"Oh," cried Molly. "We have chickens yet, beside what we send to the hospitals! And we have eggs and milk and butter, and I was looking at the turkeys to-day. I feel wicked!"

"A lot of the turkeys will die," said Unity consolingly. "They always do. I spoke to Sam about the ducks and the guinea-hens the other day. I told him we were going to send them to Fredericksburg. He didn't like it. 'Miss Unity, what fer you gwine ter send all dem critturs away lak dat? You sen' 'em from Greenwood, dey gwine die ob homesickness!' And we don't use many eggs ourselves, honey, and we've no way to send the milk."

Miss Lucy having read the paper through, the Greenwood ladies went to supper. That frugal meal over, they came back to the library, the parlour looking somewhat desolate with the carpet up and rolled in one corner, waiting for the shears to-morrow. "The shepherds and shepherdesses look," said Unity, "as though they were shivering a little. I don't suppose they ever thought they'd live to see a Wilton carpet cut into blankets for Carys and other soldiers gone to war! It's impossible not to laugh when you think of Edward drawing one of those coverlets over him! Oh, me!"

"If Edward gets a furlough this winter," said Judith suddenly, "we must give him a party. With the two companies in town, and some of the surgeons, there will be men enough. Then Virginia and Nancy and Deb and Maria and Betty and Agatha and all the refugeeing girls—we could have a real party once more—"

"Just leaving out the things to eat," said Unity; "and wearing very old clothes. We'll do it, won't we, Aunt Lucy?"

Aunt Lucy thought it an excellent idea. "We mustn't get old before our time! We must keep brightness about the place. I have seen my mother laugh and look all the gayer out of her beautiful black eyes when other folk would have been weeping!—I hear company coming, now! It's Cousin William, I think."

Cousin William it was, not gone to the war because of sixty-eight years and a rich inheritance of gout. He came in, ruddy as an apple, ridden over to cheer up the Greenwood folk and hear and tell news from the front. He had sons there himself, and a letter which he would read for the thirtieth time. When Judith had made him take the great armchair, and Miss Lucy had rung for Julius and a glass of wine, and Unity had trimmed the light, and Molly replenished the fire, he read, and as in these days no one ever read anything perfunctorily, the reading was more telling than an actor could have made it. In places Cousin William himself and his hearers laughed, and in places reader and listener brushed hand across eyes. "Your loving son," he read, and folded the sheets carefully, for they were becoming a little worn. "Now, what's your news, Lucy? Have you heard from Fauquier?"

"Yes, yesterday. He has reached Fredericksburg from Winchester. It is one of his old, dry, charming letters, only—only a little hard to make out in places, because he's not yet used to writing with his left hand." Miss Lucy's face worked for a moment; then she smiled again, with a certain high courage and sweetness, and taking the letter from her work-basket read it to Cousin William. He listened, nodding his head at intervals. "Yes, yes, to be sure, to be sure! You can't remember Uncle Edward Churchill, Lucy, but I can. He used to read Swift to me, though I didn't care for it much, except for Gulliver. Fauquier reminds me of him often, except that Uncle Edward was bitter—though it wasn't because of his empty sleeve; it was for other things.—Fredericksburg! There'll be another terrible battle. And Warwick?"

"We heard from him to-day—a short letter, hurriedly written; but oh! like Warwick—like Warwick!"

She read this, too. It was followed by a silence in the old Greenwood library. Then said Cousin William softly, "It is worth while to get such letters. There aren't many like Warwick Cary. He's the kind that proves the future—shows it isn't just a noble dream. And Edward?"

"A letter three days ago, just after you were here the last time."

The room smiled. "It was what Edward calls a screed," said Molly; "there wasn't a thing about war in it."

Unity stirred the fire, making the sparks go up chimney. "Five pages about Massanutton in her autumn robes, and a sonnet to the Shenandoah! I like Edward."

At ten o'clock Cousin William rode away. The Greenwood women had prayers, and then, linked together, they went up the broad, old shallow stairs to the gallery above, and kissed one another good-night.

In her own room Judith laid pine knots upon the brands. Up flared the light, and reddened all the pleasant chamber. She unclad herself, slipped on her dressing-gown, brushed and braided her dusky hair, rippling, long and thick, then fed again the fire, took letters from her rosewood box, and in the light from the hearth read them for the thousandth time. There was none from Richard Cleave after July, none, none! Sitting in a low chair that had been her mother's, she bowed herself over the June-time letters, over the May-time letters. There had been but two months of bliss, two months! She read them again, although she had them all by heart; she held her hand as though it held a pen and traced the words so that she might feel, "Here and so, his hand rested"; she put the paper to her cheek, against her lips; she slipped to her knees, laid her arms along the seat of the chair and her head upon them, and prayed. "O God! my lover hast Thou put far from me.—O God! my lover hast Thou put far from me."

She knelt there long; but at last she rose, laid the letters in the box, and took from another compartment Margaret Cleave's. These were since July, a letter every fortnight. Judith read again the later ones, the ones of the late summer. "Dear child—dearest child, I cannot tell you! Only be forever sure that wherever he is, at Three Oaks or elsewhere, he loves you, loves you! No; I do not know that his is the course that I should take, but then women are different. I do not think I would ever think of pride or of the world and the world's opinion. If you cried to me I would go, and the world should not hold me back. But men have been trained to uphold that kind of pride. I did not think that Richard had it, but I see now all his father in him. Darling child, I do not think that it will last, but just now, oh, just now, you must possess your heart in patience!"

The words blurred before Judith's eyes. She sunk her head upon her knees. "Possess my heart in patience—Possess my heart in patience—Oh, God, I am not old enough yet to do it!"

She read another letter, one of later date. "Judith, I promised. I cannot tell you. But he is well, oh, believe that! and believe, too, that he is doing his work. He is not the kind to rest from work, he must work. And slowly, slowly that brings salvation. You are a noble woman. Be noble still—and wait awhile—and wait awhile! It will come right. Miriam is better. The woods about Three Oaks are gorgeous."

She read another. "Child, he is not at Three Oaks. Now you must rest—rest and wait."

Judith put the letters in the rosewood box. She arose, locked her hands behind her head and walked softly up and down the room. "Rest—rest and wait. Patience—quietude—tranquillity—strength—fortitude—endurance. —Rest—patience—calm quietude—"

It worked but partially. Presently, when she lay down it was to lie still enough, but sleepless. Late in the night she slept, but it was to dream again, much as she had dreamed during the Seven Days, great and tragic visions. Dawn waked her. She lay, staring at the white ceiling; then she arose. It was not cold. The earth lay still at this season, yet wrapped and warmed and softened with the memories of summer. Judith looked out of the window. There was a glow in the eastern sky, the trees were motionless, the brown path over the hills showed like a beckoning finger. She dressed, put a cloak about her, went softly downstairs and left the house.

The path across the meadow, through the wood, up the lone tree hill—she would see the sunrise, she would get above the world. She walked quickly, lightly, through the dank stillness. There was mist in the meadow, above the little stream. The wood was shadowy; mist, like ghosts, between the trees. She passed through it and came out on the bare hillside, rising dome-like to the one tree with the bench around it. The eastern sky was burning gold. Judith stood still. There was a man seated upon the bench, on the side that overlooked Greenwood. He sat with his head buried in his hands. She could not yet tell, but she thought he was in uniform.

With the thought she moved onward. She never remembered afterwards, whether she recognized him then, or whether she thought, "A soldier sleeping through the night up here! Why did he not come to the house?" She made no noise on the bare, moist earth of the path. She was within thirty feet of the bench when Cleave lifted his head from his hands, rose, stood still a moment, then with a gesture, weary and determined, turned to descend the hill—on the side away from Greenwood, toward a cross-country road. She called to him. "Richard!"

It was rapture—all beneath the rising sun forgotten save only this gold-lit hilltop, with its tree from Eden garden! But since it was earth, and Paradise not yet real, and there were checks and bars enough in their human lot, they came back from that seraph flight. This was the lone tree hill above Greenwood, and a November day, though gold-touched, and Philip Deaderick must get back to the section of Pelham's artillery refitting at Gordonsville.—"What do you mean? You are a soldier—you are back in the army?—but you have another name? Oh, Richard, I see, I see! Oh, I might have known! A gunner with Pelham. Oh, my gunner with Pelham, why did you not come before?"

Cleave wrung her hands, clasped in his, then bent and kissed them. "Judith, I will speak to you as to a comrade, because you would be the truest comrade ever man had! What would you do—what would you have done—in my place? What would you do now, in my place, but say—but say, 'I love you; let me go'?"

"I?" said Judith. "What would I have done? I would have reentered the army as you have reentered it. I would serve again as you are serving again. If it were necessary—Oh, I see that it was necessary!—I would serve disguised as you are disguised. But—but—when it came to Judith Cary—"

"Judith, say that it was not you and I, but some other disgraced soldier and one of your sisters—"

"You are not a disgraced soldier. The innocent cannot be disgraced."

"Who knows that I was innocent? My mother, and you, Judith, know it; my kinspeople and certain friends believe it; but all the rest of the country—the army, the people—they don't believe it. Let my name be known to-morrow, and by evening a rougher dismissal than before! Do you not see, do you not see, Judith?"

"I see partly. I see that you must serve. I see that you walk with dangers. I see that—that you could not even write. I see that I must possess my soul in patience. I see that we must wait—Oh, God, it is all waiting, waiting, waiting! But I do not see—and I refuse to see, Richard—anything at the end of it all but love, happiness, union, home for you and me!"

