CHAPTER XLVI
FREDERICKSBURG
Snow lay deep on the banks of the Rappahannock, in the forest, up anddown the river, on the plain about the little city, on the bold heightsof the northern shore, on the hills of the southern, commanding theplain. The snow was deep, but somewhat milder weather had set in.December the eleventh dawned still and foggy.
General Burnside with a hundred and twenty thousand blue troopsappointed this day to pass the Rappahannock, a stream that flowed acrossthe road to Richmond. He had been responsible for choosing this route tothe keep of the fortress, and he must make good his reiterated, genialassurances of success. The Rappahannock, Fredericksburg, and a line ofhills masked the onward-going road and its sign, _This way to Richmond_."Well, the Rappahannock can be bridged! A brigade known to be occupyingthe town? Well, a hundred and forty guns admirably planted on StaffordHeights will drive out the rebel brigade! The line of hills, bleak anddesolate with fir woods?--hares and snow birds are all the life overthere! General Lee and Stonewall Jackson? Down the Rappahannock belowMoss Neck. At least, undoubtedly, Stonewall Jackson's down there. Theballoon people say so. General Lee's got an idea that Port Royal's ourpoint of attack. The mass of his army's there. The gunboat people sayso. Longstreet may be behind those hills. Well, we'll crush Longstreet!We'll build our bridges under cover of this fortunate fog, and go overand defeat Longstreet and be far down the road to Richmond before a mancan say Jack Robinson!"
"Jack Robinson!" said the brigade from McLaws's division--Barksdale'sMississippians--drawn up on the water edge of Fredericksburg. They weretall men--Barksdale's Mississippians--playful bear-hunters from the canebrakes, young and powerfully made, and deadly shots. "Old Barksdale"knew how to handle them, and together they were a handful for any enemywhatsoever. Sixteen hundred born hunters and fighters, they opened fireon the bridge-builders, trying to build four bridges, three above, onebelow the town. Barksdale's men were somewhat sheltered by the houses onthe river brink; the blue had the favourable fog with which to coveroperations. It did not wholly help; the Mississippians had keen eyes;the rifles blazed, blazed, blazed! Burnside's bridge-builders weregallant men; beaten back from the river they came again and again, butagain and again the eyes of the swamp hunters ran along the gleamingbarrels and a thousand bronzed fingers pulled a thousand triggers. Pastthe middle of the day the fog lifted. The town lay defined and helplessbeneath a pallid sky.
The artillery of the Army of the Potomac opened upon it. One hundred andforty heavy guns, set in tiers upon the heights to the north, fired eachinto Fredericksburg fifty rounds. Under that terrible cover the bluebegan to cross on pontoons.
A number of the women and children had been sent from the town duringthe preceding days. Not all, however, were gone. Many had no place to goto; some were ill and some were nursing the ill; many had husbands,sons, brothers, there at hand in the Army of Northern Virginia and wouldnot go. Now with the beginning of the bombardment they must go. Therewere grey, imperative orders. "At once! at once! Go _where_? God knows!but go."
They went, almost all, in the snow, beneath the pallid sky, with theshells shrieking behind them. They carried the children, they halfcarried the sick and the very old. They stumbled on, between the frozenhills by the dark pointed cedars, over the bare white fields. Behindthem home was being destroyed; before them lay desolation, and allaround was winter. They had perhaps thought it out, and were headed--thevarious forlorn lines--for this or that country house, but they lookedlost, remnant of a world become glacial, whirled with suddenness intothe sidereal cold, cold! and the loneliness of cold. The older childrenwere very brave; but there were babes, too, and these wailed and wailed.Their wailing made a strange, futile sound beneath the thundering of theguns.
One of these parties came through the snow to a swollen creek on whichthe ice cakes were floating. Cross!--yes, but how? The leaders consultedtogether, then went up the stream to find a possible ford, and came insight of a grey battery, waiting among the hills. "Oh, soldiers!--oh,soldiers!--come and help!"
