CHAPTER XXXIV
THE RAILROAD GUN
The troops, moving at dawn to the Chickahominy, over a road and throughwoods which testified in many ways of the blue retreat, found theGrapevine Bridge a wreck, the sleepers hacked apart, framework andmiddle structure cast into the water. Fitz John Porter and the 5th ArmyCorps were across, somewhere between the river and Savage Station,leaving only, in the thick wood above the stream, a party ofsharpshooters and a battery. When the grey pioneers advanced to theirwork, these opened fire. The bridge must be rebuilt, and the grey workedon, but with delays and difficulties. D. H. Hill, leading Jackson'sadvance, brought up two batteries and shelled the opposite side. Theblue guns and riflemen moved to another position and continued, at shortintervals, to fire on the pioneers. It was Sunday the twenty-ninth;fearfully hot by the McGehee house, and on Turkey Hill, and in the densemidsummer woods, and in the mosquito-breeding bogs and swamps throughwhich meandered the Chickahominy. The river spread out as many arms asBriareus; short, stubby creeks, slow waters prone to overflow and creep,between high knotted roots of live-oak and cypress, into thickets of bogmyrtle. The soil hereabouts was black and wet, further back light andsandy. The Valley troops drew the most uncomplimentary comparisons. To aman they preferred mountains, firm rolling champaign, clean rivers withrocky bottoms, sound roads, and a different vegetation. They were not ina good humour, anyhow.
Ewell was at Dispatch Station, seven miles below, guarding Bottom'sBridge and tearing up the York River Railroad. Stuart was before him,sweeping down on the White House, burning McClellan's stations andstores, making that line of retreat difficult enough for an encumberedarmy. But McClellan had definitely abandoned any idea of return uponYorktown. The head of his column was set for the James, for Harrison'sLanding and the gunboats. There were twenty-five difficult miles to go.He had something like a hundred thousand men. He had five thousandwagons, heavy artillery trains, enormous stores, a rabble of campfollowers, a vast, melancholy freight of sick and wounded. He left hiscamps and burned his depots, and plunged into the heavy, still, andtorrid forest. This Sunday morning, the twenty-ninth, the entrenchmentsbefore Richmond, skilful, elaborate pieces of engineering, were found byMagruder's and Huger's scouts deserted by all but the dead and a fewscore of sick and wounded, too far gone to be moved. Later, columns ofsmoke, rising from various quarters of the forest, betrayed otherburning camps or depots. This was followed by tidings which served tomake his destination certain. He was striking down toward White OakSwamp. There the defeated right, coming from the Chickahominy, wouldjoin him, and the entire great force move toward the James. Lee issuedhis orders. Magruder with Huger pursued by the Williamsburg road. A. P.Hill and Longstreet, leaving the battlefield of the twenty-seventh,crossed the Chickahominy by the New Bridge, passed behind Magruder, andtook the Darbytown road. A courier, dispatched to Ewell, ordered him torejoin Jackson. The latter was directed to cross the Chickahominy withall his force by the Grapevine Bridge, and to pursue with eagerness. Hehad the directest, shortest road; immediately before him the corps whichhad been defeated at Gaines's Mill. With D. H. Hill, with Whiting andLawton, he had now fourteen brigades--say twenty thousand men.
The hours passed in languid sunshine on the north bank of theChickahominy. The troops were under arms, but the bridge was notfinished. The smoke and sound of the rival batteries, the crack of thehidden rifles on the southern side, concerned only those immediately atissue and the doggedly working pioneers. Mere casual cannonading,amusement of sharpshooters, no longer possessed the slightest tang ofnovelty. Where the operation was petty, and a man in no extreme personaldanger, he could not be expected to be much interested. The troopsyawned; some of the men slept; others fretted. "Why can't we swim thedamned old trough? They'll get away! Thank the Lord, I wasn't born inTidewater Virginia! Oh, I'd like to see the Shenandoah!"
