Tom rose too, quickly. He staggered and had to catch at the sapling that made the pillar. "Maybe it's—"

"No, no! no, no! Don't you think that, an' have a set-back when you find it ain't! It ain't tall enough for Allan, an' it ain't him anyhow. It couldn't be."

"No, I reckon it couldn't," said Tom. "But anyhow it's one of the boys." He was half way to the gate, Sairy after him, and they were the first to welcome Steve Dagg back to Thunder Run.

Tom Cole forgot that he had no opinion of Steve anyway. Sairy pursed her lips, but a soldier was a soldier. Steve came and sat down on the edge of the porch, beside the china asters, "Gawd! don't Thunder Run sound natural! Yass'm, I walked from Buford's, an' 't was awful hard to do, cause my foot is all sore an' gangrened. I've got a furlough till it gets well. It's awful sore. Gawd! ef Thunder Run had seen what I've seen, an' heard what I've heard, an' done what I've done, an' been through what I've been through—"



CHAPTER XLII

SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 191

In Lee's tent, pitched in a grove a mile from Frederick, was held a council of war,—Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet, Jeb Stuart. Lee sat beside the table, Jackson faced him, sabre across knees, Longstreet had his place a little to one side, and Stuart stood, his shoulder against the tent pole. The last-named had been speaking. He now ended with "I think I may say, sir, that hardly a rabbit has gotten past my pickets. He's a fine fellow, Little Mac is! but he's mighty cautious, and you couldn't exactly call him swift as lightning. He's still a score of miles to the east of us, and he knows mighty little what we are about."

Jackson spoke. "General McClellan does not know if the whole army has crossed or only part of it has crossed. He does not know whether we are going to move against Washington, or move against Baltimore, or invade Pennsylvania. Always mystify, mislead, and deceive the enemy as far as possible."

Longstreet spoke. "Well, by the time he makes those twenty miles the troops should be rested and in condition. We'll have another battle and another victory."

Lee spoke, addressing Stuart. "You have done your work most skilfully, general. It is not every army that has a Jeb Stuart!" He paused, then spoke to all. "McClellan will not be up for several days. Across the river, in Virginia, are yet fourteen thousand of the enemy. I had hoped that, scattered as they are, Washington would withdraw them when it heard of our crossing. It has not done so, however. It is not well to have in our rear that entrenched camp at Harper's Ferry. It is my idea, gentlemen, that it might be possible to repeat the manoeuvre of Second Manassas."

Stonewall Jackson hitched his chair closer. Stuart chuckled joyously. Longstreet looked dubious. "Do you mean, general, that you would again divide the army?"

Lee rested his crossed hands on the table before him. "Gentlemen, did I have the Northern generals' numbers, I, too, might be cautious. Having only Robert E. Lee's numbers, I advance another policy. It is my idea again to divide the army."

"In the enemy's country? We have not fifty-five thousand fighting strength."

"Yes, in the enemy's country. And I know that we have not fifty-five thousand fighting strength. My plan is this, gentlemen. General Stuart has proved his ability to hold all roads and mask all movements. We will form two columns, and behind the screen which his cavalry provides, one column will move north and one column will move south. By advancing toward Hagerstown the first will create the impression that Pennsylvania is to be invaded. Moreover Catoctin and South Mountain are strong defensive positions. The other column will move with expedition. Recrossing the Potomac, it will invest and capture Harper's Ferry. That done, it will return at once into Maryland, rejoining me before McClellan is up."

Longstreet swore. "By God, that is a bold plan!—What if McClellan should learn it?"

"As against that, we must trust in General Stuart. These people must be driven out of Harper's Ferry. All our communications are threatened."

Longstreet was blunt. "Well, sir, I think it is madness. Pray don't send me on any such errand!"

Lee smiled. "General Jackson, what is your opinion?"

Jackson spoke with brevity. "I might prefer, sir, to attack McClellan first and then turn upon Harper's Ferry. But I see no madness in the other plan—if the movement is rapid. Sometimes to be bold is the sanest thing you can do. It is necessary of course that the enemy should be kept in darkness."

"Then, general, you will undertake the reduction of Harper's Ferry?"

"If you order me to do it, sir, I will do it."

"Very good. You will start at dawn. Besides your own you shall have McLaws's and Anderson's divisions. The remainder of the army will leave Frederick an hour or two later. Colonel Chilton will at once issue the order of march." He drew a piece of paper toward him and with a pencil made a memorandum—SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 191.

The remainder of the ninth of September passed. The tenth of September passed, and the eleventh, mild, balmy and extremely still. The twelfth found the landscape for miles around Frederick still dozing. At noon, however, upon this day things changed. McClellan's strong cavalry advance came into touch with Jeb Stuart a league or two to the east. There ensued a skirmish approaching in dignity to an engagement. Finally the grey drew off, though not, to the Federal surprise, in the direction of Frederick. Instead they galloped north.

The blue advance trotted on, sabre to hand, ready for the dash into Frederick. Pierced at last was the grey, movable screen! Now with the infantry close behind, with the magnificent artillery rumbling up, with McClellan grim from the Seven Days—now for the impact which should wipe out the memory of the defeat of a fortnight ago, of the second Bull Run, an impact that should grind rebellion small! They came to Frederick and found a quiet shell. There was no one there to sabre.

Information abounded. McClellan, riding in with his staff toward evening, found himself in a sandstorm of news, through which nothing could be distinctly observed. Prominent citizens were brought before him. "Yes, general; they undoubtedly went north. Yes, sir, the morning of the tenth. Two columns, but starting one just after the other and on the same road. Yes, sir, some of our younger men did follow on horseback after an hour or two. They could just see the columns still moving north. Then they ran against Stuart's cordon and they had to turn back. Frederick's been just like a desert island—nobody coming and nobody getting away. For all he's as frisky as a puppy, Jeb Stuart's a mighty good watch dog!"

McClellan laughed. "'Beauty' Stuart!—I wish I had him here." He grew grave again. "I am obliged to you, sir. Who's this, Ames?"

"It is a priest, sir, that's much looked up to. He says he has a collection of maps—Father Tierney, will you speak to the general?"

"Faith, and that I will, my son!" said Father Tierney. "Good avenin', general, and the best of fortunes!"

"Good evening, Father. What has your collection to do with it?"

"Faith," said Father Tierney, "and that's for you to judge, general. It was the avenin' of the eighth, and I was sittin' in my parlour after Judy O'Flaherty's funeral, and having just parted with Father Lavalle at the Noviciate. And there came a rap, and an aide of Stonewall Jackson's—But whisht! maybe I am taking up your time, general, with things you already know?"

"Go on, go on! 'An aide of Stonewall Jackson's—'"

"'Holy powers!' thinks I, 'no rest even afther a funeral!' but 'Come in, come in, my son!' I said, and in he comes. 'My name is Jarrow, Father,' says he, 'and General Jackson has heard that you have a foine collection of maps.'

"'And that's thrue enough,' says I, 'and what then, my son?' Whereupon he lays down his sword and cap and says, 'May I look at thim?'"

Father Tierney coughed. "There's a number of gentlemen waiting in the entrry. Maybe, general, you'd be afther learning of the movement of the ribils with more accuracy from thim. And I could finish about the maps another time. You aren't under any obligation to be listenin' to me."

"Shut the door, Ames," said the general. "Now Father.—'May I look at them,' he said."

"'Why, av course,' said I, 'far be it from Benedict Tierney to put a lock on knowledge!' and I got thim down. 'There's one that was made for Leonard Calvert in 1643'—says I, 'and there's another showing St. Mary's about the time of the Indian massacre, and there's a very rare one of the Chesapeake—'

"'Extremely interesting' he says, 'but for General Jackson's purposes 1862 will answer. You have recent maps also?'

"'Yes, I have,' I said, and I got thim down, rather disappointed, having thought him interested in Colonial Maryland and maybe in the location of missions. 'What do you wish?' said I, still polite, though I had lost interest. 'A map of Pennsylvania,' said he—"

"A map of Pennsylvania!—Ames, get your notebook there."

"And I unrolled it and he looked at it hard. 'Good road to Waynesboro?' he said, and says I, 'Fair, my son, fair!' And says he, 'I may take this map to General Jackson?' 'Yes,' said I, 'but I hope you'll soon be so good as to return it.' 'I will,' said he. 'Bedad,' said I, 'you ribils are right good at returning things! I'll say that for you!' said I—and he rolled up the map and put it under his arm."

The general drew a long breath. "Pennsylvania invaded by way of Waynesboro. I am much obliged, Father—"

"Wait, wait, my son, I'm not done, yet! And thin, says he, 'General Jackson wants a map of the country due east from here, one,' says he, 'that shows the roads to Baltimore.'"

"Baltimore!—"

"'Have you got that one?' says he. 'Yis,' says I, and unrolled it, and he looked at it carefully and long. 'I see,' says he, 'that by going north from Frederick to Double Pipe Creek you would strike there the turnpike running east. Thank you, Father! May I take this one, too?' And he rolled it up and put it under his arm—"

"Baltimore," said McClellan, "Baltimore—"

"'And now, Father,' says he, 'have you one of the region between here and Washington?'... Don't be afther apologizing, general! There are times when I want a strong word meself. So I got that map, too, and he looked at it steadily. 'I understand,' says he, 'that going west by north you would strike a road that leads you south again?'—'And that's thrue,' said I. And he looked at the map long and steadily again, and he asked what was the precise distance from Point of Rocks to Washington—"

"Point of Rocks! Good Lord! Ames, get ready to take these telegrams—"

"And thin he said, 'May I have this, too, Father?' and he rolled it up, and said General Jackson would certainly be obliged and would return thim in good order. (Which he did.) And thin he took up his cap and sword and said good avenin' and went. That's all that I know of the matter, general, saving and excepting, that the ribil columns certainly started next morning with their faces toward the great State of Pennsylvania. Don't mention it, general!—though if you are interested in good works, and I'm not doubting the same, there's an orphan asylum here—"

Having arrived at a cross-roads without a signpost McClellan characteristically hesitated. The activity of the next twelve hours was principally electrical and travelled by wire from Frederick to Washington and Washington to Frederick. The cavalry, indeed was pushed forward toward Boonsboro, but for the remainder of the army, as it came up, corps by corps, the night passed in inaction, and morning dawned on inaction. March north toward Pennsylvania, and leave Washington to be bombarded!—turn south and east toward Washington and hear a cry of protest and anger from an invaded state!—turn due east to Baltimore and be awakened by the enemy's cannon thundering against the other sides of the figure!—leave Baltimore out of the calculation and lose, perhaps, the whole of Maryland! McClellan was disturbed enough. And then, in the great drama of real life there occurred an incident.

