Harry often wondered afterward how his life was preserved. It seemed impossible that he could have escaped such a storm from rifle and cannon, but save for the slight scratches, sustained earlier in the action, he remained untouched. He did not think of it at the time, only of the avalanche that was driving them back. He saw before him a vast red flame, through which bayonets and faces of men showed, ever coming nearer.

Now the North was sure of victory. The shouts of joy ran up and down their whole front. The batteries were pushed nearer and nearer, and sent in terrible volleys at short range. The riflemen who had done such deadly work rose from the woods and thickets, and rushed forward, loading and firing as they came. The Southern force seemed to be nothing but a hopeless mass of fugitives.

Anyone save Jackson would have despaired even of saving his army. But he dreamed yet of victory. He galloped back for a strong detachment of Virginians who had not yet come upon the field, but could not get them up in time to strike a heavy blow.

It was apparent even to Harry and all the other young lieutenants that the battle was lost. He must have shed tears then, because afterward he found furrows in the mud and burned gunpowder on his face. The combat now was not for victory, but for existence. The Southerners fought to preserve the semblance of an army, and it was well for them that they were valiant Virginians led by a great genius, and dauntless officers.

Stonewall Jackson, in this the only defeat he ever sustained in independent command, never lost his head for a moment. By gigantic exertions he formed a new line at last. The fresher troops covered the shattered regiments. The retreating artillery was posted anew.

Jackson galloped back and forth on Little Sorrel. Everywhere his courage and presence of mind brought the men back from despair to hope. Once anew was proved the truth of Napoleon's famous maxim that men are nothing, a man everything. The soldiers on the Northern side were as brave as those on the Southern but they were not led by one of those flashing spirits of war which emerge but seldom in the ages, men who in all the turmoil and confusion of battle can see what ought to be done and who do it.

The beaten Southern army, but a few thousands, now was formed anew for a last stand. A portion of them seized a stone fence, and others took position in thick timber. The cavalry of Turner Ashby raged back and forth, seeking to protect the flanks, and in the east, coming shadows showed that the twilight might yet protect the South from the last blow.

Harry, in the thick of furious battle, had become separated from his commander. He was still on foot and his sword had been broken at the hilt by a bullet, but he did not yet know it. Chance threw him once more among the Invincibles. He plunged through the smoke almost into the arms of Langdon.

"And here is our Harry again!" shouted the irrepressible South Carolinian. "Stonewall Jackson has lost a battle, but he hasn't lost an army. Night and our courage will save us! Here, take this rifle!"

He picked up a loaded rifle which some falling soldier had dropped and thrust it into Harry's hand.

The boy took the rifle and began mechanically to fire and load and fire again at the advancing blue masses. He resolved himself for a minute into a private soldier, and shouted and fired with the rest. The twilight deepened and darkened in the east, but the battle did not cease. The Northern leaders, grim and determined men, seeing their victory sought to press it to the utmost, and always hurried forward infantry, cavalry and artillery. Had the Southern army been commanded by any other than Jackson it would have been destroyed utterly.

Jackson, resourceful and unconquerable, never ceased his exertions. Wherever he appeared he infused new courage into his men. Harry had seized a riderless horse and was once more in the saddle, following his leader, taking orders and helping him whenever he could. The Virginians who had seized the stone fence and the wood held fast. The eye of Jackson was on them, and they could do nothing else. An Ohio and a Virginia regiment on either side lost and retook their colors six times each. One of the flags had sixty bullets through it. An Indiana regiment gave way, but reinforced by another from the state rallied and returned anew to the attack. A Virginia regiment also retreated but was brought back by its colonel, and fought with fresh courage.

The numerous Northern cavalry forced its way around the Southern flanks, and cut in on the rear, taking many prisoners. Then the horsemen appeared in a great mass on the Southern left, and had not time and chance intervened at the last moment Stonewall Jackson might have passed into obscurity.

The increasing twilight was now just merging into night, and a wood stretched between the Northern cavalry and the Southern flank. The Northern horsemen hesitated, not wishing to become entangled among trees and brush in the dark, and in a few minutes the Southern infantry, falling back swiftly after beating off the attacks on their front, passed out of the trap. Sherburne and Funsten, two of Ashby's most valiant cavalry leaders, came up with their squadrons, and covered the retreat, fighting off the Northern horsemen as Jackson and his army disappeared in the woods, and night came over the lost field.

The Southern army retired, beaten, but sullen and defiant. It did not go far, but stopped at a point where the supply train had been placed. Fires were built and some of the men ate, but others were so much exhausted that without waiting for food they threw themselves upon the ground, and in an instant were fast asleep.

Harry, for the moment, a prey to black despair, followed his general. Only one other officer, a major, was with him. Harry watched him closely, but he did not see him show any emotion. Little Sorrel like his master, although he had been under fire a hundred times, had passed through the battle without a scratch. Now he walked forward slowly, the reins lying loose upon his neck.

Harry was not conscious of weariness. He had made immense exertions, but his system was keyed so high by excitement that the tension held firmly yet a little longer. The night had come on heavy and dark. Behind him he could hear the fitful sounds of the Northern and Southern cavalry still skirmishing with each other. Before him he saw dimly the Southern regiments, retreating in ragged lines. It was almost more than he could stand, and his feelings suddenly found vent in an angry cry.

General Jackson heard him and understood.

"Don't be grieved, my boy," he said quietly. "This is only the first battle."

The calm, unboastful courage strengthened Harry anew. If he should grieve how much more should the general who had led in the lost battle, and upon whom everybody would hasten to put the blame! He felt once more that flow of courage and fire from Jackson to himself, and he felt also his splendid fortune in being associated with a man whose acts showed all the marks of greatness. Like so many other young officers, mere boys, he was fast maturing in the furnace of a vast war.

The general ceased to follow the troops, but turned aside into what seemed to be a thin stretch of forest. But Harry saw that the trees grew in rows and he exclaimed:

"An orchard!"

It seemed to strike Jackson's fancy.

"Well," he said, "an orchard is a good place to sleep in. Can't we make a fire here? I fear that we shall have to burn some fence rails tonight."

Harry and the major—Hawks was his name—hitched the horses, and gathered a heap of dry fence rails. The major set fire to splinters with matches and, in a few minutes a fine fire was crackling and blazing, taking away the sharp chill of the March night.

Harry saw other fires spring up in the orchard, and he went over to one of them, where some soldiers were cooking food.

"Give me a piece of meat and bread," he said to a long Virginian.

"Set, Sonny, an' eat with us!"

"I don't want it for myself."

"Then who in nation are you beggin' fur?"

"For General Jackson. He's sitting over there."

"Thunderation! The gen'ral himself! Here, boy!"

Bearing a big piece of meat in one hand and a big piece of bread in the other Harry returned to Jackson, who had not yet tasted food that day. The general ate heartily, but almost unconsciously. He seemed to be in a deep study. Harry surmised that his thoughts were on the morrow. He had learned already that Stonewall Jackson always looked forward.

Harry foraged and obtained more food for himself, and other officers of the staff who were coming up, some bearing slight wounds that they concealed. He also secured the general's cloak, which was strapped to his saddle and insisted upon his putting it on.

The fire was surrounded presently by officers. Major Hawks had laid together and as evenly as possible a number of fence rails upon which Jackson was to sleep, but as yet no one was disposed to slumber. They had finished eating, but they remained in a silent and somber circle about the fire.

Jackson stood up presently and his figure, wrapped in the long cloak was all dark. The light did not fall upon his face. All the others looked at him. Among them was one of Ashby's young troopers, a bold and reckless spirit. It was a time, too, when the distinction between officers and privates in the great citizen armies was not yet sharply defined. And this young trooper, some spirit of mockery urging him on, stood up and said to his general:

"The Yankees didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave Winchester, did they, general?"

Harry drew a quick, sharp breath, and there was a murmur among the officers, but Stonewall Jackson merely turned a tranquil look upon the presumptuous youth. Then he turned it back to the bed of coals and said in even tones:

"Winchester is a pleasant town to stay in, sir."

The young cavalryman, not abashed at all, continued:

"We heard the Yankees were retreating, but I guess they're retreating after us."

Harry half rose and so did several of the older officers, but Jackson replied quietly:

"I think I may tell you, young sir, that I am satisfied with the result."

The audacity of the youthful trooper could not carry him further. He caught threatening looks from the officers and slipped away in the darkness. Silence fell anew around the fire, and Jackson still stood, gazing into the coals. Soon, he turned abruptly, strode away into the darkness, but came back after a while, lay down on the fence rails and slept soundly.

Harry put four or five rails side by side to protect his body from the cold ground, lay down upon them and threw a cloak over himself. Now he relaxed or rather collapsed completely. The tension that had kept him up so long was gone, and he felt that he could not have risen from the rails had he wished. He saw wavering fires and dusky figures beside them, but sleep came in a few minutes to soothe and heal.

Bye and bye all the army, save the sentinels, slept and the victorious Northern army only two or three miles away also slept, feeling that it had done enough for one day.

Shields that night was sending messages to the North announcing his victory, but he was cherishing no illusions. He told how fierce had been the attack, and with what difficulty it had been beaten off, and in Washington, reading well between the lines they felt that another attack and yet others might come from the same source.