He held her close. "Judith, I do not know the right. I am not sure that I see the right, my soul is so tempest-tossed. That day at White Oak Swamp. If I could cleanse that day, bring it again into line with the other days of my life, poor and halting though they may have been, though they may be, if I could make all men say 'His life was a whole—one life, not two. He had no twin, a disobedient soldier, a liar and betrayer, as it was said he had.'—If I could do that, Judith! I do not see how I will do it, and yet it is my intention to do it. That done, then, darling, darling! I will make true love to you. If it is not done—but I will not think of that. Only—only—how to do it, how to do it! That maddens me at times—"

"Is it that? Then we must think of that. They are not all dead who could tell?—"

"Maury Stafford is not dead."

"Maury Stafford!—What has he to do with it?"

Cleave laughed, a sound sufficiently grim. "What has he not to do with it?—with that order which he carried from General Jackson to General Winder, and from General Winder—not, before God! to me! Winder is dead, and the courier who could have told is dead, and others whom I might have called are dead—dead, I will avow, because of my choice of action, though still—given that false order—I justify that choice! And now we hear that Major Stafford was among those taken prisoner at Sharpsburg."

Judith stood upright, her hand at her breast, her eyes narrowed. "Until this hour I never knew the name of that officer. I never thought to ask. I never thought of the mistake lying there. The mistake! All these months I have thought of it as a mistake—as one of those misunderstandings, mishappenings, accidental, incomprehensible, that wound and blister human life! I never saw it in a lightning flash for what it was till now!"

She looked about her, still with an intent and narrowed gaze. "The lone tree hill. It is a good place to see it from. There is nothing to be done but to join this day to a day last June—the day of Port Republic." Raising her hands she pressed them to her eyes as though to shut out a veritable lightning glare, then dropped them. She stood very straight, young, slender, finely and strongly fibred. "He said he would do the worst he could, and he has done it. And I said, 'At your peril!' and at his peril it shall be! And the harm that he has done, he shall undo it!" She turned. "Richard! he shall undo it."

Cleave stood beside her. "Love, love! how beautiful the light is over Greenwood! I thought, sitting here, 'I will not wait for the sunshine; I will go while all things are in shadow.' And I turned to go. And then came the sunshine. I must go now—away from the sunshine. I had but an hour, and half of it was gone before the sunshine came."

"How shall I know," she said, "if you are living? There is a battle coming."

"Yes. Judith, I will not write to you. Do not ask me; I will not. But after each battle I have managed somehow to get a line to my mother. She will tell you that I am living, well and living. I do not think that I shall die—no, not till Maury Stafford and I have met again!"

"He is in prison. They say so many die there.... Oh, Richard, write to me—"

But Cleave would not. "No! To do that is to say, 'All is as it was, and I let her take me with this stain!' I will not—I will not. Circumstance has betrayed us here this hour. We could not help it, and it has been a glory, a dream. That is it, a dream. I will not wake till I have said good-bye!"

They said good-bye, still in the dream, as lovers might, when one goes forth to battle and the other stays behind. He released her, turned short and sharp, and went down from the lone tree hill, down the side from Greenwood, to the country road. A piece of woods hid him from sight.

Judith stood motionless for a time, then she sat down upon the bench. She sat like a sibyl, elbows on knees, chin in hands, her gaze narrowed and fixed. She spoke aloud, and her voice was strange in her own ears. "Maury Stafford in prison. Where, and how long?"



CHAPTER XLVI

FREDERICKSBURG

Snow lay deep on the banks of the Rappahannock, in the forest, up and down the river, on the plain about the little city, on the bold heights of the northern shore, on the hills of the southern, commanding the plain. The snow was deep, but somewhat milder weather had set in. December the eleventh dawned still and foggy.

General Burnside with a hundred and twenty thousand blue troops appointed this day to pass the Rappahannock, a stream that flowed across the road to Richmond. He had been responsible for choosing this route to the keep of the fortress, and he must make good his reiterated, genial assurances of success. The Rappahannock, Fredericksburg, and a line of hills masked the onward-going road and its sign, This way to Richmond. "Well, the Rappahannock can be bridged! A brigade known to be occupying the town? Well, a hundred and forty guns admirably planted on Stafford Heights will drive out the rebel brigade! The line of hills, bleak and desolate with fir woods?—hares and snow birds are all the life over there! General Lee and Stonewall Jackson? Down the Rappahannock below Moss Neck. At least, undoubtedly, Stonewall Jackson's down there. The balloon people say so. General Lee's got an idea that Port Royal's our point of attack. The mass of his army's there. The gunboat people say so. Longstreet may be behind those hills. Well, we'll crush Longstreet! We'll build our bridges under cover of this fortunate fog, and go over and defeat Longstreet and be far down the road to Richmond before a man can say Jack Robinson!"

"Jack Robinson!" said the brigade from McLaws's division—Barksdale's Mississippians—drawn up on the water edge of Fredericksburg. They were tall men—Barksdale's Mississippians—playful bear-hunters from the cane brakes, young and powerfully made, and deadly shots. "Old Barksdale" knew how to handle them, and together they were a handful for any enemy whatsoever. Sixteen hundred born hunters and fighters, they opened fire on the bridge-builders, trying to build four bridges, three above, one below the town. Barksdale's men were somewhat sheltered by the houses on the river brink; the blue had the favourable fog with which to cover operations. It did not wholly help; the Mississippians had keen eyes; the rifles blazed, blazed, blazed! Burnside's bridge-builders were gallant men; beaten back from the river they came again and again, but again and again the eyes of the swamp hunters ran along the gleaming barrels and a thousand bronzed fingers pulled a thousand triggers. Past the middle of the day the fog lifted. The town lay defined and helpless beneath a pallid sky.

The artillery of the Army of the Potomac opened upon it. One hundred and forty heavy guns, set in tiers upon the heights to the north, fired each into Fredericksburg fifty rounds. Under that terrible cover the blue began to cross on pontoons.

A number of the women and children had been sent from the town during the preceding days. Not all, however, were gone. Many had no place to go to; some were ill and some were nursing the ill; many had husbands, sons, brothers, there at hand in the Army of Northern Virginia and would not go. Now with the beginning of the bombardment they must go. There were grey, imperative orders. "At once! at once! Go where? God knows! but go."

They went, almost all, in the snow, beneath the pallid sky, with the shells shrieking behind them. They carried the children, they half carried the sick and the very old. They stumbled on, between the frozen hills by the dark pointed cedars, over the bare white fields. Behind them home was being destroyed; before them lay desolation, and all around was winter. They had perhaps thought it out, and were headed—the various forlorn lines—for this or that country house, but they looked lost, remnant of a world become glacial, whirled with suddenness into the sidereal cold, cold! and the loneliness of cold. The older children were very brave; but there were babes, too, and these wailed and wailed. Their wailing made a strange, futile sound beneath the thundering of the guns.

One of these parties came through the snow to a swollen creek on which the ice cakes were floating. Cross!—yes, but how? The leaders consulted together, then went up the stream to find a possible ford, and came in sight of a grey battery, waiting among the hills. "Oh, soldiers!—oh, soldiers!—come and help!"

Down hastened a detachment, eager, respectful, a lieutenant directing, the very battery horses looking anxious, responsible. A soldier in the saddle, a child in front, a child behind, the old steady horses planting their feet carefully in the icy rushing stream, over went the children. Then the women crossed, their hands resting on the grey-clad shoulders. All were over; all thanked the soldiers. The soldiers took off their caps, wished with all their hearts that they had at command fire-lit palaces and a banquet set! Having neither, being themselves without shelter or food and ordered not to build fires, they could only bare their heads and watch the other soldiers out of sight, carrying the children, half carrying the old and sick, stumbling through the snow, by the dark pointed cedars, and presently lost to view among the frozen hills.

The shells rained destruction into Fredericksburg. Houses were battered and broken; houses were set on fire. Through the smoke and uproar, the explosions and detonations and tongues of flame, the Mississippians beat back another attempt at the bridges and opened fire on boat after boat now pushing from the northern shore. But the boats came bravely on, bravely manned; hundreds might be driven from the bridge-building, but other hundreds sprang to take their places—and always from the heights came the rain of iron, smashing, shivering, setting afire, tearing up the streets, bringing down the walls, ruining, wounding, slaying! McLaws sent an order to Barksdale, Barksdale gave it to his brigade. "Evacuate!" said the Mississippians. "We're going to evacuate. What's that in English? 'Quit?'—What in hell should we quit for?"

Orders being orders, the disgust of the bear-hunters did not count. "Old Barksdale" was fairly deprecating. "Men, I can't help it! General McLaws says, 'General Barksdale, withdraw your men to Marye's Hill.' Well, I've got to do it, haven't I? General McLaws knows, now doesn't he?—Yes,—just one more round. Load! Kneel! Commence firing!"

In the late afternoon the town was evacuated, Barksdale drawing off in good order across the stormed-upon open. He disappeared—the Mississippi brigade disappeared—from the Federal vision. The blue column, the 28th Massachusetts leading, entered Fredericksburg. "We'll get them all to-morrow—Longstreet certainly! Stonewall Jackson's from twelve to eighteen miles down the river. Well! this time Lee will find that he's divided his army once too often!"

By dark there were built six bridges, but the main army rested all night on the northern bank. December the twelfth dawned, another foggy day. The fog held hour after hour, very slow, still, muffled weather, through which, corps by corps, all day long, the army slowly crossed. In the afternoon there was a cavalry skirmish with Stuart, but nothing else happened. Thirty-six hours had been consumed in crossing and resting. The Rappahannock, however, was crossed, and the road to Richmond stretched plain between the hills.

But the grey army was not divided. Certain divisions had been down the river, but they were no longer down the river. The Army of Northern Virginia, a vibrant unit, intense, concentrated, gaunt, bronzed, and highly efficient, waited behind the hills south and west of the town. There was a creek running through a ravine, called Deep Run. On one side of Deep Run stood Longstreet and the 1st Corps, on the other, almost at right angles, Stonewall Jackson and the 2d. Before both the heavily timbered ridge sank to the open plain. In the woods had been thrown up certain breastworks.

