House Divided (63 page)

Then she and Trav moved on through the night, past drenched campfires where they smelled wet embers and wood smoke, past laboring wagons making use of these night hours when the roads were clear of marching men. Trav stopped now and then to direct the work of some group of teamsters struggling with a wagon that had lurched into a pit, or patching broken harnesses; but unless he was needed he pressed steadily on, Vesta's horse plodding on Nig's heels. Now and then he spoke to her; her answer was always brisk and cheery and undaunted. A fine girl—and a happy one. Once he asked: “Are you wet through?”

“No, the cape keeps me dry. I'm all right.”

“Chilled? I might have bought you a drop of brandy at Burnt Ordinary, or at White Hall tavern, but I didn't think of doing so.”

She laughed bravely in the night and the rain. “Nonsense, Uncle Trav! I'm fine.”

They rode all night, groping through the rain and darkness, along a road upon which even in the darkness there was movement; the sluggish crawling wagons, the teamsters half asleep, the plodding weary horses, all dimly seen with eyes accustomed to the dark. Trav had slept three or four hours in the morning, but that was long ago; sleep and fatigue lay heavy on him now. He thought of stopping at the tavern at New Kent Court House; but when they came there the recess under the veranda was full of men sheltering from the rain, with a bonfire burning beside the road, and he heard loud voices and singing in the common room, so he did not pause.

But dawn caught them while they were still far short of Bottom's Bridge, and he saw that Vesta's shoulders drooped with weariness They must rest a while; and at the next house, a mean small cabin built of logs, with an open shed behind, they stopped. A bent old man and his wife welcomed them to a roaring fire, to hot bread and bitter coffee, salt pork and molasses.

Vesta ate greedily. “Oh Uncle Trav, did anything ever taste so good!” Trav was as hungry as she. While they ate, the dim-eyed old man asked Trav many questions; and when he heard the Yankees were coming he took down a flintlock from pegs against the wall and drew the load and loaded the piece again.

“Reckon if they come this way I might as well take a hand,” he said.

When they could eat no more, the woman mothered Vesta, hung her cape and riding skirt before the fire, took shoes and stockings to dry, put the girl to bed under many coverlets. “You sleep a spell, ma'am, and you'll feel a sight better,” she urged.

“May I, Uncle Trav?”

Trav nodded. His own eyes were closing. “I'll lie down a minute myself.” He appealed to the woman. “If I may?”

“Why, Lord love you, sartain! And Jim'll give your horses a bite till yo're fit to go on.”

Trav suddenly remembered Big Mill, who would surely be on the road this morning, returning toward Williamsburg, and who might pass unknowing; but Mill would recognize Nig. “Yes, give the horses a nose bag if you can,” he agreed. “But keep mine in plain sight from the road. My boy will be coming from Richmond looking for me, and he'll know the horse.”

“I sh'd think he would,” the oldster agreed. “If he'd ever see him. I'll keep an eye on 'em, see to't no one don't take a notion to go off with them. Don't worry yourself. You lay down and rest a spell.”

So to the sound of wagons monotonously passing Trav fell asleep. He woke at the sound of a familiar voice. Big Mill was here. Trav swung his feet to the floor.

“They been a-fighting,” the woman told him; and Trav felt the rumble of the distant guns. Vesta was still asleep. He stepped outside to speak to Mill. The carriage was safe in Richmond, the Negro reported. Mrs. Currain, all of them had stood the journey well. “So I cotch me some sleep, and I come along looking to find you.”

“I'm glad you came. I need you. When Miss Vesta wakes up, you take her home. Wake her in time so you can reach Richmond before dusk. I'm going back to Williamsburg.”

“Yas suh!” But Trav heard the reluctance in the word, felt the other's loyal wish to stay with him.

“When she's safe, you come and find me again,” he directed. “I'll be somewhere with the trains.”