An aide appeared in the doorway of the room in which were gathered McClellan and several of his generals. The discussion had been a heated one; all the men looked haggard, disturbed. "What is it?" asked McClellan sharply.

The aide held something in his hand. "This has just been found, sir. It seems to have been dropped at a street corner. Leaves and rubbish had been blown over it. The soldier who found it brought it here. He thought it important—and I think it is, sir."

He crossed the floor and gave it to the general. "Three cigars wrapped in a piece of paper! Why, what—A piece of paper wrapped around three cigars. Open the shutters more widely, Ames!"

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,

September 9, 1862.

SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. 191

The army will resume its march to-morrow, taking the Hagerstown road. General Jackson's command will form the advance, and after passing Middletown with such portion as he may select, take the route toward Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac at the most convenient point, and by Friday morning take possession of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, capture such of the enemy as may be at Martinsburg, and intercept such as may attempt to escape from Harper's Ferry.

General Longstreet's command will pursue the main road as far as Boonsborough, where it will halt with reserve, supply, and baggage trains of the army.

General McLaws, with his own division and that of General R. H. Anderson, will follow General Longstreet. On reaching Middletown he will take the route to Harper's Ferry, and by Friday morning possess himself of the Maryland Heights and endeavour to capture the enemy at Harper's Ferry and vicinity.

General Walker with his division, after accomplishing the object in which he is now engaged, will cross the Potomac at Cheek's Ford, ascend its right bank to Lovettesville, take possession of Loudoun Heights, if practicable, by Friday morning, Key's Ford on his left, and the road between the end of the mountain and the Potomac on his right. He will as far as possible cooperate with generals McLaws and Jackson and intercept the retreat of the enemy.

General D. H. Hill's division will form the rearguard of the Army, pursuing the road taken by the main body. The reserve artillery, ordnance and supply trains, etc., will precede General Hill.

General Stuart will detach a squadron of cavalry to accompany the commands of generals Longstreet, Jackson, and McLaws, and, with the main body of the cavalry, will cover the route of the army, bringing up all stragglers that may have been left behind.

The commands of Generals Jackson, McLaws, and Walker, after accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will join the main body of the army at Boonsboro or Hagerstown.

By command of General R. E. Lee,

R. H. CHILTON., Assistant Adjutant-General.

In the room at Frederick there was a silence that might have been felt. At last McClellan rose, and stepping softly to the window, leaned his hands upon the sill, and looked out at the bright blue sky. He turned presently. "Gentlemen, the longer I live, the more firmly I believe that old saying, 'Truth is stranger than fiction!'—By the Hagerstown Road—General Hooker, General Reno—"

On the morning of the tenth Stonewall Jackson, leaving Frederick, marched west by the Boonsboro Road. Ahead, Stuart's squadrons stopped all traffic. The peaceful Maryland villages were entered without warning and quitted before the inhabitants recovered from their surprise. Cavalry in the rear swept together all stragglers. The detachment, twenty-five thousand men, almost half of Lee's army, drove, a swift, clean-cut body, between the autumn fields and woods that were beginning to turn. In the fields were farmers ploughing, in the orchards gathering apples. They stopped and stared. "Well, ain't that a sight?—And half of them barefoot!—and their clothes fit for nothing but scarecrows. Well, they ain't robbers. No—and their guns are mighty bright!"

South Mountain was crossed at Turner's Gap. It was near sunset when the bugles rang halt. Brigade by brigade Stonewall Jackson's command left the road, stacked arms, broke ranks in fair, rolling autumn fields and woods. A mile or two ahead was the village of Boonsboro. Jackson sent forward to make enquiries Major Kyd Douglas of his staff. That officer took a cavalryman with him and trotted off.

The little place looked like a Sweet Auburn of the vale, so tranquilly innocent did it lie beneath the rosy west. The two officers commented upon it, and the next moment ran into a Federal cavalry company sent to Sweet Auburn from Hancock for forage or recruits or some such matter. The blue troopers set up a huzzah, and charged. The two in grey turned and dug spur,—past ran the fields, past ran the woods! The thundering pursuit fired its revolvers; the grey turned in saddle and emptied theirs, then bent head to horse's neck and plied the spur. Before them the road mounted. "Pass the hill and we are safe!—Pass the hill and we are safe!" thought the grey, and the spur drew blood. Behind came the blue—a dozen troopers. "Stop there, you damned rebels, stop there! If you don't, when we catch you we'll cut you to pieces!" Almost at the hilltop one of the grey uttered a cry. "Good God! the general!"

Stonewall Jackson was coming toward them. He was walking apparently in deep thought, and leading Little Sorrel. He was quite alone. The two officers shouted. They saw him look up, take in the situation, and put his hand on the saddle bow. Then, to give him time, the two turned. "Yaaiih! Yaaaaiiahh!" they yelled, and charged the enemy.

The blue, taken by surprise, misinterpreted the first shout and the ensuing action. There must, of course, be coming over the hill a grey force detached on some reconnoissance or other from the rebel horde known to be reposing at Frederick. Presumably it would be cavalry—and coming at a gallop! To stop to cut down these two yelling grey devils might be to invite destruction. The blue troopers first emptied their revolvers, then wheeled horse, and retired to Sweet Auburn, out of which a little later the grey cavalry did indeed drive them.

In the last of the rosy light the two officers, now again at the hilltop, saw the camp outspread below it and coming at a double quick the regiment which Jackson had sent to the rescue. One checked his horse. "What's that?" asked the other.

"The general's gloves. He dropped them when he mounted."

He stooped from his horse and gathered them up. Later, back in camp, he went to headquarters. Jackson was talking ammunition with his chief of ordnance, an aide of A. P. Hill's standing near, waiting his turn. "Well, Major Douglas?"

"Your gloves, general. You dropped them on the hilltop."

"Good! put them there, major, if you please.—Colonel Crutchfield, the ordnance train will cross first. As the batteries come up from the river see that every caisson is filled. That is all. Now, Captain Scarborough—"

"General Hill very earnestly asks, sir, that he may be permitted to speak to you."

"Where is General Hill? Is he here?"

"Yes, sir, he is outside the tent."

"Tell him to come in. You have a very good fast horse, Major Douglas. There is nothing more, I think, to-night. Good-night."

A. P. Hill entered alone, without his sword. "Good-evening, General Hill," said Jackson.

Hill stood very straight, his red beard just gleaming a little in the dusky tent. "I am come to prefer a request, sir."

"Yes. What is it?"

"A week ago, upon the crossing of the Potomac, you placed me under arrest for what you conceived—for disobedience to orders. Since then General Branch has commanded the Light Division."

"Yes."

"I feel certain, sir, that battle is imminent. General Branch is a good and brave soldier, but—but—I am come to beg, sir, that I may be released from arrest till the battle is over."

Stonewall Jackson, sitting stiffly, looked at the other standing, tense, energetic, before him. Something stole into his face that without being a smile was like a smile. It gave a strange effect of mildness, tenderness. It was gone almost as soon as it had come, but it had been there. "I can understand your feeling, sir," he said. "A battle is imminent. Until it is over you are restored to your command."

The detachment of the Army of Northern Virginia going against Harper's Ferry crossed the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal at Williamsport and forded the Potomac a few hundred yards below the ferry. A. P. Hill, McLaws, Walker, Jackson's own, the long column overpassed the silver reaches, from the willows and sycamores of the Maryland shore to the tall and dreamy woods against the Virginia sky. "We know this place," said the old Army of the Valley. "Dam No. 5's just above there!" Regiment by regiment, as it dipped into the water, the column broke into song. "Carry me back to Old Virginny!" sang the soldiers.

At Martinsburg were thirty-five hundred blue troops. Stonewall Jackson sent A. P. Hill down by the turnpike; he himself made a detour and came upon the town from the west. The thirty-five hundred blue troops could retire southward, a thing hardly to their liking, or they could hasten eastward and throw themselves into Harper's Ferry. As was anticipated, they chose the latter course.

Stonewall Jackson entered Martinsburg amid acclaim. Here he rested his troops a few hours, then in the afternoon swung eastward and bivouacked upon the Opequon. "At early dawn," he marched again. Ahead rode his cavalry, and they kept the roads on two sides of Harper's Ferry. A dispatch came from General Lafayette McLaws. General Jackson:—After some fighting I have got the Maryland Heights. Loudoun Heights in possession of General Walker. Enemy cut off north and east.

"Good! good!" said Jackson. "North, east, south, and west."

On the Maryland side of the Potomac, some miles to the north of Harper's Ferry, Lee likewise received a report—brought in haste by a courier of Stuart's. General:—The enemy seems to have waked up. McClellan reported moving toward South Mountain with some rapidity. I am holding Crampton and Turner's Gaps. What are my orders?

Lee looked eastward toward South Mountain and southward to Harper's Ferry. "General McClellan can only be guessing. We must gain time for General Jackson at Harper's Ferry." He sent word to Stuart. "D. H. Hill's division returning to South Mountain General Longstreet ordered back from Hagerstown. We must gain time for General Jackson. Hold the gaps."

D. H. Hill and Stuart held them. High above the valleys ran the roads—and all the slopes were boulder-strewn, crested moreover by broken stone walls. Hooker and Reno with the First and Ninth corps attacked Turner's Gap, Franklin's corps attacked Crampton's Gap. High above the country side, bloody and determined, eight thousand against thirty thousand, raged the battle.

