VIII
THE LAST STAND
In the face of a damp April wind a remnant of Lee's army pushed forwardalong an old road skirted by thin pine woods. As the column moved onslowly, it threw out skirmishers on either flank, where the Federal cavalryhovered in the distance. Once in an open clearing it formed into a hollowsquare and marched in battle line to avoid capture. While the regimentskept in motion the men walked steadily in the ranks, with their hollowedeyes staring straight ahead from their gaunt, tanned faces; but at thefirst halt they fell like logs upon the roadside, sleeping amid the soundof shots and the stinging cavalry. With the cry of "Forward!" theystruggled to their feet again, and went stumbling on into the vastuncertainty and the approaching night. Breathless, starving, with theirrags pinned together, and their mouths bleeding from three days' rations ofparched corn, they still kept onward, marching with determined eyes towhatever and wherever the end might be. Petersburg had fallen, Richmond wasin flames behind them, the Confederacy was, perhaps, buried in the ruins ofits Capitol, but Lee was still somewhere to the front, so his armyfollowed.
"How long have we been marching, boys? I can't remember," asked Dan, when,after a short rest, they formed again and started forward over the oldroad. In the tatters of his gray uniform, with his broken shoes tied on hisfeet and his black hair hanging across his eyes, he might have been one ofthe beggars who warm themselves in the sun of Southern countries.
"Oh, I reckon we left the Garden of Eden about six thousand years ago,"responded a wag from somewhere--he was too tired to recognize the voice."There! the skirmishers have struck that blamed cavalry again. Plague them!They're as bad as wasps!"
"Has anybody some parched corn?" inquired Bland, plaintively. "I'll trade awhole raw ear for it. It makes my gums bleed so, I can't chew it."
Dan plunged his hand into his pocket, and drew out the corn which he hadshelled and parched at the last halt. As he exchanged it for the "whole rawear," he fell to wondering vaguely what had become of Big Abel since thatdim point in eternity when they had left the trenches that surroundedPetersburg. Then time was divided into periods of nights and days, nownight and day alike were made up in breathless marching, in throwing outskirmishers against those "wasps" of cavalrymen, and in trying to forceaching teeth to grind parched corn. Panting and sick with hunger, hestruggled on like a driven beast that sees the place ahead, where he mustturn and grapple for the end with the relentless hunter on his track.
As the day ended the moist wind gathered strength and sang in his ears ashe crept forward--now sleeping, now waking, for a time filled with warmmemories of his college life, and again fighting over the last hopelesscampaign from the Wilderness to the trenches where Petersburg had fallen.They had yielded step by step, but the great hunter had pressed on, and nowthe thin brigades were gathering for the last stand together.
Overhead he heard the soughing of the pines, and around him the steadytramp of feet too tired to lift themselves from out the heavy mud. Straightabove in the muffled sky a star shone dimly, and for a time he watched itin his effort to keep awake. Then he began on the raw corn in his pocket,shelling it from the cob as he walked along; but when the taste of bloodrose to his lips, he put the ear away again, and stooped to rub his eyeswith a handful of damp earth. Then, at last, in sheer desperation, heloosened the grip upon his thoughts, and stumbled on, between waking andsleeping, into the darkness that lay ahead.
In the road before him the door at Chericoke opened wide as on the oldChristmas Eves, and he saw the Major and the Governor draining theirglasses under the garlands of mistletoe and holly, while Betty andVirginia, in dresses of white tarleton, stood against the ruddy glow thatfilled the panelled parlour. The cheerful Christmas smell was in theair--the smell of apple toddy, of roasted turkey, of plum pudding in ablaze of alcohol. As he entered after his long ride from college, Bettycame up to him and slipped a warm white hand into his cold one, while hemet the hazel beams from beneath her lashes.
"I hope you have brought Jack Morson," she said. "Virginia is waiting. Seehow lovely she looks in her white flounces, with the string of coral abouther neck."
"But the war, Betty?" he asked, with blinking eyes, and as he put out hishand to touch the pearls upon her bosom, he saw that it was whole again--nowound was there, only the snowflakes that fell from his sleeve upon herbreast. "What of the war, dear? I must go back to the army."
Betty laughed long and merrily.
"Why, you're dreaming, Dan," she said. "It all comes of those wickedstories of the Major's. In a moment you will believe that this is really1812, and you've gone without your rations."
"Thank God!" he cried aloud, and the sound of his own voice woke him, as heslipped and went down in a mudhole upon the road. The Christmas smell fadedfrom his nostrils; in its place came the smoke from Pinetop's pipe--afaithful friend until the last. Overhead the star was still shining, and tothe front he heard a single shot from the hovering cavalry, withdrawing forthe night.
"God damn this mud!" called a man behind him, as he lurched sideways fromthe ranks. Farther away three hoarse voices, the remnant of a once famousglee club, were singing in the endeavour to scare off sleep:--
"Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again!"
