THE FIRST OF THE SEVEN DAYS
Miriam and Christianna sat at the window, watching. The day was
parching, the sky hot blue steel, the wind that blew the dust through
the streets like a breath from the sun himself. People went by, all
kinds of people, lacking only soldiers. There seemed no soldiers in
town. Miriam, alternately listless and feverishly animated, explained
matters to the mountain girl. "When there's to be a battle, every one
goes to the colours.--Look at that old, old, old man, hobbling on his
stick. You'd think that death was right beside him, wouldn't you?--ready
to tap him on the shoulder and say, 'Fall, fall, old leaf! But it isn't
so; death is on the battlefield looking for young men. Listen to his
stick--tap, tap, tap, tap, tap--"
Christianna rose, looked at the clock, which was about to strike noon,
left the room and returned with a glass of milk. "Mrs. Cleave said you
was to drink this--Yes, Miss Miriam, do!--There now! Don't you want to
lie down?"
"No, no!" said Miriam. "I don't want to do anything but sit here and
watch.--Look at that old, old woman with the basket on her arm! I know
what is in it--Things for her son; bread and a little meat and shirts
she has been making him--There's another helping her, as old as she is.
I mean to die young."
The people went by like figures on a frieze come to life. The room in
which the two girls sat was on the ground floor of a small,
old-fashioned house. Outside the window was a tiny balcony, with a
graceful ironwork railing, and heavy ropes and twists of wistaria shaded
this and the window. The old brick sidewalk was almost immediately
below. For the most part the people who passed went by silently, but
when there was talking the two behind the wistaria could hear. A nurse
girl with her charges came by. "What's a 'cisive battle, honey? Yo'd
better ask yo' pa that. Reckon it's where won't neither side let go. Why
won't they? Now you tell me an' then I'll tell you! All I knows is,
they're gwine have a turrible rumpus presently, an' yo' ma said tek you
to yo' gran'ma kaze she gwine out ter git jes' ez near the battle an'
yo' pa ez she kin git!" Nurse and children passed, and there came by an
elderly man, stout and amiable-looking. His face was pale, his eyes
troubled; he took off his straw hat, and wiped his forehead with a large
white handkerchief. Appearing from the opposite direction, a young man,
a case of surgeon's instruments in his hand, met him, and in passing
said good-day. The elder stopped him a moment, on the hot brick pavement
before the wistaria. "Well, doctor, they're all out Mechanicsville way!
I reckon we may expect to hear the cannon any moment now. I saw you at
Gilland's, didn't I, yesterday?"
"Yes, I am there--"
"Well, if by ill luck my boy is wounded and brought there, you'll look
out for him, eh? Youngest boy, you know--Blue eyes, brown hair. I'm on
the Ambulance Committee. We've got a string of wagons ready on the
Nine-Mile road. You look out for him if he's brought in--"
The surgeon promised and each went his way. Three women passed the
window. One was knitting as she walked, one was in deep black, and a
third, a girl, carried a great silver pitcher filled with iced drink for
some near-by convalescent. Two men came next. A negro followed, bearing
a spade. One of the two was in broadcloth, with a high silk hat. "I told
them," he was saying, "better bury her this morning, poor little thing,
before the fighting begins. _She_ won't mind, and it will be hard to
arrange it then--" "Yes, yes," said the second, "better so! Leave
to-morrow for the Dead March from 'Saul.'"
They passed. A church bell began to ring. Miriam moved restlessly. "Is
not mother coming back? She ought to have let me go with her. I can't
knit any more,--the needles are red hot when I touch them,--but I can
sew. I could help her.--If I knew which sewing-room she went to--"
Christianna's hand timidly caressed her. "Better stay here, Miss Miriam.
I'm going to give you another glass of milk now, directly--There's a
soldier passing now."
It proved but a battered soldier--thin and hollow-eyed, arm in a sling,
and a halt in his walk. He came on slowly, and he leaned for rest
against a sycamore at the edge of the pavement. Miriam bent out from the
frame of wistaria. "Oh, soldier! don't you want a glass of milk?"
