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Stories by American Authors
VOLUME VIII
_THE BRIGADE COMMANDER_
BY J. W. DE FOREST
_SPLIT ZEPHYR_
BY HENRY A. BEERS
_ZERVIAH HOPE_
BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS
_THE LIFE-MAGNET_
BY ALVEY A. ADEE
_OSGOOD'S PREDICAMENT_
BY ELIZABETH D. B. STODDARD
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1896
COPYRIGHT, 1884, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
_The Stories in this Volume are protected by copyright, and are
printed here by authority of the authors or their representatives._
[Illustration: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps]
THE BRIGADE COMMANDER.
BY J. W. DE FOREST.
_New York Times._
The Colonel was the idol of his bragging old regiment and of the
bragging brigade which for the last six months he had commanded.
He was the idol, not because he was good and gracious, not because he
spared his soldiers or treated them as fellow-citizens, but because he
had led them to victory and made them famous. If a man will win
battles and give his brigade a right to brag loudly of its doings, he
may have its admiration and even its enthusiastic devotion, though he
be as pitiless and as wicked as Lucifer.
"It's nothin' to me what the Currnell is in prrivit, so long as he
shows us how to whack the rrebs," said Major Gahogan, commandant of
the "Old Tenth." "Moses saw God in the burrnin' bussh, an' bowed down
to it, an' worrshipt it. It wasn't the bussh he worrshipt; it was his
God that was in it. An' I worrship this villin of a Currnell (if he
is a villin) because he's almighty and gives us the vict'ry. He's
nothin' but a human burrnin' bussh, perhaps, but he's got the god of
war in um. Adjetant Wallis, it's a ---- long time between dhrinks, as
I think ye was sayin', an' with rayson. See if ye can't confiscate a
canteen of whiskee somewhere in the camp. Bedad, if I can't buy it
I'll stale it. We're goin' to fight to-morry, an' it may be it's the
last chance we'll have for a dhrink, unless there's more lik'r now in
the other worrld than Dives got."
The brigade was bivouacked in some invisible region, amid the damp,
misty darkness of a September night. The men lay in their ranks, each
with his feet to the front and his head rearward, each covered by his
overcoat and pillowed upon his haversack, each with his loaded rifle
nestled close beside him. Asleep as they were, or dropping placidly
into slumber, they were ready to start in order to their feet and pour
out the red light and harsh roar of combat. There were two lines of
battle, each of three regiments of infantry, the first some two
hundred yards in advance of the second. In the space between them lay
two four-gun batteries, one of them brass twelve-pounder "Napoleons,"
and the other rifled Parrotts. To the rear of the infantry were the
recumbent troopers and picketed horses of a regiment of cavalry. All
around, in the far, black distance, invisible and inaudible, paced or
watched stealthily the sentinels of the grand guards.
There was not a fire, nor a torch, nor a star-beam in the whole
bivouac to guide the feet of Adjutant Wallis in his pilgrimage after
whisky. The orders from brigade headquarters had been strict against
illuminations, for the Confederates were near at hand in force, and a
surprise was purposed as well as feared. A tired and sleepy youngster,
almost dropping with the heavy somnolence of wearied adolescence, he
stumbled on through the trials of an undiscernible and unfamiliar
footing, lifting his heavy riding-boots sluggishly over imaginary
obstacles, and fearing the while lest his toil were labor misspent. It
was a dry camp, he felt dolefully certain, or there would have been
more noise in it. He fell over a sleeping Sergeant, and said to him
hastily, "Steady, man--a friend!" as the half-roused soldier clutched
his rifle. Then he found a Lieutenant, and shook him in vain; further
on a Captain, and exchanged saddening murmurs with him; further still
a camp-follower of African extraction, and blasphemed him.
"It's a God-forsaken camp, and there isn't a horn in it," said
Adjutant Wallis to himself as he pursued his groping journey. "Bet you
I don't find the first drop," he continued, for he was a betting boy,
and frequently argued by wagers, even with himself. "Bet you two to
one I don't. Bet you three to one--ten to one."
Then he saw, an indefinite distance beyond him, burning like red-hot
iron through the darkness, a little scarlet or crimson gleam, as of a
lighted cigar.
"That's Old Grumps, of the Bloody Fourteenth," he thought. "I've
raided into his happy sleeping-grounds. I'll draw on him."
But Old Grumps, otherwise Colonel Lafayette Gildersleeve, had no
rations--that is, no whisky.
"How do you suppose an officer is to have a drink, Lieutenant?" he
grumbled.
"Don't you know that our would-be Brigadier sent all the commissary to
the rear day before yesterday? A canteenful can't last two days. Mine
went empty about five minutes ago."
"Oh, thunder!" groaned Wallis, saddened by that saddest of all
thoughts, "Too late!" "Well, least said soonest mended. I must wobble
back to my Major."
"He'll send you off to some other camp as dry as this one. Wait ten
minutes, and he'll be asleep. Lie down on my blanket and light your
pipe. I want to talk to you about official business--about our
would-be Brigadier."
"Oh, _your_ turn will come some day," mumbled Wallis, remembering
Gildersleeve's jealousy of the brigade commander--a jealousy which
only gave tongue when aroused by "commissary." "If you do as well as
usual to-morrow you can have your own brigade."
"I suppose you think we are all going to do well to-morrow," scoffed
old Grumps, whose utterance by this time stumbled. "I suppose you
expect to whip and to have a good time. I suppose you brag on fighting
and enjoy it."
