THE BRIDGE AT PORT REPUBLIC
The seventh of June was passed by the Army of the Valley in a quiet that
seemed unnatural. For fifteen days, north from Front Royal to Harper's
Ferry, south from Harper's Ferry to Port Republic, cannon had thundered,
musketry rattled. Battle here and battle there, and endless skirmishing!
"One male and three foights a day," said Wheat's Irishmen. But this
Saturday there was no fighting. The cavalry watched both flanks of the
Massanuttons. The main army rested in the rich woods that covered the
hills above the North Fork of the Shenandoah. Headquarters were in the
village across the river, spanned by a covered bridge. Three miles to
the northwest Ewell's division was strongly posted near the hamlet of
Cross Keys. From the great south peak of the Massanuttons a signal party
looked down upon Fremont's road from Harrisonburg, and upon the road by
which Shields must emerge from the Luray Valley. The signal officer,
looking through his glass, saw also a road that ran from Port Republic
by Brown's Gap over the Blue Ridge into Albemarle, and along this road
moved a cortege--soldiers with the body of Ashby. The dead general's
mother was in Winchester. They would have taken him there, but could
not, for Fremont's army was between. So, as seemed next most fit, they
carried him across the mountains into Albemarle, to the University of
Virginia. Up on Massanutton the signal officer's hand shook. He lowered
his glass and cleared his throat: "War's a short word to say all it
says--"
Fremont rested at Harrisonburg after yesterday's repulse. On the other
side of Massanutton was Shields, moving south from Luray under the
remarkable impression that Jackson was at Rude's Hill and Fremont
effectively dealing with the "demoralized rebels." On the sixth he began
to concentrate his troops near where had been Columbia Bridge. On the
seventh he issued instructions to his advance guard.
_"The enemy passed New Market on the 5th. Benker's Division in pursuit.
The enemy has flung away everything, and their stragglers fill the
mountains. They need only a movement on the flank to panic-strike them,
and break them into fragments. No man has had such a chance since the
war commenced. You are within thirty miles of a broken, retreating
enemy, who still hangs together. Ten thousand Germans are on his rear,
who hang on like bull dogs. You have only to throw yourself down on
Waynesborough before him, and your cavalry will capture thousands, seize
his train and abundant supplies."_
In chase of this so beautiful a chance Shields set forth down the
eastern side of Massanutton, with intent to round the mountain at Port
Republic, turn north again, and somewhere on the Valley pike make that
will-o'-the-wisp junction with Fremont and stamp out rebellion. But of
late it had rained much, and the roads were muddy and the streams
swollen. His army was split into sections; here a brigade and there a
brigade, the advance south of Conrad's Store, the rear yet at Luray. He
had, however, the advantage of moving through leagues of forest, heavy,
shaggy, dense. It was not easy to observe the details of his operations.
Sunday morning dawned. A pearly mist wrapped the North Fork and the
South Fork of the Shenandoah, and clung to the shingle roofs and bowery
trees of the village between. The South Fork was shallow and could be
forded. The North Fork was deep and strong and crossed by a covered
bridge. Toward the bridge now, winding down from the near-by height on
which the brigade had camped, came a detail from the 65th--twenty men
led by Sergeant Mathew Coffin. They were chiefly Company A men, and they
were going to relieve the pickets along the South Fork. Thanks to Mr.
Commissary Banks, they had breakfasted well. The men were happy, not
hilariously so, but in a placid, equable fashion. As they came down,
over the wet grass, from the bluff, they talked. "Mist over the
Shenandoah's just like mist over the James"--"No, 'tisn't! Nothing's
like mist over the James."--"Well, the bridge's like the bridge at home,
anyway!"--"'Tisn't much like it. Hasn't got sidewalks inside."--"Yes, it
has!"--"No, it hasn't!"--"I know better, I've been through it."--"I've
been through it twice't--was through it after Elk Run, a month
ago!"--"Well, it hasn't got sidewalks, anyway,"--"I tell you it
has."--"You 're mistaken!"--"I'm not."--"You never did see straight
nohow!"--"If I was at home I'd thrash you!"
Mathew Coffin turned his head. "Who's that jowering back there? Stop it!
Sunday morning and all!"