The 65th Virginia occupied a rise of sandy ground covered with hazelbushes. Company A had the brink of it, looking out toward the enormouslytall trees towering erect from the river's margin of swamp. The hazelbushes gave little shade and kept off the air, the blue above wasintense, the buzzards sailing. Muskets were stacked, the men sprawlingat ease. A private, who at home was a Sunday School superintendent, readhis Bible; another, a lawyer, tickled a hop toad with a spear of grass;another, a blacksmith, rebound the injured ankle of a schoolboy. Someslept, snoring in the scanty shade; some compared diaries or related,scrappily enough, battle experiences. "Yes, and Robinson was scouting,and he was close to Garland's line, and, gosh! he said it was shortenough! And Garland rode along it, and he said, said he, 'Boys, you arenot many, but you are a noble few.'" Some listened to the booming of thesparring batteries; two or three who had lost close friends or kinsmenmoped aside. The frank sympathy of all for these made itself apparent.The shadiest hazel bushes unobtrusively came into their possession;there was an evident intention of seeing that they got the best farewhen dinner was called; a collection of tobacco had been taken andquietly pushed their way. Some examined knapsack and haversacks, goodoilcloths, belts, rolled blankets, canteens, cartridge-boxes andcartridges, picked up upon the road. Others seriously did incline tosearch for certain intruders along the seams of shirt and trousers;others merely lay on their backs and looked up into Heaven. Billy Maydewwas one of these, and Steve Dagg overturned the contents of a knapsack.
It was well filled, but with things Steve did not want. "O Gawd! pictersand pincushions and Testaments with United States flags in them--I neverdid have any luck, anyhow!--in this here war nor on Thunder Runneither!"
Dave Maydew rolled over. "Steve says Thunder Run didn't like him--Gosh!what's a-going to happen ef Steve takes to telling the truth?"
Sergeant Coffin turned from contemplation of a bursting shell above theGrapevine crossing. "If anybody finds any letter-paper and doesn't wantit--"
A chorus arose. "Sorry we haven't got any!"--"I have got some--lovely!But I've got a girl, too."--"Sorry, sergeant, but it isn't pale blue,scented with forget-me-nots."--"Just _think_ her a letter--think it outloud! Wait, I'll show you how. _Darling Chloe_--Don't get angry! He'smost gotten over getting angry and it becomes him beautifully--_DarlingChloe_--What're _you_ coming into it for, Billy Maydew? 'Don't teasehim!'--My son, he loves to be teased. All lovers love to be teased._Darling Chloe._ It is Sunday morning. The swans are warbling your nameand so are half a dozen pesky Yankee Parrotts. The gentle zephyrs speakof thee, and so does the hot simoom that blows from Chickahominy,bringing an inordinate number of mosquitoes. I behold thy sinuous gracein the curls of smoke from Reilly's battery, and also in the slide andswoop of black buzzards over a multitude of dead horses in the woods.Darling Chloe, we are stranded on an ant heap which down here they calla hill, and why in hell we don't swim the river is more than at themoment I can tell you. It's rumoured that Old Jack's attending church inthe neighbourhood, but we are left outside to praise God from whom allblessings flow. Darling Chloe, this company is not so unpopular with meas once it was. War is teaching it a damned lot, good temper and prettyways and what not--It is teaching it! Who says it is not?--DarlingChloe, if you could see how long and lean and brown we are and howragged we are and how lousy--Of course, of course, sergeant, you're not!Only the high private in the rear rank is, and even he says he'snot--Darling Chloe, if I could rise like one of those damned crows downthere and sail over these damned flats and drop at your feet in God'scountry beyond the mountains, you wouldn't walk to church to-day withme. You'd turn up your pretty little nose, and accept the arm of somedamned bombproof--Look out! What's the matter here? 'The last straw!shan't slander her!'--I'm not slandering her. I don't believe eithershe'd do it. Needn't all of you look so glum! I'll take it back. Weknow, God bless every last woman of them, that they don't do it! Theyhaven't got any more use for a bombproof than we have!--I can't retracthandsomer than that!--Darling Chloe, the Company's grown amiable, but itdon't think much so far of its part in this campaign. Heretofore intableaux and amateur theatricals it has had a star role, and in th
isdamned Richmond play it's nothing but a walking shadow! Darling Chloe,we want somebody to whoop things up. We demand the centre of thestage--"
It was so hot on the little sandy hill that there was much stragglingdown through the woods to some one of the mesh of water-courses. The mennearest Steve were all turned toward the discourser to Chloe, who sat ona lift of sand, cross-legged like an Eastern scribe. Mathew Coffin, nearhim, looked half pleased, half sulky at the teasing. Since Port Republiche was a better-liked non-commissioned officer. Billy Maydew, again flaton his back, stared at the blue sky. Steve stole a tin cup and slippedquietly off through the hazel bushes.
