Part 26 (1/2)
Emerging from this wood came now a Federal line of battle. It came with pomp and circ.u.mstance. The sun shone on a thousand bayonets; bright colours tossed in the breeze, drums rolled and bugles blew. Kimball, commanding in s.h.i.+elds's absence, had divined the Confederate intention.
He knew that the man they called Stonewall Jackson meant to turn his right, and he began to ma.s.s his regiments, and he sent for Sullivan from the left.
The 23d and 37th Virginia eyed the on-coming line and eyed the stone fence. ”That's good cover!” quoth a hunter from the hills. ”We'd a long sight better have it than those fellows!--s.h.!.+ the colonel's speaking.”
Fulkerson's speech was a shout, for there had arisen a deafening noise of artillery. ”Run for your lives, men--toward the enemy! Forward, and take the stone fence!”
The two regiments ran, the Federal line of battle ran, the stone cover the prize. As they ran the grey threw forward their muskets and fired.
That volley was at close range, and it was discharged by born marksmen.
The grey fired again; yet closer. Many a blue soldier fell; the colour-bearer pitched forward, the line wavered, gave back. The charging grey reached and took the wall. It was good cover. They knelt behind it, laid their musket barrels along the stones, and fired. The blue line withstood that volley, even continued its advance, but a second fusillade poured in their very faces gave them check at last. In disorder, colours left upon the field, they surged back to the wood and to the cover of a fence at right angles with that held by the Confederates. Now began upon the left the fight of the stone wall--hours of raging battle, of high quarrel for this barrier. The regiments composing the grey centre found time to cheer for Fulkerson; the rumour of the fight reached the right where Ashby's squadron held the pike.
Jackson himself came on Little Sorrel, looked at the wall and the line of men, powder grimed about the lips, plying the ramrods, shouldering the muskets, keeping back Tyler's regiments, and said ”Good! good!”
Across a mile of field thundered an artillery duel, loud and prolonged.
The blue had many guns; the grey eighteen in action. There were indeed but seventeen, for a Tredegar iron gun was disabled in crossing the meadow. The blue were the stronger cannon, modern, powerful. The grey were inferior there; also the grey must reach deeper and deeper into caisson and limber chest, must cast anxious backward glances toward ordnance wagons growing woefully light. The fire of the blue was extremely heavy; the fire of the grey as heavy as possible considering the question of ammunition. Rockbridge worked its guns in a narrow clearing dotted with straw stacks. A section under Lieutenant Poague was sent at a gallop, half a mile forward, to a point that seemed of vantage. Here the unlimbering guns found themselves in infantry company, a regiment lying flat, awaiting orders. ”h.e.l.lo, 65th!” said the gunners.
”Wish people going to church at home could see us!”
A sh.e.l.l fell beside the howitzer and burst with appalling sound. The gun was blown from position, and out of the smoke came a fearful cry of wounded men. ”O G.o.d!--O G.o.d!” The smoke cleared. All who had served that gun were down. Their fellows about the six-pounder, the other gun of the section, stood stupefied, staring, their lips parted, sponge staff or rammer or lanyard idle in their hands. A horse came galloping. An aide of Jackson's--Sandy Pendleton it was said--leaped to the ground. He was joined by Richard Cleave. The two came through the ring of the wounded and laid hold of the howitzer. ”Mind the six-pounder, Poague! We'll serve here. Thunder Run men, three of you, come here and help!”
They drew the howitzer in position, charged it, and fired. In a very few moments after the horror of the sh.e.l.l, she was steadily sending canister against the great Parrott on the opposite hill. The six-pounder beside her worked as steadily. A surgeon came with his helpers, gathered up the wounded, and carried them beneath a whistling storm of shot and sh.e.l.l to a field hospital behind the ridge.
Out of the woods came fresh regiments of the enemy. These bore down upon the guns and upon the 5th Virginia now forming behind them. Poague's section opened with canister at one hundred and fifty yards. All the Valley marksmen of the 5th let fall the lids of their cartridge boxes, lifted their muskets, and fired. The blue withstood the first volley and the second, but at the third they went back to the wood. An order arrived from McLaughlin of the Rockbridge, ”Lieutenant Poague back to the straw stacks!” The battery horses, quiet and steadfast, were brought from where they had stood and cropped the gra.s.s, the guns were limbered up, Jackson's aide and the men of the 65th fell back, the six-pounder shared its men with the howitzer, off thundered the guns. There was a stir in the 65th. ”Boys, I heard say that when those fellows show again, we're going to charge!”
