The Long Roll Part 49

In chase of this so beautiful a chance Shields set forth down the eastern side of Ma.s.sanutton, with intent to round the mountain at Port Republic, turn north again, and somewhere on the Valley pike make that will-o'-the-wisp junction with Fremont and stamp out rebellion. But of late it had rained much, and the roads were muddy and the streams swollen. His army was split into sections; here a brigade and there a brigade, the advance south of Conrad's Store, the rear yet at Luray. He had, however, the advantage of moving through leagues of forest, heavy, s.h.a.ggy, dense. It was not easy to observe the details of his operations.

Sunday morning dawned. A pearly mist wrapped the North Fork and the South Fork of the Shenandoah, and clung to the shingle roofs and bowery trees of the village between. The South Fork was shallow and could be forded. The North Fork was deep and strong and crossed by a covered bridge. Toward the bridge now, winding down from the near-by height on which the brigade had camped, came a detail from the 65th--twenty men led by Sergeant Mathew Coffin. They were chiefly Company A men, and they were going to relieve the pickets along the South Fork. Thanks to Mr.

Commissary Banks, they had breakfasted well. The men were happy, not hilariously so, but in a placid, equable fashion. As they came down, over the wet gra.s.s, from the bluff, they talked. "Mist over the Shenandoah's just like mist over the James"--"No, 'tisn't! Nothing's like mist over the James."--"Well, the bridge's like the bridge at home, anyway!"--"'Tisn't much like it. Hasn't got sidewalks inside."--"Yes, it has!"--"No, it hasn't!"--"I know better, I've been through it."--"I've been through it twice't--was through it after Elk Run, a month ago!"--"Well, it hasn't got sidewalks, anyway,"--"I tell you it has."--"You 're mistaken!"--"I'm not."--"You never did see straight nohow!"--"If I was at home I'd thrash you!"

Mathew Coffin turned his head. "Who's that jowering back there? Stop it!

Sunday morning and all!"

He went on, holding his head straight, a trig, slender figure, breathing irritation. His oval face with its little black moustache was set as hard as its boyish curves permitted, and his handsome dark eyes had two parallel lines above them. He marched as he marched always nowadays, with a mien aggrieved and haughty. He never lost the consciousness that he was wearing chevrons who had worn bars, and he was quite convinced that the men continually compared his two states.

The progress down hill to the bridge was short. Before the party the long, tunnel-like, weather-beaten structure loomed through the mist. The men entered and found it dusk and warm, smelling of horses, the river, fifteen feet below, showing through the cracks between the heavy logs of the floor. The marching feet sounded hollowly, voices reverberated.

"Just like our bridge--told you 'twas--Ain't it like, Billy Maydew?"

"It air," said Billy. "I air certainly glad that we air a-crossing on a bridge. The Shenandoah air a prop-o-si-tion to swim."

"How did you feel, Billy, when you got away?"

"At first, just like school was out," said Billy. "But when a whole picket post started after me, 'n' I run fer it, 'n' the trees put out arms to stop me, 'n' the dewberry, crawling on the ground, said to itself, 'h.e.l.lo! Let's make a trap'; 'n' when the rail fences all hollered out, 'We're goin' to turn agin you!' 'n' when a bit of swamp hollered louder than any, 'Let's suck down Billy Maydew--suck down Billy Maydew!' 'n' when a lot o' bamboo vines running over cedars, up with 'Hold him fast until you hear a bullet whizzing!' 'n' I got to the Shenandoah and there wa'n't no bridge, 'n' the Shenandoah says 'I'd just as soon drown men as look at them!'--when all them things talked so, I knew just how the critturs feel in the woods; 'n' I ain't so crazy about hunting as I was--and I say again this here air a most con-ve-ni-ent bridge."

With his musket b.u.t.t he struck the boarded side. The noise was so resoundingly greater than he had expected that he laughed and the men with him. Now Sergeant Mathew Coffin was as nervous as a witch. He had been marching along with his thoughts moodily hovering over the battery he would take almost single-handed, or the ambush he would dislodge and so procure promotion indeed. At the noise of the stick he started violently. "Who did that? Oh, I see, and I might have known it! I'll report you for extra duty--"

"Report ahead," said Billy, under his breath.

Coffin halted. "What was that you said, Maydew?"

"I didn't speak to you--sir."

"Well, you'll speak to me now. What was it you said then?" He came nearer, his arm thrown up, though but in an angry gesture. "If I struck you," thought Billy, "I'd be sorry for it, so I won't do it. But one thing's sure--I certainly should like to!"

"If you don't answer me," said Coffin thickly, "I'll report you for disobedience as well as for disorderly conduct! What was it you said then?"

