[12]February 16th, 1863.
[12]February 16th, 1863.
At no time during the Peninsular campaign has the commanding General so fully commanded the confidence of the soldiers, as during all those severe battles afterwards to be known as the Seven Days. His calm and collected action had been of the very character to inspire that confidence, and could not have wrought more effectually to that end had it had no other purpose. Some men, jubilant and light-hearted when all their plans are progressing favorably, permit their words to become few and their manner sombre and abstracted when difficulties thicken, creating fear and distrust in the minds of those around them, even when they themselves have not lost confidence and are only absorbed in thought. McClellan, always a silent man, displayed the very opposite. One of his staff officers said of him on that terrible Friday afternoon of the first conflict, when the result certainly seemed a most threatening one for the Union arms: "Little Mac seems to have woke up! I have not seen him look so happy before, since he received the news of McDowell's falling back on Washington." And there had not been wanting those to circulate throughout the army his confident and self-possessed action on the morning before—that of White Oak Swamp, when he sat on horseback at the cross-roads, with aid-de-camps dashing up with unfavorable reports, and heads of divisions a little embarrassed if not dispirited around him. "Gentlemen, take it easy! Only obey me, and I will bring you out of all this without the loss of a man or a gun, God willing!"
Such words had been like the pause of the Bruce to cut his armor-strap when flying before the English enemy—they had inspirited the whole command. He had remained, too, the whole of Monday, in the neighborhood of the White Oak Swamp, personally superintending everything and hastening the passage of the immense trains onward towards the James. Nothing had seemed to discourage him, and no exposure in the terrible heat had seemed to fatigue him beyond endurance. All these facts had crept out to every division of the army, as they will do through the subtle and unaccountable telegraphism of comrade-ry; and when regiment after regiment heard of the incident since made memorable by De Joinville, of his rising from his momentary rest on the piazza of a house near White Oak and going out with a smile to prevent his soldiers picking and eating the cherries belonging to his pretty hostess, they had burst out into laughs and cheers more complimentary to the young General's pluck than his devotion to Nelly Marcy, and fancied that he might have been engaged in picking other cherries for himself, that grew on red lips instead of on the tree!
Such were the influences which combatted those otherwise so unfavorable, kept up their spirits even when they could see nothing but defeat and discouragement in every movement, and made every blow they struck at the advancing enemy more deadly than the last. Such were the influences peculiarly active on this day when they were so much needed, and which inspired the army-corps of Fitz-John Porter for the memorable blow struck in the first battle of Malvern. The rebel South will long mourn for its lost children, perished in that sanguinary conflict and in the wider and more destructive but not fiercer one which was so soon to follow at Malvern Hill itself.
More of the First Battle of Malvern—A Pause—The Attacks on the Main Position—Repulse After Repulse—Victory—Strange Incidents of the Last Hour of the Battle.
Still the battle went on—that ferocious attack which seemed to have the desperation of defence, and that steady defence which appeared to have the assured confidence of an attack. The smoke gathered rapidly, rolled away at times, then settled in dense masses, shutting out portions of the battle-field and whole divisions of either army from view, and concealing the movements of either belligerent from the other until lifted in the occasional lulls of the fiery storm or wafted away by the lazy breeze which came sluggishly over from the James River marshes. Men fell thickly, crushed, mangled and dead, or so terribly wounded by shot or shell that life could be henceforth nothing more than one long, helpless agony. Slightly wounded soldiers went limping to the rear, seeking surgical aid; while badly wounded men were eagerly caught up and borne off the field by their "comrades in battle" or by white-livered recreants, anxious to desert their braver companions and place themselves in safety. A certain percentage of such craven-hearted libels on humanity—let it be said here—are always to be found in every army and on every battle-field, dusky backgrounds against which brave men show the brighter, and ever ready to take advantage of any circumstance that will help them to the rear. In the armies of the older and more warlike nations of Europe, where the reins of discipline are much more tightly drawn than in our own, such skulking is prevented by regularly-organized ambulance-parties and by the prompt shooting down of any officer or soldier, not wounded, who dares to leave the ranks without orders. Even in our own service, a Taylor is occasionally found, fighting such a desperate battle as that of the Bad Axe against the Indians, and posting a line of his most reliable troops in the rear, with orders to make short work of the skulkers. Such discipline as this—an enemy in front and an equally dangerous body of friends behind, is generally found efficacious even for the weakest knees; and but few hours of such experience are necessary to produce a marked-change in the steadiness of any corps under fire.
Noon now approached, and the battle had raged for more than two hours, without any intermission except the occasional lulls when batteries were limbered up and dragged off at a gallop to new positions, and when regiments deployed in line or closed in column, making evolutions to the flanks or movements to the front. Attacks had been fiercely made on every portion of the Union lines by the maddened rebels—maddened, as was afterwards discovered, by the gunpowdered whiskey in their canteens; and they had been quite as fiercely repulsed by the loyal troops, who neither needed nor received any such stimulus. This defence had been materially assisted, and the Federal troops enabled to gain ground at every repulse of the rebels, by the arrival of several regiments of infantry and two of his best batteries, sent in haste by McClellan from his main position at Malvern Hill, so soon as the roar of artillery announced that the fight had fairly begun with the rear-guard.
A little before meridian, the musket fire of the enemy slackened perceptibly, while their artillery, operating against the Union left, seemed to redouble its fury. This change was at once made known to Porter, who as quickly divined the intention of Longstreet. This was to engage all attention with the Federal left, while several of his divisions, passing rapidly through roadways and obscure paths in the woods known only to the native Virginians, were to take the right wing in flank. Porter immediately directed counter movements to meet them—movements admirably calculated and as admirably executed. Burns, with his own and two other brigades, moved rapidly to the right and deployed in line opposite the edge of the white oaks from which the rebels must emerge to make their attack. Four batteries went up at a trot and took position where they were masked by a fringe of bushes and some patches of tall corn. From this point the artillery could concentrate a terrible fire of grape, canister and short-fuse shell upon any part of the opposite woods from which the enemy might make their appearance. The infantry were ordered to lie down, and were concealed from view by clumps of trees, corn and underbrush. This repelling force was not kept long in suspense, and it was evident that the movement had not been made a moment too soon for safety. Suddenly from the shadow of the white-oaks, out came the Confederates by regiments, without tap of drum or bugle-call, pouring from the various openings in double-quick time, and by the right and left flanks. They filed rapidly right and left until the woods were cleared; then by a halt and face-to-the-front they were brought quickly into line of battle. A halt of very brief space to align and close up ranks, and they were ordered forward to the attack. On they came, in close order and with long swaying lines, exulting in the prospect of a successful issue to their bold movement, and so confident that they would take the Federal flank and rear by complete surprise, that silence was no longer felt to be necessary and yells and shouts of triumph were beginning to burst from one portion and another of their line. Still on they came, and not a shot had been fired on either side since they emerged from the woods. Their left was thrown forward in advance of the centre and right, as if seeking to surround the positions supposed to be held by the Federal troops. They were even allowed to advance within pistol-shot of some portions of the ambuscade, before the trap laid for them was sprung.