"I like it well enough when it goes right; and it generally does go
right with this brigade. I should like it better if the rebs would
fire higher and break quicker."
"That depends on the way those are commanded whose business it is to
break them," growled Old Grumps. "I don't say but what we are rightly
commanded," he added, remembering his duty to superiors. "I concede
and acknowledge that our would-be Brigadier knows his military
business. But the blessing of God, Wallis! I believe in Waldron as a
soldier. But as a man and a Christian, faugh!"
Gildersleeve had clearly emptied his canteen unassisted; he never
talked about Christianity when perfectly sober.
"What was your last remark?" inquired Wallis, taking his pipe from his
mouth to grin. Even a superior officer might be chaffed a little in
the darkness.
"I made no last remark," asserted the Colonel with dignity. "I'm not
a-dying yet. If I said anything last it was a mere exclamation of
disgust--the disgust of an officer and gentleman. I suppose you know
something about our would-be Brigadier. I suppose you think you know
something about him."
"Bet you I know _all_ about him," affirmed Wallis. "He enlisted in the
old Tenth as a common soldier. Before he had been a week in camp they
found that he knew his biz, and they made him a Sergeant. Before we
started for the field the Governor got his eye on him and shoved him
into a Lieutenancy. The first battle h'isted him to a Captain. And the
second--bang! whiz! he shot up to Colonel, right over the heads of
everybody, line and field. Nobody in the old Tenth grumbled. They saw
that he knew his biz. I know _all_ about him. What'll you bet?"
"I'm not a betting man, Lieutenant, except in a friendly game of
poker," sighed Old Grumps. "You don't know anything about your
Brigadier," he added in a sepulchral murmur, the echo of an empty
canteen. "I have only been in this brigade a month, and I know more
than you do, far, very far more, sorry to say it. He's a reformed
clergyman. He's an apostatized minister." The Colonel's voice as he
said this was solemn and sad enough to do credit to an undertaker.
"It's a bad sort, Wallis," he continued, after another deep sigh, a
very highly perfumed one, the sigh of a bar-keeper. "When a clergyman
falls, he falls for life and eternity, like a woman or an angel. I
never knew a backslidden shepherd to come to good. Sooner or later he
always goes to the devil, and takes down whomsoever hangs to him."
"He'll take down the old Tenth, then," asserted Wallis. "It hangs to
him. Bet you two to one he takes it along."
"You're right, Adjutant; spoken like a soldier," swore Gildersleeve.
"And the Bloody Fourteenth, too! It will march into the burning pit
as far as any regiment; and the whole brigade, yes sir! But a
backslidden shepherd, my God! Have we come to that? I often say
to myself, in the solemn hours of the night, as I remember my
Sabbath-school days, 'Great Scott, have we come to that?' A reformed
clergyman! An apostatized minister! Think of it, Wallis, think of it!
Why, sir, his very wife ran away from him. They had but just buried
their first boy," pursued Old Grumps, his hoarse voice sinking to a
whimper. "They drove home from the burial-place, where lay the
new-made grave. Arrived at their door, _he_ got out and extended his
hand to help _her_ out. Instead of accepting, instead of throwing
herself into his arms and weeping there, she turned to the coachman
and said, 'Driver, drive me to my father's house.' That was the end of
their wedded life, Wallis."
The Colonel actually wept at this point, and the maudlin tears were
not altogether insincere. His own wife and children he heartily loved,
and remembered them now with honest tenderness. At home he was not a
drinker and a rough; only amid the hardships and perils of the field.
"That was the end of it, Wallis," he repeated. "And what was it while
it lasted? What does a woman leave her husband for? Why does she
separate from him over the grave of her innocent first-born? There are
twenty reasons, but they must all of them be good ones. I am sorry to
give it as my decided opinion, Wallis, in perfect confidence, that
they must all be whopping good ones. Well, that was the beginning;
only the beginning. After that he held on for a while, breaking the
bread of life to a skedaddling flock, and then he bolted. The next
known of him, three years later, he enlisted in your regiment, a smart
but seedy recruit, smelling strongly of whisky."
"I wish I smelt half as strong of it myself," grumbled Wallis. "It
might keep out the swamp fever."
"That's the true story of Col. John James Waldron," continued Old
Grumps, with a groan which was very somnolent, as if it were a twin to
a snore. "That's the true story."
"I don't believe the first word of it--that is to say, Colonel, I
think you have been misinformed--and I'll bet you two to one on it.
If he was nothing more than a minister, how did he know drill and
tactics?"
"Oh, I forgot to say, he went through West Point--that is, nearly
through. They graduated him in his third year by the back door,
Wallis."
"Oh, that was it, was it? He was a West Pointer, was he? Well, then,
the backsliding was natural, and oughtn't to count against him. A
member of Benny Havens' church has a right to backslide anywhere,
especially as the Colonel doesn't seem to be any worse than some of
the rest of us, who haven't fallen from grace the least particle, but
took our stand at the start just where we are now. A fellow that
begins with a handful of trumps has a right to play a risky game."
"I know what euchered him, Wallis. It was the old Little Joker; and
there's another of the same on hand now."
"On hand where? What are you driving at, Colonel?"
"He looks like a boy. I mean she looks like a boy. You know what I
mean, Wallis; I mean the boy that makes believe wait on him. And her
brother is in camp, got here to-night. There'll be an explanation
to-morrow, and there'll be bloodshed."
