"Rain, rain go away,Come again another day!—"
he said. "What's the house they've burned over there?"
"Chantilly, sir."
Ruined wall and chimney, fallen roof-tree, gaping holes where windows had been, the old mansion stood against the turmoil of the sky. It looked a desolation, a poignant gloom, an unrelieved sorrow. A courier appeared. "The enemy's rearguard is near Ox Hill, sir. They've driven in some of our patrols. The main body is moving steady toward Fairfax Court House. General Jackson has sent the Light Division forward. General Stuart's going, too. He says, 'Come on.'"
The clouds mounted high and dark, thunder began to mutter; by the time a part of the Light Division and a brigade of Ewell's came into touch with Reno and Kearney, the afternoon, already advanced, was of the hue of twilight. Presently there set in a violent storm of thunder and lightning, wind and rain. The trees writhed like wounded soldiers, the rain came level against the face, stinging and blinding, the artillery of the skies out-thundered man's inventions. It grew darker and darker, save for the superb, far-showing lightning flashes. Beneath these the blue and the grey plunged into an engagement at short range.
What with the howling of the storm, the wind that took voices and whirled them high and away, the thunder above and the volleying musketry below, to hear an order was about the most difficult feat imaginable. Stafford gathered, however, that Lawton, commanding since Ewell's wound, was sending him to Jackson with a statement as to affairs on this wing. He went, riding hard against the slanting rain, and found Jackson standing in the middle of the road, a piece of bronze played round by lightning. One of the brigadiers was speaking to him. "The cartridges are soaking wet, sir. I do not know that I can hold my position." Jackson's voice came deep and curt. "Yes, sir, you can. If your muskets won't go off, neither will the enemy's. You are to hold it, whether you can or not. Go and do it."
The brigadier went. Stafford gave his information, and received an order. "Go back along the road until you find the horse artillery. Tell Major Pelham to bring his guns to the knoll yonder with the blasted tree."
Stafford turned his horse and started. The rain and wind were now at his back—a hundred paces, and the road, lonely save forstragglers, the grey troops, the battle in front, was all sheeted and shrouded in the darkly drifting storm. The fitful bursts of musketry were lost beneath the artillery of the clouds. He travelled a mile, found Pelham and gave his order, then stood aside under the tossing pines while the horse artillery went by. It went by in the dusk of the storm, in the long howl of the wind and the dash of the rain, like the iron chariots of Pluto, the horses galloping, the gunners clinging wherever they might place hand or foot, the officers and mounted men spurring alongside. Stafford let them all turn a bend in the road, then followed.
All this stretch of road and field and wood had been skirmished over, Stuart and the blue cavalry having been in touch through the earlier part of the day. The road was level, with the mournful boggy fields, with the wild bending woods. In the fields and in the woods there were dark objects, which might be mounds of turf or huge twisted roots, or which might be dead men and horses. Stafford, riding through wind and rain, had no sooner thought this than he saw, indeed, what seemed a mere hummock beneath a clump of cedars undoubtedly move. He looked as closely as he might for the war of water, air, and fire, and made out a horse outstretched and stark, and a man pinned beneath. The man spoke. "Hello, upon the road there! Come and do a Christian turn!"
Stafford left his horse and, stepping through a quagmire of watery turf, came into the ring of cedars. The man who had called upon him, a tall, long-moustached person in blue, one arm and booted leg painfully caught beneath the dead steed, spoke in a voice curt with suffering. "Grey, aren't you? Don't care. Can't help it. Get this infernal weight off me, won't you?"
The other bent to the task, and at last managed to free the blue soldier. "There! That position must have been no joke! How long—"
The blue cavalryman proceeded to feel bone and flesh, slowly and cautiously to move the imprisoned limbs. He drew a breath of relief. "Nothing broken!—How long? Well, to reckon by one's feeling I should say about a week. Say, however, since about noon. We drove against a party under Stuart. He got the best of us, and poor Caliph got a bullet. I could see the road. Everything grey—grey as the sea."
"Why didn't you call before? Any one would have helped you."
The other continued to rub his arm and leg. "You haven't got a drop of brandy—eh?"
"Yes, I have. I should have thought of that before." He gave the other a small flask. The cavalryman drank. "Ah! in '55, when I was with Walker in Nicaragua, I got pinned like that beneath a falling cottonwood." He gave the flask back. "You are the kind of Samaritan I like to meet. I feel a new man. Thanks awfully."
"It was foolish of you to lie there for hours—"
The other leaned his back against a cedar. "Well, I thought I might hold out, perhaps, until we beat you and I was again in the house of my friends. I don't, however, object to acknowledging that you're hard to beat. Couldn't manage it. Growing cold and faint—head ringing. Waited as long as I could, then called. They say your prisons are very bad."
"They are no worse than yours."
"That may be. Any of them are bad."
"We are a ravaged and blockaded country. It is with some difficulty that we feed and clothe our armies in the field. As for medicines with which to fight disease, you will not let them pass, not for our women and children and sick at home, and not for your own men in prison. And, for all our representations, you will not exchange prisoners. If there is undue suffering, I think you must share the blame."
