Mohun; Or, the Last Days of Lee and His Paladins Part 109

"If he is not moved, he may possibly live; but if he is moved his death is certain. The least change in the position of his body, for some hours from this time, will be fatal."

"Then he shall not have to change his position!" exclaimed the girl.

And, with the pale face still lying upon her bosom, she remained immovable.

Throughout all the long night she did not move or disturb the youth. He had fallen into a deep sleep, and his head still lay upon her bosom.

Who can tell what thoughts came to that brave child as she thus watched over his sleep? The long hours on the lonely battle-field, full of the dead and dying, slowly dragged on. The great dipper wheeled in circle; the moon rose; the dawn came; still the girl, with the groans of the dying around her, held the wounded boy in her arms.[1]

[Footnote 1: Fact.]

Is there a painter in Virginia who desires a great subject? There it is; and it is historical.

When the sun rose, Willie Davenant opened his eyes, and gazed up into her face. Their glances met; their blus.h.i.+ng cheeks were near each other; the presence of her, whom he loved so much, seemed to have brought back life to the shattered frame.

An hour afterward he was moved to "Five Forks," where he was tenderly cared for. The old statesman had forgotten his life-long prejudice, and was the first to do all in his power to save the boy.

A month afterward he was convalescent. A week more and he was well. In the summer of 1865 he was married to Virginia Conway.

As for Mohun, his marriage ceremony, so singularly interrupted, had been resumed and completed an hour after the death of the unfortunate Darke and his companion.

XXII.

"THE LINE HAS BEEN STRETCHED UNTIL IT HAS BROKEN, COLONEL.".

At nightfall, on the first of April, the immense struggle had really ended.

Lee's whole right was swept away; he was hemmed in, in Petersburg; what remained for General Grant was only to give the _coup de grace_ to the great adversary, who still confronted him, torn and shattered, but with a will and courage wholly unbroken.

It is not an exaggeration, reader. Judge for yourself. I am to show you Lee as I saw him in this moment of terrible trial: still undaunted, raising his head proudly amid the crash of all around him; great in the hour of victory; in the hour of ruin, sublime.

Grant attacked again at dawn, on the morning of the second of April. It was Sunday, but no peaceful church-bells disturbed the spring air. The roar of cannon was heard, instead, hoa.r.s.e and menacing, in the very suburbs of the devoted city.

There was no hope now--all was ended--but the Confederate arms were to s.n.a.t.c.h a last, and supreme laurel, which time can not wither. Attacked in Fort Gregg, by General Gibbon, Harris's Mississippi brigade, of two hundred and fifty men, made one of those struggles which throw their splendor along the paths of history.

"This handful of skilled marksmen," says a Northern writer, "conducted the defence with such intrepidity, that Gibbon's forces, surging repeatedly against it, were each time thrown back."

That is the generous but cold statement of an opponent; but it is sufficient. It was not until seven o'clock that Gibbon stormed the fort. Thirty men only out of the two hundred and fifty were left, but they were still fighting.

In the attack the Federal loss was "about five hundred men," says the writer above quoted.

So fell Lee's last stronghold on this vital part of his lines. Another misfortune soon followed. The gallant A.P. Hill, riding ahead of his men, was fired on and killed, by a small detachment of the enemy whom he had halted and ordered to surrender.

He fell from his horse, and was borne back, already dying. That night, amid the thunder of the exploding magazines, the commander, first, of the "light division," and then of a great corps--the hero of Cold Harbor, Sharpsburg, and a hundred other battles--was buried in the city cemetery, just in time to avoid seeing the flag he had fought under, lowered.

Peace to the ashes of that brave! Old Virginia had no son more faithful!

Fort Gregg was the last obstacle. At ten o'clock that had fallen, heavy ma.s.ses of the enemy were pus.h.i.+ng forward. Their bristling battalions, and long lines of artillery had advanced nearly to General Lee's head-quarters, a mile west of Petersburg.

As the great blue wave surged forward, General Lee, in full-dress uniform, and wearing his gold-hilted sword, looked at them through his field gla.s.ses from the lawn, in front of his head-quarters, on foot, and surrounded by his staff. I have never seen him more composed.