Longstreet's left, Anderson's division, rested on the river. To Anderson's right were posted McLaws, Pickett, and Hood. He had his artillery on Marye's Hill and Willis Hill, and he had Ransom's infantry in line at the base of these hills behind a stone wall. Across Deep Run, on the wooded hills between the ravine and the Massaponax, was Stonewall Jackson. A. P. Hill's division with the brigades of Pender, Lane, Archer, Thomas, and Gregg made his first line of battle, the divisions of Taliaferro and Early his second, and D. H. Hill's division his reserve. His artillery held all favourable crests and headlands. Stuart's cavalry and Stuart's Horse Artillery were gathered by the Massaponax. Hills and forest hid them all, and over the plain and river rolled the fog.

It hid the North as it hid the South. Burnside's great force rested the night of the twelfth in and immediately about Fredericksburg—Hooker and Sumner and Franklin, one hundred and thirteen thousand men. "The balloon people" now reported that the hills south and west were held by a considerable rebel force—Longstreet evidently, Lee probably with him. Burnside repeated the infatuation of Pope and considered that Stonewall Jackson was absent from the field of operations. Undoubtedly he had been, but the shortest of time before, down the river by Port Royal. No one had seen him move. Jackson away, there was then only Longstreet—strongly posted, no doubt. Well! Form a great line of battle, advance in overwhelming strength across the plain, the guns on Stafford Heights supporting, and take the hills, and Longstreet on them! It sounded simple.



The fog, heavy, fleecy, white, persisted. The grey soldiers on the wooded hills, the grey artillery holding the bluff heads, the grey skirmishers holding embankment and cut of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad, the grey cavalry by the Massaponax, all stared into the white sea and could discern nothing. The ear was of no avail. Sound came muffled, but still it came. "The long roll—hear the long roll! My Lord! How many drums have they got, anyway?"—"Listen! If you listen right hard you can hear them shouting orders! Hush up, you infantry, down there! We want to hear."—"They're moving guns, too! Wish there'd come a little sympathizing earthquake and help them—'specially those siege guns on the heights over there!"—"No, no! I want to fight them. Look! it's lifting a little! the fog's lifting a little! Look at the guns up in the air like that! It's closed again."—"Well, if that wasn't fantastic! Ten iron guns in a row, posted in space!"—"Hm! brass bands. My Lord! there must be one to a platoon!"—"Hear them marching! Saw lightning once run along the ground—now it's thunder. How many men has General Ambrose Everett Burnside got, anyhow?"—"Burnside's been to dances before in Fredericksburg! Some of the houses are burning now that he's danced in, and some of the women he has danced with are wandering over the snow. I hope he'll like the reel presently."—"He's a good fellow himself, though not much of a general! He can't help fighting here if he's put here to fight."—"I know that. I was just stating facts. Hear that music, music, music!"

Up from Deep Run, a little in the rear of the grey centre, rose a bold hill. Here in the clinging mist waited Lee on Traveller, his staff behind him, in front an ocean of vapour. Longstreet came from the left, Stonewall Jackson from the right. Lee and his two lieutenants talked together, three mounted figures looming large on the hilltop above Deep Run. With suddenness the fog parted, was upgathered with swiftness by the great golden sun.

That lifted curtain revealed a very great and martial picture,—War in a moment of vastness and grandeur, epic, sublime. The town was afire; smoke and flame went up to a sky not yet wholly azure, banded and barred with clouds from behind which the light came in rays fierce and bright, with an effect of threatening. There was a ruined house on a high hill. It gave the appearance of a grating in the firmament, a small dungeon grating. Beyond the burning town was the river, crossed now by six pontoon bridges. On each there were troops; one of the long sun rays caught the bayonets. From the river, to the north, rose the heights, and they had an iron crown from which already came lightnings and thunders. There were paths leading down to the river and these showed blue, moving streams, bright points which were flags moving with them. That for the far side of the Rappahannock, but on this side, over the plain that stretched south and west of the smoke-wreathed town, there moved a blue sea indeed. Eighty thousand men were on that plain. They moved here, they moved there, into battle formation, and they moved to the crash of music, to the horn and to the drum. The long rays that the sun was sending made a dazzle of bayonet steel, thousands and thousands and thousands of bayonets. The gleaming lines went here, went there, crossed, recrossed, formed angles, made a vast and glittering net. Out of it soared the flags, bright hovering birds, bright giant blossoms in the air. Batteries moved across the plain. Officers, couriers, galloped on fiery horses; some general officer passed from end to end of a forming line and was cheered. The earth shook to marching feet. The great brazen horns blared, the drums beat, the bugles rang. The gleaming net folded back on itself, made three pleats, made three great lines of battle.

The grey leaders on the hill to the south gazed in silence. Then said Lee, "It is well that war is so terrible. Were it not so, we should grow too fond of it." Longstreet, the "old war horse," stared at the tremendous pageant. "This wasn't a little quarrel. It's been brewing for seventy-five years—ever since the Bill-of-Rights day. Things that take so long in brewing can't be cooled by a breath. It's getting to be a huge war." Said Jackson, "Franklin holds their left. He seems to be advancing. I will return to Hamilton's Crossing, sir."

The guns on the Stafford Heights which had been firing slowly and singly now opened mouth together. The tornado, overpassing river and plain, burst on the southern hills. In the midst of the tempest, Burnside ordered Franklin to advance a single division, its mission the seizing the unoccupied ridge east of Deep Run. Franklin sent Meade with forty-five hundred Pennsylvania troops.

Meade's brigades advanced in three lines, skirmishers out, a band playing a quickstep, the stormy sunlight deepening the colours, making a gleaming of bayonets. His first line crossed the Richmond road. To the left was a tiny stream, beyond it a ragged bank topped by brushwood. Suddenly, from this coppice, opened two of Pelham's guns.

Beneath that flanking fire the first blue line faltered, gave ground. Meade brought up four batteries and sent for others. All these came fiercely into action. When they got his range, Pelham moved his two guns and began again a raking fire. Again the blue gunners found the range and again he moved with deliberate swiftness, and again he opened with a hot and raking fire. One gun was disabled; he fought with the other. He fought until the limber chests were empty and there came an imperious message from Jeb Stuart, "Get back from destruction, you infernal, gallant fool, John Pelham!"

The guns across the river and the blue field batteries steadily shelled for half an hour the heavily timbered slopes beyond the railroad. Except for the crack and crash of severed boughs the wood gave no sign. At the end of this period Meade resumed his advance.

On came the blue lines, staunch, determined troops, seasoned now as the grey were seasoned. They meant to take that empty line of hills, willy-nilly a few Confederate guns. That done, they would be in a position to flank Longstreet, already attacked in front by Sumner's Grand Division. On they came, with a martial front, steady, swinging. Uninterrupted, they marched to within a few hundred yards of Prospect Hill. Suddenly the woods that loomed before them so dark and quiet blazed and rang. Fifty guns were within that cover, and the fifty cast their thunderbolts full against the dark blue line. From either side the grey artillery burst the grey musketry, and above the crackling thunder rose the rebel yell. Stonewall Jackson was not down the river; Stonewall Jackson was here! Meade's Pennsylvanians were gallant fighters; but they broke beneath that withering fire,—they fell back in strong disorder.

Grey and blue, North and South, there were gathered upon and above the field of Fredericksburg four hundred guns. All came into action. Where earlier, there had been fog over the plain, fog wreathing the hillsides, there was now smoke. Dark and rolling it invaded the ruined town, it mantled the flowing Rappahannock, it surmounted the hills. Red flashes pierced it, and over and under and through roared the enormous sound. There came reinforcements to Meade, division after division. In the meantime Sumner was hurling brigades against Marye's Hill and Longstreet was hurling them back again.

The 2d Corps listened to the terrible musketry from this front. "Old Pete's surely giving them hell! There's a stone wall at the base of Marye's Hill. McLaws and Ransom are holding it—sorry for the Yanks in front."—"Never heard such hullabaloo as the great guns are making!"—"What're them Pennsylvanians down there doing? It's time for them to come on! They've got enough reinforcements—old friends, Gibbon and Doubleday."—"Good fighters."—"Yes, Lord! we're all good fighters now. Glad of it. Like to fight a good fighter. Feel real friendly toward him."—"A thirty-two-pounder Parrott in the battery on the hill over there exploded and raised hell. General Lee standing right by. He just spoke on, calm and imperturbable, and Traveller looked sideways."—"Look! Meade's moving. Do you know, I think we ought to have occupied that tongue of land?"

So, in sooth, thought others presently. It was a marshy, dense, and tangled coppice projecting like a sabre tooth between the brigades of Lane and Archer. So thick was the growth, so boggy the earth, that at the last it had been pronounced impenetrable and left unrazed. Now the mistake was paid for—in bloody coin.

Meade's line of battle rushed across the open, brushed the edge of the coppice, discovered that it was empty, and plunging in, found cover. The grey batteries could not reach them. Almost before the situation was realized, forth burst the blue from the thicket. Lane was flanked; in uproar and confusion the grey gave way. Meade sent in another brigade. It left the first to man-handle Lane, hurled itself on, and at the outskirt of the wood, struck Archer's left, taking Archer by surprise and creating a demi-rout. A third brigade entered on the path of the first and second. The latter, leaving Archer to this new strength, hurled itself across the military road and upon a thick and tall wood held by Maxey Gregg and his South Carolinians. Smoke, cloud, and forest growth—it was hard to distinguish colours, hard to tell just what was happening! Gregg thought that the smoke-wrapped line was Archer falling back. He withheld his fire. The line came on and in a moment, amid shouts, struck his right. A bullet brought down Gregg himself, mortally wounded. His troops broke, then rallied. A grey battery near Bernard's Cabin brought its guns to bear upon Gibbon, trying to follow the blue triumphant rush. Archer reformed. Stonewall Jackson, standing on Prospect Hill, sent orders to his third line. "Generals Taliaferro and Early, advance and clear the front with bayonets."