"Yes, yes, it is all hellish enough!—Well, on one side of the dice, prisoner of war; on the other, death here under poor Caliph. Might escape from prison, no escape from death. By Jove, what a thunderclap! It's Stonewall Jackson pursuing us, eh?"
"Yes. I hear Pelham's guns—You are an Englishman?"
"Yes. Francis Marchmont, at your service; colonel of the Marchmont"—he laughed—"Invincibles."
"I am Maury Stafford, serving on General Ewell's staff.—Yes, that's Pelham."
He straightened himself. "I must be getting back to the front. It is hard to hear for the wind and rain and thunder, but I think the musketry is recommencing." He looked about him. "We camethrough these woods this morning. Stuart has patrols everywhere, but I think that dip between the hills may be clear. You are pretty pale yet. You had better keep the brandy flask. Are you sure that you can walk?"
"Walk beside you into your lines, you mean?"
"No. I mean try a way out between the hills."
"I am not your prisoner?"
"No."
Marchmont pulled at his moustaches. "Yes. I think I can walk. I won't deprive you of your flask—but if I might have another mouthful—Thank you." He rose stiffly. "If at any time I can serve you, I trust that you will remember my name—Francis Marchmont, colonel Marchmont Invincibles. Send me a slip of paper, a word, anything.Ox Hillwill do—and you will find me at your service. Yes, the firing is beginning again—"
Stafford, once more upon the road, travelled northward in an unabated storm. Tree and bush, weed, flower and grass, writhed and shrank beneath the anger of the air; the rain hissed and beat, the lightning glared, the thunder crashed. Between the flashes all was dusk. Before him the rattle of musketry, the booming of the guns grew louder. He saw to the right, on a bare rise of ground, Pelham's guns.
There came an attempted flanking movement of the blue—a dash of cavalry met by Stuart and followed by a movement of two of Hill's brigades. The action barred the road and fields before Stafford. He watched it a moment, then turned aside and mounted the rise of ground to Pelham's guns. A great lightning-flash lit them, ranged above him. All their wet metal gleamed; about them moved the gunners; a man with a lifted sponge staff looked an unearthly figure against the fantastic castles and battlements, the peaks and abysses of the boiling clouds. The light vanished; Stafford came level with the guns in the dusk.
Pelham welcomed him. "'Trust in God and keep your powder dry,' eh, major? It's the kind of storm you read about—Hello! they've brought up another battery—"
Stafford dismounted. One of the guns had the vent so burned and enlarged that it was useless. It rested cold and silent beside its bellowing fellows. Stafford seated himself on the limber, and watched the double storm. It raged above the little hill, with its chain lightnings, with wind, with reverberations of thunder; and it raged below,between some thousands of grey and blue figures, small, small, in the dusk, shadowy manikins sending from metal tubes glow-worm flashes! He sat, with his chin in his hand, pondering the scene.
Pelham came heavily into action. There was a blue battery on the opposite hill. The two spoke in whispers beneath the storm. The gunners, now in darkness, now in the vivid lightning, moved about the guns. Now they bent low, now they stood upright. The officer gestured to them and they to each other. Several were killed or wounded; and as now this section, now that, was more deeply engaged, there was some shifting among the men, occasional changes of place. The dusk increased; it was evident that soon night and the storm would put an end to the battle. Stafford, watching, made out that even now the blue and grey forms in the tossing woods and boggy meadows were showing less and less their glow-worm fires, were beginning to move apart. The guns above them boomed more slowly, with intervals between their speech. The thunder came now, not in ear-splitting cracks but with long rolling peals, with spaces between filled only by the wind and the rain. The human voice might be heard, and the officers shouted, not gestured their orders. The twilight deepened. The men about the gun nearest Stafford looked but shadows, bending, leaning across, rising upright. They talked, however, and the words were now audible. "Yes, if you could handle lightning—take one of them zigzags and turn it loose on blue people!"—"That battery is tired; it's going home! Right tired myself. Reckon we're all tired but Old Jack. He don't never get tired. This is a pretty behaving gun—" "That's so! and she's got good men. They do first-rate."—"That's so! Even the new one's good"—"Good! He learned that gun same as though theygrewartillery wherever he came from. Briery Creek—No, Briony Creek—hey, Deaderick?"
"Briony Creek."
Stafford dropped his hand. "Who spoke?"
The question had been breathed, not loudly uttered. No one answered. The gunners continued their movements about the guns, stooping, handling, lifting themselves upright. It was all but night, the lightning less and less violent, revealing little beyond mere shape and action. Stafford sank back. "Storm within and storm without. They breed delusions!"
The blue battery opposite limbered up and went away. The musketry fire in the hollows between the hills grew desultory. A slow crackle of shots would be followed by silence; then might come with fierce energy a sudden volley; silence followed it, too,—or what, by comparison, seemed silence. The thunder rolled more and more distantly, the wind lashed the trees, the rain beat upon the guns. Officers and men of the horse artillery were too tired, too wet, and too busy for much conversation, but still human voices came and went in the lessening blast, in the semi-darkness and the streaming rain.