He found a muddy runlet straying off from the river and quenched histhirst, then, turning, surveyed through the trees the hump of earth hehad left and the company upon it. Beyond it were other companies, theregiment, the brigade. Out there it was hot and glaring, in here therewas black, cool, miry loam, shade and water. Steve was a Sybarite born,and he lingered here. He didn't mean to straggle, for he was afraid ofthis country and afraid now of his colonel; he merely lingered androamed about a little, beneath the immensely tall trees and in the thickundergrowth. In doing this he presently came, over quaking soil andbetween the knees of cypresses, flush with the Chickahominy itself. Hesat down, took his own knees in his arms and looked at it. It was not sowide, but it looked stiller than the sky, and bottomless. The banks wereso low that the least rain lifted it over. It strayed now, here andthere, between tree roots. There was no such word as "sinister" inSteve's vocabulary. He only said, "Gawd! I wouldn't live here forchoice!" The country across the stream engaged his attention. Seen fromthis bank it appeared all forest clad, but where his own existence frommoment to moment was in question Steve could read the signboards as wellas another. Certain distant, southward moving, yellowish streaks hepronounced dust clouds. There were roads beneath, and moving troops andwagon trains. He counted four columns of smoke of varying thickness. Theheavier meant a cluster of buildings, holding stores probably, thethinner some farmhouse or barn or mill. From other signs he divined thatthere were clearings over there, and that the blue troops were burninghayricks and fences as well as buildings. Sound, too--it seemed deathlystill here on the brim of this dead water, and yet there was sound--thebatteries, of course, down the stream where they built the bridge, butalso a dull, low, dreary murmur from across,--from the thick forest andthe lost roads, and the swamps through which guns were dragged; from theclearings, the corn and wheat fields, the burning depots and encampmentsand houses of the people--the sound of a hostile army rising from thecountry where two months before it had settled. All was blended; therecame simply a whirring murmur out of the forest beyond the Chickahominy.
Steve rose, yawned, and began again to prowl. Every rood of this regionhad been in possession of that humming army over there. All manner ofdesirable articles were being picked up. Orders were strict. Weapons,even injured weapons, ammunition, even half-spoiled ammunition,gun-barrels, ramrods, bayonets, cartridge-boxes, belts--all these mustbe turned in to the field ordnance officer. The South gleaned herbattlefields of every ounce of lead or iron, every weapon or part of aweapon, every manufactured article of war. This done, the men mightappropriate or themselves distribute apparel, food, or other matters.Steve, wandering now, his eyes on earth, saw nothing. The black wetsoil, the gnarled roots, the gloomy meanders of the stream, lookedterribly lonely. "Gawd! even the water-rats don't come here!" thoughtSteve, and on his way back to the hill entered a thicket of low busheswith shiny green leaves. Here he all but stumbled over a dead soldier ina blue uniform. He lay on his face, arms out, hands clutching at somereed-like grass. His rifle was beside him, haversack--all undisturbed."Picket," said Steve. "O Gawd, ain't war glorious?"
Not at all without imagination, he had no fondness for touching deadmen, but there were several things about this one that he wanted. He sawthat the shoes wouldn't fit, and so he left them alone. His own riflewas back there, stacked with the others on the hot hillside, and he hadno intention of bothering with this one. If the ordnance officer wantedit, let him come himself and get it! He exchanged cartridge-boxes, andtook the other's rolled oilcloth, and then he looked into the haversack.
Rising to his feet, he glanced about him with quick, furtive,squirrel-like motions of his head. Cool shade, stillness, a creepyloneliness. Taking the haversack, he left the thicket and went back tothe brink of Chickahominy. Here he sat down between the cypress kneesand drew out of the haversack the prize of prizes. It fixed a grin uponhis lean, narrow face, the sight and smell of it, the black, squatbottle. He held it up to the light; it was three quarters full. The corkcame out easily; he put it to his lips and drank. "Gawd! it ain't sodamned lonely, after all!"
