CHAPTER XLIII
SHARPSBURG
"Sharpsburg!" said long afterwards Stephen D. Lee. "Sharpsburg wasArtillery Hell!"
"Sharpsburg," said the infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia."Sharpsburg! That was the field where an infantryman knew that he stoodon the most dangerous spot on the earth!"
Through the passes of the South Mountain, over Red Hill, out upon thebroken ground east of the Antietam poured the blue torrent--McClellanand his eighty-seven thousand. Lee met it with a narrow grey sea--notthirty thousand men, for A. P. Hill was yet upon the road from Harper'sFerry. In Berserker madness, torrent and uproar, clashed the twocolours.
There was a small white Dunkard church with a background of dark woods.It was north of Sharpsburg, near the Hagerstown turnpike, and it markedthe Confederate left. Stonewall Jackson held the left. Before him wasFighting Joe Hooker with Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts.
From a knoll behind Sharpsburg the commander-in-chief looked fromLongstreet on the right to D. H. Hill, and from Hill to Jackson. Helooked to the Harper's Ferry Road, but he did not see what he wished tosee--A. P. Hill's red battle shirt. "Artillery Hell" had begun. Therewas enormous thunder, enormous drifting murk. All the country side, allthe little Maryland villages and farmhouses blenched beneath that sound.Lee put down his field glass. He stood, calm and grand, the smoke anduproar at his feet. The Rockbridge Guns came by, going to some indicatedquarter of the field. In thunder they passed below the knoll, the ironwar-beasts, the gunners with them, black with powder and grime! Allsaluted; but one, a very young, very ragged, very begrimed private atthe guns, lingered a moment after his fellows, stood very straight atthe salute and with an upward look, then with quickened step caught upwith his gun and disappeared into the smoke ahead. Lee answered a glanceof his chief of staff. "Yes. It was my youngest son. It was Rob."
The Dunkard church! In this war it was strange how many and how ghastlybattles surged about small country churches! The Prince of Peace, if heindwelled here, must have bowed his head and mourned. Sunrise struckupon its white walls; then came a shell and pierced them. The churchbecame the core of the turmoil, the white, still reef against which beatthe wild seas in storm.
Fighting Joe Hooker came out of the North Wood. His battle flags werebright and he had drums and brazen horns. Loud and in time, regular as abeat in music, came the Huzzah! Huzzah! of his fourteen thousand men. Hecrossed the turnpike, he came down on the Dunkard church. "Yaii! Yaaaii!Yaaaaaaaaiihhh!" yelled the grey sea,--no time at all, only fiercedetermination. Sometimes a grey drum beat, or bugle called, but therewas no other music, save the thunder of the guns and the long rattle,never ceasing, of the musketry. There were battle flags, squares ofcrimson with a starry Andrew's cross. They went forward, they shrankback. Standard-bearers were killed. Gaunt, powder-grimed hands caught atthe staves, lifted them; the battle-flags went forward again.
Doubleday struck and Ricketts. They charged against Stonewall Jacksonand the narrow grey sea. All the ground was broken; alignment was lost;blue waves and grey went this way and that in a broken, tumultuous fray.But the blue waves were the heavier; in mass alone they outdid the grey.They pushed the grey sea back, back, back toward the dark wood about theDunkard church! Then Stonewall Jackson came along the front, riding in apelting, leaden rain. "Steady, men. Steady! God is over us!" His menreceived him with a cry of greeting and enthusiasm that was like ashriek, it was so wild and high. His power upon them had grown andgrown. He was Stonewall Jackson! He was Stonewall Jackson! First, theywould die for those battle-flags and the cause they represented; second,they would die for one another, comrades, brethren! third, they woulddie for Stonewall Jackson! They lifted their voices for him now, gauntand ragged troops with burning eyes. _Stonewall Jackson! StonewallJackson! Virginia! Virginia! Virginia! the South! the South!_ He turnedhis horse, standing in the whistling, leaden rain. "Forward, and drivethem!"
