[LETTER FROM CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH TO MAJOR CHARLES FROBISHER.]
Fisher’s Hill, September 21, 1864.
My dear Charley:
Many thanks to your dear wife for the frequent bulletins she has found
time to send me in the intervals of nursing you, getting well herself,
and worshipping King Charles II. Have you agreed upon a name yet? Or,
rather, has Alice settled upon one? For I am told women claim the right
of naming the first.
Old boy, when I heard that a bullet had gone clean through you I thought
I had seen the last of you; and here you are on your pins again! A far
slighter wound would have sufficed to make “darkness veil the eyes” of
the stoutest of Homer’s heroes. What pin-scratches used to send them to
Hades!
And now, Patroklus, I will tell you why I refused, at the opening of the
war, to enter the same company of artillery with you. Your feelings were
wounded at the time, and I wanted to tell you why I was so obstinate,
but could not. To confess the honest truth, I had not the pluck to place
myself where I might have to see you die before my eyes. It would have
been different were we warring around Troy. There, I could have helped
you, on a pinch, and you me. But these winged messengers of death, who
can ward them off, even from the dearest friend!
I had a cruel trial in last week’s battle. When it became necessary to
order Edmund’s company to advance, my heart sank within me. [Edmund was
Mr. Poythress’s youngest child, a lad of barely sixteen summers, who had
chafed and pined till he had wrung from his mother a tearful consent to
his joining the army.] “If I do not come back,” he whispered in my ear,
“tell mother that her ‘baby’ was man enough to do his duty,—for I am
going to do it.” “Your company is moving,” I replied, in as stern a
voice as I could muster; for I felt a rush of tears coming; and he
bounded into his place. I have seen fair women in my day, and lovely
landscapes, and noble chargers; but never have my eyes beheld anything
so surpassingly beautiful as that ingenuous boy springing forward, under
a rain of bullets, with a farewell to his mother on his lips, and the
light of battle on his brow. I held my breath till he disappeared within
the wood. Why is it that we all shudder at the dangers of those we love,
and yet can be calm when our own lives hang by a thread? Is it not
because, while we know that the loss of a true friend is one never to be
repaired, and which casts a shadow upon our lives that can never be
lifted [Charley keeps this letter, with another little note, which you
will read later on, in a blue satin case, that Alice has embroidered
with forget-me-nots. He showed it to me on the nineteenth of last
October. The satin is all faded (and spotted, here and there) but time
has not dulled the colors of the flowers], there is a profound, though
veiled conviction, deep down in the heart of hearts of all of us, that,
as for ourselves, it were better were we at rest? It seems to me that it
is only the instinctive fear of death, which we share with the lower
animals, and that conscience which makes brave men, _not_ cowards of us
all, that nerves such of us as have the cruel gift of thought to bear up
to the end, against the slings and arrows of the most favored life,
even. But it is a shame that I should write thus to a man with a
brand-new baby!
I cannot picture to myself Alice as a mother; though, thanks to her
graphic pen, I have a very clear conception of you as pater familias. I
have laughed till I cried over her accounts of you sunning the youngster
in the garden while the nurse was at her dinner, and the way you held
him, and the extraordinary observations you see fit to make to him. I
can’t blame him for smiling. The andante in Mozart’s D minor quartet is
very beautiful; but never did I expect to hear of Charles Frobisher
extemporizing words to it as a lullaby, while he rocked his infant to
sleep!
But it is time I gave you some account of our late disastrous battle at
Winchester. In order to understand it, you must have before your mind a
picture of the region in which it was fought.
The valley of Virginia is a narrow ribbon of land, as it were,
stretching diagonally across the State, between the Blue Ridge and
Alleghany Mountains. As its fertility attracted settlers at an early
date, its forests have mostly fallen years ago. This is especially true
of the region around Winchester, which is situated in the midst of a
broad, fertile plain, broken by rolling hills, crowned, here and there,
by the fair remains of singularly noble forests. One would say, standing
upon an eminence, and surveying the smiling landscape, that this lovely
plain was fashioned by the hand of the Creator as the abode of plenty
and eternal peace. Yet a poet, remembering that it is not peace, but war
that man loves, could not, in his dreams, picture to himself a more
beautiful battle-field. And if I have to fall, may it be on one of thy
sunny slopes, valiant little Winchester; and may the last thing my eyes
behold be the handkerchiefs waving from thy housetops. Such women are
worth dying, yes, even worth living for.