Then what a change!—like that when the thunder-storm, long gathering but still silent, breaks at once into desolating fury. It seemed as if at one and the same instant the four Union batteries opened, and a terrible concentrating storm of flame and projectiles leaped from the muzzles of twenty-four pieces of artillery and burst upon their centre with devastating effect. In an instant after, the infantry sprung to their feet, and a sheet of fire burst from right to left, one deadly and irresistible shower of lead sweeping through the rebel ranks that had so little expected such a reception. They hesitated—halted—recoiled. Before they could recover from the awful shock, volley after volley was poured into their wavering lines, and they could not again be brought forward. On the instant when their discomfiture was clearly perceived, a charge was ordered against them. The Union men dashed forward, glad to have that order at last, and breaking into ringing cheers—the first in which they had indulged that day. The rebels could not stand a moment before that impetuous onset, but broke and ran for the cover of the white-oaks, leaving the ground of the conflict almost impassable with the terrible piles of their dead and wounded.
A general advance of our lines was now ordered, and the command was obeyed with alacrity. The rebel front, weakened by the withdrawal of so many troops for the grand flanking movement, gave way before they could be reached with the steel; and their three-deep lines became mixed up in the most hopeless disorder. Kearney's division made a gallant charge, in this movement, Sickles' Excelsior Brigade once more evidencing that splendid steadiness with the bayonet which had been so conspicuous at Williamsburgh and Fair Oaks. General Heintzelman joined in this brilliant advance, his tall form and blue blouse conspicuous as he rode rapidly along the lines, speaking words of cheer and steadying the men who did not need urging forward.
The Union batteries had meanwhile kept up their terrible fire, while those of the enemy were silenced one after another and drawn off with the recoiling troops, with the exception of one battery, which maintained its fire with invincible obstinacy. It was felt that this battery must be taken or silenced. A stream of men in dingy French blue were seen to leap forward, and it was known that the Excelsior boys were making a dash at the battery. The gunners saw the movement, began to limber up their pieces and succeeded in galloping away with four of them. But the two remaining guns could not be handled quickly enough, and the Excelsiors took them with a rush and a cheer, and in such excellent spirits that one of them was the moment after sitting astride of each gun and waving his cap in token of victory. The battle-flag of one of the Georgia regiments, and three hundred prisoners, were also captured in this gallant dash, which effectually showed how little the spirits of the Army of the Potomac had been damped by recent misfortunes. General Heintzelman lost his horse by the last fire of one of the captured pieces, and at the same time received a wound in the arm—fortunately not serious. The repulse of the rebels was now complete. Longstreet was compelled to "retire" and not by any means in "good order," leaving the field with its dead and wounded, and many arms and other trophies, in the possession of the Federal forces.
Of course this success could not be followed up, the object of the battle having been to secure an uninterrupted line of march to the James River. And of course the Union generals were well aware that while the rebels possessed any remaining strength, they would not give up their cherished object of crippling or destroying the main body before it could reach the shelter of the river and the gun-boats. Fresh troops would be brought up; and but little time would be allowed the Federal troops to recover from the fatigue and excitement of that arduous morning. The rebel plan evidently was to give the Federal forces no rest—to precipitate fresh masses of their own troops continually upon them, when weary and exhausted with previous fighting; and when they were at last fairly worn out and incapable of further exertion, to "gobble them up" (to use an expressive, though not elegant phrase) or destroy them in detail and at leisure. The theory was admirable, and both brain and heart were necessary to prevent its being carried out in successful practice.
The Federal dead were buried on the field where they had so bravely fallen; the wounded were sent on to Harrison's Landing; the slaughtered rebels were left to the tender care of their approaching comrades; the prisoners were gathered together and put properly under guard; and then the army-corps of General Fitz-John Porter fell back under previous orders to the strong position of Malvern Hill proper, where McClellan was certain he would at once be attacked by the rebels in force, its possession being the most important point in their plan of action, and its triumphant retention one of the most important in his own.
The first battle of Malvern was ended; but the curtain was soon to rise on a still more fearful scene of slaughter and one yet more uneven in its character as regarded the losses of the Union army and the rebels.
The main position occupied by McClellan was a splendid one for defence; and, thanks to what De Joinville calls the "happy foresight of the General, who, notwithstanding all the hindrances presented by the nature of the soil to his numerous artillery, had spared no pains to bring it with him"—the preparations for holding that position were magnificently adequate. The extreme right flank was comparatively narrow, and as it was a point liable to a determined attack, strong earth-works had been hastily thrown up entirely across it, and it had been further protected by a thick, impenetrable mass of abattis, the materials for which were so plentifully furnished by the Virginia woods and in the construction of which the quasi-mechanical army was rapidly efficient. The left was protected by the James River and the terror-inspiring gun-boats. In front the hill sloped gently down to the Charles City and Richmond road, and other points by which the enemy must debouch to begin the attack. On this natural plateau not less than three hundred pieces of artillery—a number fabulous in any preceding struggle in the history of the world—were placed in battery; so arranged that they would not interfere With the fire of the infantry along the natural glacis up which the assailants would be obliged to advance unsheltered. In the skirts of the woods lying beyond the foot of the hills, long lines of rifle-pits had been dug—these, and the woods beyond, occupied by a brigade of Maine and Wisconsin infantry and a portion of Berdan's celebrated regiment, to act as sharp-shooters.
The sun was sinking rapidly westward in the direction of Richmond—that coveted capital of Secessia, for the possession of which so much blood and treasure had been unavailingly expended; the trees, which for so many hours had afforded no shelter from the blinding blaze, except immediately beneath their spreading branches and dust-dimmed leaves, began to cast long shadows eastward; and the fervent heat began to be more sensibly tempered by the breeze creeping in from the placid James. Still the Union troops were resting on their arms, weary but undaunted, awaiting the approach of the Confederates, then (at five o'clock) reported as advancing to the attack. The line was formed as follows: the remnants of Porter's and Sumner's corps on the right; Franklin and Heintzelman in the centre; and Couch's division of Keyes' corps on the left. In position, on the left, were two New York batteries, Robertson's United States battery of six pieces, Allen's Massachusetts and Kern's Pennsylvania batteries. Griffin's United States battery, Weeden's Rhode island, and three from New York, held positions in the centre. On the right were Tidball's, Weed's and Carlisle's regular batteries, a German battery of twenty-four pounders, a battery belonging to the Pennsylvania reserve, and one New York battery—in all about eighty pieces.
Within a few minutes of five the signal officers at the various stations waved their telegraphic bunting, announcing the approach of the rebels under Magruder, and immediately afterwards they appeared in sight, in large dense masses reaching apparently quite across the country to the West, North-west and West-south-west,—with cavalry on either flank and artillery thickly scattered at various points, all along their line. Stretching away from the foot of Malvern Hill, in the hostile direction, lay a large open space known as Carter's Field—a field destined that day to be more thickly sown with dead than almost any historic spot on the globe except some portions of the field of Waterloo or that of Grokow. It was a mile long by three quarters of a mile in breadth, enclosed by thick woods on the three distant sides, while that towards the Hill was open. On the two sides flanking the enemy's approach our sharp-shooters were principally concealed. Entirely across Carter's Field stretched the rebel line, while in depth their columns extended so far back that the eye of the signal officer lost them in a wavering line far away in the thick woods extending beyond the scene of the morning's battle.
The Union forces rose up wearily but steadily, and awaited the approach of the Confederate host, known to be at least twice or thrice their own number, and led on by that sanguinary commander otherwise described by a writer who accompanied him through all his battles in the United States service and thoroughly knows his habits of speech and action,[13]—as "the flowery and ever-thirsty John Bankhead Magruder—the pet ofNewportand the petter ofold wine." The rebels moved forward in good order; slowly at first, and then, as if spurred on irresistibly from behind in all parts of the field, the whole dingy-gray mass broke from the "common time" step into that "dog-trot" known in the tactics of the present day as the "double-quick." At the same moment they broke into those shrieks of horrible dissonance, remarked in the fight of the morning, rising even above the din of the opening artillery, and more resembling the whoops of the copper-skinned warriors of the renegade Albert Pike, than soldiers of what is called a Christian nation, led on by a commander believing himself the very "pink of chivalry."
