Part 6

I was not thinking of danger. It was my first chance at a sea-fight and I was not going to miss it.

Thus I watched the first battle of iron-clad warships. Apparently recognizing the fact that they had in a moment become useless lumber, the old-time wooden structures drew aside and observed the novel contest. The two little giants were almost touching and broadside after broadside poured into each other. My uncle was absorbed in watching the scene.

"Let me see! Let me see!" I cried all aquiver with excitement.

"I will not let you see, you miserable little wretch!" he replied.

Then relenting, he gave me the field-glass. "Well, here; look! Be careful or you will lose your balance and fall overboard, though I reckon it would be a good thing if you did. Teach you better than to put yourself where you have no business."

His sense of humor, as usual, saved the situation, and he laughed again. I think there was never a time since I routed him out at midnight to take a neck-breaking ride in a hail-storm that I was not an amusing, as well as a terrifying conundrum to my unfortunate uncle. He good-naturedly shared his glass with disobedient little me and I watched the contest.

The storm that rained upon the _Virginia_ was of solid shot and shell, while it had been impossible to provide the Confederate ram with anything but shell. The armor of the _Monitor_ was thicker than that of her antagonist but the inclination of the sides of the _Virginia_, causing the shot to glance harmlessly, offset that advantage. The _Virginia_ suddenly ran aground and the _Monitor_ was quick to avail herself of the mishap, but before we were certain of the peril of our champion she was off and making an effort to run down the _Monitor_. The bow of the _Virginia_ was directly against her antagonist and we saw the Federal ship careen dangerously. When they separated a shell from our ironclad struck the pilot-house of the _Monitor_. We afterward learned that her commander, Lieutenant Worden, was disabled.

The _Minnesota_ was helpless and as the _Virginia_ turned toward her we expected that she would be sunk. But, probably to the delight of those on board the frigate as well as to the infinite dismay of us who looked on, our little steamer went on her way toward Sewell's Point and then to the Navy Yard. Our disappointment was very great and as we were rowing home my uncle said reflectively:

"By George, it looks as if the Lord was on the side of those damned Yankees."

It was the first time I had ever heard him admit the possibility that Providence could be on the wrong side of anything.

We heard later that, so certain seemed the destruction of the _Minnesota_, her captain was making preparations to fire and abandon her when, to his surprise, the _Merrimac_, or _Virginia_, as we renamed her, turned homeward.

Our captain afterward explained that he thought his last shot had disabled the _Monitor_ and he dared not stay any longer in those waters because the _Virginia_ had so heavy a draught that it was impossible for her to cross the bar after ebb-tide.

XII

RICHMOND AFTER SEVEN PINES

In the Battle of Seven Pines, May 31 and June 1, 1862, Pickett's Brigade played a most important and gallant part, an account of which may be seen in General Joseph E. Johnston's report and in General Pickett's own report as given in "Pickett and His Men."

While the battle yet raged darkness came on to force a truce. General Johnston ordered his troops to sleep on their lines to be ready for the morning. Shortly after seven he was slightly wounded by a musket shot. A little later he remarked to one of his Colonels who dodged a shell:

"There is no use in dodging like that, Colonel. When you hear the things they have passed."

At that moment a shell exploded, striking him in the breast. He fell unconscious into the arms of Drewry L. Armistead, one of his couriers. On regaining consciousness he missed his sword and pistols, and said:

"My father wore that sword in the Revolutionary War and I would not lose it for ten thousand dollars. The pistols Colonel Colt, the inventor, gave me."

Both sword and pistols were recovered and General Johnston, the natural magnet for bullets, an officer of the highest soldierly qualities, of military skill and sagacity equalled by few and surpassed by none, was carried off the field severely wounded. General Robert E. Lee was appointed to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, to become the idol of his people and one of the greatest military leaders of the world; greater than will ever be known, because of the restrictions laid upon his power. Though he was the General in command he was under the direction of the War Department, which exercised its authority to the utmost. Perhaps our Confederacy might have been longer lived if Lee had adopted the policy of Stonewall Jackson who, when ordered to recall General Loring from Romney, obeyed like a soldier and promptly sent in his resignation like a mere human.

