CHAPTER XXXV
WHITE OAK SWAMP
The Grapevine Bridge being at last rebuilt, Stonewall Jackson's fourteenbrigades crossed the Chickahominy, the movement occupying a great partof the night. Dawn of the thirtieth found the advance at Savage Station.
The storm in the night had swelled the myriad creeks, and extended allmorasses. The roads were mud, the wild tangles of underwood held waterlike a sponge. But the dawn was glorious, with carmine and purple towersand the coolest fresh-washed purity of air and light. Major-GeneralRichard Ewell, riding at the head of his division, opined that it was asclear as the plains. A reconnoitring party brought him news aboutsomething or other to the eastward. He jerked his head, sworereflectively, and asked where was "Old Jackson."
"He rode ahead, sir, to speak to General Magruder."
"Well, you go, Nelson, and tell him--No, you go, Major Stafford."
Stafford went, riding through the cool, high glory of the morning. Hefound Jackson and Magruder at the edge of the peach orchard. All aroundwere Magruder's troops, and every man's head was turned toward the starkand dust-hued figure on the dust-hued nag. The first had come from theValley with a towering reputation, nor indeed did the last lack bards tosing of him. Whatever tarn cap the one had worn during the past threedays, however bewildering had been his inaction, his reputation held.This was Jackson.... There must have been some good reason ... this wasStonewall Jackson. Magruder's brigades cheered him vehemently, and helooked at them unsmiling, with a mere motion of his hand toward therusty old cadet cap. Magruder, magnificently soldierly, with much ofmanner and rich colour, magnanimously forgetful this morning of "otherimportant duties" and affably debonair though his eyelids dropped forwant of sleep, came gradually to halt in his fluent speech.--"Weally,you can't talk forever to a potht! If thilenthe be golden he ith theheavietht weight of hith time."--Jackson gathered up his reins, noddedand rode off, the troops cheering as he went by.
Stafford, coming up with him, saluted and gave his message. Jacksonreceived it with impassivity and rode on. Conceiving it to be his dutyto attend an answer, the staff officer accompanied him, though a littlein the rear. Here were an aide and a courier, and the three rodesilently behind their silent chief. At the Williamsburg road there camea halt. Jackson checked Little Sorrel, and sat looking toward Richmond.Down the road, in the sunrise light, came at a canter a knot of horsemenhandsomely mounted and equipped, the one in front tall and riding aniron-grey. Stafford recognized the commander-in-chief. Jackson sat verystill, beneath a honey locust. The night before, in a wood hard by, the17th Mississippi had run into a Federal brigade. The latter had fired,at point blank, a withering volley. Many a tall Mississippian hadfallen. Now in the early light their fellow soldiers had gone seekingthem in the wood, drawn them forth, and laid them in a row in the wetsedge beside the road. Nearly every man had been shot through the brain.They lay ghastly, open-eyed, wet with rain, staring at the cool and pureconcave of the sky. Two or three soldiers were moving slowly up and downthe line, bent on identifications. Presumably Jackson was aware of thatcompany of the dead, but their presence could not be said to disturbhim. He sat with his large hands folded over the saddle-bow, with theforage cap cutting all but one blue-grey gleam of his eyes, still asstone wall or mountain or the dead across the way. As the horsemen camenearer his lips parted. "That is General Lee?"
"Yes, general."
"Good!"
Lee's staff halted; Lee himself came on, checked the iron-grey,dismounted, and walked toward the honey locust. Jackson swung himselfstiffly out of the saddle and stepped forward. The two met. Leestretched out his hand, said something in his gracious voice. Thepiteous row of dead men, with their open eyes, caught his glance. Hedrew his brows together, pressed his lips hard, parted them in a sighand went on with his speech. The two men, so different in aspect, talkednot long together. The staff could not hear what was said, but Lee spokethe most and very earnestly. Jackson nodded, said, "Good!" severaltimes, and once, "It is in God's hands, General Lee!"
The courier holding Traveller brought him up. Lee mounted, tarried, agreat and gallant figure, a moment longer, then rode toward Magruder atthe peach orchard. His staff followed, saluting Stonewall Jackson asthey passed. He, too, remounted in his stiff and awkward fashion, andturned Little Sorrel's head down the Williamsburg road. Behind him now,in the clear bright morning, could be heard the tramp of his brigades.Stafford pushed his horse level with the sorrel. "Your pardon, general,but may I ask if there's any order for General Ewell--"
"There is none, sir."
