The Seven Days brought a sterner temper into this war. The two sides grew to know each other better; each saw how determined was the other, and either foe, to match the other, raised the bronze in himself to iron. The great army, still under McClellan, at Harrison's Landing, became the Army of the Potomac. The great army guarding Richmond under Lee, became the Army of Northern Virginia. President Lincoln called upon the Governors of the Northern States for three hundred thousand men, and offered bounties. President Davis called upon the Governors of the Southern States for conscripts, and obtained no great number, for the mass of the men had volunteered. The world at large looked on, now and henceforth, with an absorbed regard. The struggle promised to be Homeric, memorable. The South was a fortress beleaguered; seven hundred thousand square miles of territory lost and inland as the steppes of Tartary, for all her ports were blocked by Northern men-of-war. Little news from the fortress escaped; the world had a sense of gigantic grey figures moving here and there behind a great battle veil, of a push against the fortress, a push from all sides, with approved battering rams, scaling ladders, hooks, grapples, mines, of blue figures, all known and described in heroic terms by the Northern public prints, a push repelled by the voiceless, printless, dimly-discerned grey figures. Not that the grey, too, were not described to the nations in the prints above. They were. The wonder was that the creatures could fight—even, it appeared, fight to effect. Around and over the wide-flung fortress the battle smoke rolled and eddied. Drums were distantly heard, now rallying, now muffled. A red flag with a blue cross rose and fell and rose again; grey names emerged, floated, wraith-like, over the sea, not to be stopped by blue men-of-war, names and picturesque nicknames, loved of soldiers. It grew to be allowed that there must be courage in the fortress, and a gift of leadership. All was seen confusedly, but with a mounting, mounting interest. The world gaped at the far-borne clang and smoke and roar. Military men in clubs demonstrated to a nicety just how long the fortress might hold out, and just how it must be taken at last. Schoolboys fought over again in the schoolyards the battles with the heathenish names. The Emperor of the French and the King of Prussia and the Queen of Spain and the Queen of England and the Czar and the Sultan and the Pope at Rome asked each morning for the war news, and so did gaunt cotton-spinners staring in mill towns at tall smokeless chimneys.
Early in June Halleck was appointed commander-in-chief of all the armies of the United States. What to do with McClellan, at present summering on the James twenty-five miles below Richmond, came upon the board. McClellan claimed, quite rightly, that here and now, with his army on both sides of the James, he held thekey position, and that with sufficient reinforcements he could force the evacuation of Richmond. Only give him reinforcements with which to face Lee's "not less than two hundred thousand!" Recall the Army of the Potomac, and it might be some time before it again saw Richmond! Halleck deliberated. General Pope had come out of the west to take concentrated command of the old forces of Banks, Sigel, Frémont, and McDowell. He had an attitude, had Pope, at the head of his forty thousand men behind the Rappahannock! The armies were too widely separated, McClellan's location notoriously unhealthy. Impossible to furnish reinforcements to the tune asked for, Washington might, at any moment, be in peril. It was understood that Stonewall Jackson had left Richmond on the thirteenth, marching toward Gordonsville.
The James River might be somewhat unhealthy for strangers that summer, and Stonewall Jackson had marched toward Gordonsville. The desire at the moment most at the heart of General Robert Edward Lee was that General McClellan should be recalled. Therefore he guarded Richmond with something less than sixty thousand men, and he made rumours to spread of gunboats building, and he sent Major-General T. J. Jackson northward with twelve thousand men.
In this July month there was an effect of suspense. The fortress was taking muster, telling its strength, soldering its flag to the staff and the staff to the keep. The besiegers were gathering; the world was watching, expectant of the grimmer struggle. There came a roar and clang from the outer walls, from the Mississippi above Vicksburg, from the Georgian coast, from Murfreesboro in Tennessee, from Arkansas, from Morgan's raids in Kentucky. There was fire and sound enough, but the battles that were to tell were looked for on Virginia soil. Hot and still were the July days, hot and still was the air, and charged with a certain sentiment. Thunderbolts were forging; all concerned knew that, and very subtly life and death and the blue sky and the green leaves came freshlier across the senses. Jackson, arriving at Gordonsville the nineteenth of July, found Pope before him with forty-seven thousand men. He asked for reinforcements and Lee, detaching yet another twelve thousand from the army at Richmond, sent him A. P. Hill and the Light Division. Hill arrived on the second of August, splendid fighter, in his huntingshirt, with his red beard! That evening in Jackson's quarters, some one showed him a captured copy of Pope's Orders, numbers 12 and 75. He read, crumpled the papers and tossed them aside, then turned to Jackson sitting sucking a lemon. "Well, general, here's a new candidate for your attention!"
Jackson looked up. "Yes, sir. By God's blessing he shall have it." He sucked on, studying a map of the country between Slaughter Mountain and Manassas which Hotchkiss had made him. In a letter to his wife from Richmond he had spoken of "fever and debility" attending him during his stay in that section of the country. If it were so he had apparently left them in the rear when he came up here. He sat now tranquil as a stone wall, in sight of the mountains, sucking his lemon and studying his maps.
This was the second. On the sixth of August Pope began to cross the Rappahannock. On the afternoon of the seventh the grey army was in motion. All the eighth it was in column, the heat intense, the dust stifling, an entanglement of trains and a misunderstanding of orders on the part of Hill and Ewell resulting in a confused and retarded march. Night fell, hot and breathless. Twenty-three thousand grey soldiers, moving toward Orange Court House, made the dark road vocal with statements as to the reeking heat, the dust, the condition of their shoes and the impertinence of the cavalry. The latter was more irritating than were the flapping soles, the dust in the throat, and the sweat pouring into the eyes. The infantry swore, swerving again and again to one side of the narrow road to let small bodies of horsemen go by. It was dark, the road going through an interminable hot, close wood. Officers and men were liberal in their vituperation. "Thank the Lord, it ain't my arm!"—"Here you fellows—damn you! look where you are going! Trampling innocent bystanders that way!—Why in hell didn't you stay back where you belong?"—"Of course if you've positively got to get to the front and can't find any other road it's our place to give you this one!—Just wait a moment and we'll ask the colonel if we can'tlie down. It'll be easier to ride over us that way.—Oh, go to hell!"