Down hastened a detachment, eager, respectful, a lieutenant directing,the very battery horses looking anxious, responsible. A soldier in thesaddle, a child in front, a child behind, the old steady horses plantingtheir feet carefully in the icy rushing stream, over went the children.Then the women crossed, their hands resting on the grey-clad shoulders.All were over; all thanked the soldiers. The soldiers took off theircaps, wished with all their hearts that they had at command fire-litpalaces and a banquet set! Having neither, being themselves withoutshelter or food and ordered not to build fires, they could only baretheir heads and watch the other soldiers out of sight, carrying thechildren, half carrying the old and sick, stumbling through the snow, bythe dark pointed cedars, and presently lost to view among the frozenhills.
The shells rained destruction into Fredericksburg. Houses were batteredand broken; houses were set on fire. Through the smoke and uproar, theexplosions and detonations and tongues of flame, the Mississippians beatback another attempt at the bridges and opened fire on boat after boatnow pushing from the northern shore. But the boats came bravely on,bravely manned; hundreds might be driven from the bridge-building, butother hundreds sprang to take their places--and always from the heightscame the rain of iron, smashing, shivering, setting afire, tearing upthe streets, bringing down the walls, ruining, wounding, slaying! McLawssent an order to Barksdale, Barksdale gave it to his brigade."Evacuate!" said the Mississippians. "We're going to evacuate. What'sthat in English? 'Quit?'--What in hell should we quit for?"
Orders being orders, the disgust of the bear-hunters did not count. "OldBarksdale" was fairly deprecating. "Men, I can't help it! General McLawssays, 'General Barksdale, withdraw your men to Marye's Hill.' Well, I'vegot to do it, haven't I? General McLaws knows, now doesn'the?--Yes,--just one more round. _Load! Kneel! Commence firing!_"
In the late afternoon the town was evacuated, Barksdale drawing off ingood order across the stormed-upon open. He disappeared--the Mississippibrigade disappeared--from the Federal vision. The blue column, the 28thMassachusetts leading, entered Fredericksburg. "We'll get them allto-morrow--Longstreet certainly! Stonewall Jackson's from twelve toeighteen miles down the river. Well! this time Lee will find that he'sdivided his army once too often!"
By dark there were built six bridges, but the main army rested all nighton the northern bank. December the twelfth dawned, another foggy day.The fog held hour after hour, very slow, still, muffled weather, throughwhich, corps by corps, all day long, the army slowly crossed. In theafternoon there was a cavalry skirmish with Stuart, but nothing elsehappened. Thirty-six hours had been consumed in crossing and resting.The Rappahannock, however, _was_ crossed, and the road to Richmondstretched plain between the hills.
But the grey army was not divided. Certain divisions had been down theriver, but they were no longer down the river. The Army of NorthernVirginia, a vibrant unit, intense, concentrated, gaunt, bronzed, andhighly efficient, waited behind the hills south and west of the town.There was a creek running through a ravine, called Deep Run. On one sideof Deep Run stood Longstreet and the 1st Corps, on the other, almost atright angles, Stonewall Jackson and the 2d. Before both the heavilytimbered ridge sank to the open plain. In the woods had been thrown upcertain breastworks.
Longstreet's left, Anderson's division, rested on the river. ToAnderson's right were posted McLaws, Pickett, and Hood. He had hisartillery on Marye's Hill and Willis Hill, and he had Ransom's infantryin line at the base of these hills behind a stone wall. Across Deep Run,on the wooded hills between the ravine and the Massaponax, was StonewallJackson. A. P. Hill's division with the brigades of Pender, Lane,Archer, Thomas, and Gregg made his first line of battle, the divisionsof Taliaferro and Early his second, and D. H. Hill's division hisreserve. His artillery held all favourable crests and headlands.Stuart's cavalry and Stuart's Horse Artillery were gathered by theMassaponax. Hills and forest hid them all, and over the plain and riverrolled the fog.
