Part 78 (1/2)

”Philip Deaderick.”

”Well, come into the firelight, Deaderick, so that I can see you.”

Deaderick came, showed a powerful figure, and a steady bearded face.

”Well,” said the Alabamian, ”the blow on your head doesn't seem to have put you out of the running! I'll try you, Deaderick.”

”I am much obliged to you, sir.”

”I haven't any awkward squad into which to put you. You'll have to learn, and learn quickly, by watching the others. Take him and enroll him, Haralson, and turn him over to Dreux and the Howitzer. Now, Deaderick, the Horse Artillery is heaven to a good man who does his duty, and it's h.e.l.l to the other kind. I advise you to try for heaven.

That's all. Good-night.”

Day broke over the field of Groveton, over the plains of Mana.s.sas.

Stonewall Jackson moved in force westward from the old battle-ground.

South of Bull Run, between Young's Branch and Stony Ridge, ran an unfinished railroad. It was bordered by woods and rolling fields. There were alternate embankments and deep railroad cuts. Behind was the long ridge and Catharpin Run, in front, sloping gently to the little stream, green fields broken to the north by one deep wood. Stonewall Jackson laid his hand on the railroad with those deep cuts and on the rough and rising ground beyond. In the red dawn there stretched a battle front of nearly two miles. A. P. Hill had the left. Trimble and Lawton of Ewell's had the centre, Jackson's own division the right, Jubal Early and Forno of Ewell's a detached force on this wing. There were forty guns, and they were ranged along the rocky ridge behind the infantry. Jeb Stuart guarded the flanks.

The chill moisture of the morning, the dew-drenched earth, the quiet woods, the rose light in the sky--the troops moving here and there to their a.s.signed positions, exchanged opinions. ”Ain't it like the twenty-first of July, 1861?”--”It air and it ain't--mostly ain't!”--”That's true! h.e.l.lo! they are going to give us the railroad cut! G.o.d bless the Mana.s.sas Railroad Company! If we'd dug a whole day we couldn't have dug such a ditch as that!”--”Look at the boys behind the embankment! Well, if that isn't the jim-dandiest breastwork! 'N look at the forty guns up there against the sky!”--”Better tear those vines away from the edge. Pretty, aren't they? All the blue morning glories.

Regiment's swung off toward Mana.s.sas Junction! Now if Longstreet should come up!”--”Maybe he will. Wouldn't it be exciting? Come up with a yell same as Kirby Smith did last year! Wonder where the Yankees are?”

”Somewhere in the woods, the whole h.e.l.l lot of them.”--”Some of them aren't a h.e.l.l lot. Some of them are right fine. Down on the Chickahominy I acquired a real respect for the Army of the Potomac--and a lot of it'll be here to-day. Yes, sir, I like Fitz John Porter and Sykes and Reynolds and a lot of them first rate! They can't help being commanded by The-Man-without-a-Rear. That's Was.h.i.+ngton's fault, not theirs.”--”Yes, sir, Ricketts and Meade and Kearney and a lot of them are all right.”--”Good Lord, what a shout! That's either Old Jack or a rabbit.”--”It's Old Jack! It's Old Jack! He's coming along the front.

Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! He's pa.s.sed. O G.o.d! I wish that Bee and Bartow and all that fell here could see him and us now.”--”There's Stuart pa.s.sing through the fields. What guns are those going up Stony Ridge?--Pelham and the Horse Artillery.”--”Listen!

Bugles! There they come! There they come! Over the Henry Hill.”

_Attention!_

About the middle of the morning the cannonading ceased. ”There's a movement this way,” said A. P. Hill on the left. ”They mean to turn us.

They have ploughed this wood with sh.e.l.ls, and now they're coming to sow it. All right, men! General Jackson's looking!--and General Lee will be here to-night to tell the story to. I suppose you'd like Ma.r.s.e Robert to say, 'Well done!' All right, then, do well!--I don't think we're any too rich, Garrett, in ammunition. Better go tell General Jackson so.”

The men talked, Hill's men and Ewell's men on Hill's right--not volubly, but with slow appreciation. ”Reynolds? Like Reynolds all right. Milroy?

Don't care for the gentleman. Sigel--Schurz--Schenck--Steinwehr? _Nein.

Nein!_ Wonder if they remember Cross Keys?”--”They've got a powerful long line. There isn't but one thing I envy them and that's those beautiful batteries. I don't envy them their good food, and their good, whole clothes or anything but the guns.”--”H'm, I don't envy them anything--our batteries are doing all right! We've got a lot of their guns, and to-night we'll have more. Artillery's done fine to-day.”--”So it has! so it has!”--”Listen, they're opening again. That's Pelham--now Pegram--now Was.h.i.+ngton Artillery--now Rockbridge!”--”Yes sir, yes sir!