The sun climbed to the meridian. The pioneers wrought as best they mighton the Grapevine Bridge. The blue battery and the blue sharpshooterspersisted in their hindering, and the grey battery continued tointerfere with the blue. In the woods and over the low hills back of theChickahominy the grey brigades of Stonewall Jackson rested, impatientlywondering, staring at the river, staring at the smoke of conflagrationson the other side and the dust streaks moving southward. Down on theswampy bank, squat between the cypress knees, Steve drank again, andthen again,--in fact, emptied the squat, black bottle. The stuff filledhim with a tremendous courage, and conferred upon him great fluency ofthought. He waxed eloquent to the cypress roots upon the conduct of thewar. "Gawd! if they'd listen ter me I'd te--tell them how!--I'dbui--build a bridge for the whole rotten army to cross on! Ef it brokeI'd bui--build another. Yah! They don't 'pre--'preciate a man when theysee him. Gawd! they're damn slow, and ain't a man over here got anythingto drink! It's all over there." He wept a little. "O Gawd, make themhurry up, so's I kin git across." He put the bottle to his lips andjerked his head far back, but there was not a drop left to trickleforth. He flung it savagely far out into the water. "Ef I thought therewas another like you over there--" His courage continued to mount as hewent further from himself. He stood up and felt a giant; stretched outhis arm and admired the muscle, kicked a clod of black earth into thestream and rejoiced in the swing of his leg. Then he smiled, asatyr-like grin wrinkling the cheek to the ear; then he took off hisgrey jacket, letting it drop upon the cypress roots; then he waded intothe Chickahominy and began to swim to the further shore. The stream wasdeep but not swift; he was lank and lean but strong, and there was onthe other side a pied piper piping of bestial sweetnesses. Several timesarms and legs refused to cooperate and there was some likelihood of adeath by drowning, but each time instinct asserted herself, rightedmatters, and on he went. She pulled him out at last, on the southernbank, and he lay gasping among the tree roots, somewhat sobered by thedrenching, but still on the whole a courageous giant. He triumphed."Yah! I got across! Goo'--goo-'bye, ye darned fools squattin' on thehillside!"
He left the Chickahominy and moved through the woods. He went quite atrandom and with a peculiar gait, his eyes on the ground, looking foranother haversack. But just hereabouts there showed nothing of the kind;it was a solemn wood of pines and cedars, not overtrampled as yet bywar. Steve shivered, found a small opening where the sun streamed in,planted himself in the middle of the warmth, and presently toppled overon the pine needles and went to sleep. He slept an hour or more, when hewas waked by a party of officers riding through the wood. They stopped.Steve sat up and blinked. The foremost, a florid, side-whiskered,magnificently soldierly personage, wearing a very fine grey uniform andthe stars of a major-general, addressed him. "What are you doing here,thir? Thraggling?--Anther me!"
Steve saluted. "I ain't the straggling kind, sir. Any man that says Istraggle is a liar--exceptin' the colonel, and he's mistaken. I'm one ofStonewall's men."
"Thtonewall! Ith Jackthon acwoss?"
"They're building a bridge. I don't know if they air across yet. Iswum."
"What did you thwim for? Where'th your jacket? What's yourwegiment?--'65th Virginia?'--Well, 65th Virginia, you appear to me adetherter--"
Steve began
to whine. "Gawd, general, I ain't no deserter. If you'lljest have patience and listen, I kin explain--"
"Time'th lacking, thir. You get up behind one of my couriers, and ifJackthon's crothed I'll return you to your colonel. Take him up,O'Brien."
"General Magruder, sor, can't I make him trot before me face like anyother water-spaniel? He's wet and dhirty, sor."
"All wight, all wight, O'Brien. Come on, Gwiffith. Nine-Mile road andThavage Thation!"
The officers rode on. The courier regarded with disfavour the unluckySteve. "Forward march, dhirty, desartin', weak-kneed crayture that yebe! Thrott!"
Beyond the pine wood the two came into an area which had beenovertrampled. Indescribably dreary under the hot sun looked thesmouldering heaps and mounds of foodstuffs, the wrecked wagons, theabandoned picks and spades and shovels, the smashed camp equipage,broken kettles, pots and pans, the blankets, bedding, overcoats, tornand trampled in the mire, or piled together and a dull red fire slowcreeping through the mass. Medicine-chests had been split by a blow ofthe axe, the vials shivered, and a black mire made by the liquids.Ruined weapons glinted in the sun between the furrows of a ruinedcornfield; bags of powder, boxes of cartridges, great chests of shot andshell showed, half submerged in a tortuous creek. At the edge of thefield, there was a cannon spiked and overturned. Here, too, were deadhorses, and here, too, were the black, ill-omened birds. There was atrench as well, a long trench just filled, with two or three little headboards bearing some legend. "Holy Virgin!" said the courier, "if I was ahorse, a child, or a woman, I'd hate war with a holy hathred!"