The battle was now general--Fulkerson on the left behind the stone wall, Garnett in the centre, the artillery and Burk with three battalions on the right. Against them poured the regiments of Kimball and Tyler, with Sullivan coming up. The sun, could it have been seen through the rolling smoke, would have showed low in the heavens. The musketry was continuous, and the sound of the cannon shook the heart of Winchester three miles away.
The 65th moved forward. Halfway up the slope, its colonel received an ugly wound. He staggered and sank. ”Go on! go on, men! Fine hunt! Don't let the stag--” The 65th went on, led by Richard Cleave.
Before it stretched a long bank of springtime turf, a natural breastwork seized by the blue soldiers as the stone fence on the left had been taken by Fulkerson. From behind this now came a line of leaping flame.
Several of the grey fell, among them the colour-bearer. The man nearest s.n.a.t.c.hed the staff. Again the earthwork blazed and rang, and again the colour-bearer fell, pitching forward, shot through the heart. Billy Maydew caught the colours. ”Thar's a durned sharpshooter a-settin' in that thar tree! Dave, you pick him off.”
Again the bank blazed. A western regiment was behind it, a regiment of hunters and marksmen. Moreover a fresh body of troops could be seen through the smoke, hurrying down from the tall brown woods. The grey line broke, then rallied and swept on. The breastwork was now but a few hundred feet away. A flag waved upon it, the staff planted in the soft earth. Billy, moving side by side with Allan Gold, clutched closer the great red battle-flag with the blue cross. His young face was set, his eyes alight. Iron-sinewed he ran easily, without panting. ”I air a-goin',” he announced, ”I air a-goin' to put this here one in the place of that thar one.”
”'T isn't going to be easy work,” said Allan soberly. ”What's the use of ducking, Steve Dagg? If a bullet's going to hit you it's going to hit you, and if it isn't going to hit you it isn't--”
A minie ball cut the staff of the flag in two just above Billy's head.
He caught the colours as they came swaying down, Allan jerked a musket from a dead man's grasp, and together he and Billy somehow fastened the flag to the bayonet and lifted it high. The line halted under a momentary cover, made by the rising side of a hollow rimmed by a few young locust trees. Cleave came along it. ”Close ranks!--Men, all of you! that earthwork must be taken. The 2d, the 4th, and the 33d are behind us looking to see us do it. General Jackson himself is looking.
_Attention! Fix bayonets! Forward! Charge!_”
Up out of the hollow, and over the field went the 65th in a wild charge.
The noise of a thousand seas was in the air, and the smoke of the bottomless pit. The yellow flashes of the guns came through it, and a blur of colour--the flag on the bank. On went their own great battle-flag, slanting forward as Billy Maydew ran. The bank flamed and roared. A bullet pa.s.sed through the fleshy part of the boy's arm. He looked sideways at the blood. ”Those durned bees sure do sting! I air a-goin' to plant this here flag on that thar bank, jest the same as if 't was a hop pole in Christianna's garden!”
Fulkerson fought on grimly by the stone wall; Garnett and the other Stonewall regiments struggled with desperation to hold the centre, the artillery thundered from every height. The 65th touched the earthwork.
Cleave mounted first; Allan followed, then Billy and the Thunder Run men, the regiment pouring after. Hot was the welcome they got, and fierce was their answering grip. In places men could load and fire, but bayonet and musket b.u.t.t did much of the work. There was a great clamour, the acrid smell of powder, the indescribable taste of battle. The flag was down; the red battle-flag with the blue cross in its place. There was a surge of the western regiment toward it, a battle around it that strewed the bank and the shallow ditch beneath with many a blue figure, many a grey. Step by step the grey pushed the blue back, away from the bank, back toward the wood arising, shadowy, from a base of eddying smoke.
Out of the smoke, suddenly, came hurrahing. It was deep and loud, issuing from many throats. The western regiment began to hurrah, too.
”They're coming to help! They're coming to help! Indiana, ain't it?--Now, you rebs, you go back on the other side!”
The blue wave from the wood came to reinforce the blue wave in front.
The 65th struggled with thrice its numbers, and there was a noise from the wood which portended more. Back, inch by inch, gave the grey, fighting desperately. They loaded, fired, loaded, fired. They used bayonet and musket stock. The blue fell thick, but always others came to take their places. The grey fell, and the ranks must close with none to reinforce. In the field to the left the 4th and the 33d had their hands very full; the 2d was gone to Fulkerson's support, the 5th and the 42d were not yet up. Out of the wood came a third huzzahing blue line.