CHAPTER VII
THE DOGS OF WAR
In the east was a great flare of pink with small golden clouds floatingacross, all seen uncertainly between branches of pine. A mist lay aboveBull Run--on the high, opposite bank the woods rose huddled, indistinct,and dream-like. The air was still, cool, and pure, a Sunday morningwaiting for church bells. There were no bells; the silence wasshattered by all the drums of the brigade beating the long roll. Menrose from the pine needles, shook themselves, caught up musket andammunition belt. The echoes from McDowell's signal cannon had hardlydied when, upon the wooded banks of Bull Run, the First Brigade stood inarms.
Minutes passed. Mitchell's Ford marked the Confederate centre. Here, andat Blackburn's Ford, were Bonham, Bee, Bartow, Longstreet, and Jackson.Down the stream, at MacLean's Ford and Union Mills, Early and Ewell andD. R. Jones held the right. To the left, up Bull Run, beyond Bee andbeyond Stuart, at the Island, Ball and Lewis fords, were Cocke's Brigadeand Hampton's Legion, and farther yet, at the Stone Bridge, Evans with asmall brigade. Upon the northern bank of the Run, in the thick woodsopposite Mitchell's and Blackburn's fords, was believed to be the massof the invaders. There had been a certitude that the battle would joinabout these fords. Beauregard's plan was to cross at MacLean's and fallupon the Federal left. Johnston had acceded, and with the first lightorders had gone to the brigadiers. "Hold yourselves in readiness tocross and to attack."
Now suddenly from the extreme left, away in the direction of the StoneBridge, burst an unexpected sound both of musketry and artillery. It wasdistant, it waxed and waned and waxed again. The First Brigade, nervous,impatient, chilled by the dawn, peered across its own reach of mistystream, and saw naught but the dream-like woods. Tyler's division wasover there, it knew. When would firing begin along this line? When wouldthe brigade have orders to move, when would it cross, when would thingsbegin to happen?
An hour passed. Ranks were broken and the men allowed to cook and eat ahasty breakfast. How good, in the mist-drenched wood, tasted thescalding coffee, how good the cornbread and the bacon! The last crumbswallowed, they waited again, lying on the brown earth beneath thepines. The mounted officers, advanced upon the bank of the stream andseen through the mist, loomed larger, man and horse, than life. Jacksonsat very quiet upon Little Sorrel, his lips moving. Far up the streamthe firing continued. The 2d, 4th, 5th, 27th, 33d, and 65th Virginiafidgeted, groaned, swore with impatience.
Suddenly the nearer echoes awoke. A Federal battery, posted on thehills beyond the fringe of thick wood on the northern bank, opened aslow and ineffective fire against the hills and woods across the stream.The Confederates kept their position masked, made no reply. The shellsfell short, and did harm only to the forest and its creatures. Nearlyall fell short, but one, a shell from a thirty-pounder Parrott, enteredthe pine wood by Mitchell's Ford, fell among the wagons of the 65th, andexploded.
A driver was killed, a mule mangled so that it must be shot, and anambulance split into kindling wood. Few in the First Brigade had seensuch a thing before. The men brushed the pine needles and the earth fromtheir coats, and looked at the furrowed ground and at the headless bodyof the driver with a startled curiosity. There was a sense of a suddenand vivid flash from behind the veil, and they as suddenly perceivedthat the veil was both cold and dark. This, then, was one of the ways inwhich death came, shrieking like this, ugly and resistless! The Julymorning was warm and bright, but more than one of the volunteers in thatwood shivered as though it were winter. Jackson rode along the front."They don't attack in force at the Stone Bridge. A feint, I think." Hestopped before the colour company of the 65th. "Captain Cleave."
"Yes, sir."
"You have hunters from the mountains. After the battle send me the manyou think would make the best scout--an intelligent man."
"Very well, sir."
The other turned Little Sorrel's head toward the stream and stoodlistening. The sound of the distant cannonade increased. The pine woodran back from the water, grew thinner, and gave place to mere copse anda field of broomsedge. From this edge of the forest came now a noise ofmounted men. "Black Horse, I reckon!" said the 65th. "Wish they'd go askOld Joe what he and Beauregard have got against us!--No, 'taint BlackHorse--I see them through the trees--gray slouch hats and no feathers inthem! Infantry, too--more infantry than horse. Hampton, maybe--No, theylook like home folk--" A horseman appeared in the wood, guiding apowerful black stallion with a light hand between the pines, andchecking him with a touch beside the bank upon which Little Sorrel wasplanted. "General Jackson?" inquired a dry, agreeable voice.
