But you know, Tom, they was gloomy places, them winter camps. There was never 'nuff to do, that was the way I felt. And there was a power of sickness 'mong the men. We'd ride to a camp, and as we came near I could often smell if'n there was sickness in it. The main trouble was the everlasting shortage of food, and there the horses and mules suffered worse'n the men. They starved. And then in cold weather the men'd be freezing and shivering. They hadn't 'nuff warm clothes for sticking around doing little or nothing in a frost. They hadn't even boots, a lot of 'em.
Gosh sakes! It's better to be laying down full of a good feed, ain't it, in a clean, dry stable in summer, than letting yourself live through times like that again? I'm going to have a drink and drop off to sleep. You jump up in the crib, Tom, and settle down. I guess them dad-burn rats'll be glad to forget 'bout you for a while.
XVII
Early May, 1864. The Confederacy is undone and its cause doomed. Irreplaceable losses in numbers--which were always inferior--not only of men but also of horses; shortage of boots, clothing and ammunition; lack of means to replace worn-out artillery and small arms; near-starvation, owing to a grossly defective commissariat, itself dependent upon the economy of a ruined country--these make up the hopeless prospect. Yet there is no will to capitulate. On the contrary, the Army of Northern Virginia still believe themselves superior to the enemy.
The hope, when it existed, was that the North, though certainly unconquerable by force of arms, would become weary of continual casualties and the strain of the war, and rather than continue to oppose the indomitable South would desist and agree to a negotiated peace. That this has not taken place--that the North still matches the South in determination--is due in large part to the political skill and pertinacity of a single man, President Abraham Lincoln. If there is one imponderable that has tipped the balance towards continuation of the war until the Confederacy is overthrown, it is the will of the President. Never wavering from his conviction that the Union must at all costs be preserved, Lincoln, patient, resolute and adroit, is proving himself an adversary more formidable than any of the Federal generals. Rather less than two months ago, in March, 1864, he appointed General Ulysses S. Grant to the command of the Union armies.
Grant himself is commanding in the field the reorganized Army of the Potomac, now increased in numbers to a dire 140,000. His scheme for defeating the Confederacy can be expressed in one word: attrition. If the Federals lose ten men for every Confederate soldier killed or otherwise put out of action, this, maintains Grant, is no more than they can afford. The defiance of the South is to be broken by sheer force of numbers. With this bloody horseman of the apocalypse is to ride another--Famine. All fertile land, all crops, fruit trees, pasture, barns, byres and holdings will be laid waste by the advancing Union forces; all sheep, cattle and pigs seized. During April, 1864, before Grant's offensive has yet begun, Lee has written to President Davis, "I cannot see how we can operate with our present supplies." Yet far greater privation, both for soldiers and civilians, is to follow. Grant's design is to hammer continuously against the enemy and his resources until by sheer carnage and devastation he is forced into submission. Lee's troops are acknowledged an army of hard and experienced veterans, an instrument sharpened to a perfect edge. "You turn its flanks--well, its flanks are made to be turned. All that we reckon as gained is loss of life inflicted."
It is no longer practicable for the Army of Northern Virginia to pursue Lee's earlier strategy' of offensive maneuver at a distance from Richmond, or to constrain the enemy to conform to his movements. In 1863, at the close of the Gettysburg campaign, he formally offered his resignation to President Davis, but this was unhesitatingly refused. Lee himself is a man of straightforward, unaffected and somewhat uncompromising character, adhering above all to a simple concept of duty. "Private and public life," he once wrote, "are subject to the same rules; and truth and manliness will carry you through the world much better than 'policy,' or 'tact,' or 'expediency,' or any other word that was ever devised to conceal a deviation from a straight line." General Lee, though as a soldier he must now foresee the outcome, will continue to carry out his appointed duty.
This spirit, by one means and another--not least the force of example, for the captain of this ruined band is much among the men--has infused the entire army of about 64,000 that now faces Grant across the Rapidan. Officers and men have a strong will to continue to fight--with barely the means, it would seem. Under Lee's command they have indeed been forged into soldiers: resourceful, adept and habituated to war to a degree seldom if ever paralleled. The formidability of this army has increased in proportion to their hardships.
