DEEPENING SHADOWS
Again the eyes of the Nation were fixed on the Army of the Potomac and
its new General. The President went down to his headquarters at Falmouth
Heights opposite Fredericksburg to review his army of a hundred and
thirty thousand men.
Riding up to Hooker's headquarters through the beautiful spring morning
his weary figure was lifted with new hope as he breathed the perfume of
the flowers and blooming hedgerows.
The driver only worried him for the moment. He was swearing eloquently
at his team in the pride of his heart at the honor of hauling the Chief
Magistrate of the Nation. He swore both plain and ornamental oaths with
equal unction.
The President endured it a while in amused silence. He was deeply
annoyed, but too much of a gentleman to hurt his patriotic driver's
feelings.
At last he observed:
"I see you are an Episcopalian, driver."
The man turned in surprise:
"Oh, no, sir, I'm Methodist."
"Is it possible?"
"Yes, sir, Methodist--why, sir?"
A whimsical smile played about the big kindly mouth:
"I thought you must be an Episcopalian because you swear exactly like
Mr. Seward, and he's a churchwarden!"
A deep silence fell on the sweet spring air. The driver glanced over his
shoulder with a sheepish grin, and cracked his whip without an oath:
"G'long there, boys!"
As the serried lines of blue, with bayonets flashing in the warming sun
of April, marched past the tall giant on horseback, they were in fine
spirits. They cheered the President with rousing enthusiasm.
John Vaughan did not join. He marched past with eyes straight in front.
The President hurried back to Washington to keep his vigil from his
window overlooking the Potomac, and Hooker began the execution of his
skillful plan of attack. On the day his advance began he had one hundred
and thirty thousand men and four hundred and forty-eight great guns in
seven grand divisions. Lee, still lying on the crescent hills behind
Fredericksburg, had sixty-two thousand men and one hundred and seventy
guns. He had detached Longstreet's corps for service in Tennessee.
The Federal Commander was absolutely sure that he could throw the flower
of this magnificent army across the river seven miles above
Fredericksburg, get into Lee's rear, hurl the remainder of his forces
across the river as Burnside had done, and crush the grey army like an
egg shell. It was well planned, but in war the unexpected often happens.
Again the unexpected thing turned up in the shape of the strange, dusty
figure on his little sorrel horse.
The night before Hooker moved, Julius met with an accident which
delayed John's supper. He was just approaching the camp after a
successful stroll over the surrounding territory, carrying on his back a
sheep he meant to cook for the coming march. A rude and unsympathetic
guard arrested him. Julius was greatly grieved at his unkind remarks.
"Lordy, man, you ought not ter say things lak dat ter me! I nebber steal
nutting in my life. I wasn't even foragin' dis time----"
"The hell you weren't!"
"Na, sah. I wasn't even foragin'. I know dat de General done issue dem
orders agin hit, an' I quit long ergo----"
"This sheep looks like it----"
"Dat sheep?"
"That's what I said, you black thief!"
"Say, man, don't talk lak dat ter me--you sho hurts my feelin's. I
nebber stole dat sheep. I nebber go atter de sheep, an' I weren't
studyin' 'bout no animals. I was des walkin' long de road past a man's
house whar dis here big, devilish-lookin' old sheep come er runnin'
right at me wid his head down--an' I lammed him wid er stick ter save my
life, sah. An' den when he fell, I knowed hit wuz er pity ter leave him
dar ter spile, an' so I des nachelly had ter fetch him inter de camp ter
save him. Man, you sho is rude ter talk dat way."
The guard was obdurate until Julius began to describe how he cooked
roast mutton. He finally agreed to accept his version of the battle with
the sheep as authentic if he would bring him a ten pound roast to test
the truth of his conversation.
Julius was still harping on the rudeness of this guard as he fanned the
flies off John's table with a sassafras brush at supper.
"I don't know what dey ebber let sech poor white trash ez dat man git in
er army for, anyhow!" he exclaimed indignantly.
"We have to take 'em as they come now, Julius. There's going to be a
draft this summer. No more volunteers now. Wait till you see the
conscripts."
"Dey can't be no wus dan dat man. He warn't no gemman 'tall, sah."
John rose from his hearty supper and strolled along the line of his
regiment, recruited again to its full strength of twelve hundred men.
Two fellows who were messmates were scrapping about a question of gravy.