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p; It hid the North as it hid the South. Burnside's great force rested thenight of the twelfth in and immediately about Fredericksburg--Hooker andSumner and Franklin, one hundred and thirteen thousand men. "The balloonpeople" now reported that the hills south and west were held by aconsiderable rebel force--Longstreet evidently, Lee probably with him.Burnside repeated the infatuation of Pope and considered that StonewallJackson was absent from the field of operations. Undoubtedly he hadbeen, but the shortest of time before, down the river by Port Royal. Noone had seen him move. Jackson away, there was then onlyLongstreet--strongly posted, no doubt. Well! Form a great line ofbattle, advance in overwhelming strength across the plain, the guns onStafford Heights supporting, and take the hills, and Longstreet on them!It sounded simple.
THE VEDETTE]
The fog, heavy, fleecy, white, persisted. The grey soldiers on thewooded hills, the grey artillery holding the bluff heads, the greyskirmishers holding embankment and cut of the Richmond, Fredericksburgand Potomac Railroad, the grey cavalry by the Massaponax, all staredinto the white sea and could discern nothing. The ear was of no avail.Sound came muffled, but still it came. "The long roll--hear the longroll! My Lord! How many drums have they got, anyway?"--"Listen! If youlisten right hard you can hear them shouting orders! Hush up, youinfantry, down there! We want to hear."--"They're moving guns, too! Wishthere'd come a little sympathizing earthquake and help them--'speciallythose siege guns on the heights over there!"--"No, no! I want to fightthem. Look! it's lifting a little! the fog's lifting a little! Look atthe guns up in the air like that! It's closed again."--"Well, if thatwasn't fantastic! Ten iron guns in a row, posted in space!"--"Hm! brassbands. My Lord! there must be one to a platoon!"--"Hear them marching!Saw lightning once run along the ground--now it's thunder. How many menhas General Ambrose Everett Burnside got, anyhow?"--"Burnside's been todances before in Fredericksburg! Some of the houses are burning now thathe's danced in, and some of the women he has danced with are wanderingover the snow. I hope he'll like the reel presently."--"He's a goodfellow himself, though not much of a general! He can't help fightinghere if he's put here to fight."--"I know that. I was just statingfacts. Hear that music, music, music!"
Up from Deep Run, a little in the rear of the grey centre, rose a boldhill. Here in the clinging mist waited Lee on Traveller, his staffbehind him, in front an ocean of vapour. Longstreet came from the left,Stonewall Jackson from the right. Lee and his two lieutenants talkedtogether, three mounted figures looming large on the hilltop above DeepRun. With suddenness the fog parted, was upgathered with swiftness bythe great golden sun.
That lifted curtain revealed a very great and martial picture,--War in amoment of vastness and grandeur, epic, sublime. The town was afire;smoke and flame went up to a sky not yet wholly azure, banded and barredwith clouds from behind which the light came in rays fierce and bright,with an effect of threatening. There was a ruined house on a high hill.It gave the appearance of a grating in the firmament, a small dungeongrating. Beyond the burning town was the river, crossed now by sixpontoon bridges. On each there were troops; one of the long sun rayscaught the bayonets. From the river, to the north, rose the heights, andthey had an iron crown from which already came lightnings and thunders.There were paths leading down to the river and these showed blue, movingstreams, bright points which were flags moving with them. That for thefar side of the Rappahannock, but on this side, over the plain thatstretched south and west of the smoke-wreathed town, there moved a bluesea indeed. Eighty thousand men were on that plain. They moved here,they moved there, into battle formation, and they moved to the crash ofmusic, to the horn and to the drum. The long rays that the sun wassending made a dazzle of bayonet steel, thousands and thousands andthousands of bayonets. The gleaming lines went here, went there,crossed, recrossed, formed angles, made a vast and glittering net. Outof it soared the flags, bright hovering birds, bright giant blossoms inthe air. Batteries moved across the plain. Officers, couriers, gallopedon fiery horses; some general officer passed from end to end of aforming line and was cheered. The earth shook to marching feet. Thegreat brazen horns blared, the drums beat, the bugles rang. The gleamingnet folded back on itself, made three pleats, made three great lines ofbattle.