The parties passed, the ranks of the infantry straightened out again on the dark road, the column wound on through the hot, midnight wood. More hoof-beats—another party of cavalry to be letby! They passed the infantry in the darkness, pushing the broken line into the ditch and scrub. In the pitchy blackness an impatient command lost at this juncture its temper. The men swore, an officer called out to the horsemen a savage "Halt!" The party pressed on. The officer furious, caught a bridle rein. "Halt, damn you! Stop them, men! Now you cavalry have got to learn a thing or two! One is, that the infantry is the important thing in war! It's the aristocracy, damn you! The other is that we were on this road first anyhow! Now you just turn out into the woods yourself, and the next time I tell you to halt, damn you, halt!"
"This, sir," said a voice, "is General Jackson and his staff."
The officer stammered forth apologies. "It is all right, sir," said the voice in the darkness. "The cavalry must be more careful, but colonel, true aristocrats do not curse and swear."
An hour later the column halted in open country. A pleasant farmhouse with a cool, grassy yard surrounded by an ornamental fence, white paling gleaming in the waved lights, flung wide its doors to Stonewall Jackson. The troops bivouacked around, in field and meadow. A rain came up, a chilly downpour. An aide appeared before the brigade encamped immediately about the farmhouse. "The general says, sir, that the men may take the rail fence over there, but the regimental officers are to see that under no circumstances is the fence about Mrs. Wilson's yard to be touched."
The night passed. Officers had had a hard day; they slept perhaps somewhat soundly, wrapped in their oilcloths, in the chilly rain, by the smallest of sputtering camp-fires. The rain stopped at three o'clock; the August dawn came up gloriously with a cool freshness. Reveille sounded. Stonewall Jackson came from the farmhouse, looked about him and then walked across the grassy yard. A little later five colonels of five regiments found themselves ordered to report to the general commanding the brigade.
"Gentlemen, as you came by did you notice the condition of the ornamental fence about the yard?"
"Not especially, sir."
"I did, sir. One panel is gone. I suppose the men were tempted. It was a confounded cold rain."
The brigadier pursed his lips. "Well, colonel, you heard the order. All of you heard the order. I regret to say, so did I. Dog-gone tiredness and profound slumber are no excuse. You ought—we ought—to have heard them at the palings. General Jackson has ordered you all under arrest."
"Five of us, sir?"
"Five of you. Damn it, sir, six of us!"
The five colonels looked at one another and looked at their brigadier. "What would you advise, sir?"
The brigadier was very red. "I have sent one of my staff to Mrs. Wilson, gentlemen, to enquire the cost of the entire ornamental fence! I'd advise that we pay, and—if we've got any—pay in gold."
By eight o'clock the column was in motion—a fair day and a fair country, with all the harvest fields and the deep wooded hills and the August sky. After the rain the roads were just pleasantly wet; dewdrops hung on the corn blades, blackberries were ripening, ox-eye daisies fringed the banks of red earth. The head of the column, coming to a by-road, found awaiting it there an old, plain country woman in a faded sunbonnet and faded check apron. She had a basket on her arm, and she stepped into the middle of the road before Little Sorrel. "Air this General Jackson?"
Stonewall Jackson checked the horse. The staff and a division general or two stopped likewise. Behind them came on the infantry advance, long and jingling. "Yes, madam, I am General Jackson. What can I do for you?"
The old woman put down her basket and wiped her hands on her apron. "General, my son John air in your company. An' I've brought him some socks an' two shirts an' a chicken, an' a pot of apple butter. An' ef you'll call John I'll be obleeged to you, sir."
A young man in the group of horsemen laughed, but stopped abruptly as Jackson looked round. The latter turned to the old woman with the gentlest blue eyes, and the kindliest slow smile. "I've got a great many companies, ma'am. They are all along the road from Gordonsville. I don't believe I know your son."
But the old woman would not have that. "My lan', general! I reckon you all know John! I reckon John wuz the first man to jine the army. He wuz chopping down the big gum by the crick, an' the news come, an' he chopped on twel the gum wuz down, an' he says, says he, 'I'll cut it up for you, Maw, an' then I'm goin'.' An' he went.—He's about your make an' he has light hair an' eyes an' he wuz wearing butternut—"
"What is his last name, ma'am?"
"His middle name's Henry an' his last name's Simpson."
"In whose brigade is he, and in what regiment?"
But the old woman shook her head. She knew only that he was in General Jackson's company. "We never larned to write, John an' me. He wuz powerful good to me—en I reckon he's been in all the battles 'cause he wuz born that way. Some socks, and two shirts an' something to eat—an' he hez a scar over his eye where a setting hen pecked him when he was little—an' won't you please find him for me, sir?" The old voice quavered toward tears.
Stonewall Jackson dismounted, and looked toward the on-coming column. The advance was now but a few hundred yards away; the whole army to the last wagon train had its orders for expedition. He sent for his adjutant. "Companies from Orange County, sir? Yes, there are a number in different regiments and brigades."
"Well, you will go, colonel, and halt the advance. See if there is an Orange company and a private named John Simpson."
There was not. The woman with the basket was old and tired. She sat down on the earth beneath a sign post and threw her apron over her head. Jackson sent an aide back three miles to the main body. "Captain, find the Orange companies and a private named John Simpson. Bring him here. Tall, light-haired, light eyes, with a scar over one eye. If he is not in the main column go on to the rear."
The aide spurred his horse. Jackson explained matters. "You'll have to wait a while, Mrs. Simpson. If your son's in the army he'll be brought to you. I'll leave one of my aides with you!" He spoke to Little Sorrel and put his hand on the saddle bow. Mrs. Simpson's apron came down. "Please, general, don't you go! Please, sir, you stay! They won't know him like you will! They'll just come back an' say they can't find him!—An' I got to see John—I just got to!—Don't go, please, sir! Ef 't was your mother—"
Stonewall Jackson and his army waited for half an hour while John Simpson was looked for. At the end of that time the cross roads saw him coming, riding behind the aide. Tall and lank, inbutternut still, and red as a beet, he slipped from the horse, and saluted the general, then, almost crying, gathered up the checked apron and the sunbonnet and the basket and the old woman. "Maw, Maw! jes' look what you have done! Danged ef you haven't stopped the whole army! Everybody cryin' out 'John Simpson'!"
On went the column through the bright August forenoon. The day grew hot and the dust whirled up, and the cavalry skirmished at intervals with detached blue clouds of horsemen. On the horizon appeared at some distance a conical mountain. "What's that sugar loaf over there?" "That's Slaughter's Mountain south of Culpeper. Cedar Run's beyond."