One wanted lots of gravy and his meat done brown. The other insisted on
having his meat decently cooked, but not swimming in grease. The man in
favor of gravy was on duty as cook at this meal and stuck to his own
ideas. They suddenly clinched, fell to the ground, rolled over, knocked
the pan in the fire and lost both meat and gravy.
John smiled and passed on.
A lieutenant was sitting on a stump holding a letter from his sweetheart
to the flickering camp fire. He bent and kissed the signature--the fool!
For a moment the old longing surged back through his soul. He wondered
if she ever thought of him now. She had loved him once.
He started back to his tent to write her a letter before they broke camp
to-morrow morning. Nature was calling in the balmy spring night wind
that floated over the waters of the river.
Nature knew naught of war. She was pouring out her heart in budding leaf
and blossom in the joy of living.
And then the bitterness of shame and stubborn pride welled up to kill
the tender impulse. There were slumbering forces beneath the skin the
scenes through which he was passing had called into new life. They were
bringing new powers both of mind and body. They added nothing to the
gentler, sweeter sources of character. He began to understand how men
could feed their ambitions on the bodies of fallen hosts and still
smile.
He had felt the brutalizing touch of war. With a cynical laugh he threw
off his impulse to write and turned into his blanket dreaming of the red
carnival toward which they would march at dawn.
As the sun rose over the new sparkling fields of the South on the
morning of the 27th of April, 1863, the great movement began.
The Federal commander ordered Sedgwick's division to cross the
Rappahannock below Fredericksburg and deploy in line of battle to
deceive Lee as to his real purpose while he secretly marched his main
army through the woods seven miles above to throw them on his rear.
As the men stood, thousands banked on thousands, awaiting the order to
march, John Vaughan saw, for the first time, the grim procession pass
along the lines carrying a condemned deserter, to be shot to death
before his former comrades. His hands were tied across his breast with
rough knotted rope and he was seated on his coffin.
The War Department had gotten around the tender heart in the White
House at last. The desertions had become so terrible in their frequency
it was absolutely necessary to make examples of some of these men. The
poor devil who sat forlornly on his grim throne riding through the sweet
spring morning had no mother or sister or sweetheart to plead his cause.
The men stared in silence as the death cart rumbled along the lines. It
halted and the man took his place before the firing squad but a few feet
away.
A white cloth was bound over his eyes. The sergeant dealt out the
specially prepared round of cartridges--all blank save one, that no
soldier might know who did the murder.
In low tones they were ordered to fire straight at the heart of the
blindfolded figure. The muskets flashed and the man crumpled in a heap
on the soft young grass, the blood pouring from his breast in a bright
red pool beside the quivering form.
And then the army moved.
The stratagem of the Commander was executed with skill. But there was an
eagle eye back of those hills of Fredericksburg. Lee was not only a
great stark fighter, he was a past master in the arts of war. He had
divined his opponent's plan from the moment of his first movement.
By April the 30th, Hooker had effected his crossing and slipped into the
rear of Lee's left wing. The Southerner had paid little attention to
Sedgwick's menace on his front. He left but nine thousand men on Marye's
Heights to hold in check this forty thousand, and by a rapid night march
suddenly confronted Hooker in the Wilderness before Chancellorsville.
So strong was the Union General's position he issued an exultant order
to his army in which he declared:
"The enemy must now flee shamefully or come out of his defences to
accept battle on our own ground, to his certain destruction."
The enemy had already slipped out of his defenses before Fredericksburg
and at that moment was feeling his way through the tangled vines and
undergrowth with sure ominous tread.
The soul of the Confederate leader rose with elation at the prospect
before him. In this tangle called the Wilderness, broken only here and
there by small, scattered farm houses and fields, the Grand Army of the
Republic had more than twice his numbers, and nearly three times as many
big guns, but his artillery would be practically useless. It was utterly
impossible to use four hundred great guns in such woods. Lee's one
hundred and seventy were more than he could handle. It would be a fight
between infantry at close range. The Southerner knew that no army of men
ever walked the earth who would be the equal, man for man, with these
grey veteran dead shots, who were now silently creeping through the
undergrowth of their native woods.
On May the 1st, their two lines came into touch and Lee felt of his
opponent by driving in his skirmishers in a desultory fire of artillery.
On the morning of May the 2nd, the two armies faced each other at close
range.