Harry sleeping on his bed of fence rails did not dream of the extraordinary things that the little army of Jackson, beaten at Kernstown was yet to do. McClellan was just ready to start his great army by sea for the attack on Richmond, when suddenly the forgotten or negligible Jackson sprang out of the dark and fixed himself on his flank.

The capital, despite victory, was filled with alarm and the President shared it. The veteran Shields knew this man who had led the attack, and he did not seek to hide the danger. The figure of Stonewall Jackson, gigantic and menacing, showed suddenly through the mists. If McClellan went on to Richmond with the full Northern strength he might launch himself on Washington.

The great scheme of invasion was put out of joint. Shields, although victorious for the time, could not believe that Jackson would attack with so small an army unless he expected reinforcements, and he sent swift expresses to bring back a division of 8,000 men which was marching to cover Washington. Banks, his superior officer, on the way to Washington, too, heard the news at Harper's Ferry and halted there, and Lincoln, detaching a whole corps of nearly 40,000 men from McClellan's army, ordered them to remain at Manassas to protect the capital against Jackson. A dispatch was sent to Banks ordering him to push the valley campaign with his whole strength.

But when Harry rose the next morning from his fence rails he knew nothing of these things. Nor did anyone else in the Southern army, unless it was Stonewall Jackson who perhaps half-divined them. Harry thought afterward that he had foreseen much when he said to the impudent cavalryman that he was satisfied with the result at Kernstown.

They lingered there a little and then began a retreat, unharrassed by pursuit. Scouts of the enemy were seen by Ashby's cavalry, who hung like a curtain between them and the army, but no force strong enough to do any harm came in sight. Harry had secured another horse and most of his duty was at the rear, where he was often sent by the general to get the latest news from Ashby.

He quickly met Sherburne over whose dress difficulties had triumphed at last. His fine cloak, rent in many places, was stained with mud and there was one large dark spot made by his own blood. His face was lined deeply by exhaustion and deep disappointment.

"They were too much for us this time, Harry," he said bitterly. "We can't beat two to one all the time. How does the general take it?"

"As if it were nothing. He'll be ready to fight again in a few days, and we must have struck a hard blow anyhow. The enemy are not pursuing."

"That's true," said Sherburne more cheerfully. "Your argument is a good one."

The army came to a ridge called Rude's Hill and stopped there. Harry was already soldier enough to see that it was a strong position. Before it flowed a creek which the melting snows in the mountains had swollen to a depth of eight or ten feet, and on another side was a fork of the Shenandoah, also swollen. Here the soldiers began to fortify and prepare for a longer stay while Jackson sent for aid.

Harry was not among the messengers for help. Jackson had learned his great ability as a scout, and now he often sent him on missions of observation, particularly with Captain Sherburne, to whom St. Clair and Langdon were also loaned by Colonel Talbot. Thus the three were together when they rode with Sherburne and a hundred men a few days after their arrival at the ridge.

They were well wrapped in great coats, because the weather, after deceiving for a while with the appearance of spring, had turned cold again. The enemy's scouts and spies were keeping back, where they could blow on their cold fingers or walk a while to restore the circulation to their half frozen legs.

Sherburne was his neat and orderly self again and St. Clair was fully his equal. Langdon openly boasted that he was going to have a dressing contest between them for large stakes as soon as the war was over. But all the young Southerners were in good spirits now. They had learned of the alarm caused in the North by Kernstown, and that a third of McClellan's army had been detached to guard against them. Nor had Banks and Shields yet dared to attack them.

"There's what troubles Banks," said Sherburne, pointing with his saber to a towering mass of mountains which rose somber and dark in the very center of the Shenandoah Valley. "He doesn't know which side of the Massanuttons to take."

Harry looked up at these peaks and ridges, famous now in the minds of all Virginians, towering a half mile in the air, clothed from base to summit with dense forest of oak and pine, although today the crests were wrapped in snowy mists. They cut the Shenandoah valley into two smaller valleys, the wider and more nearly level one on the west. Only a single road by which troops could pass crossed the Massanuttons, and that road was held by the cavalry of Ashby.

"If Banks comes one way and he proves too strong for us we can cross over to the other," said Sherburne. "If he divides his force, marching into both valleys, we may beat one part of his army, then pass the mountain and beat the other."

Sherburne had divined aright. It was the mighty mass of the Massanuttons that weighed upon Banks. As he looked up at the dark ridges and misty crests his mind was torn by doubts. His own forces, great in number though they were, were scattered. Fremont to his right on the slopes of the Alleghanies had 25,000 men; there were other strong detachments under Milroy and Schenck, and he had 17,000 men under his own eye. So he was hesitating while the days were passing and Jackson growing stronger.

"I suppose the nature of the country helps us a lot," said Harry as he looked up at the Massanuttons, following Sherburne's pointing saber.

"It does, and we need help," said Sherburne. "Even as it is they would have been pushing upon us if it hadn't been for the cavalry and the artillery. Every time a detachment advanced we'd open up on it with a masked battery from the woods, and if pickets showed their noses too close horsemen were after them in a second. We've had them worried to death for days and days, and when they do come in force Old Jack will have something up his sleeve."

"I wonder," said Harry.



CHAPTER VII. ON THE RIDGES

As they rode in the shadow of the Massanuttons Harry continued to wonder. The whole campaign in the valley had become to him an interminable maze. Stonewall Jackson might know what he intended to do, but he was not telling. Meanwhile they marched back and forth. There was incessant skirmishing between cavalry and pickets, but it did not seem to signify anything. Banks, sure of his overwhelming numbers, pressed forward, but always cautiously and slowly. He did not march into any trap. And Harry surmised that Jackson, much too weak to attack, was playing for time.

Sherburne and his troop paused at the very base of the Massanuttons and Harry, who happened to be with them, looked up again at the lofty summits standing out so boldly and majestically in the middle of the valley. The oaks and maples along their slopes were now blossoming into a green that matched the tint of the pines, but far up on the crests there was still a line of snow, and white mists beyond.

"Why not climb the highest summit?" he said to Sherburne. "You have powerful glasses and we could get a good view of what is going on up the valley."

"Most of those slopes are not slopes at all. They're perpendicular like the side of a house. The horses could never get up."

"But they can certainly go part of the way, and some of us can climb the rest on foot."

Sherburne's eyes sparkled. The spirit of adventure was strong within him. Moreover the task, if done, was worth while.

"Good for you, Harry," he exclaimed. "We'll try it! What do you say, St. Clair, you and Langdon?"

"I follow where you lead, and I hope that you lead to the top of the mountain," replied St. Clair.

"Likely it's cold up there," said Langdon, "but there are higher and colder mountains and I choose this one."

They had learned promptness and decision from Stonewall Jackson, and Sherburne at once gave the order to ascend. Several men in his troop were natives of that part of the valley, and they knew the Massanuttons well. They led and the whole troop composed of youths followed eagerly. Bye and bye they dismounted and led their horses over the trails which grew slippery with wet and snow as they rose higher.

When they paused at times to rest they would all look northward over the great valley, where a magnificent panorama had gradually risen into view. They saw a vast stretch of fields turning green, neat villages, dark belts of forest, the gleam of brooks and creeks, and now and then, the glitter from a Northern bayonet.

At length the chief guide, a youth named Wallace, announced that the horses could go no farther. Even in summer when the snow was all gone and the earth was dry they could not find a footing. Now it was certain death for them to try the icy steeps.

Sherburne ordered the main body of the troop to halt in a forested and sheltered glen in the side of the mountain, and, choosing Harry, St. Clair, Langdon, the guide Wallace, and six others, he advanced with them on foot. It was difficult climbing, and more than once they were bruised by falls, but they learned to regard such accidents as trifles, and ardent of spirit they pressed forward.

"I think we'll get a good view," said Sherburne. "See how brilliantly the sun is shining in the valley."

"Yes, and the mists on the crests are clearing away," said Harry.

"Then with the aid of the glasses we can get a sweep up the valley for many miles. Now boys, here we go! up! up!"

If it had not been for the bushes they could never have made the ascent, as they were now in the region of snow and ice and the slopes were like glass. Often they were compelled to crawl, and it was necessary, too, to exercise a good deal of care in crawling.

St. Clair groaned as he rose after climbing a rock, and brushed the knees of his fine gray trousers.

"Cheer up, Arthur," said Langdon, "it could have been worse. The sharp stones there might have cut holes through them."

But in spite of every difficulty and danger they went steadily toward the summit, and streamers of mist yet floating about the mountain often enclosed them in a damp shroud. Obviously, however, the clouds and vapors were thinning, and soon the last shred would float away.

"It ain't more'n a hundred feet more to the top," said Wallace, "an' it's shore that the sun will be shinin' there."

"Shining for us, of course," said Langdon. "It's a good omen."

"I wish I could always look for the best as you do, Tom," said St. Clair.

"I'm glad I can. Gay hearts are better than riches. As sure as I climb, Arthur, I see the top."

"Yes, there it is, the nice snowy bump above us."