And suddenly he was fighting in the tangles of the Wilderness, crouchingbehind a charred oak stump, while he loaded and fired at the little puffsof smoke that rose from the undergrowth beyond. He saw the low marshland,the stunted oaks and pines, and the heavy creepers that were pushed asideand trampled underfoot, and at his feet he saw a company officer with abullet hole through his forehead and a covering of pine needles upon hisface. About him the small twigs fell, as if a storm swept the forest, andas he dodged, like a sharpshooter from tree to tree, he saw a rush of flameand smoke in the distance where the woods were burning. Above the noise ofthe battle, he heard the shrieks of the wounded men in the track of thefire; and once he met a Union and a Confederate soldier, each shot throughthe leg, drawing each other back from the approaching flames. Then, as hepassed on, tearing at the cartridges with his teeth, he came upon asergeant in Union clothes, sitting against a pine stump with his cockedrifle in his hand, and his eyes on the wind-blown smoke. A moment beforethe man may have gone down at his shot, he knew--and yet, as he looked, aninstinct stronger than the instinct to kill was alive within him, and herushed on, dragging his enemy with him from the terrible woods. "I hope youare not much hurt," he said, as he placed him on the ground and ran back towhere the line was charging. "One life has been paid for," he thought, ashe rushed on to kill--and fell face downward on the wheel-ruts of the oldroad.
"Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,"
sang the three hoarse voices, straining against the wind.
Dan struggled to his feet, and the scene shifted.
He was back in his childhood, and the Major had just brought in a slave hehad purchased from Rainy-day Jones--"the plague spot in the county," as theangry old gentleman declared.
Dan sat on the pile of kindling wood upon the kitchen hearth and stared atthe poor black creature shivering in the warmth, his face distorted withthe toothache, and a dirty rag about his jaw. He heard Aunt Rhody snortingindignantly as she basted the turkeys, and he watched his grandmotherbustling back and forth with whiskey and hot plasters.
"Who made slavery, sir?" asked the boy suddenly, his hands in his breechespockets and his head bent sideways.
The Major started.
"God, sir," he promptly replied.
"Then I think it very strange of God," said the boy, "and when I grow up, Ishall set them all free, grandpa--I shall set them free even if I have tofight to do it, sir."
"What! like poor free Levi?" stormed the Major.
"Wake up, confound you!" bawled somebody in his ear. "You've lurchedagainst my side until my ribs are sore. I say, are you going on forever,anyhow? We've halted for the night."
"I can't stop!" cried Dan, groping in the darkness, then he fell heavilyupon the damp groun
d, while a voice down the road began shouting, "Detailfor guard!" Half asleep and cursing, the men responded to their names andhurried off, and as the silence closed in, the army slept like a child uponthe roadside.
With the first glimmer of dawn they were on the march again, passing allday through the desolate flat country, where the women ran weeping to thedoorways, and waved empty hands as they went by. Once a girl in a homespundress, with a spray of apple blossoms in her black hair, brought out awooden bucket filled with buttermilk and passed it along the line.
"Fight to the end, boys," she cried defiantly, "and when the end comes,keep on fighting. If you go back on Lee there's not a woman in Virginiawill touch your hand."
"That's right, little gal!" shrieked a husky private. "Three cheers forMarse Robert! an' we'll whip the earth in our bar' feet befo' breakfast."
"All the same I wish old Stonewall was along," muttered Pinetop. "If Icould jest see old Stonewall or his ghost ahead, I'd know thar was an openroad somewhere that Sheridan ain't got his eye on."
As the sun rose high, refugees from Richmond flocked after them to shoutthat the town had been fired by the citizens, who had moved, with theirfamilies, to the Capitol Square as the flames spread from the great tobaccowarehouses. Men who had wives and children in the city groaned as theymarched farther from the ashes of their homes, and more than one staggeredback into the ranks and went onward under a heavier burden.
"Wall, I reckon things are fur the best--or they ain't." remarked Pinetop,in a cheerful tone. "Thar's no goin' agin that, you bet. What's the rowback thar, I wonder?"
The hovering enemy, grown bolder, had fallen upon the flank, and thestragglers and the rear guard were beating off the cavalry, when a regimentwas sent back to relieve the pressure. Returning, Pinetop, who was of theattacking party, fell gravely to moralizing upon the scarcity of food.
"I've tasted every plagued thing that grows in this country except dirt,"he observed, "an' I'm goin' to kneel down presently and take a good squaremouthful of that."
"That's one thing we shan't run short of," replied Dan, stepping round amud hole. "By George, we've got to march in a square again across thisopen. I believe when I set out for heaven, I'll find some of thoseconfounded Yankee troopers watching the road."
Forming in battle line they advanced cautiously across the clearing, whilethe skirmishing grew brisker at the front. That night they halted but onceupon the way, standing to meet attack against a strip of pines, watchingwith drawn breath while the enemy crept closer. They heard him in thewoods, felt him in the air, saw him in the darkness--like a gigantic coilhe approached inch by inch for the last struggle. Now and then a shot rangout, and the little band thrilled to a soldier, and waited breathlessly forthe last charge that might end it all.
