CHAPTER LVII

THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY

Having safely withdrawn his division from the disastrous field, crossing Bull Run by Red House Ford, General Stevens conducted it to the main turnpike, now brimful with retreating troops. It was night, too, and quite dark. Unwilling to plunge his command into the crowded throng, he halted and allowed them to sleep on their arms by the roadside, while the dense, dark tide of troops, trains, and artillery flowed past all night. After daylight he resumed the march by the pike, now clear, and halted for breakfast in the fields a mile from Centreville. The men were ravenously hungry, having long since emptied their haversacks; the supply trains were in the rear, no one knew where, so that a drink of water and a tightened belt seemed destined to be the only breakfast. But General Stevens, having observed a small herd of cattle near by belonging to some commissary, had them driven up and slaughtered; some wagons loaded with hard bread were also seized, and soon the entire command were cooking and enjoying a hearty repast of beefsteak and hard tack.

General Stevens now received orders from General Pope to act as rear-guard. Reno's division (that officer being ill and off duty), a brigade of cavalry, and two batteries were added to his command for that duty, the most important and responsible in the army at this juncture. He moved out and took position on Cub Run, two and a half miles in front of Centreville, throwing out a strong skirmish line beyond the creek, and disposing his batteries and troops to resist an attack. Contrary to expectation, the enemy did not press on after his victory, although he appeared in force, advanced his skirmish line in plain view, and opened briskly with his artillery, to which ours as briskly replied. The day was wet, drizzling, and dreary, but at last wore away with nothing more serious.

At night General Reynolds and his division relieved General Stevens. He criticised some of the latter's dispositions, which called out a sharp rejoinder. He declared that the enemy's skirmishers were too close, and deployed a regiment to drive them back, but his men, to his intense chagrin, hung back. Then he said the enemy might attack at any moment. But General Stevens did not share his apprehensions, and remarked to him, "I think it most probable that the enemy will move around and strike us under the ribs."

After being relieved, the division moved to Centreville, and bivouacked on the heights half a mile south of the hamlet. The following morning, Monday, September 1, the officers straightened out their commands and took account of their losses; rations and ammunition were brought up and issued; and all hoped for at least one day of much needed rest. Captain Stevens, by direction of the general, counted the stacks of muskets, and found the latter to number 2012. Half of the division had fallen in battle, or on the march, since leaving Fredericksburg a fortnight before.

Lieutenant S.N. Benjamin, a very brave and intelligent young officer, whom General Stevens treated with great kindness and consideration during the campaign, relates that about noon the general came to his battery,--

"and came where I was sitting. (My crutches had been broken, and I could not rise without help.) I soon saw that he felt very blue,--that he felt the defeat very keenly, and feared its effect on the men. I tried to assure him that his own command felt more devoted to him than ever, and if possible more faith in his skill than before. And this was God's truth,--_they did_, and he had earned it.

"Still he felt very blue. I asked him if he would write to his wife. 'Yes; but there is no way to send a letter in. I am anxious to send word.' 'Well, general, you write, and I will send it by some Christian or Sanitary man. We have just sent letters, and I will have a man watch the turnpike until some one will take it.'

"He seemed much pleased with this. I brought him the envelope, etc., and he wrote on a book, sitting on the ground. Before he had finished, the order came to move. He closed it hastily, after giving some orders, gave it to me, and went to his headquarters. The letter was given to a gentleman going to Washington with a wounded man."

It was General Stevens's last letter.

While the beaten and distracted Union commander was trying to straighten out his forces huddled about Centreville, uncertain whether to risk further conflict or to fall back to the defenses of Washington, Lee was moving his whole army in one column, to fall upon his enemy's line of retreat and rear. The very day after the battle he advanced Jackson's wing across Bull Run by Sudley Ford to the Little River turnpike, which runs straight to Fairfax Court House, and there intersects the Alexandria and Warrenton pike, eight miles behind Centreville. On this Monday morning Jackson was marching down the turnpike with Longstreet and his whole wing following closely in support, thus turning the Union army at Centreville, and moving to fall upon its only line of retreat; "to strike it under the ribs," as General Stevens so clearly foresaw. Pope had taken no steps to anticipate or guard against this fatal flank movement. He was groping in the dark, utterly at a loss what course to pursue, and consequently he did nothing until noon, when startling news forced him to decision and to action.