"Yes, sir, I am General Jackson. What troops have you over there?"
"The Virginia Legion."
Jackson put out a large hand. "Then you are Colonel Fauquier Cary? I amglad to see you, sir. We never met in Mexico, but I heard of you--Iheard of you!"
The other gave his smile, quick and magnetic. "And I of you, general.Magruder chanted your praises day and night--our good old Fuss andFeathers, too! Oh, Mexico!"
Jackson's countenance, so rigid, plain, restrained, altered as throughsome effect of soft and sunny light. The blue of the eye deepened, theiris enlarged, a smile came to his lips. His stiffly held, awkwardlyerect figure relaxed, though very slightly. "I loved it in Mexico. Ihave never forgotten it. _Dear land of the daughters of Spain!_" Thelight went indoors again. "That demonstration upstream is increasing.Colonel Evans will need support."
"Yes, we must have orders shortly." Turning in his saddle, Cary gazedacross the stream. "Andrew Porter and Burnside are somewhere over there.I wonder if Burnside remembers the last time he was in Virginia!" Helaughed. "Dabney Maury's wedding in '52 at Cleveland, and Burnside happyas a king singing 'Old Virginia never tire!' stealing kisses from thebridesmaids, hunting with the hardest, dancing till cockcrow, andasking, twenty times a day, 'Why don't we do like this in Indiana?' Iwonder--I wonder!" He laughed again. "Good old Burnside! It's an oddworld we live in, general!"
"The world, sir, is as God made it and as Satan darkened it."
Cary regarded him somewhat whimsically. "Well, we'll agree on God now,and perhaps before this struggle's over, we'll agree on Satan. Thatfiring's growing louder, I think. There's a cousin of mine in the65th--yonder by the colours! May I speak to him?"
"Certainly, sir. I have noticed Captain Cleave. His men obey him withreadiness." He beckoned, and when Cleave came up, turned away withLittle Sorrel to the edge of the stream. The kinsmen clasped hands.
"How are you, Richard?"
"Very well, Fauquier. And you?"
"Very well, too, I suppose. I haven't asked. You've got a fine, tallcompany!"
Cleave, turning, regarded his men with almost a love-light in his eyes."By God, Fauquier, we'll win if stock can do it! It's going to make alegend--this army!"
"I believe that you are right. When you were a boy you used to dreamartillery."
"I dream it still. Sooner or later, by hook or by crook, I'll get intothat arm. It wasn't feasible this spring."
His cousin looked at him with the affection, half humorous and whollytender, with which he regarded most of his belongings in life. "I alwaysliked you, Richard. Now don't you go get killed in this unnatural war!The South's going to need every good man she's got--and more beside!Where is Will?"
"In the 2d. I wanted him nearer me, but 'twould have broken his heart toleave his company. Edward is with the Rifles?"
"Yes, adding lustre to the ranks. I came upon him yesterday cutting woodfor his mess. 'Why don't you make Jeames cut the wood?' I asked. 'Why,'said he, 'you see it hurts his pride--and, beside, some one must cook.Jeames cooks.'" Cary laughed. "I left him getting up his load andhurrying off to roll call. Phoebus Apollo swincking for Mars!--I wasat Greenwood the other day. They all sent you their love."
A colour came into Cleave's dark cheek. "Thank them for me when youwrite. Only the ladies are there?"
"Yes. I told them it had the air of a Spanish nunnery. Maury Stafford iswith Magruder on the Peninsula."
>
"Yes."
"Judith had a letter from him. He was in the affair at Bethel.--What'sthis? Orders for us all to move, I hope!"
A courier had galloped into the wood. "General Jackson? Where is GeneralJackson?" A hundred hands having pointed out Little Sorrel and hisrider, he arrived breathless, saluted, and extended a gauntleted handwith a folded bit of paper. Jackson took and opened the missive with hisusual deliberation, glanced over the contents, and pushed Little Sorrelnearer to Fauquier Cary. "_General_," he read aloud, though in a lowvoice, "_the signal officer reports a turning column of the enemyapproaching Sudley Ford two miles above the Stone Bridge. You willadvance with all speed to the support of the endangered left. Bee andBarlow, the Hampton Legion and the Virginia Legion will receive likeorders. J. E. Johnston, General Commanding._"
The commander of the Virginia Legion gathered up his reins. "Thank you,general! _Au revoir_--and laurels to us all!" With a wave of his hand toCleave, he was gone, crashing through the thinning pines to thebroomsedge field and his waiting men.
