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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Brigade Commander, by J. W. Deforest
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Brigade Commander
+
+Author: J. W. Deforest
+
+Release Date: October 24, 2007 [EBook #23182]
+Last Updated: November 4, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRIGADE COMMANDER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BRIGADE COMMANDER
+
+By J. W. Deforest
+
+By permission of “The New York Times.”
+
+
+The Colonel was the idol of his bragging old regiment and of the
+bragging brigade which for the last six months he had commanded.
+
+He was the idol, not because he was good and gracious, not because he
+spared his soldiers or treated them as fellow-citizens, but because he
+had led them to victory and made them famous. If a man will win battles
+and give his brigade a right to brag loudly of its doings, he may have
+its admiration and even its enthusiastic devotion, though he be as
+pitiless and as wicked as Lucifer.
+
+“It’s nothin’ to me what the Currnell is in prrivit, so long as he shows
+us how to whack the rrebs,” said Major Gahogan, commandant of the “Old
+Tenth.” “Moses saw God in the burrnin’ bussh, an’ bowed down to it, an’
+worr-shipt it. It wasn’t the bussh he worrshipt; it was his God that
+was in it. An’ I worrship this villin of a Currnell (if he is a villin)
+because he’s almighty and gives us the vict’ry. He’s nothin’ but a human
+burrnin’ bussh, perhaps, but he’s got the god of war in um. Adjetant
+Wallis, it’s a------long time between dhrinks, as I think ye was
+sayin’, an’ with rayson. See if ye can’t confiscate a canteen of whiskee
+somewhere in the camp. Bedad, if I can’t buy it I’ll stale it. We’re
+goin’ to fight tomorry, an’ it may be it’s the last chance we’ll have
+for a dhrink, unless there’s more lik’r now in the other worrld than
+Dives got.”
+
+The brigade was bivouacked in some invisible region, amid the damp,
+misty darkness of a September night. The men lay in their ranks, each
+with his feet to the front and his head rearward, each covered by his
+overcoat and pillowed upon his haversack, each with his loaded rifle
+nestled close beside him. Asleep as they were, or dropping placidly into
+slumber, they were ready to start in order to their feet and pour out
+the red light and harsh roar of combat. There were two lines of battle,
+each of three regiments of infantry, the first some two hundred yards
+in advance of the second. In the space between them lay two four-gun
+batteries, one of them brass twelve-pounder “Napoleons,” and the other
+rifled Parrotts. To the rear of the infantry were the recumbent troopers
+and picketed horses of a regiment of cavalry. All around, in the far,
+black distance, invisible and inaudible, paced or watched stealthily the
+sentinels of the grand guards.
+
+There was not a fire, not a torch, nor a star-beam in the whole bivouac
+to guide the feet of Adjutant Wallis in his pilgrimage after
+whiskey. The orders from brigade headquarters had been strict against
+illuminations, for the Confederates were near at hand in force, and a
+surprise was proposed as well as feared. A tired and sleepy youngster,
+almost dropping with the heavy somnolence of wearied adolescence, he
+stumbled on through the trials of an undiscernible and unfamiliar
+footing, lifting his heavy riding-boots sluggishly over imaginary
+obstacles, and fearing the while lest his toil were labor misspent. It
+was a dry camp, he felt dolefully certain, or there would have been more
+noise in it. He fell over a sleeping sergeant, and said to him hastily,
+“Steady, man--a friend!” as the half-roused soldier clutched his rifle.
+Then he found a lieutenant, and shook him in vain; further on a captain,
+and exchanged saddening murmurs with him; further still a camp-follower
+of African extraction, and blasphemed him.
+
+“It’s a God-forsaken camp, and there isn’t a horn in it,” said Adjutant
+Wallis to himself as he pursued his groping journey. “Bet you I don’t
+find the first drop,” he continued, for he was a betting boy, and
+frequently argued by wagers, even with himself. “Bet you two to one I
+don’t. Bet you three to one--ten to one.”
+
+Then he saw, an indefinite distance beyond him, burning like red-hot
+iron through the darkness, a little scarlet or crimson gleam, as of a
+lighted cigar.
+
+“That’s Old Grumps, of the Bloody Fourteenth,” he thought. “I’ve raided
+into his happy sleeping-grounds. I’ll draw on him.”
+
+But Old Grumps, otherwise Colonel Lafayette Gildersleeve, had no
+rations--that is, no whiskey.
+
+“How do you suppose an officer is to have a drink, Lieutenant?” he
+grumbled. “Don’t you know that our would-be Brigadier sent all the
+commissary to the rear day before yesterday? A eanteenful can’t last two
+days. Mine went empty about five minutes ago.”
+
+“Oh, thunder!” groaned Wallis, saddened by that saddest of all thoughts,
+“Too late!” “Well, least said soonest mended. I must wobble back to my
+Major.”
+
+“He’ll send you off to some other camp as dry as this one. Wait ten
+minutes, and he’ll be asleep. Lie down on my blanket and light your
+pipe. I want to talk to you about official business--about our would-be
+Brigadier.”
+
+“Oh, _your_ turn will come some day,” mumbled Wallis, remembering
+Gildersleeve’s jealousy of the brigade commander--a jealousy which only
+gave tongue when aroused by “commissary.” “If you do as well as usual
+to-morrow you can have your own brigade.”
+
+“I suppose you think we are all going to do well to-morrow,” scoffed Old
+Grumps, whose utterance by this time stumbled. “I suppose you expect to
+whip and to have a good time. I suppose you brag on fighting and enjoy
+it.”
+
+“I like it well enough when it goes right; and it generally does go
+right with this brigade. I should like it better if the rebs would fire
+higher and break quicker.”
+
+“That depends on the way those are commanded whose business it is to
+break them,” growled Old Grumps. “I don’t say but what we are rightly
+commanded,” he added, remembering his duty to superiors. “I concede and
+acknowledge that our would-be Brigadier knows his military business. But
+the blessing of God, Wallis! I believe in Waldron as a soldier. But as a
+man and a Christian, faugh!”
+
+Gildersleeve had clearly emptied his canteen unassisted; he never talked
+about Christianity when perfectly sober.
+
+“What was your last remark?” inquired Wallis, taking his pipe from his
+mouth to grin. Even a superior officer might be chaffed a little in the
+darkness.
+
+“I made no last remark,” asserted the Colonel with dignity. “I’m not
+a-dying yet. If I said anything last it was a mere exclamation of
+disgust--the disgust of an officer and gentleman. I suppose you know
+something about our would-be Brigadier. I suppose you think you know
+something about him.”
+
+“Bet you I know _all_ about him,” affirmed Wallis. “He enlisted in the
+Old Tenth as a common soldier. Before he had been a week in camp they
+found that he knew his biz, and they made him a sergeant. Before we
+started for the field the Governor got his eye on him and shoved him
+into a lieutenancy. The first battle h’isted him to a captain. And
+the second--bang! whiz! he shot up to colonel right over the heads of
+everybody, line and field. Nobody in the Old Tenth grumbled. They saw
+that he knew his biz. I know _all_ about him. What’ll you bet?”
