CHAPTER XLVII
THE WILDERNESS
Fifteen by twenty miles stretched the Wilderness. Out of a thin soilgrew pine trees and pine trees, scrub oak and scrub oak. The growth wasof the densest, mile after mile of dense growth. A few slight farms andclearings appeared like islands; all around them was the sea, the sea oftree and bush. It stretched here, it stretched there, it touched allhorizons, vanishing beyond them in an amethyst haze.
Several forest tracks traversed it, but they were narrow and worn, andit was hard to guess their presence, or to find it when guessed. Therewere, however, two fair roads--the old Turnpike and the Plank Road.These also were sunken in the thick, thick growth. A traveller upon themsaw little save the fact that he had entered the Wilderness. Near theturnpike stood a small white church, the Tabernacle church. A littlesouth of the heart of the place lay an old, old, abandoned ironfurnace--Catherine Furnace. As much to the north rose a large oldhouse--Chancellorsville. To the westward was Dowdall's Tavern. Aroundall swept the pine and the scrub oak, just varied by other trees andblossoming shrubs. The ground was level, or only slightly rolling. Lookwhere one might there was tree and bush, tree and bush, a sense ofillimitable woodland, of far horizons, of a not unhappy sameness, ofstillness, of beauty far removed from picturesqueness, of vague,diffused charm, of silence, of sadness not too sad, of mystery not toobaffling, of sunshine very still and golden. A man knew he was in theWilderness.
Mayday here was softly bright enough, pure sunshine and pine odours, skywithout clouds, gentle warmth, the wild azalea in bloom, here and therewhite stars of the dogwood showing, red birds singing, pine martensbusy, too, with their courtship, pale butterflies flitting, the beehaunting the honeysuckle, the snake awakening. Beauty was everywhere,and in portions of the great forest, great as a principality, quiet. Inthese regions, indeed, the stillness might seem doubled, reinforced, forfrom other stretches of the Wilderness, specifically from those whichhad for neighbour the roads, quiet had fled.
To right and left of the Tabernacle church were breastworks, Andersonholding them against Hooker's advance. In the early morning, through thedewy Wilderness, came from Fredericksburg way Stonewall Jackson and the2d Corps, in addition Lafayette McLaws with his able Roman air andtroops in hand. At the church they rested until eleven o'clock, then,gathering up Anderson, they plunged more deeply yet into the Wilderness.They moved in two columns, McLaws leading by the turnpike, Anderson inadvance on the Plank Road, Jackson himself with the main body followingby the latter road.
Oh, bright-eyed, oh, bronzed and gaunt and ragged, oh, full of quips andcranks, of jest and song and courage, oh, endowed with all quainthumour, invested with all pathos, ennobled by vast struggle with vastadversity, oh, sufferers of all things, hero-fibred, grim fighters, oh,Army of Northern Virginia--all men and all women who have battled saluteyou, going into the Wilderness this May day with the red birds singing!
On swing the two columns, long, easy, bayonets gleaming, accoutrementsjingling, colours deep glowing in the sunshine. To either hand swept theWilderness, great as a desert, green and jewelled. In the desert to-daywere other bands, great and hostile blue-clad bands. Grey andblue,--there came presently a clash that shook the forest and sentQuiet, a fugitive, to those deeper, distant haunts. Three bands of blue,three grey attacks--the air rocked and swung, the pure sunlight changedto murk, the birds and the beasts scampered far, the Wilderness filledwith shouting. The blue gave back--gave back somewhat too easily. Thegrey followed--would have followed at height of speed, keen andshouting, but there rode to the front a leader on a sorrel nag. "GeneralAnderson, halt your men. Throw out skirmishers and flanking parties andadvance with caution."
McLaws on the turnpike had like orders. Through the Wilderness, through thegold afternoon, all went quietly. Sound of marching feet, beat of hoof,creak of leather, rumble of wheel, low-pitched orders were there, but nosinging, laughing, talking. Skirmishers and flanking parties were alert,but the men in the main column moved dreamily, the spell of the place uponthem. With flowering thorn and dogwood and the purple smear of the Judastree, with the faint gilt of the sunshine, and with wandering graciousodours, with its tangled endlessness and feel as of old time, its taste ofsadness, its hint of patience, it was such a seven-leagues of woodland asmight have environed the hundred-years-asleep court, palace, and princess.The great dome of the sky sprung cloudless; there was no wind; all thingsseemed halted, as if they had been thus forever. The men almost nodded asthey marched.