Lawton and D. H. Hill leaped against Meade. He was a staunch fighter,but he gave back. The wood about the Dunkard church appeared to writhelike Dante's wood, it was so full of groaning, of maimed men beside thetree trunks. The dead lay where they fell, and the living stepped uponthem. Meade gave back, back--and then Mansfield came in thunder toreinforce the blue.
The grey fought as even in this war they had hardly fought before. Theywere so gaunt, they were so ragged, they were so tired! But somethingethnic was coming more and more rapidly to the front. They were nearagain to savage nature. The Maryland woods might have been thicker,darker, the small church might have been some boulder altar beside someearly Old World river. They were a tribe again, and they were fightinganother and much larger tribe whom they had reason, reason, reason tohate! Their existence was at stake and the existence of all that theirhearts held dear. They fought with fury. About each were histribesmen--all were brothers! Brother fought for brother, brother sawbrother fall, brother sprang to avenge brother. Their lips wereblackened from tearing cartridges; their eyes, large in their thin,bronzed faces, burned against the enemy; their fingers were quick, quickat the musket lock; the spirit was the spirit behind hurled stones ofold, swung clubs, thrown javelins! They had a loved leader, a greatstrong head man who ruled them well and led them on to victory. Theyfought for him too, for his scant and curt praise, for his "Good, Good!"They fought for their own lives, each man for his own life, for theirtribe, their possessions, for women at home and children, for theirbrethren, their leader, their cause. Something else, too, of the pastwas there in force--hatred of him who opposed. They fought for hate atSharpsburg, as they fought for love. The great star drew, the iron thongfell. Led and driven, the tribe fought gigantically.
* * * * *
The battle became furious. Within the din of artillery and musketry humanvoices, loud, imperative, giving orders, shouting, wailing, died like a lowmurmur in the blast. Out of the wildly drifting smoke, now dark, nowflame-lit, forms emerged, singly or in great bodies, then the smoke drewtogether, hiding the struggle. There was blackness and grime as from theash of a volcano. The blood pounded behind the temples, the eyeballsstarted, the tongue was thick in the mouth, battle smell and battle taste,a red light, and time in crashes like an earthquake-toppling city! Theinequalities of the ground became exaggerated. Mere hillocks changed intorocky islands. Seize them, fortify them, take them before the blue can! Thetall maize grew gigantically taller. Break through these miles of cane asoften before we have broken through them, the foemen crashing before usdown to their boats! The narrow tongues of woods widened, widened. Takethese deep forests, use them for shelter, from them send forth these newarrows of death--fight, fight! in the rolling murk, the red light andcrying!
Before the Dunkard church Starke, commanding Jackson's old division, waskilled, Jones was wounded, Lawton wounded. Many field officers weredown, many, many of lesser rank. Of the blue, Mansfield was killed,Hooker was wounded, and Hartsuff and Crawford. The grey had pressed theblue back, back! Now in turn the blue drove the grey. The walls of thewhite church were splashed with blood, pocked with bullets. Dead men layat the door; within were those of the wounded who could get there. Butthe shells came too, the shells pierced the roof and entered. War camein, ebon, blood-stained, and grinning. The Prince of Peace was crowdedout.
The artillery was deafening. In the midst of a tremendous burst of soundD. H. Hill flung in the remainder of his division. Sumner came throughthe smoke. The grey and blue closed in a death grapple. From toward thecentre, beneath the howling storm rose a singing--
The race is not to them that's got The longest legs to run.
"Hood's Texans! Hood's Texans!" cried the Stonewall and all the otherbrigades on the imperilled left. "Come on, Hood's Texans! Come on!Yaaaii! Yaaaaaiih!"
Nor the battle to those people, That shoots the biggest gun.