"Oh, soldier" looked nothing loath. He came over to the little balcony,
and Miriam took the glass from Christianna and, leaning over, gave it to
him. "Oh, but that's nectar!" he said, and drank it. "Yes--just out of
hospital. Said I might go and snuff the battle from afar. Needed my
pallet for some other poor devil. Glad I'm through with it, and sorry he
isn't!--Yes, I've got some friends down the street. Going there now and
get out of this sun. Reckon the battle'll begin presently. Hope the
Accomac Invincibles will give them hell--begging your pardon, I'm sure.
That milk certainly was good. Thank you, and good-bye, Hebe--two Hebes."
He wavered on down the street. Christianna looked after him critically.
"They oughtn't to let that thar man out so soon! Clay white, an' thin as
a bean pole, an' calling things an' people out of their names--"
Men and women continued to pass, the church bell to ring, the hot wind
to blow the dust, the sun to blaze down, the sycamore leaves to rustle.
A negro boy brought a note. It was from Margaret Cleave. "_Dearest:
There is so much to do. I will not come home to dinner nor will Cousin
Harriet neither. She says tell Sarindy to give you two just what you
like best. Christianna must look after you. I will come when I can._"
Sarindy gave them thin crisp toast, and a pitcher of cool milk, and a
custard sweetened with brown sugar. Sarindy was excited. "Yaas, Lawd,
dar's sho' gwine ter be doin's this day! What you reckon, Miss Miriam?
Dar's er lady from South Callina stayin' cross't de street, 'n' she's
got er maid what's got de impidence ob sin! What you reckon dat yaller
gal say ter me? She say dat South Callina does de most ob de fightin'
'n' de bes' ob it, too! She say Virginia pretty good, but dat South
Callina tek de cake. She say South Callina mek 'em run ebery time!
Yaas'm! 'n' I gits up 'n' I meks her er curtsy, 'n' I say ter her,
'Dat's er pretty way ter talk when you're visitin' in Virginia, 'n' ef
dat's South Callina manners I'se glad I wuz born in Virginia!' Yaas'm.
'N' I curtsy agin, 'n' I say, 'Ain' nobody or nothin' ever lay over
Virginia fer fightin' 'n' never will! 'N' ef Virginia don' mek 'em run
ebery time, South Callina needn't hope ter!' 'N' I asks her how come she
never hear ob Gineral Stonewall Jackson? Yaas'm. 'N' I curtsy ter her
ebery time--lak dis! 'N' ain' she never hear ob Gineral Lee? An' I ain'
er doubtin' dat Gineral Wade Hampton is a mighty fine man--'deed I knows
he is--but ain' she never heard ob Gineral Johnston? 'N' how erbout
Gineral Stuart--Yaas'm! 'n' the Black Troop, 'n' the Crenshaw Battery,
'n' the Purcell Battery. Yaas'm! 'n' the Howitzers, 'n' the Richmon'
Blues--Yaas'm! I sho' did mek her shet her mouf!--Braggin' ter er
Virginia woman ob South Callina!"
The two went back to the large room. The air was scorching. Miriam
undressed, slipped her thin, girlish arms into a muslin sacque, and lay
down. Christianna drew the blinds together, took a palm-leaf fan and sat
beside her. "I'll fan you, jest as easy," she said, in her sweet,
drawling voice. "An' I can't truly sing, but I can croon. Don't you
want me to croon you 'Shining River'?"
Miriam lay with closed eyes. A fly buzzed in the darkened room. The fan
went monotonously to and fro. Christianna crooned "Shining River" and
then "Shady Grove." Outside, on the brick pavement, the sound of feet
went by in a slender stream.
"Shady Grove! Shady Grove--
Going to Church in Shady Grove--"
The stream without grew wide and deep, then hurrying. Christianna looked
over her shoulder, then at Miriam. The latter's long lashes lay on her
cheek. Beneath them glistened a tear, but her slight, girlish bosom rose
and fell regularly. Christianna crooned on,
"Shady Grove! Shady Grove--
Children love my Shady Grove--"
_Boom! Boom!--Boom, Boom! Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!_
Miriam started up with a cry. Outside the window a hoarse and loud voice
called to some one across the street. "That's beyond Meadow Bridge! D'
ye know what I believe? I believe it's Stonewall Jackson!" The name came
back like an echo from the opposite pavement. "Stonewall Jackson!
