THE ROAD TO RESACA
For seven days Rocky Face Mountain echoed the rattling fire. Milk
Mountain behind also threw it back, and Horn Mountain behind Milk.
Crow Valley saw hard fighting, and Mill Creek Gap and Trail Gap.
Alabama troops were posted above the last two and on the top of the
Chattoogata Ridge. Here they laid in line huge stones, ready for the
throwing down when the pass below should darken with the blue. They
made also slight breastworks and rifle-pits. At Dug Gap were stationed
two regiments of Arkansas and a brigade of Kentucky cavalry. On the
eighth, Hooker attacked these in force. Kentucky fought dismounted;
Kentucky and Arkansas together did mightily. Johnston sent to Hardee
to dispatch aid to this point. Up to Dug Gap came Patrick Cleburne
with Lowrey’s and Granbury’s brigades. Cleburne came at a
double-quick, through the intense heat, up the rough mountain-side.
The woods rang with fighting until the dark came down. Then Geary
rested in the valley below and Cleburne on the heights above, and the
stars shone on both. Stewart’s and Stevenson’s divisions held Rocky
Face Mountain. Old Rocky Face saw tense fighting, stubborn as its own
make-up. Skirmish upon skirmish occupied the hours. Here, too, were
breastworks and rifle-pits, and the blue advanced against them, and
the blue went back again, and came again, and went back again. All the
time the batteries kept up a galling, raking fire. Pettus’s Alabama
brigade was at the top of the mountain, at the signal station. Brown
and Reynolds and Cumming were lower down, toward the valley. And on
the floor of the valley, here visible in square or roughly circular
clearings, here hidden by the thick woods, was a host of the enemy.
Morning, noon, and afternoon went on the skirmishing. On the ninth
occurred a determined assault upon Pettus’s line. There was a bloody,
protracted struggle, and while the mountain flamed and thundered, the
blue sharpshooters paid deadly attention to the brigades below of
Cumming and Reynolds. The Alabamians on Rocky Face repelled the
assault; down, down it sank to the floor of the valley. After an
interval a line of battle appeared before Cumming. The Georgian threw
forward skirmishers. There was a battalion of artillery—Major John
William Johnston’s battalion. Cherokee Artillery, Stephens’s Light
Artillery, Tennessee Battery, all came into action. The major
commanding—once the captain of the Botetourt Artillery, of the
“homesick battery” of Chickasaw Bayou and Port Gibson—placed his guns
with skill and saw them served well and double well. Together with
Cumming’s skirmishers the battalion checked the blue advance along
this line.
Hour after hour, day after day, continued the skirmishing to the west
of Dalton. Now and again, among the slighter notes, struck the full
chord of a more or less heavy engagement. But there came no general
and far-flung battle. There was loss of life, but not great loss, and
all the attacks were repelled. Joseph E. Johnston watched with his
steady face.
On the afternoon of the ninth came the first indication that the blue,
behind the long cover of the mountains, were moving southward toward
Snake Creek Gap, halfway between Dalton and Resaca. Hood with three
divisions was at once ordered upon the road to Resaca, where was
already Cantey’s brigade, come in the day before. Observing the grey
movement, the blue advance by Snake Creek drew back for the moment.
The air around Dalton continued smoky, the rifles to ring. The blue
made a night attack, thoroughly repulsed by Bates’s division. On the
eleventh arrived at Resaca from Mississippi Leonidas Polk with
Loring’s division. On this day Cantey sent a courier to General
Johnston. Sherman’s was certainly a turning movement, a steady blue
flood rolling south by Snake Creek Pass, between Milk and Horn
Mountains.
