The early months of the war were but skirmishes. The real work of
killing and maiming the flower of the race had not begun.
The defeat had given the sad-eyed President unlimited power to draw
on the resources of the nation for men and money. His call for half
a million soldiers met with instant response. The fighting spirit of
twenty-two million Northern people had been roused. They felt the
disgrace of Bull Run and determined to wipe it out in blood.
Three Northern armies were hurled on the South in a well-planned,
concerted movement to take Richmond. McDowell marched straight down to
Fredericksburg with forty thousand. Fermont, with Milroy, Banks and
Shields, was sweeping through the Shenandoah Valley. McClellan, with
his grand army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, had moved up
the Peninsula in resistless force until he lay on the banks of the
Chickahominy within sight of the spires of Richmond.
To meet these three armies aggregating a quarter of a million men, the
South could marshall barely seventy thousand. Jackson was despatched
with eighteen thousand to baffle the armies of McDowell, Fremont,
Milroy, Shields and Banks in the Valley and prevent their union with
McClellan.
The war really began on Sunday, the second of June, 1862, when Robert
E. Lee was sent to the front to take command of the combined army of
seventy thousand men of the South.
The new commander with consummate genius planned his attack and flung
his gray lines on McClellan with savage power. The two armies fought in
dense thickets often less than fifty yards apart. Their muskets flashed
sheets of yellow flame. The sound of ripping canvas, the fire of small
arms in volleys, could no longer be distinguished. The sullen roar was
endless, deafening, appalling. Over the tops of oak, pine, beech, ash
and tangled undergrowth came the flaming thunder of two great armies
equally fearless, the flower of American manhood in their front ranks,
daring, scorning death, fighting hand to hand, man to man.
The people in the churches of Richmond as they prayed could hear the
awful roar. They turned their startled faces toward the battle. It rang
above the sob of organ and the chant of choir.
The hosts in blue and gray charged again and again through the tangle
of mud and muck and blood and smoke and death. Bayonet rang on bayonet.
They fought hand to hand, as naked savages once fought with bare hands.
The roar died slowly with the shadows of the night, until only the crack
of a rifle here and there broke the stillness.
And then above the low moans of the wounded and dying came the distant
notes of the church bells in Richmond calling men and women again to the
house of God.
There was no shout of triumph--no cheering hosts--only the low moan of
death and the sharp cry of a boy in pain. The men in blue could have
moved in and bivouaced on the ground they had lost. The men in gray had
no strength left.
The dead and the dying were everywhere. The wounded were crawling
through the mud and brush, like stricken animals; some with their legs
broken; some with arms dangling by a thread; some with hideous holes
torn in their faces.
The front was lighted with the unclouded splendor of a full Southern
moon. Down every dim aisle of the woods they lay in awful, dark heaps.
In the fields they lay with faces buried in the dirt or eyes staring up
at the stars, twisted, torn, mangled. The blue and the gray lay side
by side in death, as they had fought in life. The pride and glory of a
mighty race of freemen.
The shadows of the details moved in the moonlight. They were opening the
first of those long, deep trenches. They were careful in these early
days of war. They turned each face downward as they packed them in. The
grave diggers could not then throw the wet dirt into their eyes and
mouths. Aching hearts in far-off homes couldn't see; but these boys
still had hearts within their breasts.
The fog-rimmed lanterns flickered over the fields peering into the faces
on the ground.
The ambulance corps did its best at the new trade. It was utterly
inadequate on either side. It's always so in war. The work of war is to
maim, to murder--not to heal or save.
The long line of creaking wagons began to move into Richmond over the
mud-cut roads. Every hospital was filled. The empty wagons rolled back
in haste over the cobble stones and out on the muddy roads to the front
again.