He went on, holding his head straight, a trig, slender figure, breathing
irritation. His oval face with its little black moustache was set as
hard as its boyish curves permitted, and his handsome dark eyes had two
parallel lines above them. He marched as he marched always nowadays,
with a mien aggrieved and haughty. He never lost the consciousness that
he was wearing chevrons who had worn bars, and he was quite convinced
that the men continually compared his two states.
The progress down hill to the bridge was short. Before the party the
long, tunnel-like, weather-beaten structure loomed through the mist. The
men entered and found it dusk and warm, smelling of horses, the river,
fifteen feet below, showing through the cracks between the heavy logs of
the floor. The marching feet sounded hollowly, voices reverberated.
"Just like our bridge--told you 'twas--Ain't it like, Billy Maydew?"
"It air," said Billy. "I air certainly glad that we air a-crossing on a
bridge. The Shenandoah air a prop-o-si-tion to swim."
"How did you feel, Billy, when you got away?"
"At first, just like school was out," said Billy. "But when a whole
picket post started after me, 'n' I run fer it, 'n' the trees put out
arms to stop me, 'n' the dewberry, crawling on the ground, said to
itself, 'Hello! Let's make a trap'; 'n' when the rail fences all
hollered out, 'We're goin' to turn agin you!' 'n' when a bit of swamp
hollered louder than any, 'Let's suck down Billy Maydew--suck down Billy
Maydew!' 'n' when a lot o' bamboo vines running over cedars, up with
'Hold him fast until you hear a bullet whizzing!' 'n' I got to the
Shenandoah and there wa'n't no bridge, 'n' the Shenandoah says 'I'd just
as soon drown men as look at them!'--when all them things talked so, I
knew just how the critturs feel in the woods; 'n' I ain't so crazy about
hunting as I was--and I say again this here air a most con-ve-ni-ent
bridge."
With his musket butt he struck the boarded side. The noise was so
resoundingly greater than he had expected that he laughed and the men
with him. Now Sergeant Mathew Coffin was as nervous as a witch. He had
been marching along with his thoughts moodily hovering over the battery
he would take almost single-handed, or the ambush he would dislodge and
so procure promotion indeed. At the noise of the stick he started
violently. "Who did that? Oh, I see, and I might have known it! I'll
report you for extra duty--"
"Report ahead," said Billy, under his breath.
Coffin halted. "What was that you said, Maydew?"
"I didn't speak to you--sir."
"Well, you'll speak to me now. What was it you said then?" He came
nearer, his arm thrown up, though but in an angry gesture. "If I struck
you," thought Billy, "I'd be sorry for it, so I won't do it. But one
thing's sure--I certainly should like to!"
"If you don't answer me," said Coffin thickly, "I'll report you for
disobedience as well as for disorderly conduct! What was it you said
then?"
"I said, 'Report ahead--and be damned to you!'"
Coffin's lips shut hard. "Very good! We'll see how three days of
guardhouse tastes to you!--Forward!"
The party cleared the bridge and almost immediately found itself in the
straggling village street. The mist clung here as elsewhere, houses and
trees dim shapes, the surrounding hills and the dense woods beyond the
South Fork hardly seen at all. Coffin marched with flushed face and his
brows drawn together. He was mentally writing a letter on pale blue
paper, and in it he was enlarging upon ingratitude. The men sympathized
with Billy and their feet sounded resentfully upon the stones. Billy
alone marched with elaborate lightness, quite as though he were walking
on air and loved the very thought of the guardhouse.
Headquarters was an old corner house that had flung open its doors to
General Jackson with an almost tremulous eagerness. A flag waved before
the door, and there was a knot beneath of couriers and orderlies, with
staff officers coming and going. Opposite was a store, closed of course
upon Sunday, but boasting a deep porch with benches, to say nothing of
convenient kegs and boxes. Here the village youth and age alike found
business to detain them. The grey-headed exchanged remarks. "Sleep? No,
I couldn't sleep! Might as well see what's to be seen! I ain't got long
to see anything, and so I told Susan. When's he coming out?--Once't when
I was a little shaver like Bob, sitting on the scales there, I went with
my father in the stage-coach to Fredericksburg, I remember just as
well--and I was sitting before the tavern on a man's knee,--old man
'twas, for he said he had fought the Indians,--and somebody came riding
down the street, with two or three others. I jus' remember a blue coat
and a cocked hat and that his hair was powdered--and the man put me down
and got up, and everybody else before the tavern got up--and somebody
holloaed out 'Hurrah for General Washington--'"
There was a stir about the opposite door. An aide came out, mounted and
rode off toward the bridge. An orderly brought a horse from the
neighbouring stable. "That's his! That's General Jackson's!--Don't look
like the war horse in Job, does he now?--Looks like a doctor's
horse--Little Sorrel's his name." The small boy surged forward. "He's
coming out!"--"How do you know him?"--"G' way! You always know generals
when you see them! Great, big men, all trimmed up with gold. Besides, I
saw him last night."--"You didn't!"--"Yes, I did! Saw his shadow on the
curtain."--"How did you know 'twas his?"--"My mother said, 'Look, John,
and don't never forget. That's Stonewall Jackson.' And it was a big
shadow walking up and down, and it raised its hand--"
The church bell rang. A chaplain came out of the house. He had a Bible
in his hand, and he beamed on all around. "There's the first bell,
gentlemen--the bell, children! Church in a church, just like before we
went to fighting! Trust you'll all come, gentlemen, and you, too, boys!