Before break of day on the twelfth, Johnston sent Wheeler with two
thousand cavalry, supported by Hindman, to the northern end of Rocky
Face to reconnoitre in force. Was the whole Federal army moving toward
Resaca, or not? Rounding Rocky Face, Wheeler clashed with Stoneman’s
cavalry. After a sharp engagement, the blue fell back down the western
side of Rocky Face. Retiring, they set fire to a great number of their
wagons. The smoke arose, thick and dark, but the grey reconnoissance,
piercing it, saw enough to assure it that Sherman intended no pitched
battle at Dalton. The whole vast blue army was moving southward behind
the screen of Rocky Face and the Chattoogata Ridge, south and east
upon Resaca and the grey line of communications. Wheeler returned at
dusk and reported.
Night fell. The Army of Tennessee, after days of fighting, nights of
alarms, lay now, in its various positions, in a world that seemed
suddenly, strangely silent. The army, that was by now a philosopher,
welcomed the moment with its quiet. It threw itself upon the warm
earth and slept with the determination of the dead. Ten o’clock,
eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, one o’clock! A bugle blew—another at a
distance—another. Drums began to beat. The Army of Tennessee rose to
its feet. _Marching orders! The road to Resaca? All right!_
Grey infantry, grey artillery, grey wagon-train, grey cavalry rear
guard, grey stanch generals, grey stanch men, the Army of Tennessee
took the starlight road to Resaca, where were already Hood with the
three divisions, Cantey’s brigade, and Polk with the division of
Loring. The night rolled away, the morning wind blew fresh, the
streamers of the dawn flared high above the Georgia woods. The Army of
Tennessee moved with a light and swinging step. Of this campaign a
week had marked itself off, like a bead, half dark, half bright, on a
rosary string. At Dalton, Atlanta lay a hundred and twenty miles to
the southward. When the army came to Resaca, Atlanta was eighteen
miles the nearer.
Back in Dalton, in the house behind the syringas, there was protest.
Miss Sophia protested with a waxen dignity, Miss Amanda with tears in
her eyes. Both were so moved that they came out of the parlour upon
the clematis porch where Désirée was supervising the cording of a
small hair-trunk. “Follow the Army!” cried Miss Sophia, and “Follow
the Army!” echoed Miss Amanda. “Oh, dear Mrs. Cary, are you sure that
it’s _wise_—”
“It’s the wisdom of Solomon,” said Désirée, on her knees. “Of the Song
of Solomon.—Now, uncle, that’s done! Can you carry it out to the
wagon, or shall I help you?”
The ancient darkey lifted it. “No, ’m. I kin tote it.” He went down
the path toward the gate and an ancient, springless wagon.
Désirée rose. Miss Amanda’s tears overflowed, and Miss Sophia was so
agitated that she leaned against the doorpost, and her thin old hand
trembled where it touched her linsey skirt. “You’ve been as good as
gold to me,” said Désirée. “I’ve loved this little house. I’m going to
think of it often. Dear Miss Sophia, dear Miss Amanda, good-bye!”
“Oh, it’s not wise,” cried Miss Sophia; “I feel that it’s not wise!”
“If you’d just quietly wait,” said Miss Amanda, “until the army comes
back through Dalton.”
But Désirée thought that that would be too long. She smiled and broke
some purple clematis from the porch to take with her, and then the two
ladies went with her to the gate, and she kissed them both, and they
said “God bless you!” and she mounted the wagon; and from the place
where the road turned southward looked back and waved her hand. The
lace handkerchief yard and the syringa bushes and the shingled roof
above them sank out of her life.
“I’se gwine tek de duht road,” said the negro. “Less ob fool soldiers
projeckin’ erlong dat one!”
The horse was worn and old, the wagon the same. Out of Dalton, over
trampled fields, then between wooded hills, went, slowly enough, the
wagon, the hair-trunk, Désirée, and the negro. “Don’ yo’ fret, mistis!
I’se gwine git yo’ dar befo’ de battle. I’se gwine git yo’ dar befo’
midnight ennyhow!”
“What is your name?”
“Nebuchadnezzar, mistis.”
“And the horse?”
