John Esten Cooke

“ I am a Virginian, and I intend to live or die for Old Virginia! The tug is coming; the enemy are about to come over and ‘try again!’ But we will meet them, and fight them like men, Surry! Our army is small, but with strong hands and brave hearts much can be done. We must be up and doing, and do our duty to the handle.{1} For myself, I am going to fight whatever is before me,—to win victory, with God’s blessing, or die trying! Once more, Surry, remember that we are fighting for our old mother, and that Virginia expects every man to do his duty! ”

“ The army had saluted him on a hundred fields. His name had become the synonym of unfaltering courage. He was here, on the verge of surrender now, looking as calm and resolute as on his days of victory.
“Well, old friend,” said Mordaunt, grasping my hand and then leaning upon my shoulder; “as the scriptures say, what of the night?”
“Bad, Mordaunt.”
“I understand. You think the enemy’s infantry is up.”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll have hard work; but we are used to that, Surry.”
“The work is nothing. It is death only. But something worse than death is coming Mordaunt.” ”

“ At these words, uttered in a strange, mocking voice, I saw Mohun start as if a rattlesnake had bitten his heel. With all his self-possession he could not restrain this exhibition of emotion.
“Impossible! You are deceiving me—”
The prisoner interrupted him with a gay laugh.
“So you do not believe me,” she said; “you think, my dear sir, that everybody is dead but yourself! Dismiss that idea from your mind! I am not dead, since we have the pleasure of again meeting in the flesh. He is not dead! No! it was Colonel Mortimer Darke whom you fought to-night. ”

“ It is not good for a soldier to be too happy. It makes him shrink from bullets, and raises visions of a young widow, in mourning, bending over a tomb.”
“Pshaw! stop that folly!” I said. “Is it possible that a stout-hearted cavalier like General Mohun can indulge in such apprehensions—and at a moment as happy as this?”
I saw him smile sadly, in the dim starlight. “I am much changed,” he said, gently; “I no longer risk my life recklessly—trying to throw it away. Once, as you know, Surry, I was a poor outcast, and my conscience was burdened with a terrible crime. ”

“ Amid a concentrated fire of infantry and artillery, in their front and on both flanks, they pass over the ground between themselves and the enemy; ascend the slope; rush headlong at the breastworks; storm them; strike their bayonets into the enemy, who recoil before them, and a wild cheer rises, making the blood leap in the veins of a hundred thousand men.
The Federal works are carried, and the troops are wild with enthusiasm. With a thunder of cheers they press upon the flying enemy toward the crest.
Alas! as the smoke drifts, they see what is enough to dishearten the bravest. ”

“ We have little time for musing recollections. The halts are brief; the bugle is sounding to horse; events drag us, and we are again in the saddle.
Those gay hours on the Opequon were too agreeable to last. The old hall was a sort of oasis in the desert of war only. We paused for an instant; rested under the green trees; heard the murmur of the waters—then the caravan moved, breasting the arid wastes once more, and the coming simoom.
Stuart’s head-quarters disappeared—we bade our kind friends good-bye—and, mounting, set out for the Lowland, whither Lee’s column was then marching. ”

“ Why waste valuable lives? Why think of still fighting when flour was a hundred dollars a barrel, coffee twenty dollars a pound, cloth fifty dollars a yard, and good whiskey and brandy not to be purchased at any price? Could patriotism live amid trials like that? Could men cling to a cause which made them the victims of Yankee cavalry? Why have faith any longer in a government that was bankrupt—whose promises to pay originated the scoffing proverb, “as worthless as a Confederate note!” Meat and drink was the religion of the croakers in those days. Money was their real divinity. ”

“ His smile was exquisitely cordial; his glance full of earnestness and sweetness. The heaven-born spirit of kindness—that balm for all the wounds of human existence—shone in his eyes, on his lips, in every accent of his voice.
Colonel Mohun had been reckless, defiant, unhappy, or wildly gay. General Mohun was calm, quietly happy it seemed. You would have said of him, formerly, “This is a man who fights from hatred of his enemies, or the exuberant life in him.” Now you would have said, “This is a patriot who fights from principle, and is worthy to die in a great cause.” ”

