CHAPTER VI. KERNSTOWN
The long winding lines of the two armies spread over a maze of fields,woods and thickets, with here and there a stone wall and scattered lowhills, which could be used as points of strength. Jackson's men, led byable officers, were pushing forward with all their might. The woods, thethickets and the mud nullified to some extent the superior power ofthe Northern artillery, but the rifles were pouring forth shatteringvolleys, many at close range.
Harry felt his horse stagger just after he reached the crest of thehill, but he took no notice of it until a few minutes later, when theanimal began to shiver. He leaped clear just in time, for when theshiver ceased, the horse plunged forward, fell on his side and lay dead.As Harry straightened himself on his feet a bullet went through the brimof his cap, and another clipped his epaulet.
"Those must be western men shooting at you, Harry," said a voice besidehim. "But it could have been worse. You're merely grazed, when you couldhave been hit and hit deep."
It was Langdon, cool and imperturbable, who was speaking. He wasregarding Harry rather quizzically, as the boy mechanically brushed themud from his clothes.
"Force of habit," said Langdon, and then he suddenly grasped Harry andpulled him to his knees. There was a tremendous crash in front of them,and a storm of bullets swept over their heads.
"I saw a Yankee officer give the word, and then a million riflemen rosefrom the bushes and fired straight at us!" shouted Langdon. "You stayhere! See the Invincibles are all about you!"
Harry saw that he had in truth fallen among the Invincibles. There wasSt. Clair, immaculate, a blazing red spot in either cheek, gazing atthe great swarms of riflemen in front. Colonel Leonidas Talbot andLieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, those veteran West Pointers, werestalking up and down in front of their lines, fiercely bidding their mento lie down. But Harry knew that his duty was elsewhere.
"I belong to the general!" he exclaimed. "I must join him!"
Casting one glance of regret at the fallen horse that had served him sowell he rushed toward General Jackson, who with the rest of his staffhad dismounted. The general, showing no emotion or anxiety, was watchingthe doubtful combat.
Along the whole line the battle was deepening. The able West Pointerson the Northern side were hurrying forward fresh troops. Shields himselfwas coming with new battalions. The men from Ohio and the states furtherwest, expert like the Southerners in the use of the rifle, and confidentof victory, were pouring a heavy and unbroken fire upon the thinnerSouthern lines. They, too, knew the value of cover and, cool enough tothink about it, they used every thicket, and grove and ridge that theycould reach.
The roar of the battle was heard plainly in Winchester, and the peopleof the town, although it was now held by the North, wished openly forthe success of the South. The Northern troops, as it happened, nearlyall through the war, were surrounded by people who were against them.The women at the windows and on the house tops looked eagerly for thered flare in the South which should betoken the victorious advance ofJackson, sweeping his enemies before him.
But Jackson was not advancing. All the valor and courage of the South sofar had been in vain. Harry, standing near his commander, and awaitingany order that might be given him, saw new masses of the enemy advancingalong every road and through the fields. The Union colors, held aloft infront of the regiments, snapped defiantly in the wind. And those westernriflemen, from their cover, never ceased to pour showers of bulletsupon the Southern lines. They had already cut a swath of dead, and manywounded were dragging themselves to the rear.
It seemed to Harry, looking over the field, that the battle was lost.The Northern troops were displaying more tenacity than the Southernofficers had expected. Moreover, they were two to one, in strongpositions, and with a much superior artillery. As he looked he saw oneof the Virginia regiments reel back before the attack of much greaternumbers and retreat in some disorder. The victors came on, shoutingin triumph, but in a few minutes their officers rallied them, anotherVirginia regiment rushed to their relief, and the two, united, hurledthemselves upon the advancing enemy. The Union troops were driven backwith great loss, and Harry noticed that the fire from their two greatbatteries was weakening. He could not keep from shouting in joy, but hewas glad that the sound of his voice was drowned in the thunder of thebattle.
General Jackson had no orders for him at present, and Harry watched withextraordinary fascination the battle which was unrolling itself in filmafter film before him. He saw a stone fence running down the center ofa field, and then he saw beyond it a great mass of Northern infantryadvancing with bayonets shining and colors waving. From his own side aregiment was running toward it.
Who would reach the fence first? The pulses in Harry's temple beat sohard that they hurt. He could not take his eyes from that terrible race,a race of human beings, a race of life and death. The sun blazed downon the rival forces as they sped across the field. But the Southernersreached the wall first. Not in vain had Jackson trained his foot cavalryto march faster anywhere than any other troops in the world.