"Good-night, Colonel, and sleep it off," said Wallis, rising from the
side of a man whom he believed to be sillily drunk and altogether
untrustworthy. "You know we get after the rebs at dawn."
"I know it--goo-night, Adjutant--gawblessyou," mumbled Old Grumps.
"We'll lick those rebs, won't we?" he chuckled. "Goo-night, ole
fellow, an' gawblessyou."
Whereupon Old Grumps fell asleep, very absurdly overcome by liquor, we
extremely regret to concede, but nobly sure to do his soldierly duty
as soon as he should awake.
Stumbling wearily blanketward, Wallis found his Major and regimental
commander, the genial and gallant Gahogan, slumbering in a peace like
that of the just. He stretched himself a-near, put out his hand to
touch his sabre and revolver, drew his caped great-coat over him,
moved once to free his back of a root or pebble, glanced languidly
at a single struggling star, thought for an instant of his far-away
mother, turned his head with a sigh, and slept. In the morning he was
to fight, and perhaps to die; but the boyish veteran was too seasoned,
and also too tired, to mind that; he could mind but one
thing--nature's pleading for rest.
In the iron-gray dawn, while the troops were falling dimly and
spectrally into line, and he was mounting his horse to be ready for
orders, he remembered Gildersleeve's drunken tale concerning the
commandant, and laughed aloud. But turning his face toward brigade
headquarters (a sylvan region marked out by the branches of a great
oak), he was surprised to see a strange officer, a fair young man in
Captain's uniform, riding slowly toward it.
"Is that the Boy's brother?" he said to himself; and in the next
instant he had forgotten the whole subject; it was time to form and
present the regiment.
Quietly and without tap of drum the small, battle-worn battalions
filed out of their bivouacs into the highway, ordered arms and waited
for the word to march. With a dull rumble the field-pieces trundled
slowly after, and halted in rear of the infantry. The cavalry trotted
off circuitously through the fields, emerged upon the road in advance
and likewise halted, all but a single company, which pushed on for
half a mile, spreading out as it went into a thin line of skirmishers.
Meanwhile a strange interview took place near the great oak which had
sheltered brigade headquarters. As the unknown officer, whom Wallis
had noted, approached it, Col. Waldron was standing by his horse ready
to mount. The commandant was a man of medium size, fairly handsome in
person and features, and apparently about twenty-eight years of age.
Perhaps it was the singular breadth of his forehead which made the
lower part of his face look so unusually slight and feminine. His
eyes were dark hazel, as clear, brilliant, and tender as a girl's,
and brimming full of a pensiveness which seemed both loving and
melancholy. Few persons, at all events few women, who looked upon him
ever looked beyond his eyes. They were very fascinating, and in a
man's countenance very strange. They were the kind of eyes which
reveal passionate romances, and which make them.
By his side stood a boy, a singularly interesting and beautiful boy,
fair-haired and blue-eyed, and delicate in color. When this boy saw
the stranger approach he turned as pale as marble, slid away from the
brigade commander's side, and disappeared behind a group of staff
officers and orderlies. The new-comer also became deathly white as he
glanced after the retreating youth. Then he dismounted, touched his
cap slightly and, as if mechanically, advanced a few steps, and said
hoarsely, "I believe this is Colonel Waldron. I am Captain Fitz Hugh,
of the --th Delaware."
Waldron put his hand to his revolver, withdrew it instantaneously, and
stood motionless.
"I am on leave of absence from my regiment, Colonel," continued Fitz
Hugh, speaking now with an elaborate ceremoniousness of utterance
significant of a struggle to suppress violent emotion. "I suppose you
can understand why I made use of it in seeking you."
Waldron hesitated; he stood gazing at the earth with the air of one
who represses deep pain; at last, after a profound sigh, he raised his
eyes and answered.
"Captain, we are on the eve of a battle. I must attend to my public
duties first. After the battle we will settle our private affair."
"There is but one way to settle it, Colonel."
"You shall have your way if you will. You shall do what you will. I
only ask what good will it do to _her_?"
"It will do good to _me_, Colonel," whispered Fitz Hugh, suddenly
turning crimson. "You forget _me_."
Waldron's face also flushed, and an angry sparkle shot from under his
lashes in reply to this utterance of hate, but it died out in an
instant.
"I have done a wrong, and I will accept the consequences," he said.
"I pledge you my word that I will be at your disposal if I survive
the battle. Where do you propose to remain meanwhile?"
"I will take the same chance, Sir. I propose to do my share in the
fighting if you will use me."
"I am short of staff officers. Will you act as my aid?"
"I will, Colonel," bowed Fitz Hugh, with a glance which expressed
surprise, and perhaps admiration, at this confidence.
Waldron turned, beckoned his staff officers to approach, and said,
"Gentlemen, this is Captain Fitz Hugh of the --th Delaware. He has
volunteered to join us for the day, and will act as my aid. And now,
Captain, will you ride to the head of the column and order it forward?
There will be no drum-beat and no noise. When you have given your
order and seen it executed, you will wait for me."