The general hopes you'll all come."
Within headquarters, in a large bare room, Jackson was having his
customary morning half-hour with his heads of departments--an invariably
recurring period in his quiet and ordered existence. It was omitted only
when he fought in the morning. He sat as usual, bolt upright, large feet
squarely planted, large hands stiff at sides. On the table before him
were his sabre and Bible. Before him stood a group of officers. The
adjutant, Colonel Paxton, finished his report. The general nodded.
"Good! good! Well, Major Harman?"
The chief quartermaster saluted. "The trains, sir, had a good night.
There are clover fields on either side of the Staunton road and the
horses are eating their fill. A few have sore hoof and may have to be
left behind. I had the ordnance moved as you ordered, nearer the river.
An orderly came back last night from the convoy on the way to Staunton.
Sick and wounded standing it well. Prisoners slow marchers, but
marching. I sent this morning a string of wagons to Cross Keys, to
General Ewell. We had a stampede last night among the negro teamsters.
They were sitting in a ring around the fire, and an owl hooted or a bat
flitted. They had been telling stories of ha'nts, and they swore they
saw General Ashby galloping by on the white stallion."
"Poor, simple, ignorant creatures!" said Jackson. "There is no witch of
Endor can raise that horse and rider!--Major Hawks!"
The chief commissary came forward. "General Banks's stores are holding
out well, sir. We are issuing special rations to the men to-day--Sunday
dinner--fresh beef, rice and beans, canned fruits, coffee, sugar--"
"Good! good! They deserve the best.--Colonel Crutchfield--"
"I have posted Wooding's battery as you ordered, sir, on the brow of the
hill commanding the bridge. There's a gun of Courtney's disabled. I have
thought he might have the Parrott we captured day before yesterday.
Ammunition has been issued as ordered. Caissons all filled."
"Good!--Captain Boswell--Ah, Mr. Hotchkiss."
"Captain Boswell is examining the South Fork, sir, with a view to
finding the best place for the foot bridge you ordered constructed. I
have here the map you ordered me to draw."
"Good! Put it here on the table.--Now, Doctor McGuire."
"Very few reported sick this morning, sir. The good women of the village
are caring for those. Three cases of fever, two of pneumonia, some
dysentery, measles among the recruits. The medicines we got at
Winchester are invaluable; they and the better fare the men are getting.
Best of all is the consciousness of victory,--the confidence and
exaltation that all feel."
"Yes, doctor. God's shield is over us.--Captain Wilbourne--"
"I brought the signal party in from Peaked Mountain last night, sir. A
Yankee cavalry company threatened to cut us off. Had we stayed we should
have been captured. I trust, sir, that I acted rightly?"
"You acted rightly. You saw nothing of General Shields?"
"Nothing, sir. It is true that the woods for miles are extremely thick.
It would perhaps be possible for a small force to move unseen. But we
made out nothing."
Jackson rose and drew closer the sabre and the Bible. "That is all,
gentlemen. After religious services you will return to your respective
duties."
The sun was now above the mountain tops, the mist beginning to lift. It
lay heavily, however, over the deep woods and the bottom lands of the
South Fork, through which ran the Luray road, and on the South Fork
itself.--Clatter, clatter! Shots and cries! Shouting the alarm as they
came, splashing through the ford, stopping on the hither bank for one
scattering volley back into the woolly veil, came Confederate infantry
pickets and vedettes. "Yankee cavalry! Look out! Look out! Yankees!" In
the mist the foremost man ran against the detail from the 65th. Coffin
seized him. "Where? where?" The other gasped. "Coming! Drove us in!