[13]White—"Mexican War Sketches."
[13]White—"Mexican War Sketches."
Gallantly, it must be owned by all who saw the movement, did the gray-clads spring forward to the encounter, rushing over the field at an accelerating speed which soon increased to a full run. Then and not till then again burst the deadly storm of defence. From the Federal lines across the hill there belched murderous blasts of grape and canister into their front, and from the rifle-pits and woods went shrieking showers of rifle shots and Minie balls into their flanks, the two terrible influences almost sweeping them away like leaves caught by the gale. They fell by hundreds at a discharge, encumbering the ground and leaving wide gaps in their ranks; yet still their dense columns closed again and dashed resolutely up, until more than two-thirds the distance across Carter's Field was accomplished. Here the carnage, from the combined effects of artillery and small-arms at short range, became absolutely terrible among the rebels—such a spectacle as even loyal soldiers, gazing at it, could not but feel to be a species of wholesale murder for which the cause could no more than give excuse. The bones in the rebel regiments seemed to be crushed like window-glass in a hailstorm; masses of gory pulp that had but a few moments before been men, began to form an absolute coating for the ground; and the fierce yells of attack had become awfully commingled with the shrieks of those mangled beyond endurance and dying in agony. It was too much for human bravery to withstand—probably no troops in the world would have stood longer under that withering fire, than the brave but misguided tools of the secession heresy. Their lines began to waver with a ricketty, swaying motion, to and fro, as if the whole body was one man and he was exhausted and tottering; then there-was a movement to the "right about," and the whole head of the column sought hasty shelter under the friendly woods in the rear, from which they had so lately debouched.
A terrific artillery-duel proper was now commenced, and kept up for more than an hour, the Confederates showing no disposition to renew the attack, and the Federal forces contented to hold them at bay under circumstances in which the balance of damage by artillery must be so largely in their own favor. Then came a sudden lull in the storm, during which the Confederates made preparations to capture the flanking rifle-pits of the Federals, which had annoyed them so severely in the charge. Several desperate attempts were made upon them in quick succession, and they were taken and retaken repeatedly. In the end, however, they were permanently held by the defenders, whose stubborn pluck, aided by the enfilading fire of the advanced batteries, proved more than a match for the determined bravery of the attacking forces.
On the summit of Malvern Hill, and nearly in the middle of the plateau formed by the whole eminence, stands a red brick mansion-house, quaintly built, antique and sombre. The house is of two stories, long and low. Solemn shade-trees surround it; and corn and wheat fields stretch away from the Virginia fences of its spacious yard, down the slope of the hill and across the lowland to the margin of the James. In time of peace, this old house boasted a most charming situation, and the view from the verandah was one of the very finest in the country, taking in at a glance the long line of the winding river for many miles in either direction, and looking up the river, the high range of bluffs on the other side on which has been erected that serious obstacle to an advance on Richmond by water—Fort Darling. At the eastern end of the mansion stand the inevitable "negro-quarters," now empty and deserted, and with nothing about them to remind one of their former dusky denizens, except that unmistakable odor which supplies an obvious parody on Moore's aroma of the roses in the broken vase. Opposite the west end of the house is a deep, roof-covered well; and around this crowds of the wounded and thirsty Union soldiers were continually gathered during the fight, drinking in, as fast as permitted, that sweetest as well as freest of Nature's blessings—water.
On the west gable of this mansion, on the afternoon of the battle, a signal-officer was stationed, with his ten-foot staff and odd-shaped parti-colored yard of muslin, and his field-glass. His view extended far in the direction of Richmond, taking in the various camps of Wise's Legion, Jackson's and Huger's divisions, and others of the rebel forces; while riverwards his eye could easily reach, with the aid of the glass and when the smoke of the field did not arise too thickly, the famed Drury's Bluff and the redoubtable Fort Darling itself, still frowning defiance at the threatening little Monitor.
The failure to take the rifle-pits had been followed by a second lull, betokening, to the experienced soldier, fresh rebel preparations for an attack in another quarter. Suddenly, when the sun was just sending the last of its rays through the murky clouds of the battle-field, as if in indication that the eye of heaven had not wholly deserted the brotherhood of Cain,—the Federal signal-officers in the distance waved their flags, and other signal-officers in the vicinity repeated their motions. These pantomimic exhibitions, mysterious to the unpractised eye, told to the officers in command, that the Confederates, strongly reinforced by the fresh troops of Jackson and Huger, and their troops inspired by fresh draughts of the maddening gunpowdered whiskey, were being marshalled for another and final attack upon the Federal position.
But a few moments elapsed before the roar of the Confederate batteries gave proof that this warning had not been in vain. Every piece they could bring to bear sent its missiles of death hurtling into the Union lines, the next charge to be made under cover of that cannonade. But probably even they had not calculated upon such a reply as was given by the artillery of McClellan. Never before, since war became a science of butchery, did so many pieces thunder at once upon the devoted ranks of any attacking force. Never before were the very peals of the artillery of heaven so terribly rivalled. Only a portion of the Union guns had before been brought into play: now nearly the whole three hundred belched forth their deadly defiance in crashing and booming repetitions. Those who heard the sound will never forget it; nor will many of them live to hear that sound repeated. Far away among the mountains, a hundred and fifty miles distant, the boom of that terrible cannonade was heard, announcing the conflict to loyalist and rebel who had no other means of knowing that it was in progress. At times the firm earth shook with the continued reverberations, as if an earthquake was passing; and combatants even stood still in the very face of the deadliest danger, under a momentary impression that some fearful convulsion of nature must be in progress and that the sinking sun must be going down on the last day of a crumbling earth.
The rebel artillery was skilfully managed, and their range proved to be excellent; while the management and effect of the Union guns can only be described by one word—magnificent. The superior weight and management of the Federal metal was manifest from one fact if no other—the continual limbering up and changing positions of the rebel pieces, to escape the deadly aim of artillerymen who have probably never been excelled in any service. The only historian who has as yet dealt with the events of that great day,[14]says that it was "madness for the Confederates to rush against such obstacles," and that during the entire day, owing to the weight and superior management of the Federal artillery, they fought "without for a single moment having a chance of success." And yet this was the artillery of an army, and this was the army itself, spoken of by detractors as "defeated" and "demoralized," and utterly incapable of further offensive movements against Richmond, however rested and reinforced!
[14]De Joinville.
[14]De Joinville.
Under cover of the smoke of this fire, the mighty hosts of Huger, Jackson and Magruder advanced to the second general assault. Onward they rushed, and, emerging from the sulphurous clouds, rolled forward in heavy columns. They presented a still more imposing front than at the first attack, stretching more than half a mile across the fatal Carter's Field, with scarce a break or an interval in its entire length. On they pressed—steadily, resolutely, desperately—pausing an instant to pour in their fire, and then forward again at quick step. The advance was met with belching volumes from rifles, muskets and batteries, sending such storms of "leaden rain and iron hail" as no body of men on earth could hope to withstand, and joining with the shrieks and shouts of the combatants and the dying, to create such a din as might well have given the impression that the chains of Pandemonium were unloosed and all the lost replying to the thunders of heaven with screams of blasphemy and desperation.