Fitz Hugh saluted, sprang into his saddle and galloped away. A few
minutes later the whole column was plodding on silently toward its
bloody goal. To a civilian, unaccustomed to scenes of war, the
tranquillity of these men would have seemed very wonderful. Many of
the soldiers were still munching the hard bread and raw pork of their
meagre breakfasts, or drinking the cold coffee with which they had
filled their canteens the day previous. Many more were chatting in an
undertone, grumbling over their sore feet and other discomfits,
chaffing each other, and laughing. The general bearing, however, was
grave, patient, quietly enduring, and one might almost say stolid. You
would have said, to judge by their expressions, that these sunburnt
fellows were merely doing hard work, and thoroughly commonplace work,
without a prospect of adventure, and much less of danger. The
explanation of this calmness, so brutal perhaps to the eye of a
sensitive soul, lies mainly in the fact that they were all veterans,
the survivors of marches, privations, maladies, sieges, and battles.
Not a regiment present numbered four hundred men, and the average was
not above three hundred. The whole force, including artillery and
cavalry, might have been about twenty-five hundred sabres and
bayonets.
At the beginning of the march Waldron fell into the rear of his staff
and mounted orderlies. Then the Boy who had fled from Fitz Hugh
dropped out of the tramping escort, and rode up to his side.
"Well, Charlie," said Waldron, casting a pitying glance at the yet
pallid face and anxious eyes of the youth, "you have had a sad fright.
I make you very miserable."
"He has found us at last," murmured Charlie in a tremulous soprano
voice. "What did he say?"
"We are to talk to-morrow. He acts as my aide-de-camp to-day. I ought
to tell you frankly that he is not friendly."
"Of course, I knew it," sighed Charlie, while the tears fell.
"It is only one more trouble--one more danger, and perhaps it may
pass. So many _have_ passed."
"Did you tell him anything to quiet him? Did you tell him that we were
married?"
"But we are not married yet, Charlie. We shall be, I hope."
"But you ought to have told him that we were. It might stop him from
doing something--mad. Why didn't you tell him so? Why didn't you think
of it?"
"My dear little child, we are about to have a battle. I should like to
carry some honor and truth into it."
"Where is he?" continued Charlie, unconvinced and unappeased. "I want
to see him. Is he at the head of the column? I want to speak to him,
just one word. He won't hurt me."
She suddenly spurred her horse, wheeled into the fields, and dashed
onward. Fitz Hugh was lounging in his saddle, and sombrely surveying
the passing column, when she galloped up to him.
"Carrol!" she said, in a choked voice, reining in by his side, and
leaning forward to touch his sleeve.
He threw one glance at her--a glance of aversion, if not of downright
hatred, and turned his back in silence.
"He is my husband, Carrol," she went on rapidly. "I knew you didn't
understand it. I ought to have written you about it. I thought I would
come and tell you before you did anything absurd. We were married as
soon as he heard that his wife was dead."
"What is the use of this?" he muttered hoarsely. "She is not dead. I
heard from her a week ago. She was living a week ago."
"Oh, Carrol!" stammered Charlie. "It was some mistake then. Is it
possible! And he was so sure! But he can get a divorce, you know. She
abandoned him. Or _she_ can get one. No, _he_ can get it--of course,
when she abandoned him. But, Carrol, she _must_ be dead--he was _so_
sure."
"She is _not_ dead, I tell you. And there can be no divorce. Insanity
bars all claim to a divorce. She is in an asylum. She had to leave
him, and then she went mad."
"Oh, no, Carrol, it is all a mistake; it is not so, Carrol," she
murmured in a voice so faint that he could not help glancing at her,
half in fury and half in pity. She was slowly falling from her horse.
He sprang from his saddle, caught her in his arms, and laid her on the
turf, wishing the while that it covered her grave. Just then one of
Waldron's orderlies rode up and exclaimed: "What is the matter with
the--the Boy? Hullo, Charlie."
Fitz Hugh stared at the man in silence, tempted to tear him from
his horse. "The boy is ill," he answered when he recovered his
self-command. "Take charge of him yourself." He remounted, rode onward
out of sight beyond a thicket, and there waited for the brigade
commander, now and then fingering his revolver. As Charlie was being
placed in an ambulance by the orderly and a sergeant's wife, Waldron
came up, reined in his horse violently, and asked in a furious voice,
"Is that boy hurt?"
"Ah--fainted," he added immediately. "Thank you, Mrs. Gunner. Take
good care of him--the best of care, my dear woman, and don't let him
leave you all day."
Further on, when Fitz Hugh silently fell into his escort, he merely
glanced at him in a furtive way, and then cantered on rapidly to the
head of the cavalry. There he beckoned to the tall, grave, iron-gray
Chaplain of the Tenth, and rode with him for nearly an hour, apart,
engaged in low and seemingly impassioned discourse. From this
interview Mr. Colquhoun returned to the escort with a strangely
solemnized, tender countenance, while the commandant, with a more
cheerful air than he had yet worn that day, gave himself to his
martial duties, inspecting the landscape incessantly with his glass,
and sending frequently for news to the advance scouts. It may properly
be stated here that the Chaplain never divulged to any one the nature
of the conversation which he had held with his Colonel.
Nothing further of note occurred until the little army, after two
hours of plodding march, wound through a sinuous, wooded ravine,
entered a broad, bare, slightly undulating valley, and for the second
time halted. Waldron galloped to the summit of a knoll, pointed to a
long eminence which faced him some two miles distant, and said
tranquilly, "There is our battle-ground."
"Is that the enemy's position?" returned Captain Ives, his
Adjutant-General. "We shall have a tough job if we go at it from
here."
Waldron remained in deep thought for some minutes, meanwhile scanning
the ridge and all its surroundings.
"What I want to know," he observed, at last, "is whether they have
occupied the wooded knolls in front of their right and around their
right flank."