Stonewall Jackson! He thinks maybe it's Stonewall Jackson!"
_Boom--Boom--Boom--Boom, Boom!_
Miriam rose, threw off the muslin sacque and began to dress. Her eyes
were narrowed, her fingers rapid and steady. Christianna opened the
window-blinds. The sound of the hurrying feet came strongly in, and with
it voices. "The top of the Capitol!--see best from there--I think the
hills toward the almshouse--Can you get out on the Brook turnpike?--No;
it is picketed--The hill by the President's House--try it!" Christianna,
turning, found Miriam taking a hat from the closet shelf. "Oh, Miss
Miriam, you mustn't go--"
Miriam, a changed creature, steady and sure as a fine rapier, turned
upon her. "Yes, I am going, Christianna. If you like, you may come with
me. Yes, I am well enough.--No, mother wouldn't keep me back. She would
understand. If I lay there and listened, I should go mad. Get your
bonnet and come."
The cannon shook the air. Christianna got her sunbonnet and tied the
strings with trembling fingers. All the wild rose had fled from her
cheeks, her lips looked pinched, her eyes large and startled. Miriam
glanced her way, then came and kissed her. "I forgot it was your first
battle. I got used to them in Winchester. Don't be afraid."
They went out into the hot sunshine. By now the greater part of the
stream had hurried by. They saw that it flowed eastward, and they
followed. The sun blazed down, the pavement burned their feet. The
mountain girl walked like a piece of thistledown; Miriam, light and
quick in all her actions, moved beside her almost as easily. It was as
though the hot wind, rushing down the street behind them, carried them
on with the dust and loosened leaves. There were other women, with
children clinging to their hands. One or two had babes in their arms.
There were old men, too, and several cripples. The lighter-limbed and
unencumbered were blown ahead. The dull sound rocked the air. This was a
residence portion of the city, and the houses looked lifeless. The doors
were wide, the inmates gone. Only where there was illness, were there
faces at the window, looking out, pale and anxious, asking questions of
the hurrying pale and anxious folk below. The cannonading was not yet
continuous. It spoke rather in sullen thunders, with spaces between in
which the heart began to grow quiet. Then it thundered again, and the
heart beat to suffocation.
The wind blew Miriam and Christianna toward the President's House. Tall,
austere, white-pillared, it stood a little coldly in the heat. Before
the door were five saddle horses, with a groom or two. The staff came
from the house, then the President in grey Confederate cloth and soft
hat. He spoke to one of the officers in his clear, incisive voice, then
mounted his grey Arab. A child waved to him from an upper window. He
waved back, lifted his hat to the two girls as they passed, then, his
staff behind him, rode rapidly off toward the sound of the firing.
Miriam and Christianna, turning a little northward, found themselves on
a hillside thronged with people. It was like a section of an
amphitheatre, and it commanded a great stretch of lowland broken here
and there by slight elevations. Much of the plain was in forest, but in
some places the waist-deep corn was waving, and in others the wheat
stood in shocks. There were marshes and boggy green meadows and old
fields of pine and broom sedge. Several roads could be seen. They all
ran into a long and low cloud of smoke. It veiled the northern horizon,
and out of it came the thunder. First appeared dull orange flashes,
then, above the low-lying thickness, the small white expanding cloud
made by the bursting shell, then to the ear rushed the thunder. On the
plain, from the defences which rimmed the city northward to the battle
cloud, numbers of grey troops were visible, some motionless, some
marching. They looked like toy soldiers. The sun heightened red splashes
that were known to be battle-flags. Horsemen could be seen galloping
from point to point. In the intervals between the thunders the hillside
heard the tap of drum and the bugles blowing. The moving soldiers were
going toward the cloud.