If I could bring before you the picture of the Richmond I saw after the battle of Seven Pines you would say that it was the most powerful peace argument ever penned. But no words could give you the faintest shadow of the Richmond of those days of anguish. Could Dante have looked upon our Capital in that opening June he would have needed no Virgil to unlock for him the gates of Inferno, no Beatrice to lead him through the midnight corridors of a lost world to the torture chamber of condemned souls. He would have turned his gaze upon our streets, dipped his pen in his heart's blood and written, and mankind would have shuddered through all the ages to come.

Richmond was shaking with the thunders of the battle and the death-sounds thrilled through our agonized souls. The blood of the field was running in rivers of red through the hearts of her people. For days the dead-wagons and ambulances wended their tragic way from the battlefield to the Capital City and every turn of their crunching wheels rolled over our crushed and bleeding hearts. The wretched loads of wounded were emptied before the doors of the improvised hospitals until they overflowed with maimed humanity and all hearts and hands were full of grief for the dead and work for the wounded.

There was not a home in the city that held not some ghastly offering from the battlefield. Every possible space was converted into a temporary hospital and all was done that unwearied nursing and gentle care could effect, for the roughest in the ranks as tenderly as for those who wore the stars. Women, girls, and children stood before the doors with wine and food for the wounded as they passed. It was not unusual to see half a dozen funeral processions at the same time on their way to the City of the Dead.

The Capitol square was filled with officers, privates and citizens, seeking information of the battle. From all the Southland poured in letters from friends and relatives, with the sacred charge to care for their loved ones. From all quarters of the Confederacy wives followed their husbands, mothers their sons.

"Come, Lassie, here is a telegram from Mrs. B----," said my hostess. "Come, dear, and go with me to the train to meet her. How I dread it, poor, dear lady!"

There was a sublime faith in the motherly face that met us in the station--a faith that lifted up our hearts to the heights of Divinity. There was no question, no fear, in the serene, loving eyes. "I've come to see my boy; he was with General Johnston," she said.

We drove back through a mourning Richmond, a strange, foreign Richmond that the mother did not know. From the doors of the houses hung streamers of black. Ambulances filled with wounded passed us, their torturing road marked by the trail of blood that oozed, drop by drop, from human veins.

Wagons filled with dead rolled by, the stiffened bodies piled one upon another in ghastly heaps, the rigid feet projecting from the ends of the vehicles. It was the most appalling sight that ever greeted human eyes, but it was the only way to save our fallen soldiers from the desecration of birds of prey. All the vehicles of every description were utilized, the less severely wounded walking, their wounds bound in bloody rags. They formed a long procession, nearly five thousand, young boys, middle-aged and old men, from privates to high officers, passing on to the homes of Richmond where they would find tender care. From some of the open windows came shrieks of pain from those whose courage had been overcome by mortal agony. Down the streets new regiments were marching to the front to fill, in time, other dead-wagons and ambulances.

Sometimes the Richmond of those days comes back to me now and I shudder anew with terror.

Reaching the beautiful home of our friend and hostess, we hurried our beloved charge, this sweet mother of a soldier, through corridors where closed doors guarded scenes which could be but dimly imagined. Up the stairway and along the hall to a small room she followed our friend, who sent me down to order up a waiter of refreshments. On my return she came out to meet me.

"She does not know, Lassie; ah, who will tell her? Heaven help her! Heaven help her!"

Later I saw her go with firm step, erect form, and faith-redeemed face, and stop silently as if in prayer at a closed door. Some one had told her. The door opened and she passed through. Then it gently shut, leaving her alone with her dead.