With Sedgwick's division of forty thousand men now threatening Lee's
rear from Fredericksburg, his army thus caught between two mighty lines
of blue, Hooker was absolutely sure of victory. The one thing of which
he never dreamed was that Lee would dare, in the face of such a death
trap, to divide his own small army. And yet this is exactly what the
Southerner decided to do contrary to all the rules of military science
or the advice of the strange, silent figure on the little sorrel horse.
When Lee, Jackson and Stuart rode along the lines of Hooker's front that
fatal May morning, Jackson suddenly reined in his little sorrel and
turned his keen blue eyes on his grey-haired Chief:
"There's just one way, General Lee. The front and left are too strong. I
can swing my corps in a quick movement to the rear while you attack the
front. They will think it a retreat. Out of sight, I'll turn, march for
ten miles around their right wing, and smash it from the rear before
sundown."
Lee quickly approved the amazing plan of his lieutenant, though it
involved the necessity of his holding Hooker's centre and left in check
and that his nine thousand men behind the stone wall on Marye's Heights
should hold Sedgwick's forty thousand. He believed it could be done
until Jackson had completed his march.
He immediately ordered his attack on the centre and left of his enemy.
The artillery horses were cropping the tender dew-laden grass with
eagerness. They had had no breakfast. The riders sprang to their backs
at seven o'clock and they dashed into position.
Lee's guns opened the fateful day. For hours his lines blazed with the
steady sullen boom of artillery and rattle of musketry. Hooker's hosts
replied in kind.
At noon a shout swept the Federal lines that Lee's army was in retreat.
Sickles' division could see the long grey waves hurrying to the rear.
They were close enough to note the ragged, dirty, nondescript clothes
Jackson's men wore. No man in all the Union hosts doubted for a moment
that Lee had seen the hopelessness of his position and was hurrying to
save his little army of sixty-two thousand men from being crushed into
pulp by the jaws of a hundred and thirty thousand in two grand divisions
closing in on him. It was a reasonable supposition--always barring the
utterly unexpected--another name for Stonewall Jackson, whom they seemed
to have forgotten for the moment.
Sickles, seeing the "retreat," sent a courier flying to Hooker, asking
for permission to follow the fugitives with his twenty thousand men.
Hooker consented, and Sickles leaped from his entrenchments and set out
in mad haste to overtake the flying columns. He got nearly ten miles in
the woods away from the battle lines before he realized that the ghostly
men in grey had made good their escape. Certainly they had disappeared
from view.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon when Jackson's swift, silent
marchers began to draw near to the unsuspecting right wing of Hooker's
army under the command of General Howard.
Ned Vaughan was in Jackson's skirmish line feeling the way through the
tender green foliage of the spring. The days were warm and the leaves
far advanced--the woods so dense it was impossible for picket or
skirmisher to see more than a hundred yards ahead--at some points not a
hundred feet.
The thin, silent line suddenly swept into the little opening of a negro
cabin with garden and patch of corn. A kindly old colored woman was
standing in the doorway.
She looked into the faces of these eager, slender Southern boys and they
were her "children." The meaning of war was real to her only when it
meant danger to those she loved.
She ran quickly up to Ned, her eyes dancing with excitement:
"For de Lawd's sake, honey, don't you boys go up dat road no fudder!"
"Why, Mammy?" he asked with a smile.
"Lordy, chile, dey's thousan's, an' thousan's er Yankees des over dat
little hill dar--dey'll kill every one er you all!"
"I reckon not, Mammy," Ned called, hurrying on.
She ran after him, still crying:
"For Gawd's sake, come back here, honey--dey kill ye sho!"
She was calling still as Ned disappeared beyond the cabin into the woods
redolent now with the blossoms of chinquepin bushes and the rich odors
of sweet shrub.
They climbed the little ridge on whose further slope lay an open field,
and caught their first view of Howard's unsuspecting division. They
halted and sent their couriers flying with the news to Jackson.
Ned looked on the scene with a thrill of exultation and then a sense of
deepening pity. The boys in blue had begun to bivouac for the night,
their camp fires curling through the young green leaves. The men were
seated in groups laughing, talking, joking and playing cards. The horses
were busy cropping the young grass.
"God have mercy on them!" Ned exclaimed.
