Part 54 (1/2)
”Very good, Gilmer, I will so report to the officer in charge of the flag of truce.--Well, what is it, man? You look as though you were bursting with news!”
”I am, sir! Whiting, and Hood, and Lawton, and the Lord knows who besides, are coming over the Rockfish Gap! I saw them with my own eyes on the Staunton road. About fifteen thousand, I reckon, of Lee's best.
Gorgeous batteries--gorgeous troops--Hood's Texans--thousands of Georgians--all of them playing 'Dixie,' and hurrahing, and asking everybody they see to point out Jackson!--No, sir, I'm not dreaming! I know we thought that they couldn't get here for several days yet--but here they are! Good Lord! I wouldn't, for a pretty, miss the hunting down the Valley!”
The blue soldiers heard Munford and the courier go out. An hour later they were conducted to the colonel's presence. ”I am sorry, major, but General Jackson declines acceding to General Fremont's request. He says--”
The party with the flag of truce went back to Fremont. They went like Lieutenant Gilmer, ”bursting with news.” The next day Munford pushed his advance to New Market. Fremont promptly broke up his camp, retired to Strasburg, and began to throw up fortifications. His spies brought bewilderingly conflicting reports. A deserter, who a little later deserted back again, confided to him that Stonewall Jackson was simply another Cromwell; that he was making his soldiers into Ironsides: that they were Presbyterian to a man, and believed that G.o.d Almighty had planned this campaign and sent Jackson to execute it; that he--the deserter--being of cavalier descent, couldn't stand it and ”got out.”
There was an affair of outposts, in which several prisoners were taken.
These acknowledged that a very large force of cavalry occupied Harrisonburg, and that Jackson was close behind, having rebuilt the bridge at Fort Republic across the Shenandoah, and advanced by the Keezletown road. An old negro shambled one morning into the lines.
”Yaas, sah, dat's de truf! I ain' moughty unlike ol' Brer Eel. I cert'ny slipped t'roo dat 'cordion Gineral Jackson am er stretchin'! How many on de oder side, sah? 'Bout er half er million.” Fremont telegraphed and wrote to Was.h.i.+ngton. ”The condition of affairs here imperatively requires that some position be immediately made strong enough to be maintained. Reinforcements should be sent here without an hour's delay. Whether from Richmond or elsewhere, forces of the enemy are certainly coming into this region. Casualties have reduced my force.
The small corps scattered about the country are exposed to sudden attack by greatly superior force of an enemy to whom intimate knowledge of country and universal friends.h.i.+p of inhabitants give the advantage of rapidity and secrecy of movements. I respectfully submit this representation to the President, taking it for granted that it is the duty of his generals to offer for his consideration such impressions as are made by knowledge gained in operations on the ground.”
South of the impenetrable grey curtain stretched across the Valley began a curious series of moves. A number of Federal prisoners on their way from Port Republic to Richmond, saw pa.s.s them three veteran brigades.
The guards were good-naturedly communicative. ”Who are those? Those are Whiting and Hood and Lawton on their way to reinforce Stonewall. If we didn't have to leave this railroad you might see Longstreet's Division--it's just behind. How can Lee spare it?--Oh, Beauregard's up from the South to take its place!” The prisoners arrived in Richmond. To their surprise and gratification the officers found themselves paroled, and that at once. They had a glimpse of an imposing review; they pa.s.sed, under escort, lines of entrenchments, batteries, and troops; their pa.s.sage northward to McDowell's lines at Fredericksburg was facilitated.
In a remarkably short s.p.a.ce of time they were in Was.h.i.+ngton, insisting that Longstreet had gone to the Valley, and that Beauregard was up from the South--they had an impression that in that glimpse of a big review they had seen him! Certainly they had seen somebody who looked as though his name ought to be Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard!
In the mean time Hood, Lawton, and Whiting actually arrived in the Valley. They came into Staunton, in good order, veteran troops, ready to march against s.h.i.+elds or Fremont or Banks or Sigel, to keep the Valley or to proceed against Was.h.i.+ngton, quite as Stonewall Jackson should desire! Seven thousand troops, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia, lean, bronzed, growing ragged, tall men, with eyes set well apart, good marchers, good fighters, good lovers, and good haters.--There suddenly appeared before them on the pike at Staunton Stonewall Jackson, ridden through the night from Mt. Meridian.
The three brigades paraded. Jackson rode up and down the line. His fame had mounted high. To do with a few men and at a little cost what, by all the rules of war, should have involved strong armies and much bloodshed--that took a generals.h.i.+p for which the world was beginning to give him credit. With Cross Keys and Port Republic began that sustained enthusiasm which accompanied him to the end. Now, on the march and on the battlefield, when he pa.s.sed his men cheered him wildly, and throughout the South the eyes of men and women kindled at his name. At Staunton the reinforcing troops, the greater number of whom saw him for the first time, shouted for him and woke the echoes. Grave and unsmiling, he lifted the forage cap, touched Little Sorrel with the spur and went on by. It is not to be doubted that he was ambitious, and it lies not in ambitious man, no, nor in man of any type, to feel no joy in such a cry of recognition! If he felt it, however, he did not evince it.