XIII

MY WOUNDED SOLDIER

For months "On to Richmond" had been the war-cry of the Federals, and the battle of Gaines's Mill, June 27, 1862, was the turning point of the seven days' battles around our Capital. No event of the memorable campaign which had followed that slogan was more important in its results than this desperate conflict.

McClellan in his retreat had burned and destroyed everything that could be carried away until he reached Watts's Farm, known also by the names of Gaines's Mill and Cold Harbor, and there was fought the greatest battle of the war, up to that time. The great stage painter, Nature, had never arranged a more picturesque scene for a battle than that which was set for Gaines's Mill, one of the most awful contests of the war. It was an undulating plain gracefully rising into gentle swells, crowned by a dense growth of trees. It terminated in a tall cliff, a great rounded mass of rock which had been hurled from its native bed so many centuries ago as to be now covered with a large forest. Directly in front of the cliff, separated by a deep gorge, was a low level field partly covered by a heavy crop of oats which, together with a natural growth of broom-sedge, afforded concealment to McClellan's sharpshooters and lines of skirmishers. The cliff was defended by three tiers of field artillery and a heavy infantry support.

Pickett's Brigade formed in line of battle under the brow of the hill, and my Soldier, leading and cheering on his men in ascending the cliff, was shot from his horse. His shoulder was pierced by a minie ball and his medical director wanted to take him off the field, saying the ball must be removed at once.

"My men need me," replied my Soldier. "Take the bullet out here and fix me up quick, doctor, I must go back--see, they need me."

The surgeon extracted the ball and my Soldier continued to give orders until, weak from pain and loss of blood, he was carried from the field. For some weeks he was on furlough at his home in Richmond and in July I was permitted to make my first call. Here I met for the second time Jefferson Davis, now President of the Confederacy. I had just taken my seat by my wounded Soldier when the President was announced and, to my inexpressible vexation, I saw the precious minutes slip away while he occupied my chair and I sat in a corner with Mrs. Burwell, my Soldier's only sister.

In spite of my green glasses I could not help forming a mental picture of the man who had been chosen as our political head. He was tall and extremely slender, but of indescribable dignity and grace. He was a type of the Old South, cultivated, refined, a brilliant conversationist. His eyes were clear and of a blue-gray color. He had a high forehead, straight nose, thin, compressed lips, pointed chin, prominent cheek bones, and deep lines around his mouth. His face was thin, features long and sharp, expression intense. There was no pomp in his movements, neither was there anything uncertain. His walk was wonderful; just what a President's walk ought to be but seldom is. When he rode, the beautiful unaffected harmony and grace of every motion were fascinating.

He pressed my Soldier's left hand, laying it gently down on the arm of the chair to avoid jarring him.

"How soon will you be able to go back?" he asked. "We need you in the field."

"I should like to go to-morrow," was the reply.

The President shook his head, and entered upon a brief account of the fighting after the battle of Gaines's Mill, praising my Soldier's brother, Major Charles Pickett, who had been wounded at Frazier's Farm, carrying the flag on foot after his horse had been shot from under him. I saw the President's eyes flash as he said:

"I am too much of a soldier to keep out of it in this way, I want to be in the fray. I would much have preferred fighting in the field to warring in the council chamber. I had gone out to consult with the Generals when the artillery duel between Jackson and Franklin began. I barely missed being accidentally shot and was carried off by force."

Then they talked of the time when they fought in Mexico.

On my next visit to my Soldier I met Stonewall Jackson, whom I had seen once in my childhood when I went with my grandmother to visit my uncle, Colonel J. J. Phillips, who was under him as a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute and was afterward associated with him as a professor in the same institution. Later I had heard my Soldier talk of him as the man of the war; the greatest military character developed in that fiery time. Even thus early the world began to know him for what he was. He came to see my Soldier and asked after his welfare.