Stonewall Jackson, closely investing Harper's Ferry, posting his batteries on both sides of the river, on the Maryland Heights and Loudoun Heights, heard the firing to the northward. He knit his brows. He knew that McClellan had occupied Frederick, but he knew nothing of the copy of an order found wrapped around three cigars. "What do you think of it, general?" ventured one of his brigadiers.

"I think, sir, it may be a cavalry engagement. Pleasanton came into touch with General Stuart and the Horse Artillery."

"It could not be McClellan in force?"

"I think not, sir. Not unless to his other high abilities were added energy and a knowledge of our plans.—Captain Page, this order to General McLaws: General:—You will attack so as to sweep with your artillery the ground occupied by the enemy, take his batteries in reverse, and otherwise operate against him as circumstances may justify. Lieutenant Byrd, this to General Walker: General:—You will take in reverse the battery on the turnpike and sweep with your artillery the ground occupied by the enemy, and silence the batteries on the island of the Shenandoah. Lieutenant Daingerfield, this to General A. P. Hill: General:—You will move along the left bank of the Shenandoah, and thus turn the enemy's flank and enter Harper's Ferry."

This was Sunday. From every hilltop blazed the grey batteries, and down upon the fourteen thousand blue soldiers cooped in Harper's Ferry they sent an iron death. All afternoon they thundered, and the dusk knew no cessation. Harper's Ferry was flame-ringed, there were flames among the stars. The air rocked and rang, the river shivered and hurried by. Deep night came and a half silence. There was a feeling as if the earth were panting for breath. All the air tasted powder.

A. P. Hill, struggling over ground supposed impassable, was in line of battle behind Bolivar Heights. Lawton and Jones were yet further advanced. All the grey guns were ready—at early dawn they opened. Iron death, iron death!—they rained it down on Harper's Ferry and the fourteen thousand in garrison there. They silenced the blue guns. Then the bugles blew loudly, and Hill assaulted. There were lines of breastworks and before them an abattis. The Light Division tore through the latter, struck against the first. From the height behind thundered the grey artillery.

For a day and a night the blue defence had been stubborn. It was over. Out from the eddying smoke, high from the hilltop within the town, there was shaken a white flag. A. P. Hill received the place's surrender, and Stonewall Jackson rode to Bolivar Heights and then into the town. Twelve thousand prisoners, thirteen thousand stands of arms, seventy-three guns, a great prize of stores, horses, and wagons came into his hand with Harper's Ferry.

On the Bolivar turnpike the Federal General White and his staff met the conqueror. The first, general and staff, were handsomely mounted, finely equipped, sparklingly clean and whole. The last was all leaf brown—dust and rain and wear and tear, scarfed and stained huge boots, and shabby forage cap. The surrender was unconditional. Formalities over, there followed some talk, a hint on the side of the grey of generous terms, some expression on the side of the blue of admiration for great fighters, some regret from both for the mortal wound of Miles, the officer in command. Stonewall Jackson rode into the town with the Federal general. The streets were lined with blue soldiers crowding, staring. "That's him, boys! That's Jackson! That's him! Well!"

Later A. P. Hill came to the lower room in a stone house where the general commanding sat writing a dispatch to Lee. Jackson finished the thing in hand, then looked up. "General Hill, the Light Division did well. I move almost at once, but I shall leave you here in command until the prisoners and public property are disposed of. You will use expedition."

"I am not, then, sir, to relinquish the command to General Branch?"

"You are not, sir. Battle will follow battle, and you will lead the Light Division. Be more careful hereafter of my orders."

"I will try, sir."

"Good! good!—What is it, colonel?"

"A courier, sir, from General Lee."

The courier entered, saluted, and gave the dispatch. Jackson read it, then read it aloud, figure, mien, and voice as quiet as if he were repeating some every-day communication.

ON THE MARCH, September 14th.

GENERAL,—I regret to say that McClellan has, in some unaccountable fashion, discovered the division of the army as well as its objectives. We have had hard fighting to-day on South Mountain, D. H. Hill and Longstreet both suffering heavily. The troops fought with great determination and held the passes until dusk. We are now falling back on Sharpsburg. Use all possible speed in joining me there.

LEE.

Stonewall Jackson rose. "General Hill, arrange your matters as rapidly as possible. Sharpsburg on the Antietam. Seventeen miles."



CHAPTER XLIII

SHARPSBURG

"Sharpsburg!" said long afterwards Stephen D. Lee. "Sharpsburg was Artillery Hell!"

"Sharpsburg," said the infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia. "Sharpsburg! That was the field where an infantryman knew that he stood on the most dangerous spot on the earth!"

Through the passes of the South Mountain, over Red Hill, out upon the broken ground east of the Antietam poured the blue torrent—McClellan and his eighty-seven thousand. Lee met it with a narrow grey sea—not thirty thousand men, for A. P. Hill was yet upon the road from Harper's Ferry. In Berserker madness, torrent and uproar, clashed the two colours.

There was a small white Dunkard church with a background of dark woods. It was north of Sharpsburg, near the Hagerstown turnpike, and it marked the Confederate left. Stonewall Jackson held the left. Before him was Fighting Joe Hooker with Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts.

From a knoll behind Sharpsburg the commander-in-chief looked from Longstreet on the right to D. H. Hill, and from Hill to Jackson. He looked to the Harper's Ferry Road, but he did not see what he wished to see—A. P. Hill's red battle shirt. "Artillery Hell" had begun. There was enormous thunder, enormous drifting murk. All the country side, all the little Maryland villages and farmhouses blenched beneath that sound. Lee put down his field glass. He stood, calm and grand, the smoke and uproar at his feet. The Rockbridge Guns came by, going to some indicated quarter of the field. In thunder they passed below the knoll, the iron war-beasts, the gunners with them, black with powder and grime! All saluted; but one, a very young, very ragged, very begrimed private at the guns, lingered a moment after his fellows, stood very straight at the salute and with an upward look, then with quickened step caught up with his gun and disappeared into the smoke ahead. Lee answered a glance of his chief of staff. "Yes. It was my youngest son. It was Rob."

The Dunkard church! In this war it was strange how many and how ghastly battles surged about small country churches! The Prince of Peace, if he indwelled here, must have bowed his head and mourned. Sunrise struck upon its white walls; then came a shell and pierced them. The church became the core of the turmoil, the white, still reef against which beat the wild seas in storm.

Fighting Joe Hooker came out of the North Wood. His battle flags were bright and he had drums and brazen horns. Loud and in time, regular as a beat in music, came the Huzzah! Huzzah! of his fourteen thousand men. He crossed the turnpike, he came down on the Dunkard church. "Yaii! Yaaaii! Yaaaaaaaaiihhh!" yelled the grey sea,—no time at all, only fierce determination. Sometimes a grey drum beat, or bugle called, but there was no other music, save the thunder of the guns and the long rattle, never ceasing, of the musketry. There were battle flags, squares of crimson with a starry Andrew's cross. They went forward, they shrank back. Standard-bearers were killed. Gaunt, powder-grimed hands caught at the staves, lifted them; the battle-flags went forward again.

Doubleday struck and Ricketts. They charged against Stonewall Jackson and the narrow grey sea. All the ground was broken; alignment was lost; blue waves and grey went this way and that in a broken, tumultuous fray. But the blue waves were the heavier; in mass alone they outdid the grey. They pushed the grey sea back, back, back toward the dark wood about the Dunkard church! Then Stonewall Jackson came along the front, riding in a pelting, leaden rain. "Steady, men. Steady! God is over us!" His men received him with a cry of greeting and enthusiasm that was like a shriek, it was so wild and high. His power upon them had grown and grown. He was Stonewall Jackson! He was Stonewall Jackson! First, they would die for those battle-flags and the cause they represented; second, they would die for one another, comrades, brethren! third, they would die for Stonewall Jackson! They lifted their voices for him now, gaunt and ragged troops with burning eyes. Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Virginia! Virginia! Virginia! the South! the South! He turned his horse, standing in the whistling, leaden rain. "Forward, and drive them!"

Lawton and D. H. Hill leaped against Meade. He was a staunch fighter, but he gave back. The wood about the Dunkard church appeared to writhe like Dante's wood, it was so full of groaning, of maimed men beside the tree trunks. The dead lay where they fell, and the living stepped upon them. Meade gave back, back—and then Mansfield came in thunder to reinforce the blue.

The grey fought as even in this war they had hardly fought before. They were so gaunt, they were so ragged, they were so tired! But something ethnic was coming more and more rapidly to the front. They were near again to savage nature. The Maryland woods might have been thicker, darker, the small church might have been some boulder altar beside some early Old World river. They were a tribe again, and they were fighting another and much larger tribe whom they had reason, reason, reason to hate! Their existence was at stake and the existence of all that their hearts held dear. They fought with fury. About each were his tribesmen—all were brothers! Brother fought for brother, brother saw brother fall, brother sprang to avenge brother. Their lips were blackened from tearing cartridges; their eyes, large in their thin, bronzed faces, burned against the enemy; their fingers were quick, quick at the musket lock; the spirit was the spirit behind hurled stones of old, swung clubs, thrown javelins! They had a loved leader, a great strong head man who ruled them well and led them on to victory. They fought for him too, for his scant and curt praise, for his "Good, Good!" They fought for their own lives, each man for his own life, for their tribe, their possessions, for women at home and children, for their brethren, their leader, their cause. Something else, too, of the past was there in force—hatred of him who opposed. They fought for hate at Sharpsburg, as they fought for love. The great star drew, the iron thong fell. Led and driven, the tribe fought gigantically.

