Read The Long Roll Page 37


  CHAPTER XXXVI

  MALVERN HILL

  Star by star the heavens paled. The dawn came faintly and mournfully upfrom the east. Beneath it the battlefield of Frayser's Farm lay hushedand motionless, like the sad canvas of a painter, the tragic dream of apoet. It was far flung over broken ground and strewn with wrecks of war.Dead men and dying--very many of them, for the fighting had beenheavy--lay stretched in the ghostly light, and beside them dead anddying horses. Eighteen Federal guns had been taken. They rested onridged earth, black against the cold, grey sky. Stark and silent, farand wide, rolled the field beneath the cold, mysterious, changing light.Beside the dead men there were sleeping troops, regiments lying on theirarms, fallen last night where they were halted, slumbering heavilythrough the dew-drenched summer night. As the sky grew purple and thelast star went out, the bugles began to blow. The living men rose. Ifthe others heard a reveille, it was in far countries.

  Edward Cary, lying down in the darkness near one of the guns, had putout a hand and touched a bedfellow. The soldier seemed asleep, andEdward slept too, weary enough to have slept in Hades. Now, as thebugles called, he sat up and looked at his companion--who did not rise."I thought you lay very still," said Edward. He sat a moment, on thedank earth, beside the still, grey figure. The gun stood a little abovehim; through a wheel as through a rose window he saw the flush of dawn.The dead soldier's eyes were open; they, too, stared through thegun-wheel at the dawn. Edward closed them. "I never could take deathseriously," he said; "which is fortunate, I suppose."

  Two hours later his regiment, moving down the Quaker road, came to ahalt before a small, pillared, country church. A group of officers sattheir horses near the portico. Lee was in front, quiet and grand. Out ofthe cluster Warwick Cary pushed his horse across to the halted regiment.Father and son were presently holding converse beneath a dusty roadsidecedar. "I am thankful to see you!" said Edward. "We heard of the greatcharge you made. Please take better care of yourself, father!"

  "The past week has been like a dream," answered the other; "one of thosedreams in which, over and over, some undertaking, vital to you andtremendous, is about to march. Then, over and over, comes some pettiestobstacle, and the whole vast matter is turned awry."

  "Yesterday should have been ours."

  "Yes. General Lee had planned as he always plans. We should have crushedMcClellan. Instead, we fought alone--and we lost four thousand men; andthough we made the enemy lose as many, he has again drawn himself outof our grasp and is before us. I think that to-day we will have afearful fight."

  "Jackson is over at last."

  "Yes, close behind us. Whiting is leading; I saw him a moment. There's areport that one of the Stonewall regiments crossed and was cut in pieceslate yesterday afternoon--"

  "I hope it wasn't Richard's!"

  "I hope not. I have a curious, boding feeling about it.--There beat yourdrums! Good-bye, again--"

  He leaned from his saddle and kissed his son, then backed his horseacross the road to the generals by the pillared church. The regimentmarched away, and as it passed it cheered General Lee. He lifted hishat. "Thank you, men. Do your best to-day--do your best."

  "We'll mind you, Marse Robert, we'll mind you!" cried the troops, andwent by shouting.

  Somewhere down the Quaker Road the word "Malvern Hill" seemed to dropfrom the skies. "Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill. They're all massed onMalvern Hill. Three hundred and forty guns. And on the James thegunboats. Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill."

  A man in line with Edward described the place. "My last year at Williamand Mary I spent Christmas at Westover. We hunted over all Malvern Hill.It rises one hundred and fifty feet, and the top's a mile across. Aboutthe base there are thick forests and swamps, and Turkey Creek goeswinding, winding to the James. You see the James--the wide, old, yellowriver, with the birds going screaming overhead. There were no gunboatson it that day, no Monitors, or Galenas, or Maritanzas, and if you'dtold us up there on Malvern Hill that the next time we climbed it--! AtWestover, after supper, they told Indian stories and stories ofTarleton's troopers, and in the night we listened for the tap of EvelynByrd's slipper on the stair. We said we heard it--anyhow, we didn't heargunboats and three hundred thirty-two pounders!"

