THE FIELD OF MANASSAS
The column, after an extraordinary march attended by skirmishes, most
wearily winding through a pitch black night, heard the "Halt!" with
rejoicing. "Old Jack be thanked! So we ain't turning on our tail and
going back through Thoroughfare Gap after all! See anything of Marse
Robert?--Go away! he ain't any nearer than White Plains. He and
Longstreet won't get through Thoroughfare until to-morrow--_Break
ranks!_ Oh Lord, yes! with pleasure."
Under foot there was rough, somewhat rolling ground. In the dark night
men dropped down without particularity as to couch or bedchamber. Nature
and the time combined to spread for them a long and echoing series of
sleeping rooms, carpeted and tapestried according to Nature's whim,
vaulted with whistling storm or drift of clouds or pageantry of stars.
The troops took the quarters indicated sometimes with, sometimes without
remark. To-night there was little speech of any kind before falling into
dreamless slumber. "O hell! Hungry as a dog!"--"Me, too!"--"Can't you
just _see_ Manassas Junction and Stuart's and Trimble's fellows gorging
themselves? Biscuit and cake and pickles and 'desecrated' vegetables and
canned peaches and sardines and jam and coffee!--freight cars and wagons
and storehouses just filled with jam and coffee and canned peaches and
cigars and--" "I wish that fool would hush! I wasn't hungry
before!"--"and nice cozy fires, and rashers of bacon broiling, and
plenty of coffee, and all around just like daisies in the field, clean
new shirts, and drawers and socks, and handkerchiefs and shoes and
writing paper and soap."--"Will you go to hell and stop talking as you
go?"--"Seems somehow an awful lonely place, boys!--dark and a wind. Hear
that whippoorwill? Just twenty thousand men sloshin' round--and Pope may
be right over there by the whippoorwill. Jarrow says that with McCall
and Heintzelman and Fitz John Porter, there are seventy thousand of
them. Well? They've got Headquarters-in-the-saddle and we've got
Stonewall Jackson--That's so! that's so! Good-night."
Dawn came calmly up, dawn of the twenty-eighth of August. The ghostly
trumpets blew--the grey soldiers stirred and rose. In the sky were yet a
star or two and a pale quarter moon. These slowly faded and the faintest
coral tinge overspread that far and cold eastern heaven. The men were
busied about breakfast, but now this group and presently that suspended
operations. "What's there about this place anyhow? It has an awful,
familiar look. The stream and the stone bridge and the woods and the
hill--the Henry Hill. Good God! it's the field of Manassas!"
The field of Manassas, in the half light, somehow inspired a faint awe,
a creeping horror. "God! how young we were that day! It seems so long
ago, and yet it comes back. Do you remember how we crashed together at
the Stone Bridge? There's the Mathews Hill where we first met Sykes and
Ricketts--seen them often since. The Henry Hill--there's the house--Mrs.
Henry was killed. Hampton and Cary came along there and Beauregard with
his sword out and Old Joe swinging the colours high, restoring the
battle!--and Kirby Smith, just in time--just in time, and the yell his
column gave! Next day we thought the war was over."--"I didn't."--"Yes,
you did! You said, 'Well, boys, we're going back to every day, but by
jiminy! we've got something to tell our grandchildren!' The ravine
running up there--that was where Bee was killed! Bee! I can see him now.
Then we were over there." "Yes, on the hilltop by the pine wood.
'Jackson standing like a stone wall.' Look, the light's touching it.
Boys, I could cry, just as easy--"
The August morning strengthened. "Our guns were over there by the
charred trees. There's where we charged, there's where we came down on
Griffin and Ricketts!--the 33d, the 65th. The 65th made its fight there.
Richard Cleave--" "Don't!"--"Well, that's where we came down on Griffin
and Ricketts. Manassas! Reckon Old Jack and Marse Robert want a _second_
battle of Manassas?"