The Texans came to the Dunkard church. Stonewall Jackson launched athunderbolt, grey as steel, all his men moving up
as one, against theopposing, roaring sea. The sea gave back. Then Sumner called inSedgwick's fresh troops.
Allan Gold, fighting with the 65th, took the colours from the last ofthe colour guard. He was tall and strong and he swung them high. Theglare from an exploding shell showed him and the battle flag. Gone wasthe quiet school-teacher, gone even the scout and woodsman. He stood agreat Viking, with yellow hair, and the battle rage had come to him. Hebegan to chant, unconscious as a harp through which strikes a strongwind. "Come on!" he chanted. "Come on!
"Sixty-fifth, come on! Come on, the Stonewall! Remember Manassas, The first and the second Manassas! Remember McDowell, Remember Front Royal, Remember the battle of Winchester, Remember Cross Keys, Remember Port Republic, The battle of Kernstown, and all our battles and skirmishes, Our marches and forced marches, bivouacs, and camp-fires, Brother's hand in brother's hand, and the battle to-morrow! Remember the Seven Days, Seven Days, Seven Days! Remember the Seven Days! Remember Cedar Run. The Groveton Wood, and the Railroad cut at Manassas Where you threw stones when your cartridges were gone, where you struck with the bayonet, And the General spoke to you then, 'Steady, men, steady!' Remember Chantilly, remember Loudoun and Maryland Heights. Harper's Ferry was yesterday. Remember and strike them again! Come on, 65th! Come on, the Stonewall!"
Back through the cornfield before the Dunkard church fell the blue. Deadand dying choked the cornfield as the dead and dying had choked the canebrake. Blade and stalks were beaten down, the shells tore up the earth.The blue reformed and came again, a resistless mass. Heavier andheavier, Fighting Joe Hooker, with Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts andSumner, struck against Stonewall Jackson! Back came the grey to thelittle Dunkard church. All around it, wood and open filled withclangour. The blue pressed in--the grey were giving way, were givingway! An out-worn company raised a cry, "They're flanking us!" Somethinglike a shiver passed over the thinning lines, then, grey and haggard,they tore another cartridge. Stonewall Jackson's voice came from behinda reef of smoke. "Stand fast, men! Stand fast. There are troops on theroad from Harper's Ferry. It is General McLaws. Stand fast!"
It was McLaws, with his black bullet head, his air of a Roman Consul! Inhe thundered with his twenty-five hundred men, tawny with the dust ofthe seventeen miles from Harper's Ferry. He struck Sedgwick full. Forfive minutes there was brazen clangour and shouting and an agony ofeffort, then the blue streamed back, past the Dunkard wood and church,back into the dreadful cornfield.
Maury Stafford, sent with a statement to the commander-in-chief, crossedin one prolonged risk of life from the wild left to the only lessstormed-against centre. Here a strong blue current, French andRichardson, strove against a staunch grey ledge--a part of D. H. Hill'sline, with Anderson to support. Here was a sunken road, that, later, wasgiven a descriptive name. Here was the Bloody Lane. Lee was foundstanding upon a knoll, calm and grand. "I yet look for A. P. Hill," hesaid. "He has a talent for appearing at identically the right moment."
Stafford gave his statement. All over the field the staff had sufferedheavily. Some were dead, many were wounded. Those who were left didtreble duty. Lee sent this officer on to Longstreet, holding the longridge on the right.
Stafford rode through the withering storm across that withered field.There seemed no light from the sky; the light was the glare from theguns. He marked, through a rift in the smoke, a battery where it stoodupon a height, above felled trees. He thought it was Pelham's--the HorseArtillery. It stood for a moment, outlined against the orange-bosomedcloud, then, like an army of wraiths, the smoke came between and hid it.His horse frightened at a dead man in his path. The start and plungingwere unusual, and the rider looked to see the reason. The soldier haddrawn letters from his breast and had died with them in his hands. Theunfolded, fluttering sheets stirred as though they had life. Stafford,riding on, found the right and found Longstreet looking sombrely, likean old eagle from his eyrie. "I told General Lee," he said "that weought never to have divided. I don't see A. P. Hill. You tell GeneralLee that I've only got D. R. Jones and the knowledge that we fight likehell, and that Burnside is before me with fourteen thousand men."