Shortly afterward the commander of the scouting squadron came riding
back at a furious pace.
"They are on the hill, Colonel," he shouted.
"Yes, of course," nodded Waldron; "but have they occupied the woods
which veil their right front and flank?"
"Not a bit of it; my fellows have cantered all through, and up to the
base of the hill."
"Ah!" exclaimed the brigade commander, with a rush of elation. "Then
it will be easy work. Go back, Captain, and scatter your men through
the wood, and hold it, if possible. Adjutant, call up the regimental
commanders at once. I want them to understand my plan fully."
In a few minutes Gahogan, of the Tenth; Gildersleeve, of the
Fourteenth; Peck, of the First; Thomas, of the Seventh; Taylor, of
the Eighth, and Colburn, of the Fifth, were gathered around their
commander. There, too, was Bradley, the boyish, red-cheeked chief of
the artillery; and Stilton, the rough, old, bearded regular, who
headed the cavalry. The staff was at hand, also, including Fitz Hugh,
who sat his horse a little apart, downcast and sombre and silent, but
nevertheless keenly interested. It is worthy of remark, by the way,
that Waldron took no special note of him, and did not seem conscious
of any disturbing presence. Evil as the man may have been, he was a
thoroughly good soldier, and just now he thought but of his duties.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I want you to see your field of battle. The
enemy occupy that long ridge. How shall we reach it?"
"I think, if we go at it straight from here, we shan't miss it,"
promptly judged Old Grumps, his red-oak countenance admirably cheerful
and hopeful, and his jealousy all dissolved in the interest of
approaching combat.
"Nor they won't miss us nuther," laughed Major Gahogan. "Betther slide
our infantree into thim wuds, push up our skirmishers, play away wid
our guns for an hour, an' thin rowl in a couple o' col'ms."
There was a general murmur of approval. The limits of volunteer
invention in tactics had been reached by Gahogan. The other regimental
commanders looked upon him as their superior in the art of war.
"That would be well, Major, if we could do nothing better," said
Waldron. "But I do not feel obliged to attack the front seriously
at all. The rebels have been thoughtless enough to leave that long
semicircle of wooded knolls unoccupied, even by scouts. It stretches
from the front of their centre clear around their right flank. I shall
use it as a veil to cover us while we get into position. I shall throw
out a regiment, a battery, and five companies of cavalry, to make a
feint against their centre and left. With the remainder of the brigade
I shall skirt the woods, double around the right of the position, and
close in upon it front and rear."
"Loike scissors blades upon a snip o' paper," shouted Gahogan, in
delight. Then he turned to Fitz Hugh, who happened to be nearest him,
and added, "I tell ye he's got the God o' War in um. He's the burrnin'
bussh of humanity, wid a God o' Battles inside on't."
"But how if they come down on our thin right wing?" asked a cautious
officer, Taylor, of the Eighth. "They might smash it and seize our
line of retreat."
"Men who have taken up a strong position, a position obviously chosen
for defense, rarely quit it promptly for an attack," replied Waldron.
"There is not one chance in ten that these gentlemen will make a
considerable forward movement early in the fight. Only the greatest
geniuses jump from the defensive to the offensive. Besides, we must
hold the wood. So long as we hold the wood in front of their centre we
save the road."
Then came personal and detailed instructions. Each regimental
commander was told whither he should march, the point where he should
halt to form line, and the direction by which he should attack. The
mass of the command was to advance in marching column toward a knoll
where the highway entered and traversed the wood. Some time before
reaching it Taylor was to deploy the Eighth to the right, throw out a
strong skirmish line and open fire on the enemy's centre and left,
supported by the battery of Parrotts, and, if pushed, by five
companies of cavalry. The remaining troops would reach the knoll, file
to the left under cover of the forest, skirt it for a mile as rapidly
as possible, enfold the right of the Confederate position, and then
move upon it concentrically. Counting from the left, the Tenth, the
Seventh, and the Fourteenth were to constitute the first line of
battle, while five companies of cavalry, then the First, and then the
Fifth formed the second line. Not until Gahogan might have time to
wind into the enemy's right rear should Gildersleeve move out of the
wood and commence the real attack.
"You will go straight at the front of their right," said Waldron,
with a gay smile, to this latter Colonel. "Send up two companies as
skirmishers. The moment they are clearly checked, lead up the other
eight in line. It will be rough work. But keep pushing. You won't have
fifteen minutes of it before Thomas, on your left, will be climbing
the end of the ridge to take the rebels in flank. In fifteen minutes
more Gahogan will be running in on their backs. Of course they will
try to change front and meet us. But they have extended their line a
long way in order to cover the whole ridge. They will not be quick
enough. We shall get hold of their right, and we shall roll them up.
Then, Colonel Stilton, I shall expect to see the troopers jumping into
the gaps and making prisoners."
"All right, Colonel," answered Stilton in that hoarse growl which is
apt to mark the old cavalry officer. "Where shall we find you if we
want a fresh order?"
"I shall be with Colburn, in rear of Gildersleeve. That is our centre.
But never mind me; you know what the battle is to be, and you know how
to fight it. The whole point with the infantry is to fold around the
enemy's right, go in upon it concentrically, smash it, and roll up
their line. The cavalry will watch against the infantry being flanked,
and when the latter have seized the hill, will charge for prisoners.
The artillery will reply to the enemy's guns with shell, and fire
grape at any offensive demonstration. You all know your duties, now,
gentlemen. Go to your commands, and march!"
