Jackson eyed him, unmollified. "I have never seen the occasion, Captain Imboden, that justified profanity. As for support—I will support your battery. Unlimber right here."

Imboden unlimbered, placing his guns below the pine wood upon the summit. The First Brigade wheeled into line to the left. Here it was met by an aide. "General Jackson, hold your troops in reserve until Bee and Bartow need support—then give it to them!" The First Brigade deployed in the wood. About the men was still the pine thicket, blazed upon by the sun, shrilled in by winged legions; before them was the field of Bull Run. A tableland, cut by gullies, furred with knots of pine and oak, held in the middle a flower garden, a few locust trees, and a small house—the Henry House—in which, too old and ill to be borne away to safety, lay a withered woman, awaiting death. Beyond the house the ground fell sharply. At the foot of the hill ran the road, and beyond the road were the marshy banks of a little stream, and on the other side of the stream rose the Mathews Hill. Ranged upon this height Ricketts and Griffin and Arnold and many another Federal battery were sending shrieking shells against the Henry Hill. North and east and west of the batteries ran long radii of blue, pointed with bright banners, and out of the hollow between the hills came a smoke and noise as of the nethermost pit. There, beneath that sulphurous cloud, the North and the South were locked in an embrace that was not of love.



CHAPTER VIII

A CHRISTENING

Imboden had been joined by the Rockbridge Artillery and the Alexandria and Loudoun batteries. A little later there came up two of the New Orleans guns. All unlimbered in front of the pine wood where was couched the First Brigade, trained the sixteen guns upon the Mathews Hill and began firing. Griffin and Ricketts and Arnold answered with Parrotts and howitzers, throwing elongated, cylindrical shell that came with the screech of a banshee. But the Federal range was too long, and the fuses of many shells were uncut. Two of Rockbridge's horses were killed, a caisson of Stanard's exploded, scorching the gunners, a lieutenant was wounded in the thigh, but the batteries suffered less than did the infantry in the background. Here, more than one exploding horror wrought destruction. Immediately in rear of the guns were posted the 4th, the 27th, and the 65th. To the right hand was the 5th, to the left the 2d and the 33d. In all the men lay down in ranks, just sheltered by the final fringe of pines. The younger officers stood up, or, stepping into the clearing, seated themselves not without ostentation upon pine stumps, to the laudable end that the enemy should know where to find them. Jackson rode back and forth behind the guns.

The thundering voices grew louder, shaking the hills. The First Brigade could not see the infantry, swept now from the Mathews Hill and engaged about the turnpike and the stream. By stretching necks it saw a roof of smoke, dun-coloured, hiding pandemonium. Beneath that deeper thunder of the guns, the crackling, unintermittent sound of musketry affected the ear like the stridulation of giant insects. The men awaiting their turn beneath the pines, breathing quick, watching the shells, moved their heads slightly to and fro. In front, outdrawn upon a little ridge, stood the guns and boomed defiance. Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New Orleans did well this day. The guns themselves were something ancient, growing obsolete; but those striplings about them, beardless, powder-grimed, bare of arm and chest, silent and swift and steady of eye and hand, sponging, ramming, priming, aiming, firing, showed in the van of Time a brood of Mars, a band of whom foe-quelling Hector might say "They will do well."

General T. J. Jackson on Little Sorrel went up and down between the speaking guns and the waiting infantry. The men, from their couch upon the needles, watched him. Before their eyes war was transfiguring him, and his soldiers called him "Old Jack" and made no reservation. The awkward figure took on a stalwart grace, the old uniform, the boots, the cap, grew classically right. The inner came outward, the atmosphere altered, and the man was seen as he rode in the plane above. A shell from Ricketts came screaming, struck and cut down a young pine. In falling, the tree caught and hurt a man or two. Another terror followed and exploded overhead, a fragment inflicting upon a bugler of the 65th a ghastly wound. "Steady, men, steady!—all's well," said Old Jack. He threw up his left hand, palm out,—an usual gesture,—and turned to speak to Imboden, whose profanity he had apparently forgiven. As in any other July hour a cloud of gnats might have swum above that hill, so, on this one summer day, death-dealing missiles filled the air. Some splinter from one of these struck the lifted hand. Jackson let it fall, the blood streaming. Imboden uttered an ejaculation. "It's nothing," said the other; then, with slow earnestness, "Captain Imboden, I would give—I will give—for this cause every drop of blood that courses through my heart." He drew out a handkerchief, wrapped it around the wound, and rode on down the right of his line.

Up to meet him from the foot of the hill, out of the dun smoke hiding the wrestle, came at a gallop a roan horse bearing a rider tall and well made, black-eyed and long-haired, a bright sash about his waist, a plumed hat upon his head. Panting, he drew rein beside Little Sorrel. "I am Bee.—General Jackson, we are driven—we are overwhelmed! My God! only Evans and Bartow and I against the whole North and the Regulars! We are being pushed back—you must support.—In three minutes the battle will be upon this hill—Hunter and Heintzleman's divisions. They're hot and huzzaing—they think they've got us fast! They have, by God! if our troops don't come up!" He turned his horse. "But you'll support—we count on you—"

"Count only upon God, General Bee," said Jackson. "But I will give them the bayonet."

Bee struck spur into the roan and galloped across the plateau. Out of one of the furrowing ravines, a sunbaked and wrinkled trough springing from the turnpike below and running up and across the Henry Hill toward the crest of pine and oak, came now a handful of men, grey shadows, reeling, seeking the forest and night. Another followed—another—then a stream, a grey runlet of defeat which grew in proportions. A moment more, and the ravine, fed from the battle-ground below, overflowed. The red light shifted to the Henry Hill. It was as though a closed fan, laid upon that uneven ground, had suddenly opened. The rout was not hideous. The men had fought long and boldly, against great odds; they fled now before the storm, but all cohesion was not lost, nor presence of mind. Some turned and fired, some listened to their shouting officer, and strove to form about the tossed colours, some gave and took advice. But every gun of the Federal batteries poured shot and shell upon that hilltop, and the lines of blue had begun to climb. The disorder increased; panic might come like the wind in the grass. Bee reached the choked ravine, pulled up his great roan. He was a man tall and large, and as he rose in his stirrups and held his sword aloft, standing against the sky, upon the rim of the ravine, he looked colossal, a bronze designed to point the way. He cried aloud, "Look! Yonder is Jackson standing like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!" As he spoke a shell struck him. He fell, mortally wounded.

The eyes of the men in the cleft below had followed the pointed sword. The hilltop was above them, and along the summit, just in advance of a pine wood, ran a stone wall, grey, irregular, touched here by sunlight, there by shadow, and shrouded in part by the battle smoke. Some one had planted upon it a flag. For a full moment the illusion held, then the wall moved. A captain of the 4th Alabama, hoarse with shouting, found voice once more. "God! We aren't beaten! Talk of Birnam wood! The stone wall's coming!"

Up and out of the ravine, widening like an opening fan, pressed the disordered troops. The plateau was covered by chaos come again. Officers, raging, shouted orders, ran to and fro, gesticulated with their swords. A short line was formed, another; they dissolved before a third could be added. All voices were raised; there was a tumult of cries, commands, protestations, adjurations, and refusals. Over all screamed the shells, settled the smoke. Franklin, Willcox, Sherman, and Porter, pressing the Federal advantage, were now across the turnpike. Beneath their feet was the rising ground—a moment more, and they would leap victorious up the ragged slope. The moment was delayed. With a rending sound as of a giant web torn asunder, the legions of Hampton and Cary, posted near the house of the free negro Robinson, came into action and held in check the four brigades.

High upon the plateau, near Jackson's line, above the wild confusion of the retreating troops, appeared in the blaze of the midday sun, hatless, on steeds reeking from the four miles' gallop from that centre where the battle did not join to this left where it did, the generals Johnston and Beauregard. Out of the red lightning, the thunder, the dust and the smoke, above the frenzied shouting and the crying of the wounded, their presence was electrically known. A cheer rushed from the First Brigade; at the guns Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New Orleans took up the cry, tossed it with grape and canister across to the opposite hill. Bee, Bartow, and Evans, exhausted, shattered, wavering upwards toward the forest, rest, cessation from long struggle, heard the names and took fresh heart. The two were not idle, but in the crucial moment turned the scale. Black danger hemmed their cause. The missing brigade of the Shenandoah was no man knew where. At Mitchell's and Blackburn's fords, Ewell, D. R. Jones, Bonham, and Longstreet were engaged in a demonstration in force, retaining upon that front the enemy's reserve. Holmes and Jubal Early were on their way to the imperilled left, but the dust cloud that they raised was yet distant. Below the two generals were broken troops, men raw to the field, repulsed, driven, bleeding, and haggard, full on the edge of headlong flight; lower, in the hollow land, McDowell's advance, filling the little valley, islanding the two fighting legions, and now, a mounting tide, attacking the Henry Hill. At Beauregard's order the regimental colours were advanced, and the men adjured to rally about them. Fiery, eloquent, of French descent and impassioned, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard rose in his stirrups and talked of la gloire, of home, and of country. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana listened, cheered, and began to reform. Johnston, Scotch, correct, military, the Regular in person, trusted to the hilt by the men he led, seized the colours of the 4th Alabama, raised them above his grey head, spurred his war horse, and in the hail of shot and shell established the line of battle. Decimated as they were, raw volunteers as they were, drawn from peaceful ways to meet the purple dragon, fold on fold of war, the troops of Bee, Bartow, and Evans rallied, fell into line, and stood. The 49th Virginia came upon the plateau from Lewis Ford—at its head Ex-Governor William Smith. "Extra Billy," old political hero, sat twisted in his saddle, and addressed his regiment. "Now, boys, you've just got to kill the ox for this barbecue! Now, mind you, I ain't going to have any backing out! We ain't West P'inters, but, thank the Lord, we're men! When it's all over we'll have a torchlight procession and write to the girls! Now, boys, you be good to me, and I'll be good to you. Lord, children, I want to be proud of you! And I ain't Regular, but I know Old Virginny. Tom Scott, you beat the drum real loud, and James, you swing that flag so high the good Lord's got to see it!—Here's the West P'inters—here's the generals! Now, boys, just see how loud you can holler!"