"Then shall I return?"
"No, you will wait, sir. From the cross-roads I may send directions."
They rode on by wood and field. Overhead was a clear, high, azure sky;no clouds, but many black sailing specks. Around, on the sandy road, andin the shaggy, bordering growth, were witnesses enough to the Federalretreat--a confused medley of abandoned objects. Broken and half-burnedwagons appeared, like wreckage from a storm. There did not lack dead ordying horses, nor, here and there, dead or wounded men. In the thickerwoods or wandering through the ruined fields appeared, forlornly,stragglers from the Federal column. D. H. Hill, leading the greyadvance, swept up hundreds of these. From every direction spirals ofsmoke rose into the crystal air,--barns and farmhouses, mills, fences,hayricks, and monster heaps of Federal stores set on fire in thatmemorable "change of base." For all the sunshine of the June morning,the rain-washed air, the singing birds in the jewelled green of theforest, there was something in the time and place inexpressibly sinisterand sad.
Or so thought Maury Stafford, riding silently with the aide and thecourier. At Gaines's Mill he had won emphatic praise for a cool anddaring ride across the battlefield, and for the quick rallying andleading into action of a command whose officers were all down. WithEwell at Dispatch Station, he had volunteered for duty at the crossingof the Chickahominy, and in a hand-to-hand fight with a retiring Federalregiment he and his detachment had acquitted themselves supremely well.As far as this warfare went, he had reason to be satisfied. But he wasnot so, and as he rode he thought the morning scene of a twilightdreariness. He had no enthusiasm for war. In every aspect of life, saveone, that he dealt with, he carried a cool and level head, and hethought war barbarous and its waste a great tragedy. Martial music andearth-shaking charges moved him for a moment, as they moved others foran hour or a day. The old, instinctive response passed with swiftness,and he settled to the base of a steadfast conclusion that humanityturned aside to the jungle many times too often in a century. That,individually, he had turned into a certain other allied jungle, he wasconscious--not sardonically conscious, for here all his judgment waswarped, but conscious. His mind ranged in this jungle with an unhappyfury hardly modern.
As he rode he looked toward Richmond. He knew, though he scarcely knewhow he knew, that Judith Cary was there. He had himself meant to ride toRichmond that idle twenty-eighth. Then had come the necessity ofaccompanying Ewell to Dispatch Station, and his chance was gone. TheStonewall Brigade had been idle enough.... Perhaps, the colonel of the65th had gone.... It was a thick and bitter jungle, and he gatheredevery thorn within it to himself and smelled of every poisonous flower.
The small, silent cavalcade came to a cross-roads. Jackson stopped,sitting Little Sorrel beneath a tall, gaunt, lightning-blackened pine.The three with him waited a few feet off. Behind them they heard theon-coming column; D. H. Hill leading, then Jackson's own division. Thesun was above the treetops, the sky cloudless, all the forestglistening. The minutes passed. Jackson sat like a stone. At last, fromthe heavy wood pierced by the cross-road, came a rapid clatter of hoofs.Munford appeared, behind him fifty of his cavalry. The fifty checkedtheir horses; the leader came on and saluted. Jackson spoke in thepeculiar voice he used when displeased. "Colonel Munford, I ordered youto be here at sunrise."
Munford explained. "The men were much scattered, sir. They don't knowthe country, and in the storm last night and the thick wood theycouldn't see their horses' e
ars. They had nothing to eat and--"
He came to a pause. No amount of good reasons ever for long rolledfluently off the tongue before Jackson. He spoke now, still in theconcentrated monotony of his voice of displeasure. "Yes, sir. But,colonel, I ordered you to be here at sunrise. Move on with your men. Ifyou meet the enemy drive in his pickets, and if you want artilleryColonel Crutchfield will furnish you."
Munford moved on, his body of horse increasing in size as the losttroopers emerged in twos and threes or singly from the forest and turneddown the road to join the command. The proceeding gave an effect ofdisordered ranks. Jackson beckoned the courier. "Go tell Colonel Munfordthat his men are straggling badly."
The courier went, and presently returned. Munford was with him."General, I thought I had best come myself and explain--they aren'tstraggling. We were all separated in the dark night and--"
"Yes, sir. But I ordered you to be here at sunrise. Move on now, anddrive in the enemy's pickets, and if you want artillery ColonelCrutchfield will furnish you."