Miriam and Christianna sank down beneath a little tree. They were on a
facet of the hill not quite so advantageous as others. The crowded
slopes were beyond. However, one could see the smoke cloud and hear the
cannon, and that was all that could be done anyhow. There were men and
women about them, children, boys. The women were the most silent,--pale
and silent; the men uttered low exclamations or soliloquies, or talked
together. The boys were all but gleeful--save when they looked at the
grown people, and then they tried for solemnity. Some of the children
went to sleep. A mother nursed her babe. Near the foot of this hill,
through a hollow, there ran a branch,--Bacon Quarter Branch. Here, in
the seventeenth century, had occurred an Indian massacre. The heavy,
primeval woods had rung to the whoop of the savage, the groan of the
settler, the scream of English woman and child. To-day the woods had
been long cut, and the red man was gone. War remained--he had only
changed his war paint and cry and weapons.
Miriam clasped her thin brown hands about her knee, rested her chin on
them, and fastened her great brown eyes on the distant battle cloud.
Christianna, her sunbonnet pushed back, looked too, with limpid,
awe-struck gaze. Were Pap and Dave and Billy fighting in that cloud? It
was thicker than the morning mist in the hollow below Thunder Run
Mountain, and it was not fleecy, pure, and white. It was yellowish,
fierce, and ugly, and the sound that came from it made her heart beat
thick and hard. Was he there--Was Allan Gold there in the cloud? She
felt that she could not sit still; she wished to walk toward it. That
being impossible, she began to make a little moaning sound. A woman in
black, sitting on the grass near her, looked across. "Don't!" she said.
"If you do that, all of us will do it. We've got to keep calm. If we let
go, it would be like Rachel weeping. Try to be quiet."
Christianna, who had moaned as she crooned, hardly knowing it, at once
fell silent. Another woman spoke to her. "Would you mind holding my
baby? My head aches so. I must lie down here on the grass, just a
minute." Christianna took the baby. She handled it skilfully, and it was
presently cooing against her breast. Were Pap and Dave over there,
shooting and cutting? And Billy--Billy with a gun now instead of the
spear the blacksmith had made him? And Allan Gold was not teaching in
the schoolhouse on Thunder Run....
The woman took the baby back. The sun blazed down, there came a louder
burst of sound. A man with a field-glass, standing near, uttered a
"Tchk!" of despair. "Impenetrable curtain! The ancients managed things
better--they did not fight in a fog!"
He seemed a person having authority, and the people immediately about
him appealed for information. He looked through the glass and gave it,
and was good, too, about lending the glass. "It's A. P. Hill, I'm
sure--with Longstreet to support him. It's A. P. Hill's brigades that
are moving into the smoke. Most of that firing is from our batteries
along the Chickahominy. We are going undoubtedly to cross to the north
bank--Yes. McClellan's right wing--Fitz John Porter--A good soldier--Oh,
he'll have about twenty-five thousand men."
A boy, breathing excitement from top to toe, sent up a shrill voice.
"Isn't Jackson coming, sir? Aren't they looking for Jackson?"
The soldier who had drunk the milk was discovered by Miriam and
Christianna, near their tree. He gave his voice. "Surely! He'll have
come down from Ashland and A. P. Hill is crossing here. That's an army
north, and a big lot of troops south, and Fitz John Porter is between
like a nut in a nut cracker. The cracker has only to work all right, and
crush goes the filbert!" He raised himself and peered under puckered
brows at the smoke-draped horizon. "Yes, he's surely over
there--Stonewall.--Going to flank Fitz John Porter--Then we'll hear a
hell of a fuss."
"There's a battery galloping to the front," said the man with the glass.
"Look, one of you! Wipe the glass; it gets misty. If it's the Purcell,
I've got two sons--"
The soldier took the glass, turning it deftly with one hand. "Yes, think
it is the Purcell. Don't you worry, sir! They're all right. Artillerymen
are hard to kill--That's Pender's brigade going now--"
Christianna clutched Miriam. "Look! look! Oh, what is it?"