Steve whined at his stirrup. "Look a-here, sir, I can't keep up! Myfoot's awful sore. Gawd don't look my way, if it ain't! I ain'tdesertin'. Who'd I desert to? They've all gone. I wanted a bath an' Iswum the river. The regiment'll be over directly an' I'll rejoin. Takemy oath, I will!"
"You trot along out of this plundering mess," ordered the courier. "I'mthinking I'll drop you soon, but it won't be just here! Step livelynow!"
The two went on through the blazing afternoon sunshine, and in astraggling wood came upon a deserted field hospital. It was a ghastlyplace. The courier whistled reflectively, while the imaginative Stevefelt a sudden sinking at the pit of the stomach, together with a colddizziness and perspiration on the backs of his hands. The mind of thecourier, striking out vigorously for some kind of a stimulant, laid holdof anger as the nearest efficient. "Bedad," he cried, "ye desartin',dhirty hound! it's right here I'll be afther lavin' ye, with the nakeddead and the piles of arms and legs! Let go of my bridle or I'll strikeyou with my pistol butt! Ughrrrrr!--Get out of this, Peggy!"
They left, mare and man, in a cloud of pine needles and parched earth.Steve uttered something like a howl and went too, running without regardto an in truth not mythical sore foot. He ran after the disappearingcourier, and when presently he reached a vast patch of whitenedraspberry bushes giving on a not wide and very dusty road and haltedpanting, it was settled forever that he couldn't go back to theplundering possibilities or to his original station by the Chickahominy,since to do so would be to pass again the abandoned field hospital. Hekept his face turned from the river and somewhat to the east, andstraggled on. A signpost told him that the dusty ribbon was theNine-Mile road. Presently, among the berry bushes, he came upon a greyartilleryman sitting winding a strip of cloth around a wound in his leg.The artilleryman gave him further information. "Magruder's moving thisway. I was ahead with my battery,--Griffith's brigade,--and somestinking sharpshooters sitting with the buzzards in the trees let fly atus! Result, I've got to hobble in at the end of the parade!--What's thematter with you?"
"Captain," said Steve, "asked for a volunteer to swim the river (we'reon the other side) and find out 'bout the currents. I swam it, and Gawd!jest then a Yankee battery opened and I couldn't get back! Regiment'llbe over after awhile I reckon."
The two sat down among the berry bushes. The road was visible, and uponit a great approaching pillar of dust. "Head of our column," said theartilleryman. "Four roads and four pursuing forces, and if we can onlyall strike Mac at once there'll be a battle that'll lay over Friday's,and if he gets to his gunboats at all it will be in a damaged condition.Magruder's bearing toward Savage Station, and if Jackson's across theChickahominy we might do for Fitz John Porter--eh?"
"We might," agreed Steve. "I'll lie a little flatter, because the sunand the wetting has made my head ache. They're fine troops."
The grey regiments went by, long swinging tread and jinglingaccoutrements. A major-general, riding at the head of the column, hadthe air of a Roman consul, round, strong, bullet head, which he hadbared to the breeze that was springing up, close-cropped black hair,short black beard, high nose, bold eyes, a red in his cheeks. "That'sGeneral Lafayette McLaws," volunteered the artilleryman. "That's GeneralKershaw with him. It's Kershaw's brigade. See the palmetto on theflags."
Kershaw's went by. Behind came another high and thick dust cloud. "Cobband Toombs and Barksdale and Kemper and Semmes," said the artilleryman."Suppose we canter on? I'll break a staff from those little heaven treesthere. We might get to see the show, after all. York River Railroad'sjust over there."
They went on, first to the ailanthus bushes, then, leaving the road tothe troops, they struck across a ruined cornfield. Stalk and blade andtassel, and the intertwining small, pale-blue morning-glory, all weredown. Gun-wheels, horses' hoofs, feet of men had made of naught thesower's pains. The rail fence all around was burning. In a furrow thetwo found a knapsack, and in it biscuit and jerked beef. "My Aunt Eliza!I was hungry!" said the artilleryman. "Know how the Israelites felt whenthey gathered manna off the ground!" Out of the cornfield they passedinto a shaggy finger of forest. Suddenly firing broke out ahead. Stevestarted like a squirrel. "That's close to us!"
"There's the railroad!" said the other. "There's Fair Oaks Station. Theyhad entrenchments there, but the scouts say they evacuated them thismorning. If they make a stand, reckon it'll be at Savage Station. Thatmusketry popping's down the line! Come on! I can go pretty fast!"