Yaaaiih! Yaaaiiih! Yaaaaihh! yelled Jubal Early's men, and did as they were bid. Yaaaaiiih! Yaaiiihhh! Yaaaaiiihhhh! yelled the Stonewall Brigade and the rest of Taliaferro's, and did as they were bid. Back, back were borne Meade's brigades. Darkness of smoke, denseness of forest growth, treachery of swampy soil!—all order was lost, and there came no support. Back went the blue—all who could go back. A. P. Hill's second line was upon them now; Gibbon was attacked. The grey came down the long slopes like a torrent loosed. Walker's guns joined in. The uproar was infernal. The blue fought well and desperately—but there was no support. Back they went, back across the Richmond Road—all who could get back. They left behind in the marshy coppice, and on the wooded slopes and by the embankment, four thousand dead and wounded. The Light Division, Taliaferro and Early, now held the railroad embankment. Before them was the open plain, and the backward surge to the river of the broken foe. It was three o'clock of the afternoon. Burnside sent an order to Franklin to attack again, but Franklin disobeyed.

Upon the left Longstreet's battle now swelled to giant proportions. Marye's Hill, girdled by that stone wall, crowned by the Washington Artillery, loomed impregnable. Against it the North tossed to destruction division after division. They marched across the bare and sullen plain, they charged; the hill flashed into fire, a thunder rolled, the smoke cloud deepened. When it lifted the charge was seen to be broken, retreating, the plain was seen to be strewed with dead. The blue soldiers were staunch and steadfast. They saw that their case was hapless, yet on they came across the shelterless plain. Ordered to charge, they charged; charged very gallantly, receded with a stubborn slowness. They were good fighters, worthy foes, and the grey at Fredericksburg hailed them as such. Forty thousand men charged Marye's Hill—six great assaults—and forty thousand were repulsed. The winter day closed in. Twelve thousand men in blue lay dead or wounded at the foot of the southern hills, before Longstreet on the left and Stonewall Jackson on the right.

Five thousand was the grey loss. The Rockbridge Artillery had fought near the Horse Artillery by Hamilton's Crossing. All day the guns had been doggedly at work; horses and drivers and gunners and guns and caissons; there was death and wounds and wreckage. In the wintry, late afternoon, when the battle thunders were lessening, Major John Pelham came by and looked at Rockbridge. Much of Rockbridge lay on the ground, the rest stood at the guns. "Why, boys," said Pelham, "you stand killing better than any I ever saw!"

They stood it well, both blue and grey. It was stern fighting at Fredericksburg, and grey and blue they fought it sternly and well. The afternoon closed in, cold and still, with a red sun yet veiled by drifts of crape-like smoke. The Army of the Potomac, torn, decimated, rested huddled in Fredericksburg and on the river banks. The Army of Northern Virginia rested with few or no camp-fires on the southern hills. Between the two foes stretched the freezing plain, and on the plain lay thick the Federal dead and wounded. They lay thick, thick, before the stone wall. At hand, full target for the fire of either force, was a small, white house. In the house lived Mrs. Martha Stevens. She would not leave before the battle, though warned and warned again to do so. She said she had an idea that she could help. She stayed, and wounded men dragged themselves or were dragged upon her little porch, and within her doors. General Cobb of Georgia died there; wherever a man could be laid there were stretched the ghastly wounded. Past the house shrieked the shells; bullets imbedded themselves in its walls. To and fro went Martha Stevens, doing what she could, bandaging hurts till the bandages gave out. She tore into strips what cloth there was in the little meagre house—her sheets, her towels, her tablecloths, her poor wardrobe. When all was gone she tore her calico dress. When she saw from the open door a man who could not drag himself that far, she went and helped him, with as little reck as may be conceived of shell or minie.

The sun sank, a red ball, staining the snow with red. The dark came rapidly, a very cold dark night, with myriads of stars. The smoke slowly cleared. The great, opposed forces lay on their arms, the one closely drawn by the river, the other on the southern hills. Between was the plain, and the plain was a place of drear sound—oh, of drear sound! Neither army showed any lights; for all its antagonist knew either might be feverishly, in the darkness, preparing an attack. Grey and blue, the guns yet dominated that wide and mournful level over which, to leap upon the other, either foe must pass. Grey and blue, there was little sleeping. It was too cold, and there was need for watchfulness, and the plain was too unhappy—the plain was too unhappy.

The smoke vanished slowly from the air. The night lay sublimely still, fearfully clear and cold. About ten o'clock Nature provided a spectacle. The grey troops, huddled upon the hillsides, drew a quickened breath. A Florida regiment showed alarm. "What's that? Look at that light in the sky! Great shafts of light streaming up—look! opening like a fan! What's that, chaplain, what's that?—Don't reckon the Lord's tired of fighting, and it's the Judgment Day?"

"No, no, boys! It's an aurora borealis."

"Say it over, please. Oh, northern lights! Well, we've heard of them before, but we never saw them. Having a lot of experiences here in Virginia!"—"Well, it's beautiful, any way, and I think it's terrible. I wish those northern lights would do something for the northern wounded down there. Nothing else that's northern seems likely to do it."—"Look at them—look at them! pale red, and dancing! I've heard them called 'the merry dancers.' There's a shooting star! They say that every time a star shoots some one dies."—"That's not so. If it were, the whole sky would be full of falling stars to-night. Look at that red ray going up to the zenith. O God, make the plain stop groaning!"

The display in the heavens continued, luminous rays, faintly rose-coloured, shifting from east to west, streaming upward until they were lost in the starry vault. Elsewhere the sky was dark, intensely clear, the winter stars like diamonds. There was no wind. The wide, unsheltered plain across which had stormed, across which had receded, the Federal charges, was sown thick with soldiers who had dropped from the ranks. Many and many lay still, dead and cold, their marchings and their tentings and their battles over. They had fought well; they had died; they lay here now stark and pale, but in the vast, pictured web of the whole their threads are strong and their colour holds. But on the plain of Fredericksburg many and many and many were not dead and resting. Hundreds and hundreds they lay, and could not rest for mortal anguish. They writhed and tossed, they dragged themselves a little way and fell again, they idly waved a hat or sword or empty hand for help, they cried for aid, they cried for water. Those who could not lift their voices moaned, moaned. Some had grown delirious, and upon that plain there was even laughter. All the various notes taken together blended into one long, dreary, weird, dull, and awful sound, steady as a wind in miles of frozen reeds. They were all blue soldiers, and they lay where they fell.

There was a long fringe of them near the stone wall and near the railway embankment behind which now rested the Light Division and Taliaferro and Early. The wind here was loud, rattling a thicker growth of reeds. Above, the long, silent, flickering lights mocked with their rosy hue, and the glittering stars mocked, and the empty concave of the night mocked, and the sound of the Rappahannock mocked. A river moving by like the River of Death, and they could not even get to the river to drink, drink, drink....

A figure kneeling by a wounded man, spoke in a guarded voice to an upright, approaching form. "This man could be saved. I have given him water. I went myself to the general, and he said that if we could get any into the hospital behind the hill we might do so. But I'm not strong enough to lift him."

"I air," said Billy. He set down the bucket that he carried. "I jest filled it from the creek. It don't last any time, they air so thirsty! You take it, and I'll take him." He put his arms under the blue figure, lifted it like a child, and moved away, noiseless in the darkness. Corbin Wood took the bucket and dipper. Presently it must be refilled. By the creek he met an officer sent down from the hillside. "You twenty men out there have got to be very careful. If their sentries see or hear you moving you'll be thought a skirmish line with the whole of us behind, and every gun will be opening! Battle's decided on for to-morrow, not for to-night.—Now be careful, or we'll recall every damned life-in-your-hand blessed volunteer of you!—Oh, it's a fighting chaplain—I beg your pardon, I'm sure, sir! But you'd better all be very quiet. Old Jack would say that mercy's all right, but you mustn't alarm the foe."

All through the night there streamed the boreal lights. The living and the dying, the ruined town, the plain, the hills, the river lay beneath. The blue army slept and waked, the grey army slept and waked. The general officers of both made little or no pretence at sleeping. Plans must be made, plans must be made, plans must be made. Stonewall Jackson, in his tent, laid himself down indeed for two hours and slept, guarded by Jim, like a man who was dead. At the end of that time he rose and asked for his horse.

It was near dawn. He rode beneath the fading streamers, before his lines, before the Light Division and Early and Taliaferro, before his old brigade—the Stonewall. The 65th lay in a pine wood, down-sloping to a little stream. Reveille was yet to sound. The men lay in an uneasy sleep, but some of the officers were astir, and had been so all night. These, as Jackson checked Little Sorrel, came forward and saluted. He spoke to the colonel. "Colonel Erskine, your regiment did well. I saw it at the Crossing."

Erskine, a small, brave, fiery man, coloured with pleasure. "I'm very glad, sir. The regiment's all right, sir. The old stock wasn't quite cut down, and it's made the new like it—" He hesitated, then as the general with his "Good! good!" gathered up the reins he took heart of grace. "It's old colonel, sir—it's old colonel—" he stammered, then out it came: "Richard Cleave trained us so, sir, that we couldn't go back!"

"See, sir," said Stonewall Jackson, "that you don't emulate him in all things." He looked sternly and he rode away with no other word. He rode from the pine wood, crossed the Mine Road, and presently the narrow Massaponax. The streamers were gone from the sky; there was everywhere the hush of dawn. The courier with him wondered where he was going. They passed John Pelham's guns, iron dark against the pallid sky. Presently they came to the Yerby House, where General Maxey Gregg, a gallant soldier and gentleman, lay dying.

As Jackson dismounted Dr. Hunter McGuire came from the house. "I gave him your message, general. He is dying fast. It seemed to please him."