It soared into the blue, above the smoke. The sunlight struck it and it
became a beautiful iridescent bubble, large as the moon. "Oh, oh!" cried
the boy. "Look at the balloon!"
The hillside kept silence for a moment while it gazed, then--"Is it
ours?--No; it is theirs!--It is going up from the hill behind Beaver Dam
Creek.--Oh, it is lovely!--Lovely! No, no, it is horrible!--Look, look!
there is another!"
A young man, a mechanic, with sleeves rolled up, began to expatiate on
"ours." "We haven't got but one--it was made in Savannah by Dr. Langon
Cheves. Maybe they'll send it up to-day, maybe not. I've seen it. It's
like Joseph's coat in the Bible. They say the ladies gave their silk
dresses for it. Here'll be a strip of purple and here one of white with
roses on it, and here it is black, and here it is yellow as gold. They
melted rubber car-springs in naphtha and varnished it with that, and
they're going to fill it with city gas at the gas works--"
The bubbles floated in the clear air, above and beyond the zone of
smoke. It was now between four and five in the afternoon. The slant rays
of the sun struck them and turned them mother-of-pearl. An old man
lifted a dry, thin voice like a grasshopper's. "Once I went to Niagara,
and there was a balloon ascension. Everybody held their breath when the
fellow went up, and he got into some trouble, I don't remember just what
it was, and we almost died of anxiety until he came down; and when he
landed we almost cried we were so glad, and we patted him on the back
and hurrahed--and he was a Yankee, too! And now it's war time, and
there's nothing I 'd like better than to empty a revolver into that fine
windbag!"
The sound in the air became heavier. A man on horseback spurred along
the base of the hill. The people nearest stopped him. "Tell you? I
can't tell you! Nobody ever knows anything about a battle till it's
over, and not much then. Is Jackson over there? I don't know. He ought
to be, so I reckon he is! If he isn't, it's A. P. Hill's battle, all
alone."
He was gone. "I don't believe it's much more than long-range firing
yet," said the soldier. "Our batteries on the Chickahominy--and they are
answering from somewhere beyond Beaver Dam Creek. No musketry. Hello!
The tune's changing!"
It changed with such violence that after a moment's exclamation the
people sat or stood in silence, pale and awed. Speculation ceased. The
plunging torrent of sound whelmed the mind and stilled the tongue. The
soldier held out a moment. "Close range now. The North's always going to
beat us when it comes to metal soldiers. I wonder how many they've got
over there, anyhow!" Then he, too, fell silent.
The deep and heavy booming shook air and earth. It came no longer in
distinct shocks but with a continuous roar. The smoke screen grew denser
and taller, mounting toward the balloons. There was no seeing for that
curtain; it could only be noted that bodies of grey troops moved toward
it, went behind it. A thin, elderly man, a school-teacher, borrowed the
glass, fixed it, but could see nothing. He gave it back with a shake of
the head, sat down again on the parched grass, and veiled his eyes with
his hand. "'Hell is murky,'" he said.
No lull occurred in the firing. The sun as it sank reddened the battle
cloud that by now had blotted out the balloons. "When it is dark," said
the soldier, "it will be like fireworks." An hour later the man with the
glass discovered a string of wagons on one of the roads. It was coming
citywards. "Ambulances!" he said, in a shaking voice.
"Ambulances--ambulances--" The word went through the crowd like a sigh.
It broke the spell. Most on the hillside might have an interest there.
Parents, wives, brothers, sisters, children, they rose, they went away
in the twilight like blown leaves. The air was rocking; orange and red
lights began to show as the shells exploded. Christianna put her hand on
Miriam's. "Miss Miriam--Miss Miriam! Mrs. Cleave'll say I didn't take
care of you. Let's go--let's go. They're bringing back the wounded. Pap
might be there or Dave or Billy or--Miss Miriam, Miss Miriam, your
brother might be there."
The long June dusk melted into night, and still the city shook to the
furious cannonading. With the dark it saw, as it had not seen in the
sunshine. As the soldier said, it was like fireworks.
Beginning at twilight, the wagons with the wounded came all night long.