It was nine o'clock, hot and clear, the Stone Bridge three miles away.The First Brigade went at a double quick, guided by the sound ofmusketry, growing in volume. The pines were left behind; oak copsesucceeded, then the up and down of grassy fields. Wooden fencesstretched across the way, streamlets presented themselves, here andthere gaped a ravine, ragged and deep. On and on and over all! Bee andBartow were ahead, and Hampton and the Virginia Legion. The sound of theguns grew louder. "Evans hasn't got but six regiments. _Get on, men, geton!_"
The fields were very rough, all things uneven and retarding. Only thesun had no obstacles: he rose high, and there set in a scorching day.The men climbed a bank of red earth, and struck across a greatcornfield. They stumbled over the furrows, they broke down the stalks,they tore aside the intertwining small, blue morning-glories. Wet withthe dew of the field, they left it and dipped again into woods. Theshade did not hold; now they were traversing an immense and wastedstretch where the dewberry caught at their ankles and the sun had anunchecked sway. Ahead the firing grew louder. _Get on, men, get on!_
Allan Gold, hurrying with his hurrying world, found in life this Julymorning something he had not found before. Apparently there were cracksin the firmament through which streamed a dazzling light, aninvigorating air. After all, there was something wide, it seemed, inwar, something sweet. It was bright and hot--they were going, clean andchildlike, to help their fellows at the bridge. When, near at hand, abugle blew, high as a lark above the stress, he followed the sound witha clear delight. He felt no fatigue, and he had never seen the sky soblue, the woods so green. Chance brought him for a moment in line withhis captain. "Well, Allan?"
"I seem to have waked up," said Allan, then, very soberly. "I am goingto like this thing."
Cleave laughed. "You haven't the air of a Norse sea king for nothing!"They dipped into a bare, red gully, scrambled up the opposite bank, andfought again with the dewberry vines. "When the battle's over you're toreport to General Jackson. Say that I sent you--that you're the man heasked for this morning."
The entangling vines abruptly gave up the fight. A soft hillside ofpasturage succeeded, down which the men ran like schoolboys. A grayzigzag of rail fence, a little plashy stream, another hillside, and atthe top, planted against a horizon of haze and sound, a courier,hatless, upon a reeking horse. "General Jackson?"
"Yes, sir."
"McDowell has crossed at Sudley Ford. The attack on the Stone Bridge isa feint. Colonel Evans has left four companies there, and with the 4thSouth Carolina and the Louisiana Tigers is getting into position acrossYoung's Branch, upon the Mathews Hill. Colonel Evans's compliments, andhe says for God's sake to come on!"
"Very good, sir. General Jackson's compliments, and I am coming."
The courier turned, spurred his horse, and was gone. Jackson rode downthe column. "You're doing well, men, but you've got to do better.Colonel Evans says for God's sake to come on!"
That hilltop crossed at a run, they plunged again into the trough ofthose low waves. The First Brigade had proved its mettle, but here itbegan to lose. Men gasped, wavered, fell out of line and were leftbehind. In Virginia the July sunshine is no bagatelle. It beat hardto-day, and to many in these ranks there was in this July Sunday anawful strangeness. At home--ah, at home!--crushed ice and cooling fans,a pleasant and shady ride to a pleasant, shady church, a little dozingthrough a comfortable sermon, then friends and crops and politics in thetwilight dells of an old churchyard, then home, and dinner, and wideporches--Ah, that was the way, that was the way. _Close up, there!Don't straggle, men, don't straggle!_
They were out now upon another high field, carpeted with yellowingsedge, dotted over with young pines. The 65th headed the column.Lieutenant Coffin of Company A was a busy officer, active as ajumping-jack, half liked and half distasted by the men. The need of somebreathing time, however slight, was now so imperative that at a stakeand rider fence, overgrown with creepers, a five minutes' halt wasordered. The fence ran at right angles, and all along the column the mendropped upon the ground, in the shadow of the vines. Coffin threwhimself down by the Thunder Run men. "Billy Maydew!"
"Yaas, sir."
"What have you got that stick tied to your gun for? Throw it away! Ishould think you'd find that old flintlock heavy enough withoutshouldering a sapling besides!"
Billy regarded with large blue eyes his staff for a young Hercules."'Tain't a mite in my way, lieutenant. I air a-goin' to make a notch onit for every Yank I kill. When we get back to Thunder Run I air a-goin'to hang it over the fireplace. I reckon it air a-goin' to look rightinterestin'. Pap, he has a saplin' marked for b'ar an' wolves, an'gran'pap he has one his pap marked for Indians--"
"Throw it away!" said Coffin sharply. "It isn't regular. Do as I tellyou."
