The Long Roll Part 55

The servant found the room empty and the bed unslept in--only the dictionary and Napoleon's Maxims (the Bible was gone) on the table to testify to its late occupancy. Jim, the general's body servant, emerged from an inner room. "Gineral Jackson? Fo' de Lawd, n.i.g.g.ah! yo' ain't looking ter fin' de gineral heah at dis heah hour? He done clar out 'roun' er bout midnight. Reckon by now he's whipping de Yankees in de Valley!"

In the dark night, several miles from Frederickshall, two riders, one leading, one following, came upon a picket. "Halt!" There sounded the click of a musket. The two halted.

"Jest two of you? Advance, number one, and give the countersign!"

"I am an officer bearing dispatches--"

"That air not the point! Give the countersign!"

"I have a pa.s.s from General Whiting--"

"This air a Stonewall picket. Ef you've got the word, give it, and ef you haven't got it my hand air getting mighty wobbly on this gun!"

"I am upon an important mission from General Jackson--"

"It air not any more important than my orders air! You get down from that thar horse and mark time!"

"That is not necessary. Call your officer of guard."

"Thank you for the sug-ges-tion," said Billy politely. "And don't you move while I carry it out!" He put his fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly. A sergeant and two men came tumbling out of the darkness. "What is it, Maydew?"

"It air a man trying to get by without the countersign."

The first horseman moved a little to one side. "Come here, sergeant!

Have you got a light? Wait, I will strike a match."

He struck it, and it flared up, making for an instant a s.p.a.ce of light.

Both the sergeant and Billy saw his face. The sergeant's hand went up to his cap with an involuntary jerk; he fell back from the rein he had been holding. Billy almost dropped his musket. He gasped weakly, then grew burning red. Jackson threw down the match. "Good! good! I see that I can trust my pickets. What is the young man named?"

"Billy Maydew, sir. Company A, 65th Virginia."

"Good! good! Obedience to orders is a soldier's first, last, and best lesson! He will do well." He gathered up the reins. "There are four men here. You will all forget that you have seen me, sergeant."

"Yes, sir."

"Good! Good-night."

He was gone, followed by the courier. Billy drew an almost sobbing breath. "I gave him such a d.a.m.ned lot of impudence! He was hiding his voice, and not riding Little Sorrel, or I would have known him."

The sergeant comforted him. "Just so you were obeying orders and watching and handling your gun all right, he didn't care! I gather you didn't use any cuss words. He seemed kind of satisfied with you."

The night was dark, Louisa County roads none of the best. As the c.o.c.ks were crowing, a worthy farmer, living near the road, was awakened by the sound of horses. "Wonder who's that?--Tired horses--one of them's gone lame. They're stopping here."

He slipped out of bed and went to the window. Just light enough to see by. "Who's there?"

"Two Confederate officers on important business. Our horses are tired.

Have you two good fresh ones?"

"If I've got them, I don't lend them to every straggler claiming to be a Confederate officer on important business! You'd better go further.

Good-night!"

"I have an order from General Whiting authorizing me to impress horses."

The farmer came out of the house, into the chill dawn. One of the two strangers took the stable key and went off to the building looming in the background. The other sat stark and stiff in the grey light. The first returned. "Two in very good condition, sir. If you'll dismount I'll change saddles and leave our two in the stalls."

The officer addressed took his large feet out of the stirrups, tucked his sabre under his arm, and stiffly dismounted. Waiting for the fresh horses, he looked at the angry farmer. "It is for the good of the State, sir. Moreover, we leave you ours in their places."

"I am as good a Virginian as any, sir, with plenty of my folks in the army! And one horse ain't as good as another--not when one of yours is your daughter's and you've ridden the other to the Court House and to church for twelve years--"

"That is so true, sir," answered the officer, "that I shall take pleasure in seeing that, when this need is past, your horses are returned to you. I promise you that you shall have them back in a very few days. What church do you attend?"

The second soldier returned with the horses. The first mounted stiffly, pulled a forage cap over his eyes, and gathered up the reins. The light had now really strengthened. All things were less like shadows. The Louisa County man saw his visitor somewhat plainly, and it came into his mind that he had seen him before, though where or when--He was all wrapped up in a cloak, with a cap over his eyes. The two hurried away, down the Richmond road, and the despoiled farmer began to think: "Where'd I see him--Richmond? No, 't wasn't Richmond. After Mana.s.sas, when I went to look for Hugh? Rappahannock? No, 't wasn't there.

Lexington? Good G.o.d! That was Stonewall Jackson!"

CHAPTER XXIX

THE NINE-MILE ROAD

In the golden afternoon light of the twenty-third of June, the city of Richmond, forty thousand souls, lay, fevered enough, on her seven hills.

Over her floated the stars and bars. In her streets rolled the drum.