They dragged themselves upon the loftiest crest, and, panting, stood there for a few minutes in several inches of snow. Then the wind caught up the last shreds and tatters of mist, and whipped them away southward. Every one of them drew a deep, sharp breath, as the great panorama of the valley to the northward and far below was unrolled before them.

The brilliant sunshine of early spring played over everything, but far down in the valley they seemed to see by contrast the true summer of the sunny south, which is often far from sunny. But seen from the top of the mountain the valley was full of golden rays. Now the roofs of the villages showed plainly and they saw with distinctness the long silver lines that marked the flowing of the rivers and creeks. To the east and to the west further than the eye could reach rose the long line of dim blue mountains that enclosed the valley.

But it was the glitter of the bayonets in the valley that caused the hearts of the Virginians to beat most fiercely. Banners and guidons, clusters of white tents, and dark swarms of men marked where the foot of the invading stranger trod their soil. The Virginians loved the great valley. Enclosed between the blue mountains it was the richest and most beautiful part of all their state. It hurt them terribly to see the overwhelming forces of the North occupying its towns and villages and encamped in its fields.

Harry, not a Virginian himself, but a brother by association, understood and shared their feeling. He saw Sherburne's lips moving and he knew that he was saying hard words between his teeth. But Sherburne's eyes were at the glasses, and he looked a long time, moving them slowly from side to side. After a while he handed them to Harry.

The boy raised the glasses and the great panorama of the valley sprang up to his eyes. It seemed to him that he could almost count the soldiers in the camps. There was a troop of cavalry riding to the southward, and further to the left was another. Directly to the north was their battlefield of Kernstown, and not far beyond it lay Winchester. He saw such masses of the enemy's troops and so many signs of activity among them that he felt some movement must be impending.

"What do you think of it, Harry?" said Sherburne.

"Banks must be getting ready to move forward."

"I think so, too. I wish we had his numbers."

"More men are coming for us. We'll have Ewell's corps soon, and General Jackson himself is worth ten thousand men."

"That's so, Harry, but ten thousand men are far too few. McDowell's whole corps is available, and with it the Yankees can now turn more than seventy thousand men into the valley."

"And they can fight, too, as we saw at Kernstown," said St. Clair.

"That's so, and I'm thinking they'll get their stomachs full of it pretty soon," said Langdon. "Yesterday about dusk I went out in some bushes after firewood, and I saw a man kneeling. It struck me as curious, and I went up closer. What do you think? It was Old Jack praying. Not any mock prayer, but praying to his Lord with all his heart and soul. I'm not much on praying myself, but I felt pretty solemn then, and I slid away from there as quick and quiet as you please. And I tell you, fellows, that when Stonewall Jackson prays it's time for the Yankees to weep."

"You're probably right, Langdon," said Captain Sherburne, "but it's time for us to be going back, and we'll tell what we've seen to General Jackson."

As they turned away a crunching in the snow on the other slope caused them to stop. The faces of men and then their figures appeared through the bushes. They were eight or ten in number and all wore blue uniforms. Harry saw the leader, and instantly he recognized Shepard. It came to him, too, in a flash of prescience, that Shepard was just the man whom he would meet there.

Sherburne, who had seen the blue uniforms, raised a pistol and fired. Two shots were fired by the Union men at the same instant, and then both parties dropped back from the crest, each on its own side.

Sherburne's men were untouched and Harry was confident that Shepard's had been equally lucky—the shots had been too hasty—but it was nervous and uncomfortable work, lying there in the snow, and waiting for the head of an enemy to appear over the crest.

Harry was near Captain Sherburne, and he whispered to him:

"I know the man whose face appeared first through the bushes."

"Who is he?"

"His name is Shepard. He's a spy and scout for the North, and he is brave and dangerous. He was in Montgomery when President Davis was inaugurated. I saw him in Washington when I was there as a spy myself. I saw him again in Winchester just before the battle of Kernstown, and now here he is once more."

"Must be a Wandering Jew sort of a fellow."

"He wanders with purpose. He has certainly come up here to spy us out."

"In which he is no more guilty than we are."

"That's true, but what are we going to do about it, captain?"

"Blessed if I know. Wait till I take a look."

Captain Sherburne raised himself a little, in order to peep over the crest of the ridge. A rifle cracked on the other side, a bullet clipped the top of his cap, and he dropped back in the snow, unhurt but startled.

"This man, Shepard, is fully as dangerous as you claim him to be," he said to Harry.

"Can you see anything of them?" asked St. Clair.

"Not a thing," said Harry.

"If we show they shoot, and if they show we shoot," said Langdon. "Seems to me it's about the most beautiful case of checkmate that I've known."

"Perhaps we can stalk them," said St. Clair.

"And perhaps they can stalk us," said Langdon. "But I think both sides are afraid to try it."

"You're right, Langdon," said Captain Sherburne, "It's a case of checkmate. I confess that I don't know what to do."

"We could wait here while they waited too, and if we waited long enough it would get so dark we couldn't see each other. But captain, you are a kind-hearted and sympathetic man, do you see any fun in sitting in the snow on top of a mountain, waiting to kill men whom you don't want to kill or to be killed by men who don't want to kill you?"

"No, Tom, I don't," replied Captain Sherburne with a laugh, "and you're talking mighty sound sense. This is not like a regular battle. We've nothing to gain by shooting those men, and they've nothing to gain by shooting us. The Massanuttons extend a long distance and there's nothing to keep scouts and spies from climbing them at other places. We'll go away from here."

He gave the order. They rose and crept as softly as they could through the snow and bushes down the side of the mountain. Harry looked back occasionally, but he saw no faces appear on the crest. Soon he heard Langdon who was beside him laughing softly to himself.

"What's the matter, Tom?" he asked.

"Harry, if I could take my pistol and shoot straight through this mountain the bullet when it came out on the other side would hit a soldier in blue clothes, going at the same rate of speed down the mountain."

"More than likely you're right, Tom, if they're sensible, and that man Shepard certainly is."

Further down they met some of their own men climbing up. The troop had heard the shots and was on the way to rescue, if rescue were needed. Captain Sherburne explained briefly and they continued the descent, leading their horses all the way, and breathing deep relief, when they stood at last in the plain.

"I'll remember that climb," said Langdon to Harry as he sprang into the saddle, "and I won't do it again when there's snow up there, unless General Jackson himself forces me up with the point of a bayonet."

"The view was fine."

"So it was, but the shooting was bad. Not a Yank, not a Reb fell, and I'm not unhappy over it. A curious thing has happened to me, Harry. While I'm ready to fight the Yankee at the drop of the hat I don't seem to hate 'em as much as I did when the war began."

"Same here. The war ought not to have happened, but we're in it, and to my way of thinking we're going to be in it mighty deep and long."

Langdon was silent for a little while, but nothing could depress him long. He was soon chattering away as merrily as ever while the troop rode back to General Jackson. Harry regarded him with some envy. A temperament that could rejoice under any circumstances was truly worth having.

Sherburne reported to Ashby who in return sent him to the commander, Harry going with him to resume his place on the staff. Jackson heard the report without comment and his face expressed nothing. Harry could not see that he had changed much since he had come to join him. A little thinner, a little more worn, perhaps, but he was the same quiet, self-contained man, whose blue eyes often looked over and beyond the one to whom he was talking, as if he were maturing plans far ahead.

Harry occupied a tent for the time with two or three other young officers, and being permitted a few hours off duty he visited his friends of the Invincibles, Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire. The two old comrades already had heard the results of the scout from St. Clair and Langdon, but they gave Harry a welcome because they liked him. They also gave him a camp stool, no small luxury in an army that marches and fights hard, using more gunpowder than anything else.

Harry put the stool against a tree, sat on it and leaned back against the trunk, feeling a great sense of luxury. The two men regarded him with a benevolent eye. They, too, were enjoying luxuries, cigars which a cavalry detail had captured from the enemy. It struck Harry at the moment that although one was of British descent and the other of French they were very much alike. South Carolina had bred them and then West Point had cast them in her unbreakable mold. Neat, precise, they sat rigidly erect, and smoked their cigars.

"Do you like it on the staff of General Jackson, Harry," asked Colonel Talbot.

"I felt regrets at leaving the Invincibles," replied Harry truthfully, "but I like it. I think it a privilege to be so near to General Jackson."

"A leader who has fought only one battle in independent command and who lost that," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, thoughtfully—he knew that Harry would repeat nothing, "and who nevertheless has the utmost confidence of his men. He does not joke with them as the young Napoleon did with his soldiers. He has none of the quality that we call magnetic charm, and yet his troops are eager to follow him anywhere. He has won no victories, but his men believe him capable of many. He takes none of his officers into his confidence, but all have it. Incredible, but true. Why is it?"

He put his cigar back in his mouth and puffed meditatively. Colonel Leonidas Talbot, who also had been puffing meditatively while Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire was speaking, now took his cigar from his mouth, blew away the delicate rings of smoke, and said in an equally thoughtful tone:

"It occurs to me, Hector, that it is the power of intellect. Stonewall Jackson has impressed the whole army down to the last and least little drummer with a sense of his mental force. I tell you, sir, that he is a thinker, and thinkers are rare, much more rare than people generally believe. There is only one man out of ten thousand who does not act wholly according to precedent and experience. Habit is so powerful that when we think we are thinking we are not thinking at all, we are merely recalling the experiences of ourselves or somebody else. And of the rare individuals who leave the well-trod paths of thought to think new thoughts, only a minutely small percentage think right. This minutely small fraction represents genius, the one man in a million or rather ten million, or, to be more accurate, the one man in a hundred million."