The 49th went into line upon Gartrell's right, who was upon Jackson's left. Beauregard paused to speak to that brigadier, advanced upon Little Sorrel in front of the 65th. An aide addressed the latter's colonel. "General Bee christened this brigade just before he fell. He called it a stone wall. If he turns out a true prophet I reckon the name will stick." A shell came hurtling, fell, exploded, and killed under him Beauregard's horse. He mounted the aide's and galloped back to Johnston, near the Henry House. Here there was a short council. Had the missing brigade, the watched for, the hoped for, reached Manassas? Ewell and Early had been ordered up from Union Mills. Would they arrive upon this hill in time? What of the Stone Bridge, now left almost undefended? What of Blackburn and Mitchell's fords, and Longstreet's demonstration, and the enemy's reserves across Bull Run? What best disposition of the strength that might arrive? The conference was short. Johnston, the senior with the command of the whole field, galloped off to the Lewis House, while Beauregard retained the direction of the contest on the Henry Hill. Below it the two legions still held the blue wave from mounting.

Ricketts and Griffin upon the Mathews Hill ceased firing—greatly to the excitement of Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New Orleans. The smoke slightly lifted. "What're they doing? They've got their horses—they're limbering up! What in hell!—d'ye suppose they've had enough? No! Great day in the morning! They're coming up here!"

Ricketts and Griffin, cannoneers on caissons, horses urged to a gallop, thundered down the opposite slope, across Young's Branch and the turnpike. A moment and they were lost to sight, another and the straining horses and the dust and the guns and the fighting men about them showed above the brow of the Henry Hill. Out they thundered upon the plateau and wheeled into battery very near to the Henry House. Magnificence but not war! They had no business there, but they had been ordered and they came. With a crash as of all the thunders they opened at a thousand feet, full upon the Confederate batteries and upon the pine wood where lay the First Brigade.

Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New Orleans, wet with sweat, black with powder, sponging, ramming, priming, aiming, firing, did well with the bass of that hill-echoing tune. A lieutenant of the Washington Artillery made himself heard above the roar. "Short range! We've got short range at last! Now, old smoothbores, show what you are made of!" The smoothbores showed. Griffin and Ricketts answered, Jackson's sharpshooters took a part, the uproar became frightful. The captain of the Rockbridge Artillery was a great-nephew of Edmund Pendleton, a graduate of West Point and the rector of the Episcopal Church in Lexington. He went back and forth among his guns. "Fire! and the Lord have mercy upon their souls.—Fire! and the Lord have mercy upon their souls." With noise and a rolling smoke and a scorching breath and a mad excitement that annihilated time and reduced with a thunderclap every series of happenings into one all-embracing moment, the battle mounted and the day swung past its burning noon.

The 11th and 14th New York had been pushed up the hill to the support of Ricketts and Griffin. Behind them showed in strength other climbing muskets. In the vale below Hampton and Cary had made diversion, had held the brigades in check, while upon the plateau the Confederates rallied. The two legions, stubborn and gallant, suffered heavily. With many dead and many wounded they drew off at last. The goal of the Henry Hill lay clear before McDowell.

He had brigades enough for the advance that should set all the bells of Washington ringing for victory. His turning column at Sudley Ford had numbered eighteen thousand men. But Howard was somewhere in the vague distance, Burnside was "resting," Keyes, who had taken part in the action against Hampton, was now astray in the Bull Run Valley, and Schenck had not even crossed the stream. There were the dead, too, the wounded and the stragglers. All told, perhaps eleven thousand men attacked the Henry Hill. They came on confidently, flushed with victory, brilliant as tropical birds in the uniforms so bright and new, in the blue, in the gold, in the fiery, zouave dress, in the Garibaldi shirt, in the fez, the Scotch bonnet, the plume, in all the militia pomp and circumstance of that somewhat theatrical "On to Richmond." With gleaming muskets and gleaming swords and with the stars and stripes above them, they advanced, huzzaing. Above them, on that plateau, ranged beneath the stars and bars, there awaited the impact six thousand and five hundred Confederates with sixteen guns. Three thousand of the troops were fresh; three thousand had been long and heavily engaged, and driven from their first position.

Rockbridge and New Orleans and their fellows worked like grey automata about their belching guns. They made a dead line for the advance to cross. Ricketts and Griffin answered with their howling shells—shells that burst above the First Brigade. One stopped short of the men in battle. It entered the Henry House, burst, and gave five wounds to the woman cowering in her bed. Now she lay there, dying, above the armies, and the flower-beds outside were trampled, and the boughs of the locust trees strewn upon the earth.

Hunter and Heintzleman mounted the ridge of the hill. With an immense volley of musketry the battle joined upon the plateau that was but five hundred yards across. The Fire Zouaves, all red, advanced like a flame against the 4th Alabama, crouched behind scrub oak to the left of the field. The 4th Alabama fired, loaded, fired again. The zouaves broke, fleeing in disorder toward a piece of woods. Out from the shadow of the trees came Jeb Stuart with two hundred cavalrymen. The smoke was very thick; it was not with ease that one told friend from foe. In the instant of encounter the beau sabreur thought that he spoke to Confederates. He made his horse to bound, he rose in his stirrups, he waved his plumed hat, he shouted aloud in his rich and happy voice, "Don't run, boys! We are here!" To his disappointment the magic fell short. The "boys" ran all the faster. Behind him, a trooper lifted his voice. "They're not ours! They're Yankees! Charge them, sir, charge!" Stuart charged.

Along the crest of the Henry Hill the kneeling ranks of the First Brigade fired and loaded and fired again. Men and horses fell around the guns of Ricketts and Griffin, but the guns were not silenced. Rockbridge and Loudoun and their fellows answered with their Virginia Military Institute six-pounders, with their howitzers, with their one or two Napoleons, but Ricketts and Griffin held fast. The great shells came hurtling, death screaming its message and sweeping the pine wood. The stone wall suffered; here and there the units dropped from place. Jackson, holding up his wounded hand, came to the artillery. "Get these guns out of my way. I am going to give them the bayonet." The bugler put the bugle to his lips. The guns limbered up, moving out by the right flank and taking position elsewhere upon the plateau. Jackson returned to his troops. "Fix bayonets! Now, men, charge and take those batteries!"

The First Brigade rose from beneath the pines. It rose, it advanced between the moving guns, it shouted. The stone wall became an avalanche, and started down the slope. It began crescent-wise, for the pine wood where it had lain curved around Ricketts and Griffin like a giant's half-closed hand. From the finger nearest the doomed batteries sprang the 33d Virginia. In the dust of the field all uniforms were now of one neutral hue. Griffin trained his guns upon the approaching body, but his chief stopped him. "They're our own, man!—a supporting regiment!" The 33d Virginia came on, halted at two hundred feet, and poured upon the batteries a withering fire. Alas for Ricketts and Griffin, brave men handling brave guns! Their cannoneers fell, and the scream of their horses shocked the field. Ricketts was badly wounded; his lieutenant Ramsay lay dead. The stone wall blazed again. The Federal infantry supporting the guns broke and fled in confusion. Other regiments—Michigan and Minnesota this time—came up the hill. A grey-haired officer—Heintzleman—seated sideways in his saddle upon a hillock, appealing, cheering, commanding, was conspicuous for his gallant bearing. The 33d, hotly pushed, fell back into the curving wood, only to emerge again and bear down upon the prize of the guns. The whole of the First Brigade was now in action and the plateau of the Henry Hill roared like the forge of Vulcan when it welded the armour of Mars. It was three in the afternoon of midmost July. There arose smoke and shouts and shrieks, the thunder from the Mathews Hill of the North's uncrippled artillery, and from the plateau the answering thunder of the Southern, with the under song, incessant, of the muskets. Men's tongues clave to the roofs of their mouths, the sweat streamed forth, and the sweat dried, black cartridge marks were about their lips, and their eyes felt metallic, heated balls distending the socket. There was a smell of burnt cloth, of powder, of all heated and brazen things, indescribable, unforgettable, the effluvia of the battlefield. The palate savoured brass, and there was not a man of those thousands who was not thirsty—oh, very, very thirsty! Time went in waves with hollows between of negation. A movement took hours—surely we have been at it since last year! Another passed in a lightning flash. We were there beneath the pines, on the ground red-breeched Zouaves and United States Marines, above us a noisy shell, the voice of the general coming dry and far like a grasshopper's through the din—we are here in a trampled flower garden, beside the stumps of locust trees, in the midst of yells and trampling, hands again upon the guns! There was no time between. The men who were left of Ricketts and Griffin fought well; they were brave fighters. The 2d Wisconsin came up the hill, then the 79th and 69th New York. An impact followed that seemed to rock the globe. Wisconsin and New York retired whence they came, and it was all done in a moment. Other regiments took their places. McDowell was making a frontal attack and sending in his brigades piecemeal. The plateau was uneven; low ridges, shallow hollows, with clumps of pine and oak; one saw at a time but a segment of the field. The nature of the ground split the troops as with wedges; over all the Henry Hill the fighting now became from hand to hand, in the woods and in the open, small squad against small squad. That night a man insisted that this phase had lasted twelve hours. He said that he remembered how the sun rose over the Henry House, and how, when it went down, it left a red wall behind a gun on the Mathews Hill—and he had seen both events from a ring of pines out of which he, with two others, was keeping twenty Rhode Islanders.