The day wore on. Slaughter Mountain grew larger. The country between was lovely, green and rolling; despite the heat and the dust and the delay the troops were in spirits. They were going against Major-General John Pope and they liked the job. The old Army of the Valley, now a part of the Army of Northern Virginia, rather admired Shields, had no especial objection to McDowell, and felt a real gratitude toward Mr. Commissary Banks, but it was prepared to fight Pope with a vigour born of detestation. A man of the old Army, marching with Ewell, began to sing:—
"Pope told a flattering taleWhich proved to be bravado,About the streams that spout like aleOn the Llano Estacado!
"That's the Staked Plains, you know. Awful hot out there! Pretty hot here, too. Look at them lovely roasting ears! Can't touch 'em. Old Jack says so. Pope may live on the country, but we mayn't." "That mountain is getting pretty big." "Hello! Just a cavalry scrimmage—Hello! hello! Artillery's more serious!" "Boys, boys! we've struck Headquarters-in-the-saddle!—What's that awful noise?—Old Jack's coming—Old Jack's coming to the front!—Mercy! didn't know even we could cheer like that!—Yaaaih! Yaaaaaaihhh! Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Yaaaaaaiiiihhh!"
As the day declined the battle swelled in smoke and thunder. The blue batteries were well placed, and against them thundered twenty-six grey rifled guns: two Parrotts of Rockbridge with a gun of Carpenter's appeared at the top of the hill, tore down the long slope and came into battery in an open field, skirted by a wood. Behind was the Stonewall Brigade in column of regiments. The guns wereplaceden échelon, the horses taken away, the ball opened with canister. Immediately the Federal guns answered, got the range of the grey, and began to do deadly mischief. All around young trees were cut off short. The shells came, thick, black, and screaming. The place proved fatal to officers. Carpenter was struck in the head by a piece of shell—mortally wounded. The chief of artillery, Major Snowden Andrews fell, desperately injured, then Captain Caskie was hurt, then Lieutenant Graham. The gunners worked like mad. The guns thundered, recoiled, thundered again. The blue shells arrived in a deadly stream. All was smoke, whistling limbs of trees, glare and roar. General Winder came up on foot. Standing by a grey Parrott he tried with his field glass to make out the Federal batteries. Lowering the glass he shouted some direction to the men about the gun below him. The noise was hideous, deafening. Seeing that he was not understood he raised his arm and hollowed his hand above his mouth. A shell passed beneath his arm, through his side. He fell stiffly back, mangled and dying.
There was a thick piece of woods, deep and dark, stretching westward. The left of Jackson's division rested here. Ewell's brigades and batteries were on the mountain slope; the Light Division, A. P. Hill in his red battle shirt at its head, not yet up; Jubal Early forming a line of battle in the rolling fields. An aide came to "Old Jube." "General Jackson's compliments to General Early, and he says you will advance on the enemy, and General Winder's troops will support you." Early had a thin, high, drawling voice. "My compliments to General Jackson, and tell him I will do it."
The Stonewall Brigade, drawn up in the rear of the Artillery, stood waiting its orders from Winder. There came a rumor. "The general is killed! General Winder is killed!" The Stonewall chose to be incredulous. "It is not so! We don't believe it."
The 65th, cut to pieces at White Oak Swamp, had renewed itself. Recruits—boys and elderly men—a few melancholy conscripts, a number of transferals from full commands had closed its ranks. The 65th, smaller now, of diluted quality, but even so, dogged and promising well,—the 65th, waiting on the edge of a wheat field, looked across it to Taliaferro's and Campbell'sbrigades and the dark wood in front. Billy Maydew was sergeant now and Matthew Coffin was first lieutenant of Company A. The two had some talk under a big walnut tree.
"Artillery's been shouting for two hours," said Coffin. "They've got a hell lot of cavalry, too, but if there's any infantry I can't see it."
"There air a message gone to Campbell and Taliaferro. I heard Old Jack send it. 'Look well to your left,' he says, says he. That thar wood's the left," said Billy. "It looks lonesomer than lonesome, but thar! when lonesome things do blaze out they blaze out the worst!"
The colonel of the 65th—Colonel Erskine—came along the front. "It's too true, men. We've lost General Winder. Well, we'll avenge him!—Look! there is Jubal Early advancing!"
Early's line of battle was a beautiful sight. It moved through the fields and up a gentle hillside, and pushed before it bright clusters of Federal cavalry. When the grey lines came to the hilltop the Federal batteries opened fiercely. Early posted Dement and Brown and loudly answered. To the left rolled great wheat fields, the yellow grain standing in shocks. Here gathered the beautiful blue cavalry, many and gallant. Ewell with Trimble's South Carolinians and Harry Hayes's Louisianians held the slope of the mountain, and from these heights bellowed Latimer's guns. Over hill and vale the Light Division was seen coming, ten thousand men in grey led by A. P. Hill.
"It surely air a sight to see," said Billy. "I never even dreamed it, back thar on Thunder Run."
"There the Yankees come!" cried Coffin. "There! a stream of them—up that narrow valley!—Now—now—now Early has touched them!—Damn you, Billy! What's the matter?"
"It's the wood," answered Billy. "Thar's something coming out of the lonesome wood."
On the left the 1st and 42d Virginia were the advance regiments. Out of the forest, startling, unexpected, burst a long blue battle line. Banks, a brave man if not a wise one, interpreted Pope's orders somewhat to suit himself, and attacked without waiting for Sigel or McDowell. In this instance valor seemed likely to prove the better part of discretion. Of the grey generals, Hill was not up, Early was hotly engaged, the artillery fire, grey and blue alike, sweeping the defile before Ewell kept him on the mountain side. Bayonets fixed, bright colours tossing, skirmishers advanced, on with verve and determination came Banks's attack. As it crossed the yellow stubble field Taliaferro and Campbell, startled by the apparition but steady, poured in a withering fire. But the blue came on, swung its right and partly surrounded the 1st Virginia. Amid a hell of shots, bayonet work, shouts, and cries 1st Virginia broke; fell back upon the 42d, that in its turn was overwhelmed. Down came the blue wave on Taliaferro's flank. The wheat field filled with uproar. Taliaferro broke, Campbell broke.
The Stonewall stirred like leaves in autumn. Ronald, colonel of the 2d, commanding in Winder's place, made with despatch a line of battle. The smoke was everywhere, rolling and thick. Out of it came abruptly a voice. "I have always depended upon this brigade. Forward!"