  "'When only Beauty's eyes did rake us fore and aft, When only Beaux used powder, and Cupid's was the shaft--'"

  sang Edward,

  "'Most fatal was the war and pleasant to be slain--'"

  _Malvern Hill_, beat out the marching feet. _Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill.Malvern Hill._

  There was a deep wood, out from which ran like spurs shallow ravines,clad with briar and bush and young trees; there was a stretch of railfence; and there was a wheat field, where the grain stood in shocks.Because of the smoke, however, nothing could be seen plainly; andbecause of the most awful sound, few orders were distinctly heard.Evidently officers were shouting; in the rents of the veil one saw wavedarms, open mouths, gesticulations with swords. But the loud-mouthed gunsspoke by the score, and the blast bore the human voice away. Theregiment in which was Edward Cary divined an order and ceased firing,lying flat in sedge and sassafras, while a brigade from the rear roaredby. Edward looked at his fingers. "Barrel burn them?" asked a neighbour."Reckon they use red-hot muskets in hell? Wish you could see your lips,Edward! Round black O. Biting cartridges for a living--and it used to bewhen you read Plutarch that you were all for the peaceful heroes! Youhaven't a lady-love that would look at you now!

  "'Take, oh, take those lips away That so blackly are enshrined--'

  Here comes a lamp-post--a lamp-post--a lamp-post!"

  The gunboats on the river threw the "lamp-posts." The long and horribleshells arrived with a noise that was indescribable. A thousand shriekingrockets, perhaps, with at the end an explosion and a rain of fragmentslike rocks from Vesuvius. They had a peculiar faculty for getting on thenerves. The men watched their coming with something like shrinking, withraised arms and narrowed eyes. "Look out for the lamp-post--look out forthe lamp-post--look out--Aaahhhh!"

  Before long the regiment was moved a hundred yards nearer thewheat-field. Here it became entangled in the ebb of a charge--thebrigade which had rushed by coming back, piecemeal, broken and driven byan iron flail. It would reform and charge again, but now there wasconfusion. All the field was confused, dismal and dreadful, beneath theorange-tinted smoke. The smoke rolled and billowed, a curtain of strangetexture, now parting, now closing, and when it parted disclosingimmemorial Death and Wounds with some attendant martial pageantry. Thecommands were split as by wedges, the uneven ground driving themasunder, and the belching guns. They went up to hell mouth, brigade bybrigade, even regiment by regiment, and in the breaking and reformingand twilight of the smoke, through the falling of officers and thesurging to and fro, the troops became interwoven, warp of one division,woof of another. The sound was shocking; when, now and then there fell abriefest interval it was as though the world had stopped, had falleninto a gulf of silence.

  Edward Cary found beside him a man from another regiment, a small,slight fellow, young and simple. A shock of wheat gave both a moment'sprotection. "Hot work!" said Edward, with his fine camaraderie. "Youmade a beautiful charge. We almost thought you would take them."

  The other looked at him vacantly. "I added up figures in the oldwarehouse," he said, in a high, thin voice. "I added up figures in theold warehouse, and when I went home at night I used to read plays. Iadded up figures in the old warehouse--Don't you remember Hotspur? Ialways liked him, and that part--

  'To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon; Or dive into the bottom of the deep--'"

  He stood up. Edward rose to his knees and put out a hand to draw himdown. "It's enough to make you crazy, I'll confess--but you mustn'tstand up like that!"

  The downward drawing hand was too late. There were blue sharpshooters ina wood in front. A ball entered the clerk's breast and he sank downbehind the wheat. "I added up figur
es in the old warehouse," he againtold Cary, "and when I went home at night I read plays--"

  The figure stiffened in Edward's grasp. He laid it down, and from behindthe wheat shock watched a grey battery in process of being knocked topieces. It had arrived in this quarter of the field in a wild gallop,and with a happy insouciance had unlimbered and run up the guns back ofa little crest topped with sumach, taking pains meanwhile to assure theinfantry that now it was safe. The infantry had grinned. "Like youfirst-rate, artillery! Willing to bet on the gunners, but the guns are a_leetle_ small and few. Don't know that we feel so _awful_ safe!"

  The grey began. Four shells flew up the long slope and burst among theiron rows that made a great triple crown for Malvern Hill. The greygunners cheered, and the appreciative infantry cheered, and the firstbegan to reload while the second, flat in scrub and behind the wheat,condescended to praise. "Artillery does just about as well as can beexpected! Awful old-fashioned arm--but well-meaning.... Lookout--look... Eeehhh!"