Back, steadily, though slowly, gave the blue skirmishers before the greyskirmishers. So thickly grew the Wilderness that it was somewhat likeIndian fighting, and no man saw a hundred yards in front of him.Stonewall Jackson's eyes glinted under the forage cap; perhaps he sawmore than a hundred yards ahead of him, but if so he saw with the eyesof the mind. He was moving very slowly, more like a tortoise than athunderbolt. The men said that Old Jack had spring fever.
Grey columns, grey artillery, grey flanking cavalry, all came underslant sunrays to within a mile or two of that old house calledChancellorsville set north of the pike, upon a low ridge in theWilderness. "Open ground in front--open ground in front--open ground infront! Let Old Jack by--Let Old Jack by! Going to see--Going to see--"_Halt_!
The beat of feet ceased. The column waited, sunken in the green and goldand misty Wilderness where the shadows were lengthening and the birdswere at evensong. In a moment the evensong was hushed and the birds flewaway. The same instant brought explanation of that "Don't-care.-On-the-whole-quite-ready-to-retreat.-Merely-following-instructions"attitude for the past two hours of the blue skirmish line. FromChancellorsville, from Hooker's great entrenchments on the high roll ofground, along the road, and on the plateau of Hazel Grove, burst araking artillery fire. The shells shrieked across the open, plunged intothe wood, and exploded before every road-head. Hooker had guns a-many;they commanded the Wilderness rolling on three sides of the formidableposition he had seized; they commanded in iron force the clearing alonghis front. He had breastworks; he had abattis. He had the 12th Corps,the 2d, the 3d, the 5th, the 7th, the 11th; he had in the Wildernessseventy thousand men. His left almost touched the Rappahannock, hisright stretched two miles toward Germanna Ford. He was in greatstrength.
Jeb Stuart with his cavalry, waiting impatiently near Catherine Furnace,found beside him General Jackson on Little Sorrel. "General Stuart, Iwish you to ride with me to some point from which those guns can beenfiladed. Order Major Beckham forward with a battery."
This was the heart of the Wilderness. Thick, thick grew the trees andthe all-entangling underbrush. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson, staffbehind them, pursued a span-wide bridle path, overarched by dogwood andJudas tree. It led at last to a rise of ground, covered by mattedgrowth, towered above by a few pines. Four guns of the Horse Artillerystrove, too, to reach the place. They made it at last, over and throughthe wild tangle, but so narrow was the clearing, made hurriedly toeither side of the path, that but one gun at a time could be broughtinto position. Beckham, commanding now where Pelham had commanded, senta shell singing against the not distant line of smoke and flame. Themuzzle had hardly blazed when two masked batteries opened upon the riseof ground, the four guns, the artillerymen and artillery horses, andupon Stonewall Jackson, Stuart, and the staff.
The great blue guns were firing at short range. A howling storm of shotand shell broke and continued. Through it came a curt order. "MajorBeckham, get your guns back. General Stuart, gentlemen of the staff,push out of range through the underwood."
The guns with their maddened horses strove to turn, but the place wasnarrow. Ere the movement could be made there was bitter loss. Horsesreared and fell, dreadfully hurt; men were mown down, falling besidetheir pieces. It was a moment requiring action decisive, desperatelygallant, heroically intelligent. The Horse Artillery drew off theirguns, even got their wounded out of the intolerable zone of fire.Stonewall Jackson, with Stuart, watched them do it. He nodded, "Good!good!"
Out of the raking fire,
back in the scrub and pine, there came to a haltnear him a gun, a Howitzer. He sat Little Sorrel in the last goldenlight, a light that bathed also the piece and its gunners. The Federalbatteries were lessening fire. There was a sense of pause. The two foeshad seen each other; now--Army of Northern Virginia, Army of thePotomac--they must draw breath a little before they struck, before theyclenched. The sun was setting; the cannonade ceased.
Jackson sat very still in the gold patch where, between two pines, thewest showed clear. The aureate light, streaming on, beat full upon thehowitzer and on the living and unwounded of its men. Stonewall Jacksonspoke to an aide. "Tell the captain of the battery that I should like tospeak to him."