He plied his staff. They came into another ragged field, narrow andsloping to a stretch of railroad track and the smoking ruins of a woodenstation. Around were numerous earthworks, all abandoned. Beyond thestation, on either side the road, grey troops were massing. The firingahead was as yet desultory. "Just skirmishers passing the time of day!"said the artilleryman. "Hello! What're they doing on the railroad track?Well, I should think so!"
Across the track, immediately below them, had been thrown by theretreating army a very considerable barricade. Broken wagons, felledtrees, logs and a great mass of earth spanned it like a landslide. Overand about it worked a grey company detailed to clear the way. From theedge of a wood, not many yards up the track, came an impatient chorus."Hurry up, boys! hurry up! hurry up! We want to get by--want to getby--"
"A railroad gun on a flat car placed--"
The artilleryman began to crow. "It's Lieutenant Barry and the railroadgun! Siege piece run on a car. Iron penthouse over it, muzzle stickingout--engine behind--"
"The Yankees skedaddle as though in haste But this thirty-two pounder howitzer imp It makes them halt and it makes them limp, This railroad gun on a flat car placed."
"Hurry up there! Hurry up! Hurry! Steam's up! Coal's precious! Can'tstay here burning diamonds like this all day!"
"Come on!" said the artilleryman. "I can sit down and dig. We've got toclear that thing away in a hurry." A shell from a hidden blue batteryburst over the working party. Steve held back. "Gawd, man, we can't dono good! We're both lame men. If we got back a little into the wood wecould see fine. That's better than fighting--when you're all used uplike us--"
The artilleryman regarded him. "No, it isn't better than fighting. I'vebeen suspicioning you for some time, and I've stopped liking the companyI'm in. All the same, I'm not going to drop it. Now you trot along infront. Being artillery I haven't a gun any more than you have, but I'
vea stick, and there isn't anything in the world the matter with my arm.It's used to handling a sponge staff. Forward! trot!"
On the other side the ruined station, on the edge of an old field,Magruder, with him McLaws, waited for the return of a staff officer whomhe had sent to the Grapevine Bridge three miles away. The shell whichhad burst over the party clearing the railroad track was but the firstof many. Concealed by the heavy woods, the guns of the Federal rearguardopened on the grey brigades. Kershaw and Griffith, to the right of theroad, suffered most. Stephen D. Lee sent forward Carlton's battery, andKemper's guns came to its aid. They took position in front of the centreand began to answer the blue guns. A courier arrived from theskirmishers thrown out toward the dense wood. "Enemy in force andadvancing, sir. Sumner and Franklin's corps, say the scouts."
"All wight!" said Magruder. "Now if Jackthon's over, we'll cwush themlike a filbert."
The staff officer returned. "Well, thir, well, thir? Ith GeneralJackthon acroth? Will he take them in the rear while I thrikehere?--Bryan, you look intolerably thober! What ith it?"
"The bridge will not be finished for two hours, sir. Two or threeinfantry companies have crossed by hook or crook, but I should say itwould be morning before the whole force is over."
"Damn! Well--"
"I left my horse and got across myself, sir, and saw General Jackson--"
"Well, well, well--"
"He says, sir! 'Tell General Magruder that I have other important dutiesto perform'"--
There was a dead silence. Then McLaws spoke with Roman directness. "Inmy opinion there are two Jacksons. The one that came down here left theother one in the Valley."
A great shell came with a shriek and exploded, a fragment mortallywounding General Griffith at the head of the Mississippi brigade. TheMississippians uttered a loud cry of anger. Carleton's battery thundereddefiantly. Magruder drew a long breath. "Well, gentlemen; philothophy tothe rethcue! If we can't bag the whole rearguard, we'll bag what we can.General advanthe and drive them!"
Back on the railroad, in the long shadows of the late afternoon, theworking party cleared away the last layer of earth and log and stoodback happy. "Come on, you old railroad gun, and stop your blaspheming!Should think the engine'd blush for you!"
The railroad gun puffed up, cannoneers picturesquely draped where therewas hold for foot or hand. There was a momentary pause, filled with aninterchange of affectionate oaths and criticism. The lame artillerymanlaid hold of the flat car. "Take me along, won't you, and shuck me at mybattery! Kemper's, you know. Can't I go, lieutenant?"
"Yes, yes, climb on!"
"And can't my friend here go, too? He's infantry, but he means well. Hevolunteered to swim the Chickahominy, and now he wants to get back so'she can report to Stonewall Jackson. Sh! don't deny it now. You're toomodest. Can't he go, too, lieutenant?"