Ricketts and Griffin, forty men upon the ground, twice that number of horses dead or disabled, tried to drag away the guns. Down upon them roared the 65th, no alignment, broken and fierce as a mountain torrent, as Thunder Run when the rains were out and the snows had melted. It took again the guns; it met a regiment from the Northwest, also stark fighters and hunters, and turned it back; it seized the guns and drew them toward the pine wood. On the other side Howard's Brigade came into action, rising, a cloud of stinging bees, over the ridge. Maine and Vermont fell into line, fired, each man, twenty rounds. The First Brigade answered at close range. All the Henry plateau blazed and thundered.

From headquarters at the Lewis House a most able mind had directed the several points of entrance into battle of the troops drawn from the lower fords. The 8th, the 18th, and 28th Virginia, Cash and Kershaw of Bonham's, Fisher's North Carolina—each had come at a happy moment and had given support where support was most needed. Out of the southeast arose a cloud of dust, a great cloud as of many marching men. It moved rapidly. It approached at a double quick, apparently it had several guns at trail. Early had not yet come up from Union Mills; was it Early? Could it be—could it be from Manassas? Could it be the missing brigade? Beauregard, flashing across the plateau like a meteor, lifted himself in his stirrups, raised with a shaking hand his field-glasses to his eyes. Stonewall Jackson held higher his wounded hand, wrapped in a handkerchief no longer white. "It ain't for the pain,—he's praying," thought the orderly by his side. Over on the left, guarding that flank, Jeb Stuart, mounted on a hillock, likewise addressed the heavens. "Good Lord, I hope it's Elzey! Oh, good Lord, let it be Elzey!" The 49th Virginia was strung behind a rail fence, firing from between the grey bars. "Extra Billy," whose horse had been shot an hour before, suddenly appeared in an angle erect upon the topmost rails. He gazed, then turned and harangued. "Didn't I tell you, boys? Didn't I say that the old Manassas Gap ain't half so black as she's painted? The president of that road is my friend, gentlemen, and a better man never mixed a julep! The old Manassas Gap's got them through! It's a road to be patronized, gentlemen! The old Manassas Gap—"

A hand plucked at his boot. "For the Lord's sake, governor, come down from there, or you'll be travelling on the Angels' Express!"

The dust rose higher; there came out of it a sound, a low, hoarse din. Maine and Vermont, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, New York and Rhode Island, saw and heard. There was a waver as of grain beneath wind over the field, then the grain stood stiff against the wind, and all the muskets flamed again.

The lost brigade of the Army of the Shenandoah, seventeen hundred infantry and Beckham's Battery swept by the Lewis House, received instructions from Johnston in person, and advanced against the enemy's right flank. Kirby Smith led them. Heated, exhausted, parched with thirst, the regiments came upon the plateau. Not till then did they see the enemy, the awaited, the dreamed-of foe, the giant whose voice they had heard at Manassas. They saw him now, and they yelled recognition. From a thousand dusty throats came a cry, involuntary, individual, indescribably fierce, a high and shrill and wild expression of anger and personal opinion. There was the enemy. They saw him, they yelled,—without premeditation, without cooperation, each man for himself, Yaai, Yai ... Yaai, Yaai, Yai.... Yaai! That cry was to be heard on more than two thousand battlefields. It lasts with the voice of Stentor, and with the horn of Roland. It has gone down to history as the "Rebel yell."

As they reached the oak woods Kirby Smith was shot. Desperately wounded, he fell from his horse. Elzey took command; the troops swept out by the Chinn House upon the plateau. Beckham's battery unlimbered and came, with decisive effect, into action.

McDowell, with a last desperate rally, formed a line of battle, a gleaming, formidable crescent, half hid by a cloud of skirmishers. Out of the woods by the Chinn House now came Jubal Early, with Kemper's 7th Virginia, Harry Hays's Louisianians, and Barksdale's 13th Mississippi. They took position under fire and opened upon the enemy's right. As they did so Elzey's brigade, the 10th Virginia, the 1st Maryland, the 3d Tennessee, the 8th and 2d South Carolina, the 18th and 28th Virginia, and Hampton's and Cary's legions charged. The First Brigade came down upon the guns for the third time, and held them. Stuart, standing in his stirrups and chanting his commands, rounded the base of the hill, and completed the rout.

The Federals turned. Almost to a man their officers did well. There were many privates of a like complexion. Sykes' Regulars, not now upon the Henry Hill, but massed across the branch, behaved throughout the day like trained and disciplined soldiers. No field could have witnessed more gallant conduct than that of Griffin and Ricketts. Heintzleman had been conspicuously energetic, Franklin and Willcox had done their best. McDowell himself had not lacked in dash and grit, nor, to say sooth, in strategy. It was the Federal tactics that were at fault. But all the troops, barring Sykes and Ricketts and the quite unused cavalry, were raw, untried, undisciplined. Few were good marksmen, and, to tell the truth, few were possessed of a patriotism that would stand strain. That virtue awoke later in the Army of the Potomac; it was not present in force on the field of Bull Run. Many were three-months men, their term of service about to expire, and in their minds no slightest intention of reenlistment. They were close kin to the troops whose term expiring on the eve of battle had this morning "marched to the rear to the sound of the enemy's cannon." Many were men and boys merely out for a lark and almost ludicrously astonished at the nature of the business. New Englanders had come to battle as to a town meeting; placid farmers and village youths of the Middle States had never placed in the meadows of their imaginations events like these, while the more alert and restless folk of the cities discovered that the newspapers had been hardly explicit. The men of the Northwest had a more adequate conception; there was promise in these of stark fighting. To all is to be added a rabble of camp followers, of sutlers, musicians, teamsters, servants, congressmen in carriages, even here and there a congressman's wife, all the hurrah and vain parade, the strut and folly and civilian ignorance, the unwarlike softness and the misdirected pride with which these Greeks had set out to take in a night that four-years-distant Troy. Now a confusion fell upon them, and a rout such as was never seen again in that war. They left the ten guns, mute enough now, they gave no heed to their frantic officers, they turned and fled. One moment they stood that charge, the next the slopes of the Henry Hill were dark blue with fugitives. There was no cohesion; mere inability to find each an unencumbered path crowded them thus. They looked a swarm of bees, but there was no Spirit of the Hive. The Confederate batteries strewed their path with shot and shell, the wild and singular cry, first heard upon that field, rang still within their ears. They reached the foot of the hill, the Warrenton turnpike, the Sudley and Newmarket road, and the marshy fields through which flowed Young's Branch. Up to this moment courtesy might have called the movement a not too disorderly retreat, but now, upon the crowded roads and through the bordering meadows, it became mere rout, a panic quite simple, naked, and unashamed. In vain the officers commanded and implored, in vain Sykes' Regulars took position on the Mathews Hill, a nucleus around which the broken troops might have reformed. The mob had neither instinct nor desire for order. The Regulars, retreating finally with the rest, could only guard the rear and hinder the Confederate pursuit. The panic grew. Ravens in the air brought news, true and false, of the victors. Beckham's battery, screaming upon the heels of the rout, was magnified a hundred-fold; there was no doubt that battalions of artillery were hurling unknown and deadly missiles, blocking the way to the Potomac! Jeb Stuart was following on the Sudley Road, and another cavalry fiend—Munford—on the turnpike. Four hundred troopers between them? No! Four thousand—and each riding like the Headless Horseman with terror in his hand! There was Confederate infantry upon the turnpike—a couple of regiments, a legion, a battery—they were making for a point they knew, this side Centreville, where they might intercept the fleeing army. It behoved the army to get there first, to cross Bull Run, to cross Cub Run, and to reach Centreville with the utmost possible expedition. The ravens croaked of the Confederate troops four miles down Bull Run, at the lower fords. They would cross, they would fall upon Miles and Tyler, they would devour alive the Federal reserves, they would get first to Centreville! That catastrophe, at least, the mob did its best to prevent. It threw away its muskets, it dropped its colours, it lightened itself of accoutrements, it fled as if each tired and inexperienced grey soldier behind it had been Death in the Apocalypse. Each man ran for himself, swore for himself, prayed for himself, found in Fate a personal foe, and strove to propitiate her with the rags of his courage. The men stumbled and fell, lifted themselves, and ran again. Ambulances, wagons, carriages, blocked the road; they streamed around and under these. Riderless horses tore the veil of blue. Artillery teams, unguided, maddened, infected by all this human fear, rent it further, and behind them the folds heard again the Confederate yell. Centreville—Centreville first, and a little food—all the haversacks had been thrown away—but no stopping at Centreville! No! Beyond Centreville the Potomac—Washington—home! Home and safety, Maine or Massachusetts, New York or Vermont, as the case might be! The sun went down and left the fleeing army streaming northward by every road or footpath which it conceived might lead to the Potomac.

In the summer dusk, back at the Lewis House, a breathless courier brought to Beauregard a circumstantial statement. "From Major Rhett at Manassas, general! The Federal Reserves have been observed crossing below MacLean's. A strong column—they'll take us in the rear, or they'll fall upon Manassas!" That McDowell would use his numerous reserves was so probable a card that Bonham and Longstreet, started upon the pursuit, were recalled. Ewell and Holmes had just reached the battlefield. They were faced about, and, Beauregard with them, double-quicked back to MacLean's Ford—to find no Miles or Richardson or Runyon for them to attack! It was a mistake and a confusion of identity. The crossing troops were Confederates—D. R. Jones returning from the position he had held throughout the day to the southern bank of Bull Run. The dark had come, the troops were much exhausted, the routed army by now at Centreville. Beauregard did the only thing that could be done,—ordered the men to halt and bivouac for the night in the woods about the stream.