The light grew full. "Ewell's over there--A. P. Hill's over there. All
together, north of the Warrenton turnpike. Where's Marse Robert and
Longstreet?"
Colonel Fauquier Cary, riding by, heard the last remark and answered it.
"Marse Robert and Longstreet are marching by the road we've marched
before them. To-night, perhaps, we'll be again a united family."
"Colonel, are we going to have a battle?"
"I wasn't at the council, friends, but I can tell you what I think."
"Yes, yes! We think that you think pretty straight--"
"McCall and Heintzelman and Fitz John Porter have joined General Pope."
"Yes. So we hear."
"And others of the Army of the Potomac are on the way."
"Yes, undoubtedly."
"But are not here yet."
"No."
"Well, then, I think that the thing above all others that General Lee
wants is an immediate battle."
He rode on. The men to whom he had been speaking looked after him
approvingly. "He's a fine piece of steel! Always liked that whole
family--Isn't he a cousin of ----? Yes. Wonder what he thinks about that
matter! Heigho! Look at the stealing light and the grey shadows!
Manassas!"
Cary, riding by Ewell's lines, came upon Maury Stafford lying stretched
beneath an oak, studying, too, the old battlefield. The sun was up; the
morning cool, fresh, and pure. Dismounting, Cary seated himself beside
the other. "You were not in the battle here? On the Peninsula, were you
not?"
"Yes, with Magruder. Look at that shaft of light."
"Yes. It strikes the crest of the hill--just where was the Stonewall
Brigade."
Silence fell. The two sat, brooding over the scene, each with his own
thoughts. "This field will be red again," said Stafford at last.
"No doubt. Yes, red again. I look for heavy fighting."
"I saw you when you came in with A. P. Hill on the second. But we have
not spoken together, I think, since Richmond."
"No," said Cary. "Not since Richmond."
"One of your men told me that, coming up, you stopped in Albemarle."
"Yes, I went home for a few hours."
"All at Greenwood are well and--happy?"
"All at Greenwood are well. Southern women are not precisely happy. They
are, however, extremely courageous."
"May I ask if Miss Cary is at Greenwood?"
"She remained at her work in Richmond through July. Then the need at the
hospital lessening, she went home. Yes, she is at Greenwood."
"Thank you. I am going to ask another question. Answer it or not as you
see fit. Does she know that--most unfortunately--it was I who carried
that order from General Jackson to General Winder?"
"I do not think that she knows it." He rose. "The bugles are sounding. I
must get back to Hill. General Lee will be up, I hope, to-night. Until
he comes we are rather in the lion's mouth. Happily John Pope is hardly
the desert king." He mounted his horse, and went. Stafford laid himself
down beneath the oak, looked sideways a moment at Bull Run and the hills
and the woods, then flung his arm upward and across his eyes, and went
in mind to Greenwood.
The day passed in a certain still and steely watchfulness. In the August
afternoon, Jeb Stuart, feather in hat, around his horse's neck a garland
of purple ironweed and yarrow, rode into the lines and spoke for ten
minutes with General Jackson, then spurred away to the Warrenton
turnpike. Almost immediately Ewell's and Taliaferro's divisions were
under arms and moving north.
Near Groveton they struck the force they were going against--King's
division of McDowell's corps moving tranquilly toward Centreville. The
long blue column--Doubleday, Patrick, Gibbon, and Hatch's
brigades--showed its flank. It moved steadily, with jingle and creak of
accoutrements, with soldier chat and laughter, with a band playing a
quickstep, with the rays of the declining sun bright on gun-stock and
bayonet, and with the deep rumble of the accompanying batteries. The
head of the column came in the gold light to a farmhouse and an apple
orchard. Out of the peace and repose of the scene burst a roar of grey
artillery.