At this moment, too, a new element of terror and destruction broke suddenly into the conflict. As if the powers of the air had indeed begun to take part in the struggle, fiery meteors fell out of the air, from a direction not commanded by the Federal batteries—fiery meteors before which whole ranks of men seemed like stubble before the scythe. One of them would fall hissing through the air, burst with a horrible explosion, and the moment after nothing would remain of the ranks of rebels within thirty or forty feet of it, but a mass of shattered and mangled fragments, limbs torn from limbs and heads from bodies. At first the rebels could not understand the meaning of this new and awful visitation, and even the Union troops were not for the time aware what new power had come to their aid, destroying more of the enemy at a blow than their heaviest and best-served batteries. But the signal officer on the gable of the old mansion on Malvern Hill saw, and soon communicated the fact to the officers in command—that the gun-boats Galena and Aroostook (not the Monitor, as has been sometimes reported), had steamed up from their anchorage at Curl's Neck, two miles below, and opened furious broadsides of shell from their heavy rifled guns. These shells were the terrible missiles working that untold destruction in the rebel ranks; and the horrors and dangers of the fight to them must have been intensely aggravated by these fiery monsters that came tearing and shrieking through the forest and exploded with concussions that shook the earth like discharges from whole batteries. Only after the battle was over could the ravages made by this agency be fully appreciated, from the effects produced on natural objects lying in the line of their course. In many places, avenues rods long and many feet in width, were cut through the tree-tops and branches; and in not a few instances, great trees, three and four feet in diameter, were burst open from branch to root, split to shreds and scattered in splinters in all directions.
Panting, swearing, whooping and bleeding, the Confederate lines had been pushed on, until they had reached a point nearly as far in advance as in the former attack. But here, beneath the storm of canister, case-shot and grape-shot, solid-shot, shell and musketry, human endurance failed and even the madness of intoxication grew useless. The hurricane of metal was too deadly for mortal man to withstand. No efforts could urge them further forward; and finding it impossible to run to the end that gauntlet of iron and lead, they once more wavered and broke, faced about and sought the shelter of the woods, leaving Carter's Field burdened with its second terrible harvest of death for that day—the dead in actual heaps and winrows, and the wounded one mere struggling, writhing and groaning mass.
But why repeat the story that has no variety except in horror? Again and again, with fresh troops flung every time to the front, that mad attempt to carry Malvern Hill was repeated and repulsed. An attack—a repulse; and each time with added but never-varied slaughter. The consumption of raw spirits among the rebel ranks must have been enormous during the day; for every rebel canteen found on the field had been filled with that maddening compound, with or without the fiendish addition of the sulphur and nitre of gunpowder. Their attacks were like the rolling of billows toward a beach: their waves of battle swept up with raging fierceness, but broke and receded at every dash; and, like the waves when the tide is fast ebbing, the surging lines broke farther off at each advance. The attack on Malvern Hill had failed—at what a fearful expenditure of valor and courage on the part of the Union troops, only those who participated can ever know;—and at what a cost of life to the rebels, only that Eye which looked down from a greater height than that of the signal-officer on the gable of the old mansion, could have power to measure!
During the last of these rebel attacks, the gun-boats were signalled to cease firing, lest their shells might prove equally fatal to friends and foes; and the Union forces were ordered to prepare for an advance, as Porter had determined to act, temporarily at least, on the offensive, and thus crown the events of a day which had been virtually one of splendid victory for the Union arms. Just when the rebels were halting and wavering under the effects of the renewed artillery fire poured out to meet them, Burns', Meagher's, Dana's and French's brigades, of the right, were ordered to charge. The order did not come too soon for the brave fellows who had been chafing like caged lions at the necessity of fighting all day on the defensive. Right gallantly and with ringing cheers did they spring forward, until within a hundred yards of the enemy, when they halted and sent a scorching fire of musketry directly into their faces. Couch's division on the left had been thrown forward almost at the same moment, and the order was obeyed with equal alacrity and effect. Then the whole line was ordered to advance, and away they went with ringing shouts, like so many confined school-boys suddenly let out for an hour's play, but going, alas!—to a game of "ball" that entailed death on many of the players.
The brave Irishmen of Meagher were already in the advance, blazing and chopping away with that indomitable good humor which seems to be the normal condition of the Hibernian when fairly launched into his darling fight. In this general advance Duryea's blue, red and baggy Zouaves led the way, as they had done in many a fight before, and always with success,—dashing savagely on the foe with ear-splitting shouts peculiar to themselves, and borrowed from the well-known war-cry of the corresponding regiments in the French service. The long Federal line of bristling steel pushed on at double-quick with irresistible force; and it was only for an instant that any portion of the Confederate line stood to meet it. At last discouraged and appalled—perhaps as much by the appearance and the war-cry of the never-defeated Zouaves as by any other agency that could have been brought to bear upon them,—they first wavered in front, then grew unsteady in the main body, and at last broke and fled in confusion and indecent haste, seeking once more the shelter of the woods from which they were no more to emerge as an attacking party.
The Federal troops were not allowed to follow them to the woods, night falling and the commander being indisposed to allow his exhausted troops any further exertion. The rebels left, in this last attack, several dismounted pieces of artillery, many blown-up caissons, and thousands of small arms, besides a thousand unhurt prisoners and a field literally covered with dead and wounded. The battle of Malvern Hill was over, though the rebel artillery continued to belch at intervals until after ten o'clock at night, the Federal advanced batteries replying to every fire. At length, and when the still summer night had thus far fallen on the late scene of conflict, the last rebel shot was sullenly fired, the last response was made by the Federal gunners, and the long conflict ceased. The baffled and beaten rebels, who had certainly fought with bravery and determination worthy of a better cause, fell back behind the sheltering woods and commenced their final retreat towards Richmond, having received at last a satisfactory taste of the quality yet remaining in the outnumbered, harrassed, but never-discouraged and ever-dangerous Army of the Potomac.
Owing to the fact that this battle was so largely an artillery-duel, as has before been remarked, the opportunities for the display or observation of personal bravery were comparatively limited, and mostly confined to a short period towards the close of the battle. That the Union troops would have shown the same personal dash and daring throughout, had the plan of the General in command made hand-to-hand fighting advisable—was fully proved by the short conflict which closed the day. In that short period occupied by the advance of the two wings and afterwards of the main body, two or three incidents occurred, which some of the combatants will yet remember when their attention is thus called to them, and without which this battle-picture, necessarily very defective, and aiming much more at truth than sensation, would be found almost destitute of details.
In the first advance, no less than three color-bearers, carrying the same flag of one of the regiments of Meagher's Irish brigade, were shot down within less than five minutes. When the third fell, a Lieutenant in the color-company of the same regiment, who had not many months before deserted the mock combats of the stage for the sanguinary fights of actual warfare, concluded to tryhissuccess at carrying the dangerous bunting. He seized the staff and held it, himself untouched, for several minutes, while bullets were actually riddling the flag. At the end of that time a stalwart Irishman, finding his rifle-barrel heated and the ramrod jammed in attempting to load, made two or three ineffectual jerks at the rod, found that it was impossible to remove it; then grasped the weapon by the muzzle, whirled it half a dozen times around his head, bringing the butt down in each instance with crushing force, on the head of a foe; and finally, giving it another and longer whirl, with a wild "Whooruh!" that might have originated among the bogs of Connaught, sent it whirling among the enemy with such force that it literally plowed its way through them and left a perceptible track of fallen foemen. "Be the Hill of Howth!" roared Paddy, when he had completed this exploit. "It's meself hasn't the bit of a muskit left to fight wid at all at all! Here, Captain!" to the Lieutenant holding the flag, "it's meself should be houldin' that, and not you!" and at the word he grasped the staff out of the officer's hands and plunged still farther forward among the enemy with it, than it had before been carried by either of the bearers, coming out of the fight at last without a scratch.