Back upon the Sudley Road Stuart and his troopers followed for twelve miles the fugitive army. There was a running fight; here and there the enemy was cut off; great spoil and many prisoners were taken. Encumbered with all of these, Stuart at Sudley Church called off the chase and halted for the night. At the bridge over Cub Run Munford with a handful of the Black Horse and the Chesterfield Troop, a part of Kershaw's regiment and Kemper's battery meeting the retreat as it debouched into the Warrenton turnpike, heaped rout on rout, and confounded confusion. A wagon was upset upon the bridge, it became impassable, and Panic found that she must get away as best she might. She left her congressmen's carriages, her wagons of subsistence, and her wagons of ammunition, her guns and their caissons, her flags and her wounded in ambulances; she cut the traces of the horses and freed them from pleasure carriage, gun carriage, ammunition wagon, and ambulance; with these horses and afoot, she dashed through the water of Cub Run, and with the long wail of the helpless behind her, fled northward through the dusk. A little later, bugles, sounding here and there beneath the stars, called off the pursuit.

* * * * *

The spoil of Manassas included twenty-eight fieldpieces with a hundred rounds of ammunition to each gun, thirty-seven caissons, six forges, four battery wagons, sixty-four artillery horses, five hundred thousand rounds of small arm ammunition, four thousand five hundred sets of accoutrements, four thousand muskets, nine regimental and garrison flags, pistols, swords, musical instruments, knapsacks, canteens, blankets, tents, officers' luggage, rope, handcuffs, axes, and intrenching tools, wagons, horses, camp and garrison equipage, hospital stores and subsistence, and one thousand four hundred and twenty-one prisoners.

History has not been backward with a question. Why did not the Confederate forces press the pursuit to the Potomac, twenty-five miles away? Why did they not cross that river? Why did they not take Washington? History depones that it was a terror-stricken city and that it might have been stormed, and so, perhaps, the great war ended ere it had well begun. Why did you not pursue from Manassas to Washington?

The tongue of the case answers thus: "We were a victorious army, but we had fought long and hard. We had not many fresh troops. Even those which were not engaged had been marching and countermarching. The enemy had many more than we—heavy reserves to whom panic might or might not have been communicated. These were between us and Centreville, and the night had fallen. Our cavalry was the best in the land, but cruelly small in force, and very weary by that midnight. We were scant of provisions, scant of transportation, scant of ammunition. What if the Federal reserves had not stood, but had fled with the rest, and we had in some fashion achieved the Potomac? There were strong works at Arlington and Alexandria, lined with troops, and in easy distance were Patterson and his unused men. There was a river a mile wide, patrolled by gunboats, and beyond it a city with how many troops we knew not, certainly with strong earthworks and mounted guns. Being only men and not clairvoyants we did not know that the city was so crazed with fear that perhaps, after all, had we ever gotten there we might have stormed it with a few weary regiments. We never saw the like in our own capital at any after date, and we did not know. We were under arms from dawn until the stars came out, we had fought through the heat of a July day in Virginia, we were hungry, we were thirsty, we were drunk with need of rest. Most of us were under twenty-four. We had met and vanquished heavy odds, but we ourselves, like those who fled, were soldiers all untried. Victory disorganized us, as defeat disorganized them. Not in the same measure, but to the extent that all commands were much broken, men astray in the darkness, seeking their companies, companies calling out the number of their regiments. Most of us went hungry that night. And all around were the dead and wounded, and above us, like a pall, the strangeness of this war at last. The July night passed like a fevered dream; men sleeping on the earth, men seeking their commands, men riding to and fro, men wandering with lanterns over the battlefield. At three came down the rain. It was as though the heavens were opened. No one had ever seen such a downpour. All day long it rained, and in the rain we buried our comrades. There were two brothers, Holmes and Tucker Conrad, boys from the University. Holmes was shot through the heart, just on the edge of a ravine on the Henry Hill. Tucker, across the ravine, saw him fall. He was down one side and up the other before a man could draw breath. He lifted Holmes, and as he did so, he, too, was killed. We found them lying in each other's arms, Holmes smiling, and we buried them so. We buried many friends and comrades and kindred—we were all more or less akin—and perhaps, being young to war, that solemn battlefield loomed to us so large that it obstructed the view of the routed invasion now across the Potomac, out of Virginia. We held then and we hold still, that our generals that day were sagacious and brave, and we think history may take their word for it that any effective pursuit, looking to the crossing of the Potomac, was a military impossibility. It is true that Stonewall Jackson, as history reminds us, was heard to exclaim while the surgeon was dressing his hand, 'Give me ten thousand fresh troops, and I will be in Washington to-morrow!' But there were not the ten thousand troops to give."



CHAPTER IX

WINCHESTER

The December afternoon was drawing to a quiet close. The season had proved extraordinarily mild—it seemed Indian summer still rather than only a fortnight from Christmas. Farming folk prophesied a cold January, while the neighbourhood negroes held that the unusual warmth proceeded from the comet which blazed this year in the skies. An old woman whom the children called a witch sat in the sun on her doorstep, and shook her head at every passer-by. "A green Christmas makes a fat graveyard.—Down, pussy, down, down!—A green Christmas makes a fat graveyard. Did ye hear the firing yesterday?"

An amethyst haze filled the valley town of Winchester. Ordinarily, in weather such as this, the wide streets had a dream quality and the gardens where the chrysanthemums yet lingered and the brick sidewalks all strewn with russet leaves, and the faint smell of wood smoke, and the old gilt of the sunshine, all carried back as to some vanished song or story, sweet while it lasted. But if this was true once of Winchester, and might be true again, it was hardly true of to-day, of Winchester in December 1861; of Winchester with Major-General T. J. Jackson, commanding the Department of the Valley, quartered in the town, and the Stonewall Brigade, commanded by Garnett, encamped upon its edge, and the Valley Troopers commanded by Ashby, flashing by on their way to reconnoitre the Federal General Banks; of Winchester, with bands playing "Dixie," with great white-topped wagons going endlessly through the streets, with soldiers passing and repassing, or drilling, drilling, drilling in the fields without, or thronging the Taylor House, or coming to supper in the hospitable brick mansions where the pretty girls could never, never, never look aught but kindly on any man who wore the grey—of Winchester, in short, in war time.

The sun slipped low in the heavens. Out of the purple haze to the south, a wagon from Staunton way, drawn by oxen and piled high with forage, came up a side street. The ancient negro who drove was singing,—

"I saw de beam in my sistah's eye, Cyarn see de beam in mine! Yo'd better lef' yo' sistah's doah, An' keep yo' own doah fine!— An' I had er mighty battle lak Jacob an' de angel—"

The wagon passed on. A picket squad swung up the middle of the street, turned, and went marching toward the sunset. The corner house was a warehouse fitted for a hospital. Faces showed at the windows; when, for a moment, a sash was lifted, a racking cough made itself heard. Just now no wounded lodged in the warehouse, but all the diseases were there with which raw troops are scourged. There were measles and mumps, there were fevers, typhoid and malarial, there were intestinal troubles, there were pleurisy and pneumonia. Some of the illnesses were slight, and some of the men would be discharged by Death. The glow of the sun made the window glass red. It was well, for the place needed every touch of cheer.

The door opened, and two ladies came out, the younger with an empty basket. The oppression of the place they were leaving stayed with them for some distance down the wider street, but at last, in the rosy light, with a bugle sounding from the camp without the town, the spirits of the younger, at least, revived. She drew a long breath. "Well! As long as Will is in a more comfortable place, and is getting better, and Richard is well and strong, and they all say he is a born soldier and his men adore him, and there isn't a battle, and if there were, we'd win, and this weather lasts, and a colonel and a captain and two privates are coming to supper, and one of them draws and the other has a voice like an angel, and my silk dress is almost as good as new, I can't be terribly unhappy, mother!"

Margaret Cleave laughed. "I don't want you to be! I am not 'terribly' unhappy myself—despite those poor, poor boys in the warehouse! I am thankful about Will and I am thankful about Richard, and war is war, and we must all stand it. We must stand it with just as high and exquisite a courage as we can muster. If we can add a gaiety that isn't thoughtless, so much the better! We've got to do it for Virginia and for the South—yes, and for every soul who is dear to us, and for ourselves! I'll lace your silk dress, and I'll play Mr. Fairfax's accompaniments with much pleasure—and to-morrow we'll come back to the warehouse with a full basket! I wish the coffee was not getting so low."

A soldier, a staff officer equipped for the road, came rapidly up the brick sidewalk, overtook the two, and spoke their names, holding out his hand. "I was sure 'twas you! Nowadays one meets one's world in no matter how unlikely a place! Not that Winchester is an unlikely place—dear and hospitable little town! Nor, perhaps, should I be surprised. I knew that Captain Cleave was in the Stonewall Brigade." He took the basket from Miriam and walked beside them.

"My youngest son has been ill," said Margaret. "He is in the 2d. Kind friends took him home and cared for him, but Miriam and I were unhappy at Three Oaks. So we closed the house and came."

"Will always was a baby," volunteered Miriam. "When the fever made him delirious and they thought he was going to die, he kept calling for mother, and sometimes he called for me. Now he's better, and the sister of a man in his mess is reading 'Kenilworth' aloud to him, and he's spoiled to death! Richard always did spoil him—"

Her mother smiled. "I don't think he's really spoiled; not, that is, by Richard.—When did you come to town, Major Stafford?"

"Last night," answered Stafford. "From General Loring, near Monterey. I am the advance of the Army of the Northwest. We are ordered to join General Jackson, and ten days or so should see the troops in Winchester. What is going to happen then? Dear madam, I do not know!"

Miriam chose to remain petulant. "General Jackson is the most dreadful martinet! He drills and drills and drills the poor men until they're too tired to stand. He makes people get up at dawn in December, and he won't let officers leave camp without a pass, and he has prayer meetings all the time! Ever so many people think he's crazy!"

"Miriam!"