The fight was fierce and bloody, and marked by a certain savage
picturesqueness. Gibbon and Doubleday somehow deployed and seized a
portion of the orchard. The grey held the farmhouse and the larger part
of the fair, fruit-bearing slopes. The blue brought their artillery into
action. The grey batteries, posted high, threw their shot and shell over
the heads of the grey skirmishers into the opposing ranks: Wooding,
Poague, and Carpenter did well; and then, thundering through the woods,
came John Pelham of Stuart's Horse Artillery, and he, too, did well.
As for the infantry, grey and blue, they were seasoned troops. There was
no charging this golden afternoon. They merely stood, blue and grey, one
hundred yards apart, in the sunset-flooded apple orchard, and then in a
twilight apple orchard, and then in an apple orchard with the stars
conceivably shining above the roof of smoke, and directed each against
the other a great storm of musketry, round shot, and canister.
It lasted two and a half hours, that tornado, and it never relaxed in
intensity. It was a bitter fight, and there was bitter loss. Doubleday
and Gibbon suffered fearfully, and Ewell and Taliaferro suffered. Grey
and blue, they stood grimly, and the tornado raged. The ghosts of the
quiet husbandmen who had planted the orchard, of the lovers who may have
walked there, of the children who must have played beneath the
trees--these were scared far, far from the old peaceful haunt. It was a
bitter fight.
Stafford was beside Ewell when the latter fell, a shell dreadfully
shattering his leg. The younger man caught him, drew him quite from poor
old Rifle, and with the help of the men about got him behind the slight,
slight shelter of one of the little curtsying trees. Old Dick's face
twitched, but he could speak. "Of course I've lost that
leg! ----! ---- ----! Old Jackson isn't around, is he? Never mind! Occasion
must excuse. Go along, gentlemen. Need you all there. Doctors and
chaplains and the teamsters, and Dick Ewell will forgather all
right ----! ----! Damn you, Maury, I don't want you to stay! What's that
that man says? Taliaferro badly wounded ----! ---- ----! Gentlemen, one
and all you are ordered back to your posts. I've lost a leg, but I'm not
going to lose this battle!"
Night came with each stark battle line engaged in giving and receiving
as deadly a bombardment as might well be conceived. The orchard grew a
place tawny and red and roaring with sound. And then at nine o'clock the
sound dwindled and the light sank. The blue withdrew in good order,
taking with them their wounded. The battle was drawn, the grey rested on
the field, the loss of both was heavy.
Back of the apple orchard, on the long natural terrace where he had
posted his six guns, that tall, blond, very youthful officer whom, a
little later, Stuart called "the heroic chivalric Pelham," whom Lee
called "the gallant Pelham," of whom Stonewall Jackson said, "Every army
should have a Pelham on each flank"--Major John Pelham surveyed the
havoc among his men and horses. Then like a good and able leader, he
brought matters shipshape, and later announced that the Horse Artillery
would stay where it was for the night.
The farmhouse in the orchard had been turned into a field hospital.
Thither Pelham's wounded were borne. Of the hurt horses those that
might be saved were carefully tended, the others shot. The pickets were
placed. Fires were kindled, and from a supply wagon somewhere in the
rear scanty rations brought. An embassy went to the farmhouse. "Ma'am,
the major--Major Pelham--says kin we please have a few roasting ears?"
The embassy returned. "She says, sir, just to help ourselves. Corn,
apples--anything we want, and she wishes it were more!"
The six guns gleamed red in the light of the kindled fires. The men sat
or lay between them, tasting rest after battle. Below this platform, in
the orchard and on the turnpike and in the woods beyond, showed also
fires and moving lights. The air was yet smoky, the night close and
warm. There were no tents nor roofs of any nature. Officers and men
rested in the open beneath the August stars. Pelham had a log beneath a
Lombardy poplar, with a wide outlook toward the old field of Manassas.
Here he talked with one of his captains. "Too many men lost! I feel it
through and through that there is going to be heavy fighting. We'll have
to fill up somehow."