"There's only one thing worse than starvation, and it's defeat!" cried Danaloud; then the column swung on and the cry of "Close up, there! close up!"mingled in his ears with the steady tramp upon the road.
In the early morning the shots grew faster, and as the column stopped inthe cover of a wood, the bullets came singing among the tree-tops, from theleft flank where the skirmishers had struck the enemy. During the shortrest Dan slept leaning against a twisted aspen, and when Pinetop shook him,he awoke with a dizziness in his head that sent the flat earth slammingagainst the sky.
"I believe I'm starving, Pinetop," he said, and his voice rang like a bellin his ears. "I can't see where to put my feet, the ground slips about so."
For answer Pinetop felt in his pocket and brought out a slice of fat bacon,which he gave to him uncooked.
"Wait till I git a light," he commanded. "A woman up the road gave me ahunk, and I've had my share."
"You've had your share," repeated Dan, greedily, his eyes on the meat,though he knew that Pinetop was lying.
The mountaineer struck a match and lighted a bit of pine, holding the baconto the flame until it scorched.
"You'd better git it all in yo' mouth quick," he advised, "for if the smellonce starts on the breeze the whole brigade will be on the scent in aminute."
Dan ate it to the last morsel and licked the warm juice from his fingers.
"You lied, Pinetop," he said, "but, by God, you saved my life. What placeis this, I wonder. Isn't there any hope of our cutting through Grant'slines to-day?"
Pinetop glanced about him.
"Somebody said we were comin' on to Sailor's Creek," he answered, "and it'sabout as God-forsaken country as I care to see. Hello! what's that?"
In the road there was an abandoned battery, cut down and left to rot intothe earth, and as they swept past it at "double quick," they heard thesound of rapid firing across the little stream.
"It's a fight, thank God!" yelled Pinetop, and at the words a tumultuousjoy urged Dan through the water and over the sharp stones. After all thehunger and the intolerable waiting, a chance was come for him to use hismusket once again.
As they passed through an open meadow, a rabbit, starting suddenly from aclump of sumach, went bounding through the long grass before the thin grayline. With ears erect and short white tail bobbing among the broom-sedge,the little quivering creature darted straight toward the low brow of ahill, where a squadron of cavalry made a blue patch on the green.
"Geriminy! thar goes a good dinner," Pinetop gasped, smacking his lips."An' I've got to save this here load for a Yankee I can't eat."
With a long flying leap the rabbit led the charge straight into the enemy'sranks, and as the squirrel rifles rang out behind it, a blue horseman wasswept from every saddle upon the hill.
"By God, I'm glad I didn't eat that rabbit!" yelled Pinetop, as he reloadedand raised his musket to his shoulder.
Back and forth before the line, the general of the brigade was ridingbareheaded and frantic with delight. As he passed he made sweeping gestureswith his left hand, and his long gray hair floated like a banner upon thewind.
"They're coming, men!" he cried. "Get behind that fence and have yourmuskets ready to pick your man. When you see the whites of his eyes fire,and give the bayonet. They're coming! Here they are!"
The old "worm" fence went down, and as Dan piled up some loose rails beforehim, a creeping brier tore his fingers until the blood spurted upon hissleeve. Then, kneeling on the ground, he raised his musket and fired at oneof the skirmishers advancing briskly through the broom-sedge. In an instantthe meadow and the hill beyond were blue with swarming infantry, and thelittle gray band fell back, step by step, loading and firing as it wentacross the field. As the road behind it closed, Dan turned to battle on hisown account, and entering a thinned growth of pines, he dodged from tree totree and aimed above the brushwood. Near him the colour bearer of theregiment was fighting with his flagstaff for a weapon, and out in themeadow a member of the glee club, crouching behind a clump of sassafras ashe loaded, was singing in a cracked voice:--
"Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again!"
Then a bullet went with a soft thud into the singer's breast, and thecracked voice was choked out beneath the bushes.
Gripped by a sudden pity for the helpless flag he had loved and followedfor four years, Dan made an impetuous dash from out the pines, and tearingthe colours from the pole, tossed them over his arm as he retreated rapidlyto cover. At the instant he held his life as nothing beside the faded stripof silk that wrapped about his body. The cause for which he had fought, thegreat captain he had followed, the devotion to a single end which had kepthim struggling in the ranks, the daily sacrifice, the very poverty and coldand hunger, all these were bound up and made one with the tattered flagupon his arm. Through the belt of pines, down the muddy road, across thecreek and up the long hill, he fell back breathlessly, loading and firingas he went, with his face turned toward the enemy. At the end he becamelike a fox before the hunters, dashing madly over the rough ground, withthe colours blown out behind him, and the quick shots ringing in his ears.
Then, as if by a single stroke, Lee's army vanished from the trampledbroom-sedge and the
strip of pines. The blue brigades closed upon thelandscape and when they opened there were only a group of sullen prisonersand the sound of stray shots from the scattered soldiers who had foughttheir way beyond the stream.
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