"But they do, mother! Of course, not Richard. Richard knows how to be a soldier. And Will—Will would be loyal to a piece of cement out of the Virginia Military Institute! And of course the Stonewall Brigade doesn't say it, nor the Rockbridge Artillery, nor any of Ashby's men—they're soldiers, too! But I've heard the militia say it—"

Maury Stafford laughed. "Then I won't! I'll only confide to you that the Army of the Northwest thinks that General Jackson is—is—well, is General Jackson!—To burn our stores of subsistence, to leave unguarded the passes along a hundred miles of mountain, to abandon quarters just established, to get our sick somehow to the rear, and to come up here upon some wild winter campaign or other—all on the representation of the rather singular Commander of the Army of the Valley!" He took off his gold-braided cap, and lifted his handsome head to the breeze from the west. "But what can you do with professors of military institutes and generals with one battle to their credit? Nothing—when they have managed to convert to their way of thinking both the commanding general and the government at Richmond!—You look grave, Mrs. Cleave! I should not have said that, I know. Pray forget it—and don't believe that I am given to such indiscretions!" He laughed. "There were representations which I was to make to General Jackson. Well, I made them! In point of fact, I made them but an hour ago. Hence this unbecoming temper. They were received quite in the manner of a stone wall—without comment and without removal from the ground occupied! Well! Why not expect the thing to show its nature?—Is this pleasant old house your goal?"

They had come to a white, old mansion, with steps running up to a narrow yard and a small porch. "Yes, we are staying here. Will you not come in?"

"Thank you, no. I ride as far as Woodstock to-night. I have not seen Captain Cleave. Indeed, I have not seen him since last spring."

"He is acting just now as aide to General Jackson. You have been all this while with General Magruder on the Peninsula?"

"Yes, until lately. We missed Manassas." He stood beside the garden wall, his gauntleted hand on the gatepost. A creeper bearing yet a few leaves hung from a tree above, and one of the crimson points touched his grey cap. "I am now on General Loring's staff. Where he goes at present I go. And where General Jackson goes, apparently we all go! Heigho! How do you like war, Miss Miriam?"

Miriam regarded him with her air of a brown and gold gilliflower. She thought him very handsome, and oh, she liked the gold-braided cap and the fine white gauntlet! "There is something to be said on both sides," she stated sedately. "I should like it very much did not you all run into danger."

Stafford looked at her, amused. "But some of us run out again—Ah!"

Cleave came from the house and down the path to the gate, moving in a red sunset glow, beneath trees on which yet hung a few russet leaves. He greeted his mother and sister, then turned with courtesy to Stafford. "Sandy Pendleton told me you were in town. From General Loring, are you not? You low-countrymen are gathering all our mountain laurels! Gauley River and Greenbriar and to-day, news of the Allegheny engagement—"

"You seem to be bent," said Stafford, "on drawing us from the Monterey line before we can gather any more! We will be here next week."

"You do not like the idea?"

The other shrugged. "I? Why should I care? It is war to go where you are sent. But this weather is much too good to last, and I fail to see what can be done to the northward when winter is once let loose! And we leave the passes open. There is nothing to prevent Rosecrans from pushing a force through to Staunton!"

"That is the best thing that could happen. Draw them into the middle valley and they are ours."

Stafford made a gesture. "Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame! Mrs. Cleave, there is no help for it! We are bewitched—and all by a stone wall in an old cadet cap!"

Cleave laughed. "No, no! but it is, I think, apparent—You will not go in? I will walk with you, then, as far as the hotel."

Margaret Cleave held out her hand. "Good-bye, Major Stafford. We think day and night of all you soldiers. God bless you all, wherever you may be!"

In the sunset light the two men turned their faces toward the Taylor House. "It is a good thing to have a mother," said Stafford. "Mine died when I was a little boy.—Well, what do you think of affairs in general?"

"I think that last summer we won a Pyrrhic victory."

"I share your opinion. It was disastrous. How confident we are with our 'One to Four,' our 'Quality, not Quantity,' our contempt for 'Brute Mass'! To listen to the newspapers one would suppose that the fighting animal was never bred north of the Potomac—Maryland, alone, an honourable exception! France and England, too! They'll be our active allies not a minute later than April Fool's Day!"

"You are bitter."

"It is the case, is it not?"

"Yes," said Cleave gravely. "And the blockade is daily growing more effective, and yet before we are closed in a ring of fire we do not get our cotton out nor our muskets in! Send the cotton to Europe and sell it and so fill the treasury with honest gold!—not with this delusion of wealth, these sheafs of Promises to Pay the Government is issuing. Five million bales of cotton idle in the South! With every nerve strained, with daring commensurate to the prize, we could get them out—even now! To-morrow it will be too late. The blockade will be complete, and we shall rest as isolated as the other side of the moon. Well! Few countries or men are wise till after the event."

"You are not bitter."

Cleave shook his head. "I do not believe in bitterness. And if the government is not altogether wise, so are few others. The people are heroic. We will see what we will see. I had a letter from the Peninsula the other day. Fauquier Cary is there with his legion. He says that McClellan will organize and organize and organize again until springtime. It's what he does best. Then, if only he can be set going, he will bring into the field an army that is an army. And if he's not thwarted by his own government he'll try to reach Richmond from the correct direction—and that's by sea to Old Point and up both banks of the James. All of which means heavy fighting on the Peninsula. So Cary thinks, and I dare say he knows his man. They were classmates and served together in Mexico."

They approached the old colonnaded hotel. Stafford's horse stood at the rack. A few soldiers were about the place and down the street, in the warm dusk a band was playing. "You ride up the valley to-night?" said Cleave. "When you return to Winchester you must let me serve you in any way I can."

"You are very good. How red the sunsets are! Look at that bough across the sky!"

"Were you," asked Cleave, "were you in Albemarle this autumn?"

"Yes. For one day in October. The country looked its loveliest. The old ride through the woods, by the mill—"

"I remember," said Cleave. "My cousins were well?"

"Quite well. Enchanted princesses guarded by the sable Julius. The old place was all one drift of red and yellow leaves."

They reached the hotel. Cleave spoke abruptly. "I am to report presently at headquarters, so I will say good-bye here." The two touched hands. "A pleasant gallop! You'll have a moon and the road is good. If you see Randolph of Taliaferro's, tell him to bring that book of mine he has."

He walked away, stalwart in the afterglow. Stafford watched him from the porch. "Under other circumstances," he thought, "I might have liked you well enough. Now I do not care if you lead your mad general's next mad charge."

The night fell, mild as milk, with a great white moon above the treetops. It made like mother-of-pearl the small grey house with pointed windows occupied, this December, by Stonewall Jackson. A clock in the hall was striking nine as Cleave lifted the knocker. An old negro came to the door. "Good-evening, Jim. Will you tell the general—"

Some one spoke from down the hall. "Is that Captain Cleave? Come here, sir."

Passing an open door through which could be seen a clerk writing and an aide with his hands behind him studying an engraving of Washington crossing the Delaware, Cleave went on to the room whence the voice had issued. "Come in, and close the door," it said again.

The room was small, furnished with a Spartan simplicity, but with two good lamps and with a log of hickory burning on the hearth. A table held a number of outspread maps and three books—the Bible, a dictionary, and Napoleon's "Maxims." General Jackson was seated on a small, rush-bottomed chair beside the table. By the window stood a soldier in nondescript grey attire, much the worse for mud and brambles. "Captain Cleave," said the general, "were you ever on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal?"

"No, sir."

"Do you know the stretch of the Potomac north of us?"

"I have ridden over the country between Harper's Ferry and Bath."

"Do you know where is Dam No. 5?"

"Yes, sir."

"Come nearer, Gold," said the general. "Go on with your report."

"I counted thirty boats going up, general," said Allan. "All empty. There's a pretty constant stream of them just now. They'll get the coal at Cumberland and turn back toward Washington in about ten days. It is estimated that a thousand tons a day will go down the canal—some of it for private use in Washington, but the greater part for the warships and the factories. The flatboats carry a large amount of forage. The Yankees are using them, too, to transport troops. There is no attempt to rebuild the section of the Baltimore and Ohio that we destroyed. They seem willing to depend upon the canal. But if Dam No. 5 were cut it would dry that canal like a bone for miles. The river men say that if any considerable breach were made it could not be mended this winter. As for the troops on the other side of the river—" He drew out a slip of paper and read from it: "'Yankees upon the Maryland side of the Potomac from Point of Rocks to Hancock—say thirty-five hundred men. Two thirds of this force above Dam No. 4. At Williamsport Colonel Leonard with three regiments and several guns. At Four Locks a troop. At Dam No. 5 several companies of infantry encamped. At Hancock a considerable force—perhaps two regiments. A detachment at Clear Spring. Cavalry over against Sleepy Creek, Cherry Run, and Sir John's Run. Concentration easy at any point up and down the river. A system of signals both for the other side and for any of their scouts who may have crossed to this. Troops reported below Point of Rocks and at the mouth of the Monocacy. The remainder of General Banks's division—perhaps fifteen thousand men—in winter quarters at Frederick City.'—That is all I have to report, general."

"Very good," said Jackson. "Give me your memorandum. Captain Cleave—"

"Yes, sir."

Stonewall Jackson rose from the rush-bottomed chair and walked with his slow stiff stride to the mantelpiece. From behind a china vase he took a saucer holding a lemon which had been cut in two, then, standing very rigidly before the fire, he slowly and meditatively sucked the lemon. Cleave, beside the table, had a whimsical thought. The general, about to open slightly the door of reticence and impart information, was stimulating himself to the effort. He put the lemon down and returned to the table. "Captain Cleave, while I am waiting for General Loring, I propose to break this dam—Dam No. 5."

"Yes, sir."

"I shall go almost immediately to Martinsburg, taking with me General Garnett's brigade and two of the Rockbridge guns. It will be necessary to cover the operation. The work may take several days. By the time the dam is broken General Loring will be up."

His eyes moved toward the mantel. Allan Gold stepped noiselessly across the room and brought back the saucer with the lemon, setting it on the table. "Thank you," said Jackson gently, and sucked the acid treasure. "With this reinforcement I am going against Kelly at Romney. If God gives us the victory there, I shall strike past Kelly at Rosecrans."