+
+“I’m not a betting man, Lieutenant, except in a friendly game of poker,”
+ sighed Old Grumps. “You don’t know anything about your Brigadier,” he
+added in a sepulchral murmur, the echo of an empty canteen. “I have only
+been in this brigade a month, and I know more than you do, far, very far
+more, sorry to say it. He’s a reformed clergyman. He’s an apostatized
+minister.” The Colonel’s voice as he said this was solemn and sad enough
+to do credit to an undertaker. “It’s a bad sort, Wallis,” he continued,
+after another deep sigh, a very highly perfumed one, the sigh of a
+barkeeper. “When a clergyman falls, he falls for life and eternity,
+like a woman or an angel. I never knew a backslidden shepherd to come
+to good. Sooner or later he always goes to the devil, and takes down
+whomsoever hangs to him.”
+
+“He’ll take down the Old Tenth, then,” asserted Wallis. “It hangs to
+him. Bet you two to one he takes it along.”
+
+“You’re right, Adjutant; spoken like a soldier,” swore Gildersleeve,
+“And the Bloody Fourteenth, too. It will march into the burning pit as
+far as any regiment; and the whole brigade, yes, sir! But a backslidden
+shepherd, my God! Have we come to that? I often say to myself, in the
+solemn hours of the night, as I remember my Sabbath-school days, ‘Great
+Scott! have we come to that?’ A reformed clergyman! An apostatized
+minister! Think of it, Wallis, think of it! Why, sir, his very wife ran
+away from him. They had but just buried their first boy,” pursued Old
+Grumps, his hoarse voice sinking to a whimper. “They drove home from the
+burial-place, where lay the new-made grave. Arrived at their door, _he_
+got out and extended his hand to help _her_ out. Instead of accepting,
+instead of throwing herself into his arms and weeping there, she turned
+to the coachman and said, ‘Driver, drive me to my father’s house.’ That
+was the end of their wedded life, Wallis.”
+
+The Colonel actually wept at this point, and the maudlin tears were not
+altogether insincere. His own wife and children he heartily loved, and
+remembered them now with honest tenderness. At home he was not a drinker
+and a rough; only amid the hardships and perils of the field.
+
+“That was the end of it, Wallis,” he repeated. “And what was it while it
+lasted? What does a woman leave her husband for? Why does she separate
+from him over the grave of her innocent first-born? There are twenty
+reasons, but they must all of them be good ones. I am sorry to give it
+as my decided opinion, Wallis, in perfect confidence, that they must all
+be whopping good ones. Well, that was the beginning; only the beginning.
+After that he held on for a while, breaking the bread of life to a
+skedaddling flock, and then he bolted. The next known of him, three
+years later, he enlisted in your regiment, a smart but seedy recruit,
+smelling strongly of whiskey.”
+
+“I wish I smelt half as strong of it myself,” grumbled Wallis. “It might
+keep out the swamp fever.”
+
+“That’s the true story of Col. John James Waldron,” continued Old
+Grumps, with a groan which was very somnolent, as if it were a twin to a
+snore. “That’s the true story.”
+
+“I don’t believe the first word of it--that is to say, Colonel, I think
+you have been misinformed--and I’ll bet you two to one on it. If he was
+nothing more than a minister, how did he know drill and tactics?”
+
+“Oh, I forgot to say he went through West Point--that is, nearly
+through. They graduated him in his third year by the back door, Wallis.”
+
+“Oh, that was it, was it? He was a West Pointer, was he? Well, then, the
+backsliding was natural, and oughtn’t to count against him. A member of
+Benny Haven’s church has a right to backslide anywhere, especially as
+the Colonel doesn’t seem to be any worse than some of the rest of us,
+who haven’t fallen from grace the least particle, but took our stand at
+the start just where we are now. A fellow that begins with a handful of
+trumps has a right to play a risky game.”
+
+“I know what euchered him, Wallis. It was the old Little Joker; and
+there’s another of the same on hand now.”
+
+“On hand where? What are you driving at, Colonel?”
+
+“He looks like a boy. I mean she looks like a boy. You know what I
+mean, Wallis; I mean the boy that makes believe to wait on him. And
+her brother is in camp, got here to-night. There’ll be an explanation
+to-morrow, and there’ll be bloodshed.”
+
+“Good-night, Colonel, and sleep it off,” said Wallis, rising from
+the side of a man whom he believed to be sillily drunk and altogether
+untrustworthy. “You know we get after the rebs at dawn.”
+
+“I know it--goo-night, Adjutant--gawbless-you,” mumbled Old Grumps.
+“We’ll lick those rebs, won’t we?” he chuckled. “Goo-night, ole fellow,
+an’ gawblessyou.”
+
+Whereupon Old Grumps fell asleep, very absurdly overcome by liquor, we
+extremely regret to concede, but nobly sure to do his soldierly duty as
+soon as he should awake.
+
+Stumbling wearily blanketward, Wallis found his Major and regimental
+commander, the genial and gallant Gahogan, slumbering in a peace like
+that of the just. He stretched himself anear, put out his hand to touch
+his sabre and revolver, drew his caped great-coat over him, moved once
+to free his back of a root or pebble, glanced languidly at a single
+struggling star, thought for an instant of his far-away mother, turned
+his head with a sigh and slept. In the morning he was to fight, and
+perhaps to die; but the boyish veteran was too seasoned, and also too
+tired, to mind that; he could mind but one thing--nature’s pleading for
+rest.
+
+In the iron-gray dawn, while the troops were falling dimly and
+spectrally into line, and he was mounting his horse to be ready for
+orders, he remembered Gildersleeve’s drunken tale concerning the
+commandant, and laughed aloud. But turning his face toward brigade
+headquarters (a sylvan region marked out by the branches of a great
+oak), he was surprised to see a strange officer, a fair young man in
+captain’s uniform, riding slowly toward it.
+
+“Is that the boy’s brother?” he said to himself; and in the next instant
+he had forgotten the whole subject; it was time to form and present the
+regiment.
+
+Quietly and without tap of drum the small, battle-worn battalions filed
+out of their bivouacs into the highway, ordered arms and waited for
+the word to march. With a dull rumble the field-pieces trundled slowly
+after, and halted in rear of the infantry. The cavalry trotted off
+circuitously through the fields, emerged upon a road in advance and
+likewise halted, all but a single company, which pushed on for half a
+mile, spreading out as it went into a thin line of skirmishers.
+
+Meanwhile a strange interview took place near the great oak which had
+sheltered brigade headquarters. As the unknown officer, whom Wallis had
+noted, approached it, Col. Waldron was standing by his horse ready
+to mount. The commandant was a man of medium size, fairly handsome in
+person and features, and apparently about twenty-eight years of age.
