The Iron Game Part 6

"Stay here till I come back," he said, authoritatively, and strode off to Grandison's tent. As he reached it the major, McGoyle, was entering, and Jack waited until that officer should come out. He came presently, and Colonel Grandison with him. Jack saluted, and stated his dilemma to the commander, who listened with amused interest.

"I don't see that anything can be done now, Jack. I'm just about leaving the regiment. I have been a.s.signed to General Tyler's staff during the campaign. McGoyle takes command of the regiment. He will need orderlies, and the boys can serve with him until we can get time to look into the business. I will settle the matter with him, and if you will write a telegram to the lad's family I will have it sent as I go to headquarters."

Jack's relief and grat.i.tude were best seen in the brightening eye and the more buoyant movement that succeeded the heaviness and agitation of his first impression. The boys' coming would weigh upon him every minute until he was in some sort relieved of even pa.s.sive complicity. He would feel that the kind-hearted "Pearls," as the aunts were often called, would look upon him as having led the truants into the army. But Grandison's interposition had shifted from him a weighty anxiety. The boys would not be left friendless and irresponsible in the turbulent streets of Washington. Nor would they, as orderlies, be in continuous or inextricable danger in battle--for whereas the soldier in the line must keep in ranks even when not in actual battle, with the enemy's missiles as destructive as in the charge or combat, the orderlies may take advantage of the inequalities of ground and natural objects. Jack explained something of this to the young Marlboroughs, and was fairly irritated at the crest-fallen look that came into their eager, shining faces when they comprehended that they were not to be with their hero.

"But you couldn't be in the company in any event. You look more like rebels than soldiers, with your gray jackets and trousers"--for the boys still wore their Acredale uniform, an imitation of the West Point cadet's costume. "We shall be on the march in a few minutes, and there is only one of two things to be done. Remain here in the 'una.s.signed'

camp, where you may be transferred into any regiment in the service that needs recruits; or go, as Colonel Grandison has very kindly consented to have you, as orderlies or clerks."

The very possibility of being sent into some unknown regiment was a terror so great that the other alternative became less odious to the boys, and they trotted after Jack, as he stalked moody and distracted to Major Mike McGoyle's tent, now the only habitable spot left where a few hours before a symmetrical little city had stood.

"And so ye want to be solgers, me foine b'yes? Well, well, 'tis litter for yer mothers' knees ye are, with yer rosy cheeks and curling locks.

It's a poor place here for yer bright oies and soft hands, me lads; but I'm not the wan to throw the dish after th' milk when it's spilt!"

He stroked the bared heads of the blushing lads, and, turning to their unhappy sponsor, he added with official brevity: "I will put Twiggs's son at me papers in the adjutant's office. Young Pearley can remain with your company until I make out a detail for him."

It was impossible for Jack to sustain the _role_ of frowning displeasure as d.i.c.k skipped back with him to the company. He remembered his own delight three months before, even with the haunting thoughts of his mother's reproaches to dampen his ardor, and he was soon dazzling the neophyte with the wonders that were just about to begin.

It was the afternoon of the 16th of July, and the hillsides, which the day before were covered with tents as far as the eye could see on every hand, were now blue with ma.s.ses of men, while other ma.s.ses had been pa.s.sing on the red highways since early morning, taking the direction of the Potomac bridges.

CHAPTER VIII.

AN ARMY WITH BANNERS.

It has always seemed to me that the life, the routine, the many small haps in the daily function of a soldier, which in sum made up to him all that there was in the _devoir_ of death, ought to be read with interest by the millions whose kin were part of the civil war, as well as by those who knew of it only as we know Napoleon's wars or Washington's.

For my part, I would find a livelier pleasure in the diary of a common soldier, in any of the great wars, than I do in the confusing pamphlets, bound in volumes called history. I like to read of war as our Uncle Toby related it. I like to know what two observing eyes saw and the feelings that sometimes made the timidest heroes--sometimes cravens.

For a month--yes, months--the burden of the press, the prayers of the North, had been, "On to Richmond!" Jack, through Colonel Grandison, knew that General McDowell and the commander-in-chief, the venerable soldier Scott, had pleaded and protested against a move until the new levies under the three-months' call could be drilled and disciplined. But on the Fourth of July Congress had a.s.sembled, and the raw statesmen--with an eye to future elections--took up the public clamor. They gave the Cabinet, the President, no peace until General Scott and McDowell had given way and promised the pending movement.

"Our soldiers are so green that I shall move with fear," McDowell said to the President.