"I hope that He will give it, sir. That part of Virginia is worth making an effort for."

"That is my opinion, sir. While I march toward Romney the government at Washington may thrust General Banks across the Potomac. I do not want him in my rear, nor between me and General Johnston." He again sucked the lemon. "The Secretary of War writes that our spies report a clamour at Washington for some movement before spring. It is thought at Richmond that General Banks has been ordered to cross the Potomac as soon as practicable, effecting if possible a junction with Kelly and descending upon Winchester; General McClellan at the same time to advance against General Johnston at Manassas. Maybe it is so, maybe not. Of one thing I am sure—General McClellan will not move until General Banks is on this side of the river. Yesterday Colonel Ashby captured a courier of Kelly's bearing a letter to Banks. The letter, which demands an answer, asks to know explicitly what are Banks's instructions from Washington."

He put the lemon down. "Captain Cleave, I very particularly wish to know what are General Banks's instructions from Washington. Were Jarrow here he would find out for me, but I have sent Jarrow on other business. I want to know within four days."

There was a moment's stillness in the room; then, "Very well, sir," said Cleave.

"I remember," said Jackson, "that you sent me the scout here. He does good service. He is at your disposal for the next few days." Drawing ink and paper toward him, he wrote a few lines. "Go to the adjutant for anything you may need. Captain Cleave on Special Service. Here, too, is the name and address of a Catholic priest in Frederick City. He may be depended upon for some readiness of mind, and for good-will. That is all, I think. Good-night, captain. In four days, if you please. You will find me somewhere between Martinsburg and the river."

"You spoke, sir," said Cleave, "of a captured dispatch from General Kelly. May I see it?"

Jackson took it from a box upon the table. "There it is."

"Do you object, sir, to its reaching General Banks?"

The other retook the paper, glanced over it, and gave it back. "No, not if it goes by a proper courier."

"Has the former courier been sent to Richmond?"

"Not yet." He wrote another line. "This, if you wish to see the courier."

"That is all, sir?"

"That is all, captain. Within four days, near Martinsburg. Good-night."

The two soldiers saluted and left the room, going softly through the hall, past the door where the aide was now studying the Capture of Andre and out into the moonlight. They walked down the long board path to the gate, unlatched this, and turned their faces toward the camp. For some distance they were as silent as the street before them; then, "If ever you had taught school," said Allan, "you would know how headings out of reading books and sentences that you set for the children to copy have a way of starting up before you at every corner. The Post of Honour is the Post of Danger. I can see that in round hand. But what I can't see is how you are going to do it."

"I want," said the other, "one half-hour quite to myself. Then I think I'll know. Here's the picket. The word's Bethel."

The Stonewall Brigade was encamped in the fields just without the town. It was early in the war and there were yet tents—long line of canvas "A's" stretching in the moonlight far over the rolling ground. Where the tents failed there had been erected tiny cabins, very rude, with abundant ventilation and the strangest chimneys. A few field officers were quartered in the town and Jackson had with him there his permanent staff. But captains and lieutenants stayed with the men. The general of them all ruled with a rod of iron. For the most part it swayed lightly, with a certain moral effect only over the head of the rank and file, but it grew to a crushing beam for the officer who did not with alacrity habitually attend to his every duty, great or small. The do-nothing, the popinjay, the intractable, the self-important, the remonstrant, the I thought, sir—the It is due to my dignity, sir—none of these flourished in the Army of the Valley. The tendencies had been there, of course; they came up like the flowers of spring, but each poor bloom as it appeared met an icy blast. The root beneath learned to send up to the sky a sturdier growth.

Company A, 65th Virginia, numbered in its ranks men who knew all about log cabins. It was well lodged, and the captain's hut did it credit. Richard Cleave and Allan, entering, found a fire, and Tullius nodding beside it. At their step he roused himself, rose, and put on another log. He was a negro of sixty years, tall and hale, a dignified master of foraging, a being simple and taciturn and strong, with a love for every clod of earth at Three Oaks where he had been born.

Cleave spoke. "Where is Lieutenant Breckinridge, Tullius?"

Tullius straightened himself. "Lieutenant Breckinridge is at the colonel's, sah. An' Lieutenant Coffin, he's at the Debatin' Society in Company C."

Cleave sat down before the pine table. "Give Allan Gold something to eat, and don't either of you speak to me for twenty minutes." He propped his head on his hands and stared at the boards. Allan seated himself on a box beside the fire. Tullius took from a flat, heated stone a battered tin coffee-pot, poured into an earthenware cup some smoking mixture, and brought it to the scout. "Hit ain't moh'n half chicory, sah," From an impromptu cupboard he brought a plate of small round cakes. "Mis' Miriam, she done mek 'em fer us."

Cleave spoke from the table. His voice was dreamy, his eyes fixed upon the surface before him as though he were studying ocean depths. "Tullius, give me a dozen coffee berries."

"Er cup of coffee, you mean, Marse Dick?"

"No, coffee berries. Haven't you any there?"

Tullius brought a small tin box, tilted it, and poured on the table something like the required number. "Thar's all thar is." He returned to his corner of the fire, and it purred and flamed upon the crazy hearth between him and the scout. The latter, his rifle across his knees, now watched the flames, now the man at the table. Cleave had strung the coffee berries along a crack between the boards. Now he advanced one small brown object, now retired another, now crossed them from one side to the other. Following these manoeuvres, he sat with his chin upon his hand for five minutes, then began to make a circle with the berries. He worked slowly, dropping point after point in place. The two ends met. He rose from the table. "That's all right. I am going to brigade headquarters for a little, Allan. Suppose you come along. There are some things I want to know—those signals, for instance." He took up his hat and sword. "Tullius, you'll have Dundee saddled at four o'clock. I'll see Lieutenant Breckinridge and the colonel. I won't be back until after taps. Cover the fire, but wait up for me."

He and Allan went out together. Tullius restored the coffee berries to the tin box, and the box to the cupboard, sat down by the fire, and fell again into a nodding dream of Three Oaks, of the garden, and of his grandchildren in the quarter.



CHAPTER X

LIEUTENANT McNEIL

The Williamsport ferry-boat came slowly across the Potomac, from the Maryland to the Virginia side. The clear, deep water lay faintly blue beneath the winter sky, and the woods came so close that long branches of sycamore swept the flood. In that mild season every leaf had not fallen; up and down the river here the dull red of an oak met the eye, and there the faded gold of a willow.

The flatboat, a brown shadow beneath a creaking wire and pulley, came slowly to the southern side of the stream. The craft, squat to the water and railed on either side, was in the charge of an old negro. Clustered in the middle of the boat appeared a tall Marylander in blue jeans, two soldiers in blue cloth, and a small darky in a shirt of blue gingham. All these stared at a few yards of Virginia road, shelving, and overarched by an oak that was yet touched with maroon, and stared at a horseman in high boots, a blue army overcoat, and a blue and gold cap, who, mounted upon a great bay horse, was waiting at the water's edge. The boat crept into the shadow of the trees.

One of the blue soldiers stood watchfully, his hands upon an Enfield rifle. The other, a middle-aged, weather-beaten sergeant-major who had been leaning against the rail, straightened himself and spoke, being now within a few feet of the man on horseback.

"Your signal was all right," he said. "And your coat's all right. But how did your coat get on this side of the river?"

"It's been on this side for some time," explained the man on horseback, with a smile. "Ever since Uncle Sam presented it to me at Wheeling—and that was before Bull Run." He addressed the negro. "Is this the fastest this boat can travel? I've been waiting here half an hour."

The sergeant-major persisted. "Your coat's all right, and your signal's all right, and if it hadn't ha' been, our sharpshooters wouldn't ha' left much of you by now—Your coat's all right, and your signal's all right, but I'm damned if your voice ain't Southern—" The head of the boat touched the shore and the dress of the horseman was seen more closely.—"Lieutenant," ended the speaker, with a change of tone.

The rider, dismounting, led his horse down the yard or two of road and into the boat. "So, Dandy! Just think it's the South Branch, and come on! Thirty miles since breakfast, and still so gaily!"

Horse and man entered the boat, which moved out into the stream.

"I was once," stated the sergeant-major, though still in the proper tone of respect toward a lieutenant, "I was once in Virginia for a month, down on the Pamunkey—and the people all said 'gaily.'"

"They say it still," answered the rider. "Not so much, though, in my part of Virginia. It's Tuckahoe, not Cohee. I'm from the valley of the South Branch, between Romney and Moorefield."

The heretofore silent blue soldier shifted his rifle. "What in hell—" he muttered. The sergeant-major looked at the Virginia shore, looked at the stranger, standing with his arm around his horse's neck, and looked at the Williamsport landing, and the cannon frowning from Doubleday's Hill. In the back of his head there formed a little picture—a drumhead court-martial, a provost guard, a tree and a rope. Then came the hand of reason, and wiped the picture away. "Pshaw! spies don't say they're Southern. And, by jiminy! one might smile with his lips, but he couldn't smile with his eyes like that. And he's lieutenant, and there's such a thing, Tom Miller, as being too smart!—" He leaned upon the rail, and, being an observant fellow, he looked to see if the lieutenant's hand trembled at all where it lay upon the horse's neck. It did not; it rested as quiet as an empty glove. The tall Marylander began to speak with a slow volubility. "There was a man from the Great Kanawha to Williamsport 't other day—a storekeeper—a big, fat man with a beard like Abraham's in the 'lustrated Bible. I heard him a-talking to the colonel. 'All the Union men in northwestern Virginia are on the Ohio side of the mountains,' said he. 'Toward the Ohio we're all for the Union,' said he. 'There's more Northern blood than Southern in that section, anyway,' said he. 'But all this side of the Alleghenies is different, and as for the Valley of the South Branch—the Valley of the South Branch is a hotbed of rebels.' That's what he said—'a hotbed of rebels.' 'As for the mountain folk in between,' he says, 'they hunt with guns, and the men in the valley hunt with dogs, and there ain't any love lost between them at the best of times. Then, too, it's the feud that settles it. If a mountain man's hereditary enemy names his baby Jefferson Davis, then the first man, he names his Abraham Lincoln, and shoots at the other man from behind a bush. And vice versa. So it goes. But the valley of the South Branch is old stock,' he says, 'and a hotbed of rebels.'"