Whole lot of them! Got two guns. All of Shields, I reckon, right
behind!" He broke away, tearing with his fellows into the village.
Sergeant Coffin and his men stared into the mist. They heard a great
splashing, a jingling and shouting, and in another instant were aware of
something looming like a herd of elephants. From the village behind them
burst the braying of their own bugles--headquarters summoning, baggage
train on the Staunton road summoning. The sound was shrill, insistent.
The shapes in the mist grew larger. There came a flash of rifles, pale
yellow through the drift as of lawn. Zzzzzz! Zzzzzz! sang the balls. The
twenty men of the 65th proceeded to save themselves. Some of them tore
down a side street, straight before the looming onrush. Others leaped
fences and brushed through gardens, rich and dank. Others found house
doors suddenly and quietly opening before them, houses with capacious
dark garrets and cellars. All the dim horde, more and more of it, came
splashing through the ford. A brazen rumbling arose, announcing guns.
The foremost of the horde, blurred of outline, preternaturally large,
huzzaing and firing, charged into the streets of Port Republic.
In a twinkling the village passed from her Sunday atmosphere to one of a
highly work-a-day Monday. The blue cavalry began to harry the place. The
townspeople hurried home, trumpets blared, shots rang out, oaths, shouts
of warning! Men in grey belonging with the wagon train ran headlong
toward their posts, others made for headquarters where the flag was and
Stonewall Jackson. A number, headed off, were captured at once. Others,
indoors when the alarm arose, were hidden by the women. Three staff
officers had walked, after leaving Jackson's council, toward a house
holding pretty daughters whom they meant to take to church. When the
clangour broke out they had their first stupefied moment, after which
they turned and ran with all their might toward headquarters. There was
fighting up and down the street. Half a dozen huzzaing and sabring
troopers saw the three and shouted to others nearer yet. "Officers! Cut
them off, you there!" The three were taken. A captain, astride of a
great reeking horse, towered above them. "Staff? You're staff? Is
Jackson in the town?--and where? Quick now! Eh--what!"
"That's a lovely horse. Looks exactly, I imagine, like Rozinante--"
"On the whole I should say that McClellan might be finding Richmond like
those mirages travellers tell about. The nearer he gets to it the
further it is away."
"It has occurred to me that if after the evacuation of Corinth
Beauregard should come back to Virginia--"
The captain in blue, hot and breathless, bewildered by the very success
of the dash into town, kept saying, "Where is Jackson? What? Quick
there, you! Where--" Behind him a corporal spoke out cavalierly. "They
aren't going to tell you, sir. There's a large house down there that's
got something like a flag before it--I think, too, that we ought to go
take the bridge."
The streams of blue troopers flowed toward the principal street and
united there. Some one saw the flag more plainly. "That's a
headquarters!--What if Jackson were there? Good Lord! what if we took
Jackson?" A bugler blew a vehement rally. "_All of you, come on! All of
you, come on!_" The stream increased in volume, began to move, a compact
body, down the street. "There are horses before that door! Look at that
nag! That's Jackson's horse!--No."--"Yes! Saw it at Kernstown! Forward!"
Stonewall Jackson came out of the house with the flag before it. Behind
him were those of his staff who had not left headquarters when the
invasion occurred, while, holding the horses before the door, waited,
white-lipped, a knot of most anxious orderlies. One brought Little
Sorrel. Jackson mounted with his usual slow deliberation, then, turning
in the saddle, looked back to the shouting blue horsemen. They saw him
and dug spurs into flanks. First he pulled the forage cap over his eyes
and then he jerked his hand into the air. These gestures executed he
touched Little Sorrel with the rowel and, his suite behind him, started
off down the street toward the bridge over the Shenandoah. One would not
have said that he went like a swift arrow. There was, indeed, an effect
of slowness, of a man traversing, in deep thought, a solitary plain. But
for all that, he went so fast that the space between him and the enemy
did not decrease. They came thunderingly on, a whole Federal charge--but
he kept ahead. Seeing that he did so, they began to discharge carbine
and pistol, some aiming at Little Sorrel, some at the grey figure riding
stiffly, bolt upright and elbows out. Little Sorrel shook his head,
snorted, and went on. Ahead loomed the bridge, a dusky, warm, gold-shot
tunnel below an arch of weather-beaten wood. Under it rolled with a
heavy sound the Shenandoah. Across the river, upon the green hilltops,
had arisen a commotion. All the drums were beating the long roll.