At very nearly the same time, and at the point in the rebel front assailed by Meagher's brigade, another scene was presented, perhaps unexampled in the history of war. A Georgia regiment (Georgia has sent out some of the very best and most determined fighters of the whole rebel army) was in the front and immediately opposed to the jolly New York Irishmen. The evening being a hot one, most of the Irish boys had prepared themselves for the charge by throwing off knapsacks, coats, and even hats, so as to "fight asier." Their habit of doing this, by the way, in hot weather and in the excitement of battle, has not only cost the government a round sum for new clothing and equipments, but given many opportunities to the Confederates for boasting of a victory when they had won nothing of the kind. They have regarded the thrown-away coats and knapsacks as evidence of a panic and a rout, when the fact is that they have only evidenced Paddy's desire, quoted above, to "fight asy."
In the present instance, Capt. S——, a young Irishman, of Meagher's Brigade, a fire-boy and a gymnast, was surrounded by a knot of his fellows, and they were making good progress in driving back the Georgia regiment, when the Captain encountered the Major of the Georgians. Whether something in the eye of each defied the other, will perhaps never be known; but certain it is that Captain S—— sprung for a single combat with the Major, and that the Major, quite as willing, sprung forward with a corresponding intention. A few passes were made with the sword by each, and then both seemed to forget the use of the weapon. In half a minute swords were dropped, and the two combatants were clenched, pounding away with theirfists! Something after the manner of the armies of old time when two great warriors met single-handed, the combatants on both sides seemed to stand still for the moment and look on at this singular struggle—this novelty in deadly war. Captain S—— was the heavier man, but the Georgia Major the nimbler, and they seemed very well matched. The Confederates were giving way on either side, and the Georgia regiment must necessarily retreat decidedly in a moment. The effort of Captain S—— accordingly seemed to be directed to first "knocking" the Major "out of time," and then making a captive of him; while probably the Major had no fancy for that termination of the affair. At length the rush came from behind and on either side, and the whole group were irresistibly borne backward. Some of the Georgia soldiers grasped the Major from behind, and attempted to drag him off. Some of the Irishmen rushed forward to assist in holding him. In a minute more, not two men, but dozens, were engaged in a fist-fight, not a weapon being used. Directly Captain S—— managed to get in a blow under the chin of the Major, and in the neighborhood of the gullet, which sent him backwards nearly insensible. As he fell he kicked with mechanical force, and the kick striking the Captain in the lower abdomen, "doubled him up" effectually. The Georgians were still laboring to save their commander from capture, and Captain S—— and his men to take him, oras much as they could of him. Thefinalewas that the Georgia Major was lugged off and rescued by his men, and that Captain S——, clinging to him with the proverbial Kilkenny tenacity, succeeded in dragging off him his coat, sword and belts, and revolver,—leaving the foe very much in the condition of his own men—that of shirt and trowsers.
It is a somewhat pitiful conclusion to this little reminiscence of S——'s odd adventure, that the next morning, in his tent, showing the captured weapons to one of his comrades, the revolver went off accidentally and blew the Captain's left arm to fragments! Such are the chances of war—a soldier escaping unhurt amid a very rain of destroying missiles, and meeting wounds and disablement from a trifling accident in a moment of fancied security!
The third incident of that day, and still more notable than either of the others, occurred on the left while the incidents previously recorded were taking place on the right and in the centre. When Couch's division were just advancing to the attack and at the very moment when the conflict began to grow close and deadly, some of the men in the front, and the rebels as well, witnessed a spectacle equally startling and unexplainable. A figure in white burst suddenly through from the Union rear to the front, prostrating a dozen men with the irresistible rapidity of the movement; and then it sprung into the very thick of the rebels and commenced its most singular and primitive warfare. Of the hundreds who unavoidably saw the apparition (for apparition it certainly seemed) not one will ever forget it or remember it without a shudder. The figure was that of a very tall man, evidently of immense natural strength, with a face shrunk to skeleton thinness and terrible staring eyes rendered more fearful by the heavy red beard and long matted hair. It was dressed in what appeared to be white trousers, but barefoot; and its upper clothing seemed to be a shirt beneath and a loose flowing white robe hanging from the shoulders. In its hand this terrible figure carried a club of green sapling oak, heavily knotted at the end, about five feet in length, two inches in diameter at the butt and tapering to where it was grasped at the lower end. A more effective weapon in close combat could not be devised; and with this weapon, and with fierce yells that seemed like those emanating from the throat of an infuriate madman, this strange combatant began laying about him in the rebel ranks, crushing heads, breaking arms, and killing and disabling scores of armed men. No sword could reach him, and no bullet appeared to strike him, though dozens of the rebels discharged muskets and even revolvers at him, at close range, when it began to be apparent on which side he was fighting. Up went that mighty flail, and down it came again on the heads of the human tares of rebeldom who so needed threshing out in the very garner of wrath. More than one of the Union men in the vicinity of the strange spectacle, who happened to have been classic readers in other days, gazing at the white figure and its terrible prowess, thought of Castor and Pollux and the apparitions in white which decided the battle on the shore of Lake Regilius, when the Thirty Cities warred against Rome. But there was nothing of the supernatural in this figure; for after a few moments of wonderful immunity in the midst of that plunging fire, and after a destruction of life which seemed really wonderful to be accomplished by one single man,—fate withdrew the shield which had been interposed before him. The great club was full uplifted in the air, when the combatants saw him suddenly waver and stagger, then saw the deadly weapon drop, a stream of spouting blood from the wounded breast gush over the white garment, and that tall figure and ghastly face sink downward to the earth, one last long yell, wilder and more fearful than any that had preceded it, sounding the signal of his death, and the battle again going on over the trampled body.
It was not until hours after that the mystery of the white figure was fully explained. The poor fellow had been a soldier of one of the Western regiments, ill with fever, and sent on to Harrison's Landing with the first of the troops who reached the James. In his delirium he had no doubt heard the booming of the cannon in the morning attack, and gathered the impression that a battle must be going on and thatheshould not be absent. He had managed, by some means, to elude the guards and the few hospital nurses yet spared to the army; had escaped from the temporary hospital, barefoot and clothed only in his white drawers, shirt, and a sheet thrown around his shoulders; had made his way, unseen, through the woods and over the marshes lying between Harrison's Landing and Malvern; had provided himself probably by means of his still remaining jack-knife, with that singular but fatal weapon of offence; and then, nerved with fictitious strength by his fever and the sights and sounds of battle raging before him, he had rushed into the conflict as before described, dying a death more noble than the lingering decay of fever, after working such destruction among the rebel ranks as he might never have been able to do in the pride of his health and manhood.
And here this extended picture of one of the most important battles ever yet fought on this continent, must close, except so far as in side-issues connected with it may happen to be involved some of the persons more intimately concerned in the progress of this relation.
John Crawford the Zouave, and Bob Webster, ditto—Bush-fighting, With Various Results—The Burning House and a strange Death-Scene—John Crawford becomes a Man of Family.