The captain came. "Captain, what is the name of the gunner there? Theone by the limber with his head turned away."
The captain looked. "Deaderick, sir. Philip Deaderick."
"_Philip Deaderick._ When did he volunteer?"
The other considered. "I think, general, it was just beforeSharpsburg.--It was just after the battle of Groveton, sir."
"Sharpsburg!--I remember now. So he rejoined at Manassas."
"He hadn't been in earlier, sir. He had an accident, he said. He's afine soldier, but he's a silent kind of a man. He keeps to himself. Hewon't take promotion."
"Tell him to come here."
Deaderick came. The gold in this open place, before the clear west, wasvery light and fine. It illuminated. Also the place was a littlewithdrawn, no one very near, and by comparison with the tornado whichhad raged, the stillness seemed complete. The gunner stood before thegeneral, quiet, steady-eyed, broad-browed. Stonewall Jackson, hisgauntleted hands folded over the saddle bow, gazed upon him fully andlong. The gold light held, and the hush of the place; in the distance,in the Wilderness, the birds began again their singing. At last Jacksonspoke. "The army will rest to-night. Headquarters will be yonder, by theroad. Report to me there at ten o'clock. I will listen to what you haveto say. That is all now."
Night stole over the Wilderness, a night of large, mild stars, ofvagrant airs, of balm and sweetness. Earth lay in a tender dream, allabout her her wild flowers and her fresh-clad trees. The grey and theblue soldiers slept, too, and one dreamed of this and one dreamed ofthat. Alike they dreamed of home and country and cause, of loved womenand loved children and of their comrades. Grey and blue, these twoarmies fought each for an idea, and they fought well, as people fightwho fight for an idea. And that it was not a material thing for whichthey fought, but a concept, lifted from them something of the grossnessof physical struggle, carried away as with a strong wind much of thepettiness of war, brought their strife upon the plane of heroes. Thereis a beauty and a strength in the thought of them, grey and blue,sleeping in the Wilderness, under the gleam of far-away worlds.
The generals did not sleep. In the Chancellor house, north of the pike,Fighting Joe Hooker held council with his commanders of corps, withMeade and Sickles and Slocum and Howard and Couch. Out in theWilderness, near the Plank Road, with the light from a camp-fire turningto bronze and wine-red the young oak leaves about them, there heldcouncil Robert Edward Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Near them a war horseneighed; there came the tramp of the sentry, then quiet stole upon thescene. The staff was near at hand, but to-night staff and couriers heldthemselves stiller than still. There was something in the air of theWilderness; they knew not what it was, but it was there.
Lee and Jackson sat opposite each other, the one on a box, the other ona great fallen tree. On the earth between them lay an unrolled map, andnow one took it up and pondered it, and now the other, and now theyspoke together in quiet, low voices, their eyes on the map at their feetin the red light. Lee spoke. "I went myself and looked upon their left.It is very strong. An assault upon their centre? Well-nigh impossible! Isent Major Talcott and Captain Boswell again to reconnoitre. They reportthe front fairly impregnable, and I agree with them that it is so. Theright--Here is General Stuart, now, to tell us something of that!"
In fighting jacket and plume Jeb Stuart came into the light. He saluted."General Lee, their right rests on the Brock road, and the Brock road isas clean of defences as if gunpowder had never been invented, norbreastworks thought of!" He knelt and took up the map. "Here, sir, isHunting Creek, and here Dowdall's Tavern and the Wilderness church, andhere, through the deep woods, runs the old Furnace road, intersectingwith the Brock road--"
Lee and his great lieutenant looked and nodded, listening to his furtherreport. "Thank you, General Stuart," said at last the commander-in-chief."You bring news upon which I think we may act. A flanking movement by theFurnace and Brock roads. It must be made with secrecy and in great strengthand with rapidity. General Jackson, will you do it?"
"Yes, sir. Turn his right and gain his rear. I shall have my entirecommand?"
"Yes, general. Generals McLaws and Anderson will remain with me,demonstrate against these people and divert their attention. When canyou start?"
"I will start at four, sir."
Lee rose. "Very good! Then we had better try to get a little sleep. Isee Tom spreading my blanket now.--The Wilderness! General, do youremember, in Mexico, the _Noche Triste_ trees and their great scarletflowers? They grew all about the Church of our Lady of Remedies.--Idon't know why I think of them to-night.--Good-night! good-night!"
