Part 46 (1/2)
Have received information to-day which I think should be transmitted, but not published over my name, as I do not credit it altogether. A merchant from Martinsburg, well known, came to inform me that in a confidential conversation with a very prominent secessionist, also merchant of that town, he was informed that the policy of the South was changed; that they would abandon Richmond, Virginia, everything South, and invade Maryland and Was.h.i.+ngton; that every Union soldier would be driven out of the Valley immediately.
This was on Friday evening, the night of attack on Front Royal.
Names are given me, and the party talking one who might know the rebel plans. A prisoner was captured near Martinsburg to-day. He told the truth I am satisfied, as far as he pretended to know. He was in the fight at Front Royal and pa.s.sed through Winchester two hours after our engagement. He says the rebel force was very large--not less than twenty-five thousand at Winchester and 6000 or 7000 at Front Royal; that the idea was general among the men that they were to invade Maryland. He pa.s.sed Ashby yesterday, who had twenty-eight companies of cavalry under his command; was returning from Martinsburg, and moving under orders, his men said, to Berryville. There were 2000 rebels at Martinsburg when he pa.s.sed that town yesterday. These reports came to me at the same time I received General Saxton's dispatch and the statement from my own officer that 4000 rebels were near Falling Waters, in my front.
N. P. BANKS, _Major-General Commanding._
HON. E. M. STANTON.
Friday evening the thirtieth was as dark as Erebus. Clouds had been boiling up since dark. Huge portentous ma.s.ses rose on all sides and blotted out the skies. The air was for a time oppressively hot and still. The smoke from the guns which had wrangled during the day, long and loud, hung low; the smell of powder clung. The grey troops ma.s.sed on Loudoun Heights and along the Shenandoah wiped the sweat from their brows. Against the piled clouds signal-lights burned dull and red, stars of war communicating through the sultry night. The clouds rose higher yet and the lightnings began to play. A stir began in the leaves of the far-flung forests, blended with the murmur of the rivers and became rus.h.i.+ng sound. Thunder burst, clap after clap, reverberating through the mountains. The air began to smell of rain, grew suddenly cool. Through the welcome freshness the grey troops advanced beyond Bolivar Heights; there followed a long crackle of musketry and a body of blue troops retreated across the river. The guns opened again; the grey cannon trained upon the Maryland Heights; the Maryland Heights answering sullenly. Down came the rain in torrents, the lightning flashed, the thunder rolled. The lightnings came jaggedly, bayonets of the storm, stabbing downward; the artillery of the skies dwarfed all sound below.
For an hour there was desultory fighting, then it ceased. The grey troops awaiting orders, wondered, ”Aren't we going to cross the river after them?” ”Oh, let it alone. Old Jack knows.”
Toward midnight, in the midst of a great access of lightning, rain, and thunder, fighting was renewed. It was not for long. The guns fell silent again upon Loudoun Heights; moreover the long lines of couching infantry saw by the vivid lightning the battery horses come up, wet and s.h.i.+ning in the rain. From regiment to regiment, under the rolling thunder, ran the order. _Into column! By the left flank! March!_
A small stone hut on the side of a hill had formed the shelter of the general commanding. Here he wrote and gave to two couriers a message in duplicate.
HARPER'S FERRY, VIRGINIA.
May 31. Midnight.
HON. GEORGE W. RANDOLPH, Secretary of War:
Under the guidance of G.o.d I have demonstrated toward the Potomac and drawn off McDowell, who is sending s.h.i.+elds by Front Royal. Moving now to meet him and Fremont who comes from the West.
T. J. JACKSON, _Major-General Commanding._
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FOOT CAVALRY
Three armies had for their objective Strasburg in the Valley of Virginia, eighteen miles below Winchester. One came from the northwest, under Fremont, and counted ten thousand. One came from the southeast, s.h.i.+elds's Division from McDowell at Fredericksburg, and numbered fifteen thousand. These two were blue clad, moving under the stars and stripes.
The third, grey, under the stars and bars, sixteen thousand muskets, led by a man on a sorrel nag, came from Harper's Ferry. Fremont, Indian fighter, moved fast; s.h.i.+elds, Irish born, veteran of the Mexican War, moved fast; but the man in grey, on the sorrel nag, moved infantry with the rapidity of cavalry. Around the three converging armies rested or advanced other bodies of blue troops, hovering, watchful of the chance to strike. Saxton at Harper's Ferry had seven thousand; Banks at Williamsport had seven thousand. Ord, commanding McDowell's second division, was at Mana.s.sas Gap with nine thousand. King, the third division, had ten thousand, near Catlett's Station. At Ashby's Gap was Geary with two thousand; at Thoroughfare, Bayard with two thousand.
Over a hundred miles away, southeast, tree-embowered upon her seven hills, lay Richmond, and at her eastern gates, on the marshy Chickahominy were gathered one hundred and forty thousand men, blue clad, led by McClellan. Bronzed, soldierly, chivalrous, an able if over-cautious general, he waited, irresolute, and at last postponed his battle. He would tarry for McDowell who, obeying orders from Was.h.i.+ngton, had turned aside to encounter and crush a sometime professor of natural philosophy with a gift for travelling like a meteor, for confusing like a Jack-o'-lantern, and for striking the bull's-eye of the moment like a silver bullet or a William Tell arrow. Between Richmond and the many and heavy blue lines, with their siege train, lay thinner lines of grey--sixty-five thousand men under the stars and bars. They, too, watched the turning aside of McDowell, watched s.h.i.+elds, Ord, King, and Fremont from the west, trappers hot on the path of the man with the old forage cap, and the sabre tucked under his arm! All Virginia watched, holding her breath.