Observe, therefore, that the plains of Winchester are admirably adapted
for the rapid and intelligent manœuvring of large masses of troops.
Artillery, infantry, cavalry,—every arm of the service may move in any
direction with perfect facility. And I need not tell an old soldier that
such a field gives overwhelming advantage to a greatly superior force.
When a general, as his troops advance to the attack, can see just where
the enemy are, and how far they extend,—can see their reserves hurrying
forward, and knows that when they are all hotly engaged he can push
heavy masses of fresh troops around both flanks, and attack in the rear
men who are already outnumbered in front, what can save the weaker army
from annihilation? And yet, on the nineteenth of this month, Early’s
little army of ten thousand troops withstood, in front of Winchester, in
the open field, without breastworks, from dawn till late in the
afternoon, the assaults of forty thousand of the enemy. [_Note._—This
is an error on the part of the captain, but I retain his statement of
the numbers engaged, just as he gives them, simply to show what was the
universal belief of our soldiers at the time,—that they were
outnumbered four to one. The true figures show that Early had fifteen
thousand, Sheridan forty-five thousand men,—or only three to one. _J.
B. W._][1] How a solitary man of us escaped I shall never be able to
understand.
Possibly you have not seen in the papers that on the seventeenth Early
sent our division down the valley to Martinsburg (twenty-two miles) to
make a reconnoissance. We did a little skirmishing there, and on the
next day encamped, on our return, at a place called Bunker’s
Hill,—named, I presume, in honor of the Bunker’s Hill on which Boston,
with a magnanimity unparalleled in history, has erected an imposing
monument to commemorate the gallant storming of Breed’s Hill by the
British. Here we lay down to rest. I will not say to sleep; for never,
since the beginning of the war, had I felt so profoundly anxious.
Picture to yourself our situation.
There we were, twelve miles down the valley, twenty-five hundred men;
while, near Berryville, over against our main body of about eight
thousand men at Winchester, lay an army forty thousand strong. Suppose
Sheridan should attack in our absence? True, Early had marched over to
Berryville, a few days before, and offered him battle in vain. But
suppose he _did_ attack? Could he not in an hour’s time (for forty
thousand against eight is rather _too_ much) drive Early’s force
pell-mell across the pike, and, with his immense force of cavalry,
capture the last man he had? And then _we_ would have nothing to do but
march up the valley, like a covey of partridges, into a net.
Such were the thoughts which flashed across my mind, with painful
intensity, at dawn next morning. Weary with anxious thinking, I had
fallen to sleep at last. The boom of a cannon swept down from
Winchester. We are lost, was my first thought. Our army will be
annihilated. Sheridan will set out on his march to the rear of Richmond
to-morrow morning.
I rose without a word, as did others around me, and completed my toilet
by buckling on my sword and pistols. There, on my blanket, lay Edmund,
sleeping the sweet, deep sleep of boyhood. I could hardly make up my
mind to arouse him. “Get up,” said I, touching his shoulder; “they are
fighting at Winchester.” “They are!” cried he, leaping to his feet. The
_gaudium certaminis_ was in his eyes. The boy is every inch a soldier.
We hurried up the turnpike without thinking of breakfast, the roar of
the battle growing louder as we advanced. Edmund chattered the whole
way, asking me, again and again, whether I thought it would be all over
before we got there. He had not yet been in a battle, and was full of
eager courage. I told him I thought he would have a chance at them,
though I actually thought that all would be over before we reached the
ground. And what do you suppose we learned as we neared the field? That
Ramseur, with his twelve hundred men covering our front with hardly more
than a skirmish line, had held in check the heavy masses of the enemy
all this time! They had been attacked at dawn; we had marched twelve
miles; and there they were still, Ramseur and his heroic little band of
North Carolinians. And I single out the North Carolinians by name, not
so much because of their courage, as of their modesty.