Harry saw the Virginians sink down behind the fence, the crest of whicha moment later blazed with fire for a long distance. He saw the wholefront line of the Northern troops disappear, while those behind werethrown into confusion. The Southerners poured in a second volley beforethey could recover and the whole force broke and retreated. Other troopswere brought up but in the face of everything the Virginians held thefence.
But Shields was an able officer. Moreover he and Jackson had beenthrown together in former years, and he knew him. He divined some of thequalities of Jackson's mind, and he felt that the Southern general, thefield being what it was, was going to push hardest at the center. Heaccumulated his own forces there in masses that increased continually.He had suffered a wound the previous day in a skirmish, and he could notbe at the very front, but he delivered his orders through Kimball, whowas in immediate command upon the field. Five regiments in reserve weresuddenly hurled forward and struck the Confederates a tremendous blow.
Harry saw these regiments emerge from the woods and thickets and he sawthe gray lines reel before them. Jackson, pointing toward this new andfurious conflict, said to Harry:
"Jump on the horse there and tell the officer in command that he muststand firm at all hazards!"
Harry sprang upon a horse not his own, and galloped away. The moment hecame into view the western riflemen began to send bullets toward him.His horse was struck, but went on. Another bullet found him, and then athird, which was mortal. Harry leaped clear of the second horse thathad been killed under him, and ran toward the officer in charge of thestricken troops. But they were retreating already. They moved slowly,but they moved backward.
Harry joined with the officers in their entreaties to the men to stand,but the pressure upon them was too great. General Garnett, the commanderof the Stonewall Brigade, had given an order of his own accord toretreat, and all that part of the line was falling back. The Northernleader, seeing the breach, continually pushed forward fresh troops andmore cannon, while the deadly riflemen in the thickets did more harmthan the great guns.
The Southerners were compelled to fall back. One gun was lost. Jacksonfrom the crest of the hill had seen with amazement the retreat of thefamous Stonewall Brigade that he had once led in person. He gallopedacross the field, reckless of bullets, and fiercely bade Garnett turnand hold his ground. A drummer stood near and Jackson, grasping him bythe shoulder with a firm right hand, fairly dragged him to the crest ofa little hill, and bade him beat the rally.
While Jackson still held him he gave the call to stand and fight. Butthe Southerners could not. The men in blue, intoxicated with victory,pushed forward in thousands and thousands. Their heavy masses overboreall resistance. Jackson, Garnett, Harry and all the officers, youngand old were swept from the field by that flood, crested with fire andsteel. It was impossible to preserve order and cohesion. The brokenregiments were swept back in a confused mass.
Jack
son galloped about, trying to rally his men, and his staff gave allthe help they could. Harry was on foot once more, waving the sword ofwhich he was so proud. But nothing could stay the tremendous pressure ofthe Union army. Their commanders always pushed them forward and alwaysfresh men were coming. Skilled cannoneers sent grape shot, shell andround shot whistling through the Southern ranks. The Northern cavalrywhipped around the Southern flanks and despite the desperate efforts ofAshby, Sherburne, and the others, began to clip off its wings.
Harry often wondered afterward how his life was preserved. It seemedimpossible that he could have escaped such a storm from rifle andcannon, but save for the slight scratches, sustained earlier in theaction, he remained untouched. He did not think of it at the time, onlyof the avalanche that was driving them back. He saw before him a vastred flame, through which bayonets and faces of men showed, ever comingnearer.
Now the North was sure of victory. The shouts of joy ran up and downtheir whole front. The batteries were pushed nearer and nearer, andsent in terrible volleys at short range. The riflemen who had donesuch deadly work rose from the woods and thickets, and rushed forward,loading and firing as they came. The Southern force seemed to be nothingbut a hopeless mass of fugitives.
Anyone save Jackson would have despaired even of saving his army. Buthe dreamed yet of victory. He galloped back for a strong detachment ofVirginians who had not yet come upon the field, but could not get themup in time to strike a heavy blow.
It was apparent even to Harry and all the other young lieutenants thatthe battle was lost. He must have shed tears then, because afterward hefound furrows in the mud and burned gunpowder on his face. The combatnow was not for victory, but for existence. The Southerners fought topreserve the semblance of an army, and it was well for them that theywere valiant Virginians led by a great genius, and dauntless officers.
Stonewall Jackson, in this the only defeat he ever sustained inindependent command, never lost his head for a moment. By giganticexertions he formed a new line at last. The fresher troops covered theshattered regiments. The retreating artillery was posted anew.