"Everybody from this region's in already. We might get some
fifteen-year-olds or some sixty-five-year-olds, though, or we might ask
the department for conscripts--"
"Don't like the latter material. Prefer the first. Well, we'll think
about it to-morrow--It's late, late, Haralson! Good-night."
"Wait," said Haralson. "Here's a man wants to speak to you."
Running up the hillside, from the platform where were the guns to a
little line of woods dark against the starlit sky, was a
cornfield--between it and the log and the poplar only a little grassy
depression. A man had come out of the cornfield. He stood ten feet
away--a countryman apparently, poorly dressed.
"Well, who are you?" demanded Pelham, "and how did you get in my lines?"
"I've been," said the man, "tramping it over from the mountains. And
when I got into this county I found it chock full of armies. I didn't
want to be taken up by the Yankees, and so I've been mostly travelling
by night. I was in that wood up there while you all were fighting. I had
a good view of the battle. When it was over I said to myself, 'After
all they're my folk,' and I came down through the corn. I was lying
there between the stalks; I heard you say you needed gunners. I said to
myself, 'I might as well join now as later. We've all got to join one
way or another, that's clear,' and so I thought, sir, I'd join you--"
"Why haven't you 'joined,' as you call it, before?"
"I've been right sick for a year or more, sir. I got a blow on the head
in a saw mill on Briony Creek and it made me just as useless as a bit of
pith. The doctor says I am all right now, sir. I got tired of staying on
Briony--"
"Do you know anything about guns?"
"I know all about a shotgun. I could learn the other."
"What's your name?"
"Philip Deaderick."
"Well, come into the firelight, Deaderick, so that I can see you."
Deaderick came, showed a powerful figure, and a steady bearded face.
"Well," said the Alabamian, "the blow on your head doesn't seem to have
put you out of the running! I'll try you, Deaderick."
"I am much obliged to you, sir."
"I haven't any awkward squad into which to put you. You'll have to
learn, and learn quickly, by watching the others. Take him and enroll
him, Haralson, and turn him over to Dreux and the Howitzer. Now,
Deaderick, the Horse Artillery is heaven to a good man who does his
duty, and it's hell to the other kind. I advise you to try for heaven.
That's all. Good-night."
Day broke over the field of Groveton, over the plains of Manassas.
Stonewall Jackson moved in force westward from the old battle-ground.
South of Bull Run, between Young's Branch and Stony Ridge, ran an
unfinished railroad. It was bordered by woods and rolling fields. There
were alternate embankments and deep railroad cuts. Behind was the long
ridge and Catharpin Run, in front, sloping gently to the little stream,
green fields broken to the north by one deep wood. Stonewall Jackson
laid his hand on the railroad with those deep cuts and on the rough and
rising ground beyond. In the red dawn there stretched a battle front of
nearly two miles. A. P. Hill had the left. Trimble and Lawton of Ewell's
had the centre, Jackson's own division the right, Jubal Early and Forno
of Ewell's a detached force on this wing. There were forty guns, and
they were ranged along the rocky ridge behind the infantry. Jeb Stuart
guarded the flanks.
The chill moisture of the morning, the dew-drenched earth, the quiet
woods, the rose light in the sky--the troops moving here and there to
their assigned positions, exchanged opinions. "Ain't it like the
twenty-first of July, 1861?"--"It air and it ain't--mostly
ain't!"--"That's true! Hello! they are going to give us the railroad
cut! God bless the Manassas Railroad Company! If we'd dug a whole day we
couldn't have dug such a ditch as that!"--"Look at the boys behind the
embankment! Well, if that isn't the jim-dandiest breastwork! 'N look at
the forty guns up there against the sky!"--"Better tear those vines away
from the edge. Pretty, aren't they? All the blue morning glories.
Regiment's swung off toward Manassas Junction! Now if Longstreet should
come up!"--"Maybe he will. Wouldn't it be exciting? Come up with a yell
same as Kirby Smith did last year! Wonder where the Yankees are?"