  The iron crown that had been blazing toward other points of the compassnow blazed toward this. Adversity came to the insouciant grey battery,adversity quickening to disaster. The first thunder blast thickened to ahowling storm of shrapnel, grape, and canister.

  At the first gun gunner No. 1, ramming home a charge, was blown intofragments; at the second the arm holding the sponge staff was severedfrom gunner No. 3's shoulder. A great shell, bursting directly over thethird, killed two men and horribly mangled others; the carriage of thefourth was crushed and set on fire. This in the beginning of the storm;as it swelled, total destruction threatened from the murk. The captainwent up and down. "Try it a little longer, men. Try it a little longer,men. We've got to make up in quality, you know. We've got to make up inquality, you know. Marse Robert's looking--I see him over there! Try ita little longer--try it a little longer."

  An aide arrived. "For God's sake, take what you've got left away! Yes,it's an order. Your being massacred won't help. Look out--Look--"

  No one in battle ever took account of time or saw any especial reasonfor being, now here, and now in quite a different place, or ever knewexactly how the places had been exchanged. Edward was practicallycertain that he had taken part in a charge, that his brigade had drivena body of blue infantry from a piece of woods. At any rate they were nolonger in the wheat field, but in a shady wood, where severed twigs andbranches floated pleasantly down. Lying flat, chin on hand, he watched aregiment storm and take a thick abattis--felled trees filled withsharpshooters--masking a hastily thrown up earthwork. The regiment wasreserving its fire and losing heavily. An elderly man led it, riding alarge old steady horse. "That's Ex-Governor Smith," said the regiment inthe wood. "That's Extra Billy! He's a corker! Next time he runs he'sgoing to get all the votes--"

  The regiment tried twice to pass the abattis, but each time fell back.The brigadier had ordered it not to fire until it was past the trees; itobeyed, but sulkily enough. Men were dropping; the colour-bearer wentdown. There was an outcry. "Colonel! we can't stand this! We'll all getkilled before we fire a shot! The general don't know how we're fixed--"Extra Billy agreed with them. He rose in his stirrups, turned and noddedvigorous assent. "Of course you can't stand it, boys! You oughtn't to beexpected to. It's all this infernal tactics and West P'int tomfoolery!Damn it, fire! and flush the game!"

  Edward laughed. From the fuss it was apparent that the abattis andearthwork had succumbed. At any rate, the old governor and his regimentwere gone. He was of the colour-guard, and all the colour-guard werelaughing. "Didn't you ever see him go into battle with his old blueumbrella up! Trotting along same as to a caucus--whole constituencyfollowing! Fine old political Roman! Look out, Yedward! Whole pine treecoming down."

  The scene changed again, and it was the side of a ravine, with a fineview of the river and with Morell and Couch blazing somewhere above. Theshells went overhead, bellowing monsters charging a grey battery on ahillock and a distant line of troops. "That's Pegram--that battery,"said some one. "He does well." "Has any one any idea of the time?" askedanother. "Sun's so hidden there's no guessing. Don't believe we'll eversee his blessed light again."

  A fisherman from the Eastern Shore stated that it was nearly fiveo'clock. "Fogs can't fool me. Day's drawing down, and tide's goingout--"

  The lieutenant-colonel appeared. "Somebody with an order has been shot,coming through the cornfield toward us. Three volunteers to bring himin!"

  Edward and the Eastern Shore man and a lean and dry and middle-agedlawyer from King and Queen bent their heads beneath their shoulders andplunged into the corn. All the field was like a miniature abattis,stalk and blade shot down and crossed and recrossed in the wildesttangle. To make way over it was difficult enough, and before the threehad gone ten feet the minies took a hand. The wounded courier laybeneath his horse, and the horse screamed twice, the sound rising abovethe roar of the guns. A ball pierced Edward's cap, another drew bloodfrom the lawyer's hand. The fisherman was a tall and wiry man; as he ranhe swayed like a mast in storm. The three reached the courier, draggedhim from beneath the horse, and found both legs crushed. He looked atthem with lustreless eyes. "You can't do anything for me, boys. Thegeneral says please try to take those three guns up there. He's going tocharge the line beyond, and they are in the way."

