Eben Holden Part 41

Chapter 39

My regiment left New York by night in a flare of torch and rocket. The streets were lined with crowds now hardened to the sound of fife and drum and the pomp of military preparation. I had a very high and mighty feeling in me that wore away in the discomfort of travel. For hours after the train started we sang and told stories, and ate peanuts and pulled and hauled at each other in a cloud of tobacco smoke. The train was sidetracked here and there, and dragged along at a slow pace.

Young men with no appreciation, as it seemed to me, of the sad business we were off upon, went roistering up and down the aisles, drinking out of bottles and chasing around the train as it halted. These revellers grew quiet as the night wore on. The boys began to close their eyes and lie back for rest. Some lay in the aisle, their heads upon their knapsacks. The air grew chilly and soon I could hear them snoring all about me and the chatter of frogs in the near marshes. I closed my eyes and vainly courted sleep. A great sadness had lain hold of me. I had already given up my life for my country--I was only going away now to get as dear a price for it as possible in the hood of its enemies. When and where would it be taken? I wondered. The fear had mostly gone out of me in days and nights of solemn thinking. The feeling I had, with its flavour of religion, is what has made the volunteer the mighty soldier he has ever been, I take it, since Naseby and Marston Moor. The soul is the great Captain, and with a just quarrel it will warm its sword in the enemy, however he may be trained to thrust and parry. In my sacrifice there was but one reservation--I hoped I should not be horribly cut with a sword or a bayonet. I had written a long letter to Hope, who was yet at Leipzig. I wondered if she would care what became of me. I got a sense of comfort thinking I would show her that I was no coward, with all my littleness. I had not been able to write to Uncle Eb or to my father or mother in any serious tone of my feeling in this enterprise.

I had treated it as a kind of holiday from which I should return shortly to visit them.

All about me seemed to be sleeping--some of them were talking in their dreams. As it grew light, one after another rose and stretched himself, rousing his seat companion. The train halted, a man shot a musket voice in at the car door. It was loaded with the many syllables of 'Annapolis Junction'. We were pouring out of the train shortly, to bivouac for breakfast in the depot yard. So I began the life of a soldier, and how it ended with me many have read in better books than this, but my story of it is here and only here.

We went into camp there on the lonely flats of east Maryland for a day or two, as we supposed, but really for quite two weeks. In the long delay that followed, my way traversed the dead levels of routine. When Southern sympathy had ceased to wreak its wrath upon the railroads about Baltimore we pushed on to Was.h.i.+ngton. There I got letters from Uncle Eb and Elizabeth Brower. The former I have now in my box of treasures--a torn and faded remnant of that dark period.

DEAR SIR 'pen in hand to hat you know that we are all wel. also that we was sorry you could not come horn. They took on terribul. Hope she wrote a letter. Said she had not herd from you. also that somebody wrote to her you was goin to be married. You had oughter write her a letter, Bill. Looks to me so you hain't used her right. Shes a comm horn in July. Sowed corn to day in the gardin. David is off byin catul. I hope G.o.d will take care uv you, boy, so goodbye from yours truly

EBEN HOLDEN

I wrote immediately to Uncle Eb and told him of the letters I had sent to Hope, and of my effort to see her.

Late in May, after Virginia had seceded, some thirty thousand of us were sent over to the south side of the Potomac, where for weeks we tore the flowery fields, lining the sh.o.r.e with long entrenchments.

Meantime I wrote three letters to Mr Greeley, and had the satisfaction of seeing them in the Tribune. I took much interest in the camp drill, and before we crossed the river I had been raised to the rank of first lieutenant. Every day we were looking for the big army of Beauregard, camping below Centreville, some thirty miles south.

Almost every night a nervous picket set the camp in uproar by challenging a phantom of his imagination. We were all impatient as hounds in leash. Since they would not come up and give us battle we wanted to be off and have it out with them. And the people were tired of delay. The cry of 'ste'boy!' was ringing all over the north. They wanted to cut us loose and be through with dallying.