"Yes, yes. Climb on! All right, Brown! Let her go!"
Kershaw, Griffith, and Semmes' brigades, advancing in line through lightand shadow, wood and clearing, came presently into touch with the enemy.There followed a running fight, the Federals slowly retreating.Everywhere, through wood and clearing, appeared McClellan's earthworks.Behind these the blue made stand, but at last from line to line the greypressed them back. A deep cut appeared, over which ran a railroadbridge; then woods, fields, a second ruined railroad station, besidewhich were burning cars filled with quartermaster's stores; beyond thesea farmhouse, a peach orchard, and a field crossed by long rows ofhospital tents. Before the farmhouse appeared a strong Federal line ofbattle, and from every little eminence the blue cannon blazed. Kershawcharged furiously; the two lines clashed and clanged. Semmes' brigadecame into action on the right, Kemper's battery supporting. Griffith's,now Barksdale's--joined battle with a yell, the Mississippians bent onavenging Griffith. The air filled with smoke, the roar of guns and therattle of musketry. There occurred, in the late afternoon, a bloodyfight between forces not large, and fairly matched.
The engine pushing the railroad gun alternately puffed and shriekedthrough dark woodland and sunset-flooded clearing. A courier appeared,signalling with his hat. "General Magruder's there by the bridge overthe cut! Says, 'Come on!' Says, 'Cross the bridge and get into batteryin the field beyond,' Says, 'Hurry up!'"
The siege-piece and the engine hurried. With a wild rattle and roar, thecrew all yelling, black smoke everywhere, and the whistle screaming likea new kind of shell, the whole came out of the wood upon the railroadbridge. Instantly there burst from the blue batteries a tremendous,raking fire. Shot and shell struck the engine, the iron penthouse roofover the siege-piece, the flat car, the bridge itself. From the car andthe bridge slivers were torn and hurled through the air. A man waskilled, two others wounded, but engine and gun roared across. Theypassed Magruder standing on the bank. "Here we are, general, here weare! Yaaih! Yaaaih!"
"Th' you are. Don't thop here! Move down the track a little. OtherRichmond howitthers coming."
The other howitzers, four pieces, six horses to each, all in a gallop,captain ahead, men following in a mad run, whips crackling, driversshouting, came all in thunder on the bridge and across. The blue shellsflew like harpies, screaming, swooping, scattering ruin. A red gleamfrom the declining sun bathed the wild train. In a roar of sound thewhole cleared the bridge and plunged from the track to the level field._Forward into battery, left oblique, march!_
McLaws on the right, hard pressed, sent to Magruder for reinforcements.The 13th and 21st Mississippi answered. Kershaw, supported by Semmes andKemper, advancing under an iron hail by deserted camp and earthwork,ordered the 2d, 3d and 7th South Carolina to charge. They did so, with ahigh, ringing cry, through the sunset wood into the fields, by the farmand the peach orchard, where they and the blue lines stubbornly engaged.On both sides, the artillery came furiously into action.
The long twilight faded, the stars began to show. The firing slackened,died to occasional sullen outbursts, then to silence. On both sides theloss was heavy; the action remained indecisive. The grey rested on thefield; the blue presently took up again their line of retreat towardWhite Oak Swamp. They left in the hands of the grey their dead, severalhundred prisoners, and twenty-five hundred men in hospital. In the hotand sultry night, dark, with presage of a storm, through a ruinedcountry, by the light of their own burning stores, the blue columnwound slowly on by the single road toward White Oak Swamp and its singlebridge. The grey brigades lit their small camp-fires, gathered up thewounded, grey and blue, dug trenches for the dead, found food where theymight and went hungry where there was none, answered to roll call andlistened to the silence after many names, then lay down in field andwood beneath the gathering clouds.
Some time between sunset and the first star Steve Dagg found himself, hehardly knew how, crouching in a line of pawpaw bushes bordering ashallow ravine. The clay upon his shirt and trousers made it seemprobable that he had rolled down the embankment from the railroad gun tothe level below. That he was out of breath, panting in hard painfulgasps, might indicate that he had run like a hare across the field. Hecould not remember; anyhow here he was, a little out of hell, justfringing it as it were. Lying close to earth, between the smooth pawpawstems, the large leaves making a night-time for him, Steve felt deadlysick. "O Gawd! why'd I volunteer in, seein' I can't volunteer out?"Behind him he heard the roaring of the guns, the singing of the minies.A chance shell went over his head, dug itself into the soil at thebottom of the ravine, and exploded. The earth came pattering upon thepawpaw leaves. Steve curled up like a hedgehog. "O Gawd! I ain't got afriend in the world. Why didn't I stay on Thunder Run and marry LucindaHeard?"