It was nearly six o'clock before Jackson's men had all slipped silently
into position behind the dense woods on this little slope--in two long
grim battle lines, one behind the other, with columns in support, his
horse artillery with their big guns shotted and ready.
Ned saw a slight stir in the doomed camp of blue. The men were standing
up now and looking curiously toward those dense woods. A startled flock
of quail had swept over their heads flying straight down from the lull
crest. A rabbit came scurrying from the same direction--and then
another. And then another flock of quail swirled past and pitched among
the camp fires, running and darting in terror on the ground.
An officer drew his revolver and potted one for his supper.
The men glanced uneasily toward the woods but could see nothing.
"What'ell ye reckon that means?"
"What ails the poor birds?"
"And the rabbits?"
They were not long in doubt. The sudden shrill note of a bugle rang from
the woods and Jackson's yelling grey lines of death swept down on their
unprotected rear.
The first regiments in sight were blown into atoms and driven as chaff
before a whirlwind. Behind them lay twenty regiments in their trenches
pointed the wrong way. The men leaped to their guns and fought
desperately to stay the rushing torrent. Beyond them was a ragged gap of
a whole mile without a man, left bare by the chase of Sickles' division
now ten miles away. Without support the shattered lines were crushed
and crumpled and rolled back in confusion. Every regiment was cut to
pieces and pushed on top of one another, men, horses, mules, cattle,
guns, in a tangled mass of blood and death.
Ned was sent to bring the supporting column to drive them on and on. He
mounted a horse and dashed back to the reserve line yelling his call:
"Hurry! Hurry up, men!"
"What's the hurry?" growled a grey coat.
"Hurry! Hurry!" Ned shouted. "We've captured fifty pieces of artillery
and ten thousand prisoners!"
"Then what'ell's the use er hurryin' us on er empty stomach--but we're
a-comin', honey--we're a-comin'!"
The colonel of a regiment snatched his hat off and was getting his men
ready for the charge. He waved his hand toward Ned:
"Make that damn-fool get out of the way. I'm going to charge. Now you
men listen--listen to me, I say! not to that fellow--listen to me!"
Ned could hear him still talking excitedly to his eager men as he dashed
back to the battle line.
General Hooker sat on the porch of the Chancellor House, his
headquarters. On the east there was heavy firing where his men were
attempting to carry out his orders to flank Lee's retreating army.
Sickles' and Pleasanton's cavalry were already in pursuit. By some
curious trick of the breeze or atmospheric conditions not a sound had
reached him from the direction of his right wing. A staff officer
suddenly turned his glasses to the west.
"My God, here they come!"
Before the astounded Commander could leap from the porch to his horse
the flying stragglers of his shattered right were pouring into
view--men, wagons, ambulances, in utter confusion. Hooker swung his old
division under General Berry into line and shouted to his veterans:
"Forward with the bayonet!"
The sturdy division plowed its way through the receding blue waves of
panic-stricken men and dashed into the face of the overwhelming hosts.
Major Keenan, in command of the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry, charged with
his gallant five hundred into the face of almost certain death and held
the grey lines in check until the artillery of the Third Corps was saved
and turned on the advancing Confederates. He fell at the head of his
men.
The fighting now became a battle. It was no longer a rout.
Ned saw a lone deaf man in blue standing bareheaded, fighting a whole
army so intent on his work he hadn't noticed that his regiment had
retreated and left him.
Two men in grey raised their muskets and fired point blank at this man
at the same instant. The unconscious hero fell.
"I hit him!" cried one.
"No, I hit him!" said the other.
And they both rushed up and tenderly offered him help.
A grey soldier came hurrying by taking two prisoners to the rear. A
cannon ball from the rescued battery cut off his leg and he dropped
beside Ned shouting hysterically:
"Pick me up! Pick me up! Why don't you pick me up?"
The blue prisoner looked back in terror at the battery and started to
run. A grey soldier stopped them:
"Here! Here! What'ell's the matter with you? Them's your own guns. What
are ye tryin' to get away from 'em for?"
Men were falling now at every step.
Ned had advanced a hundred yards further when the boy on his right
suddenly threw his hands over his head and his leg full to the ground,
cut off by a cannon ball, Ned leaped to his side and caught him in his
arms. A look of anguish swept his strong young face as he gasped:
"My poor old mother! O my God, what'll she do now?"
