Part 33 (1/2)
That evening the Army of the Valley slept in emerald meadows beside Meechum's River in Albemarle. Coming down the mountain it had caught distant glimpses of white spirals of smoke floating from the overworked engines of the Virginia Central; and now it lay near a small country station, and there on the switch were empty cars and empty cars!--_cars to go to Richmond on_. The army groaned and got its supper, took out its pipe and began, though reluctantly enough, to regard the situation with a philosophic eye. What was done was done! The Blue Ridge lay between it and the Valley, and after all Old Joe must be wanting soldiers pretty badly down at Richmond! The landscape was lovely, the evening tranquil and sweet. The army went to bed early, and went in a frame of mind approaching resignation. This was Sat.u.r.day evening; Old Jack would rest to-morrow.
Sunday dawned clear and sweet. Pleasant morning--no drill, and light camp duties--coffee, hot biscuits, good smoke--general Sunday atmosphere--bugler getting ready to sound ”Church!”--regimental chaplains moving toward chosen groves--”Old Hundred” in the air.--”Oh, come on and go! All the people are going at home.”
And, after all, no one in the Army of the Valley went to church! The bugler blew another call, the chaplains stopped short in their sedate stride, short as if they had been shot, ”Old Hundred” was not sung.
_Break camp--Break camp!_
The regiments, marching down to Meechum's Station, were of one mind.
_Old Jack was losing his religion._ Mana.s.sas on Sunday--Kernstown on Sunday--forced marches on Sunday--Sunday train to Richmond. Language failed.
There were long lines of cars, some upon the main track, others on the siding. The infantry piled in, piled atop. Out of each window came three or four heads. ”You fellows on the roof, you're taller'n we are! Air we the first train? That's good, we'll be the first to say howdy to McClellan. You all up there, don't dangle your legs that-a-way! You're as hard to see through as Old Jack!”
Company after company filed into the poor old cars that were none too large, whose ante-bellum days were their best days, who never had time now to be repaired or repainted, or properly cleaned. Squad by squad swung itself up to the cindery roof and sat there in rows, feet over the edge, the central s.p.a.ce between heaped with haversacks and muskets.
”2d--4th--5th--65th--Jerusalem! the whole brigade's going on this train!
Another's coming right behind--why don't they wait for it? Crowding gentlemen in this inconsiderate fas.h.i.+on! Oh, ain't it hot? Wish I was going to Niagara, to a Know-Nothing Convention! Our train's full.
There's the engine coming down the siding! You all on top, can you see the artillery and the wagons?”
”Yes. Way over there. Going along a road--nice shady road. Rockbridge's leading--”
”That's the road to Rockfish Gap.”
”Rockfish Gap? Go 'way! You've put your compa.s.s in the wrong pocket.
Rockfish Gap's back where we came from. Look out!”
The backing engine and the waiting cars came together with a grinding b.u.mp. An instant's pause, a gathering of force, a mighty puffing and, slow and jerkily, the cars began to move. The ground about Meechum's Station was grey with soldiers--part of the Stonewall, most of Burk's and Fulkerson's brigades, waiting for the second train and the third train and their turn to fill the cars. They stood or leaned against the station platform, or they sat upon the warm red earth beneath the locust trees, white and sweet with hanging bloom. ”Good-bye, boys! See you in Richmond--Richmond on the James! Don't fight McClellan till we get there! That engine's just pulling them beyond the switch. Then that one below there will back up and hitch on at the eastern end.--That's funny!” The men sitting on the warm red earth beneath the locust trees sprang to their feet. ”That train ain't coming back! Before the Lord, they're going _west_!”
Back to Meechum's Station, from body and top of the out-going train floated wild cheering. ”Staunton! We're going to Staunton! We're going back to the Valley! We're going home! We're going to get there first!
We're going to whip Banks! We've got Old Jack with _us_. You all hurry up. Banks thinks we've gone to Richmond, but we ain't! _Yaaaih!
Yaaaaihhh! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaaih!_”
At Meechum's Station, beneath the locust trees, it was like bees swarming. Another train was on the main track, the head beautifully, gloriously westward! ”Staunton! Good-bye, you little old Richmond, we ain't going to see you this summer!--Feel good? I feel like a shouting Methodist! My grandmother was a shouting Methodist. I feel I'm going to shout--anyhow, I've got to sing--”
A chaplain came by with a beaming face. ”Why don't we all sing, boys?
I'm sure I feel like it. It's Sunday.”