"The retreat of a great general," said Carl von Clausewitz, "should resemble that of a wounded lion." The May leaves are green on the dense oak, hazel and brush of the wilderness--that wilderness where Jackson was mortally wounded and the battle of Chancellorsville was won; the redbud is over and the flowers of spring are in bloom. A wilderness, trackless and in places almost impassable, with visibility often down to a few yards, is a good place for a wounded lion; a good place for a general who knows his artillery inferior to the enemy's; a good place for those determined to cost the enemy very dear.
Hey, there, Tom. Come on in! Nights turning sharper, ain't they, these last few days? Soon be midwinter. For goodness' sakes, what you got there? That's no rat! Oh, a chipmunk? It's dead, ain't it? You killed it? Poor little fella, I don't see how a chipmunk's going to do us no harm in stables. You've been out prowling in the woods, I guess, han't you? He was a bit slow with the cold and you natcherly grabbed him. I wonder he was out at all. 'Nother day or two and he'd have found hisself a hidey-hole and been asleep for the winter. Well, now you've brung him in I guess you'd better settle down and eat him.
We was out in the woods, too, s'afternoon, Marse Robert and me. 'Twas the old road to the Baths we was riding along, as usual, although these days we seldom go all that far. Marse Robert--well, he don't 'pear to like riding as far as he used to, and he gets tired quicker. Not surprisin', is it, after all him and me have done together? Come to that, I don't know that I always feel all that much of a colt myself, though I can still go. I don't know whether I'd want to do one of them night marches again, though, through the wind and rain. Stopping, starting, uncertainty, confusion--they're the things take it out of you.
What was it I started telling you? Oh, 'bout s'afternoon. Well, you know, part of that road to the Baths goes through a pretty thick stretch of woods, and we was right in the middle of this when we come up on a real plain-looking old fella riding a ways ahead of us. His horse gave me a nice, friendly nicker and I answered back. Then, when we got close, he said, "You're Traveller, ain't you? I seed you often, back in the old Army days."
Well, 'course, in them days Marse Robert and me was used to seein' more horses'n there's stars in a night sky, so I jest nuzzled him friendly-like and said I was glad to meet up with him again. But meanwhile his master, who anyone could have told for an old soldier, reined in and said, "General Lee, I'm powerful glad to see you, and I feel like cheering you."
Marse Robert evidently didn't recognize him personally, but I remembered him all right, even if I didn't his horse. I recollected Marse Robert speaking to him and three-four others that night on the river-bank in the rain, telling 'em the crossing was going fine and 'twas all thanks to fellas like them. Anyway, now he said he was real glad to see him, same as he was always glad to see any of his old soldiers, but he figured there'd be no sense in cheering, seeing as how jest the two of them was alone in these here woods. But that didn't stop the old soldier none. He offs with his hat jest the same and waves it over his head, shouting, "Hurrah for General Lee! Hurrah for General Lee!"
'Warn't much Marse Robert could do, 'ceptin' to salute him and ride on. And that's what we did. But for a considerable time after, we went on hearing the fella behind us, yelling "Hurrah for General Lee!" till we was a ways off down the road.
Let's see, I 'member I was telli
ng you, last time you spent the night in here, 'bout the life in camp that winter after we crossed back over the river in the night. But I been thinking since then, I don't reckon I really said 'nuff, Tom, to make you realize jest how hard life was for the Army horses and mules during them months. As I remember it, the corn and hay got less and less till a lot of us was down to eating straw and glad to get even that. I'll tell you this: me, myself, I sometimes used to gnaw the bark off'n trees when I was out exercising with Dave-- and he didn't stop me--or when I thought Marse Robert was too busy talking to people to notice. And I know both Lucy and Ajax done the same. Ajax told me that one day, when he was hitched up outside some cottage, he ate a tidy piece off'n the hedge, although, bein' winter, 'twas pretty well all sticks and no leaves. I seed Joker, one day, eat a poke he seed a-laying on the ground--maybe it had some crumbs in it.