“Dat ar horse name Julius Cæsar. He good horse ef he had ernough ter
eat.”
The day was warm, the sky a deep blue, all neighbouring vegetation
covered with a tawny felt of dust. Trampling feet and trampling feet
of horses and men, wagon wheels and wagon wheels and wagon wheels, had
gone over that road. It was a trough of dust, and when the wind blew
it up, a sandstorm would not have been more blinding. It seemed clear
now of troops—all were withdrawn into the haze to the southward. As
for the enemy, he must be moving on the other side of the low
mountains, unless, indeed, he were already in force at Resaca—and the
grey were going into battle—and the grey were going into battle.
“Julius Cæsar goes pretty slow,” said Désirée.
There was little débris in the road or by the wayside, no wrecked,
left-behind wagons, little or no discarded accoutrement, few
broken-down or dying horses, very few ill or wounded men, or mere
footsore stragglers. Johnston’s movements were as clear-cut as so many
cameos. He left no filings behind; he did not believe in blurred
edges. He might place an army here to-day, and the morrow might find
it a knight’s move or a bishop’s or a rook’s or a queen’s away; but
always it went cleanly, bag and baggage, clean-lined, self-contained,
with intention and poise. If his army was in retreat, the road behind
him hardly bore witness to the fact.
Horse and wagon crept on toward Resaca. Morning wore to afternoon,
very warm, very—“Nebuchadnezzar, what do you make of that dust before
us? I make smoke as well as dust. And now I make firing! Listen!”
“Reckon better tuhn back—”
“No, no! Go on! When it is necessary to stop, we will stop until they
let us by. It’s rear guard fighting probably—”
The cloud mounted. A few hundred yards and a bullet came and sheared
away a leafy twig from the oak under which they were passing. It fell
upon Désirée’s lap. A few yards farther, a second struck the dusty
road in front of the horse. The confused sound down the road swelled
into tumult.
“Gawd-er-moughty!” said Nebuchadnezzar. “Mus’ git out ob dis! Dey’re
projeckin’ dishyer way!”
“Drive into the bank!” ordered Désirée. “No! there where it is wider!
Don’t be afraid! Look how steady Julius Cæsar stands!”
“Yass, ’m. Think I’ll git out en hol’ him.—Lawd hab mercy, heah dey
come!”
They came like a storm of the desert, two colours, one driving, one
giving back, but in so great a cloud of road dust and carbine smoke,
and in so rapid motion that which was which and whose were the shouts
of triumph was not easy to tell. The horses’ hoofs made a thunder; all
grew large, enveloped the earth, brought din and suffocation, roared
by and were gone. There was a sense that the victorious colour was
grey—but all was gone like a blast of the genii. The wagon had been
nearly overturned. Some one had ridden violently against it—then there
had sounded a shout, “’Ware! A woman!” and the wild course, pursued
and pursuers, ever so slightly swerved. Désirée, thrown to her knees,
laid hold of the wagon edge and waited, but not with closed eyes. A
colour was in her cheek; she looked in this torrent as she had looked
upon the levee, above the Mississippi in anger. The torrent passed,
the rage of noise sank, the choking, blinding dust began to settle.
Nebuchadnezzar came from the lee side of Julius Cæsar. He was ashen,
whether with dust or with fear.
“Whoever in dey born days see de like ob dat? Christian folk actin’ de
debbil lak dat! Hit er-gwine ter bring er jedgment! Yo’ ain’ huht,
mistis?”
“No,” said Désirée. “I felt as though something were bearing down upon
me out of ‘Paradise Lost.’”
“What dat blood on yo’ ahm?”
Désirée looked. “A bullet must have grazed it. I never felt it. It
doesn’t hurt much now.”
They did not get to Resaca that night. Julius Cæsar was too tired, the
road too heavy, and one of Wheeler’s outposts, stopping the wagon,
insisted that it was not safe for it to go farther in the darkness.