“ Some were gay, if many were sorrowful—laughter mingled with the sighs. But to return to the past is nearly always sad. As I rode through the waste land now, it was with drooping head. All the old days came back again, the cannon sent their long dull thunder through the forests; again the gray and blue lines closed in, and hurled together; again Jackson in his old dingy coat, Stuart with his floating plume, Pelham, Farley, all whom I had known, loved, and still mourned, rose before me—a line of august phantoms fading away into the night of the past. ”

“ You are worthy of your boasted family! You pretend to love and confide in me—you look at me with smiles and eyes of affection—and all the time you are laying a trap for me—endeavoring to catch me and betray me! Well, yes, sir! yes! What you have discovered through your spies is true. I was tried and sentenced as a thief—I was married when I first saw you—and it is this miserable creature, this offscouring of the kennels, this thief, that has become the wife of the proud Mr. Mohun—in the eyes of the world at least! ”

“ The proud face, the eyes, the mouth—and yet they told me you were killed.”
“Ah! ‘Killed!’ Killing is a favorite topic with you!” exclaimed General Davenant, furiously; “well, kill me, now!—Strike your dastardly sword, or your knife if you have one, straight into my breast! Murder me, I say, as you murdered George Conway!—I have a purse in my pocket, and you can rob me when I am dead. Strike! strike!—but not with the sword! That is the weapon of a gentleman. Draw your knife, and stab me in the back—the knife is the weapon of the assassin!” ”

“ So the famous army of Northern Virginia—great in defeat as in victory—took its slow way back toward the soil of Virginia. Never was spectacle stranger than that retreat from Gettysburg. The badly wounded had been sent with the army trains; but many insisted upon keeping their places in the ranks. There was something grim and terrible in these bandaged arms, and faces, and forms of Lee’s old soldiers—but you did not think of that as you looked into their pale faces. What struck you in those eyes and lips was the fire, and the smile of an unconquerable courage. ”

“ Thus the only persons present were Gordon and Longstreet, commanding the skeleton corps of infantry, and Fitzhugh Lee, the cavalry of the army.
Gordon was stretched near Fitzhugh Lee, upon the blankets of the commander-in-chief; Gordon, with his clear complexion, his penetrating eyes, his firm lip, his dark hair, and uniform coat buttoned to his chin—the man to fight and die rather than surrender. Near him lay Fitz Lee, the ardent and laughing cavalier, with the flowing beard, the sparkling eyes, the top-boots, and cavalry sabre—the man to stand by Gordon. ”

“ The great array of Grant on the north bank of the Rapidan did not depress them—had they not met and defeated at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville a force as great, and could not they do it again?
So they lay in their camps on the Rapidan, in that cold winter of 1863—a little army of ragged and hungry men, with gaunt faces, wasted forms, shoeless feet; with nothing to encourage them but the cause, past victories, and Lee’s presence. That was much; what was enough, however, was the blood in their veins; the inspiration of the great race of fighting men from whom they derived their origin. ”

“ General Davenant was everywhere amid the fight, the guiding and directing head, and beside him I saw distinctly in the starlight, the brave figure of little Charley, who had started from his couch, buckled on a huge sword, and was now galloping to and fro, cheering on the men as gallantly as his father. It was an inspiring sight to see that child in his little braided jacket, with his jaunty cap balanced gallantly on his auburn curls—to see his rosy cheeks, his smiling lips, and his small hand flourishing that tremendous sabre, as he galloped gaily amid the fire. ”

“ Around me, in light of the camp-fire, were grouped the tigers who had fought with Pelham, in the old battles of Stuart. Here were the heroes of a hundred combats; the men who had held their ground desperately in the most desperate encounters—the bulldogs who had showed their teeth and sprung to the death-grapple at Cold Harbor, Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Fleetwood, Gettysburg, in the Wilderness, at Trevillian’s, at Sappony, in a thousand bitter conflicts with the cavalry. ”

“ You will hear Stuart laugh as he leads the charge, or jest with his staff, or sing his gay cavalry songs. But, alas! we shall not go far with him; and when he leaves us a sort of shadow will fall upon the landscape. From that May, 1864, laughter will seldom be heard. The light which shines on the great picture will be red and baleful. Blood will gush on desperate fields—men will fall like dry leaves in the winds of autumn.
The crimson torrent will sweep away a whole generation almost—and the Red Cross flag will go down in blood. ”