And we never seemed to get ary fresh horses sent to us. Skylark told me one time that Jine-the-Cavalry had gotten fair desperate for horses, and that a lot o' his men, who'd once been so proud and particular, was ready to ride 'most anything on four legs if only they could get it. But you see, Tom, an Army's horses are more, much more'n its cavalry. You gotta have wagons; you gotta be able to shift the guns. I thought I noticed, towards the end of that winter, that we had fewer guns. I could have been wrong, of course, but if I was right, it must 'a been on 'count of we had fewer horses to pull 'em.
I know Marse Robert felt the strain something terrible. Actually, I knowed it better'n anyone, 'cause although he never showed it when he was talking to the men, he often used to talk to me when we was out alone together. "Oh, Traveller," he said to me once't, when we'd stopped at a creek for me to have a drink, "it's too much--it's too much for one man!" I wanted to tell him I knowed we was going to beat the enemy; that I'd knowed it ever since the day when we'd won the battle in the forest, and the fellas brung that passel of Blue men up to him and said they'd surrendered. But I had to admit to myself that I'd never realized how hard 'twas going to be to finish the job.
Well, the spring came at last, and warmer weather with it. I remember how one day Marse Robert and me rode a matter of ten mile or thereabouts to review Old Pete's lot. Old Pete had been away from us all the winter, but now he'd brung his fellas back, they certainly left Marse Robert and me with no doubts they was glad to see us again. After the review, when they'd broken ranks, hundreds of 'em came a-crowding round us. They was laughing and cheering and laying their hands on me and on the stirrups and Marse Robert's boots--anything of ours that they could touch. I remember thinking, I'll lay the Blue men don't feel like this 'bout their generals. Marse Robert, he was taking all the stretched-out hands he could reach, and saying, "Bless you, my men; bless you; thank you!" Even Old Pete seemed kind of-- well, stirred, and 'twarn't like him to show that sort of feeling, I'll tell you. I didn't get no real chance to talk to Hero--only a few moments-- but I got the notion that they'd been having what you'd call an adventurous time.
'Twas only a day or two after that review that we went up the mountain again--that Clark's Mountain, with the signal station on it, that I well remembered going up two summers before, when we'd watched the Blue men on the move down below us. They was there again--I could see their tents, far off--and Marse Robert spent a long time looking at them and talking with the headquarters officers. So I guessed we'd be after 'em soon 'nuff, for sure.
I was right, too. 'Twas actually two days later when our Army set out. I knowed the road well 'nuff; 'twas the road that led into the wilderness--them same tangled-up woods where we'd beat the Blue men to pieces. Marse Robert and me was going in front, 'long with Red Shirt and two-three of his commanders. 'Twas clear, sunny weather-- jest like it had been the year before--and I was feeling fine. It's funny; you do sometimes, even when you know there's going to be a battle. I think this time it may have been 'cause there was no gunfire. That always worries horses, y'know. I only wished Little Sorrel and Cap-in-His-Eyes had been with us. I still missed Sorrel--missed him all the time.
We didn't go far that first day--maybe twelve mile. But any horse could tell we was looking for the enemy. 'Course, I was an old soldier by now--older'n most in the length of time I'd been with Marse Robert--and I knowed all the signs. Horsemen kept galloping up from out the woods in front, talking to Marse Robert and pointing this way and that. Marse Robert'd ask them questions, sort of sharp and serious, and talk to Red Shirt, and then like as not he'd send one of the majors off to carry a message somewheres else. 'Twas clear 'nuff the enemy was blundering around in them woods--our woods--and we was going to catch 'em in there.
All the same, we didn't catch 'em that day. We came to a little village I remembered--we'd been there in some fighting during the winter, and real cold it was, too--and there we camped for the night all 'mong the trees. 'Twas pretty late at night--I hadn't been unsaddled till late; I s'pose 'cause Marse Robert reckoned he might be off again-- and Joker and me and one or two more was making the most of 'bout half a feed of corn each, when I seed a cavalryman ride in and dismount from a horse I knowed. 'Twas Dancer, and he was picketed right by us.
We asked him what was the news. He told us Jine-the-Cavalry and his 'uns was out a fair way ahead in the Wilderness, and they'd been keeping close to the enemy and watching 'em on the march.
They crossed the river," said Dancer, "and now they're trying to go straight down through these here woods and out t'other side. General Stuart's idea is that we ought to attack 'em soon as we can, while they're all snarled up among the trees."