Colonel Leonidas Talbot put the cigar back in his mouth and puffed with regularity and smoothness. Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, in his turn, took his cigar from his mouth once more, blew away the fine white rings of smoke and said:

"Leonidas, it appears to me that you have hit upon the truth, or as our legal friends would say, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I am in the middle of life and I realize suddenly that in all the years I have lived I have met but few thinkers, certainly not more than half a dozen, perhaps not more than three or four."

He put his cigar back in his mouth and the two puffed simultaneously and with precision, blowing out the fine, delicate rings of smoke at exactly the same time. Gentlemen of the old school they were, even then, but Harry recognized, too, that Colonel Leonidas Talbot had spoken the weighty truth. Stonewall Jackson was a thinker, and thinkers are never numerous in the world. He resolved to think more for himself if he could, and he sat there trying to think, while he absently regarded the two colonels.

Colonel Leonidas Talbot, after two minutes perhaps, took the cigar from his mouth once more and said to Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire:

"Fine cigars the Yankees make, Hector."

"Quite true, Leonidas. One of the best I have ever smoked."

"Not more than a dozen left."

"Then we must get more."

"But how?"

"Stonewall Jackson will think of a way."

Harry, despite his respect for them, was compelled to laugh. But the two colonels laughed with him.

"The words of my friend Leonidas have been proved true within a few minutes," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire. "In doubt we turned at once and with involuntary impulse to Stonewall Jackson to think of a way. He has impressed us, as he has impressed the privates, with his intellectual power."

Harry sat with them nearly an hour. He had not only respect but affection also for them. Old-fashioned they might be in some ways, but they were able military men, thoroughly alert, and he knew that he could learn much from them. When he left them he returned to General Jackson and a few more days of waiting followed.

Winter was now wholly gone and spring, treacherous at first, was becoming real and reliable. Reports heavy and ominous were coming from McClellan. He would disembark and march up the peninsula on Richmond with a vast and irresistible force. Jackson might be drawn off from the valley to help Johnston in the defense of the capital. But Banks with his great army would then march down it as if on parade.

Harry heard one morning that a new man was put in command of the Southern forces in Northern Virginia. Robert Edward Lee was his name, and it was a good name, too. He was the son of that famous Light Horse Harry Lee who was a favorite of Washington in the Revolution. Already an elderly man, he was sober and quiet, but the old West Pointers passed the word through Jackson's army that he was full of courage and daring.

Harry felt the stimulus almost at once. A fresh wind seemed to be blowing down the Valley of Virginia. Lee had sent word to Jackson that he might do what he could, and that he might draw to his help also a large division under Ewell. The news spread through the army and there was a great buzzing. Young Virginia was eager to march against any odds, and Harry was with them, heart and soul.

Nor were they kept waiting now. The news had scarcely spread through the army when they heard the crack of carbines in their front. The cavalry of Ashby, increased by many recruits, was already skirmishing with the vanguard of Banks. It was the last day of April and Harry, sent to the front, saw Ashby drive in all the Northern cavalry. When he returned with the news Jackson instantly lifted up his whole division and marched by the flank through the hills, leaving Ewell with his men to occupy Banks in front. The mind of the "thinker" was working, and Harry knew it as he rode behind him. He did not know what this movement meant, but he had full confidence in the man who led them.

Yet the marching, like all the other marching they had done, was of the hardest. The ground, torn by hoofs, cannon wheels and the feet of marching men, was a continuous quagmire. Ponds made newly by the rains stood everywhere. Often it required many horses and men to drag a cannon out of the mud. The junior officers, and finally those of the highest rank, leaped from their horses and gave aid. Jackson himself carried boughs and stones to help make a road.

Despite the utmost possible exertions the army could make only five miles in a single day and at the approach of night it flung itself upon the ground exhausted.

"I call this the Great Muddy Army," said St. Clair, ruefully to Harry, as he surveyed his fine uniform, now smeared over with brown liquid paste.

"It might have been worse," said Langdon. "Suppose we had fallen in a quicksand and had been swallowed up utterly. 'Tis better to live muddy than not to live at all."

"It would be better to call it the Great Tired Army just now," said Harry. "To keep on pulling your feet all day long out of mud half a yard deep is the most exhausting thing I know or ever heard of."

"Where are we going?" asked St. Clair.

"Blessed if I know," replied Harry, "nor does anybody else save one. It's all hid under General Jackson's hat."

"I guess it's Staunton," said Langdon. "That's a fine town, as good as Winchester. I've got kinsfolk there. I came up once from South Carolina and made them a visit."

But it was not Staunton, although Staunton, hearing of the march, had been joyfully expecting Jackson's men. The fine morning came, warm and brilliant with sunshine, raising the spirits of the troops. The roads began to dry out fast and marching would be much easier. But Jackson, leading somberly on Little Sorrel, turned his back on Staunton.

The Virginians stared in amazement when the heads of columns turned away from that trim and hospitable little city, which they knew was so fervently attached to their cause. Before them rose the long line of the Blue Ridge and they were marching straight toward it.

They marched a while in silence, and then a groan ran through the ranks. It was such a compound of dismay and grief that it made Harry shiver. The Virginians were leaving their beloved and beautiful valley, leaving it all to the invader, leaving the pretty little places, Winchester and Staunton and Harrisonburg and Strasburg and Front Royal, and all the towns and villages in which their families and relatives lived. Every one of the Virginians had blood kin everywhere through the valley.

The men began to whisper to one another, but the order of silence was passed sternly along the line. They marched on, sullen and gloomy, but after a while their natural courage and their confidence in their commander returned. Their spirits did not desert them, even when they left the valley behind them and began to climb the Blue Ridge.

Up, up, they went through dense forests. Harry remembered their ascent of the Massanuttons, but the snows were gone now. They pressed on until they reached the crest of the ridges and there the whole army paused, high up in the air, while they looked with eager interest at the rolling Virginia country stretching toward the east until it sank under the horizon.

Harry saw smoke that marked the passing of trains, and he believed that they were now on their way to Richmond to help defend the capital against McClellan. He glanced at Jackson, but the commander was as tight-lipped as ever. Whatever was under that hat remained the secret of its owner.

They descended the mountains and came to a railway station, where many cars were waiting. Troops were hurried aboard expecting to start for Richmond, and then a sudden roar burst from them. The trains did not move toward Richmond, but back, through defiles that would lead them again into their beloved valley. Cheers one after another rolled through the trains, and Harry, who was in a forward car with the Invincibles, joined in as joyfully as the best Virginian of them all.

The boy was so much exhausted that he fell into a doze on a seat. But afterward he dimly remembered that he heard the two colonels talking. They were trying to probe into the depths of Jackson's mind. They surmised that this march over the mountains had been made partly to delude Banks. They were right, at least as far as the delusion of Banks went. He had been telegraphing that the army of Jackson was gone, on its way to Richmond, and that there was nothing in front of him save a few skirmishers.

The Virginians left their trains in the valley again, waited for their wagons and artillery, and then marched on to Staunton, that neat little city that was so dear to so many of them. But the mystery of what was under Jackson's hat remained a mystery. They passed through Staunton, amid the cheering people, women and children waving hats, scarfs and handkerchiefs to their champions. But the terrible Stonewall gave them no chance to dally in that pleasant place. Staunton was left far behind and they never stopped until they went into camp on the side of another range of mountains.

Here in a great forest they built a few fires, more not being allowed, and after a hasty supper most of the men lay down in their blankets to rest. But the young officers did not sleep. A small tent for Jackson had been raised by the side of the Invincibles, and Harry, sitting on a log, talked in low tones with Langdon and St. Clair. The three were of the opinion that some blow was about to be struck, but what it was they did not know.

"The Yankees must have lost us entirely," said Langdon. "To tell you the truth, boys, I've lost myself. I've been marching about so much that I don't know east from west and north from south. I'm sure that this is the Southern army about us, but whether we're still in Virginia or not is beyond me. What do you say, Arthur?"

"It's Virginia still, Tom, but we've undoubtedly done a lot of marching."

"A lot of it! 'Lot' is a feeble word! We've marched a million miles in the last few days. I've checked 'em off by the bunions on the soles of my feet."

"Look out, boys," said St. Clair. "Here comes the general!"

General Jackson was walking toward them. His face had the usual intense, preoccupied look, but he smiled slightly when he saw the three lads.

"Come, young gentlemen," he said, "we're going to take a look at the enemy."

A group of older officers joined him, and the three lads followed modestly. They reached a towering crag and from it Harry saw a deep valley fringed with woods, a river rushing down its center and further on a village. Both banks of the river were thick with troops, men in blue. Over and beyond the valley was a great mass of mountains, ridge on ridge and peak on peak, covered with black forest, and cut by defiles and ravines so narrow that it was always dark within them.

Harry felt a strange, indescribable thrill. The presence of the enemy and the wild setting of the mountains filled him with a kind of awe.