The grey leaders on the hill to the south gazed in silence. Then saidLee, "It is well that war is so terrible. Were it not so, we should growtoo fond of it." Longstreet, the "old war horse," stared at thetremendous pageant. "This wasn't a little quarrel. It's been brewing forseventy-five years--ever since the Bill-of-Rights day. Things that takeso long in brewing can't be cooled by a breath. It's getting to be ahuge war." Said Jackson, "Franklin holds their left. He seems to beadvancing. I will return to Hamilton's Crossing, sir."
The guns on the Stafford Heights which had been firing slowly and singlynow opened mouth together. The tornado, overpassing river and plain,burst on the southern hills. In the midst of the tempest, Burnsideordered Franklin to advance a single division, its mission the seizingthe _unoccupied_ ridge east of Deep Run. Franklin sent Meade withforty-five hundred Pennsylvania troops.
Meade's brigades advanced in three lines, skirmishers out, a bandplaying a quickstep, the stormy sunlight deepening the colours, making agleaming of bayonets. His first line crossed the Richmond road. To theleft was a tiny stream, beyond it a ragged bank topped by brushwood.Suddenly, from this coppice, opened two of Pelham's guns.
Beneath that flanking fire the first blue line faltered, gave ground.Meade brought up four batteries and sent for others. All these camefiercely into action. When they got his range, Pelham moved his two gunsand began again a raking fire. Again the blue gunners found the rangeand again he moved with deliberate swiftness, and again he opened with ahot and raking fire. One gun was disabled; he fought with the other. Hefought until the limber chests were empty and there came an imperiousmessage from Jeb Stuart, "Get back from destruction, you infernal,gallant fool, John Pelham!"
The guns across the river and the blue field batteries steadily shelledfor half an hour the heavily timbered slopes beyond the railroad. Exceptfor the crack and crash of severed boughs the wood gave no sign. At theend of this period Meade resumed his advance.
On came the blue lines, staunch, determined troops, seasoned now as thegrey were seasoned. They meant to take that empty line of hills,willy-nilly a few Confederate guns. That done, they would be in aposition to flank Longstreet, already attacked in front by Sumner'sGrand Division. On they came, with a martial front, steady, swinging.Uninterrupted, they marched to within a few hundred yards of ProspectHill. Suddenly the woods that loomed before them so dark and quietblazed and rang. Fifty guns were within that cover, and the fifty casttheir thunderbolts full against the dark blue line. From either side thegrey artillery burst the grey musketry, and above the crackling thunderrose the rebel yell. Stonewall Jackson was not down the river; StonewallJackson was here! Meade's Pennsylvanians were gallant fighters; but theybroke beneath that withering fire,--they fell back in strong disorder.
Grey and blue, North and South, there were gathered upon and above thefield of Fredericksburg four hundred guns. All came into action. Whereearlier, there had been fog over the plain, fog wreathing the hillsides,there was now smoke. Dark and rolling it invaded the ruined town, itmantled the flowing Rappahannock, it surmounted the hills. Red flashespierced it, and over and under and through roared the enormous sound.There came reinforcements to Meade, division after division. In themeantime Sumner was hurling brigades against Marye's Hill and Longstreetwas hurling them back again.