"Good!" said Jackson. "General Gregg and I have had a disagreement. In life it might have continued, but death lifts us all from under earthly displeasure. Will you ask him, Doctor, if I may pay him a little visit?"

The visit paid, he came gravely forth, mounted and turned back toward headquarters on Prospect Hill. In the east were red streaks, one above another. The day was coming up, clear and cold. Pelham's guns, crowning a little eminence, showed distinct against the colour. Stonewall Jackson rode by, and, with a face that was a study, a gunner named Deaderick watched him pass.

All this day these two armies stood and faced each other. There was sharpshooting, there was skirmishing, but no full attack. Night came and passed, and another morning dawned. This day, forty-eight hours after battle, Burnside sent a flag of truce with a request that he be allowed to collect and bury his dead. There were few now alive upon that plain. The wind in the reeds had died to a ghostly hush.

That night there came up a terrible storm, a howling wind driving a sleety rain. All night long, in cloud and blast and beating wet, the Army of the Potomac, grand division by grand division, recrossed the Rappahannock.

The storm continued, the rain and snow swelled the river. The Army of the Potomac with Acquia creek at hand, Washington in touch, lay inactive, went into winter quarters. The Army of Northern Virginia, couched on the southern hills, followed its example. Between the two foes flowed the dark river. Sentries in blue paced the one bank, sentries in grey the other. A detail of grey soldiers, resting an hour opposite Falmouth, employed their leisure in raising a tall signpost, with a wide and long board for arms. In bold letters they painted upon it THIS WAY TO RICHMOND. It rested there, month after month, in view of the blue army.

At the end of January Burnside was superseded. The Army of the Potomac came under the command of Fighting Joe Hooker. In February Longstreet, with the divisions of Pickett and Hood, marched away from the Rappahannock to the south bank of the James. In mid-March was fought the cavalry battle of Kelly's Ford—Averell against Fitz Lee. Averell crossed, but when the battle rested, he was back upon the northern shore. At Kelly's Ford fell John Pelham, "the battle-cry on his lips, and the light of victory beaming from his eye."

April came with soft skies and greening trees. North and south and east and west, there were now gathered against the fortress with the stars and bars above it some hundreds of thousands under arms. Likewise a great navy beat against the side which gave upon the sea. The fortress was under arms indeed, but she had no navy to speak of. Arkansas and Louisiana, Tennessee and North Carolina, vast lengths of the Mississippi River, Fortress Monroe in Virginia and Suffolk south of the James—entrance had been made into all these courts of the fortress. Blue forces held them stubbornly; smaller grey forces held as stubbornly the next bastion. On the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, within fifty miles of the imperilled Capital, were gathered by May one hundred and thirty thousand men in blue. Longstreet gone, there opposed them sixty-two thousand in grey.

Late in April Fighting Joe Hooker put in motion "the finest army on the planet." There were various passes and feints. Sedgwick attempted a crossing below Fredericksburg. Stonewall Jackson sent an aide to Lee with the information. Lee received it with a smile. "I thought it was time for one of you lazy young fellows to come and tell me what that firing was about! Tell your good general that he knows what to do with the enemy just as well as I do."

Flourish and passado executed, Hooker, with suddenness, moved up the Rappahannock, crossed at Richard's Ford, moved up the Rapidan, crossed at Ely and Germanna Fords, turned east and south and came into the Wilderness. He meant to pass through and, with three great columns, checkmate Lee at Fredericksburg. Before he could do so Lee shook himself free, left to watch the Rappahannock, and Sedgwick, ten thousand pawns and an able knight, and himself crossed to the Wilderness.



CHAPTER XLVII

THE WILDERNESS

Fifteen by twenty miles stretched the Wilderness. Out of a thin soil grew pine trees and pine trees, scrub oak and scrub oak. The growth was of the densest, mile after mile of dense growth. A few slight farms and clearings appeared like islands; all around them was the sea, the sea of tree and bush. It stretched here, it stretched there, it touched all horizons, vanishing beyond them in an amethyst haze.

Several forest tracks traversed it, but they were narrow and worn, and it was hard to guess their presence, or to find it when guessed. There were, however, two fair roads—the old Turnpike and the Plank Road. These also were sunken in the thick, thick growth. A traveller upon them saw little save the fact that he had entered the Wilderness. Near the turnpike stood a small white church, the Tabernacle church. A little south of the heart of the place lay an old, old, abandoned iron furnace—Catherine Furnace. As much to the north rose a large old house—Chancellorsville. To the westward was Dowdall's Tavern. Around all swept the pine and the scrub oak, just varied by other trees and blossoming shrubs. The ground was level, or only slightly rolling. Look where one might there was tree and bush, tree and bush, a sense of illimitable woodland, of far horizons, of a not unhappy sameness, of stillness, of beauty far removed from picturesqueness, of vague, diffused charm, of silence, of sadness not too sad, of mystery not too baffling, of sunshine very still and golden. A man knew he was in the Wilderness.

Mayday here was softly bright enough, pure sunshine and pine odours, sky without clouds, gentle warmth, the wild azalea in bloom, here and there white stars of the dogwood showing, red birds singing, pine martens busy, too, with their courtship, pale butterflies flitting, the bee haunting the honeysuckle, the snake awakening. Beauty was everywhere, and in portions of the great forest, great as a principality, quiet. In these regions, indeed, the stillness might seem doubled, reinforced, for from other stretches of the Wilderness, specifically from those which had for neighbour the roads, quiet had fled.

To right and left of the Tabernacle church were breastworks, Anderson holding them against Hooker's advance. In the early morning, through the dewy Wilderness, came from Fredericksburg way Stonewall Jackson and the 2d Corps, in addition Lafayette McLaws with his able Roman air and troops in hand. At the church they rested until eleven o'clock, then, gathering up Anderson, they plunged more deeply yet into the Wilderness. They moved in two columns, McLaws leading by the turnpike, Anderson in advance on the Plank Road, Jackson himself with the main body following by the latter road.

Oh, bright-eyed, oh, bronzed and gaunt and ragged, oh, full of quips and cranks, of jest and song and courage, oh, endowed with all quaint humour, invested with all pathos, ennobled by vast struggle with vast adversity, oh, sufferers of all things, hero-fibred, grim fighters, oh, Army of Northern Virginia—all men and all women who have battled salute you, going into the Wilderness this May day with the red birds singing!

On swing the two columns, long, easy, bayonets gleaming, accoutrements jingling, colours deep glowing in the sunshine. To either hand swept the Wilderness, great as a desert, green and jewelled. In the desert to-day were other bands, great and hostile blue-clad bands. Grey and blue,—there came presently a clash that shook the forest and sent Quiet, a fugitive, to those deeper, distant haunts. Three bands of blue, three grey attacks—the air rocked and swung, the pure sunlight changed to murk, the birds and the beasts scampered far, the Wilderness filled with shouting. The blue gave back—gave back somewhat too easily. The grey followed—would have followed at height of speed, keen and shouting, but there rode to the front a leader on a sorrel nag. "General Anderson, halt your men. Throw out skirmishers and flanking parties and advance with caution."

McLaws on the turnpike had like orders. Through the Wilderness, through the gold afternoon, all went quietly. Sound of marching feet, beat of hoof, creak of leather, rumble of wheel, low-pitched orders were there, but no singing, laughing, talking. Skirmishers and flanking parties were alert, but the men in the main column moved dreamily, the spell of the place upon them. With flowering thorn and dogwood and the purple smear of the Judas tree, with the faint gilt of the sunshine, and with wandering gracious odours, with its tangled endlessness and feel as of old time, its taste of sadness, its hint of patience, it was such a seven-leagues of woodland as might have environed the hundred-years-asleep court, palace, and princess. The great dome of the sky sprung cloudless; there was no wind; all things seemed halted, as if they had been thus forever. The men almost nodded as they marched.

Back, steadily, though slowly, gave the blue skirmishers before the grey skirmishers. So thickly grew the Wilderness that it was somewhat like Indian fighting, and no man saw a hundred yards in front of him. Stonewall Jackson's eyes glinted under the forage cap; perhaps he saw more than a hundred yards ahead of him, but if so he saw with the eyes of the mind. He was moving very slowly, more like a tortoise than a thunderbolt. The men said that Old Jack had spring fever.

Grey columns, grey artillery, grey flanking cavalry, all came under slant sunrays to within a mile or two of that old house called Chancellorsville set north of the pike, upon a low ridge in the Wilderness. "Open ground in front—open ground in front—open ground in front! Let Old Jack by—Let Old Jack by! Going to see—Going to see—" Halt!

The beat of feet ceased. The column waited, sunken in the green and gold and misty Wilderness where the shadows were lengthening and the birds were at evensong. In a moment the evensong was hushed and the birds flew away. The same instant brought explanation of that "Don't-care. -On-the-whole-quite-ready-to-retreat.-Merely-following-instructions" attitude for the past two hours of the blue skirmish line. From Chancellorsville, from Hooker's great entrenchments on the high roll of ground, along the road, and on the plateau of Hazel Grove, burst a raking artillery fire. The shells shrieked across the open, plunged into the wood, and exploded before every road-head. Hooker had guns a-many; they commanded the Wilderness rolling on three sides of the formidable position he had seized; they commanded in iron force the clearing along his front. He had breastworks; he had abattis. He had the 12th Corps, the 2d, the 3d, the 5th, the 7th, the 11th; he had in the Wilderness seventy thousand men. His left almost touched the Rappahannock, his right stretched two miles toward Germanna Ford. He was in great strength.

Jeb Stuart with his cavalry, waiting impatiently near Catherine Furnace, found beside him General Jackson on Little Sorrel. "General Stuart, I wish you to ride with me to some point from which those guns can be enfiladed. Order Major Beckham forward with a battery."