A round of barren ground, towered over by pines, hedged in by theall-prevailing oak scrub, made the headquarters of the commander of the2d Corps. Jim had built a fire, for the night wind was strengthening,blowing cool. He had not spared the pine boughs. The flames leaped andmade the place ruddy as a jewel. Jackson entered, an aide behind him."Find out if a soldier named Deaderick is here."
The soldier named Deaderick appeared. Jackson nodded to the aide whowithdrew, then crossing to the fire, he seated himself upon a log. Itwas late; far and wide the troops lay sleeping. A pale moon looked down;somewhere off in the distance an owl hooted. The Wilderness lay still asthe men, then roused itself and whispered a little, then sank again intodeathlike quiet.
The two men, general and disgraced soldier, held themselves for a momentquiet as the Wilderness. Cleave knew most aspects of the man sitting onthe log, in the gleam of the fire. He saw that to-night there was notthe steel-like mood, cold, convinced, and stubborn, the wintryharshness, the granite hardness which Stonewall Jackson chiefly usedtoward offenders. He did not know what it was, but he thought that hisgeneral had softened.
With the perception there came a change in himself. He had entered thisring in the Wilderness with a constriction of the heart, a quickfarewell to whatever in life he yet held dear, a farewell certainly tothe soldier's life, to the army, to the guns, to the service of thecountry, an iron bracing of every nerve to meet an iron thrust. And nowthe thrust had not yet come, and the general looked at him quietly, asone well-meaning man looks at another who also means well. He hadsuffered much and long. Something rose into his throat, the muscles ofhis face worked slightly, he turned his head aside. Jackson waitedanother moment,--then, the other having recovered himself, spoke withquietness.
"You did, at White Oak Swamp, take it upon yourself to act, althoughthere existed in your mind a doubt as to whether your orders--the ordersyou say you received--would bear that construction?"
"Yes, general."
"And your action proved a wrong action?"
"It proved a mistaken action, sir."
"It is the same thing. It entailed great loss with peril of greater."
"Yes, general."
"Had the brigade followed there might have ensued a general anddisastrous engagement. The enemy were in force there--_as I knew_. Youraction brought almost the destruction of your regiment. It brought thedeath of many brave men, and to a certain extent endangered the whole.That is so."
"Yes, general. It is so."
"Good! There was an order delivered to you. The man from whose lips youtook it is dead. His reputation was that of a valiant, intelligent, andtrustworthy man--hardly one to misrepeat an important order. That isso?"
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sp; "It is entirely so, sir."
"Good! You say that he brought to you such and such an order, the order,in effect, which, even so, you improperly construed and improperly actedupon, an order, however, which was never sent by me. A soldier who wasby testifies that it was that order. Well?"
"That soldier, sir, was a known liar, with a known hatred to hisofficers."
"Yes. He repeated the order, word for word, as I sent it. How did thathappen?"
"Sir, I do not know."
"The officer to whom I gave the order, and who, wrongly enough,transferred it to another messenger, swears that he gave it thus andso."
"Yes, general. He swears it."
A silence reigned in the fire-lit ring. The red light showed form andfeature clearly. Jackson sitting on the log, his large hands resting onthe sabre across his knees, was full within the glow. It beat even morestrongly upon Cleave where he stood. "You believe," said Jackson, "thathe swore falsely?"
"Yes, general."
"It is a question between your veracity and his?"
"Yes, general."
"There was enmity between you?"
"Yes, general."
"Where is he now?"
"He is somewhere in prison. He was taken at Sharpsburg."
There fell another silence. The sentry's tread was heard, the crackle ofthe fire seizing upon pine cone and bough, a low, sighing wind in thewilderness. Jackson spoke briefly. "After this campaign, if matters soarrange themselves, if the officer returns, if you think you can providenew evidence or re-present the old, I will forward, approved, yourappeal for a court of inquiry."
"I thank you, sir, with all my heart."
Stonewall Jackson slightly changed his position on the log. Jim tiptoedinto the ring and fed again the fire. There was a whinnying of somenear-by battery horses, the sound of changing guard, then silence againin the Wilderness. Cleave stood, straight and still, beneath the other'spondering, long, and steady gaze. An aide appeared at an opening in thescrub. "General Fitzhugh Lee, sir." Jackson rose. "You will return toyour battery, Deaderick.--Bring General Lee here, captain."