There was a gunner near Stafford who worked in silence and rested from his work in silence. Stafford became conscious of him during one of the latter periods—a silent man, leaning against his gun. He was not ten feet away, but the twilight was now deep, and he rested indistinct, a shadow against a shadow. Once there came a pale lightning flash, but his arm was raised as if to shield his eyes, and there was seen but a strongly made gunner with a sponge staff. Darkness came again at once. The impression that remained with Stafford was that the gunner's face was turned toward him, that he had, indeed, when the flash came, been regarding him somewhat closely. That was nothing—a man not of the battery, a staff officer sitting on a disabled gun, waiting till he could make his way back to his chief—a moment's curiosity on an artilleryman's part, exhibited in a lull between fighting. Stafford had a certain psychic development. A thinker, he was adventurous in that world; to him, the true world of action. The passion that had seized and bound him had come with the force of an invader, of a barbaric horde, from a world that he ordinarily ignored. It held him helpless, an enslaved spirit, but around it vaguely worked the old habits of mind. Now it interested him—though only to a certain degree—that, in some subtle fashion and for some reason which he could not explain, the gunner with the sponge staff could so make himself felt across space. He wondered a little about this man; and then, insensibly, he began to review the past. He had resolution enough, and he did not always choose to review the past. To-night it was perhaps the atmosphere, the commotion of the elements, the harp of the wind, the scourging rain—at any rate, he reviewed it and fully. When the circle was completed and his attention touched again the storm and the twilight hill near Chantilly, and he lifted his eyes from the soaked and trodden ground, it was to find the double shadow still before him. He felt that the eyes of the gunner with the sponge staff were on him, had been on him for some time. Quite involuntarily he moved, with a sudden gesture, as though he evaded a blow. A sergeant's voice came through the twilight, the wind and the rain. "Deaderick!"
The man by the gun moved, took up the sponge staff that had rested beside him, turned in the darkness and went away.
A little later Stafford left the hilltop. The cannon had ceased their booming, except for here and there a fitful burst; the musketry fire had ceased. Pope's rearguard, Lee's advance, the two drew off and the engagement rested indecisive. Blue and grey, a thousand or two men suffered death or wounding. They lay upon the miry earth, beneath the pelting storm. Among the blue, Kearney and Stevens were killed. Through the darkness that wrapped the scene, Stafford found at last his way to his general. He found him with Stuart, who was reporting to Stonewall Jackson. "They're retreating pretty rapidly, sir. They'll reach Fairfax Court House presently."
"Yes. They won't stop there. We'll bivouac on the field, general."
"And to-morrow, sir?"
"To-morrow, sir, we will follow them out of Virginia."
September the second dawned bright and clear. From Fairfax Court House Pope telegraphed to Halleck. "There is undoubted purpose on the part of the enemy to keep on slowly turning my position so as to come in on the right. The forces under my command are unable to prevent his doing so. Telegraph what to do."
Halleck telegraphed to fall back to the fortifications of Alexandria and Washington.
On Thunder Run Mountain faint reds and yellows were beginning to show in the maple leaves, while the gum trees dwelling in the hollows had a deeper tinge of crimson. But the mass of the forest was yet green. The September sun was like balm, amber days, at once alert and dream-like. The September nights were chilly. But the war, that pinched and starved and took away on all hands, left the forest and the wood for fires. On Thunder Run the women cut the wood, and the children gathered dead boughs and pine cones.
The road over the mountain was in a bad condition. It had not been worked for a year. That mattered the less perhaps, that it was now so little travelled. All day and every day Tom Cole sat in the sunshine on the toll gate porch, the box for the toll beside him, and listened for wheels or horses' hoofs. It was an event now when he could hobble out to the gate, take the toll and pass the time of day. He grew querulous over the state of the road. "There'd surely be more travel if 't warn't so bad! Oh, yes, I know there aren't many left hereabouts to travel, and what there are, haven't got the means. But there surely would be more going over the mountain if the road wan't so bad!" He had a touch of fever, and he babbled about the road all night, and how hard it was not to see or talk to anybody! He said that he wished that he had died when he fell out of Nofsinger's hayloft. The first day that he was well enough to be left, Sairy went round to the Thunder Run women, beginning with Christianna Maydew's mother. Several days afterward, Tom hobbling out on the porch was most happily welcomed by the noise of wheels. "Thar now!" said Sairy, "ain't it a real picnic feeling to get back to business?" Tom went out to the gate with the tobacco box. A road wagon, and a sulky and a man on horseback! The old man's eyes glistened. "Mornin', gentlemen!" "Mornin', Mr. Cole! County's mended your road fine! Big hole down there filled up and the bridge that was just a mantrap new floored! The news? Well, Stonewall Jackson's after them!"