* * * * *

The battle became furious. Within the din of artillery and musketry human voices, loud, imperative, giving orders, shouting, wailing, died like a low murmur in the blast. Out of the wildly drifting smoke, now dark, now flame-lit, forms emerged, singly or in great bodies, then the smoke drew together, hiding the struggle. There was blackness and grime as from the ash of a volcano. The blood pounded behind the temples, the eyeballs started, the tongue was thick in the mouth, battle smell and battle taste, a red light, and time in crashes like an earthquake-toppling city! The inequalities of the ground became exaggerated. Mere hillocks changed into rocky islands. Seize them, fortify them, take them before the blue can! The tall maize grew gigantically taller. Break through these miles of cane as often before we have broken through them, the foemen crashing before us down to their boats! The narrow tongues of woods widened, widened. Take these deep forests, use them for shelter, from them send forth these new arrows of death—fight, fight! in the rolling murk, the red light and crying!

Before the Dunkard church Starke, commanding Jackson's old division, was killed, Jones was wounded, Lawton wounded. Many field officers were down, many, many of lesser rank. Of the blue, Mansfield was killed, Hooker was wounded, and Hartsuff and Crawford. The grey had pressed the blue back, back! Now in turn the blue drove the grey. The walls of the white church were splashed with blood, pocked with bullets. Dead men lay at the door; within were those of the wounded who could get there. But the shells came too, the shells pierced the roof and entered. War came in, ebon, blood-stained, and grinning. The Prince of Peace was crowded out.

The artillery was deafening. In the midst of a tremendous burst of sound D. H. Hill flung in the remainder of his division. Sumner came through the smoke. The grey and blue closed in a death grapple. From toward the centre, beneath the howling storm rose a singing—

The race is not to them that's got The longest legs to run.

"Hood's Texans! Hood's Texans!" cried the Stonewall and all the other brigades on the imperilled left. "Come on, Hood's Texans! Come on! Yaaaii! Yaaaaaiih!"

Nor the battle to those people, That shoots the biggest gun.

The Texans came to the Dunkard church. Stonewall Jackson launched a thunderbolt, grey as steel, all his men moving up as one, against the opposing, roaring sea. The sea gave back. Then Sumner called in Sedgwick's fresh troops.

Allan Gold, fighting with the 65th, took the colours from the last of the colour guard. He was tall and strong and he swung them high. The glare from an exploding shell showed him and the battle flag. Gone was the quiet school-teacher, gone even the scout and woodsman. He stood a great Viking, with yellow hair, and the battle rage had come to him. He began to chant, unconscious as a harp through which strikes a strong wind. "Come on!" he chanted. "Come on!

"Sixty-fifth, come on! Come on, the Stonewall! Remember Manassas, The first and the second Manassas! Remember McDowell, Remember Front Royal, Remember the battle of Winchester, Remember Cross Keys, Remember Port Republic, The battle of Kernstown, and all our battles and skirmishes, Our marches and forced marches, bivouacs, and camp-fires, Brother's hand in brother's hand, and the battle to-morrow! Remember the Seven Days, Seven Days, Seven Days! Remember the Seven Days! Remember Cedar Run. The Groveton Wood, and the Railroad cut at Manassas Where you threw stones when your cartridges were gone, where you struck with the bayonet, And the General spoke to you then, 'Steady, men, steady!' Remember Chantilly, remember Loudoun and Maryland Heights. Harper's Ferry was yesterday. Remember and strike them again! Come on, 65th! Come on, the Stonewall!"

Back through the cornfield before the Dunkard church fell the blue. Dead and dying choked the cornfield as the dead and dying had choked the cane brake. Blade and stalks were beaten down, the shells tore up the earth. The blue reformed and came again, a resistless mass. Heavier and heavier, Fighting Joe Hooker, with Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts and Sumner, struck against Stonewall Jackson! Back came the grey to the little Dunkard church. All around it, wood and open filled with clangour. The blue pressed in—the grey were giving way, were giving way! An out-worn company raised a cry, "They're flanking us!" Something like a shiver passed over the thinning lines, then, grey and haggard, they tore another cartridge. Stonewall Jackson's voice came from behind a reef of smoke. "Stand fast, men! Stand fast. There are troops on the road from Harper's Ferry. It is General McLaws. Stand fast!"

It was McLaws, with his black bullet head, his air of a Roman Consul! In he thundered with his twenty-five hundred men, tawny with the dust of the seventeen miles from Harper's Ferry. He struck Sedgwick full. For five minutes there was brazen clangour and shouting and an agony of effort, then the blue streamed back, past the Dunkard wood and church, back into the dreadful cornfield.

Maury Stafford, sent with a statement to the commander-in-chief, crossed in one prolonged risk of life from the wild left to the only less stormed-against centre. Here a strong blue current, French and Richardson, strove against a staunch grey ledge—a part of D. H. Hill's line, with Anderson to support. Here was a sunken road, that, later, was given a descriptive name. Here was the Bloody Lane. Lee was found standing upon a knoll, calm and grand. "I yet look for A. P. Hill," he said. "He has a talent for appearing at identically the right moment."

Stafford gave his statement. All over the field the staff had suffered heavily. Some were dead, many were wounded. Those who were left did treble duty. Lee sent this officer on to Longstreet, holding the long ridge on the right.

Stafford rode through the withering storm across that withered field. There seemed no light from the sky; the light was the glare from the guns. He marked, through a rift in the smoke, a battery where it stood upon a height, above felled trees. He thought it was Pelham's—the Horse Artillery. It stood for a moment, outlined against the orange-bosomed cloud, then, like an army of wraiths, the smoke came between and hid it. His horse frightened at a dead man in his path. The start and plunging were unusual, and the rider looked to see the reason. The soldier had drawn letters from his breast and had died with them in his hands. The unfolded, fluttering sheets stirred as though they had life. Stafford, riding on, found the right and found Longstreet looking sombrely, like an old eagle from his eyrie. "I told General Lee," he said "that we ought never to have divided. I don't see A. P. Hill. You tell General Lee that I've only got D. R. Jones and the knowledge that we fight like hell, and that Burnside is before me with fourteen thousand men."

Stafford retraced his way. The ground beneath was burned and scarred, the battle cloud rolled dark, the minies sang beside his ear. Now he was in a barren place, tasting of powder, smelling of smoke, now lit, now darkened, but vacant of human life, and now he was in a press of men, grey forms advancing and retreating, or standing firing, and now he was where fighting had been and there was left a wrack of the dead and dying. He reached the centre and gave his message, then turned toward the left again. A few yards and his horse was killed under him. He disengaged himself and presently caught at the bridle and stayed another. There were many riderless horses on the field of Sharpsburg, but he had hardly mounted before this one, too, was killed. He went on afoot. He entered a sunken road, dropped between rough banks overhung by a few straggling trees. The road was filled with men lying down, all in shadow beneath the rolling battle smoke. Stafford thought it a regiment waiting for orders; then he saw that they were all dead men. He must go back to the Dunkard wood, and this seemed his shortest way. He entered the lane and went up it as quickly as he might for the forms that lay thick in the discoloured light. It looked as though the earth were bleeding, and all the people were fantastic about him. Some lay as straight as on a sculptured tomb, and some were hooped, and some lay like a cross, and some were headless. As he stepped with what care he might, a fierce yelling broke out on the side that was the grey side. There was a charge coming—already he saw the red squares tossing! He moved to the further side of the sunken road and braced himself against the bank, putting his arm about a twisted, protruding cedar. D. H. Hill's North Carolinians hung a moment, tall, gaunt, yelling, then swooped down into the sunken lane, passed over the dead, mounted the other ragged bank and went on. Stafford waited to hear the shock. It came; full against a deep blue wave. Richardson had been killed and Hancock commanded here. The blue wave was strong. The sound of the melee was frightful; then out of it burst a loud huzzahing. Stafford straightened himself. The grey were coming back, and after them the blue. Almost before he could unclasp his arm from the cedar, the first spray of gaunt, exhausted, bleeding men came over and down into the sunken lane. All the grey wave followed. At the moment there outburst a renewed and tremendous artillery battle. The smoke drifting across the Bloody Lane was like the fall of night, a night of cloud and storm. Orange flashes momentarily lit the scene, and the sullen thunders rolled. The grey, gaunt and haggard, but their colours with them, overpassed the dead and wounded, now choking the sunken road. Behind them were heard the blue, advancing and huzzahing. The grey wave remounted the bank down which it plunged fifteen minutes before. At the top it stayed a moment, thin and grey, spectral in the smoke pall, the battle flags like hovering, crimson birds. A line of flame leaped, one long crackle of musketry, then it resumed its retreat, falling back on the west wood. The blue, checked a moment by that last volley, now poured down into the sunken road, overpassed the thick ranks of the dead and wounded, mounted, and swept on in a counter charge.

Maury Stafford had left the cedar and started across with the last broken line of the grey. Going down the crumbling bank his spur caught in a gnarled and sprawling root. The check was absolute, and brought him violently to his knees. Before he could free himself the grey had reached the opposite crest, fired its volley, and gone on. He started to follow. He heard the blue coming, and it was expedient to get out of this trap. Before him, from the figures covering the earth like thrown jackstraws, an arm was suddenly lifted. The hand clutched at him, passing. He looked down. It was a boy of nineteen with a ghastly face. The voice came up: "Whoever you are, you're alive and well, and I'm dying. You'll take it and put a stamp on it and mail it, won't you? I'm dying. People ought to do things when the dying ask them to."

Stafford looked behind him, then down again. "Do what? Quick! They're coming."

The hand would not relax its clasp, but its fellow fumbled at the grey jacket. "It's my letter. They won't know if they don't get it. My side hurts, but it don't hurt like knowing they won't know ... that I was sorry." The face worked. "It's here but I can't—Please get it—"

"You must let me go," said Stafford, and tried to unclasp the hand. "Stay any longer and I will be killed or taken."

The hand closed desperately, both hands now. "For God's sake! I don't believe you've got so hard a heart. Take it and stamp it and mail it. If they don't know they'll never understand and I'll die knowing they'll never understand. For God's sake!"

Stafford knelt beside him, opened the grey jacket, and took out the letter. Blood was upon it, but the address was legible. "Die easy. I'll stamp and mail it. I will send a word with it, too, if you like."