Billy stared. "But I don't want to. It air my stick, an' I air a-goin'to hang it over the fireplace--"
The heat, the sound in front, all things, made Coffin fretful. He rosefrom the fence corner. "Throw that stick away, or I'll put you in theguardhouse! This ain't Thunder Run--and you men have got to learn athing or two! Come now!"
"I won't," said Billy. "An' if 't were Thunder Run, you wouldn't dar'--"
Allan Gold drew himself over the grass and touched the boy's arm. "Lookhere, Billy! We're going into battle in a minute, and you want to bethere, don't you? The lieutenant's right--that oak tree surely will getin your way! Let's see how far you can throw it. There's plenty moresaplings in the woods!"
"Let him alone, Gold," said the lieutenant sharply. "Do as I order you,Billy Maydew!"
Billy rose, eighteen years old, and six feet tall. "If it's jest thesame to you, lieutenant," he said politely, "I'll break it into bitsfirst. Thar are time when I jest hone to feel my hands on somethin'brittle!" He put the thick sapling across his knee like a sword, brokeit in twain, broke in their turn the two halves, and tossed the fourpieces over the fence. "Thar, now! It's did." Moving back to Allan'sside, he threw himself down upon the grass. "When's this hell-firedfightin' goin' to begin? I don't ask anything better, jest at thisminute, than to encounter a rattler!"
The sound ahead swelled suddenly into loud and continuous firing.Apparently Evans had met the turning column. _Fall in, men, fall in!_
The First Brigade rose to its feet, left the friendly fence, and founditself upon a stretch of road, in a dust cloud that neatly capped allprevious ills. At some distance rose the low hill, covered, upon thisside, by a second growth of pines. "That's the Henry Hill," said theguide with the 65th. "The house just this side is the Lewishouse--'Portici,' they call it. The top of the hill is a kind ofplateau, with deep gulleys across it. Nearly in the middle is the WidowHenry's house, and beyond it the house of the free negro Robinson.Chinn's house is on the other side, near Chinn's Branch. It's called theHenry Hill, and Mrs. Henry is old and bedridden. I don't know whatshe'll do, anyway! The hill's most level on top, as I said, but beyondthe Henry House it falls right down, quite steep, to the Warrentont
urnpike. Across that there's marshy ground, and Young's Branch, withthe Stone House upon it, and beyond the branch there's Mathews Hill,just around the branch. Yes, sir, this back side's wooded, but you seethe cleared ground when you get on top."
A bowshot from the wood, the head of the column was met by a secondcourier, a boy from the Alabama River, riding like Jehu, pale withexcitement. "When you get to the top of the hill you'll see! They'rethicker than bees from a sweet gum--they're thicker than bolls in acotton-field! They've got three thousand Regulars, and fifteen thousandof the other kind, and they're cutting Evans to pieces!" He pulledhimself together and saluted. "General Bee's compliments to GeneralJackson, and he is going into action."
"General Jackson's compliments, and I will support him."
The 65th entered the wood. The trees were small--bundles of hard, brightgreen needles aloft on slender trunks, out of which, in the strongsunshine, resin was oozing. They were set well apart, the grass beneathdry and slippery, strewn with cones. The sky was intensely blue, the airhot and without moisture, the scent of the pines strong in the nostril.Another step and the 65th came upon the wounded of Evans's brigade. Aninvisible line joined with suddenness the early morning picture, thetorn and dying mule, the headless driver, to this. Breathless, heated,excited, the 65th swept on, yet it felt the cold air from the cavern. Ithad, of course, seen accidents, men injured in various ways, but neverhad it viewed so many, nor so much blood, and never before had it rushedpast the helpless and the agonizing. There were surgeons andambulances--there seemed to be a table of planks on which the worstcases were laid--the sufferers had help, of course, a little help. ACreole from Bayou Teche lay writhing, shot through the stomach, beneatha pine. He was raving. "Melanie, Melanie, donnez-moi de l'eau! Melanie,Melanie! donnez-moi de l'eau!"