This was the heart of the Wilderness. Thick, thick grew the trees and the all-entangling underbrush. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson, staff behind them, pursued a span-wide bridle path, overarched by dogwood and Judas tree. It led at last to a rise of ground, covered by matted growth, towered above by a few pines. Four guns of the Horse Artillery strove, too, to reach the place. They made it at last, over and through the wild tangle, but so narrow was the clearing, made hurriedly to either side of the path, that but one gun at a time could be brought into position. Beckham, commanding now where Pelham had commanded, sent a shell singing against the not distant line of smoke and flame. The muzzle had hardly blazed when two masked batteries opened upon the rise of ground, the four guns, the artillerymen and artillery horses, and upon Stonewall Jackson, Stuart, and the staff.

The great blue guns were firing at short range. A howling storm of shot and shell broke and continued. Through it came a curt order. "Major Beckham, get your guns back. General Stuart, gentlemen of the staff, push out of range through the underwood."

The guns with their maddened horses strove to turn, but the place was narrow. Ere the movement could be made there was bitter loss. Horses reared and fell, dreadfully hurt; men were mown down, falling beside their pieces. It was a moment requiring action decisive, desperately gallant, heroically intelligent. The Horse Artillery drew off their guns, even got their wounded out of the intolerable zone of fire. Stonewall Jackson, with Stuart, watched them do it. He nodded, "Good! good!"

Out of the raking fire, back in the scrub and pine, there came to a halt near him a gun, a Howitzer. He sat Little Sorrel in the last golden light, a light that bathed also the piece and its gunners. The Federal batteries were lessening fire. There was a sense of pause. The two foes had seen each other; now—Army of Northern Virginia, Army of the Potomac—they must draw breath a little before they struck, before they clenched. The sun was setting; the cannonade ceased.

Jackson sat very still in the gold patch where, between two pines, the west showed clear. The aureate light, streaming on, beat full upon the howitzer and on the living and unwounded of its men. Stonewall Jackson spoke to an aide. "Tell the captain of the battery that I should like to speak to him."

The captain came. "Captain, what is the name of the gunner there? The one by the limber with his head turned away."

The captain looked. "Deaderick, sir. Philip Deaderick."

"Philip Deaderick. When did he volunteer?"

The other considered. "I think, general, it was just before Sharpsburg.—It was just after the battle of Groveton, sir."

"Sharpsburg!—I remember now. So he rejoined at Manassas."

"He hadn't been in earlier, sir. He had an accident, he said. He's a fine soldier, but he's a silent kind of a man. He keeps to himself. He won't take promotion."

"Tell him to come here."

Deaderick came. The gold in this open place, before the clear west, was very light and fine. It illuminated. Also the place was a little withdrawn, no one very near, and by comparison with the tornado which had raged, the stillness seemed complete. The gunner stood before the general, quiet, steady-eyed, broad-browed. Stonewall Jackson, his gauntleted hands folded over the saddle bow, gazed upon him fully and long. The gold light held, and the hush of the place; in the distance, in the Wilderness, the birds began again their singing. At last Jackson spoke. "The army will rest to-night. Headquarters will be yonder, by the road. Report to me there at ten o'clock. I will listen to what you have to say. That is all now."

Night stole over the Wilderness, a night of large, mild stars, of vagrant airs, of balm and sweetness. Earth lay in a tender dream, all about her her wild flowers and her fresh-clad trees. The grey and the blue soldiers slept, too, and one dreamed of this and one dreamed of that. Alike they dreamed of home and country and cause, of loved women and loved children and of their comrades. Grey and blue, these two armies fought each for an idea, and they fought well, as people fight who fight for an idea. And that it was not a material thing for which they fought, but a concept, lifted from them something of the grossness of physical struggle, carried away as with a strong wind much of the pettiness of war, brought their strife upon the plane of heroes. There is a beauty and a strength in the thought of them, grey and blue, sleeping in the Wilderness, under the gleam of far-away worlds.

The generals did not sleep. In the Chancellor house, north of the pike, Fighting Joe Hooker held council with his commanders of corps, with Meade and Sickles and Slocum and Howard and Couch. Out in the Wilderness, near the Plank Road, with the light from a camp-fire turning to bronze and wine-red the young oak leaves about them, there held council Robert Edward Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Near them a war horse neighed; there came the tramp of the sentry, then quiet stole upon the scene. The staff was near at hand, but to-night staff and couriers held themselves stiller than still. There was something in the air of the Wilderness; they knew not what it was, but it was there.

Lee and Jackson sat opposite each other, the one on a box, the other on a great fallen tree. On the earth between them lay an unrolled map, and now one took it up and pondered it, and now the other, and now they spoke together in quiet, low voices, their eyes on the map at their feet in the red light. Lee spoke. "I went myself and looked upon their left. It is very strong. An assault upon their centre? Well-nigh impossible! I sent Major Talcott and Captain Boswell again to reconnoitre. They report the front fairly impregnable, and I agree with them that it is so. The right—Here is General Stuart, now, to tell us something of that!"

In fighting jacket and plume Jeb Stuart came into the light. He saluted. "General Lee, their right rests on the Brock road, and the Brock road is as clean of defences as if gunpowder had never been invented, nor breastworks thought of!" He knelt and took up the map. "Here, sir, is Hunting Creek, and here Dowdall's Tavern and the Wilderness church, and here, through the deep woods, runs the old Furnace road, intersecting with the Brock road—"

Lee and his great lieutenant looked and nodded, listening to his further report. "Thank you, General Stuart," said at last the commander-in-chief. "You bring news upon which I think we may act. A flanking movement by the Furnace and Brock roads. It must be made with secrecy and in great strength and with rapidity. General Jackson, will you do it?"

"Yes, sir. Turn his right and gain his rear. I shall have my entire command?"

"Yes, general. Generals McLaws and Anderson will remain with me, demonstrate against these people and divert their attention. When can you start?"

"I will start at four, sir."

Lee rose. "Very good! Then we had better try to get a little sleep. I see Tom spreading my blanket now.—The Wilderness! General, do you remember, in Mexico, the Noche Triste trees and their great scarlet flowers? They grew all about the Church of our Lady of Remedies.—I don't know why I think of them to-night.—Good-night! good-night!"

A round of barren ground, towered over by pines, hedged in by the all-prevailing oak scrub, made the headquarters of the commander of the 2d Corps. Jim had built a fire, for the night wind was strengthening, blowing cool. He had not spared the pine boughs. The flames leaped and made the place ruddy as a jewel. Jackson entered, an aide behind him. "Find out if a soldier named Deaderick is here."

The soldier named Deaderick appeared. Jackson nodded to the aide who withdrew, then crossing to the fire, he seated himself upon a log. It was late; far and wide the troops lay sleeping. A pale moon looked down; somewhere off in the distance an owl hooted. The Wilderness lay still as the men, then roused itself and whispered a little, then sank again into deathlike quiet.

The two men, general and disgraced soldier, held themselves for a moment quiet as the Wilderness. Cleave knew most aspects of the man sitting on the log, in the gleam of the fire. He saw that to-night there was not the steel-like mood, cold, convinced, and stubborn, the wintry harshness, the granite hardness which Stonewall Jackson chiefly used toward offenders. He did not know what it was, but he thought that his general had softened.

With the perception there came a change in himself. He had entered this ring in the Wilderness with a constriction of the heart, a quick farewell to whatever in life he yet held dear, a farewell certainly to the soldier's life, to the army, to the guns, to the service of the country, an iron bracing of every nerve to meet an iron thrust. And now the thrust had not yet come, and the general looked at him quietly, as one well-meaning man looks at another who also means well. He had suffered much and long. Something rose into his throat, the muscles of his face worked slightly, he turned his head aside. Jackson waited another moment,—then, the other having recovered himself, spoke with quietness.

"You did, at White Oak Swamp, take it upon yourself to act, although there existed in your mind a doubt as to whether your orders—the orders you say you received—would bear that construction?"

"Yes, general."

"And your action proved a wrong action?"

"It proved a mistaken action, sir."

"It is the same thing. It entailed great loss with peril of greater."

"Yes, general."

"Had the brigade followed there might have ensued a general and disastrous engagement. The enemy were in force there—as I knew. Your action brought almost the destruction of your regiment. It brought the death of many brave men, and to a certain extent endangered the whole. That is so."

"Yes, general. It is so."

"Good! There was an order delivered to you. The man from whose lips you took it is dead. His reputation was that of a valiant, intelligent, and trustworthy man—hardly one to misrepeat an important order. That is so?"

"It is entirely so, sir."

"Good! You say that he brought to you such and such an order, the order, in effect, which, even so, you improperly construed and improperly acted upon, an order, however, which was never sent by me. A soldier who was by testifies that it was that order. Well?"

"That soldier, sir, was a known liar, with a known hatred to his officers."

"Yes. He repeated the order, word for word, as I sent it. How did that happen?"

"Sir, I do not know."

"The officer to whom I gave the order, and who, wrongly enough, transferred it to another messenger, swears that he gave it thus and so."

"Yes, general. He swears it."

A silence reigned in the fire-lit ring. The red light showed form and feature clearly. Jackson sitting on the log, his large hands resting on the sabre across his knees, was full within the glow. It beat even more strongly upon Cleave where he stood. "You believe," said Jackson, "that he swore falsely?"

"Yes, general."

"It is a question between your veracity and his?"

"Yes, general."

"There was enmity between you?"

"Yes, general."

"Where is he now?"

"He is somewhere in prison. He was taken at Sharpsburg."

There fell another silence. The sentry's tread was heard, the crackle of the fire seizing upon pine cone and bough, a low, sighing wind in the wilderness. Jackson spoke briefly. "After this campaign, if matters so arrange themselves, if the officer returns, if you think you can provide new evidence or re-present the old, I will forward, approved, your appeal for a court of inquiry."

"I thank you, sir, with all my heart."