Billy had an impression of wheat stubble beneath his feet, wheat stubble thick strewn with men, silent or lamentably crying out, and about his ears a whistling storm of minies. There was, too, a whirl of grey forms. There was no alignment—regiments were dashed to pieces—everybody was mixed up. It was like an overturned beehive. Then in the swirling smoke, in the swarm and shouting and grey rout, he saw Little Sorrel, and Stonewall Jackson standing in his stirrups. He had drawn his sabre; it flashed above his head like a gleam from the sinking sun. Billy spoke aloud. "I've been with him from the first, and this air the first time I ever saw him do that." As he spoke he caught hold of a fleeing grey soldier. "Stand still and fight! Thar ain't nothing in the rear but damned safety!"
The grey surge hung poised, the tide one moment between ebb and flow. The noise was hellish; sounds of triumph, sounds of panic, of anger, encouragement, appeal, despair, woe and pain, with the callous roar of musketry and the loud indifference of the guns. Above it all the man on the quaint war horse made himself heard. From the blue line of steel above his head, from the eyes below the forage cap, from the bearded lips, from the whole man there poured a magic control. He shouted and his voice mastered the storm. "Rally, brave men! Rally and follow me! I will lead you. Jackson will lead you. Rally! Rally!"
Billy saw the 21st Virginia, what was left of it, swing suddenly around, give the Confederate yell, and dash itself against the blue. Taliaferro rallied, Campbell rallied, the Stonewall itself under Ronald rallied. The first of the Light Division, Branch's North Carolinians came on with a shout, and Thomas's Georgians and Lane and Archer and Pender. Early was up, Ewell sweeping down from the mountain. Jackson came along the restored front. The soldiers greeted him with a shout that tore the welkin. He touched the forage cap. "Give them the bayonet! Give them the bayonet!Forward, and drive them!"
The cavalry with Banks was fine and staunch. At this moment it undertook a charge useless but magnificent. With clarion sound, with tossing colours, with huzzas and waving sabres, a glorious and fearful sight, the cavalry rushed diagonally across the trampled field, its flank exposed to the North Carolinians. These opened a blasting fire while Taliaferro's brigade met it full, and the 13th Virginia, couched behind a grey zigzag of fence, gave volley after volley. Little more than half of those horsemen returned.
Dusk fell and the blue were in full retreat. After them swept the grey—the Light Division, Jubal Early, Ewell, Jackson's own. In the corn fields, in the wheat fields, in the forest thick, thick! lay the dead and wounded, three thousand men, grey and blue, fallen in that fight of an hour and a half. The blue crossed Cedar Run, the grey crossed it after them.The moon, just past the full, rose above the hilltops. On the whole the summer night was light enough. Stonewall Jackson brought up two fresh brigades and with Pegram's battery pressed on by moonlight. That dauntless artillerist, a boy in years, an old wise man in command, found the general on Little Sorrel pounding beside him for some time through the moonlit night. Jackson spoke but once. "Delightful excitement," he said.
The column, after an extraordinary march attended by skirmishes, most wearily winding through a pitch black night, heard the "Halt!" with rejoicing. "Old Jack be thanked! So we ain't turning on our tail and going back through Thoroughfare Gap after all! See anything of Marse Robert?—Go away! he ain't any nearer than White Plains. He and Longstreet won't get through Thoroughfare until to-morrow—Break ranks!Oh Lord, yes! with pleasure."
Under foot there was rough, somewhat rolling ground. In the dark night men dropped down without particularity as to couch or bedchamber. Nature and the time combined to spread for them a long and echoing series of sleeping rooms, carpeted and tapestried according to Nature's whim, vaulted with whistling storm or drift of clouds or pageantry of stars. The troops took the quarters indicated sometimes with, sometimes without remark. To-night there was little speech of any kind before falling into dreamless slumber. "O hell! Hungry as a dog!"—"Me, too!"—"Can't you justseeManassas Junction and Stuart's and Trimble's fellows gorging themselves? Biscuit and cake and pickles and 'desecrated' vegetables and canned peaches and sardines and jam and coffee!—freight cars and wagons and storehouses just filled with jam and coffee and canned peaches and cigars and—" "I wish that fool would hush! I wasn't hungry before!"—"and nice cozy fires, and rashers of bacon broiling, and plenty of coffee, and all around just like daisies in the field, clean new shirts, and drawers and socks, and handkerchiefs and shoes and writing paper and soap."—"Will you go to hell and stop talking as you go?"—"Seems somehow an awful lonely place, boys!—dark and a wind. Hear that whippoorwill? Just twenty thousand men sloshin' round—and Pope may be right over there by the whippoorwill. Jarrow says that with McCall and Heintzelman and Fitz John Porter, there are seventy thousand of them. Well? They've got Headquarters-in-the-saddle and we've got Stonewall Jackson—That's so! that's so! Good-night."
Dawn came calmly up, dawn of the twenty-eighth of August. The ghostly trumpets blew—the grey soldiers stirred and rose. In the sky were yet a star or two and a pale quarter moon. These slowly faded and the faintest coral tinge overspread that far and cold eastern heaven. The men were busied about breakfast, but now this group and presently that suspended operations. "What's there about this place anyhow? It has an awful, familiar look. The stream and the stone bridge and the woods and the hill—the Henry Hill. Good God! it's the field of Manassas!"
The field of Manassas, in the half light, somehow inspired a faint awe, a creeping horror. "God! how young we were that day! Itseems so long ago, and yet it comes back. Do you remember how we crashed together at the Stone Bridge? There's the Mathews Hill where we first met Sykes and Ricketts—seen them often since. The Henry Hill—there's the house—Mrs. Henry was killed. Hampton and Cary came along there and Beauregard with his sword out and Old Joe swinging the colours high, restoring the battle!—and Kirby Smith, just in time—just in time, and the yell his column gave! Next day we thought the war was over."—"I didn't."—"Yes, you did! You said, 'Well, boys, we're going back to every day, but by jiminy! we've got something to tell our grandchildren!' The ravine running up there—that was where Bee was killed! Bee! I can see him now. Then we were over there." "Yes, on the hilltop by the pine wood. 'Jackson standing like a stone wall.' Look, the light's touching it. Boys, I could cry, just as easy—"
The August morning strengthened. "Our guns were over there by the charred trees. There's where we charged, there's where we came down on Griffin and Ricketts!—the 33d, the 65th. The 65th made its fight there. Richard Cleave—" "Don't!"—"Well, that's where we came down on Griffin and Ricketts. Manassas! Reckon Old Jack and Marse Robert want asecondbattle of Manassas?"