The night passed, the dawn came, red bird and wren and robin began acheeping in the Wilderness. A light mist was over the face of the earth;within it began a vast shadowy movement of shadowy troops. Silence wasso strictly ordered that something approaching it was obtained. Therewas a certain eeriness in the hush in which the column was formed--thegrey column in the grey dawn, in the Wilderness where the birds werecheeping, and the mist hung faint and cold. By the roadside, on a littleknoll set round with flowering dogwood, sat General Lee on greyTraveller. A swirl of mist below the two detached them from the wideearth and marching troops, made them like a piece of sculpture seenagainst the morning sky. Below them moved the column, noiseless as mightbe, enwound with mist. In the van were Fitzhugh Lee and the FirstVirginia Cavalry. They saluted; the commander-in-chief lifted his hat;they vanished by the Furnace road into the heart of the Wilderness.Rodes's Division came next, Alabama troops. Rodes, a tall and handsomeman, saluted; Alabama saluted. Regiment by regiment they passed into theflowering woods. Now came the Light Division beneath skies with a coraltinge. Ambrose Powell Hill saluted, and all his brigades, Virginia andSouth Carolina. The guns began to pass, quiet as was constitutionallypossible. The very battery horses looked as though they understood thatpeople who were going to turn the flank of a gigantic army in a strongposition proceed upon the business without noise. Up rose the sun whilethe iron fighting men were yet going by. The level rays gilded allmetal, gilded Traveller's bit and bridle clasps, gilded the spur of Leeand his sword hilt and the stars upon his collar. The sun began to drinkup the mist and all the birds sang loudly. The sky was cloudless, thelow thick woodland divinely cool and sweet. Violet and bloodroot,dogwood and purple Judas tree were all bespangled, bespangled with dew.
While the guns were yet quietly rumbling by Stonewall Jackson appearedupon the rising ground. He saluted. Lee put out his hand and clasped theother's. "General, I feel every confidence! I am sure that you are goingforth to victory."
"Yes, sir. I think that I am.--I will send a courier back every halfhour."
"Yes, that is wise.--As soon as your wagons are by I will makedisposition of the twelve thousand left with me. I propose a certaindisplay of artillery and a line of battle so formed as to deceive--anddeceive greatly--as to its strength. If necessary we will skirmish hotlythroughout the day. I will create the impression that we are about toassault. It is imperative that they do not come between us and cut thearmy in two."
"I will march as rapidly as may be, sir. The Furnace road, the Brockroad, then turn eastward on the Plank road and strike their flank.Good!" He jerked his hand into the air. "I will go now, general."
Lee bent across again. The two clasped hands. "God be with you, GeneralJackson!"
"And with you, General Lee."
Little Sorrel left the hillock. The staff came up. Stonewall Jacksonturned in his saddle, and, the staff following his action, raised hishand in salute to the figure on grey Traveller, above them in thesunlight. Lee lifted his hat, held it so. The others filed by, turnedsharply southward, and were lost in the jewelled Wilderness.
The sun cleared the tallest pines; there set in a splendid day. The long,long column, cavalry, Rodes's Division, the Light Division, the artillery,ordnance wagons and ambulances, twenty-five thousand grey soldiers withStonewall Jackson at their head--the long, long column wound through theWilderness by narrow, hidden roads. Close came the scrub and pine and allthe flowering trees of May. The horsemen put aside vine and bough, the pinkhoneysuckle brushed the gun wheels; long stretches of the road weregrass-grown. Through the woods to the right, by paths nearer yet to thefar-flung Federal front, paced ten guardian squadrons. All went silently,all went swiftly. In the Confederate service there were no automata. Thesethousands of lithe, bronzed, bright-eyed, tattered men knew that something,something, something was being done! Something important that they must allhelp Old Jack with. Forbidden to talk, they speculated inwardly. "South bywest. 'T isn't a Thoroughfare Gap march. They're all here in theWilderness. We're leaving their centre--their right's somewhere over therein the brush. Shouldn't wonder--Allan Gold, what's the Latin for 'toflank'?--Lieutenant, we were just whispering! Yes, sir.--All right, sir. Wewon't make no more noise than so many wet cartridges!"