Such was the situation,--the bulk of the Union forces grouped about Centreville with their distraught commander, the victorious rebel army, in one strong column, Jackson at its head, turning their flank and striking far in their rear,--when, at one P.M., two cavalrymen dashed up to General Stevens's headquarters. They bore orders to him from General Pope to march immediately across country, guided by the two troopers, to the Little River pike, and there take position and hold in check a column of the enemy reported advancing down that road.

General Stevens soon had his division under arms, moved across the fields, and entered the Alexandria pike a short distance east of Centreville. Here Ferrero's brigade of Reno's division, the other brigade after its heavy loss on the 29th not being again called upon, fell in behind and followed. The scanty column moved down the road a mile and a half, then turned off to the left, and followed a farm road in a northeasterly direction between the two pikes. As General Stevens and staff were riding at the head of the column the cavalrymen told how they had been out foraging that morning to the Little River pike, and had run into a heavy column of the enemy advancing down it, and had made all haste to gallop to Pope's headquarters with the news. Thence they were at once dispatched to General Stevens with the orders already related, and directed to guide his column to the endangered road.

This startling news brought him about noon by these cavalrymen was unquestionably the first intelligence that Pope received of Lee's thrust. His own orders prove this, for he not only immediately dispatched General Stevens to seize and hold the Little River pike, but detached Hooker from his division and sent him to Germantown, a point just in front of Fairfax Court House, where the two pikes meet, to take charge of some troops there and post them to resist the threatening movement, ordered McDowell--

"immediately to march rapidly back to Fairfax Court House with your whole division (corps) and assume command of the two brigades there, and occupy Germantown with your whole force, so as to cover the turnpike from this place to Alexandria. Jackson is reported advancing on Fairfax with 20,000 men,"--

and soon afterwards hurried Heintzelman's two divisions down the pike toward Fairfax. And it was while thus moving that General Kearny received General Stevens's urgent summons, and opportunely hastened to the stricken field, as will soon be related.

After proceeding across country several miles in rather a winding or crooked course, the column was marching over an elevated tract of open country, which sloped down in front to a marshy hollow clothed with small growth, and partially timbered. Beyond the hollow, open fields appeared again, and beyond them dense pine woods. To the rear the high ground extended to the main turnpike, half a mile distant, down which were seen the white covers of the crowded wagons moving in retreat.

At this moment the little cavalcade at the head of the column was suddenly surprised by the sight of a rebel skirmish line deployed across the fields in front and cautiously advancing toward it, and the more because the Little River pike, as the cavalrymen said, was still some distance away. The skirmishers were already across the hollow and close at hand when first seen.

At the first glance General Stevens realized what that rebel skirmish line portended. It portended an attack in force upon the turnpike, the only line of retreat. Full well he knew that the movement must be arrested, or the line of retreat would be broken, the army cut in two while widely extended along the road, and a great disaster inflicted. Instantly he threw forward two companies of the Highlanders, under Captains W.T. Lusk and Robert Ives, to drive back the enemy's advance and uncover his movement. Deploying in skirmish order, they ran forward, exchanging a sharp fire with the opposing line and driving it back, crossed the hollow, surmounted a graded railroad embankment which traversed it, and pushed on after the rebel skirmishers into the farther fields. The embankment was the grade of the same Manassas Gap Railroad over which, beyond Bull Run, Jackson made his fierce fight.

Captain Stevens, directing the skirmishers, had just ridden on top of the embankment, when a rebel soldier half way across the field in front, who was helping off a wounded comrade, withdrew his arm from his comrade's support, deliberately aimed at the mounted officer, and fired, and the bullet passed through his hat, inflicting a sharp rap upon his head. Twenty muskets were instantly fired at the bold rebel in return, but without effect, and coolly and deliberately he shifted his piece to his left hand, replaced his right arm around his comrade's waist, and helped him slowly off in safety.

While the Highlanders were thus pushing back the enemy, General Stevens, without halting or retarding the march of his troops an instant, was forming them as fast as they came up in a column of brigades on the hither side of the fields beyond the hollow. While thus forming, a regiment of the enemy advanced in line of battle from the woods more than half way across the fields, and the Union skirmishers fell back before it. But Benjamin's guns, having just taken position on the right of the forming column, opened upon the regiment, and it immediately fell back and disappeared in the woods. Lusk's company now rejoined its regiment, but Ives's fell back to the railroad grade, and remained there during the battle.