The light grew full. "Ewell's over there—A. P. Hill's over there. All together, north of the Warrenton turnpike. Where's Marse Robert and Longstreet?"
Colonel Fauquier Cary, riding by, heard the last remark and answered it. "Marse Robert and Longstreet are marching by the road we've marched before them. To-night, perhaps, we'll be again a united family."
"Colonel, are we going to have a battle?"
"I wasn't at the council, friends, but I can tell you what I think."
"Yes, yes! We think that you think pretty straight—"
"McCall and Heintzelman and Fitz John Porter have joined General Pope."
"Yes. So we hear."
"And others of the Army of the Potomac are on the way."
"Yes, undoubtedly."
"But are not here yet."
"No."
"Well, then, I think that the thing above all others that General Lee wants is an immediate battle."
He rode on. The men to whom he had been speaking looked after him approvingly. "He's a fine piece of steel! Always liked that whole family—Isn't he a cousin of ——? Yes. Wonder what he thinks about that matter! Heigho! Look at the stealing light and the grey shadows! Manassas!"
Cary, riding by Ewell's lines, came upon Maury Stafford lying stretched beneath an oak, studying, too, the old battlefield. The sun was up; the morning cool, fresh, and pure. Dismounting, Cary seated himself beside the other. "You were not in the battle here? On the Peninsula, were you not?"
"Yes, with Magruder. Look at that shaft of light."
"Yes. It strikes the crest of the hill—just where was the Stonewall Brigade."
Silence fell. The two sat, brooding over the scene, each with his own thoughts. "This field will be red again," said Stafford at last.
"No doubt. Yes, red again. I look for heavy fighting."
"I saw you when you came in with A. P. Hill on the second. But we have not spoken together, I think, since Richmond."
"No," said Cary. "Not since Richmond."
"One of your men told me that, coming up, you stopped in Albemarle."
"Yes, I went home for a few hours."
"All at Greenwood are well and—happy?"
"All at Greenwood are well. Southern women are not precisely happy. They are, however, extremely courageous."
"May I ask if Miss Cary is at Greenwood?"
"She remained at her work in Richmond through July. Then the need at the hospital lessening, she went home. Yes, she is at Greenwood."
"Thank you. I am going to ask another question. Answer it or not as yousee fit. Does she know that—most unfortunately—it was I who carried that order from General Jackson to General Winder?"
"I do not think that she knows it." He rose. "The bugles are sounding. I must get back to Hill. General Lee will be up, I hope, to-night. Until he comes we are rather in the lion's mouth. Happily John Pope is hardly the desert king." He mounted his horse, and went. Stafford laid himself down beneath the oak, looked sideways a moment at Bull Run and the hills and the woods, then flung his arm upward and across his eyes, and went in mind to Greenwood.
The day passed in a certain still and steely watchfulness. In the August afternoon, Jeb Stuart, feather in hat, around his horse's neck a garland of purple ironweed and yarrow, rode into the lines and spoke for ten minutes with General Jackson, then spurred away to the Warrenton turnpike. Almost immediately Ewell's and Taliaferro's divisions were under arms and moving north.
Near Groveton they struck the force they were going against—King's division of McDowell's corps moving tranquilly toward Centreville. The long blue column—Doubleday, Patrick, Gibbon, and Hatch's brigades—showed its flank. It moved steadily, with jingle and creak of accoutrements, with soldier chat and laughter, with a band playing a quickstep, with the rays of the declining sun bright on gun-stock and bayonet, and with the deep rumble of the accompanying batteries. The head of the column came in the gold light to a farmhouse and an apple orchard. Out of the peace and repose of the scene burst a roar of grey artillery.
The fight was fierce and bloody, and marked by a certain savage picturesqueness. Gibbon and Doubleday somehow deployed and seized a portion of the orchard. The grey held the farmhouse and the larger part of the fair, fruit-bearing slopes. The blue brought their artillery into action. The grey batteries, posted high, threw their shot and shell over the heads of the grey skirmishers into the opposing ranks: Wooding, Poague, and Carpenter did well; and then, thundering through the woods, came John Pelham of Stuart's Horse Artillery, and he, too, did well.
As for the infantry, grey and blue, they were seasoned troops. There was no charging this golden afternoon. They merely stood, blue and grey, one hundred yards apart, in the sunset-flooded apple orchard, and then in a twilight apple orchard, and then in an apple orchard with the stars conceivably shining above the roof of smoke, and directed each against the other a great storm of musketry, round shot, and canister.
It lasted two and a half hours, that tornado, and it never relaxed in intensity. It was a bitter fight, and there was bitter loss. Doubleday and Gibbon suffered fearfully, and Ewell and Taliaferro suffered. Grey and blue, they stood grimly, and the tornado raged. The ghosts of the quiet husbandmen who had planted the orchard, of the lovers who may have walked there, of the children who must have played beneath the trees—these were scared far, far from the old peaceful haunt. It was a bitter fight.
Stafford was beside Ewell when the latter fell, a shell dreadfully shattering his leg. The younger man caught him, drew him quite from poor old Rifle, and with the help of the men about got him behind the slight, slight shelter of one of the little curtsying trees. Old Dick's face twitched, but he could speak. "Of course I've lost that leg! ——! ——! Old Jackson isn't around, is he? Never mind! Occasion must excuse. Go along, gentlemen. Need you all there. Doctors and chaplains and the teamsters, and Dick Ewell will forgather all right ——! ——! Damn you, Maury, I don't want you to stay! What's that that man says? Taliaferro badly wounded ——! —— ——! Gentlemen, one and all you are ordered back to your posts. I've lost a leg, but I'm not going to lose this battle!"
Night came with each stark battle line engaged in giving and receiving as deadly a bombardment as might well be conceived. The orchard grew a place tawny and red and roaring with sound. And then at nine o'clock the sound dwindled and the light sank. The blue withdrew in good order, taking with them their wounded. The battle was drawn, the grey rested on the field, the loss of both was heavy.
Back of the apple orchard, on the long natural terrace where he had posted his six guns, that tall, blond, very youthful officer whom, a little later, Stuart called "the heroic chivalric Pelham," whom Lee called "the gallant Pelham," of whom Stonewall Jackson said, "Every army should have a Pelham on each flank"—Major John Pelham surveyed the havoc among his men and horses. Then like a good and able leader, he brought matters shipshape, and later announced that the Horse Artillery would stay where it was for the night.