+Perhaps it was the singular breadth of his forehead which made the lower
+part of his face look so unusually slight and feminine. His eyes were
+dark hazel, as clear, brilliant, and tender as a girl’s, and brimming
+full of a pensiveness which seemed both loving and melancholy. Few
+persons, at all events few women, who looked upon him ever looked beyond
+his eyes. They were very fascinating, and in a man’s countenance very
+strange. They were the kind of eyes which reveal passionate romances,
+and which make them.
+
+By his side stood a boy, a singularly interesting and beautiful boy,
+fair-haired and blue-eyed, and delicate in color. When this boy saw
+the stranger approach he turned as pale as marble, slid away from
+the brigade commander’s side, and disappeared behind a group of staff
+officers and orderlies. The new-comer also became deathly white as he
+glanced after the retreating youth. Then he dismounted, touched his
+cap slightly and, as if mechanically, advanced a few steps, and said
+hoarsely, “I believe this is Colonel Waldron. I am Captain Fitz Hugh, of
+the --th Delaware.”
+
+Waldron put his hand to his revolver, withdrew it instantaneously, and
+stood motionless.
+
+“I am on leave of absence from my regiment, Colonel,” continued Fitz
+Hugh, speaking now with an elaborate ceremoniousness of utterance
+significant of a struggle to suppress violent emotion. “I suppose you
+can understand why I made use of it in seeking you.”
+
+Waldron hesitated; he stood gazing at the earth with the air of one who
+represses deep pain; at last, after a profound sigh, he raised his eyes
+and answered:
+
+“Captain, we are on the eve of a battle. I must attend to my public
+duties first. After the battle we will settle our private affair.”
+
+“There is but one way to settle it, Colonel.”
+
+“You shall have your way if you will. You shall do what you will. I only
+ask what good will it do to _her?_”
+
+“It will do good to _me_, Colonel,” whispered Fitz Hugh, suddenly
+turning crimson. “You forget _me_.”
+
+Waldron’s face also flushed, and an angry sparkle shot from under
+his lashes in reply to this utterance of hate, but it died out in an
+instant.
+
+“I have done a wrong, and I will accept the consequences,” he said.
+“I pledge you my word that I will be at your disposal if I survive the
+battle. Where do you propose to remain meanwhile?”
+
+“I will take the same chance, sir. I propose to do my share in the
+fighting if you will use me.”
+
+“I am short of staff officers. Will you act as my aid?”
+
+“I will, Colonel,” bowed Fitz Hugh, with a glance which expressed
+surprise, and perhaps admiration, at this confidence.
+
+Waldron turned, beckoned his staff officers to approach, and said,
+“Gentlemen, this is Captain Fitz Hugh of the --th Delaware. He has
+volunteered to join us for the day, and will act as my aid. And now,
+Captain, will you ride to the head of the column and order it forward?
+There will be no drum-beat and no noise. When you have given your order
+and seen it executed, you will wait for me.”
+
+Fitz Hugh saluted, sprang into his saddle and galloped away. A few
+minutes later the whole column was plodding on silently toward
+its bloody goal. To a civilian, unaccustomed to scenes of war, the
+tranquillity of these men would have seemed very wonderful. Many of the
+soldiers were still munching the hard bread and raw pork of their meagre
+breakfasts, or drinking the cold coffee with which they had filled their
+canteens the day previous. Many more were chatting in an undertone,
+grumbling over their sore feet and other discomfits, chaffing each
+other, and laughing. The general bearing, however, was grave, patient,
+quietly enduring, and one might almost say stolid. You would have said,
+to judge by their expressions, that these sunburned fellows were merely
+doing hard work, and thoroughly commonplace work, without a prospect of
+adventure, and much less of danger. The explanation of this calmness, so
+brutal perhaps to the eye of a sensitive soul, lies mainly in the fact
+that they were all veterans, the survivors of marches, privations,
+maladies, sieges, and battles. Not a regiment present numbered four
+hundred men, and the average was not above three hundred. The
+whole force, including artillery and cavalry, might have been about
+twenty-five hundred sabres and bayonets.
+
+At the beginning of the march Waldron fell into the rear of his staff
+and mounted orderlies. Then the boy who had fled from Fitz Hugh dropped
+out of the tramping escort, and rode up to his side.
+
+“Well, Charlie,” said Waldron, casting a pitying glance at the yet
+pallid face and anxious eyes of the youth, “you have had a sad fright. I
+make you very miserable.”
+
+“He has found us at last,” murmured Charlie in a tremulous soprano
+voice. “What did he say?”
+
+“We are to talk to-morrow. He acts as my aide-de-camp to-day. I ought to
+tell you frankly that he is not friendly.”
+
+“Of course, I knew it,” sighed Charlie, while the tears fell.
+
+“It is only one more trouble--one more danger, and perhaps it may pass.
+So many _have_ passed.”
+
+“Did you tell him anything to quiet him? Did you tell him that we were
+married?”
+
+“But we are not married yet, Charlie. We shall be, I hope.”
+
+“But you ought to have told him that we were. It might stop him from
+doing something--mad. Why didn’t you tell him so? Why didn’t you think
+of it?”
+
+“My dear little child, we are about to have a battle. I should like to
+carry some honor and truth into it.”
+
+“Where is he?” continued Charlie, unconvinced and unappeased. “I want to
+see him. Is he at the head of the column? I want to speak to him, just
+one word. He won’t hurt me.”
+
+She suddenly spurred her horse, wheeled into the fields, and dashed
+onward. Fitz Hugh was lounging in his saddle, and sombrely surveying the
+passing column, when she galloped up to him.
+
+“Carrol!” she said, in a choked voice, reining in by his side, and
+leaning forward to touch his sleeve.
+
+He threw one glance at her--a glance of aversion, if not of downright
+hatred, and turned his back in silence.
+
+“He is my husband, Carrol,” she went on rapidly. “I knew you didn’t
+understand it. I ought to have written you about it. I thought I would
+come and tell you before you did anything absurd. We were married as
+soon as he heard that his wife was dead.”
+
+“What is the use of this?” he muttered hoarsely. “She is not dead. I
+heard from her a week ago. She was living a week ago.”
+
+“Oh, Carrol!” stammered Charlie. “It was some mistake then. Is it
+possible! And he was so sure! But he can get a divorce, you know. She
+abandoned him. Or _she_ can get one. No, _he_ can get it--of course,
+when she abandoned him. But, Carrol, she _must_ be dead--he was _so_
+sure.”
+
+“She is _not_ dead, I tell you. And there can be no divorce. Insanity
+bars all claim to a divorce. She is in an asylum. She had to leave him,
+and then she went mad.”
+
+“Oh, no, Carrol, it is all a mistake; it is not so. Carrol,” she
+murmured in a voice so faint that he could not help glancing at her,
+half in fury and half in pity. She was slowly falling from her horse.
+He sprang from his saddle, caught her in his arms, and laid her on the
+turf, wishing the while that it covered her grave. Just then one of
+Waldron’s orderlies rode up and exclaimed: “What is the matter with
+the--the boy? Hullo, Charlie.”