Stonewall Jackson and Little Sorrel came on the trodden rise of earth
leading to the bridge mouth. The blue cavalry shouted and spurred. Their
carbines cracked. The balls pockmarked the wooden arch. Jackson dragged
the forage cap lower and disappeared within the bridge. The four or five
with him turned and drew across the gaping mouth.
The blue cavalry came on, firing as they came. Staff and orderlies, the
grey answered with pistols. Behind, in the bridge, sounded the hollow
thunder of Little Sorrel's hoofs. The sound grew fainter. Horse and
rider were nearly across. Staff and orderlies fired once again, then,
just as the blue were upon them, turned, dug spur, shouted, and
disappeared beneath the arch.
The Federal cavalry, massed before the bridge and in the field to either
side, swore and swore, "He's out!--Jackson's out! There he goes--up the
road! Fire!--Damn it all, what's the use? He's charmed. We almost got
him! Good Lord! We'd all have been major-generals!"
A patrol galloped up. "They've got a great wagon train, sir, at the
other end of the village--ordnance reserve, supply, everything! It is in
motion. It's trying to get off by the Staunton road."
The cavalry divided. A strong body stayed by the bridge, while one as
large turned and galloped away. Those staying chafed with impatience.
"Why don't the infantry come up--damned creeping snails!"--"Yes, we
could cross, but when we got to the other side, what then?--No, don't
dare to burn the bridge--don't know what the general would
say."--"Listen to those drums over there! If Stonewall Jackson brings
all those hornets down on us!"--"If we had a gun--Speak of the
angels!--Unlimber right here, lieutenant!--Got plenty of canister? Now
if the damned infantry would only come on! Thought it was just behind us
when we crossed the ford--What's that off there?"
"That" was a sharp sputter of musketry. "Firing! Who are they firing at?
There aren't any rebels--we took them all prisoners--"
"There's fighting, anyway--wagon escort, maybe. The devil! Look across
the river! Look! All the hornets are coming down--"
Of the detail from the 65th Coffin and two others stood their ground
until the foremost of the herd was crossing the ford near at hand,
large, threatening, trumpeting. Then the three ran like hares, hearts
pounding at their sides, the ocean roaring in their ears, and in every
cell in their bodies an accurate impression that they had been seen, and
that the trumpeting herd meant to run down, kill or capture every grey
soldier in Port Republic! Underfoot was wet knot grass, difficult and
slippery; around was the shrouding mist. They thought the lane ran
through to another street, but it proved a cul-de-sac. Something rose
mistily before them; it turned out to be a cowshed. They flung
themselves against the door, but the door was padlocked. Behind the
shed, between it and a stout board fence, sprang a great clump of wet
elder, tall and rank, with spreading leaves; underneath, black, miry
earth. Into this they crowded, squatted on the earth, turned face toward
the passage up which they had come, and brought their rifles to the
front. A hundred yards away the main herd went by, gigantic in the mist.
The three in the elder breathed deep. "All gone. Gone!--No. There's a
squad coming up here."
The three kneeling in the mire, watching through triangular spaces
between the branchy leaves, grew suddenly, amazingly calm. What was the
sense in being frightened? You couldn't get away. Was there anywhere to
go to one might feel agitation enough, but there wasn't! Coffin handled
his rifle with the deliberation of a woman smoothing her long hair. The
man next him--Jim Watts--even while he settled forward on his knees and
raised his musket, turned his head aside and spat. "Derned old fog
always gits in my throat!" A branch of elder was cutting Billy Maydew's
line of vision. He broke it off with noiseless care and raised to his
shoulder the Enfield rifle which he had acquired at Winchester. There
loomed, at thirty feet away, colossal beasts bestridden by giants.
Suddenly the mist thinned, lifted. The demon steeds and riders resolved
themselves into six formidable looking Federal troopers. From the main
street rang the Federal bugles, vehemently rallying, imperative.
Shouting, too, broke out, savage, triumphant, pointed with pistol
shots. The bugle called again, _Rally to the colours! Rally!_
"I calculate," said one of the six blue horsemen, "that the boys have
found Stonewall."