The farmhouse in the orchard had been turned into a field hospital. Thither Pelham's wounded were borne. Of the hurt horsesthose that might be saved were carefully tended, the others shot. The pickets were placed. Fires were kindled, and from a supply wagon somewhere in the rear scanty rations brought. An embassy went to the farmhouse. "Ma'am, the major—Major Pelham—says kin we please have a few roasting ears?" The embassy returned. "She says, sir, just to help ourselves. Corn, apples—anything we want, and she wishes it were more!"
The six guns gleamed red in the light of the kindled fires. The men sat or lay between them, tasting rest after battle. Below this platform, in the orchard and on the turnpike and in the woods beyond, showed also fires and moving lights. The air was yet smoky, the night close and warm. There were no tents nor roofs of any nature. Officers and men rested in the open beneath the August stars. Pelham had a log beneath a Lombardy poplar, with a wide outlook toward the old field of Manassas. Here he talked with one of his captains. "Too many men lost! I feel it through and through that there is going to be heavy fighting. We'll have to fill up somehow."
"Everybody from this region's in already. We might get some fifteen-year-olds or some sixty-five-year-olds, though, or we might ask the department for conscripts—"
"Don't like the latter material. Prefer the first. Well, we'll think about it to-morrow—It's late, late, Haralson! Good-night."
"Wait," said Haralson. "Here's a man wants to speak to you."
Running up the hillside, from the platform where were the guns to a little line of woods dark against the starlit sky, was a cornfield—between it and the log and the poplar only a little grassy depression. A man had come out of the cornfield. He stood ten feet away—a countryman apparently, poorly dressed.
"Well, who are you?" demanded Pelham, "and how did you get in my lines?"
"I've been," said the man, "tramping it over from the mountains. And when I got into this county I found it chock full of armies. I didn't want to be taken up by the Yankees, and so I've been mostly travelling by night. I was in that wood up there while you all were fighting. I had a good view of the battle. When it was overI said to myself, 'After all they're my folk,' and I came down through the corn. I was lying there between the stalks; I heard you say you needed gunners. I said to myself, 'I might as well join now as later. We've all got to join one way or another, that's clear,' and so I thought, sir, I'd join you—"
"Why haven't you 'joined,' as you call it, before?"
"I've been right sick for a year or more, sir. I got a blow on the head in a saw mill on Briony Creek and it made me just as useless as a bit of pith. The doctor says I am all right now, sir. I got tired of staying on Briony—"
"Do you know anything about guns?"
"I know all about a shotgun. I could learn the other."
"What's your name?"
"Philip Deaderick."
"Well, come into the firelight, Deaderick, so that I can see you."
Deaderick came, showed a powerful figure, and a steady bearded face. "Well," said the Alabamian, "the blow on your head doesn't seem to have put you out of the running! I'll try you, Deaderick."
"I am much obliged to you, sir."
"I haven't any awkward squad into which to put you. You'll have to learn, and learn quickly, by watching the others. Take him and enroll him, Haralson, and turn him over to Dreux and the Howitzer. Now, Deaderick, the Horse Artillery is heaven to a good man who does his duty, and it's hell to the other kind. I advise you to try for heaven. That's all. Good-night."
Day broke over the field of Groveton, over the plains of Manassas. Stonewall Jackson moved in force westward from the old battle-ground. South of Bull Run, between Young's Branch and Stony Ridge, ran an unfinished railroad. It was bordered by woods and rolling fields. There were alternate embankments and deep railroad cuts. Behind was the long ridge and Catharpin Run, in front, sloping gently to the little stream, green fields broken to the north by one deep wood. Stonewall Jackson laid his hand on the railroad with those deep cuts and on the rough and rising ground beyond. In the red dawn there stretched a battle front of nearly two miles. A. P. Hill had the left. Trimble and Lawton of Ewell's had the centre, Jackson's own division the right, Jubal Early and Forno of Ewell's a detached force on this wing. There were forty guns, and they were ranged along the rocky ridge behind the infantry. Jeb Stuart guarded the flanks.
The chill moisture of the morning, the dew-drenched earth, the quiet woods, the rose light in the sky—the troops moving here and there to their assigned positions, exchanged opinions. "Ain't it like the twenty-first of July, 1861?"—"It air and it ain't—mostly ain't!"—"That's true! Hello! they are going to give us the railroad cut! God bless the Manassas Railroad Company! If we'd dug a whole day we couldn't have dug such a ditch as that!"—"Look at the boys behind the embankment! Well, if that isn't the jim-dandiest breastwork! 'N look at the forty guns up there against the sky!"—"Better tear those vines away from the edge. Pretty, aren't they? All the blue morning glories. Regiment's swung off toward Manassas Junction! Now if Longstreet should come up!"—"Maybe he will. Wouldn't it be exciting? Come up with a yell same as Kirby Smith did last year! Wonder where the Yankees are?" "Somewhere in the woods, the whole hell lot of them."—"Some of them aren't a hell lot. Some of them are right fine. Down on the Chickahominy I acquired a real respect for the Army of the Potomac—and a lot of it'll be here to-day. Yes, sir, I like Fitz John Porter and Sykes and Reynolds and a lot of them first rate! They can't help being commanded by The-Man-without-a-Rear. That's Washington's fault, not theirs."—"Yes, sir, Ricketts and Meade and Kearney and a lot of them are all right."—"Good Lord, what a shout! That's either Old Jack or a rabbit."—"It's Old Jack! It's Old Jack! He's coming along the front. Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! He's passed. O God! I wish that Bee and Bartow and all that fell here could see him and us now."—"There's Stuart passing through the fields. What guns are those going up Stony Ridge?—Pelham and the Horse Artillery."—"Listen! Bugles! There they come! There they come! Over the Henry Hill."Attention!
About the middle of the morning the cannonading ceased. "There's a movement this way," said A. P. Hill on the left. "They mean to turn us. They have ploughed this wood with shells, and now they're coming to sow it. All right, men! General Jackson's looking!—and General Lee will be here to-night to tell the story to. I suppose you'd like Marse Robert to say, 'Well done!' All right, then, do well!—I don't think we're any too rich, Garrett, in ammunition. Better go tell General Jackson so."