Munford and the 2d Virginia went on, disappearing around a bend in theroad. The sound of the artillery coming up was now loud in the clearair. Jackson listened a moment, then left the shadow of the pine, andwith the two attending officers and the courier resumed the way to WhiteOak Swamp.
Brigade by brigade, twenty-five thousand men in grey passed SavageStation and followed Stonewall Jackson. The air was fresh, the troops inspirits. Nobody was going to let McClellan get to the James, after all!The brigades broke into song. They laughed, they joked, they cheeredevery popular field officer as he passed, they genially discussed theheretofore difficulties of the campaign and the roseate promise of theday. They knew it was the crucial day; that McClellan must be stoppedbefore sunset or he would reach the shelter of his gunboats. They werein a Fourth of July humour; they meant to make the day remembered. Lifeseemed bright again and much worth while. They even grudgingly agreedthat there was a curious kind of attractiveness about all this flatcountry, and the still waters, and the very tall trees, and labyrinthinevivid green undergrowth. Intermittent fevers had begun to appear, but,one and all, the invalids declared that this was their good day."Shucks! What's a little ague? Anyhow, it'll go away when we get back tothe Valley. Going back to the Valley? Well, we should think so! Thiscountry's got an eerie kind of good looks, and it raises sweet potatoesall right, but for steady company give us mountains! We'll dropMcClellan in one of these swamps, and we'll have a review at the fairgrounds at Richmond so's all the ladies can see us, and then we'll goback to the Valley pike and Massanutton and Mr. Commissary Banks! Theymust be missing us awful. Somebody sing something,--
"Old Grimes is dead, that good old man, Whom we shall see no more! He wore a grey Confederate coat All buttoned down before--"
"Don't like it that way? All right--"
"He wore a blue damn-Yankee coat All buttoned down before--"
The Stonewall Brigade passed a new-made grave in a small graveyard, fromwhich the fence had been burned. A little further on they came to aburned smithy; the blacksmith's house beside it also a ruin, black andcharred. On a stone, between two lilac-bushes, sat a very old man.Beside him stood a girl, a handsome creature, dark and bright-cheeked."Send them to hell, boys, send them to hell!" quavered the old man. Thegirl raised a sweet and vibrant voice: "Send them to hell, men, sendthem to hell!"
"We'll do our best, ma'am, we'll do our best!" answered the Stonewall.
The sun mounted high. They were moving now through thick woods, brokenby deep creeks and bits of swamp. All about were evidences enough thatan army had travelled before them, and that that army was exceedinglycareless of its belongings. All manner of impediments lay squandered;waste and ruin were everywhere. Sometimes the men caught an odour ofburning meat, of rice and breadstuffs. In a marshy meadow a number ofwrecked, canvas-topped wagons showed like a patch of mushrooms, giantand dingy. In a forest glade rested like a Siegfried smithy an abandonedtravelling forge. Camp-kettles hacked in two were met with, and boxes ofsutlers' wares smashed to fragments. The dead horses were many, andthere was disgust with the buzzards, they rose or settled in suchclouds. The troops, stooping to drink from the creeks, complained thatthe water was foul.
Very deep woods appeared on the horizon. "Guide says that's White OakSwamp!--Guide says that's White Oak Swamp!" Firing broke out ahead."Cavalry rumpus!--Hello! Artillery butting in, too!--everybody but us!Well, boys, I always did think infantry a mighty no-'count, undependablearm--infantry of the Army of the Valley, anyway! God knows the moss hasbeen growing on us for a week!"
Munford sent back a courier to Jackson, riding well before the head ofthe column. "Bridge is burned, sir. They're in strong force on the otherside--"
"Good!" said Jackson. "Tell Colonel Crutchfield to bring up the guns."
He rode on, the aide, the courier, and Maury Stafford yet with him. Theypassed a deserted Federal camp and hospital, and came between tall treesand through dense swamp undergrowth to a small stream with many arms. Itlay still beneath the blue sky, overhung by many a graceful, vine-drapedtree. The swamp growth stretched for some distance on either side, andthrough openings in the foliage the blue glint of the arms could beseen. To the right there was some cleared ground. In front the roadstopped short. The one bridge had been burned by the retreating Federalrearguard. Two blue divisions, three batteries--in all over twentythousand men--now waited on the southern bank to dispute the White OakCrossing.