Jackson galloped back and forth on Little Sorrel. Everywhere his courageand presence of mind brought the men back from despair to hope. Onceanew was proved the truth of Napoleon's famous maxim that men arenothing, a man everything. The soldiers on the Northern side were asbrave as those on the Southern but they were not led by one of thoseflashing spirits of war which emerge but seldom in the ages, men who inall the turmoil and confusion of battle can see what ought to be doneand who do it.
The beaten Southern army, but a few thousands, now was formed anew fora last stand. A portion of them seized a stone fence, and others tookposition in thick timber. The cavalry of Turner Ashby raged back andforth, seeking to protect the flanks, and in the east, coming shadowsshowed that the twilight might yet protect the South from the last blow.
Harry, in the thick of furious battle, had become separated from hiscommander. He was still on foot and his sword had been broken at thehilt by a bullet, but he did not yet know it. Chance threw him once moreamong the Invincibles. He plunged through the smoke almost into the armsof Langdon.
"And here is our Harry again!" shouted the irrepressible SouthCarolinian. "Stonewall Jackson has lost a battle, but he hasn't lost anarmy. Night and our courage will save us! Here, take this rifle!"
He picked up a loaded rifle which some falling soldier had dropped andthrust it into Harry's hand.
The boy took the rifle and began mechanically to fire and load and fireagain at the advancing blue masses. He resolved himself for a minuteinto a private soldier, and shouted and fired with the rest. Thetwilight deepened and darkened in the east, but the battle did notcease. The Northern leaders, grim and determined men, seeing theirvictory sought to press it to the utmost, and always hurried forwardinfantry, cavalry and artillery. Had the Southern army been commanded byany other than Jackson it would have been destroyed utterly.
Jackson, resourceful and unconquerable, never ceased his exertions.Wherever he appeared he infused new courage into his men. Harry hadseized a riderless horse and was once more in the saddle, following hisleader, taking orders and helping him whenever he could. The Virginianswho had seized the stone fence and the wood held fast. The eye ofJackson was on them, and they could do nothing else. An Ohio and aVirginia regiment on either side lost and retook their colors six timeseach. One of the flags had sixty bullets through it. An Indiana regimentgave way, but reinforced by another from the state rallied and returnedanew to the attack. A Virginia regiment also retreated but was broughtback by its colonel, and fought with fresh courage.
The numerous Northern cavalry forced its way around the Southernflanks, and cut in on the rear, taking many prisoners. Then the horsemenappeared in a great mass on the Southern left, and had not time andchance intervened at the last moment Stonewall Jackson might have passedinto obscurity.
The increasing twilight was now just merging into night, and a woodstretched between the Northern cavalry and the Southern flank. TheNorthern horsemen hesitated, not wishing to become entangled amongtrees and brush in the dark, and in a few minutes the Southern infantry,falling back swiftly after beating off the attacks on their front,passed out of the trap. Sherburne and Funsten, two of Ashby's mostvaliant cavalry leaders, came up with their squadrons, and covered theretreat, fighting off the Northern horsemen as Jackson and his armydisappeared in the woods, and night came over the lost field.
The Southern army retired, beaten, but sullen and defiant. It did notgo far, but stopped at a point where the supply train had been placed.Fires were built and some of the men ate, but others were so muchexhausted that without waiting for food they threw themselves upon theground, and in an instant were fast asleep.
Harry, for the moment, a prey to black despair, followed his general.Only one other officer, a major, was with him. Harry watched himclosely, but he did not see him show any emotion. Little Sorrel likehis master, although he had been under fire a hundred times, had passedthrough the battle without a scratch. Now he walked forward slowly, thereins lying loose upon his neck.
Harry was not conscious of weariness. He had made immense exertions, buthis system was keyed so high by excitement that the tension held firmlyyet a little longer. The night had come on heavy and dark. Behind him hecould hear the fitful sounds of the Northern and Southern cavalrystill skirmishing with each other. Before him he saw dimly the Southernregiments, retreating in ragged lines. It was almost more than he couldstand, and his feelings suddenly found vent in an angry cry.
General Jackson heard him and understood.
"Don't be grieved, my boy," he said quietly. "This is only the firstbattle."
The calm, unboastful courage strengthened Harry anew. If he shouldgrieve how much more should the general who had led in the lost battle,and upon whom everybody would hasten to put the blame! He felt once morethat flow of courage and fire from Jackson to himself, and he felt alsohis splendid fortune in being associated with a man whose acts showedall the marks of greatness. Like so many other young officers, mereboys, he was fast maturing in the furnace of a vast war.