The men talked, Hill's men and Ewell's men on Hill's right—not volubly, but with slow appreciation. "Reynolds? Like Reynolds all right. Milroy? Don't care for the gentleman. Sigel—Schurz—Schenck—Steinwehr?Nein. Nein!Wonder if they remember Cross Keys?"—"They've got a powerful long line. There isn't but one thing I envy them and that's those beautiful batteries. I don't envy them their good food, and their good, whole clothes or anything but the guns."—"H'm, I don't envy them anything—our batteries are doing all right! We've got a lot of their guns, and to-night we'll have more. Artillery's done fine to-day."—"So it has! so it has!"—"Listen, they're opening again. That's Pelham—now Pegram—now Washington Artillery—now Rockbridge!"—"Yes sir, yes sir! We're all right. We're ready. Music! They always come on with music. Funny! but they've got the bands. What are they playing? Never heard it before. Think it's 'What are the Wild Waves Saying?'"—"I think it's 'When this Cruel War is Over.'"—"Go 'way, you boys weren't in the Valley! We've heard it several times. It's 'Der Wacht am Rhein.'"—"All right, sir! All right. Now!"
Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, after the third great blue charge, Edward Cary, lips blackened from tearing cartridges, lock and barrel of his rifle hot within his hands, his cap shot away, his sleeve torn to ribbons where he had bared and bandaged a flesh wound in the arm, Edward Cary straightened himself and wiped away the sweat and powder grime which blinded him. An officer's voice came out of the murk. "The general asks for volunteers to strip the field of cartridges."
There were four men lying together, killed by the same shell. The head of one was gone, the legs of another; the third was disembowelled, the fourth had his breast crushed in. Their cartridge boxes when opened were found to be half full. Edward emptied them into the haversack he carried and went on to the next. This was a boy of sixteen, not dead yet, moaning like a wounded hound. Edward gave him the little water that was in his canteen, took four cartridges from his box, and crept on. A minie sang by him, struck a yard away, full in the forehead of the dead man toward whom he was making. The dead man had a smile upon his lips; it was as though he mocked the bullet. All the field running back fromthe railroad cuts and embankment was overstormed by shot and shell, and everywhere from the field rose groans and cries for water. The word "water" never ceased from use.Water!—Water, Water!—Water!—Water!On it went, mournfully, like a wind.—Water!—Water!Edward gathered cartridges steadily. All manner of things were wont to come into his mind. Just now it was a certain field behind Greenwood covered with blackberry bushes—and the hot August sunshine—and he and Easter's Jim gathering blackberries while Mammy watched from beneath a tree. He heard again the little thud of the berries into the bucket. He took the cartridges from two young men—brothers from the resemblance and from the fact that, falling together, one, the younger, had pillowed his head on the other's breast, while the elder's arm was around him. They lay like children in sleep. The next man was elderly, a lonely, rugged-looking person with a face slightly contorted and a great hole in his breast. The next that Edward came to was badly hurt, but not too badly to take an interest. "Cartridges?—yes, five. I'm awful thirsty!—Well, never mind. Maybe it will rain. Who's charging now? Heintzelman, Kearney, and Reno—Got 'em all? You can draw one from my gun, too. I was just loading when I got hit. Well, sorry you got to go! It's mighty lonely lying here."
Edward returned to the front, gave up his haversack, and got another. As he turned to resume the cartridge quest there arose a cry. "Steady, men! steady! Hooker hasn't had enough!" Edward, too, saw the blue wall coming through the woods on the other side of the railroad. He took a musket from a dead man near by and with all the other grey soldiers lay flat in the grass above the cut. Hooker came within range—within close range. The long grey front sprang to its feet and fired, dropped and loaded, rose and fired. A leaden storm visited the wood across the track. The August grass was long and dry. Sparks set it afire. Flames arose and caught the oak scrub. Through it all and through the storm of bullets the blue line burst. It came down on the unfinished track, it crossed, it leaped up the ten-foot bank of earth, it clanged against the grey line atop. The grey gave back, the colours fell and rose; the air rocked, so loud was the din. Stonewall Jackson appeared. "General Hill, order in your second line." Field's Virginians, Thomas's Georgians charged forward. They yelled, all their rifles flashed at once, they drove Hooker down into the cut, across the track, up into the burning brushwoodand the smoke-filled woods. But the blue were staunch and seasoned troops; they reformed, they cheered. Hooker brought up a fresh brigade. They charged again. Down from the woods plunged the blue wave, through the fire, down the bank, across and up. Again din and smoke and flame, all invading, monstrous. Jackson's voice rose higher. "General Hill, order in General Pender."
North Carolina was, first and last, a stark fighter. Together with Gregg and Field and Thomas, Pender drove Hooker again down the red escarpment, across the railroad, through the burning brush, into the wood; even drove him out of the wood, took a battery and dashed into the open beyond. Then from the hills the blue artillery opened and from the plains below volleyed fresh infantry. Pender was borne back through the wood, across the railroad, up the red side of the cut.
Hooker had a brigade in column behind a tree-clad hill. Screened from sight it now moved forward, swift and silent, then with suddenness broke from the wood in a splendid charge. With a gleam of bayonets, with a flash of colours, with a loud hurrah, with a staggering volley its regiments plunged into the cut, swarmed up the red side and fell upon A. P. Hill's weakened lines. The grey wavered. Stonewall Jackson's voice was heard again. "General Hill, I have ordered up Forno from the right and a regiment of Lawton's." He jerked his hand into the air. "Here they are. Colonel Forno, give them the bayonet!"
Louisiana and Georgia swept forward, Tennessee, Alabama, and Virginia supporting. They swept Grover's brigade down and back. There was bitter fighting, hand-to-hand, horrible work: the dead lay in the railroad cut thick as fallen leaves. The dead lay thick on either bank and thick in the grass that was afire and thick in the smoky wood. The blue gave way, went back; the grey returned to their lines.
Edward went again for cartridges. He was beside Gregg's South Carolinians when a courier came up. "General Jackson wishes to know each brigade's amount of ammunition," and he heard Gregg's answer, "Tell General Jackson that this brigade has one round to the man, but I'll hold the position with the bayonet." Edward gleaned steadily. "Water! water! water!" cried the field. "O God! water!"
It was growing late, the long, hot day declining. There had been nine hours of fighting. "Nine hours—ninety hours—ninety minutes?" thought Edward. "Time's plastic like everything else. Double it, fold it back on itself, stretch it out, do anything with it—" He took the cartridges from a trunk of a man, crept on to a soldier shot through the hip. The latter clutched him with a blackened hand. "Has Marse Robert come? Has General Lee come?"
"They say he has. Over there on Stuart's Hill, holding Reynolds and McDowell and Fitz John Porter in check."
The man fell back. "Oh, then it is all right. Stonewall Jackson and Robert Edward Lee. It's all right—" He spoke drowsily. "It's all right. I'll go to sleep."
