the trumps--Damn me! You playedthem well, too." His sword lay across his knees. He took it up and heldit out. Ashby made a gesture of refusal. "No. I don't want it. I amabout to send you to the rear. If there is anything I can do for you--"
"Thank you, general, there is nothing. Soldier of fortune. Fortune ofwar. Bad place for a charge. Ought to have been more wary. Served meright. You've got Bob Wheat with you? Know Bob Wheat. Find him in therear?"
"Yes. With General Ewell. And now as I am somewhat in haste--"
"You must bid me good-day! See you are caring for my wounded. Muchobliged. Dead will take care of themselves. Pretty little place!Flowers, butterflies--large bronze one on your hat.--This our escort?Perfectly true you'll have a fight presently. There's the New Yorkcavalry as well as the New Jersey--plenty of infantry--PennsylvaniaBucktails and so forth. Wish I could see the scrimmage! Curious world!Can't wish you good luck. Must wish you ill. However, good luck'swrapped up in all kinds of curious bundles. Ready, men! General Ashby,may I present Major Markham, Captain Bondurant, Captain Schmidt,Lieutenant Colter? They will wish to remember having met you.--Now,gentlemen, at your service!"
Prisoners and escort vanished over the hill. Ashby, remounting,proceeded to make his dispositions, beginning with the Horse Artillerywhich he posted on a rise of ground, behind a mask of black thorn anddogwood. From the east arose the strains of fife and drum. "MarylandLine," said the 6th, the 7th, and the 2d Virginia Cava
lry.
I hear the distant thunder hum, Maryland!
The old line bugle, fife and drum, Maryland! She breathes! She burns! she'll come! she'll come--
"Oh! here's the 58th, too! Give them a cheer, boys! Hurrah! 58thVirginia! Hurrah! The Maryland Line!"
The two infantry regiments came forward at a double-quick, bright andbrisk, rifle barrels and bayonets gleaming in the now late sunshine,their regimental flags azure and white, and beside them streaming thered battle-flag with the blue cross. As they approached there alsobegan to show, at the edge of the forest which cut the western horizon,the Federal horse and foot. Before these was a space of rolling fields,then a ragged line of timber, a straggling copse of underbrush and talltrees cresting a wave of earth. A body of blue cavalry started out ofthe wood, across the field. At once Chew opened with the Blakeley andthe two Parrotts. There ensued confusion and the horse fell back. A blueinfantry regiment issued at a run, crossed the open and attained thecover of the coppice which commanded the road and the eastern stretch offields. A second prepared to follow. The Maryland Line swung through thewoods with orders to flank this movement. Ashby galloped to the 58th."Forward, 58th, and clear that wood!" He rode on to Munford at the headof the squadrons. "I am going to dislodge them from that cover. Themoment they leave it sound the charge!"
The 58th advanced steadily over the open. When it was almost upon thecoppice it fired, then fixed bayonets. The discharge had been aimed atthe wood merely. The shadows were lengthening, the undergrowth wasthick; they could not see their opponents. Suddenly the coppice blazed,a well-directed and fatal volley. The regiment that held this wood had agood record and meant to-day to better it. Its target was visibleenough, and close, full before it in the last golden light. A greyofficer fell, the sword that he had brandished described a shining curvebefore it plunged into a clump of sumach. Five men lay upon the earth;the colour-bearer reeled, then pitched forward. The man behind himcaught the colours. The 58th fired again, then, desperately, continuedits advance. Smoke and flame burst again from the coppice. A voice ofStentor was heard. "Now Pennsylvania Bucktails, you're making history!Do your durndest!"
"Close ranks!" shouted the officer of the 58th. "Close ranks! Forward!"There came a withering volley. The second colour-bearer sank; a thirdseized the standard. Another officer was down; there were gaps in theranks and under feet the wounded. The regiment wavered.
From the left came a bay stallion, devouring the earth, legs and headone tawny line, distended nostril and red-lit eye. The rider loosenedfrom his shoulders a scarlet-lined cloak, lifted and shook it in theair. It flared out with the wind of his coming, like a banner, or atorch. He sent his voice before him, "Charge, men, charge!"
Spasmodically the 58th started forward. The copse, all dim and smoky,flowered again, three hundred red points of fire. The sound wascrushing, startling, beating at the ear drum. The Bucktails wereshouting, "Come on, Johnny Reb! Go back, Johnny Reb! Don't know what youwant to do, do you, Johnny Reb?"
Ashby and the bay reached the front of the regiment. There was disorder,wavering, from underfoot groans and cries. So wrapped in smoke was thescene, so dusk, with the ragged and mournful woods hiding the low sun,that it was hard to distinguish the wounded. It seemed as though it wasthe earth herself complaining.
"On, on, men!" cried Ashby. "Help's coming--the Maryland Line!" Therewas a wavering answer, half cheer, half-wailing cry, "_Ashby! Ashby!_"Two balls pierced the bay stallion. He reared, screamed loudly, and fellbackward. Before he touched the earth the great horseman of the Valleywas clear of him. In the smoke and din Ashby leaped forward, waving thered-lined cloak above his head. "Charge, men!" he cried. "For God'ssake, charge!" A bullet found his heart. He fell without a groan, hishand and arm wrapped in the red folds.
From rank to rank there passed something like a sobbing cry. The 58thcharged. Bradley Johnson with the Maryland Line dislodged the Bucktails,captured their colonel and many others, killed and wounded many. Thecoppice, from soaked mould to smoky treetop, hung in the twilight like awood in Hades. It was full dusk when Fremont's advance drew back,retreating sullenly to its camp at Harrisonburg. The stars were all outwhen, having placed the body on a litter, Ashby's men carried Ashby toPort Republic.
He lay at midnight in a room of an old house of the place. They had laidhim upon a narrow bed, an old, single four-poster, with tester andvalance. The white canopy above, the fall of the white below had aneffect of sculptured stone. The whole looked like an old tomb in somedim abbey. The room was half in light, half in darkness. The villagewomen had brought flowers; of these there was no lack. All the blossomsof June were heaped about him. He lay in uniform, upon the red-linedcloak, his plumed hat beside him, his sword in his hand. His staffwatched in the room, seated with bowed heads beside the open window. Anhour before dawn some one spoke to the sentry without the door, thengently turned the handle and entered the chamber. The watchers arose,stood at salute. "Kindly leave General Ashby and me alone together for alittle while, gentlemen," said the visitor. The officers filed out. Thelast one turning softly to close the door saw Jackson kneel.