The Colonels saluted and started off at a gallop. In a few minutes
twenty-five hundred men were in simultaneous movement. Five companies
of cavalry wheeled into column of companies, and advanced at a trot
through the fields, seeking to gain the shelter of the forest. The six
infantry regiments slid up alongside of each other, and pushed on in
six parallel columns of march, two on the right of the road and four
on the left. The artillery, which alone left the highway, followed at
a distance of two or three hundred yards. The remaining cavalry made a
wide detour to the right, as if to flank the enemy's left.
It was a mile and a quarter--it was a march of fully twenty
minutes--to the edge of the woodland, the proposed cover of the
column. Ten minutes before this point was reached a tiny puff of smoke
showed on the brow of the hostile ridge; then, at an interval of
several seconds, followed the sound of a distant explosion; then,
almost immediately, came the screech of a rifled shell. Every man who
heard it swiftly asked himself, "Will it strike _me_?" But even as the
words were thought out it had passed, high in air, clean to the rear,
and burst harmlessly. A few faces turned upward and a few eyes glanced
backward, as if to see the invisible enemy. But there was no pause in
the column; it flowed onward quietly, eagerly, and with business-like
precision; it gave forth no sound but the trampling of feet and the
muttering of the officers, "Steady, men! Forward, men."
The Confederates, however, had got their range. A half minute later
four puffs of smoke dotted the ridge, and a flight of hoarse humming
shrieks tore the air. A little aureole cracked and splintered over
the First, followed by loud cries of anguish and a brief, slight
confusion. The voice of an officer rose sharply out of the flurry,
"Close up, Company A! Forward, men!" The battalion column resumed its
even formation in an instant, and tramped unitedly onward, leaving
behind it two quivering corpses and a wounded man who tottered
rearward.
Then came more screeches, and a shell exploded over the high road,
knocking a gunner lifeless from his carriage. The brigade commander
glanced anxiously along his batteries, and addressed a few words to
his chief of artillery. Presently the four Napoleons set forward at a
gallop for the wood, while the four Parrotts wheeled to the right,
deployed, and advanced across the fields, inclining toward the left of
the enemy. Next, Taylor's regiment (the Eighth) halted, fronted, faced
to the right, and filed off in column of march at a double-quick until
it had gained the rear of the Parrotts, when it fronted again, and
pushed on in support. A quarter of a mile further on these guns went
into battery behind the brow of a little knoll, and opened fire. Four
companies of the Eighth spread out to the right as skirmishers, and
commenced stealing toward the ridge, from time to time measuring the
distance with rifle-balls. The remainder of the regiment lay down in
line between the Parrotts and the forest. Far away to the right,
five companies of cavalry showed themselves, maneuvering as if they
proposed to turn the left flank of the Southerners. The attack on this
side was in form and in operation.
Meantime the Confederate fire had divided. Two guns pounded away at
Taylor's feint, while two shelled the main column. The latter was
struck repeatedly; more than twenty men dropped silent or groaning out
of the hurrying files; but the survivors pushed on without faltering,
and without even caring for the wounded. At last a broad belt of green
branches rose between the regiments and the ridge; and the rebel
gunners, unable to see their foe, dropped suddenly into silence.
Here it appeared that the road divided. The highway traversed the
forest, mounted the slope beyond and dissected the enemy's position,
while a branch road turned to the left and skirted the exterior of the
long curve of wooded hillocks. At the fork the battery of Napoleons
had halted, and there it was ordered to remain for the present in
quiet. There, too, the Fourteenth filed in among the dense greenery,
threw out two companies of skirmishers toward the ridge, and pushed
slowly after them into the shadows.
"Get sight of the enemy at once!" was Waldron's last word to
Gildersleeve. "If they move down the slope, drive them back. But don't
commence your attack under half an hour."
Next he filed the Fifth into the thickets, saying to Colburn, "I want
you to halt a hundred yards to the left and rear of Gildersleeve.
Cover his flank if he is attacked; but otherwise lie quiet. As soon as
he charges, move forward to the edge of the wood, and be ready to
support him. But make no assault yourself until further orders."
The two next regiments--the Seventh and First--he placed in _echelon_,
in like manner, a quarter of a mile further along. Then he galloped
forward to the cavalry, and had a last word with Stilton. "You and
Gahogan must take care of yourselves. Push on four or five hundred
yards, and then face to the right. Whatever Gahogan finds let him go
at it. If he can't shake it, help him. You two _must_ reach the top of
the ridge. Only, look out for your left flank. Keep a squadron or two
in reserve on that side."
"Currnell, if we don't raich the top of the hill, it'll be because it
hasn't got wan," answered Gahogan. Stilton only laughed and rode
forward.
Waldron now returned toward the fork of the road. On the way he sent a
staff officer to the Seventh with renewed orders to attack as soon as
possible after Gildersleeve. Then another staff officer was hurried
forward to Taylor with directions to push his feint strongly, and
drive his skirmishers as far up the slope as they could get. A third
staff officer set the Parrotts in rear of Taylor to firing with all
their might. By the time that the commandant had returned to Colburn's
ambushed ranks, no one was with him but his enemy, Fitz Hugh.
"You don't seem to trust me with duty, Colonel," said the young man.
"I shall use you only in case of extremity, Captain," replied Waldron.
"We have business to settle to-morrow."
"I ask no favors on that account. I hope you will offer me none."