On they swung through the fairy forest, grey, steady, rapidly moving,the steel above their shoulders gleaming bright, the worn, shot-riddledcolours like flowers amid the tender, all-enfolding green. The head ofthe column came to a dip in the Wilderness through which flowed a littlecreek. It was about nine o'clock in the morning. All the men looked tothe right, for they could see the plateau of Hazel Grove and the greatFederal intrenchments. "If those fellows look right hard they can seeus, too! Can't help it--march fast and get past.--Oh, that's what theofficers think, too! _Double quick_!"
The column crossed the tiny vale. Beyond it the narrow road of bends andturns plunged due south. Now, General Birney, stationed on the highlevel of Hazel Grove, observed, though somewhat faintly, that movement.He sent a courier to Hooker at Chancellorsville. "Rebel column seen topass across my front. All arms and wagon train. It has turned to thesouthward."
"To the south!" said Hooker. "Turned southward. Now what does that mean?It might mean that Sedgwick at Fredericksburg has seized and is holdingthe road to Richmond. It might mean that Lee contemplated anunobstructed retreat through this Wilderness section southward toGordonsville, which is not far away. From Gordonsville, he would fallback on Richmond. Say that is what he planned. Then, finding me instrength across his path, he would naturally make some demonstration,and behind it inaugurate a forced march, southward out of this wildplace. A retreat to Gordonsville. It's the most probable move. I willsend General Sickles toward Catherine Furnace to find out exactly."
Birney from Hazel Grove, Sickles from Chancellorsville, advanced. AtCatherine Furnace they found the 23d Georgia, and on both sides of thePlank road discovered
Anderson's division. Now began hot fighting in theWilderness. The brigades of Anderson did gloriously. The 23d Georgia,surrounded at the Furnace, saw fall, in that square of the Wilderness,three hundred officers and men; but those Georgians who yet stood didwell, did well! Full in the front of Chancellorsville, McLaws, with hisable, Roman air, his high colour, short black beard and crisp speech,handled his troops like a rightly trusted captain of Caesar's. He keptthe enemy's attention strained in his direction. Standing yet upon thelittle hillock, in the midst of the flowering dogwood, a greater thanMcLaws overlooked and directed all the grey pieces upon the board beforeChancellorsville, played, all day, like a master, a skilfullycomplicated game.
Far in the Wilderness, miles now to the westward, the rolling musketrycame to the ears of Stonewall Jackson. He was riding with Rodes at thehead of the column. "Good! good!" he said. "That musketry is at theFurnace. General Hooker will attempt to drive between me and GeneralLee."
An aide of A. P. Hill's approached at a gallop. He saluted, gainedbreath and spoke. "They're cutting the 23d Georgia to pieces, sir!General Anderson is coming into action--"
A deeper thunder rolling now through the Wilderness corroborated hiswords. "Good! good!" said Jackson imperturbably. "My compliments toGeneral Hill, and he will detach Archer's and Thomas's brigades and abattalion of artillery. They are to cooperate with General Anderson andprotect our rear. The remainder of the Light Division will continue themarch."
On past the noon point swung light and shadow. On through the languorousMay warmth travelled westward the long column. It went with markedrapidity, emphatic even for the "foot cavalry," went without swerving,without straggling, went like a long, gleaming thunderbolt firmly heldand swung. Behind it, sank in the distance the noise of battle. The Armyof Northern Virginia knew itself divided, cut in two. Far back in theflowering woods before Chancellorsville, the man on the grey horse,directing here, directing there his twelve thousand men, played hismaster game with equanimity, trusting in Stonewall Jackson rushingtoward the Federal right. Westward in the Wilderness, swiftly nearingthe Brock road, the man on the sorrel nag travelled with no backwardlook. In his right hand was the thunderbolt, and near at hand the placefrom which to hurl it. He rode like incarnate Intention. The officerbeside him said something as to that enormous peril in the rear, drivinglike a wedge between this hurrying column and the grey twelve thousandbefore Chancellorsville. "Yes, sir, yes!" said Jackson. "But I trustfirst in God, and then in General Lee."