+
+Fitz Hugh stared at the man in silence, tempted to tear him from his
+horse. “The boy is ill,” he answered when he recovered his self-command.
+“Take charge of him yourself.” He remounted, rode onward out of sight
+beyond a thicket, and there waited for the brigade commander, now and
+then fingering his revolver. As Charlie was being placed in an ambulance
+by the orderly and a sergeant’s wife, Waldron came up, reined in his
+horse violently, and asked in a furious voice, “Is that boy hurt?
+
+“Ah--fainted,” he added immediately. “Thank you, Mrs. Gunner. Take good
+care of him--the best of care, my dear woman, and don’t let him leave
+you all day.”
+
+Further on, when Fitz Hugh silently fell into his escort, he merely
+glanced at him in a furtive way, and then cantered on rapidly to the
+head of the cavalry. There he beckoned to the tall, grave, iron-gray
+Chaplain of the Tenth, and rode with him for nearly an hour, apart,
+engaged in low and seemingly impassioned discourse. From this interview
+Mr. Colquhoun returned to the escort with a strangely solemnized, tender
+countenance, while the commandant, with a more cheerful air than he had
+yet worn that day, gave himself to his martial duties, inspecting the
+landscape incessantly with his glass, and sending frequently for news
+to the advance scouts. It may properly be stated here that the Chaplain
+never divulged to any one the nature of the conversation which he had
+held with his Colonel.
+
+Nothing further of note occurred until the little army, after two hours
+of plodding march, wound through a sinuous, wooded ravine, entered a
+broad, bare, slightly undulating valley, and for the second time halted.
+Waldron galloped to the summit of a knoll, pointed to a long eminence
+which faced him some two miles distant, and said tranquilly, “There is
+our battle-ground.”
+
+“Is that the enemy’s position?” returned Captain Ives, his
+adjutant-general. “We shall have a tough job if we go at it from here.”
+
+Waldron remained in deep thought for some minutes, meanwhile scanning
+the ridge and all its surroundings.
+
+“What I want to know,” he observed, at last, “is whether they have
+occupied the wooded knolls in front of their right and around their
+right flank.”
+
+Shortly afterward the commander of the scout ing squadron came riding
+back at a furious pace.
+
+“They are on the hill, Colonel,” he shouted.
+
+“Yes, of course,” nodded Waldron; “but have they occupied the woods
+which veil their right front and flank?”
+
+“Not a bit of it; my fellows have cantered all through, and up to the
+base of the hill.”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed the brigade commander, with a rush of elation. “Then it
+will be easy work. Go back, Captain, and scatter your men through
+the wood, and hold it, if possible. Adjutant, call up the regimental
+commanders at once. I want them to understand my plan fully.”
+
+In a few minutes, Gahogan, of the Tenth; Gildersleeve, of the
+Fourteenth; Peck, of the First; Thomas, of the Seventh; Taylor, of the
+Eighth, and Colburn, of the Fifth, were gathered around their commander.
+There, too, was Bradley, the boyish, red-cheeked chief of the artillery;
+and Stilton, the rough, old, bearded regular, who headed the cavalry.
+The staff was at hand, also, including Fitz Hugh, who sat his horse a
+little apart, downcast and sombre and silent, but nevertheless keenly
+interested. It is worthy of remark, by the way, that Waldron took
+no special note of him, and did not seem conscious of any disturbing
+presence. Evil as the man may have been, he was a thoroughly good
+soldier, and just now he thought but of his duties.
+
+“Gentlemen,” he said, “I want you to see your field of battle. The enemy
+occupy that long ridge. How shall we reach it?”
+
+“I think, if we got at it straight from here, we shan’t miss it,”
+ promptly judged Old Grumps, his red-oak countenance admirably cheerful
+and hopeful, and his jealousy all dissolved in the interest of
+approaching combat.
+
+“Nor they won’t miss us nuther,” laughed Major Gahogan. “Betther slide
+our infantree into thim wuds, push up our skirmishers, play wid our guns
+for an hour, an’ thin rowl in a couple o’ col’ms.”
+
+There was a general murmur of approval. The limits of volunteer
+invention in tactics had been reached by Gahogan. The other regimental
+commanders looked upon him as their superior in the art of war.
+
+“That would be well, Major, if we could do nothing better,” said
+Waldron. “But I do not feel obliged to attack the front seriously
+at all. The rebels have been thoughtless enough to leave that long
+semicircle of wooded knolls unoccupied, even by scouts. It stretches
+from the front of their centre clear around their right flank. I shall
+use it as a veil to cover us while we get into position. I shall throw
+out a regiment, a battery, and five companies of cavalry, to make a
+feint against their centre and left. With the remainder of the brigade
+I shall skirt the woods, double around the right of the position, and
+close in upon it front and rear.”
+
+“Loike scissors blades upon a snip o’ paper,” shouted Gahogan, in
+delight. Then he turned to Fitz Hugh, who happened to be nearest him,
+and added, “I tell ye he’s got the God o’ War in um. He’s the burnin’
+bussh of humanity, wid a God o’ Battles inside on’t.”
+
+“But how if they come down on our thin right wing?” asked a cautious
+officer, Taylor, of the Eighth. “They might smash it and seize our line
+of retreat.”
+
+“Men who have taken up a strong position, a position obviously chosen
+for defence, rarely quit it promptly for an attack,” replied Waldron.
+“There is not one chance in ten that these gentlemen will make a
+considerable forward movement early in the fight. Only the greatest
+geniuses jump from the defensive to the offensive. Besides, we must hold
+the wood. So long as we hold the wood in front of their centre we save
+the road.”
+
+Then came personal and detailed instructions. Each regimental commander
+was told whither he should march, the point where he should halt to
+form line, and the direction by which he should attack. The mass of
+the command was to advance in marching column toward a knoll where the
+highway entered and traversed the wood. Some time before reaching
+it Taylor was to deploy the Eighth to the right, throw out a strong
+skirmish line and open fire on the enemy’s centre and left, supported by
+the battery of Parrotts, and, if pushed, by five companies of cavalry.
+The remaining troops would reach the knoll, file to the left under cover
+of the forest, skirt it for a mile as rapidly as possible, infold the
+right of the Confederate position, and then move upon it concentrically.
+Counting from the left, the Tenth, the Seventh, and the Fourteenth were
+to constitute the first line of battle, while five companies of cavalry,
+then the First, and then the Fifth formed the second line. Not until
+Gahogan might have time to wind into the enemy’s right rear should
+Gildersleeve move out of the wood and commence the real attack.
+
+“You will go straight at the front of their right,” said Waldron, with
+a gay smile, to this latter Colonel. “Send up two companies as
+skirmishers. The moment they are clearly checked, lead up the other
+eight in line. It will be rough work. But keep pushing. You won’t have
+fifteen minutes of it before Thomas, on your left, will be climbing the
+end of the ridge to take the rebels in flank. In fifteen minutes more
+Gahogan will be running in on their backs. Of course, they will try to
+change front and meet us. But they have extended their line a long way
+in order to cover the whole ridge. They will not be quick enough. We
+shall get hold of their right, and we shall roll them up. Then, Colonel
+Stilton, I shall expect to see the troopers jumping into the gaps and
+making prisoners.”
