Part 41 (1/2)

Oh, Moses, I'm tired!”

At sunset the bugles blew halt. The men dropped down on the tarnished earth, on the vast, spectacular road to Winchester. They cared not so much for supper, faint as they were; they wanted sleep. Supper they had--all that could be obtained from the far corners of haversacks and all that, with abounding willingness, the neighbouring farmhouses could sc.r.a.pe together--but when it came to sleep--. With nodding heads the men waited longingly for roll call and tattoo, and instead there came an order from the front. ”_A night march!_ O Lord, have mercy, for Stonewall Jackson never does.” _Fall in! Fall in! Column Forward!_

When they came to the Opequon they had a skirmish with a Ma.s.sachusetts regiment which fired a heavy volley into the cavalry ahead, driving it back upon the 33d Virginia, next in column. The 33d broke, then rallied.

Other of the Stonewall regiments deployed in the fields and the 27th advanced against the opposing force, part of Banks's rearguard. It gave way, disappearing in the darkness of the woods. The grey column, pus.h.i.+ng across the Opequon, came into a zone of Federal skirmishers and sharpshooters ambushed behind stone fences.

Somewhere about midnight Steve, walking in about the worst dream he had ever had, determined that no effort was too great if directed toward waking. It was a magic lantern dream--black slides painted only with stars and fireflies, succeeded by slides in which there was a moment's violent illumination, stone fences leaping into being as the musket fire ran along.

A halt--a company deployed--the foe dispersed, streaming off into the darkness--the hurt laid to one side for the ambulances--_Column Forward!_ Sometimes a gun was unlimbered, trained upon the threatening breastwork and fired. Once a sh.e.l.l burst beneath a wagon that had been drawn into the fields. It held, it appeared, inflammable stores. Wagon and contents shot into the air with a great sound and glare, and out of the light about the place came a frightful crying. Men ran to right and left to escape the rain of missiles; then the light died out, and the crying ceased. The column went on slowly, past dark slides. Its progress seemed that of a snail army.

Winchester lay the fewest of miles away, but somewhere there was legerdemain. The fewest of miles stretched like a rubber band. The troops marched for three minutes, halted, marched again, halted, marched, halted.

To sleep--to sleep! _Column Forward!--Column Forward!_

There was a bridge to cross over a wide ditch. Steve hardly broke his dream, but here he changed the current. How he managed he could scarce have told, but he did find himself under the bridge where at once he lay down. The mire and weed was like a blissful bed. He closed his eyes.

Three feet above was the flooring, and all the rearguard pa.s.sing over.

It was like lying curled in the hollow of a drum, a drum beaten draggingly and slow. ”Gawd!” thought Steve. ”It sounds like a Dead March.”

He slept, despite the canopy of footsteps. He might have lain like a log till morning but that at last the flooring of the bridge rebelled. A section of a battery, kept for some hours at Middletown, found itself addressed by a courier, jaded, hoa.r.s.e as a raven of the night. ”General Jackson says, 'Bring up these guns.' He says, 'Make haste.'” The battery limbered up and came with a heavy noise down the pike, through the night. Before it was the rearguard; the artillery heard the changed sound as the men crossed the wooden bridge. The rearguard went on; the guns arrived also at the ditch and the overtaxed bridge. The Tredegar iron gun went over and on, gaining on the foot, with intent to pa.s.s. The howitzer, following, proved the last straw. The bridge broke. A gun wheel went down, and amid the oaths of the drivers a frightened screech came from below. ”O Gawd! lemme get out of this!”

Pulled out, he gave an account of his cut foot, piteous enough. The lieutenant listened. ”The 65th? Scamp, I reckon, but flesh is weak!

Hasn't been exactly a circus parade for any of us. Let him ride, men--if ever we get this d.a.m.ned wheel out! Keep an eye on him, Fleming!--Now, all together!--Pull, White Star!--Pull, Red Star!”

The column came to Kernstown about three o'clock in the morning. Dead as were the troops the field roused them. ”Kernstown! Kernstown! We're back again.”

”Here was where we crossed the pike--there's the old ridge. Griffin tearing up his cards--and Griffin's dead at McDowell.”

”That was Fulkerson's wall--that shadow over there! There's the bank where the 65th fought.--Kernstown! I'm mighty tired, boys, but I've got a peaceful certainty that that was the only battle Old Jack's ever going to lose!”

”Old Jack didn't lose it. Garnett lost it.”

”That ain't a Stonewall man said that! General Garnett's in trouble. I reckon didn't anybody lose it. s.h.i.+elds had nine thousand men, and he just gained it!--s.h.i.+elds the best man they've had in the Valley.

Kernstown!--Heard what the boys at Middletown called Banks? _Mr.

Commissary Banks._ Oh, law! that pesky rearguard again!”

The skirmish proved short and sharp. The Federal rearguard gave way, fell back on Winchester; the Confederate column, advance, main and rear, heard in the cold and hollow of the night the order: _Halt. Stack arms!

Break ranks!_ From regiment to regiment ran a further word. ”One hour.

You are to rest one hour, men. Lie down.”

In the first grey streak of dawn a battery which had pa.s.sed in turn each segment of the column, came up with the van, beyond Kernstown battlefield, and halted upon a little rise of ground. All around stretched grey, dew-wet fields and woods, and all around lay an army, sleeping, strange sight in the still and solemn light, with the birds cheeping overhead! The guns stopped, the men got down from limber and caisson, the horses were unhitched. ”An hour's sleep--Kernstown battlefield!”

An officer whose command lay in the field to the left, just beyond a great breach that had been made in the stone fence, arose from the cloak he had spread in the opening and came over to the guns. ”Good-morning, Randolph! Farmers and soldiers see the dawn!

Light thickens; and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood.

The poor guns! Even they look overmarched.” As he spoke he stroked the howitzer as though it had been a living thing.

”We've got with us a stray of yours,” said the artilleryman. ”Says he has a cut foot, but looks like a skulker. Here you, Mr.

Under-the-Bridge! come from behind that caisson--”