Stafford retraced his way. The ground beneath was burned and scarred,the battle cloud rolled dark, the minies sang beside his ear. Now he wasin a barren place, tasting of powder, smelling of smoke, now lit, nowdarkened, but vacant of human life, and now he was in a press of men,grey forms advancing and retreating, or standing firing, and now he waswhere fighting had been and there was left a wrack of the dead anddying. He reached the centre and gave his message, then turned towardthe left again. A few yards and his horse was killed under him. Hedisengaged himself and presently caught at the bridle and stayedanother. There were many riderless horses on the field of Sharpsburg,but he had hardly mounted before this one, too, was killed. He went onafoot. He entered a sunken road, dropped between rough banks overhung bya few straggling trees. The road was filled with men lying down, all inshadow beneath the rolling battle smoke. Stafford thought it a regimentwaiting for orders; then he saw that they were all dead men. He must goback to the Dunkard wood, and this seemed his shortest way. He enteredthe lane and went up it as quickly as he might for the forms that laythick in the discoloured light. It looked as though the earth werebleeding, and all the people were fantastic about him. Some lay asstraight as on a sculptured tomb, and some were hooped, and some laylike a cross, and some were headless. As he stepped with what care hemight, a fierce yelling broke out on the side that was the grey side.There was a charge coming--already he saw the red squares tossing! Hemoved to the further side of the sunken road and braced himself againstthe bank, putting his arm about a twisted, protruding cedar. D. H.Hill's North Carolinians hung a moment, tall, gaunt, yelling, thenswooped down into the sunken lane, passed over the dead, mounted theother ragged bank and went on. Stafford waited to hear the shock. Itcame; full against a deep blue wave. Richardson had been killed andHancock commanded here. The blue wave was strong. The sound of the meleewas frightful; then out of it burst a loud huzzahing. Staffordstraightened himself. The grey were coming back, and after them theblue. Almost before he could unclasp his arm from the cedar, the firstspray of gaunt, exhausted, bleeding men came over and down into thesunken lane. All the grey wave followed. At the moment there outburst arenewed and tremendous artillery battle. The smoke drifting across theBloody Lane was like the fall of night, a night of cloud and storm.Orange flashes momentarily lit the scene, and the sullen thundersrolled. The grey, gaunt and haggard, but their colours with them,overpassed the dead and wounded, now choking the sunken road. Behindthem were heard the blue, advancing and huzzahing. The grey waveremounted the bank down which it plunged fifteen minutes before. At thetop it stayed a moment, thin and grey, spectral in the smoke pall, thebattle flags like hovering, crimson birds. A line of flame leaped, onelong crackle of musketry, then it resumed its retreat, falling back onthe west wood. The blue, checked a moment by that last volley, nowpoured down into the sunken road, overpassed the thick ranks of the deadand wounded, mounted, and swept on in a counter charge.
Maury Stafford had left the cedar and started across with the lastbroken line of the grey. Going down the crumbling bank his spur caughtin a gnarled and sprawling root. The check was absolute, and broughthim violently to his knees. Before he could free himself the grey hadreached the opposite crest, fired its volley, and gone on. He started tofollow. He heard the blue coming, and it was expedient to get out ofthis trap. Before him, from the figures covering the earth like thrownjackstraws, an arm was suddenly lifted. The hand clutched at him,passing. He looked down. It was a boy of nineteen with a ghastly face.The voice came up: "Whoever you are, you're alive and well, and I'mdying. You'll take it and put a stamp on it and mail it, won't you? I'mdying. People ought to do things when the dying ask them to."