The infantry swung into the Brock road. It ran northward; it lay bare,sunny, sleepy, walled in by emerald leaves and white and purple bloom.The grey thunderbolt travelled fast, fast, and at three o'clock its headreached the Plank road. Far to the east, in the Wilderness, the noise ofthe battle yet rolled, but it came fainter, with a diminishing sound.Anderson, Thomas, and Archer had driven back Sickles. There was a pauseby Chancellorsville and Catherine Furnace. Through it and all the whilethe man on grey Traveller kept with a skill so exquisite that it shadedinto a grave simplicity those thousands and thousands and thousands ofhostile eyes turned quite from their real danger, centred only on afinely painted mask of danger.
At the intersection of the Brock and the Plank roads, Stonewall Jacksonfound massed the 1st Virginia cavalry. Upon the road and to either sidein the flowering woods, roan and bay and black tossed their heads andmoved their limbs amid silver dogwood and rose azalea. The horseschafed, the horsemen looked at once anxious and exultant. Fitzhugh Leemet the general in command. The latter spoke. "Three o'clock. Proceed atonce, general, down the Plank road."
"I beg, sir," said the other, "that you will ride with me to the top ofthis roll of ground in front of us. I can show you the strangestthing!"
The two went, attended only by a courier. The slight eminence, all cladwith scrub-oak, all carpeted with wild flowers, was reached. Thehorsemen turned and looked eastward, the breast-high scrub, the fewtender-foliaged young trees sheltering them from view. They lookedeastward, and in the distance they saw Dowdall's Tavern. But it was notDowdall's Tavern that was the strangest thing. The strangest thing wasnearer than Dowdall's; it was at no great distance at all. It was a longabattis, and behind the abattis long, well-builded breastworks. Behindthe breastworks, overlooked by the little hill, and occupying an oldclearing in the Wilderness, was a large encampment--the encampment, inshort, of the 11th Army Corps, Howard commanding, twenty regiments, andsix batteries. From the little hill where the violets purpled theground, Stonewall Jackson and the cavalry leader looked and looked insilence. The blue soldiers lay at ease on the tender sward. It was_dolce far niente_ in the Wilderness. The arms were stacked, the armswere stacked. There were cannon planted by the roadside, but where werethe cannoneers? Not very near the guns, but asleep on the grass, orpropped against trees smoking excellent tobacco, or in the square on thegreensward playing cards with laughter! Battery horses were grazingwhere they would. Far and wide were scattered the infantry, squanderedlike plums on the grass. They lay or strolled about in the slantsunshine, in the balmy air, in the magic Wilderness--they never evenglanced toward the stacked arms.
On the flowery slope across the road, Stonewall Jackson sat LittleSorrel and gazed upon the pleasant, drowsy scene. His eyes had a glow,his cheek a warm colour beneath the bronze. Staff, and indeed the entire2d Corps, had remarked from time to time this spring upon Old Jack'sevident good health. "Getting younger all the time! This war climatesuits him. Time the peace articles are signed he'll be just a boy again!Arrived at--what do you call it? perennial youth." Now he and LittleSorrel stood upon the flowering hilltop, and his lips moved. "Old Jack'spraying--Old Jack's praying!" thought the courier.
Fitz Lee said something, but the general did not attend. In anothermoment, however, he spoke curt, decisive, final. He spoke to thecourier. "Tell General Rodes to move _across_ the Plank road. He is tohalt at the turnpike. I will join him there. Move quietly."
The courier turned and went. Stonewall Jackson regarded again the scenebefore him--abattis and breastworks and rifle-pits untenanted, gunslonely in the slanting sunlight, lines of stacked arms, tents,fluttering flags, the horses straying at their will, cropping the tendergrass, in a corner of a field men butchering beeves--regarded the Germanregiments, Schimmelpfennig and Krzyzancerski, regarded New York andWisconsin, camped about the Wilderness church. Up from the clearing,across to the thick forest, floated an indescribable humming sound, aconfused droning as from a giant race of bees. The shadows of the treeswere growing long, the sun hung just above the pines of the Wilderness."Good! good!" said Stonewall Jackson. His eyes, beneath the old, oldforage cap, had a sapphire depth and gleam. A colour was in his cheek."Good! good!" he said, and jerked his hand into the air. Suddenlyturning Little Sorrel, he left the hill--riding fast, elbows out, andbig feet, down into the woods, his sabre leaping as he rode.