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord--
In Staunton it had been a day of indigo gloom. The comfortable Valley town, fair-sized and prosperous, with its pillared court house, its old hotel, its stores, its up and down hill streets, its many and shady trees, its good brick houses, and above the town its quaintly named mountains--Staunton had had, in the past twelve months, many an unwonted throb and thrill. To-day it was in a condition of genuine, dull, steady anxiety, now and then shot through by a fiercer pang. There had been in town a number of sick and convalescent soldiers. All these were sent several days before, eastward, across the mountains. In the place were public and military stores. At the same time, a movement was made toward hiding these in the woods on the other side of the twin mountains Betsy Bell and Mary Grey. It was stopped by a courier from the direction of Swift Run Gap with a peremptory order. _Leave those stores where they are._ Staunton grumbled and wondered, but obeyed. And now the evening before, had come from Port Republic, eighteen miles toward the Blue Ridge, a breathless boy on a breathless horse, with tidings that Jackson was at last and finally gone from the Valley--had crossed at Brown's Gap that morning! ”Called to Richmond!” groaned the crowd that accompanied the boy on his progress toward official Staunton. ”Reckon Old Joe and General Lee think we're small potatoes and few in a row. They ain't, either of them, a Valley man. Reckon this time to-morrow Banks and Milroy'll saunter along and dig us up! There's old Watkin's bugle! Home Guard, come along and drill!”
Staunton did little sleeping that Sat.u.r.day night. Jackson was gone--Ashby with him. There was not a Confederate vedette between the town and Banks at Harrisonburg--the latter was probably moving down the pike this very night, in the dark of the moon. Soldiers of Edward Johnson--tall Georgians and 44th Virginians--had been in town that Sat.u.r.day, but they two were gone, suddenly recalled to their camp, seven miles west, on the Parkersburg road. Scouts had reported to Johnson that Milroy was concentrating at M'Dowell, twenty miles to the westward, and that Schenck, sent on by Fremont, had joined or would join him. Any hour they might move eastward on Staunton. Banks--Fremont--Milroy--three armies, forty thousand men--all converging on Staunton and its Home Guard, with the intent to make it even as Winchester! Staunton felt itself the mark of the G.o.ds, a mournful Rome, an endangered Athens, a tottering Carthage.
Sunday morning, clear and fine, had its church bells. The children went to Sunday School, where they learned of Goliath and the brook Hebron, and David and his sling. At church time the pews were well filled--chiefly old men and women and young boys. The singing was fervent, the prayers were yet more so. The people prayed very humbly and heartily for their Confederacy, for their President and his Cabinet, and for Congress, for their Capital, so endangered, for their armies and their generals, for every soldier who wore the grey, for their blocked ports, for New Orleans, fallen last week, for Norfolk that the authorities said must be abandoned, for Johnston and Magruder on the Peninsula--at that very hour, had they known it, in grips with Hanc.o.c.k at Williamsburg.
Benediction p.r.o.nounced, the congregation came out of the churchyards in time to greet with delight, not unmixed with a sense of the pathos of it, certain just arrived reinforcements. Four companies of Virginia Military Inst.i.tute cadets, who, their teachers at their head, had been marched down for the emergency from Lexington, thirty-eight miles away.
Flushed, boyish, trig, grey and white uniformed, with s.h.i.+ning muskets, seventeen years old at most, beautifully marching with their band and their colours, amidst plaudits, tears, laughter, flowers, thrown kisses, they came down the street, wheeled, and before the court house were received by the Home Guard, an organization of grey-headed men.
Sunday afternoon brought many rumours. Milroy would march from McDowell to-morrow--Banks was coming down the turnpike--Fremont hovering closer.
Excited country people flocked into town. Farmers whose sons were with Jackson came for advice from leading citizens. Ought they to bring in the women and children?--no end of foreigners with the blue coats, and foreigners are rough customers! And stock? Better drive the cows up into the mountains and hide the horses? ”Tom Watson says they're awful wanton,--take what they want and kill the rest, and no more think of paying!--Says, too, they're burning barns. What d'you think we'd better do, sir?” There were Dunkards in the Valley who refused to go to war, esteeming it a sin. Some of these were in town, coming in on horseback or in their white-covered wagons, and bringing wife or daughter. The men were long-bearded and venerable of aspect; the women had peaceful Quaker faces, framed by the prim close bonnet of their peculiar garb. These quiet folk, too, were anxious-eyed. They would not resist evil, but their homes and barns were dear to their hearts.