With the first fireflies they turned aside to a “cracker’s” cabin in a
fold of the hills and asked for hospitality. A tall, lean, elderly
woman and her tall, lean daughters gave them rude shelter and rude
fare. In the morning the wagon and Julius Cæsar and Nebuchadnezzar and
Désirée went on again toward Resaca.
To-day they overtook more limping soldiers than had been the case on
yesterday. The wagon gave “lifts” to several and would have given more
but that Julius Cæsar was so evidently a weary and worn foot soldier
himself. They came upon a bank topped by a pine tree, and under it,
his arm overhanging the road, was stretched a soldier overtaken by a
fever. His face was flushed and burning hot, his eyes bright and wild.
“Point Coupée Artillery!” he said; “Point Coupée Artillery!” over and
over again. Désirée made Nebuchadnezzar draw rein. She got out of the
wagon, climbed the bank, and knelt beside the man. “Point Coupée
Artillery!” he said. “Water! Point Coupée Artillery. Water!” There was
no spring anywhere near. She had had a bottle of water, but had given
it all to two soldiers a mile back. Together she and Nebuchadnezzar
got the artilleryman into the wagon, where he lay with his head
against her knee. “Point Coupée!” she said. “Louisiana!” and her hand
lay cool and soft upon the burning forehead. They carried him two
miles, until they came to the house of a widow, who took the fevered
man in and gave him water and a bed, and could be trusted, Désirée
saw, to nurse him. Going on for a mile, they came up with a boy with a
badly cut foot and a man with a bandaged head and his trouser leg
rolled up to the thigh, bandaged, too, with a bloody cloth. Both were
white-lipped with the heat and weariness, and Désirée and
Nebuchadnezzar and Julius Cæsar took them on upon the road. Désirée
said that she was tired of riding and walked beside the wagon, and
when they came to a hill, Nebuchadnezzar, too, got down and walked.
The two honest stragglers, though worse for the wear, were cheerful
souls and inclined to talk. “Near Resaca? Yes, ma’am; right near now.
It’s mighty good of you to give us a lift! Old Joe certainly can’t
begin the battle till Robin and me get there!”
Robin put in his oar. “Man on horseback came riding along awhile ago
and turned off toward the Connesauga, an’ he said that Loring met the
Yanks yesterday as they were streaming out of Snake Creek Gap, and
held them in check for three hours until Hardee and Hood came up and
formed, and that then things stopped and were holding their breath on
that line when he left—”
“Old Blizzard’s a good one! Never’ll forget him at Fort Pemberton!
‘Give them blizzards, men!’ says he. ‘Give them blizzards!’”
“My husband was at Fort Pemberton. Were you at Vicksburg?”
“Vicksburg! Should think I was at Vicksburg! Were you, ma’am?”
“Yes. In a cave down by the ——th Redan.”
“I was down by the river, back of the Lower Batteries. Vicksburg! We
thought that nothing could ever happen any more after Vicksburg! But
things just went on happening—”
“Firing ahead of us,” said the boy.
It rose and fell in the distance to the left of the road. A turn and
they came upon pickets. Followed a parley. “You two want to join your
regiment, and the lady wants to get to Resaca? Resaca isn’t a big
place, ma’am, and the fighting’s going to be all around it and maybe
through it. Hadn’t you better—”
“No, I hadn’t. My husband is Captain Cary of the ——th Virginia. I
know, sir, that you are going most courteously to let me pass.”
When Désirée Gaillard said “most courteously,” when she smiled and
looked straight and steady with her dark eyes, it was fatal. Nothing
short of positive orders to the contrary would have kept those grey
pickets from letting her pass. The wagon went on, and, having pierced
a skirmish line lying down waiting, came, in the dusty forenoon, to
Stevenson’s division, drawn up in two lines across and on either side
of the Dalton and Resaca road.