"Then they'll need us all!" swore the trooper leading. "If anybody's in
the cow-house they can wait."--_Right about face! Forward! Trot!_
The men within the elder settled down on the wet black earth. "Might as
well stay here, I suppose," said Coffin. Jim Watts began to shiver.
"It's awful damp and cold. I've got an awful pain in the pit of my
stomach." He rolled over and lay groaning. "Can't I go, sir?" asked
Billy. "I kind of feel more natural in the open."
Now Mathew Coffin had just been thinking that while this elder bush
springing from muddy earth, with a manure heap near, was damned
uncomfortable, it was better than being outside while those devils were
slashing and shooting. Perhaps they would ride away, or the army might
come over the bridge, and there would be final salvation. He had even
added a line to the letter he was writing, "An elder bush afforded me
some slight cover from which to fire--" And now Billy Maydew wanted to
go outside and be taken prisoner! Immediately he became angry again.
"You're no fonder of the open than I am!" he said, and his upper lip
twitched one side away from his white teeth.
Billy, his legs already out of the bush, looked at him with large, calm
grey eyes. "Kin I go?"
"Go where? You'll get killed."
"You wouldn't grieve if I did, would you? I kinder thought I might get
by a back street to the wagons. A cousin of mine's a wagon master and he
ain't going ter give up easy. I kinder thought I might help--"
"I'm just waiting," said Coffin, "until Jim here gets over his spasm.
Then I'll give the word."
Jim groaned. "I feel sicker'n a yaller dog after a fight--'n' you know I
didn't mind 'em at all when they were really here! You two go on, 'n'
I'll come after awhile."
Coffin and Billy found the back street. It lay clear, warm, sunny,
empty. "They're all down at the bridge," said Billy. "Bang! bang! bang!"
They came to a house, blinds all closed, shrinking behind its trees.
Houses, like everything else, had personality in this war. A town
occupied changed its mien according to the colour of the uniform in
possession. As the two hurrying grey figures approached, a woman,
starting from the window beside which she had been kneeling, watching
through a crevice, ran out of the house and through the yard to the
gate. "You two men, come right in here! Don't you know the Yankees are
in town?"
She was young and pretty. Coffin swept off his cap. "That's the reason
we're trying to get to the edge of town--to help the men with the wagon
train."
Her eyes grew luminous. "How brave you are! Go, and God bless you!"
The two ran on. Mathew Coffin added another line to his letter: "A lady
besought me to enter her house, saying that I would surely be killed,
and that she could conceal me until the enemy was gone. But I--"
They were nearly out of town--they could see the long train hurriedly
moving on the Staunton road. There was a sudden burst of musketry. A
voice reached them from the street below. "Halt, you two Confeds running
there! Come on over here! Rally to the colours!" There was a flash of
the stars and bars, waved vigorously. "Oh, ha, ha!" cried Billy, "thar
was some of us wasn't taken! Aren't you glad we didn't stay behind the
cowshed?"
It came into Coffin's head that Billy might tell that his sergeant had
wished to stay behind the cowshed. The blood rushed to his face; he saw
the difficulty of impressing men who knew about the cowshed with his
abilities in the way of storming batteries single-handed. He had really
a very considerable share of physical courage, and naturally he esteemed
it something larger than it was. He began to burn with the injustice of
Billy Maydew's thinking him backward in daring and so reporting him
around camp-fires. As he ran he grew angrier and angrier, and not far
from the shaken flag, in a little grassy hollow which hid them from
view, he called upon the other to halt. Billy's sense of discipline
brought him to a stop, but did not keep him from saying, "What for?"
They were only two soldiers, out of the presence of others and in a
pretty tight place together--Mathew Coffin but three years older than
he, and no great shakes anyhow. "What for?" asked Billy.
"I just want to say to you," said Coffin thickly, "that as to that
shed, it was my duty to protect my men; just as it is my duty as an
officer to report you for disobedience and bad language addressed to an
officer--"
Billy's brow clouded. "I had forgotten all about that. I was going along
very nicely with you. You were really behaving yourself--like a--like a
gentleman. The cow-house was all right. You are brave enough when it
comes to fighting. And now you're bringing it all up again--"
"'_Gentleman._'--Who are you to judge of a gentleman?"
Billy looked at him calmly. "I air one of them.--I air a-judging from
that-a stand."