"Somewhere in the woods, the whole hell lot of them."--"Some of them
aren't a hell lot. Some of them are right fine. Down on the Chickahominy
I acquired a real respect for the Army of the Potomac--and a lot of
it'll be here to-day. Yes, sir, I like Fitz John Porter and Sykes and
Reynolds and a lot of them first rate! They can't help being commanded
by The-Man-without-a-Rear. That's Washington's fault, not
theirs."--"Yes, sir, Ricketts and Meade and Kearney and a lot of them
are all right."--"Good Lord, what a shout! That's either Old Jack or a
rabbit."--"It's Old Jack! It's Old Jack! He's coming along the front.
Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! He's passed. O
God! I wish that Bee and Bartow and all that fell here could see him and
us now."--"There's Stuart passing through the fields. What guns are
those going up Stony Ridge?--Pelham and the Horse Artillery."--"Listen!
Bugles! There they come! There they come! Over the Henry Hill."
_Attention!_
About the middle of the morning the cannonading ceased. "There's a
movement this way," said A. P. Hill on the left. "They mean to turn us.
They have ploughed this wood with shells, and now they're coming to sow
it. All right, men! General Jackson's looking!--and General Lee will be
here to-night to tell the story to. I suppose you'd like Marse Robert to
say, 'Well done!' All right, then, do well!--I don't think we're any too
rich, Garrett, in ammunition. Better go tell General Jackson so."
The men talked, Hill's men and Ewell's men on Hill's right--not volubly,
but with slow appreciation. "Reynolds? Like Reynolds all right. Milroy?
Don't care for the gentleman. Sigel--Schurz--Schenck--Steinwehr? _Nein.
Nein!_ Wonder if they remember Cross Keys?"--"They've got a powerful
long line. There isn't but one thing I envy them and that's those
beautiful batteries. I don't envy them their good food, and their good,
whole clothes or anything but the guns."--"H'm, I don't envy them
anything--our batteries are doing all right! We've got a lot of their
guns, and to-night we'll have more. Artillery's done fine to-day."--"So
it has! so it has!"--"Listen, they're opening again. That's Pelham--now
Pegram--now Washington Artillery--now Rockbridge!"--"Yes sir, yes sir!
We're all right. We're ready. Music! They always come on with music.
Funny! but they've got the bands. What are they playing? Never heard it
before. Think it's 'What are the Wild Waves Saying?'"--"I think it's
'When this Cruel War is Over.'"--"Go 'way, you boys weren't in the
Valley! We've heard it several times. It's 'Der Wacht am Rhein.'"--"All
right, sir! All right. Now!"
Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, after the third great blue
charge, Edward Cary, lips blackened from tearing cartridges, lock and
barrel of his rifle hot within his hands, his cap shot away, his sleeve
torn to ribbons where he had bared and bandaged a flesh wound in the
arm, Edward Cary straightened himself and wiped away the sweat and
powder grime which blinded him. An officer's voice came out of the murk.
"The general asks for volunteers to strip the field of cartridges."
There were four men lying together, killed by the same shell. The head
of one was gone, the legs of another; the third was disembowelled, the
fourth had his breast crushed in. Their cartridge boxes when opened were
found to be half full. Edward emptied them into the haversack he carried
and went on to the next. This was a boy of sixteen, not dead yet,
moaning like a wounded hound. Edward gave him the little water that was
in his canteen, took four cartridges from his box, and crept on. A minie
sang by him, struck a yard away, full in the forehead of the dead man
toward whom he was making. The dead man had a smile upon his lips; it
was as though he mocked the bullet. All the field running back from the
railroad cuts and embankment was overstormed by shot and shell, and
everywhere from the field rose groans and cries for water. The word
"water" never ceased from use. _Water!--Water, Water!--Water!--Water!_
On it went, mournfully, like a wind.--_Water!--Water!_ Edward gathered
cartridges steadily. All manner of things were wont to come into his
mind. Just now it was a certain field behind Greenwood covered with
blackberry bushes--and the hot August sunshine--and he and Easter's Jim
gathering blackberries while Mammy watched from beneath a tree. He heard
again the little thud of the berries into the bucket. He took the
cartridges from two young men--brothers from the resemblance and from
the fact that, falling together, one, the younger, had pillowed his head
on the other's breast, while the elder's arm was around him. They lay
like children in sleep. The next man was elderly, a lonely,
rugged-looking person with a face slightly contorted and a great hole in
his breast. The next that Edward came to was badly hurt, but not too
badly to take an interest. "Cartridges?--yes, five. I'm awful
thirsty!--Well, never mind. Maybe it will rain. Who's charging now?