Stafford look
ed behind him, then down again. "Do what? Quick! They'recoming."
The hand would not relax its clasp, but its fellow fumbled at the greyjacket. "It's my letter. They won't know if they don't get it. My sidehurts, but it don't hurt like knowing they won't know ... that I wassorry." The face worked. "It's here but I can't--Please get it--"
"You must let me go," said Stafford, and tried to unclasp the hand."Stay any longer and I will be killed or taken."
The hand closed desperately, both hands now. "For God's sake! I don'tbelieve you've got so hard a heart. Take it and stamp it and mail it. Ifthey don't know they'll never understand and I'll die knowing they'llnever understand. For God's sake!"
Stafford knelt beside him, opened the grey jacket, and took out theletter. Blood was upon it, but the address was legible. "Die easy. I'llstamp and mail it. I will send a word with it, too, if you like."
A light came into the boy's face. "Tell them that I was like theprodigal son, but that I'm going home--I'm going home--"
The arms fell, the breast ceased to heave, the head drew backward. Deathcame and stamped the light upon the face. Before Stafford could get tohis feet, the blue wave had plunged into the trough. He remembered usinghis pistol, and he remembered a dizziness of being borne backward. Heremembered that a phrase had gone through his mind "the instability ofall material things." Then came a blank. He did not assume that he hadlost consciousness, but simply he could not remember. He had beenwrecked in a turbulent, hostile ocean. It had made him and otherscaptives, and now they were together at a place which he remembered wascalled the Roulette House. An hour might have passed, two hours; hereally could not tell. There were a number of prisoners, most of thembadly wounded. They lay in the back yard of the place, on the steps ofout-houses, with blue soldiers for guards. A surgeon came through theyard, and helped a little the more agonizedly hurt. He glanced atStafford's star and sash, came across and offered to bind up the cutacross his forehead. "An awful field," he said. "This war is gettinghorrible. You're a Virginian, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Used to know a lot of Virginia doctors. Liked them first rate! Now weare enemies, and it seems to me a pity. Guess it's as Shakespeare says,'What fools these mortals be!' I know war's getting to seem to me anawful foolishness. That cornfield out there is sickening--Now! thatbleeding's stopped--"
On the left, around and before the Dunkard church, the very fury of thestorm brought about at last a sudden failing, a stillness and cessationthat seemed like those of death. Sound enough there was undoubtedly, andin the centre the battle yet roared, but by comparison there seemed adark and sultry calm. Far and near lay the fallen. It was now noon, andsince dawn twelve thousand men had been killed or wounded on this left,attacked by Fighting Joe Hooker, held by Stonewall Jackson. Fifteengeneral officers were dead or disabled. Hardly a brigade, not manyregiments, were officered as they had been when the sun rose. There wasan exhaustion. Franklin had entered on the field, and one might havethought that the grey would yet be overpowered. But all the blue forceswere broken, disorganized; there came an exhaustion, a lassitude.McClellan sent an order forbidding another attack. Cornfield and woodlay heavy, hot, and dark, and by comparison, still.
Stonewall Jackson sat Little Sorrel near the Dunkard church. Theybrought him reports of the misery of the wounded and their greatnumbers. His medical director, of whom he was fond, came to him."General, it is very bad! The field hospital looks as though all thefields of the world had given tribute. I know that you do not likehospitals--but would you come and look, sir?"
The general shook his head. "What is the use of looking? There have tobe wounded. Do the utmost that you can, doctor."
"I have thought, sir, that, seeing the day is not ended, and they are sooverwhelmingly in force, and the Potomac is not three miles in ourrear--I have thought that we might manage to get the less badly hurtacross. If they attack again and the day should end in defeat--"
"What have you got there?" asked Jackson. "Apples?"