"I said, 'Report ahead--and be d.a.m.ned to you!'"

Coffin's lips shut hard. "Very good! We'll see how three days of guardhouse tastes to you!--Forward!"

The party cleared the bridge and almost immediately found itself in the straggling village street. The mist clung here as elsewhere, houses and trees dim shapes, the surrounding hills and the dense woods beyond the South Fork hardly seen at all. Coffin marched with flushed face and his brows drawn together. He was mentally writing a letter on pale blue paper, and in it he was enlarging upon ingrat.i.tude. The men sympathized with Billy and their feet sounded resentfully upon the stones. Billy alone marched with elaborate lightness, quite as though he were walking on air and loved the very thought of the guardhouse.

Headquarters was an old corner house that had flung open its doors to General Jackson with an almost tremulous eagerness. A flag waved before the door, and there was a knot beneath of couriers and orderlies, with staff officers coming and going. Opposite was a store, closed of course upon Sunday, but boasting a deep porch with benches, to say nothing of convenient kegs and boxes. Here the village youth and age alike found business to detain them. The grey-headed exchanged remarks. "Sleep? No, I couldn't sleep! Might as well see what's to be seen! I ain't got long to see anything, and so I told Susan. When's he coming out?--Once't when I was a little shaver like Bob, sitting on the scales there, I went with my father in the stage-coach to Fredericksburg, I remember just as well--and I was sitting before the tavern on a man's knee,--old man 'twas, for he said he had fought the Indians,--and somebody came riding down the street, with two or three others. I jus' remember a blue coat and a c.o.c.ked hat and that his hair was powdered--and the man put me down and got up, and everybody else before the tavern got up--and somebody holloaed out 'Hurrah for General Washington--'"

There was a stir about the opposite door. An aide came out, mounted and rode off toward the bridge. An orderly brought a horse from the neighbouring stable. "That's his! That's General Jackson's!--Don't look like the war horse in Job, does he now?--Looks like a doctor's horse--Little Sorrel's his name." The small boy surged forward. "He's coming out!"--"How do you know him?"--"G' way! You always know generals when you see them! Great, big men, all trimmed up with gold. Besides, I saw him last night."--"You didn't!"--"Yes, I did! Saw his shadow on the curtain."--"How did you know 'twas his?"--"My mother said, 'Look, John, and don't never forget. That's Stonewall Jackson.' And it was a big shadow walking up and down, and it raised its hand--"

The church bell rang. A chaplain came out of the house. He had a Bible in his hand, and he beamed on all around. "There's the first bell, gentlemen--the bell, children! Church in a church, just like before we went to fighting! Trust you'll all come, gentlemen, and you, too, boys!

The general hopes you'll all come."

Within headquarters, in a large bare room, Jackson was having his customary morning half-hour with his heads of departments--an invariably recurring period in his quiet and ordered existence. It was omitted only when he fought in the morning. He sat as usual, bolt upright, large feet squarely planted, large hands stiff at sides. On the table before him were his sabre and Bible. Before him stood a group of officers. The adjutant, Colonel Paxton, finished his report. The general nodded.

"Good! good! Well, Major Harman?"

The chief quartermaster saluted. "The trains, sir, had a good night.

There are clover fields on either side of the Staunton road and the horses are eating their fill. A few have sore hoof and may have to be left behind. I had the ordnance moved as you ordered, nearer the river.

An orderly came back last night from the convoy on the way to Staunton.

Sick and wounded standing it well. Prisoners slow marchers, but marching. I sent this morning a string of wagons to Cross Keys, to General Ewell. We had a stampede last night among the negro teamsters.

They were sitting in a ring around the fire, and an owl hooted or a bat flitted. They had been telling stories of ha'nts, and they swore they saw General Ashby galloping by on the white stallion."

"Poor, simple, ignorant creatures!" said Jackson. "There is no witch of Endor can raise that horse and rider!--Major Hawks!"

The chief commissary came forward. "General Banks's stores are holding out well, sir. We are issuing special rations to the men to-day--Sunday dinner--fresh beef, rice and beans, canned fruits, coffee, sugar--"

"Good! good! They deserve the best.--Colonel Crutchfield--"

"I have posted Wooding's battery as you ordered, sir, on the brow of the hill commanding the bridge. There's a gun of Courtney's disabled. I have thought he might have the Parrott we captured day before yesterday.

Ammunition has been issued as ordered. Caissons all filled."

"Good!--Captain Boswell--Ah, Mr. Hotchkiss."

"Captain Boswell is examining the South Fork, sir, with a view to finding the best place for the foot bridge you ordered constructed. I have here the map you ordered me to draw."