"In case of need I shall spare no one," declared Waldron.
Then he took out his watch, looked at it impatiently, put it to his
ear, restored it to his pocket, and felt into an attitude of deep
attention. Evidently his whole mind was on his battle, and he was
waiting, watching, yearning for its outburst.
"If he wins this fight," thought Fitz Hugh, "how can I do him a harm?
And yet," he added, "how can I help it?"
Minutes passed. Fitz Hugh tried to think of his injury, and to steel
himself against his chief. But the roar of battle on the right, and
the suspense and imminence of battle on the left, absorbed the
attention of even this wounded and angry spirit, as, indeed, they
might have absorbed that of any being not more or less than human. A
private wrong, insupportable though it might be, seemed so small amid
that deadly clamor and awful expectation! Moreover, the intellect
which worked so calmly and vigorously by his side, and which alone of
all things near appeared able to rule the coming crisis, began to
dominate him, in spite of his sense of injury. A thought crossed him
to the effect that the great among men are too valuable to be punished
for their evil deeds. He turned to the absorbed brigade commander, now
not only his ruler but even his protector, with a feeling that he must
accord him a word of peace, a proffer in some form of possible
forgiveness and friendship. But the man's face was clouded and stern
with responsibility and authority. He seemed at that moment too lofty
to be approached with a message of pardon. Fitz Hugh gazed at him with
a mixture of profound respect and smothered hate. He gazed, turned
away, and remained silent.
Minutes more passed. Then a mounted orderly dashed up at full speed,
with the words, "Colonel Major Gahogan has fronted."
"Has he?" answered Waldron, with a smile which thanked the trooper and
made him happy. "Ride on through the thicket here, my man, and tell
Colonel Gildersleeve to push up his skirmishers."
With a thud of hoofs and a rustling of parting foliage the cavalryman
disappeared amid the underwood. A minute or two later a thin, dropping
rattle of musketry, five hundred yards or so to the front, announced
that the sharpshooters of the Fourteenth were at work. Almost
immediately there was an angry response, full of the threatenings and
execution of death. Through the lofty leafage tore the screech of a
shell, bursting with a sharp crash as it passed overhead, and
scattering in humming slivers. Then came another, and another, and
many more, chasing each other with hoarse hissings through the
trembling air, a succession of flying serpents. The enemy doubtless
believed that nearly the whole attacking force was massed in the wood
around the road, and they had brought at least four guns to bear upon
that point, and were working them with the utmost possible rapidity.
Presently a large chestnut, not fifty yards from Fitz Hugh, was struck
by a shot. The solid trunk, nearly three feet in diameter, parted
asunder as if it were the brittlest of vegetable matter. The upper
portion started aside with a monstrous groan, dropped in a standing
posture to the earth, and then toppled slowly, sublimely prostrate,
its branches crashing and all its leaves wailing. Ere long, a little
further to the front, another Anak of the forest went down; and,
mingled with the noise of its sylvan agony, there arose sharp cries of
human suffering. Then Colonel Colburn, a broad-chested and ruddy man
of thirty-five, with a look of indignant anxiety in his iron-gray
eyes, rode up to the brigade commander.
"This is very annoying, Colonel," he said. "I am losing my men without
using them. That last tree fell into my command."
"Are they firing toward our left?" asked Waldron.
"Not a shot."
"Very good," said the chief, with a sigh of contentment. "If we can
only keep them occupied in this direction! By the way, let your men
lie down under the fallen tree, as far as it will go. It will protect
them from others."
Colburn rode back to his regiment. Waldron looked impatiently at his
watch. At that moment a fierce burst of line firing arose in front,
followed and almost overborne by a long-drawn yell, the scream of
charging men. Waldron put up his watch, glanced excitedly at Fitz
Hugh, and smiled.
"I must forgive or forget," the latter could not help saying to
himself. "All the rest of life is nothing compared with this."
"Captain," said Waldron, "ride off to the left at full speed. As soon
as you hear firing at the shoulder of the ridge, return instantly and
let me know."
Fitz Hugh dashed away. Three minutes carried him into perfect peace,
beyond the whistling of ball or the screeching of shell. On the right
was a tranquil, wide waving of foliage, and on the left a serene
landscape of cultivated fields, with here and there an embowered
farm-house. Only for the clamor of artillery and musketry far behind
him, he could not have believed in the near presence of battle, of
blood and suffering and triumphant death. But suddenly he heard to his
right, assaulting and slaughtering the tranquillity of nature, a
tumultuous outbreak of file-firing, mingled with savage yells. He
wheeled, drove spurs into his horse, and flew back to Waldron. As he
re-entered the wood he met wounded men streaming through it, a few
marching alertly upright, many more crouching and groaning, some
clinging to their less injured comrades, but all haggard in face and
ghastly.
"Are we winning?" he hastily asked of one man who held up a hand with
three fingers gone and the bones projecting in sharp spikes through
mangled flesh.
"All right, Sir; sailing in," was the answer.
"Is the brigade commander all right?" he inquired of another who was
winding a bloody handkerchief around his arm.
"Straight ahead, Sir; hurrah for Waldron!" responded the soldier, and
almost in the same instant fell lifeless with a fresh ball through his
head.
"Hurrah for him!" Fitz Hugh answered frantically, plunging on through
the underwood. He found Waldron with Colburn, the two conversing
tranquilly in their saddles amid hissing bullets and dropping
branches.
"Move your regiment forward now," the brigade commander was saying;
"but halt it in the edge of the wood."