Stonewall Jackson slightly changed his position on the log. Jim tiptoed into the ring and fed again the fire. There was a whinnying of some near-by battery horses, the sound of changing guard, then silence again in the Wilderness. Cleave stood, straight and still, beneath the other's pondering, long, and steady gaze. An aide appeared at an opening in the scrub. "General Fitzhugh Lee, sir." Jackson rose. "You will return to your battery, Deaderick.—Bring General Lee here, captain."

The night passed, the dawn came, red bird and wren and robin began a cheeping in the Wilderness. A light mist was over the face of the earth; within it began a vast shadowy movement of shadowy troops. Silence was so strictly ordered that something approaching it was obtained. There was a certain eeriness in the hush in which the column was formed—the grey column in the grey dawn, in the Wilderness where the birds were cheeping, and the mist hung faint and cold. By the roadside, on a little knoll set round with flowering dogwood, sat General Lee on grey Traveller. A swirl of mist below the two detached them from the wide earth and marching troops, made them like a piece of sculpture seen against the morning sky. Below them moved the column, noiseless as might be, enwound with mist. In the van were Fitzhugh Lee and the First Virginia Cavalry. They saluted; the commander-in-chief lifted his hat; they vanished by the Furnace road into the heart of the Wilderness. Rodes's Division came next, Alabama troops. Rodes, a tall and handsome man, saluted; Alabama saluted. Regiment by regiment they passed into the flowering woods. Now came the Light Division beneath skies with a coral tinge. Ambrose Powell Hill saluted, and all his brigades, Virginia and South Carolina. The guns began to pass, quiet as was constitutionally possible. The very battery horses looked as though they understood that people who were going to turn the flank of a gigantic army in a strong position proceed upon the business without noise. Up rose the sun while the iron fighting men were yet going by. The level rays gilded all metal, gilded Traveller's bit and bridle clasps, gilded the spur of Lee and his sword hilt and the stars upon his collar. The sun began to drink up the mist and all the birds sang loudly. The sky was cloudless, the low thick woodland divinely cool and sweet. Violet and bloodroot, dogwood and purple Judas tree were all bespangled, bespangled with dew.

While the guns were yet quietly rumbling by Stonewall Jackson appeared upon the rising ground. He saluted. Lee put out his hand and clasped the other's. "General, I feel every confidence! I am sure that you are going forth to victory."

"Yes, sir. I think that I am.—I will send a courier back every half hour."

"Yes, that is wise.—As soon as your wagons are by I will make disposition of the twelve thousand left with me. I propose a certain display of artillery and a line of battle so formed as to deceive—and deceive greatly—as to its strength. If necessary we will skirmish hotly throughout the day. I will create the impression that we are about to assault. It is imperative that they do not come between us and cut the army in two."

"I will march as rapidly as may be, sir. The Furnace road, the Brock road, then turn eastward on the Plank road and strike their flank. Good!" He jerked his hand into the air. "I will go now, general."

Lee bent across again. The two clasped hands. "God be with you, General Jackson!"

"And with you, General Lee."

Little Sorrel left the hillock. The staff came up. Stonewall Jackson turned in his saddle, and, the staff following his action, raised his hand in salute to the figure on grey Traveller, above them in the sunlight. Lee lifted his hat, held it so. The others filed by, turned sharply southward, and were lost in the jewelled Wilderness.

The sun cleared the tallest pines; there set in a splendid day. The long, long column, cavalry, Rodes's Division, the Light Division, the artillery, ordnance wagons and ambulances, twenty-five thousand grey soldiers with Stonewall Jackson at their head—the long, long column wound through the Wilderness by narrow, hidden roads. Close came the scrub and pine and all the flowering trees of May. The horsemen put aside vine and bough, the pink honeysuckle brushed the gun wheels; long stretches of the road were grass-grown. Through the woods to the right, by paths nearer yet to the far-flung Federal front, paced ten guardian squadrons. All went silently, all went swiftly. In the Confederate service there were no automata. These thousands of lithe, bronzed, bright-eyed, tattered men knew that something, something, something was being done! Something important that they must all help Old Jack with. Forbidden to talk, they speculated inwardly. "South by west. 'T isn't a Thoroughfare Gap march. They're all here in the Wilderness. We're leaving their centre—their right's somewhere over there in the brush. Shouldn't wonder—Allan Gold, what's the Latin for 'to flank'?—Lieutenant, we were just whispering! Yes, sir.—All right, sir. We won't make no more noise than so many wet cartridges!"

On they swung through the fairy forest, grey, steady, rapidly moving, the steel above their shoulders gleaming bright, the worn, shot-riddled colours like flowers amid the tender, all-enfolding green. The head of the column came to a dip in the Wilderness through which flowed a little creek. It was about nine o'clock in the morning. All the men looked to the right, for they could see the plateau of Hazel Grove and the great Federal intrenchments. "If those fellows look right hard they can see us, too! Can't help it—march fast and get past.—Oh, that's what the officers think, too! Double quick!"

The column crossed the tiny vale. Beyond it the narrow road of bends and turns plunged due south. Now, General Birney, stationed on the high level of Hazel Grove, observed, though somewhat faintly, that movement. He sent a courier to Hooker at Chancellorsville. "Rebel column seen to pass across my front. All arms and wagon train. It has turned to the southward."

"To the south!" said Hooker. "Turned southward. Now what does that mean? It might mean that Sedgwick at Fredericksburg has seized and is holding the road to Richmond. It might mean that Lee contemplated an unobstructed retreat through this Wilderness section southward to Gordonsville, which is not far away. From Gordonsville, he would fall back on Richmond. Say that is what he planned. Then, finding me in strength across his path, he would naturally make some demonstration, and behind it inaugurate a forced march, southward out of this wild place. A retreat to Gordonsville. It's the most probable move. I will send General Sickles toward Catherine Furnace to find out exactly."

Birney from Hazel Grove, Sickles from Chancellorsville, advanced. At Catherine Furnace they found the 23d Georgia, and on both sides of the Plank road discovered Anderson's division. Now began hot fighting in the Wilderness. The brigades of Anderson did gloriously. The 23d Georgia, surrounded at the Furnace, saw fall, in that square of the Wilderness, three hundred officers and men; but those Georgians who yet stood did well, did well! Full in the front of Chancellorsville, McLaws, with his able, Roman air, his high colour, short black beard and crisp speech, handled his troops like a rightly trusted captain of Caesar's. He kept the enemy's attention strained in his direction. Standing yet upon the little hillock, in the midst of the flowering dogwood, a greater than McLaws overlooked and directed all the grey pieces upon the board before Chancellorsville, played, all day, like a master, a skilfully complicated game.

Far in the Wilderness, miles now to the westward, the rolling musketry came to the ears of Stonewall Jackson. He was riding with Rodes at the head of the column. "Good! good!" he said. "That musketry is at the Furnace. General Hooker will attempt to drive between me and General Lee."

An aide of A. P. Hill's approached at a gallop. He saluted, gained breath and spoke. "They're cutting the 23d Georgia to pieces, sir! General Anderson is coming into action—"

A deeper thunder rolling now through the Wilderness corroborated his words. "Good! good!" said Jackson imperturbably. "My compliments to General Hill, and he will detach Archer's and Thomas's brigades and a battalion of artillery. They are to cooperate with General Anderson and protect our rear. The remainder of the Light Division will continue the march."

On past the noon point swung light and shadow. On through the languorous May warmth travelled westward the long column. It went with marked rapidity, emphatic even for the "foot cavalry," went without swerving, without straggling, went like a long, gleaming thunderbolt firmly held and swung. Behind it, sank in the distance the noise of battle. The Army of Northern Virginia knew itself divided, cut in two. Far back in the flowering woods before Chancellorsville, the man on the grey horse, directing here, directing there his twelve thousand men, played his master game with equanimity, trusting in Stonewall Jackson rushing toward the Federal right. Westward in the Wilderness, swiftly nearing the Brock road, the man on the sorrel nag travelled with no backward look. In his right hand was the thunderbolt, and near at hand the place from which to hurl it. He rode like incarnate Intention. The officer beside him said something as to that enormous peril in the rear, driving like a wedge between this hurrying column and the grey twelve thousand before Chancellorsville. "Yes, sir, yes!" said Jackson. "But I trust first in God, and then in General Lee."

The infantry swung into the Brock road. It ran northward; it lay bare, sunny, sleepy, walled in by emerald leaves and white and purple bloom. The grey thunderbolt travelled fast, fast, and at three o'clock its head reached the Plank road. Far to the east, in the Wilderness, the noise of the battle yet rolled, but it came fainter, with a diminishing sound. Anderson, Thomas, and Archer had driven back Sickles. There was a pause by Chancellorsville and Catherine Furnace. Through it and all the while the man on grey Traveller kept with a skill so exquisite that it shaded into a grave simplicity those thousands and thousands and thousands of hostile eyes turned quite from their real danger, centred only on a finely painted mask of danger.

At the intersection of the Brock and the Plank roads, Stonewall Jackson found massed the 1st Virginia cavalry. Upon the road and to either side in the flowering woods, roan and bay and black tossed their heads and moved their limbs amid silver dogwood and rose azalea. The horses chafed, the horsemen looked at once anxious and exultant. Fitzhugh Lee met the general in command. The latter spoke. "Three o'clock. Proceed at once, general, down the Plank road."

"I beg, sir," said the other, "that you will ride with me to the top of this roll of ground in front of us. I can show you the strangest thing!"

