Battle Ground

by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

  I

  THE RAGGED ARMY

  The brigade had halted to gather rations in a corn field beside the road,and Dan, lying with his head in the shadow of a clump of sumach, hungrilyregarded the "roasting ears" which Pinetop had just rolled in the ashes. Amalarial fever, which he had contracted in the swamps of the Chickahominy,had wasted his vitality until he had begun to look like the mere shadow ofhimself; gaunt, unwashed, hollow-eyed, yet wearing his torn gray jacket andbrimless cap as jauntily as he had once worn his embroidered waistcoats.His hand trembled as he reached out for his share of the green corn, butweakened as he was by sickness and starvation, the defiant humour shone allthe clearer in his eyes. He had still the heart for a whistle, Bland hadsaid last night, looking at him a little wistfully.

  As he lay there, with the dusty sumach shrub above him, he saw the raggedarmy pushing on into the turnpike that led to Maryland. Lean, sun-scorched,half-clothed, dropping its stragglers like leaves upon the roadside,marching in borrowed rags, and fighting with the weapons of its enemies,dirty, fevered, choking with the hot dust of the turnpike--it still pressedonward, bending like a blade beneath Lee's hand. For this army of the sick,fighting slow agues, old wounds, and the sharp diseases that follow ongreen food, was becoming suddenly an army of invasion. The road led intoMaryland, and the brigades swept into it, jesting like schoolboys on afrolic.

  Dan, stretched exhausted beside the road, ate his ear of corn, and idlywatched the regiment that was marching by--marching, not with the eventread of regular troops, but with scattered ranks and broken column, eachman limping in worn-out shoes, at his own pace. They were not fancysoldiers, these men, he felt as he looked after them. They were notimposing upon the road, but when their chance came to fight, they would bevery sure to take it. Here and there a man still carried his old squirrelmusket, with a rusted skillet handle stuck into the barrel, but when beforemany days the skillet would be withdrawn, the load might be relied upon towing straight home a little later. On wet nights those muskets would standupright upon their bayonets, with muzzles in the earth, while the raindripped off, and on dry days they would carry aloft the full property ofthe mess, which had dwindled to a frying pan and an old quart cup; thoughseldom cleaned, they were always fit for service--or if they went foul whatwas easier than to pick up a less trusty one upon the field. On the otherside hung the blankets, tied at the ends and worn like a sling from theleft shoulder. The haversack was gone and with it the knapsack and theovercoat. When a man wanted a change of linen he knelt down and washed hissingle shirt in the brook, sitting in the sun while it dried upon the bank.If it was long in drying he put it on, wet as it was, and ran ahead to fallin with his company. Where the discipline was easy, each infantryman mightbecome his own commissary.

  Dan finished his corn, threw the husks over his head, and sat up, lookingidly at the irregular ranks. He was tired and sick, and after a short restit seemed all the harder to get up and take the road again. As he sat therehe began to bandy words with the sergeant of a Maryland regiment that waspassing.

  "Hello! what brigade?" called the sergeant in friendly tones. He looked fatand well fed, and Dan felt this to be good ground for resentment.

  "General Straggler's brigade, but it's none of your business," he promptlyretorted.

  "General Straggler has a pretty God-forsaken crew," taunted the sergeant,looking back as he stepped on briskly. "I've seen his regiments lining theroad clear up from Chantilly."

  "If you'd kept your fat eyes open at Manassas the other day, you'd haveseen them lining the battle-field as well," pursued Dan pleasantly, chewinga long green blade of corn. "Old Stonewall saw them, I'll be bound. IfGeneral Straggler didn't win that battle I'd like to know who did."

  "Oh, shucks!" responded the sergeant, and was out of hearing.

  The regiment passed by and another took its place. "Was that General Leeyou were yelling at down there, boys?" inquired Dan politely, smiling thesmile of a man who sits by the roadside and sees another sweating on themarch.

  "Naw, that warn't Marse Robert," replied a private, limping with bare feetover the border of dried grass. "'Twas a blamed, blank, bottomless well,that's what 'twas. I let my canteen down on a string and it never came backno mo'."

  Dan lowered his eyes, and critically regarded the tattered banner of theregiment, covered with the names of the battles over which it had hungunfurled. "Tennessee, aren't you?" he asked, following the flag.

  The private shook his head, and stooped to remove a pebble from between histoes.

  "Naw, we ain't from Tennessee," he drawled. "We've had the measles--that'swhat's the matter with us."

  "You show it, by Jove," said Dan, laughing. "Step quickly, if youplease--this is the cleanest brigade in the army."

