Part 76 (1/2)
The advance was now but a few hundred yards away; the whole army to the last wagon train had its orders for expedition. He sent for his adjutant. ”Companies from Orange County, sir? Yes, there are a number in different regiments and brigades.”
”Well, you will go, colonel, and halt the advance. See if there is an Orange company and a private named John Simpson.”
There was not. The woman with the basket was old and tired. She sat down on the earth beneath a sign post and threw her ap.r.o.n over her head.
Jackson sent an aide back three miles to the main body. ”Captain, find the Orange companies and a private named John Simpson. Bring him here.
Tall, light-haired, light eyes, with a scar over one eye. If he is not in the main column go on to the rear.”
The aide spurred his horse. Jackson explained matters. ”You'll have to wait a while, Mrs. Simpson. If your son's in the army he'll be brought to you. I'll leave one of my aides with you!” He spoke to Little Sorrel and put his hand on the saddle bow. Mrs. Simpson's ap.r.o.n came down.
”Please, general, don't you go! Please, sir, you stay! They won't know him like you will! They'll just come back an' say they can't find him!--An' I got to see John--I just got to!--Don't go, please, sir! Ef 't was your mother--”
Stonewall Jackson and his army waited for half an hour while John Simpson was looked for. At the end of that time the cross roads saw him coming, riding behind the aide. Tall and lank, in b.u.t.ternut still, and red as a beet, he slipped from the horse, and saluted the general, then, almost crying, gathered up the checked ap.r.o.n and the sunbonnet and the basket and the old woman. ”Maw, Maw! jes' look what you have done!
Danged ef you haven't stopped the whole army! Everybody cryin' out 'John Simpson'!”
On went the column through the bright August forenoon. The day grew hot and the dust whirled up, and the cavalry skirmished at intervals with detached blue clouds of hors.e.m.e.n. On the horizon appeared at some distance a conical mountain. ”What's that sugar loaf over there?”
”That's Slaughter's Mountain south of Culpeper. Cedar Run's beyond.”
The day wore on. Slaughter Mountain grew larger. The country between was lovely, green and rolling; despite the heat and the dust and the delay the troops were in spirits. They were going against Major-General John Pope and they liked the job. The old Army of the Valley, now a part of the Army of Northern Virginia, rather admired s.h.i.+elds, had no especial objection to McDowell, and felt a real grat.i.tude toward Mr. Commissary Banks, but it was prepared to fight Pope with a vigour born of detestation. A man of the old Army, marching with Ewell, began to sing:--
”Pope told a flattering tale Which proved to be bravado, About the streams that spout like ale On the Llano Estacado!
”That's the Staked Plains, you know. Awful hot out there! Pretty hot here, too. Look at them lovely roasting ears! Can't touch 'em.
Old Jack says so. Pope may live on the country, but we mayn't.”
”That mountain is getting pretty big.” ”h.e.l.lo! Just a cavalry scrimmage--h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo! Artillery's more serious!” ”Boys, boys!
we've struck Headquarters-in-the-saddle!--What's that awful noise?--Old Jack's coming--Old Jack's coming to the front!--Mercy!
didn't know even we could cheer like that!--Yaaaih! Yaaaaaaihhh!
Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Yaaaaaaiiiihhh!”
As the day declined the battle swelled in smoke and thunder. The blue batteries were well placed, and against them thundered twenty-six grey rifled guns: two Parrotts of Rockbridge with a gun of Carpenter's appeared at the top of the hill, tore down the long slope and came into battery in an open field, skirted by a wood. Behind was the Stonewall Brigade in column of regiments. The guns were placed _en echelon_, the horses taken away, the ball opened with canister. Immediately the Federal guns answered, got the range of the grey, and began to do deadly mischief. All around young trees were cut off short. The sh.e.l.ls came, thick, black, and screaming. The place proved fatal to officers.
Carpenter was struck in the head by a piece of sh.e.l.l--mortally wounded.
The chief of artillery, Major Snowden Andrews fell, desperately injured, then Captain Caskie was hurt, then Lieutenant Graham. The gunners worked like mad. The guns thundered, recoiled, thundered again. The blue sh.e.l.ls arrived in a deadly stream. All was smoke, whistling limbs of trees, glare and roar. General Winder came up on foot. Standing by a grey Parrott he tried with his field gla.s.s to make out the Federal batteries.
Lowering the gla.s.s he shouted some direction to the men about the gun below him. The noise was hideous, deafening. Seeing that he was not understood he raised his arm and hollowed his hand above his mouth. A sh.e.l.l pa.s.sed beneath his arm, through his side. He fell stiffly back, mangled and dying.
There was a thick piece of woods, deep and dark, stretching westward.
The left of Jackson's division rested here. Ewell's brigades and batteries were on the mountain slope; the Light Division, A. P. Hill in his red battle s.h.i.+rt at its head, not yet up; Jubal Early forming a line of battle in the rolling fields. An aide came to ”Old Jube.” ”General Jackson's compliments to General Early, and he says you will advance on the enemy, and General Winder's troops will support you.” Early had a thin, high, drawling voice. ”My compliments to General Jackson, and tell him I will do it.”
The Stonewall Brigade, drawn up in the rear of the Artillery, stood waiting its orders from Winder. There came a rumor. ”The general is killed! General Winder is killed!” The Stonewall chose to be incredulous. ”It is not so! We don't believe it.”
The 65th, cut to pieces at White Oak Swamp, had renewed itself.
Recruits--boys and elderly men--a few melancholy conscripts, a number of transferals from full commands had closed its ranks. The 65th, smaller now, of diluted quality, but even so, dogged and promising well,--the 65th, waiting on the edge of a wheat field, looked across it to Taliaferro's and Campbell's brigades and the dark wood in front. Billy Maydew was sergeant now and Matthew Coffin was first lieutenant of Company A. The two had some talk under a big walnut tree.
”Artillery's been shouting for two hours,” said Coffin. ”They've got a h.e.l.l lot of cavalry, too, but if there's any infantry I can't see it.”
”There air a message gone to Campbell and Taliaferro. I heard Old Jack send it. 'Look well to your left,' he says, says he. That thar wood's the left,” said Billy. ”It looks lonesomer than lonesome, but thar! when lonesome things do blaze out they blaze out the worst!”
The colonel of the 65th--Colonel Erskine--came along the front. ”It's too true, men. We've lost General Winder. Well, we'll avenge him!--Look!