"It's a Northern army under Milroy," whispered St. Clair, who now heard Jackson talking to the older officers.

"Then there's going to be a battle," said Harry.



CHAPTER VIII. THE MOUNTAIN BATTLE

General Jackson and several of his senior officers were examining the valley with glasses, but Harry, with eyes trained to the open air and long distances, could see clearly nearly all that was going on below. He saw movement among the masses of men in blue, and he saw officers on horseback, galloping along the banks of the river. Then he saw cannon in trenches with their muzzles elevated toward the heights, and he knew that the Union troops must have had warning of Jackson's coming. And he saw, too, that the officers below also had glasses through which they were looking.

There was a sudden blaze from the mouth of one of the cannon. A shell shot upward, whistling and shrieking, and burst far above their heads. Harry heard pieces of falling metal striking on the rocks behind them. The mountains sent back the cannon's roar in a sinister echo.

A second gun flashed and again the shell curved over their heads. But Jackson paid no heed. He was still watching intently through his glasses.

"The enemy is up and alert," whispered St. Clair to Harry. "I judge that these are Western men used to sleeping with their eyes open."

"Like as not a lot of them are mountain West Virginians," said Harry. "They are strong for the North, and it's likely, too, that they're the men who have discovered Jackson's advance."

"And they mean to make it warm for us. Listen to those guns! It's hard shooting aiming at men on heights, but it shows what they could do on level ground."

Jackson presently retired with his officers, and Harry, parting from his friends of the Invincibles, went with him. Back among the ridges all the troops were under arms, the weary ones having risen from their blankets which were now tied in rolls on their backs. They had not yet been able to bring the artillery up the steeps. Harry saw that the faces of all were eager as they heard the thunder of the guns in the valley below. Among the most eager was a regiment of Georgians arrived but recently with the reinforcements.

Many of the men, speaking from the obscurity of the crowded ranks, did not scorn to hurl questions at their officers.

"Are we goin' to fight the Yankees at last?"

"I'd rather take my chances with the bullets than march any more."

"Lead us down an' give us a chance at 'em."

Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire were among the officers who had gone with Jackson to the verge of the cliff, and now when they heard the impertinent but eager questions from the massed ranks they looked at each other and smiled. It was not according to West Point, but these were recruits and here was enthusiasm which was a pearl beyond price.

General Jackson beckoned to Harry and three other young staff officers.

"Take glasses," he said, "go back to the verge of the cliff, and watch for movements on the part of the enemy. If any is made be sure that you see it, and report it to me at once."

The words were abrupt, sharp, admitting of no question or delay, and the four fairly ran. Harry and his comrades lay down at the edge of the cliff and swept the valley with their glasses. The great guns were still firing at intervals of about a minute. The gunners could not see the Southern troops drawn back behind the ridges, but Harry believed that they might be guided by signals from men on opposite slopes. But if signalmen were there they were hidden by the forest even from his glasses.

The smoke from the cannon was gathering heavily in the narrow valley, so heavily that it began to obscure what was passing there in the Northern army. But the four, remembering the injunction of Jackson, a man who must be obeyed to the last and minutest detail, still sought to pierce through the smoke both with the naked eye and with glasses. As a rift appeared Harry saw a moving mass of men in blue. It was a great body of troops and the sun shining through the rift glittered over bayonets and rifle barrels. They were marching straight toward a slope which led at a rather easy grade up the side of the mountain.

"They're not waiting to be attacked! They're attacking!" cried Harry, springing to his feet and running to the point where he knew Jackson stood. Jackson received his news, looked for himself, and then began to push on the troops. A shout arose as the army pressed forward to meet the enemy who were coming so boldly.

"We ought to beat 'em, as we have the advantage of the heights," exclaimed Sherburne, who was now on foot.

But the advantage was the other way. Those were staunch troops who were advancing, men of Ohio and West Virginia, and while they were yet on the lower slopes their cannon, firing over their heads, swept the crest with shot and shell. The eager Southern youths, as invariably happens with those firing downward, shot too high. The Northern regiments now opening with their rifles and taking better aim came on in splendid order.

"What a magnificent charge!" Harry heard Sherburne exclaim.

The rifles by thousands were at work, and the unceasing crash sent echoes far through the mountains. The Southerners at the edge of the cliff were cut down by the fire of their enemy from below. Their loss was now far greater than that of the North, and their officers sought to draw them back from the verge, to a ridge where they could receive the charge, just as it reached the crest and pour into them their full fire. The eager young regiment from Georgia refused to obey.

"Have we come all these hundreds of miles from Georgia to run before Yankees?" they cried, and stood there pulling trigger at the enemy, while their own men fell fast before the bitter Northern hail.

Harry, too, was forced to admire the great resolution and courage with which the Northern troops came upward, but he turned away to be ready for any command that Jackson might give him. The general stood by a rock attentively watching the fierce battle that was going on, but not yet giving any order. But Harry fancied that he saw his eyes glisten as he beheld the ardor of his troops.

A detachment of Virginians, posted in the rear, seeing a break in the first line, rushed forward without orders, filled the gap and came face to face with the men in blue. Harry thought he saw Jackson's eyes glisten again, but he was not sure.

The crash of the battle increased fast. The Southern troops had no artillery, but as the Northern charge came nearer the crest their bullets ceased to fly over the heads of their enemies, but struck now in the ranks. The ridges were enveloped in fire and smoke. A fresh Southern regiment was thrown in and the valiant Northern charge broke. The brave men of Ohio and West Virginia, although they fought desperately and encouraged one another to stand fast, were forced slowly back down the slope.

Harry and a half dozen others beside him heard Jackson say, apparently to himself, "The battle will soon be over." Harry knew instinctively that it was true. He had got into the habit of believing every thing Jackson said. The end came in fifteen minutes more, and with it came the night.

The soldiers in their ardor had not noticed that the long shadows were creeping over the mountains. The sun had already sunk in a blood-red blur behind the ridges, and as the men in blue slowly yielded the last slope darkness which was already heavy in the defiles and ravines swept down over the valley.

Jackson had won, but his men had suffered heavily and moreover he had stood on the defense. He could not descend into the valley in the face of the Northern resistance which was sure to be fierce and enduring. The Northern cannon were beginning to send curving shells again over the cliffs, sinister warnings of what the Virginians might expect if they came down to attack. Harry and the other staff officers peering over the crest saw many fires burning along the banks of the river. Milroy seemed to be still bidding Jackson defiance.

Harry saw no preparations for a return assault. Jackson was inspecting the ground, but his men were going over the field gathering up the wounded and burying the dead. The Georgians had suffered terribly—most of all—for their rash bravery, and the whole army was subdued. There was less of exuberant youth, and more of grim and silent resolve.

Harry worked far into the night carrying orders here and there. The moon came out and clothed the strange and weird battlefield in a robe of silver. The heavens were sown with starshine, but it all seemed mystic and unreal to the excited nerves of the boy. The mountains rose to two, three times their real height, and the valley in which the Northern fires burned became a mighty chasm.

It was one o'clock in the morning before Jackson himself left the field and went to his headquarters at a little farmhouse on the plateau. His faithful colored servant was waiting for him with food. He had not touched any the whole day, but he declined it saying that he needed nothing but sleep. He flung himself booted and clothed upon a bed and was sound asleep in five minutes.

There was a little porch on one side of the house, and here Harry, who had received no instructions from his general, camped. He rolled himself in his cavalry cloak, lay down on the hard floor which was not hard to him, and slept like a little child.

He was awakened at dawn as one often is by a presence, even though that presence be noiseless. He felt a great unwillingness to get up. That was a good floor on which he slept, and the cavalry cloak wrapped around him was the finest and warmest that he had ever felt. He did not wish to abandon either. But will triumphed. He opened his eyes and sprang quickly to his feet.

Stonewall Jackson was standing beside him looking intently toward the valley. The edge of a blazing sun barely showed in the east, and in the west all the peaks and ridges were yet in the dusk. Morning was coming in silence. There was no sound of battle or of the voices of men.

"I beg your pardon. I fear that I have overslept myself!" exclaimed Harry.

"Not at all," said Jackson with a slight smile. "The others of the staff are yet asleep. You might have come inside. A little room was left on the floor there."

"I never had a better bed and I never slept better." The general smiled again and gave Harry an approving glance.

"Soldiers, especially boys, learn quickly to endure any kind of hardship," he said. "Come, we'll see if the enemy is still there."

Harry fancied from his tone that he believed Milroy gone, but knowing better than to offer any opinion of his own he followed him toward the edge of the valley. The pickets saluted as the silent figures passed. The sun in the east was rising higher over the valley, and in the west the peaks and ridges were coming out of the dusk.

The general carried his glasses slung over his shoulder, but he did not need them. One glance into the valley and they saw that the army of Milroy was gone. It had disappeared, horse, foot and guns, and Harry now knew that the long row of camp fires in the night had been a show, but only a brave show, after all.

The whole Southern army awoke and poured down the slopes. Yes, Milroy, not believing that he was strong enough for another battle, had gone down the valley. He had fought one good battle, but he would reach Banks before he fought another.