It has not yet been our fortune to happen upon John Crawford the Zouave, in the search for whom we have stumbled upon Malvern Hill and its fearful panorama of bloodshed. As a member of the Advance Guard, he, was not likely to be absent from the fierce charge made by his corps at the close of that day; and he was not. It is at the very moment of the conclusion of that charge, that the quest becomes successful.
John Crawford participated in that general advance, in the front rank of the Zouaves, in high health and spirits, and yelling quite as loudly and discordantly as any of his companions. This was not his first adventure with the bayonet, for he had gone unwounded through the determined charges of his corps, with the same deadly weapon, at Williamsburgh and Fair Oaks; and he had grown to have confidence in himself and in any body of men that used the modern footman's lance with the due ferocity. Though five years younger than his brother Richard, John Crawford looked older than he did even in his sickness; for the exposures of a year had browned his round and ruddy face, if it had not dimmed the brightness of his blue eye; and the heavy waved brown hair and moustache in which he retained so prominent a characteristic of his Gaelic ancestry of a hundred years before, added materially to the appearance of manly maturity. Were it apreux chevaliersitting under this verbal lens for his photograph, there might be difficulty in proceeding farther in this description; for though your knight of old seems to have been splendidly oblivious as to the needs of clean linen, and able to wear one surcoat and one suit of armor for any length of time without becoming repugnant to the nose of his lady when brought-into the opportunity for an embrace,—yet the heroes of this day have sore need of occasional aid from the washerwoman, and even the tailor becomes necessary for the replenishing of worn-out and faded garments. John Crawford the Zouave—the truth must be told—though he showed very little shirt, showed that little in an unclean condition; and the baggy red of his trousers and the hanging blue of his jacket, both looked shabby and discolored. Not much more could be said in favor of the white and yellow turban with the dirty white tassel hanging behind, ostensibly worn on his head but really drooping on the back part of it, quite as much as were the ladies' bonnets two or three years ago when the suggestion was made that they "should be carried behind them in a spoon." And yet this soiled and uncombed man was a soldier—every inch a soldier—and had in him all the materials for the making of a hero.
We have said that John Crawford was in good health and spirits, after sharing with the army in all its battles, fatigues and privations. He was so, not alone because the corps was somewhat better managed and cared for than many of the others, but because he was a sober man and one physically well-educated. He did not heat his blood for fever, and debilitate his system for exposure, by the use of liquor whenever he could reach it; and having been a member of the Seventh before he joined the Zouaves, and a habitue of the Gymnasium so much affected by the members of that regiment, he had acquired some capacity of bearing fatigue before entering upon that soldier-life which of all demands the most unrelaxing endurance.
A picture very little different from that just presented, though taller and lanker in figure, was to be found in Bob Webster, John Crawford's comrade and file-closer, who went into the charge that evening at his side. A little less hardy, more of a giant in strength, and with a ruddy tinge on the end of his long nose, that had been acquired by more years and more whiskey than confessed to by Crawford—such was the only difference observable in the two men of the dirty white turbans and the discolored uniforms, who went into battle together.
The point of the enemy's front at which the Zouaves struck in the charge, was considerably to the right of the Union centre (the enemy's left) and very near to the edge of the wood bounding Carter's Field on the North. The company to which the two comrades belonged had the extreme right, (the post of honor), and they were consequently, when the charge had penetrated so far that the rebels began to give way, almost in the edge of the woods. Some of the men in a South Carolina regiment, the enemy's extreme left, seemed to fight like fiends, supported by a battery of the same State that it became necessary to capture. This was finally swept, and the South Carolinians at last gave way, falling back into the woods, now beginning to grow dark, but firing from behind trees as they retired. Too much excited to heed the recall just then sounded, a dozen or two of the Zouaves, remembering their unexpended ammunition, tried their hand for the time at bush-fighting, with more or less success. Some of them were shot down, but others succeeded in killing or capturing the peculiar fugitives of whom they started in chase. Crawford and Webster had so far succeeded in keeping together, and neither had received even a scratch.
One of the rebels, conspicuous by the fact that he had lost or thrown off his coat and was consequently in "Irish uniform," had been especially followed by half a dozen of the Zouaves, as he fell back farther and farther into the woods, dodging and firing from behind trees, and proving that he must have come from one of the hill regions of the Palmetto State, where the hunting of wild beasts yet keeps the woodman in train for a soldier. Not less than three of the Zouaves had paid for their tenacity with their lives, by shots sent from that single long-rifle. Crawford and Webster, fancying that they bore charmed lives, still kept on the chase, catching glimpses through the dusk, of the rebel's shirt, as it dodged in and out behind the trees. In this manner they had penetrated perhaps a quarter of a mile into the woods, the sounds of the battle growing more and more indistinct behind them, when a broad light burst up through the trees to the North, shining redly through boles and branches and indicating a fire in the immediate neighborhood.
"What is that?" said Webster, his attention momentarily distracted from the rebel whom he had seen dodging behind a tree but a moment before.
"A fire of some kind," said Crawford, looking in the same direction. "From its size, it may be a burning house."
"Humph! though it is hot enough without, I shouldn't mind being at one more fire!" said Webster, who, like most New Yorkers of a certain age, had once in his time "run wid der masheen."
"But where is that gentleman from the South?" asked Crawford. "He may give us a pop directly—look out!"
"The no-coated devil!" said Webster. "He was dodging behind that big oak a moment ago. I think I see the edge of his shirt—yes!"
Hedidsee the tip of the Southerner's shirt, and some one elsefelthim; for at that instant "crack!" went the long rifle, and John Crawford gave vent to an "Ough!" that partook of the mingled characters of an oath and a yell, staggering up against the nearest tree at the same moment, with a rifle-bullet through his left fore-arm, and feeling that sentiment of disgust at the stomach which is inseparable from the forcible entrance of any substance into the human body, in the shape of a wound.
"Hallo, Jack! Eh, you did it, did you?—d—n you!" sputtered Webster, as he heard the report and saw the effect. Of course the first part of his remark was addressed to his comrade, and the last to the rebel, who had made such a capital shot that he allowed too much of his figure to be exposed while making his survey. In an instant, Webster's piece was drawn up, and a second "crack!" rang out through the trees.
"Ten to one I hit him!" cried Webster. "For the first time I got a fair view of one side of his dirty white shirt. But how badly are you hurt, Jack? Where are you hit?"
"Hurt a good deal, but not seriously, I think," answered Crawford, a little faintly. "He hit me here in the left arm, below the elbow. I think the bullet went through, and maybe the bone is broken."
"Too bad! tut! tut!" said his brother Zouave. "Never mind—I will bind it up in a moment. Do you think you can lean against that tree and keep from fainting until I run and see whether my little joker went in the right direction?"
"Nary faint!" said Crawford, making a strong effort to overcome the pain he was suffering. "Go ahead, Bob, and hurry!"
Webster did hurry, and Crawford had scarcely more than time to enjoy half-a-dozen exquisite throbs of agony and observe that the light through the trees, Northward, was growing brighter and brighter, when he came running back, very jubilant.
"Dead as the deadest kind of a herring!" he said. "Didn't hit him where I meant to, but it answered. Bored him right through the skull, and he lies there, hugging the root of the tree he was so fond of."