He left his grateful thanks with the old man and woman who had given them hospitality. It was near noon when he started to retrace his way, Nig splashing through shallows in the low ground among the swamps. Ahead of him, still far away but louder every time he topped a rise, he heard the growl of battle. Where a fork turned aside toward Diascund Bridge he saw men and wagons taking that way; and he asked a question. This was the vanguard of Magruder's men; they would bivouac at the bridge. Troops and wagons filled the road toward Barhamsville, and there he met General Smith's advance. The army was a serpent, its tail—Longstreet's division—still looking back at the enemy. It moved like a serpent with a broken back, thrashing awkwardly, crawling with a terrible slowness toward a doubtful safety—where?

Was this defeat? How far would they retreat? Where would they stand? Extended thus, the army was helplessly vulnerable. Suppose the Yankees landed a force from transports in the York River to strike this half-paralyzed serpent from the side, to crush its head, to cut off its tail; what could prevent catastrophe? How could this long line of men and wagons be organized again, thrown into battle order, set to face the enemy?

But that was not his province. Strategy, tactics, combat; these were not for him. His province was to keep the wagons moving, to provide somehow rations and supplies for these weary, stumbling men.

 

Somewhere ahead, said the distant guns, men like these men were fighting: Longstreet's men, the men Trav knew. They fought to hold back the enemy while these others escaped. The General had said dawn would see the division on the road again; but the cannons' voices gave the lie to that hope. Somehow they had been compelled to stand in battle—while their fellows marched away.

Trav remembered with a slow satisfaction that Vesta's Tommy, and young Julian, were not engaged in that ever nearer battle. They were to resume their march this morning while Longstreet's division
brought up the rear. Before long now he should meet Hill's men, following General Smith's division. He began to watch as he pushed on along the slowly crawling columns. The road now was incredibly deep with mud. Once Trav saw a horse so badly mired that a two-horse team had to be unhitched to drag the frantic creature, plunging body-deep in bottomless muck, to solid footing; and once he saw a pair of mules surging through soupy mud so deep that when they fell with a great splash the thin muddy water actually closed over them, so that they disappeared from view for an instant before they scrambled to their feet again. The road and the ditches and the sedge fields on either side were alive with myriads of small green frogs. Nig's hard hooves crushed them to nothingness.

Trav watched for Tommy or Rollin or Julian; and now and then, seeing the face of an acquaintance among the passing troops, he asked a question. The Fifth North Carolina regiment? Hill's division? Heads shook. No one knew.

After a while the road became almost deserted. Where then was Hill's division? It should have been close upon the heels of these regiments he had passed. A rising anxiousness beset him. The battle rumble yonder was a persisting irritation, irksome as a buzzing fly. From among the riders he met he picked out another familiar countenance, once more put his question, this time had his answer.

“Hill? Oh, he went back. The Yankees hit us at the crack of dawn. The Fifth North Carolina countermarched into town again. They were resting on the college campus waiting for orders, when we passed there.”

Trav thanked him and pressed on; and Nig fretted at the bit, and to ease him Trav loosed the reins and went at a canter. Short of town he met more wagons, of Hill's division; but though his mind automatically took note of this, his thoughts still cast ahead.

When he came into town, the thunder of the guns was loud and near; but there was no regiment resting on the campus of the college. Trav's lip tightened as he rode more slowly on. At the edge of town he saw a throng of men gathered, and heard wretched, groaning cries; and over the heads of the crowd he saw that here were Federal wounded laid on the grass beside the road to await attention. One man, rolling back and forth, screamed some agonized appeal; and a
tall Confederate in the uniform of a Louisiana Tiger stepped forward and raised his musket butt over the head of the tormented man.

“Out o' yore mis'ry?” he cried. “Why sartain!” The gun butt crashed splinteringly down. In the sudden silence the killer challenged the other wounded. “Any more o' you damned Yanks want to be accommodated?” Then at the universal murmur of anger from his own comrades he backed hastily into the crowd.

Trav, riding on, thought he understood the impulse which had prompted that brutality; the age-old impulse of the pack to kill a crippled member. Animals were pitiless to the hurt, and war made men into animals, and this was war. Ahead of him the sound of firing dwindled, and the great guns presently fell silent. There was only the spatter of musketry as dusk came down. He wished for news of Tommy and Julian, but he must find the General, get his orders for the night and the morrow. Inquiries led him to a house beyond the town where he saw riderless horses held by orderlies, and a considerable group of men. He dismounted, looping Nig's reins over his arm, and found Captain Goree and put his questions.