Stragglers were coming over the hilltop--froth and spume thrown from agreat wave somewhere beyond that cover--men limping, men supported bytheir comrades, men gasping and covered with sweat, men livid withnausea, men without arms, men carrying it off with bluster, and men toohonestly frightened for any pretence. A number were legitimately there,wounded, ill, exhausted, useless on the field of battle; others weremalingerers, and some were cowards--cowards for all time, or cowards forthis time only. A minority was voluble. "You all think yo' going to aSunday-school picnic, don't you? Well, you ain't. Just _you_ all waituntil you get to the top of the hill! What are you going to see? You'regoing to see hell's mouth, and the devil wearing blue! We've beenthere--we've been in hell since daybreak--damned if we haven't! Evansall cut to pieces! Bee and Bartow have gone in now. They'll find ithell, jest like we did. Twenty thousand of them dressed in blue." A manbegan to weep. "All cut to pieces. Major Wheat's lying there in a littlepiney wood. He was bleeding and bleeding--I saw him--but I reckon theblood has stopped. And we were all so hungry. I didn't get no breakfast.There's a plateau and the Henry House, and then there's a dip andYoung's Branch, and then there's a hill called the Mathews Hill. We werethere--on the Mathews Hill--we ain't on it now." Two officers appeared,one on foot, the other mounted, both pale with rage. "You'll be on itagain, if you have to be dragged by the heels! Get back there, youdamned, roustabout cowards!" The mounted man laid about him with hissabre; the lieutenant, afoot, wrenched from a strapping fellow hisBelgian musket and applied the stock to the recreant's shoulders. The65th left the clamour, swept onward between the pines, and presently, inthe narrow road, met a braver sort, men falling back, but without panic."Hot as hell, sir, on the other side of the hill! No, we're not running.I'll get the men back. It's just that Sykes was in front of us with hisdamned Regulars. Beg your pardon, general--? General Jackson. I'll getthe men back--damned--blessed--if I don't, sir! Form right here, men!The present's the best time, and here's the best place."
At the crest of the hill the 65th came upon Imboden's battery--theStaunton Artillery--four smoothbore, brass six-pounders, guns, andcaissons drawn by half the proper number of horses--the rest beingkilled--and conducted by wounded, exhausted, powder-grimed and swearingartillerymen. Imboden, in front, was setting the pitch."---- ----! ---- ----! ---- ---- ----!" Jackson checked Little Sorrel andwithered the battery and its captain. "What are you doing here, sir,blaspheming and retreating? Outfacing your God with your back to theenemy! What--"
Imboden, an entirely gallant man, hastened to explain. "Beg pardon,general! Bad habit, I acknowledge, but the occasion excuses--My batteryhas spent the morning, sir, on the Henry Hill, and damn me, if it hasn'tbeen as lonely there as the Ancient Mariner! No support--not a damnedinfantryman in sight for the last half hour! Alone down there by theRobinson House, and Ricketts and Griffin--Regulars by the Lord!--and thedevil knows how many batteries beside playing on us with Parrotts andtwelve-pounder howitzers like all the fountains at Versailles! Theground looks as though it had been rooted by hogs! No support, and noorders, and on the turnpike a bank of blue massing to rush my guns! Andmy ammunition out, and half my horses down--and if General Bee sent meorders to move I never got them!" He stamped upon the ground, wiping theblood from a wound in his head. "_I_ couldn't hold the Henry Hill! _I_couldn't fight McDowell with one battery--no, by God, not even if 't wasthe Staunton Artillery! We had to move out."
Jackson eyed him, unmollified. "I have never seen the occasion, CaptainImboden, that justified profanity. As for support--I will support yourbattery. Unlimber right here."
Imboden unlimbered, placing his guns below the pine wood upon thesummit. The First Brigade wheeled into line to the left. Here it was metby an aide. "General Jackson, hold your troops in reserve until Bee andBartow need support--then give it to them!" The First Brigade deployedin the wood. About the men was still the pine thicket, blazed upon bythe sun, shrilled in by winged legions; before them was the field ofBull Run. A tableland, cut by gullies, furred with knots of pine andoak, held in the middle a flower garden, a few locust trees, and a smallhouse--the Henry House--in which, too old and ill to be borne away tosafety, lay a withered woman, awaiting death. Beyond the house theground fell sharply. At the foot of the hill ran the road, and beyondthe road were the marshy banks of a little stream, and on the other sideof the stream rose the Mathews Hill. Ranged upon this height Rickettsand Griffin and Arnold and many another Federal battery were sendingshrieking shells against the Henry Hill. North and east and west of thebatteries ran long radii of blue, pointed with bright banners, and outof the hollow between the hills came a smoke and noise as of thenethermost pit. There, beneath that sulphurous cloud, the North and theSouth were locked in an embrace that was not of love.