  "Huh!" exclaimed the private, eying them with contempt. "You look like it,don't you, sonny? Why, I'd ketch the mumps jest to look at sech a set o'rag-a-muffins!"

  He went on, still grunting, while Dan rose to his feet and slung hisblanket from his shoulder. "Look here, does anybody know where we're goinganyway?" he asked of the blue sky.

  "I seed General Jackson about two miles up," replied a passing countryman,who had led his horse into the corn field. "Whoopee! he was going at aGod-a'mighty pace, I tell you. If he keeps that up he'll be over thePotomac before sunset."

  "Then we are going into Maryland!" cried Jack Powell, jumping to his feet."Hurrah for Maryland! We're going to Maryland, God bless her!"

  The shouts passed down the road and the Maryland regiment in front sentback three rousing cheers.

  "By Jove, I hope I'll find some shoes there," said Dan, shaking the sandfrom his ragged boots, and twisting the shreds of his stockings about hisfeet. "I've had to punch holes in my soles and lace them with shoe stringsto the upper leather, or they'd have dropped off long ago."

  "Well, I'll begin by making love to a seamstress when I'm over thePotomac," remarked Welch, getting upon his feet. "I'm decidedly in need ofa couple of patches."

  "You make love! You!" roared Jack Powell. "Why, you're the kind of thingthey set up in Maryland to keep the crows away. Now if it were Beau, there,I see some sense in it--for, I'll be bound, he's slain more hearts thanYankees in this campaign. The women always drain out their last drop ofbuttermilk when he goes on a forage."

  "Oh, I don't set up to be a popinjay," retorted Welch witheringly.

  "Popinjay, the devil!" scowled Dan, "who's a popinjay?"

  "Wall, I'd like a pair of good stout breeches," peacefully interposedPinetop. "I've been backin' up agin the fence when I seed a lady comin' forthe last three weeks, an' whenever I set down, I'm plum feared to git upagin. What with all the other things,--the Yankees, and the chills, and themeasles,--it's downright hard on a man to have to be a-feared of his ownbreeches."

  Dan looked round with sympathy. "That's true; it's a shame," he admittedsmiling. "Look here, boys, has anybody got an extra pair of breeches?"

  A howl of derision went up from the regiment as it fell into ranks.

  "Has anybody got a few grape-leaves to spare?" it demanded in a highchorus.

  "Oh, shut up," responded Dan promptly. "Come on, Pinetop, we'll clotheourselves to-morrow."

  The brigade formed and swung off rapidly along the road, where the dust laylike gauze upon the sunshine. At the end of a mile somebody stopped andcried out excitedly. "Look here, boys, the persimmons on that tree overthar are gittin' 'mos fit to eat. I can see 'em turnin'," and with thewords the column scattered like chaff across the field. But the first manto reach the tree came back with a wry face, and fell to swearing at "thedarn fool who could eat persimmons before frost."

  "Thar's a tree in my yard that gits ripe about September," remarkedPinetop, as he returned dejectedly across the waste. "Ma she begins to dry'em 'fo' the frost sets in."

  "Oh, well, we'll get a square meal in the morning," responded Dan, growingcheerful as he dreamed of hospitable Maryland.

  Some hours later, in the warm dusk, they went into bivouac among
the trees,and, in a little while, the campfires made a red glow upon the twilight.

  Pinetop, with a wooden bucket on his arm, had plunged off in search ofwater, and Dan and Jack Powell were sent, in the interests of the mess, toforage through the surrounding country.

  "There's a fat farmer about ten miles down, I saw him," remarked a lazysmoker, by way of polite suggestion.

  "Ten miles? Well, of all the confounded impudence," retorted Jack, as hestrolled off with Dan into the darkness.

  For a time they walked in silence, depressed by hunger and the exhaustionof the march; then Dan broke into a whistle, and presently they foundthemselves walking in step with the merry air.

  "Where are your thoughts, Beau?" asked Jack suddenly, turning to look athim by the faint starlight.

  Dan's whistle stopped abruptly.

  "On a dish of fried chicken and a pot of coffee," he replied at once.

  "What's become of the waffles?" demanded Jack indignantly. "I say, old man,do you remember the sinful waste on those blessed Christmas Eves atChericoke? I've been trying to count the different kinds of meat--roastbeef, roast pig, roast goose, roast turkey--"

  "Hold your tongue, won't you?"

  "Well, I was just thinking that if I ever reach home alive I'll deliver theMajor a lecture on his extravagance."

  "It isn't the Major; it's grandma," groaned Dan.