Ambulances, farm wagons, carts, family carriages, heavy-laden, they
rumbled over the cobblestones with the sound of the tumbrels in the
Terror. It was stated that a number of the wounded were in the field
hospitals. In the morning the knowledge was general that very many had
lain, crying for water, all night in the slashing before Beaver Dam
Creek.
All the houses in Richmond were lighted. Through the streets poured a
tide of fevered life. News--News--News!--demanded from chance couriers,
from civilian spectators of the battle arriving pale and exhausted, from
the drivers of wagon, cart, and carriage, from the less badly
wounded--"Ours the victory--is it not? is it not?--Who led?--who
fought?--who is fighting now? Jackson came? Jackson certainly came? We
are winning--are we not? are we not?" Suspense hung palpable in the hot
summer night, suspense, exaltation, fever. It breathed in the hot wind,
it flickered in the lights, it sounded in the voice of the river. For
many there sounded woe as well--woe and wailing for the dead. For
others, for many, many others, there was a misery of searching, a
heart-breaking going from hospital to hospital. "Is he here?--Are they
here?" The cannon stopped at nine o'clock.
The Stonewall Hospital was poorly lighted. In ward number 23 the oil
lamps, stuck in brackets along the walls, smoked. At one end, where two
pine tables were placed, the air from the open window blew the flames
distractingly. A surgeon, half dead with fatigue, strained well-nigh to
the point of tears, exclaimed upon it. "That damned wind! Shut the
window, Miss Cary. Yes, tight! It's hell anyhow, and that's what you do
in hell--burn up!"
Judith closed the window. As she did so she looked once at the light on
the northern horizon. The firing shook the window-pane. The flame of the
lamp now stood straight. She turned the wick higher, then lifted a
pitcher and poured water into a basin, and when the surgeon had washed
his hands took away the reddened stuff. Two negroes laid a man on the
table--a gaunt North Carolinian, his hand clutching a shirt all
stiffened blood. Between his eyelids showed a gleam of white, his breath
came with a whistling sound. Judith bent the rigid fingers open, drew
the hand aside, and cut away the shirt. The surgeon looked. "Humph!
Well, a body can but try. Now, my man, you lie right still, and I won't
hurt you much. Come this side, Miss Cary--No, wait a moment!--It's no
use. He's dying."
The North Carolinian died. The negroes lifted him from the table and put
another in his place. "Amputation," said the surgeon. "Hold it firmly,
Miss Cary; just there." He turned to the adjoining table where a younger
man was sewing up a forearm, ripped from wrist to elbow by a piece of
shell. "Lend me your saw, will you, Martin?--Yes, I know the heat's
fearful! but I can't work by a lamp that has Saint Vitus!" He turned
back to his table. "Now, my lad, you just clench your teeth. Miss Cary
and I aren't going to hurt you any more than we can help. Yes, above the
knee." The younger surgeon, having finished the cut, wiped away with a
towel the sweat that blinded him. "The next.--Hm! Doctor, will you look
here a moment?--Oh, I see you can't! It's no use, Mrs. Opie. Better have
him taken back. He'll die in an hour.--The next."
The ward was long, low ceiled, with brown walls and rafters. Between the
patches of lamplight the shadows lay wide and heavy. The cots, the
pallets, the pew cushions sewed together, were placed each close by
each. A narrow aisle ran between the rows; by each low bed there was
just standing room. The beds were all filled, and the wagons bringing
more rumbled on the cobblestones without. All the long place was
reekingly hot, with a strong smell of human effluvia, of sweat-dampened
clothing, of blood and powder grime. There was not much crying aloud;
only when a man was brought in raving, or when there came a sharp scream
from some form under the surgeon's knife. But the place seemed one
groan, a sound that swelled or sank, but never ceased. The shadows on
the wall, fantastically dancing, mocked this with nods and becks and
waving arms,--mocked the groaning, mocked the heat, mocked the smell,
mocked the thirst, mocked nausea, agony, delirium, and the rattle in the
throat, mocked the helpers and the helped, mocked the night and the
world and the dying and the dead. At dawn the cannon began again.