An officer stopped the advance. “There’s going to be fighting here in
five minutes! You shouldn’t have been let to pass the pickets. You
can’t go on and you can’t go back. They’ve got their batteries planted
and they’re coming out of the wood yonder.—There’s the first shell!”
He looked around him. “Madam, I’ll agree that there aren’t many safe
places in the Confederacy, but I wish that you were in one of them!
You two men report to the sergeant there! Uncle, you drive that cart
behind the hill yonder—the one next to the one with the guns on it.
When you’re there, madam, you’d better lie close to the earth, behind
one of those boulders. As soon as we’ve silenced their fire and the
road’s clear, you can go on.—Not at all! Not at all! But it is
extremely unwise for a lady to be here!”
The eastern side of the hill offered fair shelter. Nebuchadnezzar took
the old horse from the wagon and fastened him to a small pine. Désirée
sat down in the long cool grass beside a grey boulder. Before her
stretched rugged ground, and far and wide she saw grey troops, ready
for battle. Johnston had wasted no moment at Resaca. With skill and
certitude he flung down his battle line, horseshoe-shaped, Hardee
holding the centre, Polk on the left bent down to the Oostenaula, Hood
on the right resting on the Connesauga. Earth-works sprang into being,
salients for artillery—hardy and ready and in high spirits the Army of
Tennessee faced the foe. Throughout the morning there had been general
skirmishing, and now a fierce attack was in progress against Hindman’s
division of Hood’s corps. It spread and involved Stevenson. The latter
had the brigades of Cumming and Brown in his front line, in his second
those of Pettus and Reynolds. All the ground here was rough and
tangled, rock-strewn, overlaid with briars and a growth of small bushy
pines. The men had made some kind of breastworks with rotted logs and
the rails from a demolished fence. What especially annoyed were the
blue sharpshooters. There was a ridge in the possession of these, from
which they kept up a perpetual enfilading fire, addressed with
especial vigour against Cumming’s line and against Johnston’s
battalion ranged upon a long hillside by Cumming.
From the foot of her small adjoining hill, Désirée could see these
pieces plainly. Elbow on knee, chin in hand, she sat and watched. Six
guns were in action; the others, expectant, waiting their time. The
horses were withdrawn below the hill. Here, indifferent, long trained,
they stood and cropped the grass in the face of thunder and gathering
smoke. The caissons were in line behind the pieces, and from them
powder and grape and canister travelled to the fighting guns. They
were fighting hard. From each metal bore sprang yellow-red flowers of
death. The hill shook and became wreathed with smoke. Through it she
saw the gun detachments, rhythmically moving, and other figures,
officers and men, passing rapidly to and fro. Shouted orders came to
her, then the thunder of the guns covered all other sound. The
antagonist was a blue battery on a shoulder of the ridge and blue
infantry somewhere in the thick wood below. This battery’s range was
poor; most of the shells fell short of the grey hill. But the
sharpshooters on the nearer spur were another guess matter. Out of the
tops of thick and tall pine trees came death in the shape of pellets
of lead—came with frequency, came with a horrible accuracy.
Désirée shuddered as she looked.
“Oh,” she cried. “Oh, to be God just one minute!”
She found Nebuchadnezzar beside her. “Gawd ain’ mixed up wif dis.
Hit’s de Debbil.—Dar’s ernother one struck! See him spinnin’
’roun’.... Hit meks me sick.”
The battalion commander—twenty-five years old, brown-eyed,
warm-hearted, sincere, magnetic, loved by his men—rode rapidly, in the
rolling smoke, across the hilltop, from the guns engaged to those that
waited. “Forward into battery! On Captain Van den Corput’s left.”
He turned and rode back to the thundering battery. The smoke parted
and he and his grey horse were plainly seen. A minie ball came from
the wood and pierced his thigh. “This morning”, says General
Stevenson’s report, “was wounded the brave Major J.W. Johnston.” The
smoke of battle rolled over the hill and the battalion of artillery,
and over the Dalton and Resaca road, and over Stevenson’s division.