A light came into the boy's face. "Tell them that I was like the prodigal son, but that I'm going home—I'm going home—"

The arms fell, the breast ceased to heave, the head drew backward. Death came and stamped the light upon the face. Before Stafford could get to his feet, the blue wave had plunged into the trough. He remembered using his pistol, and he remembered a dizziness of being borne backward. He remembered that a phrase had gone through his mind "the instability of all material things." Then came a blank. He did not assume that he had lost consciousness, but simply he could not remember. He had been wrecked in a turbulent, hostile ocean. It had made him and others captives, and now they were together at a place which he remembered was called the Roulette House. An hour might have passed, two hours; he really could not tell. There were a number of prisoners, most of them badly wounded. They lay in the back yard of the place, on the steps of out-houses, with blue soldiers for guards. A surgeon came through the yard, and helped a little the more agonizedly hurt. He glanced at Stafford's star and sash, came across and offered to bind up the cut across his forehead. "An awful field," he said. "This war is getting horrible. You're a Virginian, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Used to know a lot of Virginia doctors. Liked them first rate! Now we are enemies, and it seems to me a pity. Guess it's as Shakespeare says, 'What fools these mortals be!' I know war's getting to seem to me an awful foolishness. That cornfield out there is sickening—Now! that bleeding's stopped—"

On the left, around and before the Dunkard church, the very fury of the storm brought about at last a sudden failing, a stillness and cessation that seemed like those of death. Sound enough there was undoubtedly, and in the centre the battle yet roared, but by comparison there seemed a dark and sultry calm. Far and near lay the fallen. It was now noon, and since dawn twelve thousand men had been killed or wounded on this left, attacked by Fighting Joe Hooker, held by Stonewall Jackson. Fifteen general officers were dead or disabled. Hardly a brigade, not many regiments, were officered as they had been when the sun rose. There was an exhaustion. Franklin had entered on the field, and one might have thought that the grey would yet be overpowered. But all the blue forces were broken, disorganized; there came an exhaustion, a lassitude. McClellan sent an order forbidding another attack. Cornfield and wood lay heavy, hot, and dark, and by comparison, still.

Stonewall Jackson sat Little Sorrel near the Dunkard church. They brought him reports of the misery of the wounded and their great numbers. His medical director, of whom he was fond, came to him. "General, it is very bad! The field hospital looks as though all the fields of the world had given tribute. I know that you do not like hospitals—but would you come and look, sir?"

The general shook his head. "What is the use of looking? There have to be wounded. Do the utmost that you can, doctor."

"I have thought, sir, that, seeing the day is not ended, and they are so overwhelmingly in force, and the Potomac is not three miles in our rear—I have thought that we might manage to get the less badly hurt across. If they attack again and the day should end in defeat—"

"What have you got there?" asked Jackson. "Apples?"

"Yes, sir. I passed beneath a tree and gathered half a dozen. Would you like—"

"Yes. I breakfasted very early." He took the rosy fruit and began to eat. His eyes, just glinting under the forage cap, surveyed the scene before him,—trampled wood where the shells had cut through bough and branch, trampled cornfields where it seemed that a whirlwind had passed, his resting, shattered commands, the dead and the dying, the dead horses, the disabled guns, the drifting sulphurous smoke, and, across the turnpike, in the fields and by the east wood, the masses of blue, overcanopied also by sulphurous smoke. He finished the apple, took out a handkerchief, and wiped fingers and lips. "Dr. McGuire, they have done their worst. And never use the word defeat."

He jerked his hand into the air. "Do your best for the wounded, doctor, do all that is humanly possible, but do it here! I am going now to the centre to see General Lee."

Behind the wood, in a grassy hollow moderately sheltered from the artillery fire, at the edge of the ghastly field hospital, a young surgeon, sleeves rolled up and blood from head to foot, met the medical director. "Doctor, the Virginia Legion came on with General McLaws. They've just brought their colonel in—Fauquier Cary, you know. I wish you would look at his arm."

The two looked. "There's but one thing, colonel."

"Amputation? Very well, very well. Get it over with." He straightened himself on the boards where the men had laid him. "Sedgwick, too! Sedgwick and I striking at each other like two savages decked with beads and scalps! Fratricidal strife if ever there was fratricidal strife! All right, doctor. I had a great-uncle lost his arm at Yorktown. Can't remember him,—my father and mother loved to talk of him—old Uncle Edward. All right—it's all right."

The two doctors were talking together. "Only a few ounces left. Better use it here?"

"Yes, yes!—One minute longer, colonel. We've got a little chloroform."

The bottle was brought. Cary eyed it. "Is that all you've got?"

"Yes. We took a fair quantity at Manassas, but God only knows the amount we could use! Now."

The man stretched on the boards motioned with the hand that had not been torn by the exploding shell. "No, no! I don't want it. Keep it for some one with a leg to cut off!" He smiled, a charming, twisted smile, shading into a grimace of pain. "No chloroform at Yorktown! I'll be as much of a man as was my great-uncle Edward! Yes, yes, I'm in earnest, doctor. Put it by for the next. All right; I'm ready."

On the knoll by Sharpsburg Lee and Jackson stood and looked toward the right. McClellan had apparently chosen to launch three battles in one day; in the early morning against the Confederate left, at midday against its centre, now against its right. A message came from Longstreet. "Burnside is in motion. I've got D. R. Jones and twenty-five hundred men."

It was evident that Burnside was in motion. With fourteen thousand men he came over the stone bridge across the Antietam. They were fresh troops; their flags were flying, their drums were beating, their bugles braying. The line moved with huzzahs toward the ridge held by Longstreet. From the left came tearing past the knoll the Confederate batteries. Lee was massing them in the centre, training them against the eastern foot of the ridge. There had been a lull in the storm, now Pelham opened with loud thunders. Other guns followed. The Federal batteries began to blaze; there broke out a madness of sound. In the midst of it D. R. Jones with his twenty-five hundred men clashed with Burnside's leading brigades.

Stonewall Jackson pulled the forage cap lower, jerked his hand into the air. "Good! good! I will go, sir, and send in my freshest troops."

"Look," said Lee. "Look, general! On the Harper's Ferry road."

All upon the knoll turned and gazed. Air and light played with the battle smoke, drove it somewhat to one side and showed for a few seconds a long and sunlit road, the road from Harper's Ferry. One of the staff began a low uncontrollable laughter. "By God! I see his red battle shirt! By God! I see his red battle shirt!"

Lee with a glance checked the sound. He himself looked nobly lifted, grave and thankful. The battle smoke closed, obscuring the road, but the sound of marching men came along it, distinguishable even beneath the artillery fire. "Good, good!" said Jackson. "A. P. Hill is a good soldier."

Tawny with the dust of the seventeen miles, at a double quick and yelling, the crimson battle flags slanting forward, in swung the Light Division! D. R. Jones rallied. Decimated, out-worn, but dangerous, the aiding regiments from the left did well. The grey guns worked with a certain swift and steadfast grimness. From all the ridges of the Antietam the blue cannon thundered, thundered. Blue and grey, the musketry rolled. Sound rose into terrific volume, the eddying smoke blotted out the day. Artillery Hell—Infantry Inferno—the field of Sharpsburg roared now upon the right.

The Horse Artillery occupied a low ridge like a headland jutting into a grassy field. Below, above, behind, the smoke rolled; in front the flame leaped from their guns, the shells sped. There was a great background of battle cloud, lit every ten seconds by the glare from an opposing battery. John Pelham stood directing. Six guns were in fierce and continuous action. The men serving them were picked artillery men. To and fro they moved, down they stooped, up they stood, stepped backward from the gun at fire, moved forward at recoil, fell again to the loading with the precision of the drill ground. They were half naked, they were black with powder, glistening with sweat, some were bleeding. In the light from the guns all came boldly into relief; in the intermediate deep murk they sank from sight, became of the clouds, cloudy, mere shapes in the semi-darkness.

Stonewall Jackson, returning to the Dunkard church and passing behind this headland, turned Little Sorrel's head and came upon the plateau. Pelham met him. "Yes, general, we're doing well. Yes, sir, it's holding out. Caissons were partly filled during the lull."

"Good, good!" said Jackson. He dismounted and walked forward to the guns. Pelham followed. "I don't think you should be out here, general. They've got our range very accurately—"

The other apparently did not notice the remark. He stood near one of the guns and turned his eyes upon the battle on the right. "Longstreet strikes a heavy blow. He and Hill will push them back. Colonel Pelham, train two guns upon that body of the enemy at the ford."

Pelham moved toward the further guns. The howitzer nearest Jackson was fired, reloaded, fired again. The men beside it stood back. It blazed, thundered, recoiled. A great, black, cylindrical shell came with a demoniac shriek. At the moment the platform was lit with the battle glare. Its fall was seen. It fell, smoking, immediately beside Stonewall Jackson. Such was the concussion of the air that for a moment he was stunned. Involuntarily his arm went up before his eyes; he made a backward step. Pelham, returning from the further guns and still some yards away, gave a shout of warning and horror; from all the men who had seen the thing there burst a similar cry. With the motion almost of the shell itself, a man of the crew of the howitzer reached the torn earth and the cylinder. His body half naked, blackened, brushed, in passing, the general. He put his hands beneath the heated, smoking bottle of death, lifted it, and rushed on to the edge of the escarpment fifty feet away. Here he swung it with force, threw it from him with burned hands. Halfway to the field below it exploded.

Pelham, very pale, protested with some sternness. "You can't stay here, general! My men can't work with you here. It doesn't matter about us, but it does matter about you. Please go, sir."

"I am going, colonel. I have seen what I wished to see. Who is the man who took up the shell?"

Pelham turned to the howitzer. "Which of you was it?"

Half a dozen voices were raised in answer. "Deaderick, sir. But he burned his hands badly and he asked the lieutenant if he could go to the rear—"

"Good, good!" said Stonewall Jackson. "He did well. But there are many brave men in this army." He went back to Little Sorrel, where he stood cropping the dried grass, and stiffly mounted. As he turned from the platform and the guns, all lit again by the orange glare, there came from the right an accession of sound, then high, shrill, and triumphant the Confederate yell. A shout arose from the Horse Artillery. "They're breaking! they're breaking! Burnside, too, is breaking! Yaaaii! Yaaaaiiihh! Yaaaaaiiihhh!"