"Shan't I relieve Gildersleeve if he gets beaten?" asked the
subordinate officer eagerly.
"No. The regiments on the left will help him out. I want your men and
Peck's for the fight on top of the hill. Of course the rebels will try
to retake it; then I shall call for you."
Fitz Hugh now approached and said, "Colonel, the Seventh has attacked
in force."
"Good!" answered Waldron, with that sweet smile of his which thanked
people who brought him pleasant news. "I thought I heard his fire.
Gahogan will be on their right rear in ten minutes. Then we shall get
the ridge. Ride back now to Major Bradley, and tell him to bring his
Napoleons through the wood, and set two of them to shelling the
enemy's centre. Tell him my idea is to amuse them, and keep them from
changing front."
Again Fitz Hugh galloped off as before on a comfortably safe errand,
safer at all events than many errands of that day. "This man is
sparing my life," he said to himself. "Would to God I knew how to
spare his!"
He found Bradley lunching on a gun caisson, and delivered his orders.
"Something to do at last, eh?" laughed the rosy-cheeked youngster.
"The smallest favors thankfully received. Won't you take a bite of
rebel chicken, Captain? This rebellion must be put down. No? Well,
tell the Colonel I am moving on, and John Brown's soul not far ahead."
When Fitz Hugh returned to Waldron he found him outside of the wood,
at the base of the long incline which rose into the rebel position.
About the slope were scattered prostrate forms, most numerous near the
bottom, some crawling slowly rearward, some quiescent. Under the brow
of the ridge, decimated and broken into a mere skirmish line sheltered
in knots and, singly, behind rocks and knolls and bushes, lay the
Fourteenth Regiment, keeping up a steady, slow fire. From the edge
above, smokily dim against a pure, blue heaven, answered another
rattle of musketry, incessant, obstinate, and spiteful. The combatants
on both sides were lying down; otherwise neither party could have
lasted ten minutes. From Fitz Hugh's point of view not a Confederate
uniform could be seen. But the smoke of their rifles made a long gray
line, which was disagreeably visible and permanent; and the sharp
_whit! whit!_ of their bullets continually passed him, and cheeped
away in the leafage behind.
"Our men can't get on another inch," he ventured to say to his
commander. "Wouldn't it be well for me to ride up and say a cheering
word?"
"Every battle consists largely in waiting," replied Waldron
thoughtfully. "They have undoubtedly brought up a reserve to face
Thomas. But when Gahogan strikes the flank of the reserve, we shall
win."
"I wish you would take shelter," begged Fitz Hugh. "Everything depends
on your life."
"My life has been both a help and a hurt to my fellow-creatures,"
sighed the brigade commander. "Let come what will to it."
He glanced upward with an expression of profound emotion; he was
evidently fighting two battles, an outward and an inward one.
Presently he added, "I think the musketry is increasing on the left.
Does it strike you so?"
He was all eagerness again, leaning forward with an air of earnest
listening, his face deeply flushed and his eye brilliant. Of a sudden
the combat above rose and swelled into higher violence. There was a
clamor far away--it seemed nearly a mile away--over the hill. Then the
nearer musketry, first Thomas' on the shoulder of the ridge, next
Gildersleeve's in front, caught fire and raged with new fury.
Waldron laughed outright. "Gahogan has reached them," he said to one
of his staff who had just rejoined him. "We shall all be up there in
five minutes. Tell Colburn to bring on his regiment slowly."
Then, turning to Fitz Hugh, he added, "Captain, we will ride forward."
They set off at a walk, now watching the smoking brow of the eminence,
now picking their way among dead and wounded. Suddenly there was a
shout above them and a sudden diminution of the firing; and looking
upward, they saw the men of the Fourteenth running confusedly toward
the summit. Without a word the brigade commander struck spurs into his
horse and dashed up the long slope at a run, closely followed by his
enemy and aid. What they saw when they overtook the straggling,
running, panting, screaming pell-mell of the Fourteenth was victory!
The entire right wing of the Confederates, attacked on three sides at
once, placed at enormous disadvantage, completely outgeneraled, had
given way in confusion, was retreating, breaking, and flying. There
were lines yet of dirty gray or butternut; but they were few, meagre,
fluctuating, and recoiling, and there were scattered and scurrying
men in hundreds. Three veteran and gallant regiments had gone
all to wreck under the shock of three similar regiments far more
intelligently directed. A strong position had been lost because the
heroes who held it could not perform the impossible feat of forming
successively two fresh fronts under a concentric fire of musketry. The
inferior brain power had confessed the superiority of the stronger
one.
On the victorious side there was wild, clamorous, fierce exultation.
The hurrying, shouting, firing soldiers, who noted their commander
riding among them, swung their rifles or their tattered hats at him,
and screamed "Hurrah!" No one thought of the Confederate dead under
foot, nor of the Union dead who dotted the slope behind. "What are you
here for, Colonel?" shouted rough old Gildersleeve, one leg of his
trousers dripping blood. "We can do it alone."
"It is a battle won," laughed Fitz Hugh, almost worshipping the man
whom he had come to slay.
"It is a battle won, but not used," answered Waldron. "We haven't a
gun yet, nor a flag. Where is the cavalry? Why isn't Stilton here? He
must have got afoul of the enemy's horse, and been obliged to beat it
off. Can anybody hear anything of Stilton?"
"Let him go," roared old Grumps. "The infantry don't want any help."