“The General? He's inside with General Johnston and General Hill.” Trav heard in the other's voice that quick excitement, that semi-intoxication which he had heard in other voices after the skirmish at Big Bethel and after Manassas. “Captain, we taught them a lesson today.”

“Fighting all day?”

“All morning!” Captain Goree's voice rang. “Longstreet's a great man, Currain. I was beside him all through it. As calm as a checker player. You'd have thought he was born on a battlefield.” And he explained: “They came at us hard, but we stopped them, and when they backed off he threw us at them, led the men himself. We chased them back on their reserves, and he sent Stuart to keep them running as long as they would run—like a dog chasing a cat.” He laughed. “That gave them all they wanted.”

“I heard guns till an hour ago,” Trav suggested.

“Oh yes,” Captain Goree agreed. “That was Hill's division. We'd used up most of our ammunition, and your wagons were on beyond town; so the General called on General Hill to stand by and be ready to help us if we needed help. All we wanted was to hold for the day.
General Johnston was here, but he said he couldn't improve on what Longstreet was doing. But General Hill wasn't satisfied to let well enough alone. He wanted a taste of glory too—so he tried an attack north of the Fort and bungled it, got the Fifth North Carolina shot to pieces.”

Trav felt a cold hand on his heart. “Where is that regiment now?”

But before the other could reply, there was a stir on the veranda of the house in front of which they stood. The door opened; the generals emerged. It was full dark, but in silhouette against the light from the hall Trav recognized General Johnston, the burly form of Longstreet, the stooped figure of General Hill.

After a last word to the others, Johnston mounted; the men of his staff followed him as he rode away. General Longstreet came toward where Trav and the others of his staff now gathered. “We resume the withdrawal,” he told them quietly. “The honors of the day go with us. The Yankees will not be in a hurry to tread on our heels again. We move first. General Hill's division will take the rear.” He sent men to transmit his orders to the brigade commanders.

Trav spoke to him. “General, our trains are on the road, so there's no work for me just now. But my nephew and the husband of my niece were in the Fifth North Carolina. I hear that regiment was hurt. May I take time to inquire for them?”

Longstreet's voice softened. “Certainly, Captain. I should not have given permission for that move on our left. I blame myself for yielding to persuasion. General Hill yonder can tell you where to find the regiment.” He hesitated. “Perhaps you can helo them move their wounded to shelter in the town.”

Trav thanked him. General Hill was giving directions to the men of his staff, standing at the foot of the veranda steps; the house door was still open and Trav saw the haggard lines in his old friend's countenance. When the other was free, Trav spoke to him.

General Hill echoed Trav's word. “The Fifth North Carolina? Mr. Currain, the slaughter of that regiment was the most terrible thing I ever saw—and their valor was beyond praise.”

“Where are they?”

“I'll ride with you,” the General decided. So they mounted and turned back toward the enemy, toward Fort Magruder. The road was
full of ambulances, lurching through the mud, floundering in the darkness. From each one came the groans, the sudden cries of suffering men. Just before they reached Fort Magruder the General turned aside, pointed to men grouped about bright fires ahead. “There they are, what's left of them. I dread facing Colonel McRae.”

Yet he rode forward; and Colonel McRae, with a heavy beard and level frowning brows, faced them across the fire by which he was standing. Trav saw that the Colonel's eyes were wet, tear stains upon his cheeks. The man saluted, and General Hill looked beyond him at the small groups silent by the fires. Trav thought they were no more than a company.

General Hill said gently: “Colonel, General Longstreet's division will lead the withdrawal. As soon as his last brigades have passed, put your regiment upon the road. You will lead my division.”

Colonel McRae swung to look around. “My regiment?” he echoed; said with half a sob: “General, I took four hundred and fifteen men into the action. There are not a hundred of us left able to walk without help ”

“The wounded will be cared for by the townspeople,” General Hill told him. Colonel McRae did not speak; and after a moment Hill turned his horse away.