The 2d Corps listened to the terrible musketry from this front. "Old Pete'ssurely giving them hell! There's a stone wall at the base of Marye's Hill.McLaws and Ransom are holding it--sorry for the Yanks in front."--"Neverheard such hullabaloo as the great guns are making!"--"What're themPennsylvanians down there doing? It's time for them to come on! They've gotenough reinforcements--old friends, Gibbon and Doubleday."--"Goodfighters."--"Yes, Lord! we're all good fighters now. Glad of it. Like tofight a good fighter. Feel
real friendly toward him."--"Athirty-two-pounder Parrott in the battery on the hill over there explodedand raised hell. General Lee standing right by. He just spoke on, calm andimperturbable, and Traveller looked sideways."--"Look! Meade's moving. _Doyou know, I think we ought to have occupied that tongue of land?_"
So, in sooth, thought others presently. It was a marshy, dense, andtangled coppice projecting like a sabre tooth between the brigades ofLane and Archer. So thick was the growth, so boggy the earth, that atthe last it had been pronounced impenetrable and left unrazed. Now themistake was paid for--in bloody coin.
Meade's line of battle rushed across the open, brushed the edge of thecoppice, discovered that it was empty, and plunging in, found cover. Thegrey batteries could not reach them. Almost before the situation wasrealized, forth burst the blue from the thicket. Lane was flanked; inuproar and confusion the grey gave way. Meade sent in another brigade.It left the first to man-handle Lane, hurled itself on, and at theoutskirt of the wood, struck Archer's left, taking Archer by surpriseand creating a demi-rout. A third brigade entered on the path of thefirst and second. The latter, leaving Archer to this new strength,hurled itself across the military road and upon a thick and tall woodheld by Maxey Gregg and his South Carolinians. Smoke, cloud, and forestgrowth--it was hard to distinguish colours, hard to tell just what washappening! Gregg thought that the smoke-wrapped line was Archer fallingback. He withheld his fire. The line came on and in a moment, amidshouts, struck his right. A bullet brought down Gregg himself, mortallywounded. His troops broke, then rallied. A grey battery near Bernard'sCabin brought its guns to bear upon Gibbon, trying to follow the bluetriumphant rush. Archer reformed. Stonewall Jackson, standing onProspect Hill, sent orders to his third line. "Generals Taliaferro andEarly, advance and clear the front with bayonets."
_Yaaaiih! Yaaaiiih! Yaaaaihh!_ yelled Jubal Early's men, and did as theywere bid. _Yaaaaiiih! Yaaiiihhh! Yaaaaiiihhhh!_ yelled the StonewallBrigade and the rest of Taliaferro's, and did as they were bid. Back,back were borne Meade's brigades. Darkness of smoke, denseness of forestgrowth, treachery of swampy soil!--all order was lost, and there came nosupport. Back went the blue--all who could go back. A. P. Hill's secondline was upon them now; Gibbon was attacked. The grey came down the longslopes like a torrent loosed. Walker's guns joined in. The uproar wasinfernal. The blue fought well and desperately--but there was nosupport. Back they went, back across the Richmond Road--all who couldget back. They left behind in the marshy coppice, and on the woodedslopes and by the embankment, four thousand dead and wounded. The LightDivision, Taliaferro and Early, now held the railroad embankment. Beforethem was the open plain, and the backward surge to the river of thebroken foe. It was three o'clock of the afternoon. Burnside sent anorder to Franklin to attack again, but Franklin disobeyed.
Upon the left Longstreet's battle now swelled to giant proportions.Marye's Hill, girdled by that stone wall, crowned by the WashingtonArtillery, loomed impregnable. Against it the North tossed todestruction division after division. They marched across the bare andsullen plain, they charged; the hill flashed into fire, a thunderrolled, the smoke cloud deepened. When it lifted the charge was seen tobe broken, retreating, the plain was seen to be strewed with dead. Theblue soldiers were staunch and steadfast. They saw that their case washapless, yet on they came across the shelterless plain. Ordered tocharge, they charged; charged very gallantly, receded with a stubbornslowness. They were good fighters, worthy foes, and the grey atFredericksburg hailed them as such. Forty thousand men charged Marye'sHill--six great assaults--and forty thousand were repulsed. The winterday closed in. Twelve thousand men in blue lay dead or wounded at thefoot of the southern hills, before Longstreet on the left and StonewallJackson on the right.
