Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession Part 20

"Yes, but cruel. Have you any that you love over yonder, Harold? Any that are dear to you, and that you must strike at on the morrow?"

"Yes, Harry, that is it. It is, as you say, a cruel war."

"I have a brother there," continued his companion; and he looked sadly into the gloom, as if he yearned through the darkness and distance to catch a glimpse of the well-known form. "A brother that, when I last saw him, was a little rosy-cheeked boy, and used to ride upon my knee. He is scarce more than a boy now, and yet he will shoulder his musket to-morrow, and stand in the ranks perhaps to be cut down by the hand that has caressed him. He was our mother's darling, and it is a mercy that she is not living to see us armed against each other."

"It is a painful thought," said Harold, "and one that you should dismiss from contemplation. The chances are thousands to one that you will never meet in battle."

"I trust the first bullet that will be fired may reach my heart, rather than that we should. But who can tell? I have a strange, gloomy feeling upon me; I would say a presentiment, if I were superst.i.tious."

"It is a natural feeling upon the eve of battle. Think no more of it.

Look how prettily the moon is creeping from under the edge of yonder cloud. We shall have a bright day for the fight, I think."

"Yes, that's a comfort. One fights all the better in the warm sunlight, as if to show the bright heavens what bloodthirsty devils we can be upon occasion. Hark!"

It was the roll of the drum, startling the stillness of the night; and presently, the brief, stern orders of the sergeants could be heard calling the men into the ranks. There is a strange mingled feeling of awe and excitement in this marshalling of men at night for a dangerous expedition. The orders are given instinctively in a more subdued and sterner tone, as if in unison with the solemnity of the hour. The tramp of marching feet strikes with a more distinct and hollow sound upon the ear. The dark ma.s.ses seem to move more compactly, as if each soldier drew nearer to his comrade for companions.h.i.+p. The very horses, although alert and eager, seem to forego their prancing, and move with sober tread. And when the word "forward!" rings along the dark column, and the long and silent ranks bend and move on as with an electric impulse, there is a thrill in every vein, and each heart contracts for an instant, as if the black portals of a terrible destiny were open in the van.

A half hour of silent hurry and activity pa.s.sed away, and at last the whole army was in motion. It was now three o'clock; the moon shone down upon the serried ranks, gleaming from bayonet and cannon, and stretching long black shadows athwart the road. From time to time along the column could be heard the ringing voice of some commander, as he galloped to the van, cheering his men with some well-timed allusion, or dispelling the surrounding gloom with a cheerful promise of victory.

Where the wood road branched from the Warrentown turnpike, Gen.

McDowell, standing in his open carriage, looked down upon the pa.s.sing columns, and raised his hat, when the excited soldiers cheered as they hurried on. Here Hunter's column turned to the right, while the main body moved straight on to the centre. Then all became more silent than before, and the light jest pa.s.sing from comrade to comrade was less frequent, for each one felt that every step onward brought him nearer to the foe.

The eastern sky soon paled into a greyish light, and ruddy streaks pushed out from the horizon. The air breathed fresher and purer than in the darkness, and the bright sun, with an advance guard of thin, rosy clouds, shot upward from the horizon in a blaze of splendor. It was the Sabbath morn.

The boom of a heavy gun is heard from the centre. Carlisle has opened the ball. The day's work is begun. Another! The echoes spring from the hillsides all around, like a thousand angry tongues that threaten death.

But on the right, no trace of an enemy is to be seen. Burnside's brigade was in the van; they reached the ford at Sudley's Springs; a momentary confusion ensues as the column prepares to cross. Soon the men are pus.h.i.+ng boldly through the shallow stream, but the temptation is too great for their parched throats; they stoop to drink and to fill their canteens from the cool wave. But as they look up they see a cloud of dust rolling up from the plain beyond, and their thirst has pa.s.sed away--they know that the foe is there.

An aid comes spurring down the bank, waving his hand and splas.h.i.+ng into the stream.

"Forward, men! forward!"

Hunter gallops to meet him, with his staff clattering at his horse's heels.

"Break the heads of regiments from the column and push on--push on!"

The field officers dash along the ranks, and the men spring to their work, as the word of command is echoed from mouth to mouth.