We're all right. We're ready. Music! They always come on with music.

Funny! but they've got the bands. What are they playing? Never heard it before. Think it's 'What are the Wild Waves Saying?'”--”I think it's 'When this Cruel War is Over.'”--”Go 'way, you boys weren't in the Valley! We've heard it several times. It's 'Der Wacht am Rhein.'”--”All right, sir! All right. Now!”

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, after the third great blue charge, Edward Cary, lips blackened from tearing cartridges, lock and barrel of his rifle hot within his hands, his cap shot away, his sleeve torn to ribbons where he had bared and bandaged a flesh wound in the arm, Edward Cary straightened himself and wiped away the sweat and powder grime which blinded him. An officer's voice came out of the murk.

”The general asks for volunteers to strip the field of cartridges.”

There were four men lying together, killed by the same sh.e.l.l. The head of one was gone, the legs of another; the third was disembowelled, the fourth had his breast crushed in. Their cartridge boxes when opened were found to be half full. Edward emptied them into the haversack he carried and went on to the next. This was a boy of sixteen, not dead yet, moaning like a wounded hound. Edward gave him the little water that was in his canteen, took four cartridges from his box, and crept on. A minie sang by him, struck a yard away, full in the forehead of the dead man toward whom he was making. The dead man had a smile upon his lips; it was as though he mocked the bullet. All the field running back from the railroad cuts and embankment was overstormed by shot and sh.e.l.l, and everywhere from the field rose groans and cries for water. The word ”water” never ceased from use. _Water!--Water, Water!--Water!--Water!_ On it went, mournfully, like a wind.--_Water!--Water!_ Edward gathered cartridges steadily. All manner of things were wont to come into his mind. Just now it was a certain field behind Greenwood covered with blackberry bushes--and the hot August suns.h.i.+ne--and he and Easter's Jim gathering blackberries while Mammy watched from beneath a tree. He heard again the little thud of the berries into the bucket. He took the cartridges from two young men--brothers from the resemblance and from the fact that, falling together, one, the younger, had pillowed his head on the other's breast, while the elder's arm was around him. They lay like children in sleep. The next man was elderly, a lonely, rugged-looking person with a face slightly contorted and a great hole in his breast. The next that Edward came to was badly hurt, but not too badly to take an interest. ”Cartridges?--yes, five. I'm awful thirsty!--Well, never mind. Maybe it will rain. Who's charging now?

Heintzelman, Kearney, and Reno--Got 'em all? You can draw one from my gun, too. I was just loading when I got hit. Well, sorry you got to go!

It's mighty lonely lying here.”

Edward returned to the front, gave up his haversack, and got another. As he turned to resume the cartridge quest there arose a cry. ”Steady, men!

steady! Hooker hasn't had enough!” Edward, too, saw the blue wall coming through the woods on the other side of the railroad. He took a musket from a dead man near by and with all the other grey soldiers lay flat in the gra.s.s above the cut. Hooker came within range--within close range.

The long grey front sprang to its feet and fired, dropped and loaded, rose and fired. A leaden storm visited the wood across the track. The August gra.s.s was long and dry. Sparks set it afire. Flames arose and caught the oak scrub. Through it all and through the storm of bullets the blue line burst. It came down on the unfinished track, it crossed, it leaped up the ten-foot bank of earth, it clanged against the grey line atop. The grey gave back, the colours fell and rose; the air rocked, so loud was the din. Stonewall Jackson appeared. ”General Hill, order in your second line.” Field's Virginians, Thomas's Georgians charged forward. They yelled, all their rifles flashed at once, they drove Hooker down into the cut, across the track, up into the burning brushwood and the smoke-filled woods. But the blue were staunch and seasoned troops; they reformed, they cheered. Hooker brought up a fresh brigade. They charged again. Down from the woods plunged the blue wave, through the fire, down the bank, across and up. Again din and smoke and flame, all invading, monstrous. Jackson's voice rose higher. ”General Hill, order in General Pender.”

North Carolina was, first and last, a stark fighter. Together with Gregg and Field and Thomas, Pender drove Hooker again down the red escarpment, across the railroad, through the burning brush, into the wood; even drove him out of the wood, took a battery and dashed into the open beyond. Then from the hills the blue artillery opened and from the plains below volleyed fresh infantry. Pender was borne back through the wood, across the railroad, up the red side of the cut.