"Yes, sir. I passed beneath a tree and gathered half a dozen. Would youlike--"
"Yes. I breakfasted very early." He took the rosy fruit and began toeat. His eyes, just glinting under the forage cap, surveyed the scenebefore him,--trampled wood where the shells had cut through bough andbranch, trampled cornfields where it seemed that a whirlwind had passed,his resting, shattered commands, the dead and the dying, the deadhorses, the disabled guns, the drifting sulphurous smoke, and, acrossthe turnpike, in the fields and by the east wood, the masses of blue,overcanopied also by sulphurous smoke. He finished the apple, took out ahandkerchief, and wiped fingers and lips. "Dr. McGuire, they have donetheir worst. And never use the word defeat."
He jerked his hand into the air. "Do your best for the wounded, doctor,do all that is humanly possible, but do it _here_! I am going now to thecentre to see General Lee."
Behind the wood, in a grassy hollow moderately sheltered from theartillery fire, at the edge of the ghastly field hospital, a youngsurgeon, sleeves rolled up and blood from head to foot, met the medicaldirector. "Doctor, the Virginia Legion came on with General McLaws.They've just brought their colonel in--Fauquier Cary, you know. I wishyou would look at his arm."
The two looked. "There's but one thing, colonel."
"Amputation? Very well, very well. Get it over with." He straightenedhimself on the boards where the men had laid him. "Sedgwick, too!Sedgwick and I striking at each other like two savages decked with beadsand scalps! Fratricidal strife if ever there was fratricidal strife! Allright, doctor. I had a great-uncle lost his arm at Yorktown. Can'tremember him,--my father and mother loved to talk of him--old UncleEdward. All right--it's all right."
The two doctors were talking together. "Only a few ounces left. Betteruse it here?"
"Yes, yes!--One minute longer, colonel. We've got a little chloroform."
The bottle was brought. Cary eyed it. "Is that all you've got?"
"Yes. We took a fair quantity at Manassas, but God only knows the amountwe could use! Now."
The man stretched on the boards motioned with the hand that had not beentorn by the exploding shell. "No, no! I don't want it. Keep it for someone with a leg to cut off!" He smiled, a charming, twisted smile,shading into a grimace of pain. "No chloroform at Yorktown! I'll be asmuch of a man as was my great-uncle Edward! Yes, yes, I'm in earnest,doctor. Put it by for the next. All right; I'm ready."
On the knoll by Sharpsburg Lee and Jackson stood and looked toward theright. McClellan had apparently chosen to launch three battles in oneday; in the early morning against the Confederate left, at middayagainst its centre, now against its right. A message came fromLongstreet. "Burnside is in motion. I've got D. R. Jones and twenty-fivehundred men."
It was evident that Burnside was in motion. With fourteen thousand menhe came over the stone bridge across the Antietam. They were freshtroops; their flags were flying, their drums were beating, their buglesbraying. The line moved with huzzahs toward the ridge held byLongstreet. From the left came tearing past the knoll the Confederatebatteries. Lee was massing them in the centre, training them against theeastern foot of the ridge. There had been a lull in the storm, nowPelham opened with loud thunders. Other guns followed. The Federalbatteries began to blaze; there broke out a madness of sound. In themidst of it D. R. Jones with his twenty-five hundred men clashed withBurnside's leading brigades.
Stonewall Jackson pulled the forage cap lower, jerked his hand into theair. "Good! good! I will go, sir, and send in my freshest troops."
"Look," said Lee. "Look, general! On the Harper's Ferry road."
All upon the knoll turned and gazed. Air and light played with thebattle smoke, drove it somewhat to one side and showed for a few secondsa long and sunlit road, the road from Harper's Ferry. One of the staffbegan a low uncontrollable laughter. "By God! I see his red battleshirt! By God! I see his red battle shirt!"
Lee with a glance checked the sound. He himself looked nobly lifted,grave and thankful. The battle smoke closed, o
bscuring the road, but thesound of marching men came along it, distinguishable even beneath theartillery fire. "Good, good!" said Jackson. "A. P. Hill is a goodsoldier."