Crossing the stream, their course extended for a mile through a thick wood, but soon they came to the open country, with undulating fields, rolling toward a little valley through which a brooklet ran. And beyond that stream, among the trees and foliage which line its bank and extend in wooded patches southward, the left wing of the enemy are in battle order.

From a clump of bushes directly in front, came a puff of white smoke wreathed with flame; the whir of the hollow ball is heard, and it ploughs the moist ground a few rods from our advance.

Scarcely had the dull report reverberated, when, in quick succession, a dozen jets of fire gleamed out, and the sh.e.l.ls came plunging into the ranks. Burnside's brigade was in advance and unsupported, but under the iron hail the line was formed, and the cry "Forward!" was answered with a cheer. A long grey line spread out upon the hillside, forming rapidly from the outskirts of the little wood. It was the Southern infantry, and soon along their line a deadly fire of musketry was opened.

Meanwhile the heavy firing from the left and further on, announced that the centre and extreme left were engaged. A detachment of regulars was sent to Burnside's relief, and held the enemy in check till a portion of Porter's and Heintzelman's division came up and pressed them back from their position.

The battle was fiercely raging in the centre, where the 69th had led the van and were charging the murderous batteries with the bayonet. We must leave their deeds to be traced by the historic pen, and confine our narrative to the scene in which Harold bore a part. The nearest battery, supported by Carolinians, had been silenced. The Mississippians had wavered before successive charges, and an Alabama regiment, after four times hurling back the serried ranks that dashed against them, had fallen back, outflanked and terribly cut up. On the left was a farm-house, situated on an elevated ridge a little back from the road.

Within, while the fiercest battle raged, was its solitary inmate, an aged and bed-ridden lady, whose paralyzed and helpless form was stretched upon the bed where for fourscore years she had slept the calm sleep of a Christian. She had sent her attendants from the dwelling to seek a place of safety, but would not herself consent to be removed, for she heard the whisper of the angel of death, and chose to meet, him there in the house of her childhood. For the possession of the hill on which the building stood, the opposing hosts were hotly struggling. The fury of the battle seemed to concentre there, and through the time-worn walls the shot was plunging, splintering the planks and beams, and s.h.i.+vering the stone foundation. Sherman's battery came thundering up the hill upon its last desperate advance. Just as the foaming horses were wheeled upon its summit, the van of Hampton's legion sprang up the opposite side, and the crack of a hundred rifles simultaneously sounded.

Down fell the cannoneers beside their guns before those deadly missiles, and the plunging horses were slaughtered in the traces, or, wounded to the death, lashed out their iron hoofs among the maimed and writhing soldiers and into the heaps of dead. The battery was captured, but held only fop an instant, when two companies of Rhode Islanders, led on by Harold Hare, charged madly up the hill.

"Save the guns, boys!" he cried, as the gallant fellows bent their heads low, and sprang up the ascent right in the face of the blazing rifles.

"Fire low! stand firm! drive them back once again, my brave Virginians!"

shouted a young Southern officer, springing to the foremost rank.

The mutual fire was delivered almost at the rifles' muzzles, and the long sword-bayonets clashed together. Without yielding ground, for a few terrible seconds they thrust and parried with the clanging steel, while on either side the dead were stiffening beneath their feet, and the wounded, with shrieks of agony, were clutching at their limbs. Harold and the young Southron met; their swords clashed together once in the smoke and dust, and but once, when each drew back and lowered his weapon, while all around were striking. Then, amid that terrible discord, their two left hands were pressed together for an instant, and a low "G.o.d bless you!" came from the lips of both.

"To the right, Beverly, keep you to the right!" said Harold, and he himself, straight through the hostile ranks, sprang in an opposite direction.

When Harold's party had first charged up the hill, the young lieutenant with whom he had conversed beside the watch-fire on the previous evening, was at the head of his platoon, and as the two bodies met, he sent the last shot from his revolver full in the faces of the foremost rank. So close were they, that the victim of that shot, struck in the centre of the forehead, tottered forward, and fell into his arms. There was a cry of horror that pierced even above the shrieks of the wounded and the yells of the fierce combatants. One glance at that fair, youthful face sufficed;--it was his brother--dead in his arms, dead by a brother's hand. The yellow hair yet curled above the temples, but the rosy bloom upon the cheek was gone; already the ashen hue of death was there. There was a small round hole just where the golden locks waved from the edge of the brow, and from it there slowly welled a single globule of black gore. It left the face undisfigured--pale, but tranquil and undistorted as a sleeping child's--not even a clot of blood was there to mar its beauty. The strong and manly soldier knelt upon the dust, and holding the dead boy with both arms clasped about his waist, bent his head low down upon the lifeless bosom, and gasped with an agony more terrible than that which the death-wound gives.