Heintzelman, Kearney, and Reno--Got 'em all? You can draw one from my
gun, too. I was just loading when I got hit. Well, sorry you got to go!
It's mighty lonely lying here."
Edward returned to the front, gave up his haversack, and got another. As
he turned to resume the cartridge quest there arose a cry. "Steady, men!
steady! Hooker hasn't had enough!" Edward, too, saw the blue wall coming
through the woods on the other side of the railroad. He took a musket
from a dead man near by and with all the other grey soldiers lay flat in
the grass above the cut. Hooker came within range--within close range.
The long grey front sprang to its feet and fired, dropped and loaded,
rose and fired. A leaden storm visited the wood across the track. The
August grass was long and dry. Sparks set it afire. Flames arose and
caught the oak scrub. Through it all and through the storm of bullets
the blue line burst. It came down on the unfinished track, it crossed,
it leaped up the ten-foot bank of earth, it clanged against the grey
line atop. The grey gave back, the colours fell and rose; the air
rocked, so loud was the din. Stonewall Jackson appeared. "General Hill,
order in your second line." Field's Virginians, Thomas's Georgians
charged forward. They yelled, all their rifles flashed at once, they
drove Hooker down into the cut, across the track, up into the burning
brushwood and the smoke-filled woods. But the blue were staunch and
seasoned troops; they reformed, they cheered. Hooker brought up a fresh
brigade. They charged again. Down from the woods plunged the blue wave,
through the fire, down the bank, across and up. Again din and smoke and
flame, all invading, monstrous. Jackson's voice rose higher. "General
Hill, order in General Pender."
North Carolina was, first and last, a stark fighter. Together with Gregg
and Field and Thomas, Pender drove Hooker again down the red escarpment,
across the railroad, through the burning brush, into the wood; even
drove him out of the wood, took a battery and dashed into the open
beyond. Then from the hills the blue artillery opened and from the
plains below volleyed fresh infantry. Pender was borne back through the
wood, across the railroad, up the red side of the cut.
Hooker had a brigade in column behind a tree-clad hill. Screened from
sight it now moved forward, swift and silent, then with suddenness broke
from the wood in a splendid charge. With a gleam of bayonets, with a
flash of colours, with a loud hurrah, with a staggering volley its
regiments plunged into the cut, swarmed up the red side and fell upon A.
P. Hill's weakened lines. The grey wavered. Stonewall Jackson's voice
was heard again. "General Hill, I have ordered up Forno from the right
and a regiment of Lawton's." He jerked his hand into the air. "Here they
are. Colonel Forno, give them the bayonet!"
Louisiana and Georgia swept forward, Tennessee, Alabama, and Virginia
supporting. They swept Grover's brigade down and back. There was bitter
fighting, hand-to-hand, horrible work: the dead lay in the railroad cut
thick as fallen leaves. The dead lay thick on either bank and thick in
the grass that was afire and thick in the smoky wood. The blue gave way,
went back; the grey returned to their lines.