Tawny with the dust of the seventeen miles, at a double quick andyelling, the crimson battle flags slanting forward, in swung the LightDivision! D. R. Jones rallied. Decimated, out-worn, but dangerous, theaiding regiments from the left did well. The grey guns worked with acertain swift and steadfast grimness. From all the ridges of theAntietam the blue cannon thundered, thundered. Blue and grey, themusketry rolled. Sound rose into terrific volume, the eddying smokeblotted out the day. Artillery Hell--Infantry Inferno--the field ofSharpsburg roared now upon the right.
The Horse Artillery occupied a low ridge like a headland jutting into agrassy field. Below, above, behind, the smoke rolled; in front the flameleaped from their guns, the shells sped. There was a great background ofbattle cloud, lit every ten seconds by the glare from an opposingbattery. John Pelham stood directing. Six guns were in fierce andcontinuous action. The men serving them were picked artillery men. Toand fro they moved, down they stooped, up they stood, stepped backwardfrom the gun at fire, moved forward at recoil, fell again to the loadingwith the precision of the drill ground. They were half naked, they wereblack with powder, glistening with sweat, some were bleeding. In thelight from the guns all came boldly into relief; in the intermediatedeep murk they sank from sight, became of the clouds, cloudy, mereshapes in the semi-darkness.
Stonewall Jackson, returning to the Dunkard church and passing behindthis headland, turned Little Sorrel's head and came upon the plateau.Pelham met him. "Yes, general, we're doing well. Yes, sir, it's holdingout. Caissons were partly filled during the lull."
"Good, good!" said Jackson. He dismounted and walked forward to theguns. Pelham followed. "I don't think you should be out here, general.They've got our range very accurately--"
The other apparently did not notice the remark. He stood near one of theguns and turned his eyes upon the battle on the right. "Longstreetstrikes a heavy blow. He and Hill will push them back. Colonel Pelham,train two guns upon that body of the enemy at the ford."
Pelham moved toward the further guns. The howitzer nearest Jackson wasfired, reloaded, fired again. The men beside it stood back. It blazed,thundered, recoiled. A great, black, cylindrical shell came with ademoniac shriek. At the moment the platform was lit with the battleglare. Its fall was seen. It fell, smoking, immediately beside StonewallJackson. Such was the concussion of the air that for a moment he wasstunned. Involuntarily his arm went up before his eyes; he made abackward step. Pelham, returning from the further guns and still someyards away, gave a shout of warning and horror; from all the men who hadseen the thing there burst a similar cry. With the motion almost of theshell itself, a man of the crew of the howitzer reached the torn earthand the cylinder. His body half naked, blackened, brushed, in passing,the general. He put his hands beneath the heated, smoking bottle ofdeath, lifted it, and rushed on to the edge of the escarpment fifty feetaway. Here he swung it with force, threw it from him with burned hands.Halfway to the field below it exploded.
Pelham, very pale, protested with some sternness. "You can't stay here,general! My men can't work with you here. It doesn't matter about us,but it does matter about you. Please go, sir."
"I am going, colonel. I have seen what I wished to see. Who is the manwho took up the shell?"
Pelham turned to the howitzer. "Which of you was it?"
Half a dozen voices were raised in answer. "Deaderick, sir. But heburned his hands badly and he asked the lieutenant if he could go to therear--"
"Good, good!" said Stonewall Jackson. "He did well. But there are manybrave men in this army." He went back to Little Sorrel, where he stoodcropping the dried grass, and stiffly mounted. As he turned from theplatform and the guns, all lit again by the orange glare, there camefrom the right an accession of sound, then high, shrill, and triumphantthe Confederate yell. A shout arose from the Horse Artillery. "They'rebreaking! they're breaking! Burnside, too, is breaking! Yaaaii!Yaaaaiiihh! Yaaaaaiiihhh!"