"When it's taken by and large, that is true," said the horseman with coolness. "But there are exceptions to all rules, and there are some Union men along the South Branch." He stroked his horse's neck. "So, Dandy! Aren't there exceptions to all rules?"

"He's a plumb beauty, that horse," remarked the sergeant-major. "I don't ride much myself, but if I had a horse like that, and a straight road, and weather like this, I wouldn't ask any odds between here and Milikenville, Illinois! I guess he's a jim dandy to travel, Lieutenant—"

"McNeill," said the Virginian. "It is lovely weather. You don't often have a December like this in your part of the world."

"No, we don't. And I only hope 't will last."

"I hope it will," assented McNeill. "It's bad marching in bad weather."

"I don't guess," said the sergeant-major, "that we'll do much marching before springtime."

"No, I reckon not," answered the man from the South Branch. "I came from Romney yesterday. General Kelly is letting the men build cabins there. That doesn't look like moving."

"We're doing the same here," said the sergeant-major, "and they say that the army's just as cosy at Frederick as a bug in a rug. Yes, sir; it's in the air that we'll give the rebels rope till springtime."

The ferry-boat touched the northern bank. Here were a little, rocky shore, an expanse of swampy ground, a towpath, a canal, a road cut between two hills, and in the background a village with one or two church spires. The two hills were white with tents, and upon the brow cannon were planted to rake the river. Here and there, between the river and the hills, were knots of blue soldiers. A freight boat loaded with hay passed snail-like down the canal. It was a splendid early afternoon, cool, still, and bright. The tall Marylander and the three blue soldiers left the boat, the man from Romney leading his horse. "Where's headquarters?" he demanded. "I'll go report, and then get something to eat for both Dandy and myself. We've got to make Frederick City to-night."

"The large wall tents over there on the hill," directed the sergeant-major. "It's a long way to Frederick, but Lord! with that horse—" He hesitated for a moment, then spoke up in a courageous, middle-aged, weather-beaten fashion, "I hope you'll have a pleasant ride, lieutenant! I guess I was a little stiffer'n good manners calls for, just at first. You see there's been so much talk of—of—of masquerading—and your voice is Southern, if your politics ain't! 'T isn't my usual way."

Lieutenant McNeill smiled. "I am sure of that, sergeant! As you say, there has been a deal of masquerading, and this side of the river naturally looks askance at the other. But you see, General Kelly is over there, and he happens, just now, to want to communicate with General Banks." His smile grew broader. "It's perfectly natural, but it's right hard on the man acting courier! Lord knows I had trouble enough running Ashby's gauntlet without being fired on from this side!"

"That's so! that's so!" answered the sergeant cordially. "Well, good luck to you getting back! You may find some friends here. We've a company or two of Virginians from the Ohio."

General Kelly's messenger proceeded to climb the hill to the wall tents indicated. There was a short delay, then he found himself in the presence of the colonel commanding at Williamsport. "From General Kelly at Romney? How did you get here?"

"I left Romney, sir, yesterday morning, and I came by bridle paths through the mountains. I was sent because I have hunted over every mile of that country, and I could keep out of Ashby's way. I struck the river above Bath, and I worked down through the woods to the ferry. I have a letter for General Banks."

Drawing out a wallet, he opened it and handed to the other the missive in question. "If I was chased I was to destroy it before capture," he said. "The slip with it is a line General Kelly gave me."

The colonel commanding at Williamsport glanced at the latter document. "A native of the South Branch valley," he said crisply. "That's a disaffected region."

"Yes, sir. It is. But there are one or two loyal families."

"You wish to go on to Frederick this afternoon?"

"Yes, sir. As soon as my horse is a little rested. My orders are to use all dispatch back to Romney with General Banks's answer."

The colonel, seated at a table, weighed General Kelly's letter in his hand, looked at the superscription, turned it over, and studied the seal. "Do the rebels on the other side show any signs of coming activity? Our secret service men have not been very successful—they make statements that it is hard to credit. I should be glad of any reliable information. What did you see or hear coming through?"

The lieutenant studied the floor a moment, shrugged, and spoke out. "Ashby's active enough, sir. Since yesterday I have just grazed three picket posts. He has vedettes everywhere. The report is that he has fifteen hundred troopers—nearly all valley men, born to the saddle and knowing every crook and cranny of the land. They move like a whirlwind and deal in surprises—

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold—

Only these cohorts are grey, not purple and gold. That's Ashby. On the other hand, Jackson at Winchester need not, perhaps, be taken into account. The general impression is that he'll stay where he is until spring. I managed to extract some information from a mountain man above Sleepy Creek. Jackson is drilling his men from daylight until dark. It is said that he is crazy on the subject—on most subjects, in fact; that he thinks himself a Cromwell, and is bent upon turning his troops into Ironsides. Of course, should General Banks make any movement to cross—preparatory, say, to joining with General Kelly—Jackson might swing out of Winchester and give him check. Otherwise, he'll probably keep on drilling—"

"The winter's too far advanced," said the colonel, "for any such movement upon our part. As soon as it is spring we'll go over there and trample out this rebellion." He weighed Kelly's letter once more in his hand, then restored it to the bearer. "It's all right, Lieutenant McNeill. I'll pass you through.—You read Byron?"

"Yes," said Lieutenant McNeill briefly. "He's a great poet. 'Don Juan,' now, and Suvaroff at Ismail—

He made no answer, but he took the city.

The bivouac, too, in Mazeppa." He restored General Kelly's letter and the accompanying slip to his wallet. "Thank you, sir. If I am to make Frederick before bedtime I had better be going—"

"An aide of General Banks," remarked the colonel, "is here, and is returning to Frederick this afternoon. He is an Englishman, I believe, of birth. You might ride together—Very opportunely; here he is!"

A tall, blond being, cap-a-pie for the road, had loomed in dark blue before the tent door. "Captain Marchmont," said the colonel, "let me make you acquainted with Lieutenant McNeill, a loyal Virginian bearing a letter from General Kelly to General Banks—a gentleman with a taste, too, for your great poet Byron. As you are both riding to Frederick, you may find it pleasant to ride in company."

"I must ride rapidly," said McNeill, "but if Captain Marchmont—"

"I always ride rapidly," answered the captain. "Learned it in Texas in 1843. At your service, lieutenant, whenever you're ready."

The road to Frederick lay clear over hill and dale, past forest and stream, through a gap in the mountain, by mill and barn and farmhouse, straight through a number of miles of crystal afternoon. Out of Williamsport conversation began. "When you want a purchaser for that horse, I'm your man," said the aide. "By any chance, do you want to sell?"

McNeill laughed. "Not to-day, captain!" He stroked the brown shoulder. "Not to-day, Dun—Dandy!"

"What's his name? Dundandy?"

"No," replied the lieutenant. "Just Dandy. I'm rather fond of him. I think we'll see it out together."

"Yes, they aren't bad comrades," said the other amicably. "In '53, when I was with Lopez in Cuba, I had a little black mare that was just as well worth dying for as a woman or a man or most causes, but, damn me! she died for me—carried me past a murderous ambuscade, got a bullet for her pains, and never dropped until she reached our camp!" He coughed. "What pleasant weather! Was it difficult getting through Jackson's lines?"

"Yes, rather."

They rode for a time in silence between fields of dead aster and goldenrod. "When I was in Italy with Garibaldi," said Captain Marchmont thoughtfully, "I saw something of kinsmen divided in war. It looked a very unnatural thing. You're a Virginian, now?"

"Yes, I am a Virginian."

"And you are fighting against Virginia. Curious!"

The other smiled. "To be where you are you must believe in the inviolability of the Union."

"Oh, I?" answered Marchmont coolly. "I believe in it, of course. I am fighting for it. It chanced, you see, that I was in France—and out of service and damnably out at elbows, too!—when Europe heard of Bull Run. I took passage at once in a merchant ship from Havre. It was my understanding that she was bound for New Orleans, but instead she put into Boston Harbour. I had no marked preference, fighting being fighting under whatever banner it occurs, so the next day I offered my sword to the Governor of Massachusetts. North and South, they're none of mine. But were I in England—where I haven't been of late years—and a row turned up, I should fight with England."

"No doubt," answered the other. "Your mind travels along the broad and simple lines of the matter. But with us there are many subtle and intricate considerations."

Passing now through woods they started a covey of partridges. The small brown and white shapes vanished in a skurry of dead leaves. "No doubt, no doubt!" said the soldier of fortune. "At any rate, I have rubbed off particularity in such matters. Live and let live—and each man to run the great race according to his inner vision! If he really conflicts with me, I'll let him know it."

They rode on, now talking, now silent. To either side, beyond stone walls, the fields ran bare and brown to distant woods. The shadow of the wayside trees grew longer and the air more deep and cold. They passed a string of white-covered wagons bearing forage for the army. The sun touched the western hills, rimming them as with a forest fire. The horsemen entered a defile between the hills, travelled through twilight for a while, then emerged upon a world still softly lighted. "In the country at home," said the Englishman, "the waits are practicing Christmas carols."

"I wish," answered the Virginian, "that we had kept that old custom. I should like once to hear English carols sung beneath the windows on a snowy night." As he rode he began to sing aloud, in a voice not remarkable, but good enough to give pleasure—

"As Joseph was a-walking, He heard an angel sing, 'This night shall be born Our Heavenly King—'"

"Yes, I remember that one quite well," said Captain Marchmont, and proceeded to sing in an excellent bass,—

"He neither shall be born In housen nor in hall, Nor in the place of Paradise, But in an ox's stall—

"Do you know the next verse?"