But despite the filled-up holes travel was slight, slight! To-day from dawn until eleven, no one had passed. Tom sat in the sun on the porch, and the big yellow cat slept beside him, and the china asters bloomed in the tiny yard. Sairy was drying apples. She had them spread on boards in the sun. Now and then she came from the kitchen to look at them, and with a peach bough to drive the bees away. The close of summer found, as ever, Thunder Run shrunken to something like old age; but even so his murmur was always there like a wind in the trees. This morning there was a fleet of clouds in the September sky. Their shadows drove across the great landscape, the ridges and levels of the earth, out upon which Thunder Run Mountain looked so steadily.
A woman, a neighbour living a mile beyond the schoolhouse, came by. Sairy went over to the little picket fence and the two talked. "How is she?"—"She's dead."—"Sho! You don't say so! Poor thing, poor thing! I reckon I thought of her mor'n I slept last night.—'N the child?"
"Born dead."
Sairy struck her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Sho! War killin' 'em even thar!"
The mountain woman spoke on in the slow mountain voice. "She had awful dreams. Somebody was fool enough to tell her 'bout how dreadful thirsty wounded folk get, lyin' thar all round the clock an' no one comin'! An' some other fool read her out of an old newspaper 'bout Malvern Hill down thar at Richmond. Mrs. Cole, she thought she was a soldier. An' when she begun to suffer she thought she was wounded. She thought she was all mangled and torn by a cannon ball. Yes'm, it was pitiful. An' she said thar was a high hill. It was five miles high, she said. An' she said thar was water at the top, which was foolish, but she couldn't help that, an' God knows women go through enough to make them foolish! An' she said thar was jest one path, an' thar was two children playing on it, an' she couldn't make them understand. She begged us all night to tell the children thar was a wounded soldier wantin' to get by. An' at dawn she said the water was cold an' died."
The woman went on up Thunder Run Mountain. Sairy turned again the drying apples, then brought her patching out upon the porch and sat down in a low split-bottomed chair opposite Tom. The yellow cat at her feet yawned, stretched, and went back to sleep. The china asters bloomed; the sun drew out the odours of thyme and rue and tansy. Tom read a last week's newspaper.General Lee crosses the Potomac.
Christianna came down the road and unlatched the gate. "Come in, come in, Christianna!" said Tom. "Come in and take a cheer! Letter came yesterday—"
Christianna sat down on the edge of the porch, her back against the pillar. She took off her sunbonnet. "Violetta learned to do a heap of things while I was down t' Richmond. I took a heap of them back, too, but somehow I've got more time than I used to have. Somehow I jest wander round—"
Tom took a tin box from beside the tobacco box. "'T would be awful if the letter didn't come once't every ten days or two weeks! Reckon I'd go plumb crazy, an' so would Sairy—"
Sairy turned the garment she was patching. "Sho! I wouldn't go crazy. What's the use when it's happening all the time? I ain't denying that most of the light would go out of things. Stop imaginin' an' read Christianna what he says about furin' parts."
"After Gaines's Mill it was twelve days," said Tom, "an' the twelfth day we didn't say a word, only Sairy read the Bible. An' now he's well and rejoined at Leesburg."
He cleared his throat. "Dear Aunt Sairy and Tom:—It's fine to get back to the Army! It's an Army that you can love. I do love it. But I love Thunder Run and the School House and Tom and Sairy Cole, too, and sometimes I miss them dreadfully! I rejoined at Leesburg. The 65th—I can't speak of the 65th—you know why. It breaks my heart. But it's reorganized. The boys were glad to see me, and I was glad to see them. Tell Christianna that Billy's all right. He's sergeant now, and he does fine. And Dave's all right, too, and the rest of the Thunder Run men. The War's done a heap for Mathew Coffin. It's made a real man of him. Tom, I wish you could have seen us fording the Potomac. It was like a picture book. All a pretty silver morning, with grey plovers wheeling overhead, and the Maryland shore green and sweet, and the water cool to your waist, and the men laughing and calling and singing 'Maryland, my Maryland!' Fitzhugh Lee was ahead with the cavalry. It was pretty to see the horses go over, and the blessed guns that we know and love, every iron man of them, and all the white covered wagons. Our division crossed last, Old Jack at the head. When we came up from the river into Maryland we turned toward Frederick. The country's much like our own and the people pleasant enough. You know we've got the Maryland Line, and a number besides. They're fine men, a little dashing, but mighty steady, too. They've expressed themselves straight along as positively certain that all Maryland would rise and join us. There's a line of the song, you know:—
"Huzzah! huzzah!She breathes, she burns, she'll come, she'll come,Maryland! my Maryland!"