"Well, they" (meaning the rebels) "are green too, and one greenness will offset the other," Lincoln responded with kindly malice. It was useless to argue further; useless to point out that the rebels were not so "green," for the young men of the semi-aristocratic society of the South were trained to arms, whereas it was a mark of lawlessness and vulgarity to carry arms in the Puritan ranks of the North. Something of the unreadiness of the army, every reflecting soldier in the ranks comprehended, when he saw within the precincts of his own brigades the hap hazard conduct of the quartermaster's and staff departments. Some regiments had raw flour dealt them for rations and no bake-ovens to turn it into bread; some regiments had abundance of bread, but no coffee or meat rations. As to vegetables--beans, or anything of the sort--if the pockets of the soldiers had not been well supplied from home, the army that set out for Mana.s.sas would have been eaten with scurvy and the skin diseases that come from unseasoned food.

Now, at the very moment the legions were stripped for the march, many of them were without proper ammunition. Various arms were in use, and the same cartridge did not lit them all. Eager groups could be seen all through the brigades filing down the leaden end of the cartridge to make their weapons effective, until a proper supply could be obtained. This was promised at Fairfax Station, or Centreville, where the army's supplies were to be sent. So, in spite of the high hopes and feverish unrest for the forward movement, there was a good deal of sober foreboding among the men, who held to the American right to criticise as the Briton maintains his right to grumble. For the soldier in camp or on the march is as garrulous as a tea gossip, and no problem in war or statecraft is too complex or sacred for him to attempt the solution. Of the thirty thousand men leaving the banks of the Potomac that 16th of July there were, at a low estimate, ten thousand who believed themselves as fitted to command as the chieftains who led them.

By two o'clock the Caribees were in the line that had been pa.s.sing city-ward since daylight. The sun had baked the sticky clay into brick-like hardness, and the hours of trampling, the tread of heavy teams, and the still heavier artillery, had filled the air with an opaque atmosphere of reddish powder, through which the ma.s.ses pa.s.sed in almost spectral vagueness. The city crowds, usually alert, when great ma.s.ses of men moved, were discouraged by heat and dust, and the streets were quite given over to the military. Eager as Jack and his friends were to note the impression the march made upon the civilians, most of whom were thought to be secretly in sympathy with the rebellion, it was impossible to even catch sight of any but soldiers. Pennsylvania Avenue, when they reached it, was a billowy channel of impalpable powder. But at the Long Bridge the breeze from the wide channel of the river cleared the clouds of dust, and the men, catching glimpses of each other, broke into jocose banter. On the bridge they looked eagerly down the river, where the low roofs of Alexandria were visible, and upward on the Virginia sh.o.r.e where the gleaming walls of Arlington recalled to Jack far different times and scenes.

"Now we're in Jeff Davis's land," Barney called out from one of the rear files, as the company reached midway in the bridge.

"Not by a long shot," Nick Marsh cried. "Davis's land begins and ends within cannon-shot of himself. He is like the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen--he has to beg his neighbor's permission to hold battalion drill."

"He isn't so polite as the duke; he takes it without asking," Barney retorts.

"But now we are on the 'sacred soil,'" Jack cries, as the company debouched from the bridge up the steep, narrow road that seemed to be taking them to Arlington. In spite of the burning heat and the exhaustion of the three hours' march, the scene was, or rather the imagination of the men, invested each step with a sort of awe. They were at last in the enemy's territory. It had been held by the Union forces, only by dint of large numbers and strong fortifications. There wasn't a man in the company that didn't resent the fact, constantly obtruding itself on the ranks as they marched eagerly onward by every knoll, every bush in the landscape, that Union soldiers had been there before them!

that their devouring eyes were not the first to mark these historic spots.

Tired as they were and burdensome as the heavy knapsacks and still heavier ammunition had become, they heard an aide give the order to bivouac with chagrin! They so longed to put undebatable ground behind them and really be where the distant coppice might be a curtain to the enemy! The Caribees marked with indignant surprise that, when they had turned into a field about seven o'clock, the long line following them pushed onward until far into the night, and they envied the contiguity this would give the lucky laggards to first see and engage the enemy!

But they turned-to very merrily, in this first night of real soldiering.

They were "in the field." All the parade part of military life was now relaxed. The hot little dress coats were left behind; there was no display. Even guard-mount was reduced to the simplest possible form.