Stafford again pushed his horse beside Jackson's. "Well, sir?"
"I hunted once through this swamp, general. There is an old crossingnear the bridge--"
"Passable for cavalry, sir?"
"Passable by cavalry and infantry, sir. Even the guns might somehow begotten across."
"I asked, sir, if it was passable for cavalry."
"It is, sir."
Jackson turned to his aide. "Go tell Colonel Crutchfield I want to seehim."
Crutchfield appeared. "Where are your guns, colonel?"
"General, their batteries on the ridge over there command the road, andthe thick woods below their guns are filled with sharpshooters. I wantto get the guns behind the crest of the hill on this side, and I amopening a road through the wood over there. They'll be updirectly--seven batteries, Carter's, Hardaway's, Nelson's, Rhett's,Reilly's, and Balthis'. We'll open then at a thousand yards, and we'lltake them, I think, by surprise."
"Very good, colonel. That is all."
The infantry began to arrive. Brigade by brigade, as it came up, turnedto right or to left, standing under arms in the wood above the White OakSwamp. As the Stonewall Brigade came, under tall trees and over earththat gave beneath the feet, flush with the stream itself, the greyguns, now in place upon the low ridge to the right, opened, thirty-oneof them, with simultaneous thunder. Crutchfield's manoeuvre had notbeen observed. The thirty-one guns blazed without warning, and the blueartillery fell into confusion. The Parrotts blazed in turn, four times,then they limbered up in haste and left the ridge. Crutchfield sentWooding's battery tearing down the slope to the road immediately infront of the burned bridge. Wooding opened fire and drove out theinfantry support from the opposite forest. Jackson, riding toward thestream, encountered Munford. "Colonel, move your men over the creek andtake those guns."
Munford looked. "I don't know that we can cross it, sir."
"Yes, you can cross it, colonel. Try."
Munford and a part of the 2d Virginia dashed in. The stream was in truthnarrow enough, and though it was deep here, with a shifting bottom, andthough the debris from the ruined bridge made it full of snares, thehorsemen got across and pushed up the shore toward the guns. A thick andleafy wood to the right leaped fire--another and unsuspected body ofblue infantry. The echoes were yet ringing when, from above, an unseenbattery opened on the luckless cavalry. The blue rifles cracked again,the horses began to rear and plunge, several men were hit. There wasnothing to
do but to get somehow back to the north bank. Munford and hismen pushed out of the rain of iron, through the wood for some distancedown the stream, and there recrossed, not without difficulty.
The thirty-one guns shelled the wood which had last spoken, and droveout the skirmishers with whom it was filled. These took refuge inanother deep and leafy belt still commanding the stream and the ruinedcauseway. A party of grey pioneers fell to work to rebuild the bridge.From the crest on the southern side behind the deep foliage two Federalbatteries, before unnoted, opened on the grey cannoneers. Wooding, onthe road before the bridge, had to fall back. Under cover of the gunsthe blue infantry swarmed again into the wood. Shell and bullet hissedand pattered into the water by the abutments of the ruined bridge. Theworking party drew back. "Damnation! They mustn't fling them miniesround loose like that!"
Wright's brigade of Huger's division came up. Wright made his report."We tried Brackett's ford a mile up stream, sir. Couldn't manage it. Gottwo companies over by the skin of our teeth. They drove in some picketson the other side. Road through the swamp over there covered by felledtrees. Beyond is a small meadow and beyond that rising ground, almostfree of trees. There are Yankee batteries on the crest, and a largeforce of infantry lying along the side of the ridge. They command themeadow and the swamp."
So tall were the trees, so thick the undergrowth, so full the midsummerfoliage that the guns, thundering at each other across the narrowstream, never saw their antagonists. Sharpshooters and skirmishers wereas hidden. Except as regarded the pioneers striving with the bridge,neither side could see the damage that was done. The noise wastremendous, echoing loudly from the opposing low ridges and rollingthrough the swamp. The hollow filled with smoke; above the treetops adull saffron veil was drawn across the sky. The firing was withoutintermission, a monotonous thunder, beneath which the working partystrove spasmodically at the bridge, the cavalry chafed to and fro, andthe infantry, filling all the woods and the little clearings to therear, began to swear. "Is it the Red Sea down there? Why can't we crosswithout a bridge? Nobody's going to get drowned! Ain't more'n a hundredmen been drowned since this war began! O Great Day in the Morning! I'mtired of doing nothing!"