"You are going to the guardhouse for disobedience and bad language and
impertinence."
"It would be right hard," said Billy, "if I had to leave
su-pe-ri-or-i-ty outside with my musket. But I don't."
Coffin, red in the face, made at him. The Thunder Run man, supple as a
moccasin, swerved aside. "Air you finished speaking, sergeant? Fer if
you have, 'n' if you don't mind, I think I'll run along--I air only
fighting Yankees this mornin'!"
An aide of Jackson's, cut off from headquarters and taking shelter in
the upper part of the town, crept presently out of hiding, and finding
the invaders' eyes turned toward the bridge, proceeded with dispatch and
quietness to gather others from dark havens. When he had a score or more
he proceeded to bolder operations. In the field and on the Staunton road
all was commotion; wagons with their teams moving in double column up
the road, negro teamsters clamouring with ashen looks, "Dose damn Yanks!
Knowed we didn't see dat ghos' fer nothin' las' night!" Wagon masters
shouted, guards and sentries looked townward with anxious eyes. The aide
got a flag from the quartermaster's tent; found moreover a very few
artillery reserves and an old cranky howitzer. With all of these he
returned to the head of the main street, and about the moment the
cavalry at the bridge divided, succeeded in getting his forces admirably
placed in a strong defensive position: Coffin and Billy Maydew joined
just as an outpost brought a statement that about two hundred Yankee
cavalry were coming up the street.
The two guns, Federal Parrott, Confederate howitzer, belching smoke,
made in twenty minutes the head of the street all murk. In the first
charge Coffin received a sabre cut over the head. The blood blinded him
at first, and when he had wiped it away, and tied a beautiful new
handkerchief from a Broadway shop about the wound, he found it still
affected sight and hearing. He understood that their first musketry fire
had driven the cavalry back, indeed he saw two or three riderless horses
galloping away. He understood also that the Yankees had brought up a
gun, and that the captain was answering with the superannuated howitzer.
He was sure, too, that he himself was firing his musket with great
precision. _Fire!--load, fire!--load, fire! One, two,--one, two!_ but
his head, he was equally sure, was growing larger. It was now larger
than the globe pictured on the first page of the geography he had
studied at school. It was the globe, and he was Atlas holding it.
_Fire--load, fire--load!_ Now the head was everything, and all life was
within it. There was a handsome young man named Coffin, very brave, but
misunderstood by all save one. He was brave and handsome. He could take
a tower by himself--_Fire, load--Fire, load--One, two._ The enemy knew
his fame. They said, "Coffin! Which is Coffin?"--_Fire, load, one, two._
The grey armies knew this young hero. They cheered when he went by. They
cheered--they cheered--when he went by to take the tower. They wrote
home and lovely women envied the loveliest woman. "Coffin! Coffin!
Coffin's going to take the tower! Watch him! _Yaaaaih! Yaaaih!_"--He
struck the tower and looked to see it go down. Instead, with a roar, it
sprang, triple brass, height on height to the skies. The stars fell, and
suddenly, in the darkness, an ocean appeared and went over him. He lay
beneath the overturned Federal gun, and the grey rush that had silenced
the gunners and taken the piece went on.
For a long time he lay in a night without a star, then day began to
break. It broke curiously, palely light for an instant, then obscured by
thick clouds, then faint light again. Some part of his brain began to
think. His head was not now the world; the world was lying on his
shoulder and arm, crushing it. With one piece of his brain he began to
appeal to people; with another piece to answer the first. "Mother, take
this thing away! Mother, take this thing away! She's dead. She can't,
however much she wants to. Father! He's dead, too. Rob, Carter--Jack!
Grown up and moved away. Judge Allen, sir!--Mr. Boyd!--would you just
give a hand? Here I am, under Purgatory Mountain. Darling--take this
thing away! Darling--Darling! Men!--Colonel Cleave!--Boys--boys--" All
the brain began to think. "O God, send somebody!"
When Purgatory Mountain was lifted from his shoulder and arm he fainted.
Water, brought in a cap from a neighbouring puddle and dashed in his
face, brought him to. "Thar now!" said Billy, "I certainly air glad to
see that you air alive!" Coffin groaned. "It must ha' hurt awful! S'pose
you let me look before I move you?" He took out a knife and gently slit
the coat away. "Sho! I know that hurts! But you got first to the gun!