The column was formed in the edge of quite a large open tract, the farther side of which was closed by the woods. Woods also extended on the right side all along the open ground. Near the centre of the open tract, and to the left and front of the column, was a farmhouse, with outbuildings and orchard, and just beyond it a large field of tall, waving corn extended to the woods in front, and to woods on the left. The estate was known as Fruitvale, and belonged to the family of Reid, but was occupied at this time by a family named Heath.

A road coming from the main turnpike in rear ran in a northerly course past the right of the forming column, extended along the right edge of the open ground, traversed the farther woods, and crossed the Little River pike at right angles. This has been known since colonial days as the Ox Road, and the eminence over which it runs, just north of the crossing, is Ox Hill, from which the Confederates have named the coming engagement the battle of Ox Hill. In Union reports and histories it is known as the battle of Chantilly, from the hamlet of that name six miles westward on the Little River pike.

The column was soon formed in the following order:--

28th Mass., 79th Highlanders, Col. David Morrison. 50th Penn., 8th Michigan, Col. Benjamin C. Christ. 100th Penn., 46th New York, Lieut.-Col. David A. Lecky.

The formation was nearly completed when General Reno appeared. He had been sick and off duty the day before. The conference between him and General Stevens was brief. The latter pointed out the supposed position of the enemy, in a few strong words showed the necessity of hurling back his threatened advance, and declared his intention of attack as soon as his column was formed. General Reno seemed undecided and hesitating. He seemed not to approve the movement, but he certainly did not disapprove it in words, nor did he give any orders, nor take command in any way, and soon turned and rode back.

General Stevens now dismounted, and directed his staff to dismount, and sent one of them to each of the leading regiments, with orders to go forward with it and make every exertion to force the charge home. He sent Captain Stevens to the Highlanders, and Lieutenant Dearborn, his aide, to the 28th Massachusetts.

The column now advanced, Benjamin's guns firing shells into the woods in front. It descended a long, gentle slope, crossed a slight hollow, and swept steadily up the easy ascent in three firm, regular lines with the fixed bayonets glistening above them. Not a sight nor sound betrayed the presence of the enemy. There was nothing to be seen but the open field, extending two hundred yards in front and closed by the wall of woods, with an old zigzag rail fence at its edge. "There is no enemy there," exclaimed Captain Lusk to Captain Stevens, as they were marching side by side; "they have fallen back; we shall find nothing there."

Even as he spoke, the enemy poured a terrific volley from behind the rail fence. Captain Stevens struck the ground with great force and suddenness, shot in the arm and hip, and as he struggled to his feet saw the even battle line of the Highlanders pressing firmly and steadily on. A few minutes later General Stevens came up on foot, stopped a moment to ask his son if he was badly hurt, and to order a soldier to help him off the field, and, unheeding his remonstrances, moved on after the first line.

The enemy was smiting the column with a terrible and deadly musketry. The men were falling fast. General Stevens now ordered Captain Lusk to hasten to the 50th Pennsylvania, which was hesitating at entering the cornfield, and to push them forward, for, as the column advanced, the left struck and extended into this cornfield.

The troops, under the withering hail of bullets, were now wavering and almost at a standstill. Five color-bearers of the Highlanders had fallen in succession, and the colors again fell to the ground. At this crisis General Stevens pushed to the front, seized the falling colors from the hands of the wounded bearer, unheeding his cry, "For God's sake, don't take the colors, general; they'll shoot you if you do!" and calling aloud upon his old regiment, "Highlanders, my Highlanders, follow your general!" rushed forward with the uplifted flag. The regiment responded nobly. They rushed forward, reached the edge of the woods, hurled themselves with fury upon the fence and the rebel line behind it, and the enemy broke and fled in disorder. The 28th Massachusetts joined gallantly in the charge, and the other brigades as gallantly supported the first. At this moment a sudden and severe thunderstorm, with a furious gale, burst over the field and the rain fell in torrents, while the flash of lightning and peals of thunder seemed to rebuke man's bloody, fratricidal strife.

General Stevens fell dead in the moment of victory. A bullet entered at the temple and pierced his brain. He still firmly grasped the flagstaff, and the colors lay fallen upon his head and shoulders. His noble, brave, and ardent spirit, freed at last from the petty jealousies of earth, had flown to its Creator.