"Good! Put it here on the table.--Now, Doctor McGuire."

"Very few reported sick this morning, sir. The good women of the village are caring for those. Three cases of fever, two of pneumonia, some dysentery, measles among the recruits. The medicines we got at Winchester are invaluable; they and the better fare the men are getting.

Best of all is the consciousness of victory,--the confidence and exaltation that all feel."

"Yes, doctor. G.o.d's shield is over us.--Captain Wilbourne--"

"I brought the signal party in from Peaked Mountain last night, sir. A Yankee cavalry company threatened to cut us off. Had we stayed we should have been captured. I trust, sir, that I acted rightly?"

"You acted rightly. You saw nothing of General Shields?"

"Nothing, sir. It is true that the woods for miles are extremely thick.

It would perhaps be possible for a small force to move unseen. But we made out nothing."

Jackson rose and drew closer the sabre and the Bible. "That is all, gentlemen. After religious services you will return to your respective duties."

The sun was now above the mountain tops, the mist beginning to lift. It lay heavily, however, over the deep woods and the bottom lands of the South Fork, through which ran the Luray road, and on the South Fork itself.--Clatter, clatter! Shots and cries! Shouting the alarm as they came, splashing through the ford, stopping on the hither bank for one scattering volley back into the woolly veil, came Confederate infantry pickets and vedettes. "Yankee cavalry! Look out! Look out! Yankees!" In the mist the foremost man ran against the detail from the 65th. Coffin seized him. "Where? where?" The other gasped. "Coming! Drove us in!

Whole lot of them! Got two guns. All of Shields, I reckon, right behind!" He broke away, tearing with his fellows into the village.

Sergeant Coffin and his men stared into the mist. They heard a great splashing, a jingling and shouting, and in another instant were aware of something looming like a herd of elephants. From the village behind them burst the braying of their own bugles--headquarters summoning, baggage train on the Staunton road summoning. The sound was shrill, insistent.

The shapes in the mist grew larger. There came a flash of rifles, pale yellow through the drift as of lawn. Zzzzzz! Zzzzzz! sang the b.a.l.l.s. The twenty men of the 65th proceeded to save themselves. Some of them tore down a side street, straight before the looming onrush. Others leaped fences and brushed through gardens, rich and dank. Others found house doors suddenly and quietly opening before them, houses with capacious dark garrets and cellars. All the dim horde, more and more of it, came splashing through the ford. A brazen rumbling arose, announcing guns.

The foremost of the horde, blurred of outline, preternaturally large, huzzaing and firing, charged into the streets of Port Republic.

In a twinkling the village pa.s.sed from her Sunday atmosphere to one of a highly work-a-day Monday. The blue cavalry began to harry the place. The townspeople hurried home, trumpets blared, shots rang out, oaths, shouts of warning! Men in grey belonging with the wagon train ran headlong toward their posts, others made for headquarters where the flag was and Stonewall Jackson. A number, headed off, were captured at once. Others, indoors when the alarm arose, were hidden by the women. Three staff officers had walked, after leaving Jackson's council, toward a house holding pretty daughters whom they meant to take to church. When the clangour broke out they had their first stupefied moment, after which they turned and ran with all their might toward headquarters. There was fighting up and down the street. Half a dozen huzzaing and sabring troopers saw the three and shouted to others nearer yet. "Officers! Cut them off, you there!" The three were taken. A captain, astride of a great reeking horse, towered above them. "Staff? You're staff? Is Jackson in the town?--and where? Quick now! Eh--what!"

"That's a lovely horse. Looks exactly, I imagine, like Rozinante--"

"On the whole I should say that McClellan might be finding Richmond like those mirages travellers tell about. The nearer he gets to it the further it is away."

"It has occurred to me that if after the evacuation of Corinth Beauregard should come back to Virginia--"

The captain in blue, hot and breathless, bewildered by the very success of the dash into town, kept saying, "Where is Jackson? What? Quick there, you! Where--" Behind him a corporal spoke out cavalierly. "They aren't going to tell you, sir. There's a large house down there that's got something like a flag before it--I think, too, that we ought to go take the bridge."

The streams of blue troopers flowed toward the princ.i.p.al street and united there. Some one saw the flag more plainly. "That's a headquarters!--What if Jackson were there? Good Lord! what if we took Jackson?" A bugler blew a vehement rally. "_All of you, come on! All of you, come on!_" The stream increased in volume, began to move, a compact body, down the street. "There are horses before that door! Look at that nag! That's Jackson's horse!--No."--"Yes! Saw it at Kernstown! Forward!"