Here it beat quick and bright, marking the pa.s.sage of some regiment from the defences east or south to the defences north. There it beat deep and slow, a m.u.f.fled drum, a Dead March--some officer killed in a skirmish, or dying in a hospital, borne now to Hollywood. Elsewhere, quick and bright again, it meant Home Guards going to drill. From the outskirts of the town might be heard the cavalry bugles blowing,--from the Brook turnpike and the Deep Run turnpike, from Meadow Bridge road and Mechanicsville road, from Nine-Mile and Darbytown and Williamsburg stage roads and Osborne's old turnpike, and across the river from the road to Fort Darling. From the hilltops, from the portico or the roof of the Capitol, might be seen the camp-fires of Lee's fifty thousand men--the Confederate Army of the Potomac, the Army of the Rappahannock, the Army of Norfolk, the Army of the Peninsula--four armies waiting for the arrival of the Army of the Valley to coalesce and become the Army of Northern Virginia. The curls of smoke went up, straight, white, and feathery. With a gla.s.s might be seen at various points the crimson flag, with the blue St. Andrew's cross and the stars, eleven stars, a star for each great State of the Confederacy. By the size you knew the arm--four feet square for infantry, three feet square for artillery, two and a half by two and a half for cavalry.

The light lay warm on the Richmond houses--on mellow red brick, on pale grey stucco. It touched old ironwork balconies and ivy-topped walls, and it gilded the many sycamore trees, and lay in pools on the heavy leaves of the magnolias. Below the pillared Capitol, in the green up and down of the Capitol Square, in Main Street, in Grace Street by St. Paul's, before the Exchange, the Ballard House, the Spotswood, on Shockoe Hill by the President's House, through all the leafy streets there was vivid movement. In this time and place Life was so near to Death; the ocean of pain and ruin so evidently beat against its sh.o.r.es, that from very contrast and threatened doom Life took a higher light, a deeper splendour. All its notes resounded, nor did it easily relinquish the major key.

In the town were many hospitals. These were being cleaned, aired, and put in order against the impending battles. The wounded in them now, chiefly men from the field of Seven Pines, looked on and hoped for the best. Taking them by and large, the wounded were a cheerful set. Many could sit by the windows, in the perfumed air, and watch the women of the South, in their soft, full gowns, going about their country's business. Many of the gowns were black.

About the hotels, the President's House, the governor's mansion, and the Capitol, the movement was of the official world. Here were handsome men in broadcloth, grown somewhat thin, somewhat rusty, but carefully preserved and brushed. Some were of the old school and still affected stocks and ruffled shirts. As a rule they were slender and tall, and as a rule wore their hair a little long. Many were good Latinists, most were good speakers. One and all they served their states as best they knew how, overworked and anxious, facing privation here in Richmond with the knowledge that things were going badly at home, sitting long hours in Congress, in the Hall of Delegates, in courts or offices, struggling there with Herculean difficulties, rising to go out and listen to telegrams or to read bulletins. Sons, brothers, kinsmen, and friends were in the field.

This golden afternoon, certain of the latter had ridden in from the lines upon this or that business connected with their commands. They were not many, for all the world knew there would be a deadly fighting presently, deadly and prolonged. Men and officers must stay within drum-beat. Those who were for an hour in Richmond, in their worn grey uniforms, with the gold lace grown tarnished (impossible of replacement!), with their swords not tarnished, their netted silk sashes, their clear bright eyes and keen thin faces, found friends enough as they went to and fro--more eager questioners and eager listeners than they could well attend to. One, a general officer, a man of twenty-nine, in a hat with a long black plume, with the most charming blue eyes, and a long bronze, silky, rippling beard which he constantly stroked, could hardly move for the throng about him. Finally, in the Capitol Square, he backed his horse against the railing about the great equestrian Washington. The horse, a n.o.ble animal, arched his neck. There was around it a wreath of bright flowers. The rider spoke in an enchanting voice. "Now if I tell you in three words how it was and what we did, will you let me go? I've got to ride this afternoon to Yellow Tavern."

"Yes, yes! Tell us, General Stuart."

"My dear people, it was the simplest thing in the world! A man in the First has made a song about it, and Sweeney has set it to the banjo--if you'll come out to the camp after the battle you shall hear it! General Lee wanted to know certain things about the country behind McClellan.

Now the only way to know a thing is to go and look at it. He ordered a reconnoissance in force. I took twelve hundred cavalrymen and two guns of the horse artillery and made the reconnoissance. Is there anything else that you want to know?"

"Be good, general, and tell us what you did."

"I am always good--just born so! I rode round McClellan's army--Don't cheer like that! The town'll think it's Jackson, come from the Valley!"

"Tell us, general, how you did it!"

"Gentlemen, I haven't time. If you like, I'll repeat the man in the First's verses, and then I'm going. You'll excuse the metre? A poor, rough, unlearned cavalryman did it.

"Fitz Lee, Roony Lee, Breathed and Stuart, Martin to help, and Heros von Borcke, First Virginia, Fourth, Ninth, two guns and a Legion-- From Hungary Run to Laurel Hill Fork,