"She hasn't come yet. The people evidently don't dislike us, and as a matter of course we aren't giving them any reason to. But their farms are all nice and green and well tilled, and we haven't seen a burned house or mill, and the children are going to school, and the stock is all sleek and well fed—and if they haven't seen they've heard of the desolation on our side of the river. They've got a pretty good idea of what War is and they're where more people would be if they had that idea beforehand. They are willing to keep out of it.—So they're respectful, and friendly, and they crowd around to try to get a glimpse of General Lee and General Jackson, but they don't volunteer—not in shoals as the Marylanders said they would! The Maryland Line looks disdain at them. Mathew Coffin is dreadfully fretted about the way we're dressed. He says that's the reason Maryland won't come. But the mess laughs at him. It says that if Virginia doesn't mind, Maryland needn't. I wish you could see us, Aunt Sairy. When I think of how I went away from you and Tom with that trunk full of lovely clean things!—Now we are gaunt and ragged and shoeless and dirty—" Tom stopped to wipe his spectacles.
Sairy threaded a needle. "All that's less lasting than some other things, they air. I reckon they'll leave a brighter streak than a deal of folk who aren't gaunt an' ragged an' shoeless an' dirty."
"I don't ever see them so," said Christianna, in her soft drawling voice. "I see them just like a piece we had in a book of reading pieces at school. It was a hard piece but, I learned it.
"All furnished, all in arms,All plumed like estridges that with the windBated—like eagles having lightly bathed,Glittering in golden coats like images."
"No. I reckon if Virginia don't mind, Maryland needn't."
Tom began again. "We've got a lovely camp here, and it's good to lie and rest on the green grass. The Army has had hard fighting and hard marching. Second Manassas was a big battle. It's in the air that we'll have another soon. Don't you worry about me. I'll come out all right. And if I don't, never forget that you did everything in the world for me and that I loved you and thought of you at the very last. Is living getting hard on Thunder Run? I fear so sometimes, for it's getting hard everywhere, and you can't see the end—I wish I had some pay to send you, but we aren't getting any now. This war's going to be fought without food or pay. Tell me, Aunt Sairy, just right honestly how you are getting on. It's getting toward winter. When I say my prayers I pray now that it won't be a hard winter. A lot of us are praying that. It's right pitiful, the men with wives and children at home, and the country growing to look like a desert.—But that's gloomy talk, and if there's one thing more than another we've got to avoid it's being gloomy!—Tell me everything when you write. Write to Winchester—that's our base of supplies and rendezvous now. Tell me about everybody on Thunder Run, but most of all tell me about yourselves. Give my very best regards to Christianna. She surely was good to me in Richmond. I don't know what I would have done without her. At first, before I—"
Sairy put out her hand. "Give it to me, Tom. I'll read the rest. You're tired."
"No, I'm not," said Tom.—"At first, before I came up with the Army, I missed her dreadfully."
Sairy rose, stepped from the porch, and turned the drying apples. Coming back, she touched the girl on the shoulder—very gently. "They're all fools, Christianna. Once I met a woman who did not know her thimble finger. I thought that beat all! But it's hard to match the men."
"You've put me out!" said Tom. "Where was I? Oh—At first, before I came up with the Army, I missed her dreadfully. Billy reminds me of her at times.—It's near roll call, and I must stop. God bless you both. Allan."
Tom folded the letter with trembling hands, laid it carefully atop of the others in the tin box, and took off and wiped his glasses. "Yes, if a letter didn't come every two weeks I'd go plumb crazy! I've got to hear him say 'dear Tom' that often, anyhow—"
Christianna rose, pulling her sunbonnet over her eyes. "Thank you, Mrs. Cole an' Mr. Cole. I thought I'd like to hear. Now I'll be going back up the mountain. Violetta an' Rosalinda are pulling fodder and mother is ploughing for wheat. I do the spinning mostly. You've got lovely china asters, Mrs. Cole. They have a flower they called magnolia down 't Richmond—like a great sweet white cup, an' they had pink crape myrtles. I liked it in Richmond, for all the death an' mourning. Thunder Run's so far away. Good mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good mahnin', Mr. Cole."
The slight homespun figure disappeared around the bend of the road. Sairy sewed in silence. Tom went back to the newspaper. The yellow cat slept on, the bees buzzed and droned, the sweet mountain air brushed through the trees, a robin sang. Half an hour passed. Tom raised his head. "I hear some one coming!" He reached for the tobacco box.
It proved to be an old well-loved country doctor, on a white horse, with his saddle bags before him. Sairy hurried out, too, to the gate. "Doctor, I want to ask you something about Tom—" "Psha, I'm all right," said Tom. "Won't you get down and set a little, doctor?"
The doctor would and did, and after he had prescribed for the tollgate keeper a two hours' nap every day and not to get too excited over war news, Tom read him Allan's letter, and they got into a hot discussion of the next battle. Sairy turned the drying apples, brushed away the bees, and brought fresh water from the well, then sat down again with her mending. "Doctor, how's the girl at Three Oaks?"
The doctor came back from Maryland to his own county and to the fold which he tended without sleep, without rest, and with little pay save in loving hearts. "Miriam Cleave? She's better, Mrs. Cole, she's better!"
"I'm mighty glad to hear it," said Sairy. "'T ain't a decline, then?"
"No, no! Just shock on shock coming to a delicate child. Her mother will bring her through. And there's a great woman."
"That's so, that's so!" assented Tom cordially. "A great woman."