Later, there was a great movement forward. Wheeler, ordered to
discover the position and formation of the blue left, brought Johnston
information which resulted in an order to Hood to make a half-change
of front and drive the enemy westward. Hood, with the divisions of
Stewart and Stevenson and supported by Walker, swept with his wild
energy to the task. Stevenson in advance had the hottest fighting, but
all fought superbly. At sunset the enemy’s extreme left was forced
from its position.
From the top of a railroad cut near the Dalton road, Johnston gave an
aide an order for Hood. “Prepare to continue movement at daybreak. Let
the troops understand that fighting will be renewed.” Off galloped the
aide and sought through the gathering dusk for General Hood, but
missed his road, and after some searching came back to the railroad
cut to find General Hood now with General Johnston. Hood was speaking:
“The men are in wild spirits! I am, too, sir, if we are going to fight
to a finish!”
Two or three prisoners were brought to the cut. Questioned, two
refused to answer; a third stated that he belonged to Whittaker’s
brigade, Stanley’s division, Fourth Army Corps; that the blue line of
battle ran northeast and southwest, and that the blue army looked for
victory. Wheeler rode up, received orders, and in the fading light
drew his cavalry out along the railroad. Night was now at hand.
Johnston and those with him turned their horses and rode rapidly from
the right toward the left, back to headquarters, established in a
small house behind Selden’s battery. Here they found General Hardee.
“All well with us, sir! They tried to storm Cleburne’s position, but
signally failed!”
“Nothing from the left?”
“There has been firing. Here comes news now, I think.” Up came an
aide, breathless, his horse bleeding. “General Johnston—from General
Polk, sir!”
“Yes, yes—”
“They attacked in force, sir, driving in our troops and seizing a hill
which commands the Oostenaula bridges. They at once brought cannon up.
General Polk is about to move to retake the hill.”
“The Oostenaula bridge!... The guns now!”
The heavy firing rose and sank, rose again, then finally died in the
now full night. The ridge commanding the bridge to the south, held by
Dodge and Logan of McPherson’s corps, was not retaken. Tidings that it
was not came to the group by Selden’s battery. And on the heels of
this came another breathless messenger. “General—from General Martin!
He reports that the enemy have thrown pontoons across the Oostenaula
near Calhoun. They crossed two divisions this afternoon.”
Silence for a moment, then Johnston spoke crisply. “Very well! If he
crosses, I cross. General Hood, the order for the advance at daybreak
is revoked.” He spoke to an aide. “Get the staff together!—General
Walker, you will at once take the road to Calhoun with your division.
Is Colonel Prestman here?—Colonel, the engineers are to lay to-night a
pontoon bridge across the Oostenaula, a mile above the old bridges.
General Hardee—What is it, General Hood?”
“Not to attack in the morning! General Johnston, do you not think—”
“I do occasionally, sir. At present I think that General Sherman
ardently desires to place himself in our rear.”
“We rolled them back this afternoon! And if at dawn we accomplish even
more—”
“Yes, sir, ‘if.’ You ‘rolled back,’ very gallantly, part of the Fourth
Army Corps.”
“But, sir,—”
“Circumstances, sir, alter cases. It was General Sherman’s intention
to place a huge army astride the railroad here at Resaca. That
intention was defeated. He proposes now to cross the Oostenaula and
cut our lines at Calhoun. It is that movement that demands our
attention.”
“I only know, sir, that it is expected at Richmond that we take the
offensive.”
“Yes, sir. Many things are expected at Richmond.—You have your order,
General. Now, General Hardee—”
An hour or two later, the commander of the Army of Tennessee returned
with Hardee from the left toward which they had ridden. The two were
friends as well as superior and subordinate. Johnston had great warmth
of nature; he was good lover, good hater. Now he rode quietly, weary,
but steadily thinking. The light of the house behind Selden’s battery
appeared, a yellow point in the thickened air. “How far that little
candle ... Hardee! I’ve had ten wounds in battle, but before this
summer ends I’m going to have a worse wound than any!”