The general ceased to follow the troops, but turned aside into whatseemed to be a thin stretch of forest. But Harry saw that the trees grewin rows and he exclaimed:
"An orchard!"
It seemed to strike Jackson's fancy.
"Well," he said, "an orchard is a good place to sleep in. Can't wemake a fire here? I fear that we shall have to burn some fence railstonight."
Harry and the major--Hawks was his name--hitched the horses, andgathered a heap of dry fence rails. The major set fire to splinters withmatches and, in a few minutes a fine fire was crackling and blazing,taking away the sharp chill of the March night.
Harry saw other fires spring up in the orchard, and he went over to oneof them, where some soldiers were cooking food.
"Give me a piece of meat and bread," he said to a long Virginian.
"Set, Sonny, an' eat with
us!"
"I don't want it for myself."
"Then who in nation are you beggin' fur?"
"For General Jackson. He's sitting over there."
"Thunderation! The gen'ral himself! Here, boy!"
Bearing a big piece of meat in one hand and a big piece of bread in theother Harry returned to Jackson, who had not yet tasted food that day.The general ate heartily, but almost unconsciously. He seemed to be in adeep study. Harry surmised that his thoughts were on the morrow. He hadlearned already that Stonewall Jackson always looked forward.
Harry foraged and obtained more food for himself, and other officersof the staff who were coming up, some bearing slight wounds that theyconcealed. He also secured the general's cloak, which was strapped tohis saddle and insisted upon his putting it on.
The fire was surrounded presently by officers. Major Hawks had laidtogether and as evenly as possible a number of fence rails upon whichJackson was to sleep, but as yet no one was disposed to slumber. Theyhad finished eating, but they remained in a silent and somber circleabout the fire.
Jackson stood up presently and his figure, wrapped in the long cloak wasall dark. The light did not fall upon his face. All the others looked athim. Among them was one of Ashby's young troopers, a bold and recklessspirit. It was a time, too, when the distinction between officers andprivates in the great citizen armies was not yet sharply defined. Andthis young trooper, some spirit of mockery urging him on, stood up andsaid to his general:
"The Yankees didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave Winchester, didthey, general?"
Harry drew a quick, sharp breath, and there was a murmur among theofficers, but Stonewall Jackson merely turned a tranquil look upon thepresumptuous youth. Then he turned it back to the bed of coals and saidin even tones:
"Winchester is a pleasant town to stay in, sir."
The young cavalryman, not abashed at all, continued:
"We heard the Yankees were retreating, but I guess they're retreatingafter us."
Harry half rose and so did several of the older officers, but Jacksonreplied quietly:
"I think I may tell you, young sir, that I am satisfied with theresult."
The audacity of the youthful trooper could not carry him further. Hecaught threatening looks from the officers and slipped away in thedarkness. Silence fell anew around the fire, and Jackson still stood,gazing into the coals. Soon, he turned abruptly, strode away into thedarkness, but came back after a while, lay down on the fence rails andslept soundly.
Harry put four or five rails side by side to protect his body from thecold ground, lay down upon them and threw a cloak over himself. Now herelaxed or rather collapsed completely. The tension that had kept himup so long was gone, and he felt that he could not have risen from therails had he wished. He saw wavering fires and dusky figures besidethem, but sleep came in a few minutes to soothe and heal.
Bye and bye all the army, save the sentinels, slept and the victoriousNorthern army only two or three miles away also slept, feeling that ithad done enough for one day.
Shields that night was sending messages to the North announcing hisvictory, but he was cherishing no illusions. He told how fierce hadbeen the attack, and with what difficulty it had been beaten off, and inWashington, reading well between the lines they felt that another attackand yet others might come from the same source.
Harry sleeping on his bed of fence rails did not dream of theextraordinary things that the little army of Jackson, beaten atKernstown was yet to do. McClellan was just ready to start his greatarmy by sea for the attack on Richmond, when suddenly the forgottenor negligible Jackson sprang out of the dark and fixed himself on hisflank.
The capital, despite victory, was filled with alarm and the Presidentshared it. The veteran Shields knew this man who had led the attack,and he did not seek to hide the danger. The figure of Stonewall Jackson,gigantic and menacing, showed suddenly through the mists. If McClellanwent on to Richmond with the full Northern strength he might launchhimself on Washington.