Well, we were beaten that day, and badly beaten. That we were not
annihilated is what I cannot comprehend. And why we are allowed to rest
here and recuperate, with a vastly superior army, flushed with victory,
in our front, is equally difficult to understand. Why were we not
attacked at dawn next day? Yet, that he has not done so does not
surprise me, after what I saw of his generalship at the close of the
late battle. Put yourself beside me, and see what I saw on the afternoon
of September 19th.
We are standing on an open hill, just in rear of where our troops have
fought so stubbornly the livelong day. Where is our army? It no longer
exists. It has been hammered to pieces. Here and there you see a man
slowly retiring, and loading his rifle as he falls back. Every now and
then he turns and fires. One here, and one there,—this is all the army
we have.
Now look over there, at that field, to the left of the position lately
held by us. Those are the enemy’s skirmishers, advancing from a wood.
Their long line stretches far away, and is lost to view behind that rise
in the hill. At whom are they firing? Heaven knows, for there is no
enemy in their front. And now the dense masses of their infantry appear,
in rear of the skirmishers, and glide slowly across the hill, like the
shadow of a black cloud. Come, Edmund, cheer up, and have a crack at
them. (The boy is standing apart, his powder-begrimed face streaked with
decorous tears.) Set your sight at six hundred yards. Come here, and let
me give you a rest on my hip. Yes, the man with the flag. Ah, you have
made a stir among them. The line moves on, but one man lies stretched
upon the field, with two others kneeling beside him. There is the making
of a sharpshooter in the boy!
And what ponderous form is this that comes towards us, limping and
disconsolate? ’Tis our friend Jack. He, I need hardly tell you, ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻
✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ But he lost heart when his
powerful charger fell beneath him, disembowelled by a cannon-ball. Poor
Bucephalus! He had carried him through twenty battles as though he were
a feather; and where was he to find another horse that could carry him
at all! (Edmund tells a good story of Jack. He says that while he stood
lamenting the death of his valiant steed, one of our advancing brigades,
first staggering under the heavy fire, then halting, were beginning to
give way. “Boys,” cried Jack (he will have his joke), “boys, follow me!
If they can’t hit me, they can’t hit anybody!” Edmund says that some of
the soldiers laughed; and that as they followed the burly captain he
heard one of them say to his neighbor, “Mind now; if they do hit him, I
claim his breeches as a winter-quarters tent.”)
Look, now, at those dark masses, halted in full view on that rising
ground to our right. They are as near Winchester as we are. What are
they doing there? Surely they can see that there are no troops between
themselves and the town! Why do they not go and take it? Can it be their
advance has been checked by the stray shots of a score of retreating
sharpshooters?
Now turn and look a mile away, to our left. See that dense cloud of
dust, lit up with the flashing of carbine-shots, the gleaming of sabres,
and the glare of bursting shells! There, along the pike, our handful of
cavalry, struggling bravely with overwhelming odds, is falling back upon
the town. Come, Edmund, there is no use staying here any longer. Yes, I
think they will get there before us. Pluck up your spirits, my boy; a
true soldier shows best in adversity.
I have not tried, my dear Charley, to give you a military account of
this battle. I have striven, instead, to lay before you a picture of the
field as it appeared when Edmund, Jack, and I sadly turned towards
Winchester. It was then the middle of the afternoon. Would you believe
that we reached the town in safety,—entered a house, whose fair inmates
gave us bread (it was all—almost more than all they had),—retired,
afterwards, up the pike, along which our soldiers straggled in twos and
threes,—went into camp,—arose next morning,—and made our way to
Fisher’s Hill? And here we are still, resting as quietly as though no
enemy were in our front!
I have known men to leave the gaming-table, after a big run of luck, so
as to spend their winnings before the tide turned. Perhaps our friends
the enemy wish to enjoy their glory awhile before risking the loss of it
in another battle; but it isn’t war.
✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻
✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻
Yours, ever,
Dory.
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[1] See Geo. A. Pond’s “Shenandoah Valley Campaigns,” if more minute
accuracy is desired.—_Ed._