Call to Arms

by Frederick Nolan

  Yet somehow, something inside him told him that if one of his boys had been hurt he would know. Some instinct, some osmosis, some message through the unseen waves of telepathic thought would reach him. And Jed.

  Jed who had ridden bravely away to join Lee in Richmond. He was with ‘ Jeb’ Stuart’s cavalry, he wrote, in Stonewall Jackson’s army. And where was that army and who were they fighting now? He took out the battered letter from his son, the one Jed had written to him just before Christmas. He had been at the battle of Manassas, or Bull Run as some were calling it. He was healthy, he was strong and was expecting to be transfer-, red to Jackson’s staff in the spring, when the new offensive began.

  Jed, boy, where are you? David thought. I wish you’d come home.

  Thirteen – The Story of Jedediah Strong

  April 1862

  ‘Well, Jedediah,’ Bill Stevenson said. He stood with his hands on his hips, smilingly surveying the pile of split logs in front of Jed. ‘You’re a pretty sight. Ain’t you got a man free to do that for you?’

  ‘I like doing it,’ Jed said. ‘It’s mindless. Don’t need to think’.

  Bill and Jed had been friendly since they found themselves fighting back-to-back in a gully during the battle of Manassas. Bill was now a lieutenant-colonel on Jackson’s personal staff. He and Jed had an informal arrangement: in return for on-the-field assessments of the morale and general attitude of the troops, Bill fed Jed after-the-battle information: who had commanded on the other side, what Stuart’s cavalry patrols had discovered, who was dead and who wounded. You rarely knew who you had been fighting and your view of any battle was always limited. Jed treasured the overview he got from Stevenson; his men even more. It was Bill Stevenson who told Jed after Manassas that Sam Heintzelman had been on the Federal flank during the battle. A long way from Texas, Jed thought, when Bill told him.

  ‘Thought you might be trying to give your lads a bit of a laugh,’ Bill said. ‘They seem to be enjoying it.’

  ‘Probably don’t get to see that many officers sweating,’ Jed said. He swung the axe again, neatly splitting a cut section of log. If all Bill Stevenson had to do was stand around and make sarcastic remarks, he could go right on ahead. But Jed sure as hell wasn’t going to be his straight man.

  ‘Quit that, now!’ Bill said peevishly. ‘I’ve got something important for you.’ He handed Jed a piece of folded paper which Jed opened up. It was an order signed by ‘ Jeb’ Stuart assigning him to headquarters duty.

  ‘Whose idea is this?’ he said. ‘Yours?’ He saw Bill was grinning; it made him feel irritated, maneuvered. ‘I’d as soon turn it down, Bill,’ he said, pitching his voice low so that only Stevenson would hear him. ‘I don’t share the general admiration for Old Jack.’

  ‘You will,’ Bill prophesied.

  ‘I doubt it.’

  Jed’s private opinion was that ‘Stonewall’ Jackson had to be a narrow-minded, hard-hearted, cold-blooded sonofabitch. He had arrived at this opinion, he had to admit, without ever meeting the man, but Jed was as inclined to judge a man by his actions as by any other measure. He knew his opinion was not the popular one. But even though Jackson was a winner, Jed passed harsh sentence on a man whose forced marches killed callow boys and left their bodies dusty-faced and bootless, staring at the sun on some nameless trail. He could not think highly of someone who apparently cared nothing for all the fine young officers who now lay moldering in unmapped ravines, sacrificed in the name of victory and glory. It was necessary, of course; and it would continue to be necessary. But he did not admire it. He figured he knew the kind of man Jackson was: one of those backwood zealot types with a maniacal belief in discipline and no more pity than a puma. A man who killed his soldiers in reckless battles often fought in a bad cause. A general first, a soldier second and a man only in the end. Stuart, Ashby, all of them worshipped Jackson. So Jed kept his opinions entirely to himself. He was too good a soldier even to think of that kind of disloyalty.

  ‘Hell, Jedediah, do you want to be a junior officer all through this damned war?’ Bill exclaimed, taking Jed’s arm and leading him to one side where they could talk without the men hearing them.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing, my heroic friend!’ Bill said. ‘But Jed, this war ain’t going to last forever.’

  ‘Sure as hell feels as if it is,’ Jed grinned.