Five thousand was the grey loss. The Rockbridge Artillery had foughtnear the Horse Artillery by Hamilton's Crossing. All day the guns hadbeen doggedly at work; horses and drivers and gunners and guns andcaissons; there was death and wounds and wreckage. In the wintry, lateafternoon, when the battle thunders were lessening, Major John Pelhamcame by and looked at Rockbridge. Much of Rockbridge lay on the ground,the rest stood at the guns. "Why, boys," said Pelham, "you stand killingbetter than any I ever saw!"
They stood it well, both blue and grey. It was stern fighting atFredericksburg, and grey and blue they fought it sternly and well. Theafternoon closed in, cold and still, with a red sun yet veiled by driftsof crape-like smoke. The Army of the Potomac, torn, decimated, restedhuddled in Fredericksburg and on the river banks. The Army of NorthernVirginia rested with few or no camp-fires on the southern hills. Betweenthe two foes stretched the freezing plain, and on the plain lay thickthe Federal dead and wounded. They lay thick, thick, before the stonewall. At hand, full target for the fire of either force, was a small,white house. In the house lived Mrs. Martha Stevens. She would not leavebefore the battle, though warned and warned again to do so. She said shehad an idea that she could help. She stayed, and wounded men draggedthemselves or were dragged upon her little porch, and within her doors.General Cobb of Georgia died there; wherever a man could be laid therewere stretched the ghastly wounded. Past the house shrieked the shells;bullets imbedded themselves in its walls. To and fro went MarthaStevens, doing what she could, bandaging hurts till the bandages gaveout. She tore into strips what cloth there was in the little meagrehouse--her sheets, her towels, her tablecloths, her poor wardrobe. Whenall was gone she tore her calico dress. When she saw from the open doora man who could not drag himself that far, she went and helped him, withas little reck as may be conceived of shell or minie.
The sun sank, a red ball, staining the snow with red. The dark camerapidly, a very cold dark night, with myriads of stars. The smoke slowlycleared. The great, opposed forces lay on their arms, the one closelydrawn by the river, the other on the southern hills. Between was theplain, and the plain was a place of drear sound--oh, of drear sound!Neither army showed any lights; for all its antagonist knew either mightbe feverishly, in the darkness, preparing an attack. Grey and blue, theguns yet dominated that wide and mournful level over which, to leap uponthe other, either foe must pass. Grey and blue, there was littlesleeping. It was too cold, and there was need for watchfulness, and theplain was too unhappy--the plain was too unhappy.
The smoke vanished slowly from the air. The night lay sublimely still,fearfully clear and cold. About ten o'clock Nature provided a spectacle.The grey troops, huddled upon the hillsides, drew a quickened breath. AFlorida regiment showed alarm. "What's that? Look at that light in thesky! Great shafts of light streaming up--look! opening like a fan!What's that, chaplain, what's that?--Don't reckon the Lord's tired offighting, and it's the Judgment Day?"
"No, no, boys! It's an aurora borealis."
"Say it over, please. Oh, northern lights! Well, we've heard of thembefore, but we never saw them. Having a lot of experiences here inVirginia!"--"Well, it's beautiful, any way, and I think it's terrible. Iwish those northern lights would do something for the northern woundeddown there. Nothing else that's northern seems likely to do it."--"Lookat them--look at them! pale red, and dancing! I've heard them called'the merry dancers.' There's a shooting star! They say that every time astar shoots some one dies."--"That's not so. If it were, the whole skywould be full of falling stars to-night. Look at that red ray going upto the zenith. O God, make the plain stop groaning!"