Edward went again for cartridges. He was beside Gregg's South
Carolinians when a courier came up. "General Jackson wishes to know each
brigade's amount of ammunition," and he heard Gregg's answer, "Tell
General Jackson that this brigade has one round to the man, but I'll
hold the position with the bayonet." Edward gleaned steadily. "Water!
water! water!" cried the field. "O God! water!"
It was growing late, the long, hot day declining. There had been nine
hours of fighting. "Nine hours--ninety hours--ninety minutes?" thought
Edward. "Time's plastic like everything else. Double it, fold it back on
itself, stretch it out, do anything with it--" He took the cartridges
from a trunk of a man, crept on to a soldier shot through the hip. The
latter clutched him with a blackened hand. "Has Marse Robert come? Has
General Lee come?"
"They say he has. Over there on Stuart's Hill, holding Reynolds and
McDowell and Fitz John Porter in check."
The man fell back. "Oh, then it is all right. Stonewall Jackson and
Robert Edward Lee. It's all right--" He spoke drowsily. "It's all right.
I'll go to sleep."
Edward looking sideways toward Stony Ridge saw the forty guns black
against the sun. As he looked they blazed and thundered. He turned his
eyes. Kearney and Reno, five brigades, were coming at a double across
the open. As he looked they broke into the charge. With his bag of
cartridges he made for the nearest grey line. The blue came on, a
formidable wave indeed. Stonewall Jackson rode along the grey front.
"Men, General Early and two regiments of Lawton's are on their way. You
must stand it till they come. If you have only one cartridge, save it
until they are up from the cut. Then fire, and use your bayonets. Don't
cheer! It makes your hand less steady."
The blue wave plunged into the railroad cut. "I think," said a grey
soldier, "that I hear Jubal Early yelling." The blue wave mounted to the
level. "_Yaaaiih! Yaaaaiih!_" came out of the distance. "We know that we
do," said the men. "Now, our friend, the enemy, you go back!" Out of the
dun cloud and roar came a deep "Steady, men! You've got your bayonets
yet. Stand it for five minutes. General Early's coming. This is
Manassas--Manassas--Manassas! God is over us! Stand it for five
minutes--for three minutes.--General Early, drive them with the
bayonet."
Late that night on the banks of Bull Run the general "from the West,
where we have always seen the backs of our enemy" sent a remarkable
telegram to Halleck at Washington. _"We fought a terrific battle here
yesterday with the combined forces of the enemy, which lasted with
continuous fury from daylight until dark, by which time the enemy was
driven from the field which we now occupy. The enemy is still in our
front, but badly used up. We lost not less than eight thousand men
killed and wounded, but from the appearance of the field the enemy lost
two to one. The news has just reached me from the front that the enemy
is retreating toward the mountains."_
The delusion holding, he, at noon of the thirtieth, ordered a general
advance. "The troops to be immediately thrown forward in pursuit of the
enemy and to press him vigorously." One of his officers undertook a
comment. "By the Lord Harry, it will be the shortest pursuit that even
he ever saw! Why, damn it all! they're still here! I tell you the place
is unlucky!"
Twenty thousand blue soldiers formed the front that came down from the
hills and moved toward the Groveton wood and the railroad track. Behind
them were supporting masses, forty thousand strong. On every slope
gleamed the great blue guns. The guns opened; they shelled with
vehemence the wood, the railroad cut, and embankment, the field
immediately beyond. A line of grey pickets was seen to leave the wood
and make across the track and into cover. Pope at the Stone House saw
these with his field glass. "The last of their rear guard," he said.
One of his generals spoke. "Their guns are undoubtedly yet on that
ridge, sir."
"I am perfectly well aware of that, sir. But they will not be there long
after our line has crossed the track. Either we will gloriously take
them, or they will limber up and scamper after Jackson. He, I take it,
is well on his way to Thoroughfare Gap. All that we need is expedition.
Crush him, and then when Longstreet is up, crush _him_."
"And those troops on Stuart Hill?"