CHAPTER XLIV

BY THE OPEQUON

The battle of Sharpsburg was a triumph neither for blue nor grey, for North nor South. With the sinking of the sun ceased the bloody, prolonged, and indecisive struggle. Blue and grey, one hundred and thirty thousand men fought that battle. When the pale moon came up she looked on twenty-one thousand dead and wounded.

The living ranks sank down and slept beside the dead. Lee on Traveller waited by the highroad until late night. Man by man his generals came to him and made their report—their ghastly report. "Very good, general. What is your opinion?"—"I think, sir, that we should cross the Potomac to-night."—"Very well, general. What is your opinion?"—"General Lee, we should cross the Potomac to-night."—"Yes, general, it has been our heaviest field. What is your advice?"—"General Lee, I am here to do what you tell me to do."

Horse and rider, Traveller and Robert Edward Lee, stood in the pale light above the Antietam. "Gentlemen, we will not cross the Potomac to-night. If General McClellan wants to fight in the morning I will give him battle again.—And now we are all very tired. Good-night. Good-night!"

The sun came up, dim behind the mist. The mist rose, the morning advanced. The September sunshine lay like vital warmth upon the height and vale, upon the Dunkard church and the wood about it, upon the cornfields, and Burnside's bridge and the Bloody Lane, and upon all the dead men in the cornfields, in the woods, upon the heights, beside the stream, in the lane. The sunshine lay upon the dead, as the prophet upon the Shunamite's child, but it could not reanimate. Grey and blue, the living armies gazed at each other across the Antietam. Both were exhausted, both shattered, the blue yet double in numbers. The grey waited for McClellan's attack. It did not come. The ranks, lying down, began to talk. "He ain't going to attack! He's cautious."—"He's had enough."—"So've I. O God!"—"Never saw such a fight. Wish those buzzards would go away from that wood over there! They're so dismal."—"No, McClellan ain't going to attack!"—"Then why don't we attack?"—"Go away, Johnny! We're mighty few and powerfully tired."—"Well, I think so, too. We might just as well attack. Great big counter stroke! Crumple up Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts over there! Turn their right!"—"'T ain't impossible! Marse Robert and Old Jack could manage it."—"No, they couldn't!"—"Yes, they could!"—"You're a fool! Look at that position, stronger 'n Thunder Run Mountain, and Hooker's got troops he didn't have in yesterday! 'N those things like beehives in a row are Parrotts 'n Whitworths' 'n Blakeley's. 'N then look at us. Oh, yes! we've got spirit, but spirit's got to have a body to rush those guns."—"Thar ain't anything Old Jack couldn't do if he tried!"—"Yes, there is!" "Thar ain't! How dast you say that?"—"There is! He couldn't be a fool if he tried—and he ain't a-going to try!"

The artillerist, Stephen D. Lee, came to headquarters on the knoll by Sharpsburg. "General Lee sent for me. Tell him, please, I am here." Lee appeared. "Good-morning, Colonel Lee. You are to go at once to General Jackson. Tell him that I sent you to report to him." The officer found Stonewall Jackson at the Dunkard church. "General, General Lee sent me to report to you."

"Good, good! Colonel, I wish you to take a ride with me. We will go to the top of the hill yonder."

They went up to the top of the hill, past dead men and horses, and much wreckage of caissons and gun wheels. "There are probably sharpshooters in that wood across the stream," said Jackson. "Do not expose yourself unnecessarily, colonel." Arrived at the level atop they took post in a little copse, wildly torn and blackened, a wood in Artillery Hell. "Take your glasses, colonel, and examine the enemy's line of battle."

The other lifted the field-glass and with it swept the Antietam, and the fields and ridges beyond it. He looked at the Federal left, and he looked at the Federal centre, and he looked along the Federal right, which was opposite, then he lowered the glasses. "General, they have a very strong position, and they are in great force."

"Good! I wish you to take fifty pieces of artillery and crush that force."

Stephen D. Lee was a brave man. He said nothing now, but he stood a moment in silence, and then he took his field-glass and looked again. He looked now at the many and formidable Federal batteries clustered like dark fruit above the Antietam, and now at the masses of blue infantry, and now at the positions, under artillery and musketry fire, which the Confederate batteries must take. He put the glass down again. "Yes, general. Where shall I get the fifty guns?"

"How many have you?"

"I had thirty. Some were lost, a number disabled. I have twelve."

"Just so. Well, colonel, I could give you a few, and General Lee tells me he can furnish some."

The other fingered a button on his coat for a moment, then, "Yes, general. Shall I go for the guns?"

"No, not yet." Stonewall Jackson laid his large hands in their worn old brown gauntlets, one over the other, upon his saddle bow. He, too, looked at the Federal right and the guns on the heights like dark fruit. His eyes made just a glint of blue light below the forage cap. "Colonel Lee, can you crush the Federal right with fifty guns?"

The artillerist drew a quick breath, let the button alone, and raised his head higher. "I can try, general. I can do it if any one can."

"That is not what I asked you, sir. If I give you fifty guns can you crush the Federal right?"

The other hesitated. "General, I don't know what you want of me. Is it my technical opinion as an artillery officer? or do you want to know if I will make the attempt? If you give me the order of course I will make it!"

"Yes, colonel. But I want your positive opinion, yes or no. Can you crush the Federal right with fifty guns?"

The artillerist looked again, steadying arm and glass against a charred bough. "General, it cannot be done with fifty guns and the troops you have here."

Hilltop and withered wood hung a moment silent in the air, sunny but yet with a taste of all the powder that had been burned. Then said Jackson, "Good! Let us ride back, colonel."

They turned their horses, but Stephen Lee with some emotion began to put the case. "You forced me, general, to say what I did say. If you send the guns, I beg of you not to give them to another! I will fight them to the last extremity—" He looked to the other anxiously. To say to Stonewall Jackson that you must despair and die where he sent you in to conquer!

But Jackson had no grimness of aspect. He looked quietly thoughtful. It was even with a smile of sweetness that he cut short the other's pleading. "It's all right, colonel, it's all right! Everyone knows that you are a brave officer and would fight the guns well." At the foot of the hill he checked Little Sorrel. "We'll part here, colonel. You go at once to General Lee. Tell him all that has happened since he sent you to me. Tell him that you examined the Federal position. Tell him that I forced you to give the technical opinion of an artillery officer, and tell him what that opinion is. That is all, colonel."

The September day wore on. Grey and blue armies rested inactive save that they worked at burying the dead. Then, in the afternoon, information came to grey headquarters. Humphrey's division, pouring through the gaps of South Mountain, would in a few hours be at McClellan's service. Couch's division was at hand—there were troops assembling on the Pennsylvania border. At dark Lee issued his orders. During the night of the eighteenth the Army of Northern Virginia left the banks of the Antietam, wound silently down to the Potomac, and crossed to the Virginia shore.

All night there fell a cold, fine, chilling rain. Through it the wagon trains crossed, the artillery with a sombre noise, the wounded who must be carried, the long column of infantry, the advance, the main, the rear. The corps of Stonewall Jackson was the last to ford the river. He sat on Little Sorrel, midway of the stream, and watched his troops go onward in the steady, chilling rain. Daybreak found him there, motionless as a figure in bronze, needing not to care for wind or sun or rain.

The Army of Northern Virginia encamped on the road to Martinsburg. Thirty guns on the heights above Boteler's Ford guarded its rear, and Jeb Stuart and his cavalry watched from the northern bank at Williamsport. McClellan pushed out from Sharpsburg a heavy reconnoissance, and on his side of the river planted guns. Fitz John Porter, in command, crossed during the night a considerable body of troops. These advanced against Pendelton's guns, took four of them, and drove the others back on the Martinsburg road. Pendleton reported to General Lee; Lee sent an order to Stonewall Jackson. The courier found him upon the bank of the Potomac, gazing at the northern shore. "Good!" he said. "I have ordered up the Light Division." Seventy guns thundered from across the water. A. P. Hill in his red battle shirt advancing in that iron rain, took, front and flank, the Federal infantry. He drove them down from the bluff, he pushed them into the river; they showed black on the current. Those who got across, under the shelter of the guns, did not try again that passage. McClellan looked toward Virginia, but made no further effort, this September, to invade her. The Army of Northern Virginia waited another day above Boteler's Ford, then withdrew a few miles to the banks of the Opequon.

The Opequon, a clear and pleasing stream, meandered through the lower reaches of the great Valley, through a fertile, lovely country, as yet not greatly scored and blackened by war's torch and harrow. An easy ride to the westward and you arrived in Winchester, beloved of Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson and the 2d Army Corps. As the autumn advanced, the banks of the Opequon, the yet thick forests that stretched toward the Potomac, the great maples, and oaks and gums and hickories that rose, singly or in clusters, from the rolling farm lands, put on a most gorgeous colouring. The air was mellow and sunny. From the camp-fires, far and near, there came always a faint pungent smell of wood smoke. Curls of blue vapour rose from every glade. The land seemed bathed in Indian summer.

Through it in the mellow sunlight, beneath the crimson of the gums, the lighter red of the maples, the yellow of the hickories, the 2d Army Corps found itself for weeks back on the drill ground. The old Army of the Valley crowed and clapped on the back the Light Division and D. H. Hill's troops. "Old times come again! Jest like we used to do at Winchester! Chirk up, you fellows! Your drill's improving every day. Old Jack'll let up on you after a while. Lord! it used to be seven hours a day!"