Out of Virginia, before Corinth in Tennessee, and at c.u.mberland Gap, Armies of the Ohio, of the Mississippi, of the West--one hundred and ten thousand in blue, eighty thousand in grey, Halleck and Beauregard--listened for news from Virginia. ”Has Richmond fallen?” ”No. McClellan is cautious. Lee and Johnston are between him and the city. He will not attack until he is further strengthened by McDowell.” ”Where is McDowell?” ”He was moving south from Fredericksburg. His outposts almost touched those of McClellan.
But now he has been sent across the Blue Ridge to the Valley, there to put a period to the activities of Stonewall Jackson. That done, he will turn and join McClellan. The two will enfold Lee and Jackson--the Anaconda Scheme--and crush every bone in their bodies. Richmond will fall and the war end.”
Tennessee watched and north Alabama. In Arkansas, on the White River were twelve thousand men in blue, and, arrayed against them, six thousand, white men and Indians, clad in grey. Far, far away, outer edges of the war, they, too, looked toward the east and wondered how it went in Virginia. Grey and blue, Missouri, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona--at lonely railway or telegraph stations, at river landings, wherever, in the intervals between skirmishes, papers might be received or messages read, soldiers in blue or soldiers in grey asked eagerly ”What news from Richmond?”--”Stonewall Jackson? Valley of Virginia?”--”Valley of Virginia! I know!--saw it once. G.o.d's country.”
At New Orleans, on the levees, in the hot streets, under old balconies and by walled gardens, six thousand men in blue under Butler watched, and a sad-eyed captive city watched. From the lower Mississippi, from the blue waters of the Gulf, from the long Atlantic swells, the s.h.i.+ps looked to the land. All the blockading fleets, all the old line-of-battle s.h.i.+ps, the screw-frigates, the corvettes, the old merchant steamers turned warrior, the strange new iron-clads and mortar boats, engaged in bottling up the Confederacy, they all looked for the fall of Richmond. There watched, too, the ram-fitted river boats, the double-enders, lurking beneath Spanish moss, rocking beside canebrakes, on the far, sluggish, southern rivers. And the other s.h.i.+ps, the navy all too small, the scattered, shattered, despairing and courageous s.h.i.+ps that flew the stars and bars, they listened, too, for a last great cry in the night. The blockade-runners listened, the Gladiators, the Ceciles, the Theodoras, the Ella Warleys faring at headlong peril to and fro between Na.s.sau in the Bahamas and small and hidden harbours of the vast coast line, inlets of Georgia, Florida, Carolina. Danger flew with them always through the rus.h.i.+ng brine, but with the fall of Richmond disaster might be trusted to swoop indeed. Then woe for all the wares below--the Enfield rifles, the cannon powder, the cartridges, the saltpetre, bar steel, nitric acid, leather, cloth, salt, medicines, surgical instruments! Their outlooks kept sharp watch for disaster, heaving in sight in the shape of a row of blue frigates released from patrol duty. Let Richmond fall, and the Confederacy, war and occupation, freedom, life, might be gone in a night, blown from existence by McClellan's siege guns!
Over seas the nations watched. Any day might bring a packet with news--Richmond fallen, fallen, fallen, the Confederacy vanquished, suing for peace--Richmond not fallen, some happy turn of affairs for the South, the Peace Party in the North prevailing, the Confederacy established, the olive planted between the two countries! Anyhow, anyhow! only end the war and set the cotton jennies spinning!
Most feverishly of all watched Was.h.i.+ngton on the Potomac. ”The latest?”
”It will surely fall to-day. The thing is absurd. It is a little city--”
”From the Valley? Jackson has turned south from Harper's Ferry. s.h.i.+elds and Fremont will meet at Strasburg long before the rebels get there.
Together they'll make Jackson pay--grind the stonewall small!”
The Army of the Valley had its orders from Strasburg the night of the thirtieth. The main body moved at once, back upon Winchester, where it gathered up stragglers, prisoners, and the train of captured stores.
Winder with the Stonewall Brigade, left to make a final feint at Harper's Ferry, was not in motion southward till much later. Of the main army the 21st Virginia led the column, convoying prisoners and the prize of stores. There were twenty-three hundred prisoners, men in blue, tramping sullenly. Stonewall Jackson had made requisition of all wagons about Winchester. They were now in line, all manner of wagons, white-covered, uncovered, stout-bodied, ancient, rickety, in every condition but of fresh paint and new harness. Carts were brought, small vans of pedlars; there were stranded circus wagons with gold scrolls.
Nor did there lack vehicles meant for human freight. Old family carriages, high-swung, capacious as the ark, were filled, not with women and children, belles and beaux, but with bags of powder and boxes of cartridges. Superannuated mail coaches carried blankets, oilcloths, sabres, shoes; light spring wagons held Enfield rifles; doctors' buggies medicine cases corded in with care. All these added themselves to the regular supply train of the army; great wagons marked C. S. A. in which, G.o.d knows! there was room for stores. The captures of the past days filled the vacancies; welcome enough were the thirty-five thousand pounds of bacon, the many barrels of flour, the hardtack, sugar, canned goods, coffee, the tea and strange delicacies kept for the sick. More welcome was the capture of the ammunition. The ordnance officers beamed lovingly upon it and upon the nine thousand excellent new small arms, and the prisoner Parrotts. There were two hundred beautiful wagons marked U. S. A.; the surgeons, too, congratulated themselves upon new ambulances. Horses and mules that had changed masters might be restless at first; but they soon knew the touch of experienced hands and turned contented up the Valley. A herd of cattle was driven bellowing into line.