"Charley! Oh G.o.d! Charley! Charley!" was all that came from his white lips, and he sat there like stone, with the corpse in his arms, still murmuring "Charley!" unconscious that blades were flas.h.i.+ng and bullets whistling around him. The blood streamed from his wounds, the bayonets were gleaming round, and once a random shot ploughed into his thigh and s.h.i.+vered the bone. He only bent a little lower and his voice was fainter; but still he murmured "Charley! Oh G.o.d! Charley," and never unfolded his arms from its embrace. And there, when the battle was over, the Southrons found him, dead--with his dead brother in his arms.

CHAPTER XXII.

At the door-way of the building on the hill, where the aged invalid was yielding her last breath amid the roar of battle, a wounded officer sat among the dying and the dead, while the conflict swept a little away from that quarter of the field. The blood was streaming from the shattered bosom, and feebly he strove to staunch it with his silken scarf. He had dragged himself through gore and dust until he reached that spot, and now, rising again with a convulsive effort, he leaned his red hands against the wall, and entered over the fragments of the door, which had been s.h.i.+vered by a sh.e.l.l. With tottering steps he pa.s.sed along the hall and up the little stairway, as one who had been familiar with the place. Before the door of the aged lady's chamber he paused a moment and listened; all was still there, although the terrible tumult of the battle was sounding all around. He entered; he advanced to the bed-side; the dying woman was murmuring a prayer. A random shot had torn the shrivelled flesh upon her bosom and the white counterpane was stained with blood. She did not see him--her thoughts were away from earth, she was already seeking communion with the spirits of the blest.

The soldier knelt by that strange death-bed and leaned his pale brow upon the pillow.

"Mother!"

How strangely the word sounded amid the shouts of combatants and the din of war. It was like a good angel's voice drowning the discords of h.e.l.l.

"Mother!"

She heard not the cannon's roar, but that one word, scarce louder than the murmur of a dreaming infant, reached her ear. The palsied head was turned upon the pillow and the light of life returned to her glazing eyes.

"Who speaks?" she gasped, while her thin hands were tremulously clasped together with emotion.

"'Tis I, mother. Philip, your son."

"Philip, my son!" and the nerveless form, that had scarce moved for years, was raised upon the bed by the last yearning effort of a mother's love.

"Is it you, Philip, is it you, indeed? I can scarce see your form, but surely I have heard the voice of my boy;--my long absent boy. Oh!

Philip! why have I not heard it oftener to comfort my old age?"

"I am dying, mother. I have been a bad son and a guilty man. But I am dying, mother. Oh! I am punished for my sin! The avenging bullet struck me down at the gate of the home I had deserted--the home I have made desolate to you. Mother, I have crawled here to die."

"To die! O G.o.d! your hand is cold--or is it but the chill of death upon my own? Oh! I had thought to have said farewell to earth forever, but yet let me linger but a little while, O Lord! if but to bless my son."

She sank exhausted upon the pillow, but yet clasped the gory fingers of the dying man.

"Philip, are you there? Let me hear your voice. I hear strange murmurs afar off; but not the voice of my son. Are you there, Philip, are you there?"

Philip Searle was crouching lower and lower by the bed-side, and his forehead, upon which the dews of death were starting, lay languidly beside the thin, white locks that rested on the pillow.

"Look, mother!" he said, raising his head and glaring into the corner of the room. "Do you see that form in white?--there--she with the pale cheeks and golden hair! I saw her once before to-day, when she lay stretched upon the bed, with a lily in her white fingers. And once again I saw her in that last desperate charge, when the bullet struck my side.

And now she is there again, pale, motionless, but smiling. Does she smile in mockery or forgiveness? I could rather bear a frown than that terrible--that frozen smile. O G.o.d! she is coming to me, mother, she is coming to me--she will lay her cold hand upon me. No--it is not she! it is Moll--look, mother, it is Moll, all blackened with smoke and seared with living fire. O G.o.d! how terrible! But, mother, I did not do that.

When I saw the flames afar off, I shuddered, for I knew how it must be.