  "All right, we will," said the lawyer. "Now you put one arm round Cary'sneck and one round mine--"

  But the courier shook his head. "You leave me here. I'm awful tired. Yougo take the guns instead. Ain't no use, I tell you. I'd like to see thechildren, but--"

  In the act of speaking, as they lifted him, a ball went through histhroat. The three laid the body down, and, heads bent between shoulders,ran over and through the corn toward the ravine. Two thirds of the wayacross, the fisherman was shot. He came to his knees and, in falling,clutched Edward. "Mast's overboard," he cried, in a rattling voice. "Cuther loose, damn you!--I'll take the helm--" He, too, died. Cary and thelawyer got back to the gully and gave the order.

  The taking of those guns was no simple matter. It resembled child's playonly in the single-mindedness and close attention which went to itsaccomplishment. The regiment that reached them at last and took them, andtook what was left of the blue gunners, was not much more than half aregiment. The murk up here on this semi-height was thick to choking; theodour and taste of the battle poisoned brass on the tongue, the colour thatof a sand storm, the heat like that of a battleship in action, and all theplace shook from the thunder and recoil of the tiers of great guns beyond,untaken, not to be taken. A regiment rushed out of the rolling smoke, bythe half regiment. "Mississippi! Mississippi!--Well, even Mississippi isn'tgoing to do the impossible!" As the line went by, tall and swinging andyelling itself hoarse, the colonel was wounded and fell. The charge went onwhile the officer--he was an old man, very stately looking--dragged himselfaside, and sitting in the sedge tied a large bright handkerchief above awound in his leg. The charge dashed itself against the hillside, and thetier of guns flamed a death's sickle and mowed it down. Breathless, broken,the regiment fell back. When it reached the old man with the brighthandkerchief, it would have lifted him and carried him with it to the rear.He would not go. He said, "Tell the 21st they can't get me till they takethose guns!"

  The 21st mended its gaps and charged again. The old man set his hat onhis sword, waved it in the air, and cheered his men as they passed. Theypassed him but to return. To go up against those lines of bellowing gunswas mere heroic madness. Bleeding, exhausted, the men put out theirhands for the old man. He drew his revolver. "I'll shoot anybody whotouches me! Tell the 21st they can't get their colonel till they takethose guns!"

  The 21st charged a third time, in vain. It came back--a part of it cameback. The old man had fainted, and his men lifted and bore him away.

  From the platform where he lay in the shadow of the three guns EdwardCary looked out over Malvern Hill, the encompassing lowland, marsh andforest and fields, the winding Turkey Creek and Western Creek, and tothe south the James. A wind
had sprung up and was blowing the battlesmoke hither and yon. Here it hung heavily, and here a long lane wasopened. The sun was low and red behind a filmy veil, dark and raggedlike torn crape. He saw four gunboats on the river; they were throwingthe long, howling shells. The Monitor was there, an old foe--the cheesebox on a shingle. Edward shut his eyes and saw again Hampton Roads, andhow the Monitor had looked, darting from behind the Minnesota. The oldturtle, the old Merrimac ... and now she lay, a charred hull, far, farbeneath the James, by Craney Island.

  The private on his right was a learned man. Edward addressed him. "Haveyou ever thought, doctor, how fearfully dramatic is this world?"

  "Yes. It's one of those facts that are too colossal to be seen.Shakespeare says all the world's a stage. That's only a half-truth. Theworld's a player, like the rest of us."

  Below this niche stretched the grey battle-lines; above it, on thehilltop, by the cannon and over half the slope beneath, spread the blue.A forest stood behind the grey; out of it came the troops to the charge,the flags tossing in front. The upward reaching fingers of coppice andbrush had their occupants, fragments of commands under cover, bands ofsharpshooters. And everywhere over the open, raked by the guns, weredead and dying men. They lay thickly. Now and again the noise of thetorment of the wounded made itself heard--a most doleful and ghostlysound coming up like a wail from the Inferno. There were, too, many deador dying horses. Others, still unhurt, galloped from end to end of thefield of death. In the wheat-field there were several of the old,four-footed warriors, who stood and ate of the shocked grain. Therearrived a hush over the battlefield, one of those pauses which occurbetween exhaustion and renewed effort, effort at its height. The gunsfell silent, the musketry died away, the gunboats ceased to throw thosegreat shells. By contrast with the clangour that had prevailed, thestillness seemed that of a desert waste, a dead world. Over toward across-road there could be made out three figures on horseback. Thecaptain of Edward's company was an old college mate; lying down with hismen, he now drew himself over the ground and loaned Cary hisfield-glass. "It's General Lee and General Jackson and General D. H.Hill."