General Jackson talked of Gaines's Mill and said that General Whiting, of his command, had lost his way and, not knowing where to find his commander, had reported to General Longstreet, who put his brigade a little in the rear of Pickett's men, so that the two brigades together made the assault which broke the enemy's lines. My Soldier, who always deplored the loss of life, expressed his sorrow over the death of certain gallant officers and so many soldiers. Stonewall replied, "General Pickett, we are fighting to save the country, not the army. I fight to win, no matter how many are killed."

While they were talking mint juleps were brought in, which Jackson declined, saying, "I never touch strong drink. I like it too well to fool with it, and no man's strength is strong enough to enable him to touch the stuff with impunity."

Julie, politely curtseying, came to the defense of her juleps:

"'Scuse me, Marse Gen'ul Jackson, but dese yer drams ain't got no impunities in 'em, suh. Nor, suh. Braxton done en mek 'em out'n we-all's ve'y best old London Dock brandy out'n one o' we-all's cobweb bottles."

Though my Soldier's wound was serious and he was suffering intensely, General Jackson did not express sympathy. He only deplored his absence from his command in time of need. My Soldier said afterward, "I believe that General Jackson classes all who are weak or starving as lacking in patriotism, and maybe he thinks I am unpatriotic to have been wounded."

Perhaps no one but Stonewall Jackson could have lived up to the stern Puritanism which made him so indifferent to external things--always more rigidly uncompromising for himself than for others. The same sturdy determination which had led the untrained boy years before to seek and obtain an appointment to West Point in the face of a multitude of discouragements was shown in Stonewall's famous requisition, "Send me twenty thousand men and no orders." The spirit which held Lieutenant Jackson to his guns in Mexico after all his men had been killed or driven away, and had won for him two promotions in one day, was the same spirit in which, having received an order that upset his well-matured plans, he promptly obeyed and as promptly sent in his resignation. The South had then learned his worth and her protest led him to withdraw his resignation, but he was never again hampered by instructions from the War Department.

It was said in the army that General Jackson was afraid of nothing but his own soldiers. Their expressions of devotion alarmed him. Riding his chestnut sorrel, his tall, powerful form bent forward, his long, solemn face, with high cheek bones half lost in heavy reddish-brown beard, his gray eyes cast downward, when he unexpectedly came upon his men the first cheer would cause him to straighten back, hold his shoulders erect, doff the old fatigue cap that concealed his receding forehead, spur up his horse and dash off at full speed, followed by ringing shouts until he was lost to view.

Soon after this meeting with our "Stonewall" I returned to school, and in October my Soldier reported for duty, his empty sleeve dangling, for it was two months before he was able to draw it over his wounded arm.

Sheltered by academic walls, absorbed in our budding ambitions, we were yet shaken by the thunders of Antietam and thrilled with triumphant, though awesome, joy by the lightnings of Fredericksburg that seemed to flash a fiery road to the goal of our dreams.

Then came Chancellorsville with its thrill of triumph, followed by the knowledge of the immeasurable cost of the victory.

In the Executive Mansion I helped Lizzie Letcher, the daughter of the Governor, and Miss Missouri Godwin, now the widow of General Ordway, pin tuberoses tied with crêpe on the lapels of those who with sad hearts followed their honored leader for the last time. At the grave each soldier took off his flower and laid it on the sacred mound.

The question asked in '61, "Who is this T. J. Jackson?" had been answered from many a battlefield. When the shot that struck him down sent its mournful message around the world the fullest response to that query came from the mourning hearts of friend and foe alike. Beyond the sea he was recorded as "one who took to a soldier's grave the love of the whole world and the name of Stonewall Jackson."

General Garnett was one of those who had been hurt by the severity of the hero's military discipline. My Soldier had charge of General Jackson's funeral and Garnett came to him and asked permission to take part. Of all who followed the great soldier to his grave there was no mourner more sincere. All antagonisms were drowned in the flood of veneration which surged around his name and fame.