General Wade Hampton of D. H. Hill's division, leaving his brigade in apine wood, went with his son and with an aide, Rawlins Lowndes, on areconnoitring expedition of his own. He was a woodsman and hunter, withexperience of swamps and bayous. Returning, he sought out Jackson, andfound him sitting on a fallen pine by the roadside near the slowly,slowly mending bridge. Hampton dismounted and made his report. "We gotover, three of us, general, a short way above. It wasn't difficult. Thestream's clear of obstructions there and has a sandy bottom. We couldsee through the trees on the other side. There's a bit of level, and ahillside covered with troops--a strong position. But we got across thestream, sir."
"Yes. Can you make a bridge there?"
"I can make one for infantry, sir. Not, I think, for the artillery.Cutting a road would expose our position."
"Very good. Make the bridge, general."
Hampton's men cut saplings and threw a rude foot-bridge across thestream where he had traversed it. He returned and reported. "They arequiet and unsuspecting beyond, sir. The crossing would be slow, andthere may be an accident, but cross we certainly can."
Jackson, still seated on the fallen pine, sat as though he had beenthere through eternity, and would remain through eternity. The gunthundered, the minies sang. One of the latter struck a tree above hishead and severed a leafy twig. It came floating down, touched hisshoulder like an accolade and rested on the pine needles by his foot. Hegave it no attention, sitting like a graven image with clasped hands,listening to the South Carolinian's report. Hampton ceased to speak andwaited. It was the height of the afternoon. He stood three minutes insilence, perhaps, then glanced toward the man on the log. Jackson's eyeswere closed, his head slightly lifted. "Praying?" thought the SouthCarolinian. "Well, there's a time for everything--" Jackson opened hiseyes, drew the forage cap far down over them, and rose from the pine.The other looked for him to speak, but he said nothing. He walked alittle way down the road and stood among the whistling minies, lookingat the slowly, slowly building bridge.
Hampton did as Wright and Munford had done before him--went back to hismen. D. H. Hill, after an interview of his own, had retired to theartillery. "Yes, yes, Rhett, go ahead! Do something--make a noise--dosomething! Infantry's kept home from school to-day--measles, I reckon,or maybe it's lockjaw!"
About three o'clock there was caught from the southward, between theloud wrangling of the batteries above White Oak, another sound,--firsttwo or three detonations occurring singly, then a prolonged andcontinuous roar. The batteries above White Oak Swamp, the sharpshootersand skirmishers, the grey chafing cavalry, the grey masses of unemployedinfantry, all held breath and listened. The sound was not three milesaway, and it was the sound of the crash of long battle-lines. There wasa curious movement among the men nearest the grey general-commanding.With their bodies bent forward, they looked his way, expecting short,quick orders. He rested immobile, his eyes just gleaming beneath thedown-drawn cap, Little Sorrel cropping the marsh grass beside him.Munford, coming up, ventured a remark. "General Longstreet or General A.P. Hill has joined with their centre, I suppose, general? The firing isvery heavy."
"Yes. The troops that have been lying before Richmond. General Lee willsee that they do what is right."
Stafford, near him, spoke again. "The sound comes, I think, sir, from aplace called Glendale--Glendale or Frayser's Farm."
"Yes, sir," said Jackson; "very probably."
The thunder never lessened. Artillery and infantry, Franklin's corps onthe south bank of White Oak, began again to pour an iron hail againstthe opposing guns and the working party at the bridge, but in everyinterval between the explosions from these cannon there rolled louderand louder the thunder from Frayser's Farm. A sound like a grating windin a winter forest ran through the idle grey brigades. "It's A. P.Hill's battle again!--A. P. Hill or Longstreet! Magruder and Huger andHolmes and A. P. Hill and Longstreet--and we out of it again, on thewrong side of White Oak Swamp! And they're looking for us to help--_WishI was dead!_"
The 65th Virginia had its place some distance up the stream, in atangled wood by the water. Facing southward, it held the extreme right;beyond it only morass, tall trees, swaying masses of vine. On the leftan arm of the creek, thickly screened by tree and bush, divided it fromthe remainder of the brigade. It rested in semi-isolation, and its tencompanies stared in anger at the narrow stream and the deep woodsbeyond, listening to the thunder of Longstreet and A. P. Hill'sunsupported attack and the answering roar of the Federal 3d Army Corps.It was a sullen noise, deep and unintermittent. The 65th, waiting fororders, could have wept as the orders did not come. "Get across? Well,if General Jackson would just give us leave to try!--Oh, hell! listen tothat!--Colonel, can't you do something for us?--Where's the colonelgone?"