+
+“All right, Colonel,” answered Stilton in that hoarse growl which is apt
+to mark the old cavalry officer. “Where shall we find you if we want a
+fresh order?”
+
+“I shall be with Colburn, in rear of Gildersleeve. That is our centre.
+But never mind me; you know what the battle is to be, and you know how
+to fight it. The whole point with the infantry is to fold around the
+enemy’s right, go in upon it concentrically, smash it, and roll up their
+line. The cavalry will watch against the infantry being flanked, and
+when the latter have seized the hill, will charge for prisoners. The
+artillery will reply to the enemy’s guns with shell, and fire grape at
+any offensive demonstration. You all know your duties, now, gentlemen.
+Go to your commands, and march!”
+
+The colonels saluted and started off at a gallop. In a few minutes
+twenty-five hundred men were in simultaneous movement. Five companies of
+cavalry wheeled into column of companies, and advanced at a trot through
+the fields, seeking to gain the shelter of the forest. The six infantry
+regiments slid up alongside of each other, and pushed on in six parallel
+columns of march, two on the right of the road and four on the left. The
+artillery, which alone left the highway, followed at a distance of two
+or three hundred yards. The remaining cavalry made a wide detour to the
+right as if to flank the enemy’s left.
+
+It was a mile and a quarter--it was a march of fully twenty minutes--to
+the edge of the woodland, the proposed cover of the column. Ten minutes
+before this point was reached a tiny puff of smoke showed on the brow of
+the hostile ridge; then, at an interval of several seconds, followed the
+sound of a distant explosion; then, almost immediately, came the screech
+of a rifled shell. Every man who heard it swiftly asked himself, “Will
+it strike _me?_” But even as the words were thought out it had passed,
+high in air, clean to the rear, and burst harmlessly. A few faces turned
+upward and a few eyes glanced backward, as if to see the invisible
+enemy. But there was no pause in the column; it flowed onward quietly,
+eagerly, and with business-like precision; it gave forth no sound but
+the trampling of feet and the muttering of the officers. “Steady, men!
+For-ward, men!”
+
+The Confederates, however, had got their range. A half minute later four
+puffs of smoke dotted the ridge, and a flight of hoarse humming shrieks
+tore the air. A little aureole cracked and splintered over the First,
+followed by loud cries of anguish and a brief, slight confusion. The
+voice of an officer rose sharply out of the flurry, “Close up, Company
+A! Forward, men!” The battalion column resumed its even formation in an
+instant, and tramped unitedly onward, leaving behind it two quivering
+corpses and a wounded man who tottered rearward.
+
+Then came more screeches, and a shell exploded over the highroad,
+knocking a gunner lifeless from his carriage. The brigade commander
+glanced anxiously along his batteries, and addressed a few words to his
+chief of artillery. Presently the four Napoleons set forward at a gallop
+for the wood, while the four Parrotts wheeled to the right, deployed,
+and advanced across the fields, inclining toward the left of the enemy.
+Next Taylor’s regiment (the Eighth) halted, fronted, faced to the right,
+and filed off in column of march at a double-quick until it had gained
+the rear of the Parrotts, when it fronted again, and pushed on in
+support. A quarter of a mile further on these guns went into battery
+behind the brow of a little knoll, and opened fire. Four companies
+of the Eighth spread out to the right as skirmishers, and commenced
+stealing toward the ridge, from time to time measuring the distance with
+rifle-balls. The remainder of the regiment lay down in line between
+the Parrotts and the forest. Far away to the right, five companies of
+cavalry showed themselves, manoeuvring as if they proposed to turn the
+left flank of the Southerners. The attack on this side was in form and
+in operation.
+
+Meantime the Confederate fire had divided. Two guns pounded away at
+Taylor’s feint, while two shelled the main column. The latter was struck
+repeatedly; more than twenty men dropped silent or groaning out of
+the hurrying files; but the survivors pushed on without faltering and
+without even caring for the wounded. At last a broad belt of green
+branches rose between the regiments and the ridge; and the rebel
+gunners, unable to see their foe, dropped suddenly into silence.
+
+Here it appeared that the road divided. The highway traversed the
+forest, mounted the slope beyond and dissected the enemy’s position,
+while a branch road turned to the left and skirted the exterior of the
+long curve of wooded hillocks. At the fork the battery of Napoleons had
+halted, and there it was ordered to remain for the present in quiet.
+There, too, the Fourteenth filed in among the dense greenery, threw out
+two companies of skirmishers toward the ridge, and pushed slowly after
+them into the shadows.
+
+“Get sight of the enemy at once!” was Wal-dron’s last word to
+Gildersleeve. “If they move down the slope, drive them back. But don’t
+commence your attack under half an hour.”
+
+Next he filed the Fifth to the thickets, saying to Colburn, “I want you
+to halt a hundred yards to the left and rear of Gildersleeve. Cover his
+flank if he is attacked; but otherwise lie quiet. As soon as he charges,
+move forward to the edge of the wood, and be ready to support him. But
+make no assault yourself until further orders.”
+
+The next two regiments--the Seventh and First--he placed in _échelon_,
+in like manner, a quarter of a mile further along. Then he galloped
+forward to the cavalry, and a last word with Stilton. “You and Gahogan
+must take care of yourselves. Push on four or five hundred yards, and
+then face to the right. Whatever Gahogan finds let him go at it. If he
+can’t shake it, help him. You two _must_ reach the top of the ridge.
+Only, look out for your left flank. Keep a squadron or two in reserve on
+that side.”
+
+“Currnel, if we don’t raich the top of the hill, it’ll be because
+it hasn’t got wan,” answered Gahogan. Stilton only laughed and rode
+forward.
+
+Waldron now returned toward the fork of the road. On the way he sent a
+staff officer to the Seventh with renewed orders to attack as soon as
+possible after Gildersleeve. Then another staff officer was hurried
+forward to Taylor with directions to push his feint strongly, and drive
+his skirmishers as far up the slope as they could get. A third staff
+officer set the Parrotts in rear of Taylor to firing with all their
+might. By the time that the commandant had returned to Col-burn’s
+ambushed ranks, no one was with him but his enemy, Fitz Hugh.
+
+“You don’t seem to trust me with duty, Colonel,” said the young man.
+
+“I shall use you only in case of extremity, Captain,” replied Waldron.
+“We have business to settle to-morrow.”
+
+“I ask no favors on that account. I hope you will offer me none.”
+
+“In case of need I shall spare no one,” declared Waldron.
+
+Then he took out his watch, looked at it impatiently, put it to his ear,
+restored it to his pocket, and fell into an attitude of deep attention.
+Evidently his whole mind was on his battle, and he was waiting,
+watching, yearning for its outburst.
+
+“If he wins this fight,” thought Fitz Hugh, “how can I do him a harm?