The display in the heavens continued, luminous rays, faintlyrose-coloured, shifting from east to west, streaming upward until theywere lost in the starry vault. Elsewhere the sky was dark, intenselyclear, the winter stars like diamonds. There was no wind. The wide,unsheltered plain across which had stormed, across which had receded,the Federal charges, was sown thick with soldiers who had dropped fromthe ranks. Many and many lay still, dead and cold, their marchings andtheir tentings and their battles over. They had fought well; they haddied; they lay here now stark and pale, but in the vast, pictured web ofthe whole their threads are strong and their colour holds. But on theplain of Fredericksburg
many and many and many were not dead andresting. Hundreds and hundreds they lay, and could not rest for mortalanguish. They writhed and tossed, they dragged themselves a little wayand fell again, they idly waved a hat or sword or empty hand for help,they cried for aid, they cried for water. Those who could not lift theirvoices moaned, moaned. Some had grown delirious, and upon that plainthere was even laughter. All the various notes taken together blendedinto one long, dreary, weird, dull, and awful sound, steady as a wind inmiles of frozen reeds. They were all blue soldiers, and they lay wherethey fell.
There was a long fringe of them near the stone wall and near the railwayembankment behind which now rested the Light Division and Taliaferro andEarly. The wind here was loud, rattling a thicker growth of reeds.Above, the long, silent, flickering lights mocked with their rosy hue,and the glittering stars mocked, and the empty concave of the nightmocked, and the sound of the Rappahannock mocked. A river moving by likethe River of Death, and they could not even get to the river to drink,drink, drink....
A figure kneeling by a wounded man, spoke in a guarded voice to anupright, approaching form. "This man could be saved. I have given himwater. I went myself to the general, and he said that if we could getany into the hospital behind the hill we might do so. But I'm not strongenough to lift him."
"I air," said Billy. He set down the bucket that he carried. "I jestfilled it from the creek. It don't last any time, they air so thirsty!You take it, and I'll take him." He put his arms under the blue figure,lifted it like a child, and moved away, noiseless in the darkness.Corbin Wood took the bucket and dipper. Presently it must be refilled.By the creek he met an officer sent down from the hillside. "You twentymen out there have got to be very careful. If their sentries see or hearyou moving you'll be thought a skirmish line with the whole of usbehind, and every gun will be opening! Battle's decided on forto-morrow, not for to-night.--Now be careful, or we'll recall everydamned life-in-your-hand blessed volunteer of you!--Oh, it's a fightingchaplain--I beg your pardon, I'm sure, sir! But you'd better all be veryquiet. Old Jack would say that mercy's all right, but you mustn't alarmthe foe."
All through the night there streamed the boreal lights. The living andthe dying, the ruined town, the plain, the hills, the river lay beneath.The blue army slept and waked, the grey army slept and waked. Thegeneral officers of both made little or no pretence at sleeping. Plansmust be made, plans must be made, plans must be made. Stonewall Jackson,in his tent, laid himself down indeed for two hours and slept, guardedby Jim, like a man who was dead. At the end of that time he rose andasked for his horse.
It was near dawn. He rode beneath the fading streamers, before hislines, before the Light Division and Early and Taliaferro, before hisold brigade--the Stonewall. The 65th lay in a pine wood, down-sloping toa little stream. Reveille was yet to sound. The men lay in an uneasysleep, but some of the officers were astir, and had been so all night.These, as Jackson checked Little Sorrel, came forward and saluted. Hespoke to the colonel. "Colonel Erskine, your regiment did well. I saw itat the Crossing."
Erskine, a small, brave, fiery man, coloured with pleasure. "I'm veryglad, sir. The regiment's all right, sir. The old stock wasn't quite cutdown, and it's made the new like it--" He hesitated, then as the generalwith his "Good! good!" gathered up the reins he took heart of grace."It's old colonel, sir--it's old colonel--" he stammered, then out itcame: "Richard Cleave trained us so, sir, that we couldn't go back!"
"See, sir," said Stonewall Jackson, "that you don't emulate him in allthings." He looked sternly and he rode away with no other word. He rodefrom the pine wood, crossed the Mine Road, and presently the narrowMassaponax. The streamers were gone from the sky; there was everywherethe hush of dawn. The courier with him wondered where he was going. Theypassed John Pelham's guns, iron dark against the pallid sky. Presentlythey came to the Yerby House, where General Maxey Gregg, a gallantsoldier and gentleman, lay dying.