He only jerked his hand into the air and went by.
Two hours later he rode back to Mt. Meridian. The three brigades under orders to follow, stayed only to cook a day's rations and to repack their wagons. Their certainty was absolute. ”We will join the Army of the Valley _wherever it may be_. Then we will march against s.h.i.+elds or Fremont, or maybe against Banks or Sigel.”
Breaking camp in the afternoon, they moved down the pike, through a country marvellous to the Georgians and Texans. Sunset came, and still they marched; dark, and still they marched; midnight, and, extremely weary, they halted in a region of hills running up to the stars.
Reveille sounded startlingly soon. The troops had breakfast while the stars were fading, and found themselves in column on the pike under the first pink streakings of the dawn. They looked around for the Army of the Valley. A little to the northeast showed a few light curls of smoke, such as might be made by picket fires. They fancied, too, that they heard, from behind the screen of hills, faint bugle-calls, bugle answering bugle, like the c.o.c.ks at morn. If it were so, they were thin and far away, ”horns of elfland.” Evidently the three brigades must restrain their impatience for an hour or two.
In the upshot it proved that they were not yet to fraternize with the Army of the Valley. When presently, they marched, it was _up_ the Valley, back along the pike toward Staunton. The three brigadiers conferred together. Whiting, the senior, a veteran soldier, staunch and determined, was angry. ”Reasonable men should not be treated so! 'You will start at four, General Whiting, and march until midnight, when you will bivouac. At early dawn a courier will bring you further instructions.' Very good! We march and bivouac, and here's the courier.
'The brigades of Whiting, Hood, and Lawton will return to Staunton.
There they will receive further instructions.'” Whiting swore. ”We are getting a taste of his quality with a vengeance! Very well! very well!
It's all right--if he wins through I'll applaud, too--but, by G.o.d! he oughtn't to treat reasonable men so!--_Column Forward!_”
Under the stately trees at Mt. Meridian, in the golden June weather, the Army of the Valley settled to its satisfaction that it was about to invade Maryland. Quite an unusual number of straws showed which way the wind was blowing. Northern news arrived by grapevine, and Northern papers told the army that was what it was going to do,--”invade Maryland and move on Was.h.i.+ngton--sixty thousand b.l.o.o.d.y-minded rebels!”--”Look here, boys, look here. Multiplication by division! The Yanks have split each of us into four!” Richmond papers, received by way of Staunton, divulged the fact that troops had been sent to the Valley, and opined that the other side of Mason and Dixon needed all the men at home. The engineers received an order to prepare a new and elaborate series of maps of the Valley. They were not told to say nothing about it, so presently the army knew that Old Jack was having every rabbit track and rail fence put down on paper. ”Poor old Valley! won't she have a scouring!”
The sole question was, when would the operations begin. The ”foot cavalry” grew tired of verdant meads, June flowers, and warbling birds.
True, there were clear streams and Mr. Commissary Banks's soap, and the clothes got gloriously washed! Uniforms, too, got cleaned and patched.
”Going calling. Must make a show!” and shoes were cobbled. (Cartridge boxes surrept.i.tiously cut to pieces for this.) Morning drills occurred of course, and camp duties and divine services; but for all these diversions the army wearied of Mt. Meridian, and wanted to march. Twenty miles a day--twenty-five--even thirty if Old Jack put a point on it! The foot cavalry drew the line at thirty-five. It had tried this once, and once was enough! In small clasped diaries, the front leaves given over to a calendar, a table of weights and measures, a few 1850 census returns, and the list of presidents of the United States, stopping at James Buchanan, the army recorded that nothing of interest happened at Mt. Meridian and that the boys were tired of loafing.
”How long were they going to stay?” The men pestered the company officers, the company asked the regimental, field asked staff, staff shook its head and had no idea, a brigadier put the question to Major-General Ewell and Old d.i.c.k made a statement which reached the drummer boys that evening. ”We are resting here for just a few days until all the reinforcements are in, and then we will proceed to beat up Banks's quarters again about Strasburg and Winchester.”
On the morning of the seventeenth there was read a general order. ”_Camp to be more strictly policed. Regimental and brigade drill ordered.
Bridge to be constructed across the Shenandoah. Chapel to be erected.
Day of fasting and prayer for the success of our arms on the Mississippi._”--”Why, we are going to stay here forever!” The regimental commanders, walking away from drill, each found himself summoned to the presence of his brigadier. ”Good-morning, colonel! Just received this order. 'Cook two days' rations and pack your wagons. Do it quietly.'”
By evening the troops were in motion, Ewell's leading brigade standing under arms upon a country road, the red sunset thrown back from every musket barrel. The brigadier approached Old d.i.c.k where he sat Rifle beneath a locust tree. ”Might I be told in which direction, sir--”
Ewell looked at him with his bright round eyes, bobbed his head and swore. ”By G.o.d! General Taylor! I do not know whether we are to march north, south, east, or west, or to march at all!” There was shouting down the line. ”Either Old Jack or a rabbit!” Five minutes, and Jackson came by. ”You will march south, General Ewell.”