"Well, I am glad of that, at all events!" answered Crawford. Men, even of the best hearts and warmest natures, change terribly in times of war and among the influences of the camp and the battle-field. The man who by nature could only have said "Thank God!" at some benefit rendered to his kind or some dispensation of Providence by which the lives of his perilled fellow-men have been preserved—easily learns to be thankful for the explosion of a magazine or the sinking of a ship by which hundreds of men have been sent suddenly into eternity, those men beinghis enemies.
"But come—let us see what kind of a nick you have got!" said Webster, examining the arm with some skill once acquired in a doctor's shop to which run-over and fainted people were sometimes brought for sudden assistance. "No, the bones are not broken—all right! Here, let me bind it up with my handkerchief and put my scarf-belt around your neck for a sling." He proceeded to make these dispositions, with speed and dexterity, and in a moment after Crawford felt the sickening pain subsiding and the slight faintness leaving him.
"Humph! that is better—it scarcely hurts at all now," he said. "Thank you, Bob—or Doctor Bob, I ought to call you."
"Well, call me anything you like, except a coward or a humbug!" answered Webster. "And now, old fellow, think you are strong enough to get back to the Hill?"
"Yes, but I am not going there!" said John Crawford. "Don't you see how bright that fire through the trees is getting? In this hot weather nobody builds a camp-fire of that size, and I think there must be a house burning. If you say so, we will take a tour in that direction."
"Anywhere withyou," said Webster. "But," he added, careful for his wounded companion though not for himself, "suppose it should be a burning house, with rebels around, and you with your lame arm."
"Oh, Bob, we'll take the chances," said the wounded Zouave. "My impression is that they have had enough of Little Mac for one day, and got out of this, and that you killed about the last one of them. At all events, we'll take the chances—come on!"
Bob Webster had been in the habit of following his file-leader, and he did so in this instance. The two struck across the woods in the direction of the fire, their path through the trees and under-growth being made an easy one by the light it cast. A few hundred yards brought them to the edge of the wood, at a narrow place where a spur of the Malvern Hill made a sudden curve Southward and broke into the timber. As they approached the edge of the clear space, they saw that a house was indeed on fire, the flames now licking through the roof and enveloping the chimneys, while all the lower portion seemed burned to a shell. The house, which stood at the foot of the hill, appeared to have been of fair size, and surrounded on three sides with carefully cultivated grounds, now marred and desolated alike by the foot of the invader and the defender.
Climbing a broken fence that lay between the wood and the cultivated ground, the two soldiers drew nearer to the burning house, which strangely enough showed no person moving around the flames, and no indication that it was not burning in utter loneliness. Such things as traps and decoys had been heard of by the comrades, however, as they had been heard of by every soldier subjected to the tricks of the Confederates; and they were not too certain that enemies might not lie concealed in the neighborhood, waiting to pick off any Union soldier discerned in the light of the fire. On this account, Webster, who had re-loaded his rifle, carried it ready for instant use, while Crawford carried his in the unwounded hand, at half-cock, and ready to make some kind of an attempt, in the event of danger, to use it as a pistol. These precautions seemed to be all superfluous, for as they came still nearer to the burning house, now almost ready to fall into a heap of blazing and smouldering ruins, no voice was heard and no sign of life was visible.
"Nobody there," said Webster.
"Nobodyliving, at least, in or about that shanty!" was the reply of Crawford. "The people are either burned, saved, or there have been none there."
"One of the three—yes—I should say so!" replied Webster to this self-evident proposition.
"And as there seems nothing to be done, in the way of putting out the fire, saving anybody or killing anybody, suppose we go back to the Hill?" said Crawford.
"Not yet," answered Webster. "We have not yet been on the other side of the house. Perhaps there may be outbuildings on that side, that have not yet taken fire; and if there is no one living in the house, there may be cattle or hogs roasting in the enclosures."
"Very well said, Bob," said Crawford. "Let us see the other side of the house." And the two soldiers advanced as near as was comfortable to the blazing building, for that purpose. It had not yet fallen, though every board had dropped away, and every timber was a thin line of fire, fast charring to coals. The house had evidently been that of a person of some condition, though of perhaps no remarkable wealth. It had been of two stories, with a piazza in front and a neat little yard showing a few flower-shrubs, a bordering of fruit-trees at the sides of the enclosure, and two medium-sized Lombardy poplar trees at the gate. No negro-quarter was visible, or any evidence that the "peculiar institution" had formed any part of the domestic policy of the occupants.
Just as the companions approached the gate and stood observing these particulars, the demon of fire obtained his last triumph over the material of the building. The snapping and crackling of the flames increased for a moment, and the forked tongues seemed licking closer and closer around the doomed pile; then there was a sudden change—the arched rafters sunk away—the slight shock disturbed what had yet remained of the frame-work—and the instant after, with a loud rumbling crash, the whole building went down into a heap of ruins, one high burst of flame shooting up skyward as a signal that the destruction had been accomplished, and showers of sparks following it, like a burst of fireworks at some grand celebration. With the fall, the broad light of the fire over the surrounding fields and on the neighboring woods died away, and there only remained a great heap of burning timbers, smouldering coals and embers, giving scarcely more light than an ordinary watch-fire.
But the peculiar interest of that scene did not die out with the fall of the building: on the contrary, it was at that moment that it began to assume proportions more easily recognized. For mingled with the crash of the fall there seemed to be the sharp, shrill, terrible scream of a human voice in agony; and the very instant after that scream was repeated, so distinctly that it drove the blood from the cheeks of both the soldiers at the gate.
"My God! did you hear that?" said Crawford.
"Didn't I!" answered Webster. "I wish Ihadn't! Jack, do you know, there must have been somebody in the house after all, burning to death; and that scream, when the building fell, was the wind-up of a life!"
"It must have been so, and we have been standing here, doing nothing, when aid might have been given!" said Crawford, in self-reproach, and forgetting how little a man with one arm can do in the way of carrying out people from a burning building. "Yet no—stop! No, Bob, that scream was not the last of the person's life, for didn't you notice, we heard ittwice, and the last time after the house had fallen in? After that house fell, no one inside of it ever screamed, and so—"
"And so," said Webster, interrupting, "there is somebody,notin the house, who screamed? That is what you mean, and by Jupiter, Jack, you are right!"
"Now wemustlook the other side of the house," said Crawford. "Some poor creature, badly burned, may have crawled out from the flames and be lying there in agony."
So there might have been, truly! And what a strange riddle is human nature, even on that other side—mercy! We but a little while ago considered the ease with which a man born with the warmest aspirations for human good, might become eager for the destruction of life, when that life belonged to a foeman: let the opposite spectacle be considered, of a man who had just been plunging into the thick of a hand-to-hand fight, estimating human heads as of no more value than cocoa-nuts, and human lives as something to be taken without a shudder or a pang of compunction,—a few minutes afterwards speaking of a "poor creature" whose life might be threatened by fire, and speaking of that "poor creature" with all the tenderness of a mother or a lover! And is this inconsistent? No—it is consistent to the last degree. The brave man is the pitiful man; and while he may consider a hecatomb necessary for a cause, he regards one life sacrificed unnecessarily, asmurder. "Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm, is all unfit to live!" says one of the old poet-philosophers. And are worms therefore never to be trodden upon? Not so, by any means! The adverbial adjective "needlessly" explains the broad distinction. Not one worm, even the creeping, crawling and disgusting caterpillar, for cruelty or even for neglect: millions of worms, whether caterpillar or human worm of the dust, for a sacred cause and a great duty!