+And yet,” he added, “how can I help it?”
+
+Minutes passed. Fitz Hugh tried to think of his injury, and to steel
+himself against his chief. But the roar of battle on the right, and the
+suspense and imminence of battle on the left, absorbed the attention of
+even this wounded and angry spirit, as, indeed, they might have
+absorbed that of any being not more or less than human. A private wrong,
+insupportable though it might be, seemed so small amid that deadly
+clamor and awful expectation! Moreover, the intellect which worked so
+calmly and vigorously by his side, and which alone of all things near
+appeared able to rule the coming crisis, began to dominate him, in spite
+of his sense of injury. A thought crossed him to the effect that the
+great among men are too valuable to be punished for their evil deeds.
+He turned to the absorbed brigade commander, now not only his ruler,
+but even his protector, with a feeling that he must accord him a word
+of peace, a proffer in some form of possible forgiveness and friendship.
+But the man’s face was clouded and stern with responsibility and
+authority. He seemed at that moment too lofty to be approached with a
+message of pardon. Fitz Hugh gazed at him with a mixture of prof ound
+respect and smothered hate. He gazed, turned away, and remained silent.
+
+Minutes more passed. Then a mounted orderly dashed up at full speed,
+with the words, “Colonel, Major Gahogan has fronted.”
+
+“Has he?” answered Waldron, with a smile which thanked the trooper and
+made him happy. “Ride on through the thicket here, my man, and tell
+Colonel Gildersleeve to push up his skirmishers.”
+
+With a thud of hoofs and a rustling of parting foliage the cavalryman
+disappeared amid the underwood. A minute or two later a thin, dropping
+rattle of musketry, five hundred yards or so to the front, announced
+that the sharpshooters of the Fourteenth were at work. Almost
+immediately there was an angry response, full of the threatenings and
+execution of death. Through the lofty leafage tore the screech of a
+shell, bursting with a sharp crash as it passed overhead, and scattering
+in humming slivers. Then came another, and another, and many more,
+chasing each other with hoarse hissings through the trembling air, a
+succession of flying serpents. The enemy doubtless believed that nearly
+the whole attacking force was massed in the wood around the road, and
+they had brought at least four guns to bear upon that point, and were
+working them with the utmost possible rapidity. Presently a large
+chestnut, not fifty yards from Fitz Hugh, was struck by a shot. The
+solid trunk, nearly three feet in diameter, parted asunder as if it were
+the brittlest of vegetable matter. The upper portion started aside with
+a monstrous groan, dropped in a standing posture to the earth, and then
+toppled slowly, sublimely prostrate, its branches crashing and all its
+leaves wailing. Ere long, a little further to the front, another Anak of
+the forest went down; and, mingled with the noise of its sylvan agony,
+there arose sharp cries of human suffering. Then Colonel Colburn, a
+broad-chested and ruddy man of thirty-five, with a look of indignant
+anxiety in his iron-gray eyes, rode up to the brigade commander.
+
+“This is very annoying, Colonel,” he said. “I am losing my men without
+using them. That last tree fell into my command.”
+
+“Are they firing toward our left?” asked Waldron.
+
+“Not a shot.”
+
+“Very good,” said the chief, with a sigh of contentment. “If we can only
+keep them occupied in this direction! By the way, let your men lie down
+under the fallen tree, as far as it will go. It will protect them from
+others.”
+
+Colburn rode back to his regiment. Waldron looked impatiently at his
+watch. At that moment a fierce burst of line firing arose in front,
+followed and almost overborne by a long-drawn yell, the scream of
+charging men. Waldron put up his watch, glanced excitedly at Fitz Hugh,
+and smiled.
+
+“I must forgive or forget,” the latter could not help saying to himself.
+“All the rest of life is nothing compared with this.”
+
+“Captain,” said Waldron, “ride off to the left at full speed. As soon as
+you hear firing at the shoulder of the ridge, return instantly and let
+me know.”
+
+Fitz Hugh dashed away. Three minutes carried him into perfect peace,
+beyond the whistling of ball or the screeching of shell. On the right
+was a tranquil, wide waving of foliage, and on the left a serene
+landscape of cultivated fields, with here and there an embowered
+farm-house. Only for the clamor of artillery and musketry far behind
+him, he could not have believed in the near presence of battle, of blood
+and suffering and triumphant death. But suddenly he heard to his right,
+assaulting and slaughtering the tranquillity of nature, a tumultuous
+outbreak of file firing, mingled with savage yells. He wheeled, drove
+spurs into his horse, and flew back to Waldron. As he re-entered the
+wood he met wounded men streaming through it, a few marching alertly
+upright, many more crouching and groaning, some clinging to their less
+injured comrades, but all haggard in face and ghastly.
+
+“Are we winning?” he hastily asked of one man who held up a hand with
+three fingers gone and the bones projecting in sharp spikes through
+mangled flesh.
+
+“All right, sir; sailing in,” was the answer.
+
+“Is the brigade commander all right?” he inquired of another who was
+winding a bloody handkerchief around his arm.
+
+“Straight ahead, sir; hurrah for Waldron!” responded the soldier, and
+almost in the same instant fell lifeless with a fresh ball through his
+head.
+
+“Hurrah for him!” Fitz Hugh answered frantically, plunging on through
+the underwood. He found Waldron with Colburn, the two conversing
+tranquilly in their saddles amid hissing bullets and dropping branches.
+
+“Move your regiment forward now,” the brigade commander was saying; “but
+halt it in the edge of the wood.”
+
+“Shan’t I relieve Gildersleeve if he gets beaten?” asked the subordinate
+officer eagerly.
+
+“No. The regiments on the left will help him out. I want your men and
+Peck’s for the fight on top of the hill. Of course the rebels will try
+to retake it; then I shall call for you.”
+
+Fitz Hugh now approached and said, “Colonel, the Seventh has attacked in
+force.”
+
+“Good!” answered Waldron, with that sweet smile of his which thanked
+people who brought him pleasant news. “I thought I heard his fire.
+Gahogan will be on their right rear in ten minutes. Then we shall get
+the ridge. Ride back now to Major Bradley, and tell him to bring his
+Napoleons through the wood, and set two of them to shelling the enemy’s
+centre. Tell him my idea is to amuse them, and keep them from changing
+front.”
+
+Again Fitz Hugh galloped off as before on a comfortably safe errand,
+safer at all events than many errands of that day. “This man is sparing
+my life,” he said to himself. “Would to God I knew how to spare his!”
+
+He found Bradley lunching on a gun caisson, and delivered his orders.
+“Something to do at last, eh?” laughed the rosy-cheeked youngster. “The
+smallest favors thankfully received. Won’t you take a bite of rebel
+chicken, Captain? This rebellion must be put down. No? Well, tell the
+Colonel I am moving on, and John Brown’s soul not far ahead.”