  "Oh, that queen among women!" exclaimed Jack fervently; "but the wines arethe Major's, I reckon,--it seems to me I recall some port of which he wasvastly proud."

  Dan delivered a blow that sent Jack on his knees in the stubble of an oldcorn field.

  "If you want to make me eat you, you're going straight about it," hedeclared.

  "Look out!" cried Jack, struggling to his feet, "there's a light over thereamong the trees," and they walked on briskly up a narrow country lane whichled, after several turnings, to a large frame house well hidden from theroad.

  In the doorway a woman was standing, with a lamp held above her head, andwhen she saw them she gave a little breathless call.

  "Is that you, Jim?"

  Dan went up the steps and stood, cap in hand, before her. The lamplight wasfull upon his ragged clothes and upon his pallid face with its stronghigh-bred lines of mouth and chin.

  "I thought you were my husband," said the woman, blushing at her mistake."If you want food you are welcome to the little that I have--it is verylittle." She led the way into the house, and motioned, with a pitiablegesture, to a table that was spread in the centre of the sitting room.

  "Will you sit down?" she asked, and at the words, a child in the corner ofthe room set up a frightened cry.

  "It's my supper--I want my supper," wailed the child.

  "Hush, dear," said the woman, "they are our soldiers."

  "Our soldiers," repeated the child, staring, with its thumb in its mouthand the tear-drops on its cheeks.

  For an instant Dan looked at them as they stood there, the woman holdingthe child in her arms, and biting her thin lips from which hunger haddrained all the red. There was scant food on the table, and as his gazewent back to it, it seemed to him that, for the first time, he grasped thefull meaning of a war for the people of the soil. This was the realthing--not the waving banners, not the bayonets, not the fighting in theranks.

  His eyes were on the woman, and she smiled as all women did upon whom helooked in kindness.

  "My dear madam, you have mistaken our purpose--we are not as hungry as welook," he said, bowing in his ragged jacket. "We were sent merely to askyou if you were in need of a guard for your smokehouse. My Colonel hopesthat you have not suffered at our hands."

  "There is nothing left," replied the woman mystified, yet relieved. "Thereis nothing to guard except the children and myself, and we are safe, Ithink. Your Colonel is very kind--I thank him;" and as they went out shelighted them with her lamp from the front steps.

  An hour later they returned to camp with aching limbs and empty hands.

  "There's nothing above ground," they reported, flinging themselves besidethe fire, though the night was warm. "We've scoured the whole country andthe Federals have licked it as clean as a plate before us. Bless my soul!what's that I smell? Is this heaven, boys?"

  "Licked it clean, have they?" jeered the mess. "Well, they left a sheepanyhow loose somewhere. Beau's darky hadn't gone a hundred yards before hefound one."

  "Big Abel? You don't say so?" whistled Dan, in astonishment, regarding themutton suspended on ramrods above the coals.

  "Well, suh, 'twuz des like dis," explained Big Abel, poking the roast witha small stick. "I know I ain' got a bit a bus'ness ter shoot dat ar sheepwid my ole gun, but de sheep she ain' got no better bus'ness strayin' roun'loose needer. She sutney wuz a dang'ous sheep, dat she wuz. I 'uz desa-bleeged ter put a bullet in her haid er she'd er hed my blood sho'."

  As the shout went up he divided the legs of mutton into shares and went offto eat his own on the dark edge of the wood.

  A little later he came back to hang Dan's cap and jacket on the branches ofa young pine tree. When he had arranged them with elaborate care, he rakeda bed of tags together, and covered them with an army blanket stamped inthe centre with the half obliterated letters U. S.

  "That's a good boy, Big Abel, go to sleep," said Dan, flinging himself downupon the pine-tag bed. "Strange how much spirit a sheep can put into a man.I wouldn't run now if I saw Pope's whole army coming."

  Turning over he lay sleepily gazing into the blue dusk illuminated with thecampfires which were slowly dying down. Around him he heard the subduedmurmur of the mess, deep and full, though rising now and then into aclearer burst of laughter. The men were smoking their brier-root pipesabout the embers, leaning against the dim bodies of the pines, while theydiscussed the incidents of the march with a touch of the unconquerablehumour of the Confederate soldier. Somebody had a fresh joke on thequartermaster, and everybody hoped great things of the campaign intoMaryland.

  "I pray it may bring me a pair of shoes," muttered Dan, as he dropped offinto slumber.

  The next day, with bands playing "Maryland, My Maryland," and the SouthernCross taking the September wind, the ragged army waded the Potomac, andpassed into other fields.