With one impulse all the men--that is, all who had been alert enough to provide pen and paper--bestowed themselves about the candles allotted each group, and began letters "home," dated magniloquently "Headquarters in the Field. Tyler's Division, Sherman's Brigade, 16th July, 1861." The imperial impulse manifested itself in these curt epistles. I can't resist giving Jack's:

"Dear Mother: How I wish you and Polly could see us now! We are really on the march at last. The battle can't be far off. We are not many miles from the enemy, and, if he stands, what glorious news you will hear very soon! I wish you could have seen us to-day. Colonel Sherman, who is the sternest looking man I ever saw, a regular army officer, once a professor, told the major--you know McGoyle is commanding us now--he is a brick--Sherman told him that the Caribees did as good marching as the regulars, who came behind us. Dear old Mick, with his brogue and his blarney, has won every heart in the regiment, and you may be sure we shall see the whites of the enemy's eyes under him, which we never should have done under that odious Hessian, Oswald--in hospital now, thank Heaven--though some time, when I tell you the story, you will see that in this, as in most other things, Heaven helps those who help themselves. Taps will sound in five minutes, and I can only add that I am in good health, glorious spirits, and unshaken confidence that we shall return to Acredale before your longing to see your son overcomes your love of glory. We shall return victors, if not heroes--at least I know that you and Polly will believe this of your affectionate and dutiful son

"JACK."

Barney read one or two phrases of his composition to the indulgent ear of Jack and the poet, over which they laughed a good deal. "We are," he said, "before the enemy. I feel as our great ancestor, Baron Moore, felt at Fontenoy when the Sa.s.senachs were over against the French lines--as if all the blood in Munster was in my veins and I wanted to spill it on the villains ferninst us."

The poet declined to quote from his epistle, and the three friends sat in the dim light until midnight, wondering over what the morrow had in store. d.i.c.k Perley listened in awe to Jack's wonderful ratiocinations on what was to come--secretly believing him much more learned in war than this General McDowell who was commanding the army. The first bugle sounded at three in the morning in the Caribees' camp, and when the coffee had been hastily dispatched, the men began to understand the cause of their being shunted into the field so early the evening before while the rear of the column marched ahead of them. The Caribees pa.s.sed a mile or more of encampments, the men not yet aroused, and when at daylight the whole body was in motion they were in advance, with nothing before them but a few hundred cavalry.

A delirious expectation, a rapturous sense of holding the post of danger, kept every sense in such a thrill of antic.i.p.ation that the hours pa.s.sed like minutes. The dusty roads, the intolerable thirst, and the nauseous, tepid water, the blistered feet, the abraded hips, where the cartridge-box began to wear the flesh--all these woes of the march were ignored in the one impulse to see the ground ahead, to note the first sight of the enemy. It was not until four o'clock in the afternoon that the column was halted, and two companies, K and H, were marched out of the column and formed in platoons across the line of march, that the regiment learned with mortification that hitherto the route had been inside the Union lines! They soon saw the difference in the tactics of the march. The company was spread out in groups of four; these again were separated by a few yards, and in this order, sweeping like a drag-net, they advanced over the dry fields, through the cl.u.s.tering pines or into cultivated acres, and through great farm-yards.

Back of them the long column came, slowly winding over the sandy highway which curved through the undulating land. Here and there the skirmishers--for that was the office the two companies were now filling--came upon signs of picket-posts; and once, as Jack hurried beyond his group to the thicket, near a wretched cabin, a horse and rider were visible tearing through the foliage of a winding lane. He drew up his musket in prompt recognition of his duty, but he saw with mortification that the horse and rider continued unharmed. Other shots from the skirmish-line followed, but Jack's rebel was the only enemy seen, when, in the early dusk, an orderly from the main column brought the command to set pickets and bivouac for the night. Jack would have written with better grounds for his solemnity if he had waited until this evening; but now there was no chance.

The companies were the extreme advance of the army; nothing between them and the enemy but detached pickets of cavalry, at long distances apart, to fly back with the report of the least signs made by the rebels. These meager groups were forbidden fires, or any evidence of their presence that might guide hostile movement, and the infantry outposts felt that they were really the guardians of the sleeping thousands a mile or so behind them. No one minded the cold water and hard bread which for the first time formed the company's fare that night. Like the cavalry, fire was forbidden them. They formed little groups in the rear of the outer line of pickets, discussing with animation--even levity--the likelihood of an engagement the next day. It was the general opinion that if Beauregard meant to fight he would have made a stand at some of the excellent points of vantage that had been encountered in the day's march. Jack smiled wisely over these amateur guesses, and quite abashed the rest when he said:

"Beauregard is no fool. His army is ma.s.sed near the point that he is guarding--Mana.s.sas Junction. You seem to think that war is a game of chance, armies fighting just where they happen to meet each other. Not at all. Our business is to march to Richmond; Beauregard's business is to prevent us. To do this he must, first of all, keep his lines of supply safe. An army without that is like a ship at sea without food--the more of a crew, the worse the situation. Of course, Beauregard had his skirmishers spread out in front of us, but, as there is no use in killing until some end is to be gained, they have got out of our way.