“I don’t know what you mean, General,” said Hardee.
“Don’t you?” said Johnston. “Well, well! perhaps I shan’t be wounded.
The stars are over us all.—Here is the house.”
As the two dismounted, an aide came forward. “There is some one
waiting here, General, to speak to you. A lady—Mrs. Cary—”
Désirée came into the light from the open door. “Mrs. Cary!” exclaimed
Hardee. “How in the world—”
Johnston took her hand in his. It was cold, and the light showed her
face. “My dear, what is it—”
“General,” said Désirée, “I left Dalton yesterday, and to-day I got by
the lines, and this afternoon into Resaca. And awhile ago, when the
fighting had stopped, I found where was ——’s brigade and the ——th
Virginia. And I went there, to headquarters, to find out if my husband
was unhurt. His regiment was in the attack on the enemy’s left. It was
in the advance and it lost heavily. When night came and the troops
were withdrawn, they took back with them all their wounded they could
gather. But the ——th was well ahead, and the enemy was reinforced and
threatening in its front. When it was ordered back it had to leave its
hurt. They are there yet—they are there now. My husband is among the
missing.... They were very kind, the colonel and General ——. They
would not let me pass, but they asked for volunteers to go. Some brave
men volunteered and went. They brought back a number of the
wounded—but they did not bring back my husband. They said they sought
everywhere and called as loudly as they dared. They said that if he
were living—But I can seek better than they and I am not afraid to
call aloud. General —— said that he would not let me go, and I said
that I would bring an order from you that should make him let me go. I
have come for it, General.”
“The enemy is very close to that front. They will fire at any sound.”
“I shall go silently. Do I not want to bring him safely?”
“You would have to have men with you.”
“Three of those men said they would go again. But I said no. An old
negro brought me in his wagon from Dalton. He is old but strong, and
he is willing, and we can manage together.”
“If I let you go—”
“I shall love you forever. If you let me go you will do wisely and
rightly—”
“It is not a time,” said Johnston, “to measure by small standards or
weigh with little weights. You may go.”
A host of stars looked down on the wooded hills and narrow vales.
There was a space of about an acre where, long ago, trees had been
girdled and felled. The trunks of some still lay upon the earth, bare
of bark, gleaming grey-white, like great bones of an elder age.
Elsewhere there were mere stumps, serried rows of them, with a growth
of mullein and blackberry between. There were stones, too, half-buried
boulders, and in a corner of the field, pressing close to a rail
fence, a thicket of sumach.
Edward Cary lay in this angle. He had fallen at dusk, leading his men
in the final charge. It was twilight; the grey wave went on, shouting.
He saw and heard another coming, and to avoid trampling he dragged
himself aside into this sumach thicket by the fence. He had a bullet
through his shoulder, and he was losing blood beside from a deep wound
above the knee. It was this bleeding that brought the roaring in his
ears and at last the swoon. He had bandaged it as well as he could,
but a bone in his hand was shattered and he could not do it well. He
thought, “I shall bleed to death.” After a while life and the content
of life went to a very great distance—very far off and small like a
sandbar in a distant ocean. Time, too, became a thin, remote, and
intermittent stream. Once, he had no idea when, he thought that there
were voices and movement on the sandbar. He wet his lips and thought
that he spoke aloud, but probably it was only in thought. All things
vanished for a while, and when he next paid attention the sandbar was
very quiet and farther off than ever. The wind was blowing in the
sumach on the sandbar, and a star was shining over it.... No! it was
the light of a lantern. There were hands about his wound, and the
sound of tearing cloth, and the feel of a bandage drawn tightly with a
bit of forked stick for a tourniquet, and then water with a dash of
brandy at his lips—and then an arm beneath his head and a face down
bent. “Désirée Gaillard,” he breathed.