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

facing at intervals, sent volley after volley against the foe. It was impossible for the Southern army to ride them down or destroy them with cannon and rifle.

Harry came back about midnight from one of his messages, to Jackson, who was again riding on the turnpike. Most of his staff were gone on like errands, but General Taylor who led the Acadians was now with him. Off in front the rifles were flashing, and again and again, bullets whistled near them. Harry said nothing but fell in behind Jackson and close to him to await some new commission.

They heard the thunder of a horse's hoofs behind them, and a man galloped up, he as well as his horse breathing hard.

He was the chief quartermaster of the army, and Jackson recognized him at once, despite the dark.

“Where are the wagon trains?” exclaimed Jackson, shouting forth his words.

“They're far behind. They were held up by a bad road in the Luray valley. We did our best, sir,” replied the officer, his voice trembling with weariness and nervousness.

“And the ammunition wagons, where are they?”

The voice was stern, even accusing, but the officer met Jackson's gaze firmly.

“They are all right, sir,” he replied. “I sacrificed the other wagons for them, though. They're at hand.”

“You have done well, sir,” said Jackson, and Harry thought he saw him smile. No food for his veterans, but plenty of powder. It was exactly what would appeal to Stonewall Jackson.

“Supply more powder and bullets to the men,” said Jackson presently. “Keep on pushing the enemy! Never stop for a moment.”

Harry mechanically put his hand in his pocket, why he did not know, but he felt a piece of bread and meat that he had put there in the morning. He fingered the foreign substance a moment, and it occurred to him that it was good to eat. It occurred to him next that he had not eaten anything since morning, and this body of his, which for the time being seemed to be dissevered from mind, might be hungry.

He took out the food and looked at it. It was certainly good to the eyes, and the body was not so completely dissevered after all, as it began to signal the mind that it was, in very truth, hungry. He was about to raise the food to his lips and then he remembered.

Spurring forward a little he held out the bread and meat to Jackson.

“It's cold and hard, sir,” he said, “but you'll find it good.”

“It's thoughtful of you,” said Jackson. “I'll take half and see that you eat the rest. Give none of it to this hungry horde around me. They're able to forage for themselves.”

Jackson ate his half and Harry his. That reminded most of the officers that they had food also, and producing it they divided it and fell to with an appetite. As they ate, a shell from one of the retreating Northern batteries burst almost over their heads and fragments of hot metal struck upon the hard road. They ate on complacently. When Jackson had finished his portion he took out one of his mysterious lemons and began to suck the end of it.

Midnight was now far behind and the pursuit never halted. One of the officers remarked jokingly that he had accepted an invitation to take breakfast on the Yankee stores in Winchester the next morning. Jackson made no comment. Harry a few minutes later uttered a little cry.

“What is it?” asked Jackson.

“We're coming upon our old battlefield of Kernstown. I know those hills even in the dark.”

“So we are. You have good eyes, boy. It's been a long march, but here we are almost back in Winchester.”

“The enemy are massing in front, sir,” said Dalton. “It looks as if they meant to make another stand.”

The Massachusetts troops, their hearts bitter at the need to retreat, were forming again on a ridge behind Kernstown, and the Pennsylvanians and others were joining them. Their batteries opened heavily on their pursuers, and the night was lighted again with the flame of many cannon and rifles.

But their efforts were vain against the resistless advance of Jackson. The peal of the Southern trumpets was heard above cannon and rifles, always calling upon the men to advance, and, summoning their strength anew, they hurled themselves upon the Northern position.

Fighting hard, but unable to turn the charge, the men in blue were driven on again, leaving more prisoners and more spoil in the hands of their pursuers. The battle at three o'clock in the morning lasted but a short time.

The sound of the retreating column, the footsteps, the hoof-beats and the roll of the cannon, died away down the turnpike. But the sound of the army marching in pursuit died, also. Jackson's men could call up no further ounce of strength. The last ounce had gone long ago. Many of them, though still marching and at times firing, were in a mere daze. The roads swam past them in a dark blur and more than one babbled of things at home.

It would soon be day and there was Winchester, where the kin of so many of them lived, that Winchester they had left once, but to which they were now coming back as conquerors, conquerors whose like had not been seen since the young Napoleon led his republican troops to the conquest of Italy. No, those French men were not as good as they. They could not march so long and over such roads. They could not march all day and all night, too, fighting and driving armies of brave men before them as they fought. Yes, the Yankees were brave men! They were liars who said they wouldn't fight! If you didn't believe it, all you had to do was to follow Stonewall Jackson and see!

Such thoughts ran in many a young head in that army and Harry's, too, was not free from them, although it was no new thing to him to admit that the Yankees could and would fight just as well as the men of his South. The difference in the last few days lay in the fact that the Southern army was led by a man while the Northern army was led by mere men.

The command to halt suddenly ran along the lines of Jackson's troops, and, before it ceased to be repeated, thousands were lying prostrate in the woods or on the grass. They flung themselves down just as they were, reckless of horses or wagons or anything else. Why should they care? They were Jackson's men. They had come a hundred miles, whipping armies as they came, and they were going to whip more. But now they meant to rest and sleep a little while, and they would resume the whipping after sunrise.

It was but a little while until dawn and they lay still. Harry, who had kept his eyes open, felt sorry for them as they lay motionless in the chill of the dawn, like so many dead men.

Jackson himself took neither sleep nor rest. Without even a cloak to keep off the cold of dawn, he walked up and down, looking at the silent ranks