You ran like you was possessed, and you yelled, and you was the first to
touch the gun. Thar now! I air a-tying the han'kerchief from your head
around your arm, 'cause there's more blood--"
"They'll have to cut it off," moaned Coffin.
"No, they won't. Don't you let 'em! Now I air a-going to lift you and
carry you to the nearest house. All the boys have run on after the
Yanks."
He took up his sergeant and moved off with an easy step. Coffin uttered
a short and piteous moaning like a child. They presently met a number of
grey soldiers. "We've druv them--we've druv them! The 37th's down there.
Just listen to Rockbridge!--Who've you got there?"
"Sergeant Coffin," said Billy. "He air right badly hurt! He was the
first man at the gun. He fired, an' then he got hold of the sponge staff
and laid about him--he was that gallant. The men ought to 'lect him
back. He sure did well."
The nearest house flung open its doors. "Bring him right in here--oh,
poor soldier! Right here in the best room!--Run, Maria, and turn down
the bed. Oh, poor boy! He looks like my Robert down at Richmond! This
way--get a little blackberry wine, Betty, and the scissors and my roll
of lint--"
Billy laid him on the bed in the best room. "Thar now! You air all
right. The doctor'll come just as soon as I can find him, 'n' then I'll
get back to the boys--Wait--I didn't hear, I'll put my ear down. You
couldn't lose all that blood and not be awful weak--"
"I'd be ashamed to report now!" whispered Coffin. "Maybe I was wrong--"
"Sho!" said Billy. "We're all wrong more or less. Here, darn you, drink
your wine, and stop bothering!"
Across the Shenandoah Stonewall Jackson and the 37th Virginia came down
from the heights with the impetuosity of a torrent. Behind them poured
other grey troops. On the cliff heads Poague and Carpenter came into
position and began with grape and canister. The blue Parrott, full
before the bridge mouth, menacing the lane within, answered with a
shriek of shells. The 37th and Jackson left the road, plunged down the
ragged slope of grass and vines, and came obliquely toward the dark
tunnel. Jackson and Little Sorrel had slipped into their battle aspect.
You would have said that every auburn hair of the general's head and
beard was a vital thing. His eyes glowed as though there were lamps
behind, and his voice rose like a trumpet of promise and doom.
"Halt!--Aim at the gunners!--Fire! Fix bayonets! Charge!"
The 37th rushed in column through the bridge. The blue cavalry fired one
volley. The unwounded among the blue artillerymen strove to plant a
shell within the dusky lane. But most of the gunners were down, or the
fuse was wrong. The grey torrent leaped out of the tunnel and upon the
gun. They took it and turned it against the horsemen. The blue cavalry
fled. On the bluff heads above the river three grey batteries came into
action. The 37th Virginia began to sweep the streets of Port Republic.
The blue cavalry, leaving the guns, leaving prisoners they had taken and
their wounded, turned alike from the upper end of the village and rode,
pell-mell, for the South Fork. One and all they splashed through, not
now in covering mist, but in hot sunshine, the 37th volleying at their
heels and from the bluffs above the Shenandoah, Poague and Carpenter and
Wooding strewing their path with grape and canister.
A mile or two in the deep woods they met Shields's infantry advance.
There followed a movement toward the town--futile enough, for as the
vanguard approached, the Confederate batteries across the river limbered
up, trotted or galloped to other positions on the green bluff heads, and
trained the guns on the ground between Port Republic and the head of the
Federal column. Winder's brigade came also and took position on the
heights commanding Lewiston, and Taliaferro's swung across the bridge
and formed upon the townward side of South Fork. Shields halted. All
day he halted, listening to the guns at Cross Keys.
Sitting Little Sorrel at the northern end of the bridge, Stonewall
Jackson watched Taliaferro's men break step and cross. A staff officer
ventured to inquire what the general thought General Shields would do.
"I think, sir, that he will stay where he is."
"All day, sir?"
"All day."
"He has ten thousand men. Will he not try to attack?"
"No, sir! No! He cannot do it. I should tear him to pieces."
A heavy sound came into being. The staff officer swung round on his
horse. "Listen, sir!"
"Yes. Artillery firing to the northwest. Fremont will act without
Shields."
A courier came at a gallop. "General Ewell's compliments, sir, and the
battle of Cross Keys is beginning."
"Good! good! My compliments to General Ewell, and I expect him to win
it."