Part 69 (1/2)

He wore a grey Confederate coat All b.u.t.toned down before--”

”Don't like it that way? All right--”

”He wore a blue d.a.m.n-Yankee coat All b.u.t.toned down before--”

The Stonewall Brigade pa.s.sed a new-made grave in a small graveyard, from which the fence had been burned. A little further on they came to a burned smithy; the blacksmith's house beside it also a ruin, black and charred. On a stone, between two lilac-bushes, sat a very old man.

Beside him stood a girl, a handsome creature, dark and bright-cheeked.

”Send them to h.e.l.l, boys, send them to h.e.l.l!” quavered the old man. The girl raised a sweet and vibrant voice: ”Send them to h.e.l.l, men, send them to h.e.l.l!”

”We'll do our best, ma'am, we'll do our best!” answered the Stonewall.

The sun mounted high. They were moving now through thick woods, broken by deep creeks and bits of swamp. All about were evidences enough that an army had travelled before them, and that that army was exceedingly careless of its belongings. All manner of impediments lay squandered; waste and ruin were everywhere. Sometimes the men caught an odour of burning meat, of rice and breadstuffs. In a marshy meadow a number of wrecked, canvas-topped wagons showed like a patch of mushrooms, giant and dingy. In a forest glade rested like a Siegfried smithy an abandoned travelling forge. Camp-kettles hacked in two were met with, and boxes of sutlers' wares smashed to fragments. The dead horses were many, and there was disgust with the buzzards, they rose or settled in such clouds. The troops, stooping to drink from the creeks, complained that the water was foul.

Very deep woods appeared on the horizon. ”Guide says that's White Oak Swamp!--Guide says that's White Oak Swamp!” Firing broke out ahead.

”Cavalry rumpus!--h.e.l.lo! Artillery b.u.t.ting in, too!--everybody but us!

Well, boys, I always did think infantry a mighty no-'count, undependable arm--infantry of the Army of the Valley, anyway! G.o.d knows the moss has been growing on us for a week!”

Munford sent back a courier to Jackson, riding well before the head of the column. ”Bridge is burned, sir. They're in strong force on the other side--”

”Good!” said Jackson. ”Tell Colonel Crutchfield to bring up the guns.”

He rode on, the aide, the courier, and Maury Stafford yet with him. They pa.s.sed a deserted Federal camp and hospital, and came between tall trees and through dense swamp undergrowth to a small stream with many arms. It lay still beneath the blue sky, overhung by many a graceful, vine-draped tree. The swamp growth stretched for some distance on either side, and through openings in the foliage the blue glint of the arms could be seen. To the right there was some cleared ground. In front the road stopped short. The one bridge had been burned by the retreating Federal rearguard. Two blue divisions, three batteries--in all over twenty thousand men--now waited on the southern bank to dispute the White Oak Crossing.

Stafford again pushed his horse beside Jackson's. ”Well, sir?”

”I hunted once through this swamp, general. There is an old crossing near the bridge--”

”Pa.s.sable for cavalry, sir?”

”Pa.s.sable by cavalry and infantry, sir. Even the guns might somehow be gotten across.”

”I asked, sir, if it was pa.s.sable for cavalry.”

”It is, sir.”

Jackson turned to his aide. ”Go tell Colonel Crutchfield I want to see him.”

Crutchfield appeared. ”Where are your guns, colonel?”

”General, their batteries on the ridge over there command the road, and the thick woods below their guns are filled with sharpshooters. I want to get the guns behind the crest of the hill on this side, and I am opening a road through the wood over there. They'll be up directly--seven batteries, Carter's, Hardaway's, Nelson's, Rhett's, Reilly's, and Balthis'. We'll open then at a thousand yards, and we'll take them, I think, by surprise.”

”Very good, colonel. That is all.”

The infantry began to arrive. Brigade by brigade, as it came up, turned to right or to left, standing under arms in the wood above the White Oak Swamp. As the Stonewall Brigade came, under tall trees and over earth that gave beneath the feet, flush with the stream itself, the grey guns, now in place upon the low ridge to the right, opened, thirty-one of them, with simultaneous thunder. Crutchfield's manoeuvre had not been observed. The thirty-one guns blazed without warning, and the blue artillery fell into confusion. The Parrotts blazed in turn, four times, then they limbered up in haste and left the ridge. Crutchfield sent Wooding's battery tearing down the slope to the road immediately in front of the burned bridge. Wooding opened fire and drove out the infantry support from the opposite forest. Jackson, riding toward the stream, encountered Munford. ”Colonel, move your men over the creek and take those guns.”

Munford looked. ”I don't know that we can cross it, sir.”

”Yes, you can cross it, colonel. Try.”

Munford and a part of the 2d Virginia dashed in. The stream was in truth narrow enough, and though it was deep here, with a s.h.i.+fting bottom, and though the debris from the ruined bridge made it full of snares, the hors.e.m.e.n got across and pushed up the sh.o.r.e toward the guns. A thick and leafy wood to the right leaped fire--another and unsuspected body of blue infantry. The echoes were yet ringing when, from above, an unseen battery opened on the luckless cavalry. The blue rifles cracked again, the horses began to rear and plunge, several men were hit. There was nothing to do but to get somehow back to the north bank. Munford and his men pushed out of the rain of iron, through the wood for some distance down the stream, and there recrossed, not without difficulty.

The thirty-one guns sh.e.l.led the wood which had last spoken, and drove out the skirmishers with whom it was filled. These took refuge in another deep and leafy belt still commanding the stream and the ruined causeway. A party of grey pioneers fell to work to rebuild the bridge.