  ‘Will you be serious?’ Bill said. ‘It won’t last forever, however long it lasts. And when it’s done there’s going to be little enough glory to share out. What there is, the big fish will get. There won’t be much left over for captains and jackass lieutenants.’

  ‘Glory,’ Jed said, with a world of meaning in the word. Bill looked at his friend and smiled. He was used to Jed’s stubborn streak and understood it. In some ways it was even admirable, but he knew Jed had seen battle from only one perspective, and he was convinced that if Jed could be where the tactical decisions were made, he would become an excellent staff officer. He had little trouble persuading Jeb Stuart it was so.

  ‘He’s already earned a squadron,’ Stuart said. ‘You’re right, Bill. A spell of staff duty, and he’ll be ready for a regiment. ‘

  Jed looked at the paper with Stuart’s signature on it. If Stuart thought he ought to do it … he shrugged and laid down the axe.

  ‘That’s the ticket!’ Bill said and clapped him on the shoulder. Jed smiled. He was as fond of Bill as his own brother, although Bill was not a bit like Andrew. Andrew was like Pa. He thought things out. Bill Stevenson rushed to meet life, arms wide, ready to embrace every experience. He never harbored dark thoughts: to him, the death which surrounded them all was merely a shadowed valley through which he must pass on his way to some as yet unseen and sunlit summit. He was one of the golden lads; the ones who shouted ‘Glory, or a coffin!’ sure, sure that their destiny was glory.

  They had an agreement, Bill and Jed, forged soon after the bitter, bloody battle of Manassas. Bill had often wondered aloud whether, as a chaplain had said, the smile that often lit the faces of dying men was caused by their seeing the gates of Heaven opening before them. Taking leave to doubt it, Jed said the only way to find out was to ask a dying man. And they made a jesting agreement that if either of them was mortally wounded, and the other close by at the time, the one who was going would report on whether or not he could see the pearly gates.

  Jed got a bowl of water and washed himself down before putting on his uniform and saddling his horse. Bill led the way: twenty-five miles across country to Rude’s Hill, where Jackson was staying. By the time they got there the sky was dark and the pregnant clouds opened to release a drenching rain. Tying the tired horse to a fencepost, Jed went inside, shaking the rain off his cape. To his surprise he was greeted at the door by none other than the renowned General Jackson himself. He was younger than Jed had expected, maybe forty, a tall, powerfully-built, good-looking man with brown hair and a full brown beard. His lips were thin and determined, his eyes an alert blue.

  ‘Here, lad!’ he said. ‘Give me that wet coat of yours.’ He took Jed’s sodden overcoat and hung it on a peg behind the door. After introducing him to the other officers on his staff sitting around the blazing fire, Jackson went into his own room, jerking his head to indicate that Jed should follow. As Jed closed the door Jackson went across to the fire and put another log on it.

  ‘Get your boots off,’ he said, ‘and toast your toes while they’re drying.’

  Jed did as he was bid, amazed. He had come prepared to dislike Jackson on sight as he disliked him by reputation. Almost as if he was aware of it, Jackson seemed to be going out of his way to make Jed like him.

  ‘Bill Stevenson tells me your home is in Culpeper,’ he said. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, general,’ Jed said. ‘Washington Farm.’

  ‘Named for great George himself?’

  ‘He gifted it to my family, sir,’ Jed said. ‘After the Revolution.’

  Jackson frowned at the fire
for a moment, rummaging in the cobwebbed corners of recollection. ‘I thought I knew my Revolutionary War generals pretty well,’ he muttered. ‘But I recall none named Strong.’

  ‘My grandfather wasn’t a general officer, sir,’ Jed explained. ‘He left the service with the rank of major.’

  ‘Yet Washington gifted him with enough land for a farm?’ Jackson said, eyebrows raised. ‘His services must have been remarkable.’

  ‘Yes, general,’ Jed said. ‘I believe they were.’

  Did Jackson want him to tell the story of Davy Strong’s secret mission to Charleston, the destruction of the consignment of rifles, the way Davy had recovered the gold so vital to the success of Washington’s army? Jed waited, but Jackson’s next question was abrupt and businesslike.