Cleave was beyond their vision. He had rounded a little point of landand now, Dundee's hoofs in water, stood gazing at the darkly woodedopposite shore. He stood a moment thus, then spoke to the horse, andthey entered the stream. It was not deep, and though there wereobstructions, old stakes and drowned brushwood, Cleave and Dundeecrossed. The air was full of booming sound, but there was no motion inthe wood into which they rose from the water. All its floor was marshy,water in pools and threads, a slight growth of cane, and above, the talland solemn trees. Cleave saw that there was open meadow beyond.Dismounting, he went noiselessly to the edge of the swamp. An openspace, covered with some low growth; beyond it a hillside. Wood andmeadow and hill, all lay quiet and lonely in the late sunlight.
He went back to Dundee, remounted, passed again through the sombre wood,over the boggy earth, entered the water and recrossed. Turning thelittle point of the swamp, he rode before his regiment on his way tofind Winder. His men greeted him. "Colonel, if you could just get usover there we'd do anything in the world for you! This weeping-willowplace i
s getting awful hard to bear! Look at Dundee! Even he's droopinghis head. You know we'd follow you through hell, sir; and if you couldjust manage it so's we could follow you through White Oak Swamp--"
Cleave passed the arm of the creek separating the 65th from the rest ofthe brigade, and asked of Winder from the first troops beyond the screenof trees. "General Winder has ridden down to the bridge to see GeneralJackson."
Cleave, following, found his leader indeed before Jackson, justfinishing his representations whatever they were, and somewhat perturbedby the commanding general's highly developed silence. This continuingunbroken, Winder, after an awkward minute of waiting, fell a littleback, a flush on his cheeks and his lips hard together. The actiondisclosed Cleave, just come up, his hand checking Dundee, his grey eyesearnestly upon Jackson. When the latter spoke, it was not to thebrigadier but to the colonel of the 65th. "Why are you not with yourregiment, sir?"
"I left it but a moment ago, sir, to bring information I thought it myduty to bring."
"What information?"
"The 65th is on General Winder's extreme right, sir. The stream beforeit is fordable."
"How do you know, sir?"
"I forded it. The infantry could cross without much difficulty. The 65thwould be happy, sir, to lead the way."
Winder opened his lips. "The whole Stonewall Brigade is ready, sir."
Jackson, without regarding, continued to address himself to Cleave. Histone had been heard before by the latter--in his own case on the nightof the twenty-seventh as well as once before, and in the case of otherswhere there had been what was construed as remonstrance or negligence ordisobedience. He had heard him speak so to Garnett after Kernstown. Thewords were simple enough--they always were. "You will return to yourduty, sir. It lies where your regiment is, and that is not here. Go!"
Cleave obeyed. The ford was there. His regiment might have crossed, therest of the Stonewall following. Together they might traverse the swampand the bit of open, pass the hillside, and strike Franklin upon theflank, while, brigade by brigade, the rest of the division followed bythat ford. Rout Franklin, and push forward to help A. P. Hill. It hadappeared his duty to give the information he was possessed of. He hadgiven it, and his skirts were cleared. There was anger in him as heturned away; he had a compressed lip, a sparkling eye. Not till heturned did he see Stafford, sitting his horse in the shadow behindJackson. The two men stared full at each other for a perceptible moment.But Stafford's face was in the shadow, and as for Cleave his mind wasfull of anger for the tragedy of the inaction. At the moment he gavesmall attention to his own life, its heights or depths, past or future.He saw Stafford, but he could not be said to consider him at all. Heturned from the road into the wood, and pushed the great bay over spongyground toward the isolated 65th. Stafford saw that he gave him nothought, and it angered him. On the highroad of his life it would nothave done so, but he had left the road and was lost in the jungle. Therewere few things that Richard Cleave might do which would not now worklike madness on the mind astray in that place.