“ The trenches!—ah! the trenches! Were you in them, reader? Thousands will tell you more of them than I can. There, an historic army was guarding the capital of an historic nation—the great nation of Virginia—and how they guarded it! In hunger, and cold, and nakedness, they guarded it still. In the bright days and the dark, they stood at their posts unmoved. In the black night-watches as by day—toward morning, as at evening—they stood, clutching the musket, peering out into the pitchy darkness; or lay, dozing around the grim cannon, in the embrasures. ”

“ Lee gazes for some moments through his glasses at the long range bristling with bayonets. Not a muscle moves; he resembles a statue. Then he lowers the glasses, closes them thoughtfully, and his calm glance passes along the lines of his army. You would say that this glance penetrates the forest; that he sees his old soldiers, gay, unshrinking, unmoved by the reverses of Longstreet, and believing in themselves and in him! The blood of the soldier responds to that thought. The face of the great commander suddenly flushes. ”

“ Whoever you are, you that call yourselves Honor, Justice, Patriotism, Independence, Freedom, Candour, Honesty, Right, beware of the grinning blockade-runner. He is growing. He will continue to grow. “Of what clay is he made? Part Baltimore street-dirt, part James River mud, best part and worst part sacred soil of Palestine. What will become of him in the hands of the potter, chance? Heaven grant that he may be ground into his original powder before he is stuck up on our mantel-pieces as a costly vase, in which the choice flowers of our civilization can but wither and die.” ”

“ From the Cemetery Heights the enemy watch that ominous apparition—the gray line of Virginians drawn up for the charge.
At the word, they move out, shoulder to shoulder, at common time. Descending the slope, they enter on the valley, and move steadily toward the heights.
The advance of the column, with its battle-flags floating proudly, and its ranks closed up and dressed with the precision of troops on parade, is a magnificent spectacle. Old soldiers, hardened in the fires of battle, and not given to emotion, lean forward watching the advance of the Virginians with fiery eyes. ”

“ The column is midway the valley, and beginning to move more rapidly, when suddenly the Federal artillery opens. The ranks are swept by round shot, shell, and canister. Bloody gaps appear, but the line closes up, and continues to advance. The fire of the Federal artillery redoubles. All the demons of the pit seem howling, roaring, yelling, and screaming. The assaulting column is torn by a whirlwind of canister, before which men fall in heaps mangled, streaming with blood, their bosoms torn to pieces, their hands clutching the grass, their teeth biting the earth. ”

“ Stuart did not allow the panic to subside. His sharp-shooters opened at the same instant a determined fire; the great cavalier went at full speed to the head of his column:—then rushing like an avalanche, troopers and artillery, charged the column in front, burst through, trampling it as he went, and at a gallop the gray horsemen, with guns following, broke out; and were again free.
Stuart was out of the trap. From one of the “tightest places” that a commander was ever in he had extricated his whole command.
Once in safety, he turned like a wild boar on his enemies. ”

“ But the column can not pause. It is “do or die.” In their faces are thrust the muzzles of muskets spouting flame. Whole ranks go down in the fire. The survivors close up, utter a fierce cheer, and rush straight at the second tier of works.
Then is seen a spectacle which will long be remembered with a throb of the heart by many. The thinned ranks of the Virginians are advancing, unmoved, into the very jaws of death. They go forward—and are annihilated. At every step death meets them. The furious fire of the enemy, on both flanks and in their front, hurls them back, mangled and dying. ”

“ Hagan listens to him yonder with a twinkle of the eye—Hagan the black-bearded giant, the brave whose voice resembles thunder, the devotee and factotum of Stuart, whom he loves. And Sweeney rattles on. You laugh loud as you listen. The banjo laughs louder than all, and the great apartment is full of uproar, and mirth, and dance.
Then the couples sink back exhausted; a deep silence follows; Sweeney has made you laugh, and is now going to make you sigh. Listen! You can scarcely believe that the singer is the same person who has just been rattling through the “Old Gray Horse.” ”