At dark the guns ceased. In the silence his nausea lessened and thechill sweat dried upon him. He lay quiet for awhile, and then he partedthe pawpaw bushes and crept out. He looked over his shoulder at thefield of battle. "I ain't going that-a-way and meet that gunneragain--damn him to everlasting hell!" He looked across the ravine towardthe west, but a vision came to him of the hospital in the wood, and ofhow the naked dea
d men and the severed legs and arms might stir atnight. He shivered and grew sick again. Southward? There was a glareupon all that horizon and a sound of distant explosions. The Yankeeswere sweeping through the woods that way, and they might kill him onsight without waiting for him to explain. A grey army was also overthere,--Lee and Longstreet and A. P. Hill. He was as afraid of the greyas of the blue; after the railroad gun he was afraid of a shadow.Finally, he turned northward toward the Chickahominy again.
The night, so dark and hot, presently became darker by reason of massesof clouds rising swiftly from the horizon and blotting out the stars.They hung low, they pressed heavily, beneath them a sulphur-tainted andbreathless air. Lightnings began to flash, thunder to mutter. "Yah!"whimpered Steve. "I'm going to get wet again! It's true. Everything'sagin me."
He came again upon the swampy margin of the Chickahominy. It was wide,threaded by motionless waters, barred and banded with low-growing swampshrubs, set with enormously tall and solemn trees. Steve, creepingbetween protruding roots, heard a screech owl in the distance. It criedand cried, but then the thunder rolled more loudly and drowned itshooting. He came flush with the dark stretch of the river. "Gawd, do Iwant to get across, or do I want to stay here? I wish I was dead--no, Idon't!" He faced the lightning. "Gawd, that was jes' a mistake--don'ttake any notice of it, please.--Yaaah!" He had set his foot on a log,which gave beneath it and sank into deep water. With a screech like theowl's he drew back and squeezed himself, trembling, between the roots ofa live-oak. He concluded that he would stay here until the dawn.
The storm drew nearer, with long lightnings and thunder that crashed androlled through the swamp. A vivid flash, holding a second or more,showed the stretch of the river, and several hundred yards above Steve'snook a part of a high railroad bridge. The gaunt trestle ran out pastmidstream, then stopped, all the portion toward the northern shoreburned away. It stood against the intensely lit sky and stream like theskeleton of some antediluvian monster, then vanished into Stygiandarkness. The thunder crashed at once, an ear-splitting clap followed bylong reverberations. As these died, in the span of silence before shouldcome the next flash and crash, Steve became conscious of another sound,dull and distant at first, then nearer and rushingly loud. "Train on thetrack down there! What in hell--It can't cross!" He stood up, held by asapling, and craned his neck to look up the river. A great flash showedthe bridge again. "Must be Yankees still about here--last of therearguard we've been fighting. What they doing with the train? They musthave burned the bridge themselves! Gawd!"
A wildly vivid orange flash lit water, wood and sky, and the gaunt halfof a bridge, stopping dead short in the middle of the Chickahominy. Thethunder crashed and rolled, then out of that sound grew another--thenoise of a rushing train. Something huge and dark roared from the woodedbanks out upon the bridge. It belched black smoke mingled with sparks;behind it were cars, and these were burning. The whole came full uponthe broken bridge. It swayed beneath the weight; but before it couldfall, and before the roaring engine reached the gap, the flames of thekindled cars touched the huge stores of ammunition sent thus todestruction by the retreating column. In the night, over theChickahominy, occurred a rending and awful explosion.... Steve, comingto himself, rose to his knees in the black mire. The lightning flashed,and he stared with a contorted face. The bridge, too, was gone. Therewas only the churned water, filled with scantlings and torn branches oftrees. The rain was falling, a great hissing sweep of rain, and the windhowled beneath the thunder. Steve turned blindly; he did not know wherehe was going, but he had a conviction that the river was rising andwould come after him. A hundred yards from the water, in the midnightwood, as he hurried over earth that the rain was fast turning intomorass, he stumbled over some obstacle and fell. Putting out his hands,they came flat against a dead man's face. He rose and fled with ascreech, southwardly now, in the direction of White Oak Swamp.