The Scouts of Stonewall: The Story of the Great Valley Campaign, Altsheler [best non fiction books of all time txt] 📗

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 The staffs of the two generals had withdrawn out of ear shot, but Harry noticed that Ewell did much the greater part of the talking, his head cocked on one side in that queer, striking manner.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