The Southern troops felt that they had won the victory, and Jackson sent a message to Richmond announcing it. Never had news come at a more opportune time. The fortunes of the South seemed to be at the lowest ebb. Richmond had heard of the great battle of Shiloh, the failure to destroy Grant and the death of Albert Sidney Johnston. New Orleans, the largest and richest city in the Confederacy, had been taken by the Northern fleet—the North was always triumphant on the water—and the mighty army of McClellan had landed on the Peninsula of Virginia for the advance on Richmond.

It had seemed that the South was doomed, and the war yet scarcely a year old. But in the mountains the strange professor of mathematics had struck a blow and he might strike another. Both North and South realized anew that no one could ever tell where he was or what he might do. The great force, advancing by land to co-operate with McClellan, hesitated, and drew back.

But Jackson's troops knew nothing then of what was passing in the minds of men at Washington and Richmond. They were following Milroy and that commander, wily as well as brave, was pressing his men to the utmost in order that he might escape the enemy who, he was sure, would pursue with all his power. He knew that he had fought with Stonewall Jackson and he knew the character of the Southern leader.

Sherburne brought his horses through a defile into the valley and his men, now mounted, led the pursuit. Jackson in his eagerness rode with him and Harry was there, too. Behind them came the famous foot cavalry. Thus pursuer and pursued rolled down the valley, and Harry exulted when he looked at the path of the fleeing army. The traces were growing fresher and fresher. Jackson was gaining.

But there were shrewd minds in Milroy's command. The Western men knew many devices of battle and the trail, and Milroy was desperately bent upon saving his force, which he knew would be overwhelmed, if overtaken by Jackson's army. Now he had recourse to a singular device.

Harry, riding with Captain Sherburne, noticed that the trees were dry despite the recent rains. On the slopes of the mountains the water ran off fast, and the thickets were dry also. Then he saw a red light in the forest in front of them. General Jackson saw it at the same time.

"What is that?" he exclaimed.

"It looks like a forest fire, general," replied Sherburne.

"You're right, captain, and it's growing."

As they galloped forward they saw the red light expand rapidly and spread directly across their path. The whole forest was on fire. Great flames rose up the trunks of trees and leaped from bough to bough. Sparks flew in millions and vast clouds of smoke, picked up by the wind, were whirled in their faces.

The troop of cavalry was compelled to pause and General Jackson, brushing the smoke from his eyes, said:

"Clever! very clever! Milroy has put a fiery wall between us."

The device was a complete success. The pursuing men in gray could pass around the fire at points, and wait at other points for it to burn out, but they lost so much time that their cavalry were able only to skirmish with the Northern rear guard. Then when night came on Milroy escaped under cover of the thick and smoky darkness.

Harry slept on the ground that night, but the precious cloak was around him. He slept beyond the dawn as the pursuit was now abandoned, but when he arose smoke was still floating over the valley and the burned forests. He was stiff and sore, but the fierce hunger that assailed him made him forget the aching of his bones. He had eaten nothing for thirty-six hours. He had forgotten until then that there was such a thing as food. But the sight of Langdon holding a piece of frying bacon on a stick afflicted him with a raging desire.

"Give me that bacon, Tom," he cried, "or I'll set the rest of the forest on fire!"

"No need, you old war-horse. I was just bringing it to you. There's plenty more where this came from. The foot cavalry took it at McDowell, and like the wise boys they are brought it on with them. Come and join us. Your general is already riding a bit up the valley, and, as he didn't call you, it follows that he doesn't want you."

Harry followed him gladly. The Invincibles had found a good place, and were cooking a solid breakfast. They had bacon and ham and coffee and bread in abundance, and for a while there was a great eating and drinking.

To youth which had marched and fought without food it was not a breakfast. It was a banquet and a feast. Young frames which recover quickly responded at once. Now and then, the musical clatter of iron spoons and knives on iron cups and plates was broken by deep sighs of satisfaction. But they did not speak for a while. There was lost time to be made up, and they did not know when they would get another such chance—the odds were always against it.

"Enough is enough," said Langdon at last. "It took a lot to make enough, but it's enough. You have to be a soldier, Harry, to appreciate what it is to eat, sleep and rest. I'm willing to wager my uniform against a last winter's snowball that we don't get another such meal in a month. Old Jack won't let us."

"To my mind," said St. Clair, "we're going right into the middle of big things. We've chased the Yankees out of the mountains into the valley, and we'll follow hot on their heels. We've already learned enough of General Jackson to know that he doesn't linger."

"Linger!" exclaimed Langdon indignantly. "Even if there was no fighting to be done he'd march us from one end of the valley to the other just to keep us in practice. Hear that bugle! Off we go! Five minutes to get ready! Or maybe it is only three!"

It was more than five minutes, but not much more, when the whole army was on the march again, but the foot cavalry forgot to grumble when they came again into their beloved valley, across which, and up and down which, they had marched so much.

They threw back their shoulders, their gait became more jaunty and they burst into cheers, at the sight of the rich rolling country, now so beautiful in spring's heavy green. Far off the mountains rose, dark and blue, but they were only the setting for the gem and made it more precious.

"It's ours," said Sherburne proudly to Harry. "We left it to the Yankees for a little while, but we've come back to claim it, and if the unbidden tenant doesn't get out at once we'll put him out. Harry, haven't you got Virginia kinfolks? We want to adopt you and call you a Virginian."

"Lots of them. My great-grandfather, Governor Ware, was born in Maryland, but all the people on my mother's side were of Virginia origin."

"I might have known it. Kentucky is the daughter of Virginia though a large part of Kentucky takes sides with the Yankees. But that's not your fault. Remember, for the time being you're a Virginian, one of us by right of blood and deed."

"Count me among 'em at once," said Harry. He felt a certain pride in this off-hand but none the less real adoption, because he knew that it was a great army with which he marched, and it might immortalize itself.

"What's the news, Harry?" asked Sherburne. "You're always near Old Jack, and if he lets anything come from under that old hat of his, which isn't often, it's because he's willing for it to be known."

"He's said this, and he doesn't mean it to be any secret. Banks is at Strasburg with a big army, but he's fortified himself there and he doesn't know just what to do. He doesn't for the life of him know which way Jackson is coming, nor do I. But I do know that Ewell with his division is going to join us at last and we'll have a sizable army."

"And that means bigger things!" exclaimed Sherburne, joyously. "Between you and me, Harry, Banks won't sleep soundly again for many a night!"

As they marched on the valley people came out joyously to meet them. Even women and girls on horseback, galloping, reined in their horses to tell them where the Union forces lay. Always they had information for Jackson, never any for the North. Here scouts and spies were scarcely needed by the Southern army. Before night Stonewall Jackson knew as much of his enemy as any general needed to know.

They camped at dusk and Langdon, contrary to his prediction, enjoyed another ample meal and plenty of rest. Jackson allowed no tent to be set for himself. The night was warm and beautiful and the songs of birds came from the trees. The general had eaten sparingly, and now he sat on a log in deep thought. Presently he looked up and said:

"Lieutenant Kenton, do you and Lieutenant Dalton ride forward in that direction and meet General Ewell. He is coming, with his staff, to see me. Escort him to the camp."

He pointed out the direction and in an instant Harry and Dalton, also of the staff, were in the camp, following the line of that pointing finger. They had the password and as they passed a little beyond the pickets they saw a half dozen horsemen riding rapidly toward them in the dusk.

"General Ewell, is it not, sir?" said Harry, as he and Dalton gave the salute.

"I'm General Ewell," replied the foremost horseman. "Do you come from General Jackson?"

"Yes, sir. His camp is just before you. You can see the lights now. He has directed us to meet you and escort you."

"Then lead the way."

The two young lieutenants, guiding General Ewell and his staff, were soon inside Jackson's camp, but Harry had time to observe Ewell well. He had already heard of him as a man of great vigor and daring. He had made a name for judgment and dash in the Indian wars on the border. Men spoke of him as a soldier, prompt to obey his superior and ready to take responsibility if his superior were not there. Harry knew that Jackson expected much of him.

He saw a rather slender man with wonderfully bright eyes that smiled much, a prominent and pronounced nose and a strong chin. When he took off his hat at the meeting with Jackson he disclosed a round bald head, which he held on one side when he talked.

Jackson had risen from the log as Ewell rode up and leaped from his magnificent horse—his horses were always of the best—and he advanced, stretching out his hand. Ewell clasped it and the two talked. The staffs of the two generals had withdrawn out of ear shot, but Harry noticed that Ewell did much the greater part of the talking, his head cocked on one side in that queer, striking manner. But Harry knew, too, that the mind and will of Jackson were dominant, and that Ewell readily acknowledged them as so.

The conference did not last long. Then the two generals shook hands again and Ewell sprang upon his horse. Jackson beckoned to Harry.

"Lieutenant Kenton," he said, "ride with General Ewell to his camp. You will then know the way well, and he may wish to send me some quick dispatch."

Harry, nothing loath, was in the saddle in an instant, and at the wish of General Ewell rode by his side.

"You have been with him long?" said Ewell.

"From the beginning of the campaign here, sir."

"Then you were at both Kernstown and McDowell. A great general, young man."