If the spies that are in our ranks should send information that promised to give the rebels a chance to get at a big body of our men, before the whole army came up, you'd see a change of things very quick. We've got fifty thousand men, or thereabout" (Jack was wrong; there were but thirty thousand). "Now, these men are stretched back of us to Washington, fifteen miles or more, because the artillery must be guarded, and infantry only can do that. Now, suppose Beauregard finds that there is a gap somewhere between the forces stretching back, and he happens to have ten or fifteen thousand men handy? Why, he just swoops down upon us, and, if we can't defend ourselves until the rest of the army comes up, he has won what is called a tactical victory, and endangered our strategy."

"Goodness, Jack, you ought to have been commander-in-chief! You talk war like a book!" Barney cried, in mock admiration.

The war-talk went on late into the night, for the company, detached from camp, was not obliged to follow the signals of the bugles that came in melodious echoes over the fragrant fields. It was a thrilling sight as the lone watchers peered backward. The June fields for miles were dotted with blazing spires, as if the earth had opened to pour out columns of flame, guiding the wanderers on their trying way. The sleep of the night was desultory and fitful, excitement stimulating everybody to wakefulness.

CHAPTER IX.

"THE a.s.sYRIAN CAME DOWN LIKE THE WOLF ON THE FOLD."

The next morning the march was resumed by daylight, the two companies remaining on the skirmish-line. The country gradually became more rugged as the route brought them near Centreville. There were no hills--a bare but not bleak champaign, mostly without houses or farms, as the North knows them. Sluggish brooks became more frequent, but none that were not easily fordable. There were no landmarks to hold the mind to the scene, nor, in case of battle, give the strategists points of vantage for the iron game. About noon, the detached groups stalking a little negligently now over the tedious plains, were startled by the unexpected.

On the green slope of a hill, a mile or more ahead, a score of little puffs of white smoke were seen, then a sharp report, and, in some places near by, the ground was broken as if by a thrust of a spear, and little sc.r.a.ps of clay scattered over the greensward. Then the bugle sounded a halt. A few minutes later the hors.e.m.e.n spread in a chain across the line of march, rode swiftly to a common center, formed in a solid group, turned to the rear and rode back of the skirmishers to the main body.

Company K watched them as they galloped back, and as they reached the group at the head of the long line, a half-mile or so distant, a body of men hastened forward laden with stretchers and hospital appliances. Ah!

at last! It is now real war. The bugle sounds Forward! and with an elastic spring the groups of four push dauntlessly ahead. Their eyes are fixed on the brow of the hill, separated from them by a narrow depression.

The whole line--perhaps three miles wide--but, of course, not at all regular, conforming largely to the difficulties encountered, moves down the sloping bank on a run. Before they reach the bottom they are an excellent target, and for the first time that most blood curdling of sounds--the half-singing, half-hissing z-z-z-ip of the minie-ball--numbs the ardor of the bravest. It is such a malignant, direct, devilish admonition of murder; it comes so unexpectedly, no matter how well you are prepared, that Achilles himself would feel a spasm of fear. And when it strikes it does its work with such a venomous, exultant splutter, that there seems something animate, demoniac in it. The volley, as I said, came as the men were hurried down the hill by their own momentum and by the sharp fall in the ground. The b.a.l.l.s pa.s.sed too high or too low, but they impressed the fact on enthusiasts, who had longed for battle, that one might die for one's country and not die gloriously. It seemed such an ign.o.ble, such a dastardly, outrageous thing, that death could come to them from unseen hands, for as yet they had not seen a soul. But now they are at the foot of the hill--though it is not correct to so call it, for it was a long, winding valley, through which ran a dancing streamlet, very welcome to the thirsty warriors when they had succeeded in breaking through the vicious natural _chevaux de frise_ of blackberry-briers and nettles. But now there wasn't much time to slake thirst. The bullets had begun to come regularly; and suddenly, as Jack conducted his squad across the stream, he was startled by the exclamation, uttered rather in reverence, it seemed to him, than surprise or pain:

"My G.o.d, I'm hit!"

Yes, a fair-haired lad--one of his cla.s.s--tottered a second in a limp, helpless way, and fell headlong, pitching into the little stream. Jack ran and lifted him out; but even before the hospital corps came the boy was dead. The bullet had gone quite through his heart.

However, now the first numbing terror of the bullet was changed to a sort of revengeful delight. Relinquishing any return fire for a moment, the company, with a great shout, that sounded all along its front, dashed up the hill, through the scrub-oak at the brow, and then they could see the enemy slowly retiring, a chain of them a mile or more wide. While one of the rebel ranks fired the other knelt, or lay flat upon the ground loading, where there were no natural obstacles to take shelter behind. A vengeful shout ran along the Union lines.