THE BRIGADE COMMANDER
J. W. DEFOREST
WHO WAS SHE?
BAYARD TAYLOR
MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
BROTHER SEBASTIAN'S FRIENDSHIP
HAROLD FREDERIC
A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING
HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN
THE IDYL OF RED GULCH
BRET HARTE
CRUTCH, THE PAGE
GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND ("GATH")
IN EACH OTHER'S SHOES
GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP
THE DENVER EXPRESS
A. A. HAYES
JAUNE D'ANTIMOINE
THOMAS ALLIBONE JANVIER
OLE 'STRACTED
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
OUR CONSUL AT CARLSRUHE
F. J. STIMSON ("J. S. OF DALE")
THE BRIGADE COMMANDER
---------------------
BY J. W. DE FOREST
_ John William De Forest (born March 36, 1826, in Seymour, Ct.) at the
outbreak of the Rebellion abandoned a promising career as a historian
and writer of books of travel to enlist in the Union army. He served
throughout the entire war, first as captain, then as major, and so
acquired a thorough knowledge of military tactics and the psychology of
our war which enabled him, on his return to civil life, to write the
best war stories of his generation. Of these "The Brigade Commander" is
Mr. De Forest's masterpiece. Solidly grounded on experience, and
drawing its emotive power from our greatest national cataclysm, like a
Niagara dynamo the story sends us a thrill undiminishing with the
increasing distance of its source._
THE BRIGADE COMMANDER
BY J. W. DEFOREST
[Footnote: By permission of "The 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 worr-ship 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
urn. 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 tomorry, 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, not a torch, nor a star-beam in the whole bivouac
to guide the feet of Adjutant Wallis in his pilgrimage after whiskey.
The orders from brigade headquarters had been strict against
illuminations, for the Confederates were near at hand in force, and a
surprise was proposed 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 whiskey.
"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 barkeeper. "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 whiskey."
"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's 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 to 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 Crumps.
"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 anear, put out his hand to touch
his sabre and revolver, drew his caped greatcoat 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 a 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 sunburned
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; Gilder-sleeve, 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 Crumps, 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 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 defence, 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,
infold 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 highroad,
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, manoeuvring 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 next two 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 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."
"Currnel, 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 tomorrow."
"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 fell 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 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's 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."