"Yes," said McNeill.

"He neither shall be clothed In purple nor in pall, But all in fair linen As are babies all!"

"That's it," nodded the other. "And the next goes,—

"He neither shall be rocked In silver nor in gold But in a wooden cradle That rocks on the mould—"

Alternately they sang the carol through. The sun went down, but the pink stayed in the sky and was mirrored in a tranquil stream which they crossed. It faded at last into the quiet dusk. A cricket chirped from a field of dried Michaelmas daisies. They overtook and passed an infantry regiment, coming up, an officer told them, from Harper's Ferry. The night fell, cold and still, with many stars. "We are not far from Frederick," said Marchmont. "You were never here before?"

"No."

"I'll take you at once to General Banks. You go back to Kelly at Romney to-morrow."

"Just as soon as General Banks shall have answered General Kelly's letter."

"You have an occasional fight over there?"

"Yes, up and down the line. Ashby's command is rather active."

"By George! I wish I were returning with you! When you've reported I'll look after you if you'll allow me. Pleasant enough mess.—Major Hertz, whom I knew in Prussia, Captain Wingate of your old army and one or two others."

"I'm exceedingly obliged," said McNeill, "but I have ridden hard of late, and slept little, and I should prove dull company. Moreover there's a good priest in Frederick who is a friend of a friend of mine. I have a message for him, and if General Banks permits, I shall sleep soundly and quietly at his house to-night."

"Very good," said Marchmont. "You'll get a better night there, though I'm sorry not to have you with us.—There are the lights of Frederick, and here's the picket. You have your pass from Williamsport?"

McNeill gave it to a blue soldier, who called a corporal, who read it by a swinging lantern. "Very good. Pass, Lieutenant McNeill."

The two rode on. To left and right were lighted streets of tents, varied here and there by substantial cabins. Commissary quarters appeared, sutlers' shops, booths, places of entertainment, guardhouses, a chapel. Soldiers were everywhere, dimly seen within the tents where the door flap was fastened back, plain to view about the camp-fires in open places, clustering like bees in the small squares from which ran the camp streets, thronging the trodden places before the sutlers, everywhere apparent in the foreground and divined in the distance. From somewhere came the strains of "Yankee Doodle." A gust of wind blew out the folds of the stars and stripes, fastened above some regimental headquarters. The city of tents and of frame structures hasty and crude, of fires in open places, of sutlers' shops and cantines, and booths of strolling players, of chapels and hospitals, of fluttering flags and wandering music, of restless blue soldiers, oscillating like motes in some searchlight of the giants, persisted for a long distance. At last it died away; there came a quiet field or two, then the old Maryland town of Frederick.



CHAPTER XI

"AS JOSEPH WAS A-WALKING"

At eleven that night by the Frederick clocks an orderly found an Englishman, a Prussian, a New Yorker, and a man from somewhere west of the Mississippi playing poker. "General Banks would like to speak to Captain Marchmont for a moment, sir."

The aide laid down his cards, and adjusted his plumage before a long mirror. "Lieber Gott!" said Major Hertz, "I wish our general would go sleep and leafe us play the game."

Captain Marchmont, proceeding to a handsomely furnished apartment, knocked, entered, saluted, and was greeted by a general in a disturbed frame of mind. "Look here, captain, you rode from Williamsport with that fellow of Kelly's. Did you notice anything out of the usual?"

The aide deliberated. "He had a splendid horse, sir. And the man himself seemed rather a mettled personage. If that's out of the usual, I noticed that."

"Oh, of course he's all right!" said the general. "Kelly's letter is perfectly bona fide, and so I make no doubt are McNeill's passport and paper of instructions. I gave the letter back or I'd show you the signatures. It's only that I got to thinking, awhile ago, after he'd gone." He took a turn across the roses upon the carpet. "A man that's been in politics knows there are so many dodges. Our spies say that General Jackson is very acute. I got to thinking—" He came back to the red-covered table. "Did you talk of the military situation coming along?"

"Very little, sir."

"He wasn't inquisitive? Didn't criticise, or draw you on to talk—didn't ask about my troops and my movements?"

"He did not, sir."

The general sighed. "It's all right, of course. You see, he seemed an intelligent man, and we got to talking. I wrote my answer to General Kelly. He has it now, is to start to Romney with it at dawn. Then I asked some questions, and we got to talking. It's all straight, of course, but on looking back I find that I said some things. He seemed an intelligent man, and in his general's confidence. Well, I dismissed him at last, and he saluted and went off to get some rest before starting. And then, somehow, I got to thinking. I have never been South, and all these places are only names to me, but—" He unrolled upon the table a map of large dimensions. "Look here a moment, captain! This is a map the department furnishes us. It's black, you see, for the utterly disloyal sections, shaded for the doubtful, and white where there are Unionists. All Virginia's black except this northwest section, and that's largely shaded."

"What," asked Marchmont, "is this long black patch in the midst of the shading?"

"That's the valley of the South Branch of the Potomac—see, it's marked! Now, this man's from that locality."

"H—m! Dark as Erebus, apparently, along the South Branch!"

"Just so." General Banks paced again the roses. "Pshaw! It's all right. I never saw a straighter looking fellow. I just thought I would ask you the nature of his talk along the road—"

"It was hardly of military matters, sir. But if you wish to detain him—"

"General Kelly must have my letter. I'm not to move, and it's important that he should know it."

"Why not question him again?"

The general came back to the big chair beside the table. "I have no doubt he's as honest as I am." He looked at the clock. "After midnight!—and I've been reviewing troops all day. Do you think it's worth while, captain?"

"In war very little things are worth while, sir."

"But you were with him all afternoon, and he seemed perfectly all right—"

"Yes, sir, I liked him very well." He pulled at his long yellow moustache. "There was only one little circumstance.... If you are doubtful, sir—The papers, of course, might be forged."

The late Governor of Massachusetts rested irresolute. "Except that he was born in Virginia there isn't a reason for suspecting him. And it's our policy to conciliate all this shaded corner up here." The clock struck the half-hour. General Banks looked longingly toward his bedroom. "I've been through the mill to-day. It's pretty hard on a man, this working over time.—Where's he lodging?"

"McNeill, sir? He said he would find quarters with some connection or other—a Catholic priest—"

"A Catholic—There again!" The general looked perturbed. Rising, he took from a desk two or three pages of blue official paper, covered with writing. "I got that from Washington to-day, from the Secret Service Department. Read it."

Captain Marchmont read: "'Distrust without exception the Catholic priests in Frederick City. There is reason to believe that the Catholics throughout Maryland are Secessionists. Distrust all Maryland, in fact. The Jesuits have a house at Frederick City. They are suspected of furnishing information. Keep them under such surveillance as your judgment shall indicate.'—Humph!"

General Banks sighed, poured out something from a decanter, and drank it. "I guess, captain, you had better go and bring that man from the South Branch back here. Take a few men and do it quietly. He seems a gentleman, and there may be absolutely nothing wrong. Tell him I've something to add to General Kelly's letter. Here's a list of the priests in Frederick. Father Tierney seems the most looked up to, and I gave him a subscription yesterday for his orphan asylum."

Half an hour later Marchmont and two men found themselves before a small, square stone house, standing apart from its neighbours in a small, square yard. From without the moonbeams flooded it, from within came no pinpoint of light. It was past the middle of the night, and almost all the town lay still and dark. Marchmont lifted the brass knocker and let it fall. The sound, deep and reverberant, should have reached every ear within, however inattentive. He waited, but there came no answering footfall. He knocked again—no light nor sound; again—only interstellar quiet. He shook the door. "Go around to the back, Roberts, and see if you can get in." Roberts departed. Marchmont picked up some pieces of gravel from the path and threw them against the window panes, to no effect. Roberts came back. "That's an awful heavy door, sir, heavier than this. And the windows are high up."

"Very good," said the captain. "This one looks stronger than it really is. Stand back, you two."

He put his shoulder to the door—"Wait a minute, sir! Somebody's lit a candle upstairs."

The candle passed leisurely from window to window, was lost for a minute, and then, through a small fan-light above the door, was observed descending the stairs. A bolt creaked, then another. The door opened, and Father Tierney, hastily gowned and blinking, stood before the invaders. He shaded his candle with his hand, and the light struck back, showing a strong and rosy and likable face. "Faith!" he said, "an' I thought I was after hearin' a noise. Good-evenin', gentlemen—or rather good-morning, for it must be toward cockcrow. What—"

"It's not so late as that," interrupted Marchmont. "I wish I had your recipe for sleeping, father. It would be invaluable when a man didn't want to be waked up. However, my business is not with you, but—"

"Holy powers!" said Father Tierney, "did ye not know that I live here by myself? Father Lavalle is at the other end of town, and Father O'Hara lives by the Noviciate. Sure, and any one could have told you—"

"Father Lavalle and Father O'Hara," said the aide, "are nothing to the question. You have a guest with you—"

Father Tierney looked enlightened. "Oh! Av coorse! There's always business on hand between soldiers. Was it Lieutenant McNeill you'll be looking after?"

Marchmont nodded. "There are some instructions that General Banks neglected to give him. It is late, but the general wishes to get it all straight before he sleeps. I am sorry to disturb Lieutenant McNeill, for he must be fatigued. But orders are orders, you know—"

"Av coorse, av coorse!" agreed Father Tierney. "'A man having authority,' 'I say unto this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh—'"

"So, father, if you'll be good enough to explain to Lieutenant McNeill—or if you'll tell me which is his room—"

The light of the candle showed a faint trouble in Father Tierney's face. "Sure, it's too bad! Do you think, my son, the matter is of importance? 'T would be after being just a little left-over of directions?"

"Perhaps," said Marchmont. "But orders are orders, father, and I must awaken Lieutenant McNeill. Indeed, it's hard to think that he's asleep—"