Ned tied his handkerchief around the mangled leg, twisted the knot, and
stayed the blood gushing from the severed arteries, and rushed back to
his desperate work.
Four horses dashed by his side dragging through the woods a big gun to
train on the battery that was plowing through their lines. A solid shot
crashed straight through a horse's head, blinding Ned with blood and
brains.
He threw his hand to his face and buried it in the hot quivering mass,
exclaiming:
"My God, boys, my brains are out!"
"You've got the biggest set I ever saw then!" the Captain said, helping
him to clear his eyes.
A shell exploded squarely against the gun carriage, hurling it into junk
and piling all four horses on the ground. Their dying cries rang
pitifully through the smoke-wreathed woods. One horse lifted his head,
placed both fore feet on the ground and tried to rise. His hind legs
were only shreds of torn flesh. He neighed a long, quivering,
soul-piercing shriek of agony and a merciful officer drew his revolver
and killed him.
A cannoneer lay by this horse's side with both his legs hopelessly
crushed so high in the thick flesh of the thighs there was no hope. He
was moaning horribly. He turned his eyes in agony to the officer who had
shot the horse:
"Please, Captain--for the love of God--shoot me, too, I can't live----"
The Captain shook his head.
"Have mercy on me--for Jesus' sake--kill me--you were kind to my
horse--can't you do as much for me?"
The Captain turned away in anguish. He couldn't even send for morphine.
The South had no more morphine. The blockade's iron hand was on her
hospitals now.
Ned fought for half an hour behind a tree. Twice the bullets striking
the hark knocked pieces into his eyes. He was sure at least fifty Minie
balls struck it.
A bald-headed Colonel rushed by at double quick leading a fresh regiment
into action to support them. The hell of battle was not so hot the
Southern soldier had lost his sense of humor. They were glad to see this
dashing old fighter and they told him so in no uncertain way.
"Hurrah for Baldy!"
"Sick 'em, Baldy--sick 'em----"
"I'll bet on old man Baldy every time----"
"Hurrah for the bald-headed man!"
The Colonel paid no attention to their shouts. The flash of his muskets
in the deepening twilight turned the tide in their favor. The big guns
had been unlimbered and pulled back deeper into the blue lines.
John Vaughan's line was swung to support the charge of Hooker's old
division which first halted the rush of Jackson's men. In the field
beyond the Chancellor House stood a huge straw stack. As the regiment
rushed by at double quick the Colonel spied a panic-stricken officer
crouching in terror behind the pile.
The Colonel slapped him across the shoulders with his sword:
"What sort of a place is this for you, sir?"
Through chattering teeth came the trembling response:
"W-w-hy, m-my God, do you think the bullets can come through?"
The Colonel threw up his hands in rage and pressed on with his men.
A wagon loaded with entrenching tools, on which sat half a dozen negroes
rattled by on its way to the rear. A solid shot plumped squarely into
the load.
John saw picks, spades, shovels and negroes suddenly fill the air. Every
negro lit on his feet and his legs were running when he struck the
ground. They reached the tall timber before the last pick fell.
The regiments were going into battle double quick, but they were not
going so fast they couldn't laugh.
"Hurry up men!" the Colonel called. "Hurry up, let's get in there and
help 'em!"
A moment more and they were in it.
The man beside John threw up both hands and dropped with the dull,
unmistakable thud of death--the soldier who has been in battle knows the
sickening sound.
They were thrown around the Third Corps battery to protect their guns
which had been dragged to a place more securely within the lines. Still
their gunners kept falling one by one--falling ominously at the crack of
a single gun in the woods. A Confederate sharpshooter had climbed a tree
and was picking them off.
A tall Westerner spoke to the Colonel:
"Let me go huntin' for him!"
The Commander nodded and John went with him--why? He asked himself the
question before he had taken ten steps through the shadowy underbrush.
The answer was plain. He knew the truth at once. The elemental brutal
instinct of the hunter had kindled at the flash in that Westerner's eye.
It would be a hunt worth while--the game was human.
For five minutes they crept through the bushes hiding from tree to tree
in the open spaces. They searched the tops in vain, when suddenly a
piece of white oak bark fluttered down from the sky and struck the
ground at their feet.
The Westerner smiled at John and stood motionless:
"Well, I'm damned!"
They waited breathlessly, afraid to look up into the boughs of the
towering oak beneath which they were standing.