The great scheme of invasion was put out of joint. Shields, althoughvictorious for the time, could not believe that Jackson would attackwith so small an army unless he expected reinforcements, and he sentswift expresses to bring back a division of 8,000 men which wasmarching to cover Washington. Banks, his superior officer, on the way toWashington, too, heard the news at Harper's Ferry and halted there, andLincoln, detaching a whole corps of nearly 40,000 men from McClellan'sarmy, ordered them to remain at Manassas to protect the capital againstJackson. A dispatch was sent to Banks ordering him to push the valleycampaign with his whole strength.
But when Harry rose the next morning from his fence rails he knewnothing of these things. Nor did anyone else in the Southern army,unless it was Stonewall Jackson who perhaps half-divined them. Harrythought afterward that he had foreseen much when he said to the impudentcavalryman that he was satisfied with the result at Kernstown.
They lingered there a little and then began a retreat, unharrassed bypursuit. Scouts of the enemy were seen by Ashby's cavalry, who hung likea curtain between them and the army, but no force strong enough to doany harm came in sight. Harry had secured another horse and most of hisduty was at the rear, where he was often sent by the general to get thelatest news from Ashby.
He quickly met Sherburne over whose dress difficulties had triumphedat last. His fine cloak, rent in many places, was stained with mud andthere was one large dark spot made by his own blood. His face was lineddeeply by exhaustion and deep disappointment.
"They were too much for us this time, Harry," he said bitterly. "Wecan't beat two to one all the time. How does the general take it?"
"As if it were nothing. He'll be ready to fight again in a few days, andwe must have struck a hard blow anyhow. The enemy are not pursuing."
"That's true," said Sherburne more cheerfully. "Your argument is a goodone."
The army came to a ridge called Rude's Hill and stopped there. Harry wasalready soldier enough to see that it was a strong position. Before itflowed a creek which the melting snows in the mountains had swollen toa depth of eight or ten feet, and on another side was a fork of theShenandoah, also swollen. Here the soldiers began to fortify and preparefor a longer stay while Jackson sent for aid.
Harry was not among the messengers for help. Jackson had learned hisgreat ability as a scout, and now he often sent him on missions ofobservation, particularly with Captain Sherburne, to whom St. Clair andLangdon were also loaned by Colonel Talbot. Thus the three were togetherwhen they rode with Sherburne and a hundred men a few days after theirarrival at the ridge.
They were well wrapped in great coats, because the weather, afterdeceiving for a while with the appearance of spring, had turned coldagain. The enemy's scouts and spies were keeping back, where they couldblow on their cold fingers or walk a while to restore the circulation totheir half frozen legs.
Sherburne was his neat and orderly self again and St. Clair was fullyhis equal. Langdon openly boasted that he was going to have a dressingcontest between them for large stakes as soon as the war was over. Butall the young Southerners were in good spirits now. They had learnedof the alarm caused in the North by Kernstown, and that a third ofMcClellan's army had been detached to guard against them. Nor had Banksand Shields yet dared to attack them.
"There's what troubles Banks," said Sherburne, pointing with his saberto a towering mass of mountains which rose somber and dark in the verycenter of the Shenandoah Valley. "He doesn't know which side of theMassanuttons to take."
Harry looked up at these peaks and ridges, famous now in the minds ofall Virginians, towering a half mile in the air, clothed from base tosummit with dense forest of oak and pine, although today the crests werewrapped in snowy mists. They cut the Shenandoah valley into two smallervalleys, the wider and more nearly level one on the west. Only a singleroad by which troops could pass crossed the Massanuttons, and that roadwas held by the cavalry of Ashby.
"If Banks comes one way and he proves too stron
g for us we can crossover to the other," said Sherburne. "If he divides his force, marchinginto both valleys, we may beat one part of his army, then pass themountain and beat the other."
Sherburne had divined aright. It was the mighty mass of the Massanuttonsthat weighed upon Banks. As he looked up at the dark ridges and mistycrests his mind was torn by doubts. His own forces, great in numberthough they were, were scattered. Fremont to his right on the slopesof the Alleghanies had 25,000 men; there were other strong detachmentsunder Milroy and Schenck, and he had 17,000 men under his own eye. So hewas hesitating while the days were passing and Jackson growing stronger.
"I suppose the nature of the country helps us a lot," said Harry as helooked up at the Massanuttons, following Sherburne's pointing saber.
"It does, and we need help," said Sherburne. "Even as it is they wouldhave been pushing upon us if it hadn't been for the cavalry and theartillery. Every time a detachment advanced we'd open up on it with amasked battery from the woods, and if pickets showed their noses tooclose horsemen were after them in a second. We've had them worried todeath for days and days, and when they do come in force Old Jack willhave something up his sleeve."
"I wonder," said Harry.