"Haven't they got a road?" I asked.
"It's precious little use to them," says Dancer. "There's thousands of'em--men and wagons--all bunched up together. My hooves, though, they've got some cavalry! Great, sleek horses--you can smell the oats in 'em half a mile off!"
Well, seemed like Jine-the-Cavalry's news appealed to Marse Robert a whole heap. When we set off at dawn next morning, he was real cheerful. Jine-the-Cavalry hisself had ridden back out of the forest, and him and Red Shirt set out with Marse Robert, straight long the road into the thick of the wilderness.
Now I know you go out into the woods round here quite a bit, Tom, prowlin' around and hunting--poor little chipmunks, and squirrels, too, I reckon. But all the same I'd best try and give you some idea of what this here Wilderness was like, 'cause it sure warn't like no other battlefield I'd ever been on--not even like the one the year before, when Cap-in-His-Eyes and Sorrel had gone for good. This place where we was advancing was mostly pine and oak, each in big, wide patches, with a whole lot of underbrush. There was great thickets of brush-- places where men couldn't hardly force their way, let alone see through or get guns or horses through. Fellas could split up from others and lose 'em in less'n a minute and have a job to find 'em again. Soldiers usually fight in lines, you know, but here there was no more chance of fighting in lines than what there was of plowing. And at night--well, at night you might as well have been blindfolded, like I've once't or twice't seed done to nervous horses to lead 'em past something they was afeared of. Often, the men didn't know which way they was s'posed to be facing for to fight. I figure a lot of 'em shot fellas on their own side, and so did the enemy, too. I heared tell afterwards of men going out a few yards to get water and finding they'd landed theirselves in enemy hands. And 'course there was snakes and poison ivy and all manner of things, and a man in the dark could poke his eye out on a pointed stick. This was the place where Marse Robert figured we could give the enemy a licking. In fact, I've never felt him so eager for battle.
We didn't have to look for it long, neither. We'd set out in the same direction as the day before, and passed a place where we'd entrenched and fought during the winter. We was going along a road not much wider'n a cow path, but each side of it was trees thick as hay in a crib, with jest little bitty clearings here and there. The horsemen had been coming and going all morning, and it must 'a been 'bout midday, I s'pose, when we-all heared heavy firing up in the woods ahead. Marse Robert acted like he
usually did--lit out and rode ahead, and Red Shirt and Jine-the-Cavalry with him. But we never come on no fighting, not in two-three hours.
We'd turned off the track, I remember, into a clearing and up a little nothin' of a hill with trees, where I guess Marse Robert thought he might be able to see anything there was to see without being spotted hisself. Him and the others had dismounted and they was all a-talking together, when all of a sudden a whole line of Blue men come out from among the pines, only jest a bit of a ways ahead and below us. They was there maybe a minute before they disappeared again, but 'twas 'nuff to show we'd gotten real close to the fighting we'd been looking for.
Marse Robert had hardly had time to give some orders to Red Shirt when a terrible racket broke out from ahead of us--firing, yelling-- yeah, and a gun or two. The trees was so thick none of us couldn't see nothing, but 'twas plain that this was what they call an attack in force.
That attack went on all the rest of the afternoon. Me and Marse Robert was going best as we could 'mong the trees, moving troops, giving orders and hearing reports. Those people couldn't shift us, and they must 'a lost a chance of men a-trying. It had come on dark 'fore the firing finally stopped. I'd had no water--we'd been too busy--and I still remember stopping off by a little creek for one of the best drinks I've ever had. While I had my head down, a courier come up to us, but he had to wait. Marse Robert wouldn't let him interrupt my drink. I figured I'd earned it right 'nuff, so I jest took my time.
That night--well, Tom, you never seed sech a mess in all your born days. We rode around to speak to as many officers and men as we could, but the truth was that both sides was jest 'bout lost astray--the fellas hardly knowed up from down. And in them tangles the enemy might be anywheres. Even to make a noise in the dark, jest a-pushing through the brush, might be 'nuff to make some fella loose off at you. We pretty soon gave it up and came back. Headquarters warn't hardly no distance at all behind the line that was being held by Red Shirt's bunch. You could hear the enemy out there in the dark, plain as plain.