"Yes, sir. He will march anywhere and fight anything."

"That's my own impression. We've heard that his men are the greatest marchers in the world. My own lads under him will acquire the same merit."

"We know, sir, that your men are good marchers already."

General Ewell laughed with satisfaction.

"It's true," he said. "When I told my second in command that we were going to march to join General Jackson he wanted to bring tents. I told him that would load us up with a lot of tent poles and that he must bring only a few, for the sick, perhaps. There must be no baggage, just food and ammunition. I told 'em that when we joined General Jackson we'd have nothing to do but eat and fight."

He seemed now to be speaking to himself rather than to Harry, and the boy said nothing. Ewell, relapsing into silence, urged his horse to a gallop and the staff perforce galloped, too. Such a pace soon brought them to the camp of the second army, and as they rode past the pickets Harry heard the sound of stringed music.

"The Cajuns," said one of the staff, a captain named Morton. Harry did not know what "Cajuns" meant, but he was soon to learn. Meanwhile the sound of the music was pleasant in his ear, and he saw that the camp, despite the lateness of the hour, was vivid with life.

General Ewell gave Harry into Captain Morton's care, and walked away to a small tent, where he was joined by several of his senior officers for a conference. But after they had tethered their horses for the night, Captain Morton took Harry through the camp.

Harry was full of eagerness and curiosity and he asked to see first the strange "Cajuns," those who made the music.

"They are Louisiana French," said Morton, "not the descendants or the original French settlers in that state, but the descendants of the French by the way of Nova Scotia."

"Oh, I see, the Acadians, the exiles."

"Yes, that's it. The name has been corrupted into Cajuns in Louisiana. They are not like the French of New Orleans and Baton Rouge and the other towns. They are rural and primitive. You'll like them. Few of them were ever more than a dozen miles from home before. They love music, and they've got a full regimental band with them. You ought to hear it play. Why, they'd play the heart right out of you."

"I like well enough the guitars and banjos that they're playing now. Seems to me that kind of music is always best at night."

They had now come within the rim of light thrown out by the fires of the Acadians, and Harry stood there looking for the first time at these dark, short people, brought a thousand miles from their homes.

They were wholly unlike Virginians and Kentuckians. They had black eyes and hair, and their naturally dark faces were burned yet darker by the sun of the Gulf. Yet the dark eyes were bright and gay, sparkling with kindliness and the love of pleasure. The guitars and banjos were playing some wailing tune, with a note of sadness in the core of it so keen and penetrating that it made the water come to Harry's eyes. But it changed suddenly to something that had all the sway and lilt of the rosy South. Men sprang to their feet and clasping arms about one another began to sway back and forth in the waltz and the polka.

Harry watched with mingled amazement and pleasure. Most of the South was religious and devout. The Virginians of the valley were nearly all staunch Presbyterians, and Stonewall Jackson, staunchest of them all, never wanted to fight on Sunday. The boy himself had been reared in a stern Methodist faith, and the lightness in this French blood of the South was new to him. But it pleased him to see them sing and dance, and he found no wrong in it, although he could not have done it himself.

Captain Morton noticed Harry's close attention and he read his mind.

"They surprised me, too, at first," he said, "but they're fine soldiers, and they've put cheer into this army many a time when it needed it most. Taylor, their commander, is a West Pointer and he's got them into wonderful trim. They're well clothed and well shod. They never straggle and they're just about the best marchers we have. They'll soon be rated high among Jackson's foot cavalry."

Harry left the Acadians with reluctance, and when he made the round of the camp General Ewell, who had finished the conference, told him that he would have no message to send that night to Jackson. He might go to sleep, but the whole division would march early in the morning. Harry wrapped himself again in his cloak, found a place soft with moss under a tree, and slept with the soft May wind playing over his face and lulling him to deeper slumber.

He rode the next morning with General Ewell and the whole division to join Jackson's army. It was a trim body of men, well clad, fresh and strong, and they marched swiftly along the turnpike, on both sides of which Jackson was encamped further on.

Harry felt a personal pride in being with Ewell when the junction was to be made. He felt that, in a sense, he was leading in this great reinforcement himself, and he looked back with intense satisfaction at the powerful column marching so swiftly along the turnpike.

They came late in the day to Jackson's pickets, and then they saw his army, scattered through the fields on either side of the road.

Harry rejoiced once more in the grand appearance of the new division. Every coat or tunic sat straight. Every shoe-lace was tied, and they marched with the beautiful, even step of soldiers on parade. They were to encamp beyond Jackson's old army, and as they passed along the turnpike it was lined on either side by Jackson's own men, cheering with vigor.

The colonel who was in immediate charge of the encampment, a man who had never seen General Jackson, asked Harry where he might find him. Harry pointed to a man sitting on the top rail of a fence beside the road.

"But I asked for General Jackson," said the colonel.

"That's General Jackson."

The colonel approached and saluted. General Jackson's clothes were soiled and dusty. His feet, encased in cavalry boots that reached beyond the knees, rested upon a lower rail of the fence. A worn cap with a dented visor almost covered his eyes. The rest of his face was concealed by a heavy, dark beard.

"General Jackson, I believe," said the officer, saluting.

"Yes. How far have those men marched?" The voice was kindly and approving.

"We've come twenty-six miles, sir."

"Good. And I see no stragglers."

"We allow no stragglers."

"Better still. I haven't been able to keep my own men from straggling, and you'll have to teach them."

At that moment the Acadian band began to play, and it played the merriest waltz it knew. Jackson gazed at it, took a lemon from his pocket and began to suck the juice from it meditatively. The officer stood before him in some embarrassment.

"Aren't they rather thoughtless for such serious work as war?" asked the Presbyterian general.

"I am confident, sir, that their natural gayety will not impair their value as soldiers."

Jackson put the end of the lemon back in his mouth and drew some juice from it. The colonel bowed and retired. Then Jackson beckoned to Harry, who stood by.

"Follow him and tell him," he said, "that the band can play as much as it likes. I noticed, too, that it plays well."

Jackson smiled and Harry hurried after the officer, who flushed with gratification, when the message was delivered to him.

"I'll tell it to the men," he said, "and they'll fight all the better for it."

That night it was a formidable army that slept in the fields on either side of the turnpike, and in the silence and the dark, Stonewall Jackson was preparing to launch the thunderbolt.



CHAPTER IX. TURNING ON THE FOE

Harry was awakened at the first shoot of dawn by the sound of trumpets. It was now approaching the last of May and the cold nights had long since passed. A warm sun was fast showing its edge in the east, and, bathing his face at a brook and snatching a little breakfast, he was ready. Stonewall Jackson was already up, and his colored servant was holding Little Sorrel for him.

The army was fast forming into line, the new men of Ewell resolved to become as famous foot cavalry as those who had been with Jackson all along. Ewell himself, full of enthusiasm and already devoted to his chief, was riding among them, and whenever he spoke to one of them he cocked his head on one side in the peculiar manner that was habitual with him. Now and then, as the sun grew warmer, he took off his hat and his bald head gleamed under the yellow rays.

"Which way do you think we're going?" said the young staff officer, George Dalton, to Harry—Dalton was a quiet youth with a good deal of the Puritan about him and Harry liked him.

"I'm not thinking about it at all," replied Harry with a laugh. "I've quit trying to guess what our general is going to do, but I fancy that he means to lead us against the enemy. He has the numbers now."

"I suppose you're right," said Dalton. "I've been trying to guess all along, but I think I'll give it up now and merely follow where the general leads."

The bugles blew, the troops rapidly fell into line and marched northward along the turnpike, the Creole band began to play again one of those lilting waltz tunes, and the speed of the men increased, their feet rising and falling swiftly to the rhythm of the galloping air. Jackson, who was near the head of the column, looked back and Harry saw a faint smile pass over his grim face. He saw the value of the music.

"I never heard such airs in our Presbyterian church," said Dalton to Harry.

"But this isn't a church."

"No, it isn't, but those Creole tunes suit here. They put fresh life into me."

"Same here. And they help the men, too. Look how gay they are."

Up went the shining sun. The brilliant blue light, shot with gold, spread from horizon to horizon, little white clouds of vapor, tinted at the edges with gold from the sun, floated here and there. It was beautiful May over all the valley. White dust flew from the turnpike under the feet of so many marching men and horses, and the wheels of cannon. Suddenly the Georgia troops that had suffered so severely at McDowell began to sing a verse from the Stars and Bars, and gradually the whole column joined in:

"Now Georgia marches to the front And close beside her come Her sisters by the Mexique sea With pealing trump and drum, Till answering back from hill and glen The rallying cry afar, A nation hoists the Bonnie Blue Flag That bears a single star."

It was impossible not to feel emotion. The face of the most solemn Presbyterian of them all flushed and his eyes glowed. Now the band, that wonderful band of the Acadians, was playing the tune, and the mighty chorus rolled and swelled across the fields. Harry's heart throbbed hard. He was with the South, his own South, and he was swayed wholly by feeling.

The Acadians were leading the army. Harry saw Jackson whispering something to a staff officer. The officer galloped forward and spoke to Taylor, the commander of the Louisiana troops. Instantly the Acadians turned sharply from the turnpike and walked in a diagonal line through the fields. The whole army followed and they marched steadily northward and eastward.