"Don't move now!" the man from the West cried, "and I'll pot him."
Slowly he stepped backward, softly, noiselessly, his eye fixed in the
treetop, his gun raised and finger on the trigger.
He stopped, aimed, and fired.
John looked up and saw the grey figure fall back from the tree trunk and
plunge downward, bounding from limb to limb and striking the ground
within ten feet of where he stood with heavy thud. The blood was gushing
in red streams from his nose and mouth.
They turned and hurried back to their lines--another fierce attack was
being made on those guns. The men in grey charged and drove them a
hundred feet before they rallied and pushed them back with frightful
loss on both sides.
John's Captain fell, dangerously wounded, and lay fifty feet beyond
their battle line. The dry leaves in the woods had taken fire from a
shell and the blaze was nearing the wounded men. The Westerner coolly
leaped from his position behind a tree, walked out in a hail of lead,
picked up his wounded Commander, and carried him safely to the rear. He
had just stepped back to take his stand in line by John's side when a
flying piece of shrapnel tore a hole in his side. He dropped to his
knees, sank lower to his elbow, turned his blue eyes to the darkening
sky and slowly muttered as if to himself:
"Poor--little--wife--and--babies!"
The night was drawing her merciful veil over the scene at last. Jackson
having crushed and mangled Hooker's right wing and rolled it back in red
defeat over five miles in two hours, was slowly feeling his way on his
last reconnaissance for the day to make his plans for the next. Through
a fatal misunderstanding he was fired on by his own men and borne from
the field fatally wounded.
A shiver of horror thrilled the Southerners when the news of Jackson's
fall was whispered through the darkness.
At midnight Sickles led his division back into the dense woods and for
three terrible hours the men on both sides fought as demons in the
shadows. The long lines of blazing muskets in the darkness looked like
the onward rush of a forest fire. At times two solid walls of flame
seemed to leap through the tree tops into the starlit heavens. A small
portion of the captured ground was recovered at a frightful loss--and no
man knows to this day how many gallant men in blue were shot down by
their own comrades in the darkness and confusion of that mad assault.
Hooker sent a desperate call to Sedgwick to hurry to his relief by
carrying out his plan of sweeping Marye's Heights and falling on Lee's
rear.
At dawn Stuart in command of Jackson's corps led the new charge on
Hooker's lines, his grey veterans shouting:
"Remember Jackson!"
Through the long hours of the terrible third day of May the fierce
combat of giants raged. During the morning Hooker's headquarters were
reached by the Confederate artillery and the old Chancellor House,
filled with the wounded, was knocked to pieces and set on fire. The
women and children and slaves of the Chancellor family were shivering in
its cellar while the shells were hurling its bricks and timbers in
murderous fury on the helpless wounded who lay in hundreds in the yard.
The men from both armies rushed into this hell and carried the wounded
to a place of safety.
General Hooker was wounded and the report flew over the Federal army
that he had been killed. To allay their fears the General had himself
lifted into the saddle and rode down his lines and out of sight, when he
was taken unconscious from his horse.
Sedgwick was fighting his way with desperation now to force Marye's
Heights and strike Lee's rear.
Once more the stone wall blazed with death for the gallant men in blue.
They dashed themselves against it wave on wave, only to fall back in
confusion. They tried to flank it and failed. Hour after hour the mad
charges rolled against this hill and broke in deep red pools at its
base. There were but nine thousand men holding it against forty
thousand, but it was afternoon before the grey lines slowly gave way and
Sedgwick's victorious troops poured over the hill toward Lee's lines.
Hooker had asked him to appear at daylight. The long rows and mangled
heaps of the dead left on Marye's bloody slopes was sufficient answer to
all inquiries as to his delay.
But the way was still blocked. The receding line of grey was suddenly
supported by Early's division detached from Lee's reserves. Again
Sedgwick was stopped and fought until dark.
[Illustration: "Waving his plumed hat ... he put himself at the head of
his troops and charged."]
As the sun was sinking over the smoke-wreathed spring-clothed trees of
the wilderness, Stuart gathered Jackson's corps for a desperate assault
on Hooker's last line of defense. Waving his plumed hat high above his
handsome bearded face, he put himself at the head of his troops and
charged, chanting with boyish enthusiasm his improvised battle song:
"Old--Joe--Hooker,
Won't you come out o' the Wilderness!