As Jackson dismounted Dr. Hunter McGuire came from the house. "I gavehim your message, general. He is dying fast. It seemed to please him."
"Good!" said Jackson. "General Gregg and I have had a disagreement. Inlife it might have continued, but death lifts us all from under earthlydispleasure. Will you ask him, Doctor, if I may pay him a littlevisit?"
The visit paid, he came gravely forth, mounted and turned back towardheadquarters on Prospect Hill. In the east were red streaks, one aboveanother. The day was coming up, clear and cold. Pelham's guns, crowninga little eminence, showed distinct against the colour. Stonewall Jacksonrode by, and, with a face that was a study, a gunner named Deaderickwatched him pass.
All this day these two armies stood and faced each other. There wassharpshooting, there was skirmishing, but no full attack. Night came andpassed, and another morning dawned. This day, forty-eight hours afterbattle, Burnside sent a flag of truce with a request that he be allowedto collect and bury his dead. There were few now alive upon that plain.The wind in the reeds had died to a ghostly hush.
That night there came up a terrible storm, a howling wind driving asleety rain. All night long, in cloud and blast and beating wet, theArmy of the Potomac, grand division by grand division, recrossed theRappahannock.
The storm continued, the rain and snow swelled the river. The Army ofthe Potomac with Acquia creek at hand, Washington in touch, layinactive, went into winter quarters. The Army of Northern Virginia,couched on the southern hills, followed its example. Between the twofoes flowed the dark river. Sentries in blue paced the one bank,sentries in grey the other. A detail of grey soldiers, resting an houropposite Falmouth, employed their leisure in raising a tall signpost,with a wide and long board for arms. In bold letters they painted uponit THIS WAY TO RICHMOND. It rested there, month after month, in view ofthe blue army.
At the end of January Burnside was superseded. The Army of the Potomaccame under the command of Fighting Joe Hooker. In February Longstreet,with the divisions of Pickett and Hood, marched away from theRappahannock to the south bank of the James. In mid-March was fought thecavalry battle of Kelly's Ford--Averell against Fitz Lee. Averellcrossed, but when the battle rested, he was back upon the northernshore. At Kelly's Ford fell John Pelham, "the battle-cry on his lips,and the light of victory beaming from his eye."
April came with soft skies and greening trees. North and south and eastand west, there were now gathered against the fortress with the starsand bars above it some hundreds of thousands under arms. Likewise agreat navy beat against the side which gave upon the sea. The fortresswas under arms indeed, but she had no navy to speak of. Arkansas andLouisiana, Tennessee and North Carolina, vast lengths of the MississippiRiver, Fortress Monroe in Virginia and Suffolk south of theJames--entrance had been made into all these courts of the fortress.Blue forces held them stubbornly; smaller grey forces held as stubbornlythe next bastion. On the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, within fiftymiles of the imperilled Capital, were gathered by May one hundred andthirty thousand men in blue. Longstreet gone, there opposed themsixty-two thousand in grey.
Late in April Fighting Joe Hooker put in motion "the finest army on theplanet." There were various passes and feints. Sedgwick attempted acrossing below Fredericksburg. Stonewall Jackson sent an aide to Leewith the information. Lee received it with a smile. "I thought it wastime for one of you lazy young fellows to come and tell me what thatfiring was about! Tell your good general that he knows what to do withthe enemy just as well as I do."
Flourish and passado executed, Hooker, with suddenness, moved up theRappahannock, crossed at Richard's Ford, moved up the Rapidan, crossedat Ely and Germanna Fords, turned east and south and came into theWilderness. He meant to pass through and, with three great columns,checkmate Lee at Fredericksburg. Before he could do so Lee shook himselffree, left to watch the Rappahannock, and Sedgwick, ten thousand pawnsand an able knight, and himself crossed to the Wilderness.