  A body of grey troops came to occupy a finger of woods below the threecaptured guns. "That's Cary's Legion," said the captain. "Here comes thecolonel now!"

  The two commands were but a few yards apart. Fauquier Cary, dismounting,walked up the sedgy slope and asked to speak to his nephew. The latterleft the ranks, and the two found a trampled space beside one of thegreat thirty-two pounders. A dead man or two lay in the parched grass,but there was nothing else to disturb. The quiet yet held over North andSouth and the earth that gave them standing room. "I have but a moment,"said the elder man. "This is but the hush before the final storm. Wecame by Jackson's troops, and one of his officers whom I knew at thePoint rode beside me a little way. They all crossed White Oak Swamp bystarlight this morning, and apparently Jackson is again the Jackson ofthe Valley. It was a curious eclipse. The force of the man is such that,while his officers acknowledge the eclipse, it makes no difference tothem. He is Stonewall Jackson--and that suffices. But that is not whatI have to tell--"

  "I saw father a moment this morning. He said there was a rumour aboutone of the Stonewall regiments--"

  "Yes. It was the 65th."

  "Cut to pieces?"

  "Yes."

  "Richard--Richard was not killed?"

  "No. But many were. Hairston Breckinridge was killed--and some of theThunder Run men--and very many others. Almost destroyed, Carlton said.They crossed at sunset. There were a swamp and a wood and a hollowcommanded by hills. The enemy was in force behind the hill, and therewas beside a considerable command in ambush, concealed in the woods bythe swamp. These had a gun or two. All opened on the 65th. It was cut topieces in the swamp and in a little marshy meadow. Only a remnant gotback to the northern side of the creek. Richard is under arrest."

  "He was acting under orders!"

  "So Carlton says he says. But General Jackson says there was no suchorder; that he disobeyed the order that was given, and now tries toscreen himself. Carlton says Jackson is more steel-like than usual, andwe know how it fared with Garnett and with others. There will be acourt-martial. I am very anxious."

  "I am not," said Edward stoutly. "There will be an honourable acquittal.We must write and tell Judith that she's not to worry! Richard Cleavedid nothing that he should not have done."

  "Of course, we know that. But Carlton says that, on the face of it, it'san ugly affair. And General Jackson--Well, we can only awaitdevelopments."

  "Poor Judith!--and his sister and mother.... Poor women!"

  The other made a gesture of assent and sorrow. "Well, I must go back.Take care of yourself, Edward. There will be the devil's own workpresently."

  He went, and Edward returned to his fellows. The silence yet held overthe field; the westering sun glowed dull red behind the smoke; thethree figures rested still by the cross-roads; the mass of frowningmetal topped Malvern Hill like a giant, smoke-wreathed _chevaux defrise_. Out of the brushwood to the left of the regiment, straight byit, upward towards the guns, and then at a tangent off through thefields to the woods, sped a rabbit. Legs to earth, it hurried with allits might. The regiment was glad of a diversion--the waiting was growingso intolerable. The men cheered the rabbit. "Go it, MollyCottontail!--Go it, Molly!--Go it, Molly!--Hi! Don't go that-away!Them's Yankees! They'll cut your head off! Go t'other way--that's it! Goit, Molly! Damn! If't wasn't for my character, I'd go with you!"

  The rabbit disappeared. The regiment settled back to waiting, a veryintolerable employment. The sun dipped lower and lower. The hush grewportentous. The guns looked old, mailed, dead warriors; the gunboatssleeping forms; the grey troops battle-lines in a great war picture, thethree horsemen by the cross-roads a significant group in the same; thedead and wounded over all the fields, upon the slope, in the woods, bythe marshes, the jetsam, still and heavy, of war at its worst. For amoment longer the wide and dreary stretch rested so, then with a wildsuddenness sound and furious motion rushed upon the scene. The gunboatsrecommenced with their long and horrible shells. A grey battery openedon Berdan's sharpshooters strung in a line of trees below the greatcrown of guns. The crown flamed toward the battery, scorched and mangledit. By the cross-roads the three figures separated, going in differentdirections. Presently galloping horses--aides, couriers--crossed theplane of vision. They went from D. H. Hill in the centre to Jackson'sbrigades on the left and Magruder's on the right. They had a mile ofopen to cross, and the iron crown and the sharpshooters flamed againstthem. Some galloped on and gave the orders. Some threw up their arms andfell, or, crashing to earth with a wounded horse, disentangledthemselves and stumbled on through the iron rain. The sun drew close tothe vast and melancholy forests across the river. Through a rift in thesmoke, there came a long and crimson shaft. It reddened the river, thenstruck across the shallows to Malvern Hill, suffused with a bloody tingewood and field and the marshes by the creeks, then splintered againstthe hilltop and made a hundred guns to gleam. The wind heightened,lifting the smoke and driving it northward. It bared to the last redlight the wild and dreary battlefield.