XIV

THE RED FOX

In my next vacation, as my father could not come to Lynchburg for several days to take me home, he wrote that my mother suggested that I accept an invitation from a classmate in Lovingston, Virginia. Four others of our class were invited and we were having an old-time Virginia house-party, where friends and neighbors vied with our hosts in giving us pleasure, when a telegram came from my father saying that his old friend, Dr. Seon, a celebrated minister who had just romantically made his escape from prison in his daughter's clothes, would pass through Lynchburg the following day and would escort me home. Though sorry to make a break in our house-party I was glad to go, as it furthered the plan of my Soldier, which I had feared would go astray, to meet me in Petersburg where I was to stop over for a few days on my way home. On the train the doctor said:

"Lassie, I found, to my delight, the son of an old friend in the forward coach, whom I would like to present to you if I may. I have just told him I was traveling with a little lady-girl, or a little girl-lady, who was making me forget age and wars and troubles--just a ripple of sunshine, but a wee bit of a rascal withal. Shan't tell you what else I said, nor half the things he told me in reply about matching you against a certain young lady of his acquaintance, which young lady, I am inclined to think, is more than an 'acquaintance,' so I give you fair warning _not_ to fall in love with him."

I replied that I should be delighted to meet his friend but needed no warning, as _I_ had an acquaintance, too, who was more than an 'acquaintance,' and whom I would match against the entire universe.

I was handing the remainder of our luncheon out of the window to a half-clad, hungry looking soldier when the doctor returned with his friend and said:

"Miss Corbell, allow me to present to you the son of my old friend, of Henrico County, Virginia, General Pickett."

My heart jumped into my throat with delight and surprise and in breathless jerks I cried out--"Oh, my Soldier, my Soldier."

"I had no idea whom I was to have the honor of meeting," said my Soldier. "This, doctor, is the acquaintance of whom I spoke."

"Ah-ha!" said the doctor, "ah-ha!" He offered my Soldier his seat beside me, and the rest of the journey was a beautiful, beautiful, soulful dream. My Soldier stopped off at Richmond, and I went on to Petersburg, where I was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Duncan.

My friends in Petersburg had announced my coming, and a number of engagements had been made for me. The first was a large party at the Johnsons' and the next at the Raglands'. I did not know whether my Soldier would approve of my going without him and I neither wished to go nor approved of it myself, so I begged to be allowed to await his arrival the next day and make my first appearance with him. On seeing his look of loving appreciation I was very thankful to have made the decision. The party at the Raglands' was one of the largest and most brilliant ever given in Petersburg, and that evening our engagement was announced.

Two days later I was to start for my father's home but was amazed, especially as my Soldier was in command, to find that I could not get a permit. He was positive in his refusal and would make no exception in my favor. However, he consented to date for me a permit a week in advance. At the end of the week I said good-bye to him at the station and for the first time was wounded by him, almost heart-broken, because he did not seem as sorry at parting from me as I thought he ought to be. Besides, there was a peculiar quizzical twinkle in his eye that puzzled me and occupied my thoughts all the way down to Ivor Station, where my uncle, Doctor Phillips, met me. Though fretting because the parting had seemed of so little moment to my Soldier and wishing that I had not been sorry either, that is, not so sorry as I was, the drive from the station proved most pleasant and brought us to my uncle's near noon. That evening as I was about to retire, a little after eight (they go to bed early in the country), we heard horses galloping down the lane.

"Listen to the clanking of the swords," said my uncle. "Those are certainly soldiers and I did not know there were any within miles of us."

I listened, heard the horses turned over to the orderly, heard footsteps on the gravel, then on the porch, and in answer to my uncle's greeting I recognized with unutterable joy the voice of my own Soldier and that of one of his staff. They were asking for me, had been welcomed, and the candle was lighting them into the parlor. The dread mystery of my Soldier's cheerfulness at parting from me was explained. He had come through on the same day with a part of his division and they were then in camp on the Blackwater a few miles distant.