Sairy nodded, drawing her thread across a bit of beeswax. "For once you are both right. He isn't there now, doctor?"
"No. He wasn't there but a week or two."
"You don't—"
"No, Tom. I don't know where he has gone. They have some land in the far south, down somewhere on the Gulf. He may have gone there."
"I reckon," said Tom, "he couldn't stand it in Virginia. All the earth beginnin' to tremble under marchin' feet and everybody askin', 'Where's the army to-day?' I reckon he couldn't stand it. I couldn't. Allan don't believe he did it, an' I don't believe it either."
"Nor I," said Sairy.
"He came up here," said Tom, "just as quiet an' grave an' simple as you or me. An' he sat there in his lawyer's clothes, with his back to that thar pillar, an' he told Sairy an' me all about Allan. He told us how good he was an' how all the men loved him an' how valuable he was to the service. An' he said that the wound he got at Gaines's Mill wasn't so bad after all as it might have been, and that Allan would soon be rejoining. An' he said that being a scout wasn't as glorious, maybe, but it was just as necessary as being a general. An' that he had always loved Allan an' always would. An' he told us about something Allan did at McDowell and then again at Kernstown—an' Sairy cried an' so did I—"
Sairy folded her work. "I wasn't crying so much for Allan—"
"An' then he asked for a drink of water 'n we talked a little about the crops, 'n he went down the mountain. An' Sairy an' I don't believe he did it."
The doctor drew his hand downward over mouth and white beard. "Well, Mrs. Cole, I don't either. The decisions of courts and judges don't always decide. There's always a chance of an important witness called Truth having been absent. I didn't see Richard Cleave but once while he was at Three Oaks. He looked and acted then just like Richard Cleave,—only older and graver. It was beautiful to see him and his mother together." The doctor rose. "But I reckon it's as Tom says and he couldn't stand it, and has gone where he doesn't hear 'the army—the army—the army'—all day long. Mrs. Cleave hasn't said anything, and I wouldn't ask. The last time I saw her—and I think he had just gone—she looked like a woman a great artist might have met in a dream."
The doctor gazed out over the autumn sea of mountains and up at the pure serene of the heavens, and then at his old, patient white horse with the saddle bags across the saddle. "Mrs. Cole, all you've got to do is to keep Tom from getting excited. I'll be back this way the first of the week and I'll stop again—"
Tom cleared his throat. "I don't know when Sairy an' me can pay you, doctor. I never realized till it came how war stops business. I'd about as well be keeping toll gate in the desert of Sahary."
"I'm not doing it for pay," said the doctor. "It's just the place to stop and rest and talk, and as for giving you a bit of opinion and advice, Lord! I'm not so poor that I can't do that. If you want to give me something in return I certainly could use three pounds of dried apples."
The doctor rode on down the mountain. Tom and Sairy had a frugal dinner. Then the former lay down to take the prescribed nap, and the latter set her washtub on a box in the yard beneath the peach trees. Tom didn't sleep long; he said every time he was about to drop off he thought he heard wheels. He came back to his split-bottomed chair on the porch, the tobacco box for the toll, the tin box with Allan's letters, and the view across the china asters of the road. The afternoon was past its height, but bright yet, with the undersong of the wind and of Thunder Run. The yellow cat had had his dinner, too, and after sauntering around the yard, and observing the robin on the locust tree again curled himself on the porch and slept.
Sairy straightened herself from the washtub. "Somebody's comin' up the road. It's a man!" She came toward the porch, wiping her hands, white and crinkled, upon her apron. "He's a soldier, Tom! Maybe one of the boys air come back—"
Tom rose too, quickly. He staggered and had to catch at the sapling that made the pillar. "Maybe it's—"
"No, no! no, no! Don't you think that, an' have a set-back when you find it ain't! It ain't tall enough for Allan, an' it ain't him anyhow. Itcouldn'tbe."
"No, I reckon it couldn't," said Tom. "But anyhow it's one of the boys." He was half way to the gate, Sairy after him, and they were the first to welcome Steve Dagg back to Thunder Run.
Tom Cole forgot that he had no opinion of Steve anyway. Sairy pursed her lips, but a soldier was a soldier. Steve came and sat down on the edge of the porch, beside the china asters, "Gawd! don't Thunder Run sound natural! Yass'm, I walked from Buford's, an' 't was awful hard to do, cause my foot is all sore an' gangrened. I've got a furlough till it gets well. It's awful sore. Gawd! ef Thunder Run had seen what I've seen, an' heard what I've heard, an' done what I've done, an' been through what I've been through—"
In Lee's tent, pitched in a grove a mile from Frederick, was held a council of war,—Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet, Jeb Stuart. Lee sat beside the table, Jackson faced him, sabre across knees, Longstreet had his place a little to one side, and Stuart stood, his shoulder against the tent pole. The last-named had been speaking. He now ended with "I think I may say, sir, that hardly a rabbit has gotten past my pickets. He's a fine fellow, Little Mac is! but he's mighty cautious, and you couldn't exactly call him swift as lightning. He's still a score of miles to the east of us, and he knows mighty little what we are about."