"Yes, come on around the house. The heat is not so great now, and wemustsee if there is anything living here," was the reply of Webster to the last suggestion of Crawford; and they at once followed the yard as closely round as the burning ruins would permit. They heard no repetition of the sound; nor could they see any sign of human life. Behind the house, hillward, stood a small barn and stables, while a wood-shed and some other small outbuildings stood on the eastern side of the enclosure. These had been nearly connected with the house by board fences, and in two places those fences had taken fire and threatened to carry the flames to the other buildings. But the evening had been calm, and the fire had not run many yards along the fences before it became extinguished for want of compelling wind and quick fuel.
A proposition from Webster that they should search the outbuildings for the source of the cry, was negatived by Crawford, who thought it very likely, after all his previous confidence, that some of the Confederate troops, who had certainly held the woods at one time during the day, might be located in the barn—not dangerous, perhaps, if undisturbed, but very likely to be troublesome if two soldiers, one with one arm and both on a very blind errand, should go stumbling about in the dark too miscellaneously.
"Well," said Webster, "no doubt you are right, Jack, as you almost always are. In that case we have nothing to do but to get back to camp and look a little more closely after that shivered arm of yours, for there is certainly no one near the edge of the fire."
"Hark!" said Crawford, as they started to retrace their stops around the house, and move away. They were within a few steps of what appeared to be a wood-shed, standing on the east side of the enclosure, and some forty or fifty feet from the house. "Hark!"
"Well, what is it? I heard nothing!" said Webster, who had been listening exclusively for another shriek.
"Well,Iheard something, and it was a groan!" said Crawford.
"Oh Lord!" exclaimed the not-very-reverent Webster. "What next, I wonder? Awhile ago we had shrieks: now we have groans! I wonder if this place is haunted—just a little?"
"Hark! there it was again!" said Crawford. "Itwasa groan, and not very far from us, either!"
"In that case," said Webster, "as it is incumbent upon two members of the Advance Guard not to come all this distance for nothing, we shall be under the necessity of hunting out the groan. Ah!" and the speaker paused a moment. "By Jupiter itisa groan. I heard it myself that time. It is here, under this shed!"
The long legs of Webster at once made a movement in that direction, followed by the shorter and more symmetrical ones of Crawford. They reached the door of the wood-house, opening towards the burned mansion. The door was unclosed, and they could look within. Just as they reached the door both heard another groan—quite sufficient to satisfy them that they were not in error as to the place from which the sound had proceeded. A faint red light from the fallen embers of the burning house shone within the rough shed from the narrow door—scarce enough, at first, to make objects distinctly visible; but as they gazed the eyes grew accustomed to the dim light and they could distinctly trace what the building contained. They stepped slowly within, no motion from the occupants giving indication that their presence was known; and this is what they saw—dimly, but clearly enough for the purposes of recognition.
On a straw pallet lay an old man, thin-faced and hollow-eyed, his scanty white hair streaming backward on the end of the pallet, which had been turned up to form a pillow. Over him and reaching from his feet to his breast, was drawn a sheet, and on that sheet lay one of his thin, wrinkled and nerveless hands. His eyes were shut, and he might have appeared to be asleep, but that ever and anon there broke from him one of those low but distinct groans indicative of severe inward pain, which had startled the two Zouaves. But the old man was not the most singular or the most painful feature of this spectacle. Beside him on the ground, kneeling, and rocking backward and forward with that peculiar motion so indicative of intense and hopeless grief when used by some of the European peasantry, was a young girl—apparently very young, very small and very girlish, though there was something about her which even in that dim light gave the impression that she was not a little girl, but a woman.
So much the two soldiers saw, while neither of the occupants of the shed seemed to be aware of their presence; but Webster, an intensely practical man and more fertile in resources than overflowing with delicacy, was not quite satisfied with the view obtained, and instantly determined to improve it.
"Wait here—I am going for a light," he said, and stepping hastily from the door he ran to the burning embers of the house, caught the end of a piece of pine scantling of which the other was in full blaze, and in a moment more entered the door of the shed, his novel torch throwing an odd, ghastly light upon all the objects within the little building. Then and not till then did the intruders become aware that they stood face to face with one who was dying, in the old man on the pallet,—and with a woman of a rare and almost startling order of beauty, in the young girl who knelt beside him. Her form, as they could see, even in her kneeling position, was almost childish in the shortness of its stature and the petite mould of her limbs; and yet there was nothing thin or attenuated about her, and the epithet "fragile" could not have been applied to her with half the justice of that very opposite word, "willowy." Her face was infantile in the smallness of the features, in their perfect round, and in the expression of helpless placidity which seemed to lie upon it. But those features were yet classical in outline, and the mouth, especially, was very sweet and budding. The open eyes were blue as heaven; and the hair, of which there was a great wealth, loosed from all restraint and sweeping back on her shoulders, was of that delicate and almost impalpable blonde so seldom met (even among the English, who arrogate to themselves the purest blonde hair in the world) and so universally admired—nay, almost worshipped.
It is not to be supposed that so long a time was necessary for the two Zouaves to catch the particulars here set down, as would be indicated by the length of the description itself; and certainly no such length of time was allowed them without interruption. It was now evident that neither the dying man nor the young girl had before been aware of the entrance of the strangers; but as Webster entered with his torch of pine, the sudden light startled both. The old man's eyes did not unclose, but the young girl's looked around with a startled glance; she rose to her feet, clasped her hands imploringly, while so sad and beseeching an expression rested upon her face, that she might have been the discarded Peri pleading for her lost place in heaven,—and said:
"Go away, please! Grandfather is dying. Don't disturb him—please don't!"
"My poor girl, we do not mean to disturb him, or you," said Crawford, advancing a little way towards the side of the pallet, and throwing into his voice all its native sympathy and kindness. "We are friends."
"Marion, who is that?" asked the old man, feebly. He had before shown that his eyes were affected by the light, and made a motion to rise, which brought the young girl at once to her knees again beside him, with her hand and arm affectionately round his head.
"I do not know, grandpa! They are soldiers—two soldiers."
"Tell them to go away—askthem to go away, and let me die in peace!" said the old man, his voice still feeble, and his utterance difficult as before.
"I have asked them, grandpa, and they will not go," said the young girl, her tones, strangely enough, even in characterizing what she must have felt to be an outrage, expressing no feeling of anger, but soft and low as flute notes of the lower register.
"We do not wish to intrude. We will go away," said Crawford.
"Ah!" said the old man, a perceptible shadow passing over his face, "that was the voice of agentleman! Ask him who he is, Marion. But he must be a rebel," and the old man went on, his voice falling still lower as if he was speaking to himself. "He must be a rebel, for McClellan has been beaten and driven back. They have been fighting all day, and I know the end—I know the end."
"We arenotrebels," said Crawford, who had caught the last words, whether intended or not even for the granddaughter's ear. "I hope you will not fear us. I am John Crawford, private in Duryea's Zouaves, of McClellan's army; and this is Robert Webster, private in the same regiment."
"Union men? Men faithful to the country and the old flag?" asked the old man, a gleam of delight passing over his wasted features. "Here, quick, quick, Marion, raise me up."
The young girl tried to obey, but her scant strength was insufficient even to raise the thin form of the old man. Robert Webster stepped forward to assist her, and as the old man was raised knelt down behind and supported the head and upper body in a half-sitting position. Though the eyes had remained closed before, they opened now, to confront Crawford—poor old, dim, lack-lustre eyes, that yet seemed to have one burning spark in the centre.