+
+When Fitz Hugh returned to Waldron he found him outside of the wood, at
+the base of the long incline which rose into the rebel position. About
+the slope were scattered prostrate forms, most numerous near the bottom,
+some crawling slowly rearward, some quiescent. Under the brow of the
+ridge, decimated and broken into a mere skirmish line sheltered in knots
+and singly, behind rocks and knolls, and bushes, lay the Fourteenth
+Regiment, keeping up a steady, slow fire. From the edge above, smokily
+dim against a pure, blue heaven, answered another rattle of musketry,
+incessant, obstinate, and spiteful. The combatants on both sides were
+lying down; otherwise neither party could have lasted ten minutes. From
+Fitz Hugh’s point of view not a Confederate uniform could be seen. But
+the smoke of their rifles made a long gray line, which was disagreeably
+visible and permanent; and the sharp _whit! whit!_ of their bullets
+continually passed him, and cheeped away in the leafage behind.
+
+“Our men can’t get on another inch,” he ventured to say to his
+commander. “Wouldn’t it be well for me to ride up and say a cheering
+word?”
+
+“Every battle consists largely in waiting,” replied Waldron
+thoughtfully. “They have undoubtedly brought up a reserve to face
+Thomas. But when Gahogan strikes the flank of the reserve, we shall
+win.”
+
+“I wish you would take shelter,” begged Fitz Hugh. “Everything depends
+on your life.”
+
+“My life has been both a help and a hurt to my fellow-creatures,” sighed
+the brigade commander. “Let come what will to it.”
+
+He glanced upward with an expression of profound emotion; he was
+evidently fighting two battles, an outward and an inward one.
+
+Presently he added, “I think the musketry is increasing on the left.
+Does it strike you so?”
+
+He was all eagerness again, leaning forward with an air of earnest
+listening, his face deeply flushed and his eye brilliant. Of a sudden
+the combat above rose and swelled into higher violence. There was a
+clamor far away--it seemed nearly a mile away--over the hill. Then
+the nearer musketry--first Thomas’s on the shoulder of the ridge, next
+Gildersleeve’s in front--caught fire and raged with new fury.
+
+Waldron laughed outright. “Gahogan has reached them,” he said to one of
+his staff who had just rejoined him. “We shall all be up there in five
+minutes. Tell Colburn to bring on his regiment slowly.”
+
+Then, turning to Fitz Hugh, he added, “Captain, we will ride forward.”
+
+They set off at a walk, now watching the smoking brow of the eminence,
+now picking their way among dead and wounded. Suddenly there was a shout
+above them and a sudden diminution of the firing; and looking upward
+they saw the men of the Fourteenth running confusedly toward the summit.
+Without a word the brigade commander struck spurs into his horse and
+dashed up the long slope at a run, closely followed by his enemy and
+aid. What they saw when they overtook the straggling, running, panting,
+screaming pellmell of the Fourteenth was victory!
+
+The entire right wing of the Confederates, attacked on three sides at
+once, placed at enormous disadvantage, completely outgeneraled, had
+given way in confusion, was retreating, breaking, and flying. There
+were lines yet of dirty gray or butternut; but they were few, meagre,
+fluctuating, and recoiling, and there were scattered and scurrying men
+in hundreds. Three veteran and gallant regiments had gone all to wreck
+under the shock of three similar regiments far more intelligently
+directed. A strong position had been lost because the heroes who held it
+could not perform the impossible feat of forming successively two fresh
+fronts under a concentric fire of musketry. The inferior brain power had
+confessed the superiority of the stronger one.
+
+On the victorious side there was wild, clamorous, fierce exultation. The
+hurrying, shouting, firing soldiers, who noted their commander riding
+among them, swung their rifles or their tattered hats at him, and
+screamed “Hurrah!” No one thought of the Confederate dead underfoot, nor
+of the Union dead who dotted the slope behind. “What are you here
+for, Colonel?” shouted rough old Gildersleeve, one leg of his trousers
+dripping blood. “We can do it alone.”
+
+“It is a battle won,” laughed Fitz Hugh, almost worshiping the man whom
+he had come to slay.
+
+“It is a battle won, but not used,” answered Waldron. “We haven’t a gun
+yet, nor a flag. Where is the cavalry? Why isn’t Stilton here? He must
+have got afoul of the enemy’s horse, and been obliged to beat it off.
+Can anybody hear anything of Stilton?”
+
+“Let him go,” roared Old Grumps. “The infantry don’t want any help.”
+
+“Your regiment has suffered, Colonel,” answered Waldron, glancing at the
+scattered files of the Fourteenth. “Halt it and reorganize it, and
+let it fall in with the right of the First when Peck comes up. I shall
+replace you with the Fifth. Send your Adjutant back to Colburn and tell
+him to hurry along. Those fellows are making a new front over there,”
+ he added, pointing to the centre of the hill. “I want the Fifth, Seventh
+and Tenth in _échelon_ as quickly as possible. And I want that cavalry.
+Lieutenant,” turning to one of his staff, “ride off to the left and find
+Colonel Stilton. Tell him that I need a charge in ten minutes.”
+
+Presently cannon opened from that part of the ridge still held by the
+Confederates, the shell tearing through or over the dissolving groups
+of their right wing, and cracking viciously above the heads of the
+victorious Unionists. The explosions followed each other with stunning
+rapidity, and the shrill whirring of the splinters was ominous. Men
+began to fall again in the ranks or to drop out of them wounded. Of all
+this Waldron took no further note than to ride hastily to the brow of
+the ridge and look for his own artillery.
+
+“See how he attinds to iverything himself,” said Major Gahogan, who
+had cantered up to the side of Fitz Hugh. “It’s just a matther of plain
+business, an’ he looks after it loike a business man. Did ye see us,
+though, Captin, whin we come in on their right flank? By George, we
+murthered urn. There’s more’n a hundred lyin’ in hapes back there. As
+for old Stilton, I just caught sight of um behind that wood to our left,
+an’ he’s makin’ for the enemy’s right rair. He’ll have lots o’ prisoners
+in half an hour.”
+
+When Waldron returned to the group he was told of his cavalry’s
+whereabouts, and responded to the information with a smile of
+satisfaction.
+
+“Bradley is hurrying up,” he said, “and Taylor is pushing their left
+smartly. They will make one more tussle to recover their line of
+retreat; but we shall smash them from end to end and take every gun.”
+
+He galloped now to his infantry, and gave the word “Forward!” The three
+regiments which composed the _échelon_ were the Fifth on the right, the
+Seventh fifty yards to the rear and left of the Fifth, the Tenth to
+the rear and left of the Seventh. It was behind the Fifth, that is, the
+foremost battalion, that the brigade commander posted himself.
+
+“Do _you_ mean to stay here, Colonel?” asked Fitz Hugh, in surprise and
+anxiety.
+
+“It is a certain victory now,” answered Wal-dron, with a singular glance
+upward. “My life is no longer important. I prefer to do my duty to the
+utmost in the sight of all men.”
+
+“I shall follow you and do mine, sir,” said the Captain, much moved, he
+could scarcely say by what emotions, they were so many and conflicting.