"Give you my word they are nothing, general! A rebel regiment, at the
most a brigade, thrown out from Jackson's right. I have positive
information. Fitz John Porter is mistaken--arrogantly mistaken.--Ah, the
rebel guns are going to indulge in a little bravado."
The twenty thousand gleaming bayonets passed the turnpike, passed
Dogan's house, moved on toward the wood. It rose torn and thin and black
from yesterday's handling. Immediately beyond was the railroad cut. On
the other side of the railroad ran a stretch of field and scrub,
mounting to Stony Ridge, that rose from the base of the woods. Stony
Ridge looked grey itself and formidable, and all about it was the smoke
of the forty grey guns. The twenty thousand bayonets pressed on.
There came a blare of bugles. Loud and high they rang--the bugles of the
Light Division, of Ewell's, of Jackson's own. They pierced the thunder
of the guns, they came from the wood at the base of Stony Ridge. There
was a change in the heart-beat below the twenty thousand bayonets.
Porter and Ricketts and Hatch stared, and saw start from the wood a
downward moving wall. It moved fast; it approached with a certain
impetuous steadiness. Behind it were shorter lines, detached masses.
Together all came down from Stony Ridge like an avalanche. The avalanche
came to and took the field of yesterday, and stood revealed,--Stonewall
Jackson holding the railroad cut. "I thought as much," said Fitz John
Porter. "Go ask him to give us Reynolds."
After the third charge the 65th and another regiment of the Stonewall
Brigade, finding their ammunition exhausted, armed themselves with
stones. Those of the Thunder Run men who had not fallen at White Oak
Swamp proved themselves expert. Broken rock lay in heaps by the railroad
bed. They brought these into the lines, swung and threw them. With
stones and bayonets they held the line. Morell and Sykes were great
fighters; the grey men recognized worthy foes. The battle grew Titanic.
Stonewall Jackson signalled to Lee on the Warrenton turnpike, "Hill hard
pressed. Every brigade engaged. Would like more guns."
Lee sent two batteries, and Stephen D. Lee placed them. There arose a
terrific noise, and presently a wild yelling. Lee signalled:--
_General Jackson. Do you still need reinforcements? Lee._
The signal officer on the knoll behind the Stonewall wigwagged back.
_No. The enemy are giving way. Jackson._
They gave way, indeed. The forty guns upon the ridge, the eight that Lee
had sent, strewed the green field beyond the Groveton wood with shot and
shrapnel. Morell fell back, Hatch fell back; the guns became deadly,
mowing down the blue lines. Stonewall Jackson rode along the front.
"General Hill, it is time for the counterstroke. Forward, and drive
them!"
The signaller wigwagged to the Warrenton turnpike:--
_General Lee. I am driving them. Jackson._
The signaller on the turnpike signalled back:--
_General Jackson. General Longstreet is advancing. Look out for and
protect his left flank. Lee._
* * * * *
Lee's great battle was over and won. Every division, brigade, regiment,
battery, fifty thousand infantry and cavalry brought by the great leader
into simultaneous action, the Army of Northern Virginia moved as in a
vast parade over plain and hill. Four miles in length, swept the first
wave with, in the centre, seven grey waves behind it. It was late. The
grey sea moved in the red and purple of a great sunset. From Stony Ridge
the forty guns thundered like grey breakers, while the guns of
Longstreet galloped toward the front. Horses and men and guns were at
the martial height of passion. To the right Jeb Stuart appeared,
magnificent. On swept the resistless sea. A master mind sent it over
those Manassas hills and plains, here diverting a portion of its waves,
here curbing a too rapid onslaught, here harking the great mass forward,
surmounting barriers, overwhelming a stubborn opposition, crumbling and
breaking to pieces. Wave on wave, rapid, continuous, unremitting,
thundered the assault, in the red sunset of the thirtieth of August.
Pope's Army fought bravely, but in the dusk it melted away.