  ‘Feel like a ride?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I want you to find General Ewell for me,’ Jackson said. He went across to his writing table and came back with a sealed envelope. ‘Give this to him and bring me back his reply. It is extremely important he alone sees it. You understand me?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jed said. ‘And where is General Ewell?’

  ‘Somewhere near Culpeper,’ Jackson said, impatience shading his voice. Come on, it said, think faster: why do you think I’m sending you?

  ‘But—’ Jed bit off the words before they were formed. Jackson didn’t need anyone to tell him that Culpeper was on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, well over a hundred miles from where they now sat. Nor that between there and here, for all either of them knew, half of the Federal Army might well be encamped. General Banks and the Army of the Shenandoah had crossed the Potomac late in February and moved to protect the railroads from the raids of Turner Ashby’s cavalry. Since that move threatened D.H. Hill’s command at Leesburg, General Joseph Johnston ordered Hill to fall back to Manassas to join him; that move effected, Johnston fell back still further, to Culpeper. Jackson, a long way north in the Shenandoah Valley, was left isolated and exposed. He retreated down the valley and regrouped at Strasburg with Ashby’s cavalry screening the Federal advance. Spies said a large force commanded by General James Shields had come to reinforce Banks.

  Jackson now said to Jed: ‘Can you get there and back by the sixteenth?’

  ‘I can try, General,’ Jed said, trying to marshal his thoughts. Night had already fallen and it was raining outside as if the end of the world was nigh. Every trail would be washed out. Jed had only the slightest notion what the country between here and Culpeper was like. He looked up to see Jackson’s keen blue eyes watching him closely. He’s testing me, Jed thought.

  ‘General, I’ll need a fresh horse,’ he said.

  ‘And you shall have one,’ Jackson replied. He went to the door and opened it. The officers in the outer room jumped to their feet.

  ‘This young man needs a good horse,’ Jackson said.

  ‘Take mine, captain,’ said a young lieutenant standing to the right of the fireplace. His uniform bore the red collar, cuff and trouser stripes of the artillery. The empty right-hand sleeve of his jacket was pinned across his chest. Jed recalled being introduced to him: Kidder Meade, Jackson’s ordnance officer. He had lost the arm at Manassas. ‘She’s under the trees outside,’ Meade said. ‘The dun mare.’

  ‘Thanks, lieutenant,’ Jed said. ‘With your permission, general?’

  ‘No later than the sixteenth, captain!’ Jackson said, without the vestige of an expression on his face. ‘Have a pleasant ride!’

  Jed went out into the slanting rain and unhitched Meade’s mare, thinking that Jackson’s idea of humor was a long way short of funny on a filthy night like this. He kicked the horse into a canter: she had plenty of spirit and a good gait. Before long he was rounding the southern end of Massanutton Mountain, its huge dark hulk all but invisible. He pushed on through McGaheysville and across the south fork of the Shenandoah towards Conrad’s Store. The rain continued, relentless. The spirit went out of the little dun: he could not even get her to trot.

  He bought a flask of whiskey at the store and took a pull from it as he pushed the little mare up into the two-thousand-foot-high pass. The fiery spirit coursed down into his belly, taking the chill out of his bones.

  The road up to Swift Run Gap was a good one, despite the rain, and the little mare climbed gamely in the utter dark. It was so completely black that Jed could not even see her ears. Now and again he heard the rushing of water somewhere far, far below, the unmistakable sound of a mountain torrent in flood. He sensed the emptiness of the sheer drop on his right. Over the summit and down they went. The road was a faint trace of less black darkness. Jed dozed in the saddle as the rain eased down to a drizzle.

  The shock of the bullet hitting the mare and the flash of the rifle at the side of the road were almost instantaneous. The mare screamed and leaped into a blind run as another rifle boomed from the trees bordering the road and a ball whipped through the night behind them. Jed heard the sound of her hoofs change as the mare left the road and he rolled off her back before she careered blindly into the trees, crashing through the undergrowth, whinnying with terror and pain.

  Flat in the wet grass, Jed rolled on to his belly and slid the Navy Colt out of its holster, cupping his left hand over the chamber to keep off the drizzle. He lay very still, very silent. The sound of the horse thrashing through the trees had died down; probably collapsed now, he thought.

  ‘Ted?’ The whisper was shockingly loud in the silence. ‘Y’reckon he got away?’