Jackson spoke. "General McClellan does not know if the whole army has crossed or only part of it has crossed. He does not know whether we are going to move against Washington, or move against Baltimore, or invade Pennsylvania. Always mystify, mislead, and deceive the enemy as far as possible."
Longstreet spoke. "Well, by the time he makes those twenty miles the troops should be rested and in condition. We'll have another battle and another victory."
Lee spoke, addressing Stuart. "You have done your work most skilfully, general. It is not every army that has a Jeb Stuart!" He paused, then spoke to all. "McClellan will not be up for several days. Across the river, in Virginia, are yet fourteen thousand of the enemy. I had hoped that, scattered as they are, Washington would withdraw them when it heard of our crossing. It has not done so, however. It is not well to have in our rear that entrenched camp at Harper's Ferry. It is my idea, gentlemen, that it might be possible to repeat the manœuvre of Second Manassas."
Stonewall Jackson hitched his chair closer. Stuart chuckled joyously. Longstreet looked dubious. "Do you mean, general, that you would again divide the army?"
Lee rested his crossed hands on the table before him. "Gentlemen, did I have the Northern generals' numbers, I, too, might be cautious. Having only Robert E. Lee's numbers, I advance another policy. It is my idea again to divide the army."
"In the enemy's country? We have not fifty-five thousand fighting strength."
"Yes, in the enemy's country. And I know that we have not fifty-five thousand fighting strength. My plan is this, gentlemen. General Stuart has proved his ability to hold all roads and mask all movements. We will form two columns, and behind the screen which his cavalry provides, one column will move north and one column will move south. By advancing toward Hagerstown the first will create the impression that Pennsylvania is to be invaded. Moreover Catoctin and South Mountain are strong defensive positions.The other column will move with expedition. Recrossing the Potomac, it will invest and capture Harper's Ferry. That done, it will return at once into Maryland, rejoining me before McClellan is up."
Longstreet swore. "By God, that is a bold plan!—What if McClellan should learn it?"
"As against that, we must trust in General Stuart. These people must be driven out of Harper's Ferry. All our communications are threatened."
Longstreet was blunt. "Well, sir, I think it is madness. Pray don't send me on any such errand!"
Lee smiled. "General Jackson, what is your opinion?"
Jackson spoke with brevity. "I might prefer, sir, to attack McClellan first and then turn upon Harper's Ferry. But I see no madness in the other plan—if the movement is rapid. Sometimes to be bold is the sanest thing you can do. It is necessary of course that the enemy should be kept in darkness."
"Then, general, you will undertake the reduction of Harper's Ferry?"
"If you order me to do it, sir, I will do it."
"Very good. You will start at dawn. Besides your own you shall have McLaws's and Anderson's divisions. The remainder of the army will leave Frederick an hour or two later. Colonel Chilton will at once issue the order of march." He drew a piece of paper toward him and with a pencil made a memorandum—Special Orders, No. 191.
The remainder of the ninth of September passed. The tenth of September passed, and the eleventh, mild, balmy and extremely still. The twelfth found the landscape for miles around Frederick still dozing. At noon, however, upon this day things changed. McClellan's strong cavalry advance came into touch with Jeb Stuart a league or two to the east. There ensued a skirmish approaching in dignity to an engagement. Finally the grey drew off, though not, to the Federal surprise, in the direction of Frederick. Instead they galloped north.
The blue advance trotted on, sabre to hand, ready for the dash into Frederick. Pierced at last was the grey, movable screen! Now with the infantry close behind, with the magnificent artillery rumbling up, with McClellan grim from the Seven Days—now for the impact which should wipe out the memory of the defeat of a fortnight ago, of the second Bull Run, an impact that should grind rebellion small! They came to Frederick and found a quiet shell. There was no one there to sabre.
Information abounded. McClellan, riding in with his staff toward evening, found himself in a sandstorm of news, through which nothing could be distinctly observed. Prominent citizens were brought before him. "Yes, general; they undoubtedly went north. Yes, sir, the morning of the tenth. Two columns, but starting one just after the other and on the same road. Yes, sir, some of our younger men did follow on horseback after an hour or two. They could just see the columns still moving north. Then they ran against Stuart's cordon and they had to turn back. Frederick's been just like a desert island—nobody coming and nobody getting away. For all he's as frisky as a puppy, Jeb Stuart's a mighty good watch dog!"
McClellan laughed. "'Beauty' Stuart!—I wish I had him here." He grew grave again. "I am obliged to you, sir. Who's this, Ames?"
"It is a priest, sir, that's much looked up to. He says he has a collection of maps—Father Tierney, will you speak to the general?"
"Faith, and that I will, my son!" said Father Tierney. "Good avenin', general, and the best of fortunes!"
"Good evening, Father. What has your collection to do with it?"
"Faith," said Father Tierney, "and that's for you to judge, general. It was the avenin' of the eighth, and I was sittin' in my parlour after Judy O'Flaherty's funeral, and having just parted with Father Lavalle at the Noviciate. And there came a rap, and an aide of Stonewall Jackson's—But whisht! maybe I am taking up your time, general, with things you already know?"