  From the centre rose the Confederate yell. Rodes's brigade, led byGordon, charged. It had half a mile of open to cross, and it was caughtat once in the storm that howled from the crest of Malvern Hill. Everyregiment suffered great loss; the 3d Alabama saw half its number slainor wounded. The men yelled again, and sprang on in the teeth of thestorm. They reached the slope, almost below the guns. Gordon lookedbehind for the supporting troops which Hill had promised. They werecoming, that grim fighter leading them, but they were coming far off,under clanging difficulties, through a hell of shrapnel. Rodes's brigadealone could not wrest that triple crown from the hilltop--no, not if themen had been giants, sons of Anak! They were halted; they lay down, putmuskets to shoulder and fired steadily and fired again on the blueinfantry.

  It grew darker on the plain. Brigades were coming from the left, theright, the centre. There had been o
rders for a general advance. Perhapsthe aides carrying them were among the slain, perhaps this, perhapsthat. The event was that brigades charged singly--sometimes evenregiments crossed, with a cry, the twilight, groaning plain and chargedMalvern Hill unsupported. The place flamed death and destruction. Hill'sten thousand men pressed forward with the order of a review. The shotand shell met them like a tornado. The men fell by hundreds. The linesclosed, rushed on. The Federal infantry joined the artillery. Musketryand cannon, the din became a prolonged and fearful roar of battle.

  The sun disappeared. There sprang out in the western sky three long redbands of clouds. On the darkening slope and plain Hill was crushed back,before and among his lines a horror of exploding shells. Jackson threwforward Lawton and Whiting, Winder and the Louisiana troops, while onthe right, brigade after brigade, Magruder hurled across the plain ninebrigades. After Hill, Magruder's troops bore the brunt of the lastfearful fighting.

  They stormed across the plain in twilight that was lit by the redflashes from the guns. The clouds of smoke were red-bosomed; the redbars stayed in the west. The guns never ceased their thundering, themusketry to roll. Death swung a wide scythe in the twilight of thatfirst day of July. Anderson and Armistead, Barksdale, Semmes andKershaw, Wright and Toombs and Mahone, rushed along the slope ofMalvern Hill, as Ripley and Garland and Gordon and all the brigadiers ofD. H. Hill had rushed before them. Death, issuing from that great powerof artillery, laid the soldiers in swathes. The ranks closed, again andagain the ranks closed; with diminished numbers but no slackening ofcourage, the grey soldiers again dashed themselves against Malvern Hill.The red bars in the west faded slowly to a deep purple; above them, in aclear space of sky, showed the silver Venus. Upon her cooling globe, ina day to come, intelligent life might rend itself as here--the oldhorror, the old tragedy, the old stained sublimity over again! All thedrifting smoke was now red lit, and beneath it lay in their bloodelderly men, and men in their prime, and young men--very many, oh, verymany young men! As the night deepened there sprang, beneath the thunder,over all the field a sound like wind in reeds. It was a sighing sound, alow and grievous sound. The blue lost heavily, for the charges werewildly heroic; but the guns were never disabled, and the loss of thegrey was the heaviest. Brigade by brigade, the grey faced the storm andwere beaten back, only again to reel forward upon the slope where Deathstood and swung his scythe. The last light dwelt on their colours, onthe deep red of their battle-flags; then the western sky became nowarmer than the eastern. The stars were out in troops; the battlestopped.

  D. H. Hill, an iron fighter with a mania for personal valour, standingwhere he had been standing for an hour, in a pleasantly exposed spot,clapped on his hat and beckoned for his horse. The ground about himshowed furrowed as for planting, and a neighbouring oak tree was soriddled with bullets that the weight of a man might have sent itcrashing down. D. H. Hill, drawing long breath, spoke half to his staff,half to the stars: "Give me Federal artillery and Confederate infantry,and I'd whip the world!"