The two went, attended only by a courier. The slight eminence, all clad with scrub-oak, all carpeted with wild flowers, was reached. The horsemen turned and looked eastward, the breast-high scrub, the few tender-foliaged young trees sheltering them from view. They looked eastward, and in the distance they saw Dowdall's Tavern. But it was not Dowdall's Tavern that was the strangest thing. The strangest thing was nearer than Dowdall's; it was at no great distance at all. It was a long abattis, and behind the abattis long, well-builded breastworks. Behind the breastworks, overlooked by the little hill, and occupying an old clearing in the Wilderness, was a large encampment—the encampment, in short, of the 11th Army Corps, Howard commanding, twenty regiments, and six batteries. From the little hill where the violets purpled the ground, Stonewall Jackson and the cavalry leader looked and looked in silence. The blue soldiers lay at ease on the tender sward. It was dolce far niente in the Wilderness. The arms were stacked, the arms were stacked. There were cannon planted by the roadside, but where were the cannoneers? Not very near the guns, but asleep on the grass, or propped against trees smoking excellent tobacco, or in the square on the greensward playing cards with laughter! Battery horses were grazing where they would. Far and wide were scattered the infantry, squandered like plums on the grass. They lay or strolled about in the slant sunshine, in the balmy air, in the magic Wilderness—they never even glanced toward the stacked arms.

On the flowery slope across the road, Stonewall Jackson sat Little Sorrel and gazed upon the pleasant, drowsy scene. His eyes had a glow, his cheek a warm colour beneath the bronze. Staff, and indeed the entire 2d Corps, had remarked from time to time this spring upon Old Jack's evident good health. "Getting younger all the time! This war climate suits him. Time the peace articles are signed he'll be just a boy again! Arrived at—what do you call it? perennial youth." Now he and Little Sorrel stood upon the flowering hilltop, and his lips moved. "Old Jack's praying—Old Jack's praying!" thought the courier.

Fitz Lee said something, but the general did not attend. In another moment, however, he spoke curt, decisive, final. He spoke to the courier. "Tell General Rodes to move across the Plank road. He is to halt at the turnpike. I will join him there. Move quietly."

The courier turned and went. Stonewall Jackson regarded again the scene before him—abattis and breastworks and rifle-pits untenanted, guns lonely in the slanting sunlight, lines of stacked arms, tents, fluttering flags, the horses straying at their will, cropping the tender grass, in a corner of a field men butchering beeves—regarded the German regiments, Schimmelpfennig and Krzyzancerski, regarded New York and Wisconsin, camped about the Wilderness church. Up from the clearing, across to the thick forest, floated an indescribable humming sound, a confused droning as from a giant race of bees. The shadows of the trees were growing long, the sun hung just above the pines of the Wilderness. "Good! good!" said Stonewall Jackson. His eyes, beneath the old, old forage cap, had a sapphire depth and gleam. A colour was in his cheek. "Good! good!" he said, and jerked his hand into the air. Suddenly turning Little Sorrel, he left the hill—riding fast, elbows out, and big feet, down into the woods, his sabre leaping as he rode.



CHAPTER XLVIII

THE RIVER

It yet lacked of six o'clock when the battle lines were finally formed. Only the treetops of the Wilderness now were in gold, below, in the thick wood, the brigades stood in shadow. In front were Rodes's skirmishers, and Rodes's brigades formed the first line. The troops of Raleigh Colston made the second line, A. P. Hill's men the third. A battery—four Napoleons—were advanced; the other guns were coming up. The cavalry, with Stonewall Brigade supporting, took the Plank road, masking the actual movement. On the old turnpike Stonewall Jackson sat his horse beside Rodes. At six o'clock he looked at his watch, closed it, and put it in his pocket. "Are you ready, General Rodes?"

"Yes, sir."

"You can go forward, sir."

High over the darkening Wilderness rang a bugle-call. The sound soared, hung a moment poised, then, far and near, thronged the grey echoes, bugles, bugles, calling, calling! The sound passed away; there followed a rush of bodies through the Wilderness; in a moment was heard the crackling fire of the skirmishers. From ahead came a wild beating of Federal drums—the long roll, the long roll! Boom! Into action came the grey guns. Rodes's Alabamian's passed the abattis, touched the breastworks. Colston two hundred yards behind, A. P. Hill the third line. Yaaai! Yaaaiiih! Yaaaaaiiihh! rang the Wilderness.

Several miles to the eastward the large old house of Chancellorsville, set upon rising ground, reflected the sun from its westerly windows. All about it rolled the Wilderness, shadowy beneath the vivid skies. It lay like a sea, touching all the horizon. On the deep porch of the house, tasting the evening coolness, sat Fighting Joe Hooker and several of his officers. Eastward there was firing, as there had been all day, but it, too, was decreased in volume, broken in continuity. The main rebel body, thought the Federal general, must be about ready to draw off, follow the rebel advance in its desperate attempt to get out of the Wilderness, to get off southward to Gordonsville. The 12th Corps was facing the "main body". The interchange of musketry, eastward there, had a desultory, waiting sound. From the south, several miles into the depth of the Wilderness, came a slow, uninterrupted booming of cannon. Pleasanton and Sickles were down there, somewhere beyond Catherine Furnace. Pleasanton and Sickles were giving chase to the rebel detachment,—whatever it was; Stonewall Jackson and a division probably—that was trying to get out of the Wilderness. At any rate, the rebel force was divided. When morning dawned it should be pounded small, piece by piece, by the blue impact! "We've got the men, and we've got the guns. We've got the finest army on the planet!"

The sun dropped. The Wilderness rolled like a sea, hiding many things. The shaggy pile of the forest turned from green to violet. It swept to the pale northern skies, to the eastern, reflecting light from the opposite quarter, to the southern, to the splendid west. Wave after wave, purple-hued, velvet-soft, it passed into mist beneath the skies. There was a perception of a vastness not comprehended. One of the men upon the Chancellor's porch cleared his throat. "There's an awful feeling about this place! It's poetic, I suppose. Anyhow, it makes you feel that anything might happen—the stranger it was, the likelier to happen—"

"I don't feel that way. It's just a great big rolling plain with woods upon it—no mountains or water—"

"Well, I always thought that if I were a great big thing going to happen I wouldn't choose a chopped up, picturesque place to happen in! I'd choose something like this. I—"

"What's that?"

Boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom!

Hooker, at the opposite end of the porch, sprang up and came across. "Due west!—Howard's guns?—What does that mean—"

Boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom!

Fighting Joe Hooker ran down the steps. "Bring my horse, quick! Colonel, go down to the road and see—"

"My God! Here they come!"

Down the Plank road, through the woods, back to Chancellorsville, rushed the routed 21st Corps. Soldiers and ambulances, wagons and cattle, gunners lacking their guns, companies out of regiments, squads out of companies, panic-struck and flying units, shouting officers brandishing swords, horsemen, colour-bearers without colours, others with colours desperately saved, musicians, sutlers, camp followers, ordnance wagons with tearing, maddened horses, soldiers and soldiers and soldiers—down, back to the centre at Chancellorsville, roared the blue wave, torn, churned to foam, lashed and shattered, broken against a stone wall—back on the centre roared and fell the flanked right! Down the Plank road, out of the dark woods of the Wilderness, out of the rolling musketry, behind it the cannon thunder, burst a sound, a sound, a known sound! Yaaaai! Yaaaaaiih! Yaaiii! Yaaaaiiihhhhh! It echoed, it echoed from the east of Chancellorsville! Yaaih! Yaaaaiih! Yaaaaaaaiihh! yelled the troops of McLaws and Anderson. "Open fire!" said Lee to his artillery; and to McLaws, "Move up the turnpike and attack."

The Wilderness of Spottsylvania laid aside her mantle of calm. She became a maenad, intoxicated, furious, shrieking, a giantess in action, a wild handmaid drinking blood, a servant of Ares, a Titanic hostess spreading with lavish hands large ground for armies and battles, a Valkyrie gathering the dead, laying them in the woodland hollows amid bloodroot and violets! She chanted, she swayed, she cried aloud to the stars, and she shook her own madness upon the troops, very impartially, on grey and on blue.

Down the Plank road, in the gathering night, the very fulness of the grey victory brought its difficulties. Brigades were far ahead, separated from their division commanders; regiments astray from their brigadiers, companies struggling in the dusk through the thickets, seeking the thread from which in the onset and uproar the beads had slipped. They lost themselves in the wild place; there came perforce a pause, a quest for organization and alignment, a drawing together, a compressing of the particles of the thunderbolt; then, then would it be hurled again, full against Chancellorsville!

The moon was coming up. She silvered the Wilderness about Dowdall's Tavern. She made a pallor around the group of staff and field officers gathered beside the road. Her light glinted on Stonewall Jackson's sabre, and on the worn braid of the old forage cap. A body of cavalry passed on its way to Ely's Ford. Jeb Stuart rode at the head. He was singing. "Old Joe Hooker, won't you come out of the Wilderness?" he sang. An officer of Rodes came up. "General Rodes reports, sir, that he has taken a line of their entrenchments. He's less than a mile from Chancellorsville."

"Good! Tell him A. P. Hill will support. As you go, tell the troops that I wish them to get into line and preserve their order."

The officer went. An aide of Colston's appeared, breathless from a struggle through the thickets. "From General Colston, sir. He's immediately behind General Rodes. There was a wide abattis. The troops are reforming beyond it. We see no Federals between us and Chancellorsville."

"Good! Tell General Colston to use expedition and get his men into line. Those guns are opening without orders!"

Three grey cannon, planted within bowshot of the Chancellor House, opened, indeed, and with vigour,—opened against twenty-two guns in epaulements on the Chancellorsville ridge. The twenty-two answered in a roar of sound, overtowering the cannonade to the east of McLaws and Anderson. The Wilderness resounded; smoke began to rise like the smoke of strange sacrifices; the mood of the place changed to frenzy. She swung herself, she chanted.

"Grey or blue, I care not, I! Blue and grey Are here to die! This human brood Is stained with blood. The armed man dies, See where he lies In my arms asleep! On my breast asleep! The babe of Time, A nestling fallen. The nest a ruin, The tree storm-snapped. Lullaby, lullaby! sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep!"