The cannonading over White Oak Swamp continued, and the sound of thebattle of Frayser's Farm continued. On a difficult and broken groundLongstreet attacked, driving back McCall's division. McCall wasreinforced and Longstreet hard pressed. Lee loosed A. P. Hill, and thebattle became furious. He looked for Jackson, but Jackson was at WhiteOak Swamp; for Huger, but a road covered with felled trees delayedHuger; for Magruder, but in the tangle of wood and swamp Magruder, too,went astray; for Holmes, but Fitz John Porter held Holmes in check.Longstreet and A. P. Hill strove unsupported, fifty thousand grey troopsin hearing of their guns. The battle swayed to and fro, long, loud, andsanguinary, with much hand-to-hand work, much use of bayonets, and,over all, a shriek of grape and canister.
Back on White Oak Swamp, Franklin on the southern side, Jackson on thenorthern, blue and grey alike caught the noise of battle. Theythemselves were cannonading loudly and continuously. One Federal batteryused fifteen hundred rounds. The grey were hardly less lavish. Not muchdamage was done except to the trees. The trough through which crept thesluggish water was filled with smoke. It drifted through the swamp andthe woods and along the opposing hillsides. It drifted over and aboutthe idle infantry, until one command was hidden from another.
Stonewall Jackson, seated on the stump of a felled oak, his sabre acrosshis knees, his hands rigid upon it, his great booted feet squarelyplanted, his cap drawn low, sent the aide beside him with some order tothe working party at the bridge. A moment later the courier went, too,to D. H. Hill, with a query about prisoners. The thunders continued, thesmoke drifted heavily, veiling all movements. Jackson spoke withoutturning. "Whoever is there--"
No one was there at the moment but Maury Stafford. He came forward. "Youwill find the 1st Brigade," said Jackson. "Tell General Winder to moveit nearer the stream. Tell him to cross from his right, with caution, asmall reconnoitring party. Let it find out the dispositions of theenemy, return and report."
Stafford went, riding westward through the smoke-filled forest, and camepresently to the Stonewall Brigade and to Winder, walking up and downdisconsolately. "An order from General Jackson, sir. You will move yourbrigade nearer the stream. Also you will cross, from your right, withcaution, a small reconnoitring party. It will discover the dispositionsof the enemy, return and report."
"Very good," said Winder. "I'll move at once. The 65th is already on thebrink--there to the right, beyond the swamp. Perhaps, you'll take theorder on to Colonel Cleave?--Very good! Tell him to send a picked squadquietly across and find out what he can. I hope to God there'll comeanother order for us all to cross at its heels!"
Stafford, riding on, presently found himself in a strip of bog andthicket and tall trees masking a narrow, sluggish piece of water. Thebrigade behind him was hidden, the regiment in front not yet visible.Despite the booming of the guns, there was here an effect of stillness.It seemed a lonely place. Stafford, traversing it slowly because theground gave beneath his horse's feet, became aware of a slight movementin a laurel thicket and of two eyes gleaming behind the leaves. Hereined in his horse. "What are you doing in there? Straggling ordeserting? Come out!" There was a pause; then Steve Dagg emerged."Major, I ain't either stragglin' or desertin'. I was just seperated--Igot seperated last night. The regiment's jes' down there--I crept downan' saw it jes' now. I'm goin' back an' join right away--send me to hellif I ain't!--though Gawd knows my foot's awful sore--"
Stafford regarded him closely. "I've seen you before. Ah, I remember! Onthe Valley pike, moving toward Winchester.... Poor scoundrel!"
Steve, his back against a swamp magnolia, undertook to show that he,too, remembered, and that gratefully. "Yes, sir. You saved me frommarkin' time on a barrel-head, major--an' my foot _was_ sore--an' Iwasn't desertin' that time any more'n this time--an' I was as obleegedto you as I could be. The colonel's awful hard on the men."
"Is he?" said Stafford gratingly. "They seem to like him."
He sat his horse before the laurel thicket and despised himself forholding conference with this poor thief; or, rather, some fibre in hisbrain told him that, out of this jungle, if ever he came out of it, hewould despise himself. Had he really done so now, he would have turnedaway. He did not so; he sat in the heart of the jungle and comparedhatreds with Steve.