Harry had another good and close view of the Massanuttons, now one vast mass of dark green foliage, and it caused his thoughts to turn to Shepard. He had no doubt that the wary and astute Northern scout was somewhere near watching the march of Stonewall. He had secured a pair of glasses of his own and he scanned the fields and forests now for a sight of him and his bold horsemen. But he saw no blue uniforms, merely farmers and their wives and children, shouting with joy at the sight of Jackson, eager to give him information, and eager to hide it from Banks.

But Harry was destined to have more than another view of the Massanuttons. Jackson marched steadily for four days, crossing the Massanuttons at the defile, and coming down into the eastern valley. The troops were joyous throughout the journey, although they had not the least idea for what they were destined, and Ewell's men made good their claim to a place of equal honor in the foot cavalry.

They were now in the division of the great valley known as the Luray, and only when they stopped did Harry and his comrades of the staff learn that the Northern army under Kenly was only ten miles away at Front Royal.

The preceding night had been one of great confidence, even of light-heartedness in Washington. The worn and melancholy President felt that a triumphant issue of the war was at hand. The Secretary of War was more than sanguine, and the people in the city joyfully expected speedy news of the fall of Richmond. McClellan was advancing with an overwhelming force on the Southern capital, and the few regiments of Jackson were lost somewhere in the mountains. In the west all things were going well under Grant.

It was only a few who, recognizing that the army of Jackson was lost to Northern eyes, began to ask questions about it. But they were laughed down. Jackson had too few men to do any harm, wherever he might be. Nobody suspected that at dawn Jackson, with a strong force, would be only a little more than three score miles from the Union capital itself. Even Banks himself, who was only half that distance from the Southern army, did not dream that it was coming.

When the sun swung clear that May morning there was a great elation in this army which had been lost to its enemies for days and which the unknowing despised. They ate a good breakfast, and then, as the Creole band began to play its waltzes again, they advanced swiftly on Front Royal.

"We'll be attacking in two hours," said Dalton.

"In less time than that, I'm thinking," said Harry. "Look how the men are speeding it up!"

The band ceased suddenly. Harry surmised that it had been stopped, in order to suppress noise as much as possible, now that they were approaching the enemy. Cheering and loud talking also were stopped, and they heard now the heavy beat of footsteps, horses and men, and the rumble of vehicles, cannon and wagons. The morning was bright and hot. A haze of heat hung over the mountains, and to Harry the valley was more beautiful and picturesque than ever. He had again flitting feelings of melancholy that it should be torn so ruthlessly by war.

If Shepard and other Northern scouts were near, they were lax that morning. Not a soul in the garrison at Front Royal dreamed of Jackson's swift approach. They were soon to have a terrible awakening.

Harry saw Jackson raise the visor of his old cap a little, and he saw the eyes beneath it gleam.

"We must be near Front Royal," he said to Dalton.

"It's just beyond the woods there. It's not more than half a mile away."

The army halted a moment and Jackson sent forward a long line of skirmishers through the wood. Sherburne's cavalry were to ride just behind them, and he dispatched Harry and Dalton with the captain. At the first sound of the firing the whole army would rush upon Front Royal.

The skirmishers, five hundred strong, pressed forward through the wood. They were sun-browned, eager fellows, every one carrying a rifle, and all sharpshooters.

It seemed to Harry that the skirmishers were through the wood in an instant, like a force of Indians bursting from ambush upon an unsuspecting foe. The Northern pickets were driven in like leaves before a whirlwind. The rattle and then the crash of rifles beat upon the ears, and the Southern horsemen were galloping through the streets of the startled village by the time the Northern commander, posted with his main force just behind the town, knew that Jackson had emerged from the wilderness and was upon him. Banks not dreaming of Jackson's nearness, had taken away Kenly's cavalry, and there were only pickets to see.

The Northern commander was brave and capable. He drew up his men rapidly on a ridge and planted his guns in front, but the storm was too heavy and swift.

Harry saw the front of the Southern army burst into fire, and then a deadly sleet of shell and bullets was poured upon the Northern force. He and Dalton did not have time to rejoin Jackson, but they kept with Sherburne's force as the group of wild horsemen swung around toward the Northern rear, intending to cut it off.

Harry heard the Southern bugles playing mellow and triumphant tunes, and they inflamed his brain. All the little pulses in his head began to beat heavily. Millions of black specks danced before his eyes, but the air about them was red. He began to shout with the others. The famous rebel yell, which had in it the menacing quality of the Indian war whoop, was already rolling from the half circle of the attacking army, as it rushed forward.

Kenly hung to his ground, fighting with the courage of desperation, and holding off for a little while the gray masses that rushed upon him. But when he heard that the cavalry of Sherburne was already behind him, and was about to gain a position between him and the river, he retreated as swiftly as he could, setting fire to all his tents and stores, and thundering in good order with his remaining force over the bridge.

These Northern men, New Yorkers largely, were good material, like their brethren of Ohio and West Virginia. Despite the surprise and the overwhelming rush of Jackson, they stopped to set fire to the bridge, and they would have closed that avenue of pursuit had not the Acadians rushed forward, heedless of bullets and flames, and put it out. Yet the bridge was damaged and the Southern pursuit could cross but slowly. Kenly, seeing his advantage, and cool and ready, drew up his men on a hill and poured a tremendous fire upon the bridge.

Harry saw the daring deed of the men from the Gulf coast, and he clapped his hands in delight. But he had only a moment's view. Sherburne was curving away in search of a ford and all his men galloped close behind him.

Near the town the river was deep and swift and the horsemen would be swept away by it, but willing villagers running at the horses' heads led them to fords farther down.

"Into the river, boys!" shouted Sherburne, as he with Harry and Dalton by his side galloped into the stream. It seemed to Harry that the whole river was full of horsemen in an instant, and then he saw Stonewall Jackson himself, riding Little Sorrel into the stream.

Harry's horse stumbled once on the rocky bottom, but recovered his footing, and the boy urged him on toward the bank, bumping on either side against those who were as eager as he. He was covered with water and foam, churned up by so many horses, but he did not notice it. In a minute his horse put his forefeet upon the bank, pulled himself up, and then they were all formed up by Jackson himself for the pursuit.

"They run! They run already!" cried Sherburne.

They were not running, exactly, but Kenly, always alert and cool, had seen the passage of the ford by the Virginians, and unlimbering his guns, was retreating in good order, but swiftly, his rear covered by the New York cavalry.

Now Harry saw all the terrors of war. It was not sufficient for Jackson to defeat the enemy. He must follow and destroy him. More of his army crossed at the fords and more poured over the bridge.

The New York cavalry, despite courage and tenacity, could not withstand the onset of superior numbers. They were compelled to give way, and Kenly ordered his infantry, retreating on the turnpike, to turn and help them. Jackson had not waited for his artillery, but his riflemen poured volley after volley of bullets upon the beaten army, while his cavalry, galloping in the fields, charged it with sabers on either flank.

Harry was scarcely conscious of what he was doing. He was slashing with his sword and shooting with the rest. Sometimes his eyes were filled with dust and smoke and then again they would clear. He heard the voices of officers shouting to both cavalry and infantry to charge, and then there was a confused and terrible melee.

Harry never remembered much of that charge, and he was glad that he did not. He preferred that it should remain a blur in which he could not pick out the details. He was conscious of the shock, when horse met horse and body met body. He saw the flash of rifle and pistol shots, and the gleam of sabers through the smoke, and he heard a continuous shouting kept up by friend and foe.

Then he felt the Northern army, struck with such terrific force, giving way. Kenly had made a heroic stand, but he could no longer support the attacks from all sides. One of his cannon was taken and then all. He himself fell wounded terribly. His senior officers also fell, as they tried to rally their men, who were giving way at all points.

Sherburne wheeled his troop away again and charged at the Northern cavalry, which was still in order. Harry had seen Jackson himself give the command to the captain. It was the redoubtable commander who saw all and understood all, who always struck, with his sword directly at the weak point in the enemy's armor. Harry saw that eye glittering as he had never seen it glitter before, and the command was given in words of fire that communicated a like fire to every man in the troop.

The Northern cavalry cut to pieces, Kenly's whole army dissolved. The attack was so terrific, so overwhelming, and was pushed home so hard, that panic ran through the ranks of those brave men. They fled through the orchards and the fields, and Jackson never ceased to urge on the pursuit, taking whole companies here and there, and seizing scattered fugitives.

Ashby, with the chief body of the cavalry, galloped on ahead to a railway station, where Pennsylvania infantry were on guard. They had just got ready a telegraphic message to Banks for help, but his men rushed the station before it could be sent, tore up the railroad tracks, cut the telegraph wires, carried by storm a log house in which the Pennsylvanians had taken refuge, and captured them all.

The Northern army had ceased to exist. Save for some fugitives, it had all fallen or was in the hands of Jackson, and the triumphant cheers of the Southerners rang over the field. Banks, at Strasburg, not far away, did not know that Kenly's force had been destroyed. Three hours after the attack had been made, an orderly covered with dust galloped into his camp and told him that Kenly was pressed hard—he did not know the full truth himself.