Not only did the 2d Corps drill, it refitted. Mysteriously there came from Winchester a really fair amount of shoes and clothing. Only the fewest were now actually barefoot. In every regiment there went on, too, a careful cobbling. If by any means a shoe could be made to do, it was put in that position. Uniforms were patched and cleaned, and every day was washing day. All the hillsides were spread with soldiers' shirts. The red leaves drifting down on them looked like blood-stains, but the leaves could be brushed away. The men, standing in the Opequon, whistled as they rubbed and wrung. Every day the recovered from hospitals, and the footsore stragglers, and the men detached or furloughed, came home to camp. There came in recruits, too—men who last year were too old, boys who last year were not old enough. "Look here, boys! Thar goes Father Time!—No, it's Rip Van Winkle!"—"No, it's Santa Claus!—Anyhow, he's going to fight!" "Look here, boys! here comes another cradle. Good Lord, he's just a toddler! He don't see a razor in his dreams yet! Quartermaster's out of nursing-bottles!" "Shet up! the way those children fight's a caution!"

October drifted on, smooth as the Opequon. Red and yellow leaves drifted down, wood smoke arose, sound was wrapped as in fine wool, dulled everywhere to sweetness. Whirring insects, rippling water, the wood-chopper's axe, the whistling soldiers, the drum-beat, the bugle-call, all were swept into a smooth current, steady, almost droning, somewhat dream-like. The 2d Corps would have said that it was a long time on the Opequon, but that on the whole it found the place a pleasing land of drowsy-head.

Visitors came to the Opequon; parties from Winchester, officers from the 1st Corps commanded by Longstreet and encamped a few miles to the eastward, officers from the headquarters of the commander-in-chief. General Lee came himself on Traveller, and with Stonewall Jackson rode along the Opequon, under the scarlet maples. One day there appeared a cluster of Englishmen, Colonel the Honourable Garnet Wolseley; the Special Correspondent of the Times, the Honourable Francis Lawley, and the Special Correspondent of the Illustrated London News, Mr. Frank Vizetelly. General Lee had sent them over under the convoy of an officer, with a note to Stonewall Jackson.

MY DEAR GENERAL,—These gentlemen very especially wish to make your acquaintance. Yours,

R. E. LEE.

They made it, beneath a beautiful, tall, crimson gum tree, where on a floor of fallen leaves Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson's tent was pitched. A camp-stool, a wooden chair, and two boxes were placed. There was a respectful silence while the Opequon murmured by, then Garnet Wolseley spoke of the great interest which England—Virginia's mother country—was taking in this struggle.

"Yes, sir," said Jackson. "It would be natural for a mother to take an even greater interest."

"And the admiration, general, with which we have watched your career—the career of genius, if I may say so! By Jove—"

"Yes, sir. It is not my career. God has the matter in hand."

"Well, He knows how to pick his lieutenants!—You have the most ideal place for a camp, general! But, I suppose, before these coloured leaves all fall you will be moving?"

"It is an open secret, I suppose, sir," said the correspondent of the Times, "that when McClellan does see fit to cross you will meet him east of the Blue Ridge?"

"May I ask, sir," said the correspondent of the Illustrated News, "what you think of this latest move on the political chess-board—I mean Mr. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation?"

"The leaves are," said Jackson, "a beautiful colour. I was in England one autumn, Colonel Wolseley, but I did not observe our autumn colours in your foliage. Climate, doubtless. But what was my admiration were your cathedrals."

"Yes, general; wonderful, are they not? Music in stone. Should McClellan cross, would the Fredericksburg route—"

"Good! good! Music in stone! Which of your great church structures do you prefer, sir?"

"Why, sir, I might prefer Westminster Abbey. Would—"

"Good! Westminster Abbey. A soldier's answer. I remember that I especially liked Durham. I liked the Galilee chapel and the tomb of the Venerable Bede. St. Cuthbert is buried there, too, is he not?"

"I really don't remember, sir. Is he, Mr. Lawley?"

"I believe so."

"Yes, he is. You haven't got any cathedrals here, General Jackson, but you've got about the most interesting army on the globe. Will McClellan—"

"I like the solidity of the early Norman. The foundations were laid in 1093, I believe?"

"Very probably, general. Has General Lee—"

"It has a commanding situation—an advantage which all of your cathedrals do not possess. I liked the windows best at York. What do you think, colonel?"

"I think that you are right, general. When your wars are over, I hope that you will visit England again. I suppose that you cannot say how soon that will be, sir?"

"No, sir. Only God can say that. I should like to see Ely and Canterbury." He rose. "Gentlemen, it has been pleasant to meet you. I hear the adjutant's call. If you would like to find out how my men drill, Colonel Johnson may take you to the parade-ground."

Later, there arrived beneath the crimson gum four of Jeb Stuart's officers, gallantly mounted and equipped, young and fine. To-day their usual careless dash was tempered by something of important gravity; if their eyes danced, it was beneath half-closed lids; they did not smile outright, but their lips twitched. Behind them an orderly bore a long pasteboard box. The foremost officer was Major Heros von Borcke, of General Stuart's staff. All dismounted. Jackson came out of his tent. The air was golden warm; the earth was level before the tent, and on the carpet of small bright leaves was yet the table, the chair, the camp-stool, and the boxes. It made a fine, out-of-door room of audience. The cavalry saluted. Jackson touched the forage cap, and sat down. The staff officer, simple, big, and genuine, stood forward. "Major Von Borcke, is it not? Well, major, what is General Stuart about just now?"

"General, he is watching his old schoolmate, General McClellan. My general, I come on a graceful errand, a little gift from General Stuart bearing. He has so great an esteem and friendship for you, general; he asks that you accept so slight a token of that esteem and friendship and he would say affection, and he does say reverence. He says that from Richmond he has for this sent—"

Major Heros von Borcke made a signal. The orderly advanced and placed upon the pine table the box. The other cavalry officers stepped a little nearer; two or three of Stonewall Jackson's military family came also respectfully closer; the red gum leaves made a rustling underfoot.

"General Stuart is extremely kind," said Jackson. "I have a high esteem for Jeb Stuart. You will tell him so, major."

Slowly, slowly, came off the lid. Slowly, slowly came away a layer of silver paper. Where on earth they got—in Richmond in 1862—the gay box, the silver paper, passes comprehension. The staff thought it looked Parisian, and nursed the idea that it had once held a ball gown. Slowly, slowly, out came the gift.

A startled sound, immediately suppressed, was uttered by the military family. Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson merely looked a stone wall. The old servant Jim was now also upon the scene. "Fo' de Lawd!" said Jim. "Er new nuniform!"

Fine grey cadet cloth, gold lace, silken facings, beautiful bright buttons, sash, belt, gauntlets—the leaves rustled loudly, but a chuckle from Jim in the background and a murmured "Dat are sumpin' like!" was the only audible utterance. With empressement each article was lifted from the box by Major Heros von Borcke and laid upon the pine boards beneath Stonewall Jackson's eyes. The box emptied, Von Borcke, big, simple, manly, gravely beaming, stepped back from the table. "For General Jackson, with General Stuart's esteem and admiration!"

Stonewall Jackson, big, too, and to appearance simple, looked under the forage cap, smiled, and with one lean brown finger touched almost timidly the beautiful, spotless cadet cloth. "Major von Borcke, you will give General Stuart my best thanks. He is, indeed, good. All this," he gravely indicated the loaded table, "is much too fine for the hard work I'd have to give it, and I shall have it put away for the present. But you tell General Stuart, major, that I will take the best care of his beautiful present, and that I will always prize it highly as a souvenir. It is, I think, about one o'clock. You will stay to dinner with me, I hope, major."

But the banks of the Opequon uttered a protest. "Oh, general!"—"My general, you will hurt his feelings."—"General, just try it on, at least!" "Let us have our way, sir, just this once! We have been right good, haven't we? and we do so want to see you in it!"—"General Stuart will certainly want to know how it fits—" "Please, sir,"—"Gineral, Miss Anna sholy would like ter see you in hit!"

Ten minutes elapsed while the Opequon rippled by and the crimson gum leaves drifted down, then somewhat bashfully from the tent came forth Stonewall Jackson metamorphosed. Triumph perched upon the helms of the staff and the visiting cavalry. "Oh!—Oh!—" "General Stuart will be so happy!" "General, the review this afternoon! General, won't you review us that way?"

He did. At first the men did not know him, then there mounted a wild excitement. Suppressed with difficulty during the actual evolutions, it burst into flower when the ranks were broken. The sun was setting in a flood of gold; there hung a fairy light over the green fields and the Opequon and the vivid woods. The place rang to the frolic shouting. It had the most delighted sound. "Stonewall! Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall! Stonewall! Old Jack! Old Jack! Old Jack!"

Old Jack touched his beautiful hat of a lieutenant-general. Little Sorrel beneath him moved with a jerk of the head and a distended nostril. The men noticed that, too. "He don't know him either! Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Ain't life worth while? Ain't it grand?—Stonewall! Stonewall!"

On went the gold October, passing at last in a rain and drift of leaves into a russet November. The curls of wood smoke showed plainer down the glades, the crows were cawing, the migratory birds going south, but the days were yet mild and still, wrapped in a balm of pale sunshine, a faint, purplish, Indian summer haze. The 2d Corps was hale and soberly happy.

It was the chaplain's season. There occurred in the Army of Northern Virginia a religious revival, a far-spread and lasting deepening of feeling. For many nights in many forest glades there were "meetings" with prayer and singing. "Old Hundred" floated through the air. From tents and huts of boughs came the soldiers. They sat upon the earth, thick carpeted now with the faded leaves, or upon gnarled, out-cropping roots of oak and beech. Above shone the moon; there was a touch of frost in the air. The chaplain had some improvised pulpit; a great fire, or perhaps a torch fastened to a bough, gave light whereby to read the Book. The sound of the voice, the sound of the singing, blended with the voice of the Opequon rushing—all rushing toward the great Sea.

"Come, humble sinner, in whose breast A thousand thoughts revolve—"

It made a low thunder, so many soldiers' voices. Always, on these nights, in some glade or meadow, with some regiment or other, there was found the commander of the 2d Corps. Beneath the cathedral roof of the forest, or beneath the stars in the open, sat Stonewall Jackson, worshipping the God of Battles. Undoubtedly he was really and deeply happy. His place is on the Judean hills, with Joab and David and Abner. Late in this November there came to him another joy. In North Carolina, where his wife had gone, a child was born to him, his only child, a daughter.