Chancing to address him, he saluted me with the calmest and most scrupulous courtesy; and his voice was as measured and unmoved as though he were attending a parade. Do you laugh at us, friends of the North, for our devotion to Lee? You should have seen him that day, when ruin stared him in the face; you would have known then, the texture of that stout Virginia heart.

The enemy's column literally rushed on. Our artillery, on a hill near by, had opened a rapid fire on the head of the column; the enemy's object was to gain shelter under a crest, in their front.

They soon gained it; formed line of battle, and charged the guns.

Then all was over. The bullets rained, in a hurtling tempest on the cannoneer; the blue line came on with loud shouts; and the pieces were brought off at a gallop, followed by a hailstorm of musket-b.a.l.l.s.

Suddenly the Federal artillery opened from a hill behind their line.

General Lee had mounted his iron-gray, and was slowly retiring toward Petersburg, surrounded by his officers. His appearance was superb at this moment--and I still see the erect form of the proud old cavalier; his hand curbing his restive horse; his head turned over his shoulder; his face calm, collected, and full of that courage which nothing could break.

All at once a sh.e.l.l screamed from the Federal battery, and bursting close to the general, tore up the ground in a dozen places. The horse of an officer at his side was mortally wounded by a fragment, and fell beneath his rider other animals darted onward, with hanging bridle-reins, cut by the sh.e.l.l--but I was looking at General Lee, feeling certain that he must have been wounded.

He had escaped, however. Not a muscle of his calm face had moved. Only, as he turned his face over his shoulder in the direction of the battery, I could see a sudden color rush to his cheeks, and his eye flashed.

"I should now like to go into a charge!" he said to Stuart, once, after a disaster. And I thought I read the same thought in his face at this moment.

But it was impossible. He had no troops. The entire line on the right of Petersburg had been broken to pieces, and General Lee retired slowly to his inner works, near the city where a little skirmish line, full of fight yet, and shaking their fists at the huge enemy approaching, received him with cheers and cries which made the pulse throb.

There was no _hack_ in that remnant--pardon the word, reader; it expresses the idea.

"Let 'em come on! We'll give 'em ----!" shouted the ragged handful. I dare not change that rough sentence. It belongs to history. And it was glorious, if rude. In front of that squad was a whole army-corps. The corps was advancing, supported by a tremendous artillery fire, to crush them--and the tatterdemalions defied and laughed at them.

This all took place before noon. Longstreet had come in from the north of the James with his skeleton regiments; and these opposed a bold front to the enemy on the right, while Gordon commanding the left, below the city, was thundering. A cordon hemmed in the little army now, in the suburbs of Petersburg. The right, on the Boydton road, was carried away; and the left beyond James River. One hope alone remained--to hold Petersburg until night, and then retreat.

I will not describe that day. This volume approaches its end; and it is fortunate. To describe at length those last days would be a terrible task to the writer.

Lee telegraphed to the President that he was going to retreat that night; and at the moment when the officers of the government hastily left Richmond by the Danville railroad, the army at Petersburg began to retire.

Did you witness what I describe, reader? What a spectacle!--the army of Northern Virginia, or what was left of it, rather, stealing away amid darkness. I sat my horse on the Hickory road, north of the Appomattox, near the city, and looked at the ragged column, which defiled by from the bridge over the river. In the starlight I could see their faces.

There was not a particle of depression in them. You would have said, indeed, that they rejoiced at being out of the trenches--to be once more on the march, with Lee, riding his old iron-gray, in front of his old soldiers--with the battle-flags of a hundred battles still floating defiantly.

General Lee stood at the forks of the road, directing his column. He had said little during the day, and said little now, but his voice was as calm and measured, his eye as serene as before.

"This is a bad business, colonel!"[1] I had heard him say, at the moment when the sh.e.l.l burst near him in the morning.

[Footnote 1: His words.]

I heard but one other allusion which he made to the situation.

"Well, colonel," he said to an officer, in his deep and sonorous voice, "it has happened as I told them it would, at Richmond. The line has been stretched until it has broken."[1]

[Footnote 1: His words.]