+
+“I want you otherwheres. Ride to Colonel Taylor at once, and hurry him
+up the hill. Tell him the enemy have greatly weakened their left. Tell
+him to push up everything, infantry, and cavalry, and artillery, and to
+do it in haste.”
+
+“Colonel, this is saving my life against my will,” remonstrated Fitz
+Hugh.
+
+“Go!” ordered Waldron, imperiously. “Time is precious.”
+
+Fitz Hugh dashed down the slope to the right at a gallop. The brigade
+commander turned tranquilly, and followed the march of his _échelon_.
+The second and decisive crisis of the little battle was approaching,
+and to understand it we must glance at the ground on which it was to
+be fought. Two hostile lines were marching toward each other along
+the broad, gently rounded crest of the hill and at right angles to its
+general course. Between these lines, but much the nearest to the Union
+troops, a spacious road came up out of the forest in front, crossed the
+ridge, swept down the smooth decline in rear, and led to a single wooden
+bridge over a narrow but deep rivulet. On either hand the road was
+hedged in by a close board fence, four feet or so in height. It was for
+the possession of this highway that the approaching lines were about
+to shed their blood. If the Confederates failed to win it all their
+artillery would be lost, and their army captured or dispersed.
+
+The two parties came on without firing. The soldiers on both sides were
+veterans, cool, obedient to orders, intelligent through long service,
+and able to reserve all their resources for a short-range and final
+struggle. Moreover, the fences as yet partially hid them from each
+other, and would have rendered all aim for the present vague and
+uncertain.
+
+“Forward, Fifth!” shouted Waldron. “Steady. Reserve your fire.” Then, as
+the regiment came up to the fence, he added, “Halt; right dress. Steady,
+men.”
+
+Meantime he watched the advancing array with an eager gaze. It was a
+noble sight, full of moral sublimity, and worthy of all admiration. The
+long, lean, sunburned, weather-beaten soldiers, in ragged gray stepped
+forward, superbly, their ranks loose, but swift and firm, the men
+leaning forward in their haste, their tattered slouch hats pushed
+backward, their whole aspect business-like and virile. Their line was
+three battalions strong, far outflanking the Fifth, and at least equal
+to the entire _échelon_. When within thirty or forty yards of the
+further fence they increased their pace to nearly a double-quick, many
+of them stooping low in hunter fashion, and a few firing. Then Waldron
+rose in his stirrups and yelled, “Battalion! ready--aim--aim low. Fire!”
+
+There was a stunning roar of three hundred and fifty rifles, and a
+deadly screech of bullets. But the smoke rolled out, the haste to reload
+was intense, and none could mark what execution was done. Whatever the
+Confederates may have suffered, they bore up under the volley, and
+they came on. In another minute each of those fences, not more than
+twenty-five yards apart, was lined by the shattered fragment of a
+regiment, each firing as fast as possible into the face of the other.
+
+The Fifth bled fearfully: it had five of its ten company commanders shot
+dead in three minutes; and its loss in other officers and in men fell
+scarcely short of this terrible ratio. On its left the Seventh and the
+Tenth were up, pouring in musketry, and receiving it in a fashion hardly
+less sanguinary. No one present had ever seen, or ever afterward saw,
+such another close and deadly contest.
+
+But the strangest thing in this whole wonderful fight was the conduct
+of the brigade commander. Up and down the rear of the lacerated Fifth
+Waldron rode thrice, spurring his plunging and wounded horse close to
+the yelling and fighting file-closers, and shouting in a piercing voice
+encouragement to his men. Stranger still, considering the character
+which he had borne in the army, and considering the evil deed for which
+he was to account on the morrow, were the words which he was distinctly
+and repeatedly heard to utter. “Stand steady, men--God is with us!” was
+the extraordinary battle-cry of this backslidden clergyman, this sinner
+above many.
+
+And it was a prophecy of victory. Bradley ran up his Napoleons on the
+right in the nick of time, and, although only one of them could be
+brought to bear, it was enough; the grape raked the Confederate left,
+broke it, and the battle was over. In five minutes more their whole
+array was scattered, and the entire position open to galloping cavalry,
+seizing guns, standards, and prisoners.
+
+It was in the very moment of triumph, just as the stubborn Southern line
+reeled back from the fence in isolated clusters, that the miraculous
+immunity of Waldron terminated, and he received his death wound. A
+quarter of an hour later Fitz Hugh found a sorrowful group of officers
+gazing from a little distance upon their dying commander.
+
+“Is the Colonel hit?” he asked, shocked and grieved, incredible as the
+emotion may seem.
+
+“Don’t go near him,” called Gildersleeve, who, it will be remembered,
+knew or guessed his errand in camp. “The chaplain and surgeon are there.
+Let him alone.”
+
+“He’s going to render his account,” added Ga-hogan. “An’ whativer he’s
+done wrong, he’s made it square to-day. Let um lave it to his brigade.”
+
+Adjutant Wallis, who had been blubbering aloud, who had cursed the
+rebels and the luck energetically, and who had also been trying to pray
+inwardly, groaned out, “This is our last victory. You see if it ain’t.
+Bet you two to one.”
+
+“Hush, man!” replied Gahogan. “We’ll win our share of um, though we’ll
+have to work harder for it. We’ll have to do more ourselves, an’ get
+less done for us in the way of tactics.”
+
+“That’s so, Major,” whimpered a drummer, looking up from his duty of
+attending to a wounded comrade. “He knowed how to put his men in the
+right place, and his men knowed when they was in the right place. But
+it’s goin’ to be uphill through the steepest part of hell the rest of
+the way.”
+
+Soldiers, some of them weeping, some of them bleeding, arrived
+constantly to inquire after their commander, only to be sent quietly
+back to their ranks or to the rear. Around lay other men--dead men,
+and senseless, groaning men--all for the present unnoticed. Everything,
+except the distant pursuit of the cavalry, waited for Wal-dron to die.
+Fitz Hugh looked on silently with the tears of mingled emotions in his
+eyes, and with hopes and hatreds expiring in his heart. The surgeon
+supported the expiring victor’s head, while Chaplain Colquhoun knelt
+beside him, holding his hand and praying audibly. Of a sudden the
+petition ceased, both bent hastily toward the wounded man, and after
+what seemed a long time exchanged whispers. Then the Chaplain rose, came
+slowly toward the now advancing group of officers, his hands outspread
+toward heaven in an attitude of benediction, and tears running down his
+haggard white face.
+
+“I trust, dear friends,” he said, in a tremulous voice, “that all is
+well with our brother and commander. His last words were, ‘God is with
+us.’”
+
+“Oh! but, man, _that_ isn’t well,” broke out Gahogan, in a groan. “What
+did ye pray for his soul for? Why didn’t ye pray for his loife?”
+
+Fitz Hugh turned his horse and rode silently away. The next day he was
+seen journeying rearward by the side of an ambulance, within which lay
+what seemed a strangely delicate boy, insensible, and, one would say,
+mortally ill.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Brigade Commander, by J. W. Deforest
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