  ‘Shit, I hit that horse dead center!’ a second voice said. One somewhere to the front, the other somewhere to the left, Jed decided. The voices were close.

  ‘Go chase it, then,’ said the first voice, full of scorn. ‘It run pretty good for a dead horse!’

  What were they? Jed wondered. Federal pickets? Was there a camp nearby? Surely he would have heard something, smelled something? A patrol, then? Were there only two of them? Or others close by? He heard them move. Twigs snapped with a soft pop. Branches swished, and rainwater pattered to the ground. There was still no light worth the name: an infinitesimal shading of gray in the sky made it just possible for Jed to see two shapes, darker than the darkness, moving towards him. He eased back the hammer of the pistol, wincing as it clicked.

  ‘Didn’t even get a fuck’n rabbit,’ one of the men complained. Locating him by his voice, Jed fired the pistol and the man fell to his knees without a sound, pitching sideways. The other man stood as if petrified, staring at the place from which the shot had come. In that long, long second, Jed pulled the trigger again. The hammer fell on a wet cap. As it snapped, the soldier shouted away his shock and raised his rifle. Jed rolled aside as the rifle roared, feeling the hot muzzle-flash on his forehead. As he rolled, the soldier ran forward and kicked Jed in the side of the head. Jed went over on his back, lights pinwheeling behind his eyes. The soldier shouted with triumph and, drawing a bayonet from his belt, lunged at Jed with it. Jed tried desperately to avoid the thrust but he was still half-stunned. He felt the long, rigid, white-hot run of the blade go through the muscle on the outside of his thigh, grating as it touched the bone. Whistling with effort, the soldier jerked the bayonet out for another lunge, but even as he drew back his arm Jed’s head cleared. He eared back the hammer of the Colt’s pistol and thrust it into his assailant’s face. It went off with a flat blumph! The bullet hit the soldier on the bridge of the nose and blew out the back of his head. He was hurled backwards in a tangle of arms and legs and did not move again. A wisp of smoke rose from the ruined face: the muzzle-flash had singed the man’s beard.

  Jed got up, wincing at the dull throb of pain in his leg. The side of his trousers was already slick with blood. He limped across to where the first man he had shot lay dead. As the light grew stronger he could see that the two men were not wearing proper uniforms beneath the mud-stained greatcoats. The man who had stabbed Jed had on a pair of ankle boots, the sole of one of which hung agape. Deserters, thought Jed, disgustedly. They’d ambus
h a man for a piece of hardtack.

  He looked around the clearing. There was nothing in sight, no movement. The birds were beginning to chirrup a reluctant welcome to the wet, gray morning. Only two of them then, Jed thought. Thank God for that; I’m in no shape for another fight. Or a long walk come to that, he thought bitterly as he tore his shirt into strips with which to bind his wounded leg. When that was done, he cut himself a stout stave from a nearby tree and started walking.

  An hour later he trudged into Stanardsville, saddlebags slung over his shoulder. A farmer was coming down the street leading an empty cart pulled by an old Cleveland Bay. The horse looked used-up, .even this early in the day. Jed stepped in front of the farmer and let him see the pistol. The man showed no surprise at all.

  ‘Lost your horse, captain?’ he said. He was about forty, stocky and tow-haired.

  ‘She’s dead,’ Jed told him. ‘Back there.’

  ‘Your best bet would be Jethro Hardy’s farm,’ the man said. ‘About three miles up the road.’

  ‘How’d you like to take me there?’ Jed said.

  ‘Put up the gun, man,’ the farmer said. ‘I’ll take you and welcome.’

  Jed climbed into the wagon. The farmer clucked at the horse and it lurched forward. The sun was up, watery and weak. Mist lay over the fields and across the wooded hills in long, thin streaks. Jed leaned his head back against the side of the wagon. The next thing he knew was that the farmer was shaking him awake. Jed sat up, slightly disorientated. He winced as pain from the wound in his leg shot through him.

  ‘This is the Hardy place,’ the farmer told him. He went over and hammered on the door. Nothing happened. He hammered again as Jed clambered gingerly down from the wagon. Steam rose from the back of the horse. A window upstairs opened with a bang and a woman stuck her head out of it.