Well, one night the order came; we were to go south in the morning--thirty thousand of us, and put an end to the war. We did not get away until afternoon--it was the 6th of July. When we were off, horse and foot, so that I could see miles of the blue column before and behind me, I felt sorry for the mistaken South. On the evening of the 18th our camp-fires on either side of the pike at Centreville glowed like the lights of a city. We knew the enemy was near, and began to feel a tightening of the nerves. I wrote a letter to the folks at home for post mortem delivery, and put it into my trousers pocket. A friend in my company called me aside after mess.

'Feel of that,' he said, laying his hand on a full breast.

'Feathers!' he whispered significantly. 'b.a.l.l.s can't go through 'em, ye know. Better n a steel breastplate! Want some?

'Don't know but I do,' said I.

We went into his tent, where he had a little sack full, and put a good wad of them between my two s.h.i.+rts.

'I hate the idee o'bein'hit 'n the heart,' he said. 'That's too awful.

I nodded my a.s.sent.

'Shouldn't like t'have a ball in my lungs, either,' he added. "Tain't necessary fer a man t'die if he can only breathe. If a man gits his leg shot off an' don't lose his head an' keeps drawin' his breath right along smooth an even, I don't see why he can't live.

Taps sounded. We went asleep with our boots on, but nothing happened.

Three days and nights we waited. Some called it a farce, some swore, some talked of going home. I went about quietly, my bosom under its pad of feathers. The third day an order came from headquarters. We were to break camp at one-thirty in the morning and go down the pike after Beauregard. In the dead of the night the drums sounded. I rose, half-asleep, and heard the long roll far and near. I s.h.i.+vered in the cold night air as I made ready, the boys about me buckled on knapsacks, shouldered their rifles, and fell into line. m.u.f.fled in darkness there was an odd silence in the great caravan forming rapidly and waiting for the word to move. At each command to move forward I could hear only the rub of leather, the click, click of rifle rings, the stir of the stubble, the snorting of horses. When we had marched an hour or so I could hear the faint rumble of wagons far in the rear. As I came high on a hill top, in the bending column, the moonlight fell upon a league of bayonets s.h.i.+ning above a cloud of dust in the valley--a splendid picture, fading into darkness and mystery. At dawn we pa.s.sed a bridge and halted some three minutes for a bite. After a little march we left the turnpike, with Hunter's column bearing westward on a crossroad that led us into thick woods. As the sunlight sank in the high tree-tops the first great battle of the war began. Away to the left of us a cannon shook the earth, hurling its boom into the still air. The sound rushed over us, rattling in the timber like a fall of rocks. Something went quivering in me. It seemed as if my vitals had gone into a big lump of jelly that trembled every step I took. We quickened our pace; we fretted, we complained. The weariness went out of our legs; some wanted to run. Before and behind us men were shouting hotly, 'Run, boys! run!'

The cannon roar was now continuous. We could feel the quake of it. When we came over a low ridge, in the open, we could see the smoke of battle in the valley. Flashes of fire and hoods of smoke leaped out of the far thickets, left of us, as cannon roared. Going at double quick we began loosening blankets and haversacks, tossing them into heaps along the line of march, without halting. In half an hour we stood waiting in battalions, the left flank of the enemy in front. We were to charge at a run. Half-way across the valley we were to break into companies and, advancing, spread into platoons and squads, and at last into line of skirmishers, lying down for cover between rushes.

'Forward!' was the order, and we were off, cheering as we ran. O, it was a grand sight! our colours flying, our whole front moving, like a blue wave on a green, immeasurable sea. And it had a voice like that of many waters. Out of the woods ahead of us came a lightning flash. A ring of smoke reeled upward. Then came a deafening crash of thunders--one upon another, and the scream of sh.e.l.ls overhead. Something stabbed into our column right beside me. Many went headlong, crying out as they fell.

Suddenly the colours seemed to halt and sway like a tree-top in the wind. Then down they went!--squad and colours--and we spread to pa.s.s them. At the order we halted and laid down and fired volley after volley at the grey coats in the edge of the thicket A bullet struck in the gra.s.s ahead of me, throwing a bit of dirt into my eyes. Another brushed my hat off and I heard a wailing death yell behind me. The colonel rode up waving a sword.

'Get up an' charge!' he shouted.

On we went, cheering loudly, firing as we ran, Bullets went by me hissing in my ears, and I kept trying to dodge them. We dropped again flat on our faces.