Come out o' the Wilderness!
Come out o' the Wilderness!
Old--Joe--Hooker--
Come out o' the Wilderness--
Come--come--I say!"
The cheering grey waves swept all before them and left Lee in full
possession of Chancellorsville and the whole position the Federal army
had originally held.
As the Confederates rolled on, driving the fiercely fighting men in blue
before them, Lee himself rode forward to encourage his men and then it
happened--the thing for which the great have fought, and longed, and
dreamed since time dawned--the spontaneous tribute of the brave to a
trusted leader.
His victorious troops went wild at the sight of him. Above the crash and
roar of battle rose the shouts of the Southerners:
"Hurrah for Lee!"
"Lee!"
"Lee!"
From lip to lip the thrilling name leaped until the wounded and the
dying turned their eyes to see and raised their feeble voices:
"Lee!--Lee!--Lee!"
It was at this moment that he received the note from Jackson announcing
that he was badly wounded. With the shouts of his men ringing in his
ears, he drew his pencil and wrote across the pommel of his saddle:
"GENERAL: I have just received your note informing me that you are
wounded. I cannot express my regret at the occurrence. Could I have
directed events, I should have chosen, for the good of the country,
to be disabled in your stead.
"I congratulate you upon the victory which is due to your skill and
energy.
"Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
"R. E. LEE,
"GENERAL."
It was quick, bloody work next day for the Southerner to turn and spring
on Sedgwick with the ferocity of a tiger, crush and hurl his battered
and bleeding corps back on the river.
Under cover of a storm General Couch, in command of Hooker's army,
retreated across the Rappahannock. The blue and grey picket lines that
night were so close to each other the men could talk freely. The
Southern boys were chaffing the Northerners over their oft repeated
defeats. Through the darkness a Yankee voice drawled:
"Ah, Johnnie, shut up--you make us tired! You're not so much as you
think you are. Swap Generals with us and we'll come over and lick hell
out of you!"
A silence fell over the boasting ones and then the listening Yankee
heard a low voice chuckle to his comrade:
"I'm damned if they wouldn't, too!"
When the grey dawn broke through the storm they began to bury the dead
and care for the wounded. The awful struggle had ended at last.
The Northern army had lost seventeen thousand men, the Southerners
thirteen thousand.
It was a great victory for the South, but a few more such victories and
there would be none of her brave boys left to tell the story.
John Vaughan's company had been detailed to help in cleaning the field.
The day before, on Sunday morning, they had eaten their breakfast seated
on the ground among hundreds of dead bodies whose odor poisoned the air.
It is needless to say, Julius was not present. He had kept the river
between him and the roar of contending hosts.
The suffering of the wounded had been terrible. Some of them had fallen
on Friday, thousands on Saturday, and it was now Monday. All through the
blood-soaked tangled woods they lay groaning and dying. And everywhere
the flap of black wings. The keen-eyed vultures had seen from the sky
where they fell.
John found a brave old farmer from Northern New York lying beside his
son. He had met them in the fight at Fredericksburg in December.
"Well, here we are, Vaughan," the father cried feebly. "My boy's dead,
and I'll be with him soon--but it's all right--it's all right--my
country's worth it!"
They were lying in a bright open space, where the warm sun of May had
pushed the wood violets into blossom in rich profusion. The dead boy's
head lay in a bed of blue flowers.
Some of the bodies further on were black and charred by the flames that
had swept the woods again and again during the battles. Some of them had
been wounded men and they had been burned to death. Their twisted bodies
and the agony on their cold faces told the hideous story more plainly
than words. The odor of burning flesh still filled the air in these
black spots.
With a start John suddenly came on the crouching figure of a Confederate
soldier kneeling behind a stump, the paper end of the cartridge was in
his teeth and his fingers still grasped the ball. He was just in the act
of tearing the paper as a bullet crashed straight through his forehead.
A dark streak of blood marked his face and clothes. His gun was in his
other hand, the muzzle in place to receive the cartridge, the body cold
and rigid in exactly the position death had called him.
A broad-shouldered, bearded man in blue had just fallen asleep nearby.
The body was still warm, the blue eyes wide open, staring into the
leaden sky. On his breast lay an open Bible with a bloody finger mark on
the lines:
"The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures--
He restoreth my soul."