The latter glanced upward a moment with his ferret eyes, then turned hishead aside and spat. "If there's any of my way of thinkin' they don'tlike him--But they're all fools! Crept down through the swamp a littleago an' heard it! 'Colonel, get us across, somehow, won't you? We'llfight like hell!' 'I can't, men. I haven't any orders.' Yaah! I wishhe'd take the regiment over without them, and then be court-martialledand shot for doing it!" Steve spat again. "I seed long ago that youdidn't like him either, major. He gets along too fast--all the prizescome his way."
"Yes," said Stafford, from the heart of the jungle. "They come hisway.... And he's standing there at the edge of the water, hoping fororders to cross."
Steve, beneath the
swamp magnolia, had a widening of the lips. "Luck'sturned agin him one way, though. He's out of favour with Old Jack. Theregiment don't know why, but it saw it mighty plain day beforeyesterday, after the big battle! Gawd knows I'd like to see him so deepin trouble he'd never get out--and so would you, major. Prizes wouldstop coming his way then, and he might lose those he has--"
"If I entertain a devil," said Stafford, "I'll not be hypocrite enoughto object to his conversation. Nor, if I take his suggestion, is thereany sense in covering him with reprobation. So go your way, miserableimp! while I go mine!"
But Steve kept up with him, half-running at his stirrup. "I got torejoin, 'cause it's jest off one battlefield on to another, and thereain't nowhere else to go! This world's a sickenin' place for men likeme. So I've got to rejoin. Ef there's ever anything I kin do for you,major--"
At the head of the dividing arm of the creek they heard behind them ahorseman, and waited for a courier to come up. "You are going on to the65th?"
"Yes, sir. I belong there. I was kept by General Winder for some specialduty, and I'm just through it--"
"I have an order," said Stafford, "from General Winder to ColonelCleave. There are others to carry and time presses. I'll entrust it toyou. Listen now, and get it straight."
He gave an order. The courier listened, nodded energetically, repeatedit after him, and gathered up the reins. "I am powerfully glad to carrythat order, sir! It means 'Cross,' doesn't it?"
He rode off, southward to the stream, in which direction Steve hadalready shambled. Stafford returned, through wood and swamp, to the roadby the bridge. Above and around the deep inner jungle his intellectworked. He knew that he had done a villainy; knew it and did not repent.A nature, fine enough in many ways, lay bound hand and foot, deep inmiasmas and primal heat, captive to a master and consuming passion. Tocreate a solitude where he alone might reach one woman's figure, hewould have set a world afire. He rode back now, through the woods, to ageneral commanding who never forgave nor listened overmuch toexplanations, and he rode with quietude, the very picture of a gallantsoldier.
Back on the edge of White Oak Swamp, Richard Cleave considered the orderhe had received. He found an ambiguity in the wording, a choice ofconstructions. He half turned to send the courier again to Winder, tomake absolutely sure that the construction which he strongly preferredwas correct. As he did so, though he could not see the brigade beyondthe belt of trees, he heard it in motion, _coming down through the woodsto cross the stream in the rear of the 65th_. He looked at the ford andthe silent woods beyond. From Frayser's Farm, so short a distance away,came a deeper roll of thunder. It had a solemn and a pleading sound,_How long are we to wait for any help?_ Cleave knit his brows; then,with a decisive gesture of his hand, he dismissed the doubt and steppedin front of his colour company. _Attention! Into column. Forward!_
On the road leading down to the bridge Stafford met his own divisiongeneral, riding Rifle back to his command. "Hello, Major Stafford!" saidOld Dick. "I thought I had lost you."
"General Jackson detained me, general."
"Yes, yes, you aren't the only one! But let me tell you, major, he'scoming out of his spell!"
"You think it was a spell, then, sir?"
"Sure of it! Old Jackson simply hasn't been here at all. D. H. Hillthinks he's been broken down and ill--and somebody else is poetical andsays his star never shines when another's is above it, which isnonsense--and somebody else thinks he thought we did enough in theValley, which is damned nonsense--eh?"
"Of course, sir. Damned nonsense."
Ewell jerked his head. "Yes, sir. No man's his real self all thetime--whether he's a Presbyterian or not. Old Jackson simply hasn't beenin this cursed low country at all! But ----! I've been trying to giveadvice down there, and, by God, sir, he's approaching! If it was aspell, it's lifting! That bridge'll be built pretty soon, I reckon, andwhen we cross at last we'll cross with Stonewall Jackson going onbefore!"