Edward looking sideways toward Stony Ridge saw the forty guns black against the sun. As he looked they blazed and thundered. He turned his eyes. Kearney and Reno, five brigades, were coming at a double across the open. As he looked they broke into the charge. With his bag of cartridges he made for the nearest grey line. The blue came on, a formidable wave indeed. Stonewall Jackson rode along the grey front.
"Men, General Early and two regiments of Lawton's are on their way. You must stand it till they come. If you have only one cartridge, save it until they are up from the cut. Then fire, and use your bayonets. Don't cheer! It makes your hand less steady."
The blue wave plunged into the railroad cut. "I think," said a grey soldier, "that I hear Jubal Early yelling." The blue wave mounted to the level. "Yaaaiih! Yaaaaiih!" came out of the distance. "We know that we do," said the men. "Now, our friend, the enemy, you go back!" Out of the dun cloud and roar came a deep "Steady, men! You've got your bayonets yet. Stand it for five minutes. General Early's coming. This is Manassas—Manassas—Manassas! God is over us! Stand it for five minutes—for three minutes.—General Early, drive them with the bayonet."
Late that night on the banks of Bull Run the general "from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemy" sent a remarkable telegram to Halleck at Washington."We fought a terrific battle here yesterday with the combined forces of the enemy, which lasted with continuous fury from daylight until dark, by which time the enemy was driven from the field which we now occupy. The enemy isstill in our front, but badly used up. We lost not less than eight thousand men killed and wounded, but from the appearance of the field the enemy lost two to one. The news has just reached me from the front that the enemy is retreating toward the mountains."
The delusion holding, he, at noon of the thirtieth, ordered a general advance. "The troops to be immediately thrown forward in pursuit of the enemy and to press him vigorously." One of his officers undertook a comment. "By the Lord Harry, it will be the shortest pursuit that even he ever saw! Why, damn it all! they're still here! I tell you the place is unlucky!"
Twenty thousand blue soldiers formed the front that came down from the hills and moved toward the Groveton wood and the railroad track. Behind them were supporting masses, forty thousand strong. On every slope gleamed the great blue guns. The guns opened; they shelled with vehemence the wood, the railroad cut, and embankment, the field immediately beyond. A line of grey pickets was seen to leave the wood and make across the track and into cover. Pope at the Stone House saw these with his field glass. "The last of their rear guard," he said.
One of his generals spoke. "Their guns are undoubtedly yet on that ridge, sir."
"I am perfectly well aware of that, sir. But they will not be there long after our line has crossed the track. Either we will gloriously take them, or they will limber up and scamper after Jackson. He, I take it, is well on his way to Thoroughfare Gap. All that we need is expedition. Crush him, and then when Longstreet is up, crushhim."
"And those troops on Stuart Hill?"
"Give you my word they are nothing, general! A rebel regiment, at the most a brigade, thrown out from Jackson's right. I have positive information. Fitz John Porter is mistaken—arrogantly mistaken.—Ah, the rebel guns are going to indulge in a little bravado."
The twenty thousand gleaming bayonets passed the turnpike, passed Dogan's house, moved on toward the wood. It rose torn and thin and black from yesterday's handling. Immediately beyond was the railroad cut. On the other side of the railroad ran a stretch of field and scrub, mounting to Stony Ridge, that rose from the base of the woods. Stony Ridge looked grey itself and formidable, and all about it was the smoke of the forty grey guns. The twenty thousand bayonets pressed on.
There came a blare of bugles. Loud and high they rang—the bugles of the Light Division, of Ewell's, of Jackson's own. They pierced the thunder of the guns, they came from the wood at the base of Stony Ridge. There was a change in the heart-beat below the twenty thousand bayonets. Porter and Ricketts and Hatch stared, and saw start from the wood a downward moving wall. It moved fast; it approached with a certain impetuous steadiness. Behind it were shorter lines, detached masses. Together all came down from Stony Ridge like an avalanche. The avalanche came to and took the field of yesterday, and stood revealed,—Stonewall Jackson holding the railroad cut. "I thought as much," said Fitz John Porter. "Go ask him to give us Reynolds."
After the third charge the 65th and another regiment of the Stonewall Brigade, finding their ammunition exhausted, armed themselves with stones. Those of the Thunder Run men who had not fallen at White Oak Swamp proved themselves expert. Broken rock lay in heaps by the railroad bed. They brought these into the lines, swung and threw them. With stones and bayonets they held the line. Morell and Sykes were great fighters; the grey men recognized worthy foes. The battle grew Titanic. Stonewall Jackson signalled to Lee on the Warrenton turnpike, "Hill hard pressed. Every brigade engaged. Would like more guns."
Lee sent two batteries, and Stephen D. Lee placed them. There arose a terrific noise, and presently a wild yelling. Lee signalled:—
General Jackson. Do you still need reinforcements? Lee.
The signal officer on the knoll behind the Stonewall wigwagged back.
No. The enemy are giving way. Jackson.
They gave way, indeed. The forty guns upon the ridge, the eight that Lee had sent, strewed the green field beyond the Groveton wood with shot and shrapnel. Morell fell back, Hatch fell back; the guns became deadly, mowing downthe blue lines. Stonewall Jackson rode along the front.
"General Hill, it is time for the counterstroke. Forward, and drive them!"
The signaller wigwagged to the Warrenton turnpike:—
General Lee. I am driving them. Jackson.
The signaller on the turnpike signalled back:—
General Jackson. General Longstreet is advancing. Look out for and protect his left flank. Lee.
Lee's great battle was over and won. Every division, brigade, regiment, battery, fifty thousand infantry and cavalry brought by the great leader into simultaneous action, the Army of Northern Virginia moved as in a vast parade over plain and hill. Four miles in length, swept the first wave with, in the centre, seven grey waves behind it. It was late. The grey sea moved in the red and purple of a great sunset. From Stony Ridge the forty guns thundered like grey breakers, while the guns of Longstreet galloped toward the front. Horses and men and guns were at the martial height of passion. To the right Jeb Stuart appeared, magnificent. On swept the resistless sea. A master mind sent it over those Manassas hills and plains, here diverting a portion of its waves, here curbing a too rapid onslaught, here harking the great mass forward, surmounting barriers, overwhelming a stubborn opposition, crumbling and breaking to pieces. Wave on wave, rapid, continuous, unremitting, thundered the assault, in the red sunset of the thirtieth of August. Pope's Army fought bravely, but in the dusk it melted away.
Major John Pelham looked at the clouds boiling up above Bull Run Mountains.