A hundred yards further lay a dead boy from his own company. The stiff
hands were still holding a picture of his sweetheart before the staring
eyes. Near him lay a boy in grey with a sweetheart's letter clasped in
his hand. They had talked and tried to cheer one another, these dying
boys--talked of those they loved in far off villages as the mists of
eternity had gathered about them.
It was late that night before the wounded had all been moved. Through
every hour of its black watches the surgeons, with their sleeves rolled
high, their arms red, bent over their tasks, until legs and arms were
piled in ghastly heaps ten feet high.
As John Vaughan turned from the scene where he had laid a wounded man to
wait his turn, his eye caught the look of terror on the face of a
wounded Southern boy. He was a slender little dark-haired fellow, under
sixteen, a miniature of Ned. The surgeon had just taken up his knife to
cut into the deep flesh wound for the Minie ball embedded there. John
saw the slender face go white and the terror-stricken young eyes search
the room for help. His breath came in quick gasps and he was about to
faint.
John slipped his arm around him:
"Just a minute, Doctor----"
He pressed his hand and whispered:
"Come now, little man, you're among your enemies. You've got to be
brave. Show your grit for the South. I've got a brother in your army who
looks like you. No white feather now when these Yankees can see you."
The slender figure stiffened and his eyes flashed:
"All right!" the sturdy lips cried. "Let him go ahead--I'm ready now!"
John held his hand, while the knife cut through the soft young flesh and
found the lead. The grip of the slim fingers tightened, but he gave no
cry. John handed him the bullet to put in his pocket and left him
smiling his thanks.
He began to wonder vaguely if he had lost his cook forever. Julius
should have found the regiment before this. It was just before day that
he came on him working with might and main at a job that was the last
one on earth he would have selected.
He had been seized by a burying squad and put to work dragging corpses
to the trenches from the great piles where the wagons had dumped them.
The black man rolled his eyes in piteous appeal to his master:
"For Gawd's sake, Marse John, save me--dese here men won't lemme go. I
been er throwin' corpses inter dem trenches since dark. I'se most dead
frum work, let 'lone bein' scared ter death."
"Sorry, Julius," was the quick answer, "we've all got to work at a time
like this. There's no help for it."
Julius bent again to his horrible task. The thing that appalled him was
the way the dead men kept looking at him out of their eyes wide and
staring in the flickering light of the lanterns.
John stood watching him thoughtfully. He had finished one pile of
bodies, dragging them by the heels one by one, and throwing them into
the trenches. He was just about to begin on the last stack when he saw
that he had left one lying a little further back in the shadows.
Julius looked at it dubiously and scratched his head. He didn't like the
idea of going so far back in the dark, away from the light, but there
was no help for it. The guard stood with his musket scowling:
"Get a move on you--damn you, don't stand there!" he growled.
Julius walled his eyes at his tormentor and ran for the body. It
happened to be the sleeping form of a tired guard who had been up three
nights. The negro grabbed his legs and rushed toward the lights and the
trenches.
He had almost reached the grave when the corpse gave a vicious kick and
yelled:
"Here--what'ell!"
Julius didn't stop to look or to answer. What he felt in his hands was
enough. With a yell of terror he dropped the thing and plunged straight
ahead.
"Gawd, save me!" he gasped.
His foot slipped on the edge of the trench and he rolled in the dark
hole. With the leap of a frightened panther he reached the solid earth
and flew, each leap a muttered prayer:
"Save me! Lawd, save me!"
Standing there beside the grim piles of his dead comrades John Vaughan
joined the guard in uncontrollable laughter. It was many a day before he
saw his cook again.
The laughter suddenly stopped, and he turned from the scene with a
shudder.
"I wonder," he muttered, "if I live through this war, whether I'll come
out of it with a soul!"
The report from Chancellorsville drifted slowly, ominously, appallingly,
over Washington with the clouds and mists of the storm which swept up
the Potomac and shrouded the city in a grey mantle of mourning. The
White House was still. The dead were walking through its great rooms of
state. The anguished heart who watched by the window toward the hills of
Virginia saw and heard each muffled footfall.
He walked to the table with stumbling, uncertain step at last, his face
ghastly and rigid, its color grey ashes, his deep set eyes streaming
with tears, sank helplessly into a chair, and for the first time gave
way to despair:
"O my God! My God! what will the country say!"