"Go on, go on! 'An aide of Stonewall Jackson's—'"
"'Holy powers!' thinks I, 'no rest even afther a funeral!' but 'Come in, come in, my son!' I said, and in he comes. 'My name is Jarrow, Father,' says he, 'and General Jackson has heard that you have a foine collection of maps.'
"'And that's thrue enough,' says I, 'and what then, my son?' Whereupon he lays down his sword and cap and says, 'May I look at thim?'"
Father Tierney coughed. "There's a number of gentlemen waiting in the entrry. Maybe, general, you'd be afther learning of the movement of the ribils with more accuracy from thim. And I could finish about the maps another time. You aren't under any obligation to be listenin' to me."
"Shut the door, Ames," said the general. "Now Father.—'May I look at them,' he said."
"'Why, av course,' said I, 'far be it from Benedict Tierney to put a lock on knowledge!' and I got thim down. 'There's one that was made for Leonard Calvert in 1643'—says I, 'and there's another showing St. Mary's about the time of the Indian massacre, and there's a very rare one of the Chesapeake—'
"'Extremely interesting' he says, 'but for General Jackson's purposes 1862 will answer. You have recent maps also?'
"'Yes, I have,' I said, and I got thim down, rather disappointed, having thought him interested in Colonial Maryland and maybe in the location of missions. 'What do you wish?' said I, still polite, though I had lost interest. 'A map of Pennsylvania,' said he—"
"A map of Pennsylvania!—Ames, get your notebook there."
"And I unrolled it and he looked at it hard. 'Good road to Waynesboro?' he said, and says I, 'Fair, my son, fair!' And says he, 'I may take this map to General Jackson?' 'Yes,' said I, 'but I hope you'll soon be so good as to return it.' 'I will,' said he. 'Bedad,' said I, 'you ribils are right good at returning things! I'll say that for you!' said I—and he rolled up the map and put it under his arm."
The general drew a long breath. "Pennsylvania invaded by way of Waynesboro. I am much obliged, Father—"
"Wait, wait, my son, I'm not done, yet! And thin, says he, 'General Jackson wants a map of the country due east from here, one,' says he, 'that shows the roads to Baltimore.'"
"Baltimore!—"
"'Have you got that one?' says he. 'Yis,' says I, and unrolled it, and he looked at it carefully and long. 'I see,' says he, 'that by going north from Frederick to Double Pipe Creek you would strike there the turnpike running east. Thank you, Father! May I take thisone, too?' And he rolled it up and put it under his arm—"
"Baltimore," said McClellan, "Baltimore—"
"'And now, Father,' says he, 'have you one of the region between here and Washington?' ... Don't be afther apologizing, general! There are times when I want a strong word meself. So I got that map, too, and he looked at it steadily. 'I understand,' says he, 'that going west by north you would strike a road that leads you south again?'—'And that's thrue,' said I. And he looked at the map long and steadily again, and he asked what was the precise distance from Point of Rocks to Washington—"
"Point of Rocks! Good Lord! Ames, get ready to take these telegrams—"
"And thin he said, 'May I have this, too, Father?' and he rolled it up, and said General Jackson would certainly be obliged and would return thim in good order. (Which he did.) And thin he took up his cap and sword and said good avenin' and went. That's all that I know of the matter, general, saving and excepting, that the ribil columns certainlystartednext morning with their faces toward the great State of Pennsylvania. Don't mention it, general!—though if you are interested in good works, and I'm not doubting the same, there's an orphan asylum here—"
Having arrived at a cross-roads without a signpost McClellan characteristically hesitated. The activity of the next twelve hours was principally electrical and travelled by wire from Frederick to Washington and Washington to Frederick. The cavalry, indeed was pushed forward toward Boonsboro, but for the remainder of the army, as it came up, corps by corps, the night passed in inaction, and morning dawned on inaction. March north toward Pennsylvania, and leave Washington to be bombarded!—turn south and east toward Washington and hear a cry of protest and anger from an invaded state!—turn due east to Baltimore and be awakened by the enemy's cannon thundering against the other sides of the figure!—leave Baltimore out of the calculation and lose, perhaps, the whole of Maryland! McClellan was disturbed enough. And then, in the great drama of real life there occurred an incident.
An aide appeared in the doorway of the room in which were gathered McClellan and several of his generals. The discussion had been a heated one; all the men looked haggard, disturbed. "What is it?" asked McClellan sharply.
The aide held something in his hand. "This has just been found, sir. It seems to have been dropped at a street corner. Leaves and rubbish had been blown over it. The soldier who found it brought it here. He thought it important—and I think it is, sir."
He crossed the floor and gave it to the general. "Three cigars wrapped in a piece of paper! Why, what—A piece of paper wrapped around three cigars. Open the shutters more widely, Ames!"
Headquarters Army of Northern VirginiaSeptember 9, 1862.