In the first half of October had occurred Jeb Stuart's brilliant Monocacy raid, two days and a half within McClellan's lines. On the twenty-sixth McClellan began the passage of the Potomac. He crossed near Berlin, and Lee, assured now that the theatre of war would be east of the Blue Ridge, dispatched Longstreet with the 1st Corps to Culpeper. On the seventh of November McClellan was removed from the command of the Army of the Potomac. It was given over to Burnside, and he took the Fredericksburg route to Richmond.

The Army of the Potomac numbered one hundred and twenty-five thousand men and officers and three hundred and twenty guns. At Washington were in addition eighty thousand men, and up and down the Potomac twenty thousand more. The Army of Northern Virginia in all, 1st and 2d Corps, had seventy-two thousand men and officers and two hundred and seventy-five guns. Lee called Stonewall Jackson to join Longstreet at Fredericksburg.

On the twenty-second the 1st Corps quitted, amid smiles and tears, many a "God keep you!" and much cheering, Winchester the beloved. Out swung the long column upon the Valley pike. Advance and main and rear, horse and foot and guns, Stonewall Jackson and his twenty-five thousand took the old road. The men were happy. "Old road, old road, old road, howdy do! How's your health, old lady? Haven't you missed us? Haven't you missed us? We've missed you!"

It was Indian summer, violet, dream-like. By now there had been burning and harrowing in the Valley; war had laid his mailed hand upon the region. It was not yet the straining clutch of later days, but it was bad enough. The Indian summer wrapped with a soft touch of mourning purple much of desolation, much of untilled earth, and charred roof-tree, and broken walls. The air was soft and gentle, lying balmy and warm on the road and ragged fields, and the haze so hid the distances that the column thought not so much of how the land was scarred as of the memories that thronged on either side of the Valley pike. "Kernstown! The field of Kernstown. There's Fulkerson's wall. About five hundred years ago!"

Stonewall Jackson, riding in the van, may be supposed to have had his memories, too. He did not express them. He was using expedition, and he sent back orders. "Press forward, men! Press forward." He rode quietly, forage cap pulled low; or, standing with Little Sorrel on some wayside knoll, he watched for a while his thousands passing. Stuart's gay present had taken the air but once. Here was the old familiar, weather-worn array, leaf brown from sun and wind and dust and rain, patched here and patched there, dull of buttons, and with the lace worn off. Here were the old boots, the sabre, the forage cap; here were the blue glint of the eye and the short "Good! good!" as the men passed. The marching men shouted for him. He nodded, and having noted whatever it was he had paused to note, shook Little Sorrel's bridle and stiffly galloped to the van again.

Past Newtown, past Middletown, on to Strasburg—the Massanuttons loomed ahead, all softly coloured yet with reds and golds. "Massanutton! Massanutton!" said the troops. "We've seen you before, and you've seen us before! Front Royal's at your head and Port Republic's at your feet."

"In Virginia there's a Valley, Valley, Valley! Where all day the war drums beat, Beat, Beat! And the soldiers love the Valley Valley, Valley! And the Valley loves the soldiers, Soldiers, soldiers!"

Past Strasburg, past Tom's Brook, past Rude's Hill—through the still November days, in the Indian summer weather, the old Army of the Valley, the old Ewell's Division, the Light Division, D. H. Hill's Division, moved up the Valley Pike. All were now the 2d Corps, Stonewall Jackson riding at its head. The people—the people were mostly women and children—flocked to the great highroad to bring the army things, to wave it onward, to say "God bless you!"—"God keep you!"—"God make you to conquer!"

The 2d Corps passed Woodstock, and Edenburg, and Mt. Jackson, and came to New Market, and here it turned eastward. "Going to leave you," chanted the troops. "Going to leave you, old road, old road! Take care of yourself till we come again!"

Up and up and over Massanutton wound the 2d Corps. The air was still, not cold. The gold leaves drifted on the troops, and the red. From the top of the pass the view was magnificent. Down and down wound the column to the cold, swift Shenandoah. The men forded the stream. "Oh, Shenandoah! Oh, Shenandoah! when will we ford you again?"

Up and up the steeps of the Blue Ridge to Fisher's Gap! All the air was dreamy, the sun sloping to the west, the crows cawing in the mountain clearings. The column was leaving the Valley, and a silence fell upon it. Stonewall Jackson rode ahead, on the mountain path, in the last gold light. At the summit of the pass there was a short halt. It went by in a strange quietness. The men turned and gazed. "The Valley of Virginia! The Valley of Virginia! Which of us will not see you again?"

The Alleghenies lay faint, faint, beneath the flooding light. The sun sent out great rays of purple and rose. Between the mountain ranges the vast landscape lay in shadow, though here and there a high hilltop, a mountain spur had a coronet of gold. The 2d Corps, twenty-five thousand men, high on the Blue Ridge, looked and looked. "Some of us will not see you again. Some of us will not see you again, O loved Valley of Virginia!" Column Forward! Column Forward!



CHAPTER XLV

THE LONE TREE HILL

The three beautiful Carys walked together from the road gate toward the house. Before them, crowning the low hill, showed the white pillars between oaks where the deep coloured leaves yet clung. The sun was down, the air violet, the negro children burning brush and leaves in the hollow behind the house quarter. Halfway to the pillars, there ran back from the drive a long double row of white chrysanthemums. The three sisters paused to gather some for the vases.

Unity and Molly gathered them. Judith sat down on the bank by the road, thick with dead leaves. She drew her scarf about her. Molly came presently and sat beside her. "Dear Judith, dear Judith!" she said, in her soft little voice, and stroked her sister's dress.

Judith put her arm about her, and drew her close. "Molly, isn't it as though the earth were dying? Just the kind of fading light and hush one thinks of going in—I don't know why, but I don't like chrysanthemums any more."

"I know," said Molly, "there's a feel of mould in them, and of dead leaves and chilly nights. But the soldiers are so used to lying out of doors! I don't believe they mind it much, or they won't until the snow comes. Judith—"

"Yes, honey."

"The soldiers that I have dreadful dreams about are the soldiers in prison. Judith, I dreamed about Major Stafford the other night! He had blood upon his forehead and he was walking up and down, walking up and down in a place with a grating."

"You mustn't dream so, Molly.—Oh, yes, yes, yes! I'm sorry for him. On the land and on the sea and for them that are in prison—"

Unity joined them, with her arm full of white bloom. "Oh, isn't there a dreadful hush? How gay we used to be, even at twilight! Judith, Judith, let us do something!"

Judith looked at her with a twisted smile. "This morning, very early, we went with Aunt Lucy over the storeroom and the smoke-house, and then we went down to the quarter and got them all together, and told them how careful now we would all have to be with meal and bacon. And Susan's baby had died in the night, and we had to comfort Susan, and this afternoon we buried the baby. After breakfast we scraped almost the last of the tablecloths into lint, and Molly made envelopes, and Daddy Ben and I talked about shoes and how we could make them at home. Then Aunt Lucy and I went into town to the hospitals. There is a rumour of smallpox, but I am sure it is only a rumour. It has been a hard day. A number of sick were brought in from Fredericksburg. So much pneumonia! An old man and woman came up from North Carolina looking for their son. I took them through the wards. Oh, it was pitiful! No, he was not there. Probably he was killed. And Unity went to the sewing-rooms, and has been there sewing hard all day. And then we came home, and found Julius almost in tears, and Molly triumphant with the parlour carpet all up and ready to be cut into squares—soldiers sleeping in the snowy winter under tulips and roses. And then we read father's letter, and that was a comfort, a comfort! And then we took Susan's little baby and buried it, and did what we could for Susan; and then we walked down to the gate and stopped to gather chrysanthemums. And now we are going back to the house, and I dare say there'll be some work to do between now and bedtime. We're doing something pretty nearly all the time, Unity."

Unity lifted with strength the mass of bloom above her head. "I know, I know! But it's in me to want a brass band to do it by! I want to see the flag waving! I want to hear the sound of our work. Oh, I know I am talking foolishness!" She took Judith by the hands, and lifted her to her feet. "Anyhow, you're brave enough, Judith, Judith darling! Come, let us race to the house."

The three were country-bred, fleet of foot. They ran, swiftly, lightly, up the long drive. Twilight was around them, the leaves drifting down, the leaves crisp under foot. The tall white pillars gleamed before them; through the curtainless windows showed, jewel-like, the flame of a wood fire. They reached the steps almost together, soberly mounted them, and entered the hall. Miss Lucy called to them from the library. "The papers have come."

The old room, quiet, grave, book-lined, stored with records of old struggles, lent itself with fitness to the papers nowadays. The Greenwood Carys sat about the wood fire, Judith in an old armchair, Unity on an old embroidered stool, Molly in the corner of a great old sofa. Miss Lucy pushed her chair into the ring of the lamplight and read aloud in her quick, low, vibrant voice. The army at Fredericksburg—that was what they thought of now, day and night. She read first of the army at Fredericksburg—of Lee on the southern side of the Rappahannock, and Burnside on the northern, and the cannon all planted, and of the women and children beginning to leave. She read all the official statements, all the rumours, all the guesses, all the prophecies of victory and the record of suffering. Then she read the news of elsewhere in the vast, beleaguered fortress—of the fighting on the Mississippi, in Louisiana, in Arkansas, in the Carolinas; echoes from Cumberland Gap, echoes from Corinth. She read all the Richmond news—hot criticism, hot defence of the President, of the Secretary of War, of the Secretary of State; echoes from the House, from the Senate; determined optimism as to foreign intervention; disdain, as determined, of Burnside's "On to Richmond"; passionate devotion to the grey armies in the field—all the loud war song of the South, clear and defiant! She read everything in the paper. She read the market prices. Coffee $4 per lb. Tea $20 per lb. Wheat $5 per bushel. Corn $15 per barrel. Bacon $2 per lb. Sugar $50 per loaf. Chickens $10. Turkeys $50.