At the hospital doors the women stood in huddled groups--wives,
sweethearts, mothers, sisters, praying, hoping, fearing, shivering. Far
away in the field hospitals, the young doctors with bare, bloody arms
were busy with saw and knife. Boys who had faced death in battle without
a tremor stood waiting their turn trembling, crying, cursing. They could
see the piles of legs and arms rising higher as the doctors hurled
them from the quivering bodies. They stretched out their hands in the
darkness to feel the touch of loved ones. They must face this horror
alone, and then battle through life, maimed wrecks. They peered through
the shadows under the trees where the dead were piled and envied them
their sleep.
The armies paused next day to gird their loins for the crucial test.
Jackson was still in the Shenandoah Valley holding three armies at bay,
defeating them in detail. His swift marches had so paralyzed his enemies
that McDowell's forty thousand men lay at Fredericksburg unable to move.
Lee summoned Stuart.
When the conference ended the young Cavalry Commander threw himself into
the saddle and started Northward with a song. Determined to learn the
strength of McClellan's right wing and confuse his opponent, Lee had
sent Stuart on the most daring adventure in the history of cavalry
warfare. Stuart had told him that he could ride around McClellan's whole
army, cut his communications and strike terror in his rear.
With twelve hundred picked horsemen, fighting, singing, dare-devil
riders, Stuart slipped from Lee's lines and started toward
Fredericksburg.
On the second day he surprised and captured the Federal pickets without
a shot. He dreaded a meeting with the Cavalry. His father-in-law,
General Cooke, was in command of a brigade of blue riders. He thought
with a moment's pang of the little wife at home praying that they should
never meet. Let her pray. God would help her. He couldn't let such a
thing happen.
He suddenly confronted a squadron of Federal Cavalry. With a yell his
troops charged and cleared the field. They must ride now with swifter
hoofbeat than ever. The news would spread and avengers would be on their
heels. They were now far in the rear of McClellan's grand army. They had
felt out his right wing and knew to a mile where its lines ended.
They dashed toward the York River Railroad which supplied the Northern
army, surprised the company holding Tunstall's Station, took them
prisoners, cut the wires and tore up the tracks.
On his turn toward Richmond when he reached the Chickahominy River, its
waters were swollen and he couldn't cross. He built a bridge out of the
timbers of a barn, took his last horse over and destroyed it, as the
shout of a division of Federal Cavalry was heard in the distance.
With twelve hundred men he had made a raid which added a new rule to
cavalry tactics. He had ridden around a great army, covering ninety
miles in fifty-six hours with the loss of but one man. He had
established the position of the enemy, destroyed enormous quantities
of war material, captured a hundred and sixty-five prisoners and two
hundred horses. He had struck terror to the hearts of a sturdy foe, and
thrilled the South with new courage.
Jackson's victorious little army joined Lee at Gaines' Mill on the
twenty-seventh of June, and on the following day McClellan was in full
retreat.
On the first of July it ended at Malvern Hill on the banks of the James.
Of the one hundred and ten thousand men who marched in battle line on
Richmond, eighty-six thousand only reached the shelter of his gunboats.
The first great battle of the war had raged from the first of June until
the first of July. Fifty thousand brave boys were killed or mangled on
the red fields of death. Washington was in gloom. The Grand Army of more
than two hundred thousand had gone down in defeat. It was incredible.
Richmond had been saved. The glory of Lee, Jackson and Stuart filled the
South with a new radiance. But the celebration of victory was in minor
key. Every home was in mourning.
Six days later Stuart once more clasped his wife to his heart. It had
been a month since he had seen her. The thunder of guns she had heard
without pause. She knew that both her father and her lover were
somewhere in the roaring hell below the city. Stuart never told her how
close they had come to a charge and counter charge at the battle of
Gaines' Mill.
The old, tremulous question she couldn't keep back:
"You didn't see my daddy, did you, dear?"
Stuart shouted in derision at the idea.
"Of course not, honey girl. It's not written in the book of life. Forget
the silly old fear."
"And they didn't even scratch my soldier man?"
"Never a scratch!"
She kissed him again.
"You know I've a little woman praying for me every day. I lead a charmed
life!"
She gazed at his handsome, bronzed face.
"I believe you do, dearest!"