A squadron of black-horse cavalry came rus.h.i.+ng out of the woods at us, the riders yelling as they waved their swords. Fortunately we had not time to rise. A man near me tried to get up.

'Stay down!' I shouted.

In a moment I learned something new about horses. They went over us like a flash. I do not think a man was trampled. Our own cavalry kept them busy as soon as they had pa.s.sed.

Of the many who had started there was only a ragged remnant near me. We fired a dozen volleys lying there. The man at my elbow rolled upon me, writhing like a worm in the fire.

'We shall all be killed!' a man shouted. 'Where is the colonel?'

'Dead,' said another.

'Better retreat,' said a third.

'Charge!' I shouted as loudly as ever I could, jumping to my feet and waving my sabre as I rushed forward. 'Charge!'

It was the one thing needed--they followed me. In a moment we had hurled ourselves upon the grey line thrusting with sword and bayonet.

They broke before us--some running, some fighting desperately.

A man threw a long knife at me out of a sling. Instinctively I caught the weapon as if it had been a ball hot off the bat. In doing so I dropped my sabre and was cut across the fingers. He came at me fiercely, clubbing his gun--a raw-boned, swarthy giant, broad as a barn door. I caught the barrel as it came down. He tried to wrench it away, but I held firmly. Then he began to push up to me. I let him come, and in a moment we were grappling hip and thigh. He was a powerful man, but that was my kind of warfare. It gave me comfort when I felt the grip of his hands. I let him tug a jiffy, and then caught him with the old hiplock, and he went under me so hard I could hear the crack of his bones. Our support came then. We made him prisoner, with some two hundred other men. Reserves came also and took away the captured guns. My comrades gathered about me, cheering, but I had no suspicion of what they meant.

I thought it a tribute to my wrestling. Men lay thick there back of the guns--some dead, some calling faintly for help. The red puddles about them were covered with flies; ants were crawling over their faces. I felt a kind of sickness and turned away.

What was left of my regiment formed in fours to join the advancing column. Horses were galloping riderless, rein and stirrup flying, some horribly wounded. One hobbled near me, a front leg gone at the knee.

Sh.e.l.ls were flying overhead; cannonb.a.l.l.s were ricocheting over the level valley, throwing turf in the air, tossing the dead and wounded that lay thick and helpless.

Some were crumpled like a rag, as if the pain of death had withered them in their clothes; some swollen to the girth of horses; some bent backward, with arms outreaching like one trying an odd trick, some lay as if listening eagerly, an ear close to the ground; some like a sleeper, their heads upon their arms; one shrieked loudly, gesturing with b.l.o.o.d.y hands, 'Lord G.o.d Almighty, have mercy on me!

I had come suddenly to a new world, where the lives of men were cheaper than blind puppies. I was a new sort of creature, and reckless of what came, careless of all I saw and heard.

A staff officer stepped up to me as we joined the main body.

'You ve been shot, young man,' he said, pointing to my left hand.

Before he could turn I felt a rush of air and saw him fly into pieces, some of which hit me as I fell backward. I did not know what had happened; I know not now more than that I have written. I remember feeling something under me, like a stick of wood, bearing hard upon my ribs. I tried to roll off it, but somehow, it was tied to me and kept hurting. I put my hand over my hip and felt it there behind me--my own arm! The hand was like that of a dead man--cold and senseless. I pulled it from under me and it lay helpless; it could not lift itself. I knew now that I, too, had become one of the b.l.o.o.d.y horrors of the battle.

I struggled to my feet, weak and trembling, and sick with nausea. I must have been lying there a long time. The firing was now at a distance: the sun had gone half down the sky. They were picking up the wounded in the near field. A man stood looking at me. 'Good G.o.d!' he shouted, and then ran away like one afraid. There was a great ma.s.s of our men back of me some twenty rods. I staggered toward them, my knees quivering.

'I can never get there,' I heard myself whisper.

I thought of my little flask of whiskey, and, pulling the cork with my teeth, drank the half of it. That steadied me and I made better headway.

I could hear the soldiers talking as I neared them.

'Look a there!' I heard many saying. 'See 'em come! My G.o.d! Look at 'em on the hill there!