Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Part 49

Carter swung himself slowly and heavily into his saddle. He was weary, languid and feverish with want of sleep, and trouble of mind. In truth he was physically and morally a much discomforted Brigadier General.

Without waiting for other directions than his example, his five staff officers mounted also and fell into a group behind him. In their rear was the brigade flag-bearer escorted by half-a-dozen cavalry-men. The sombre dawn was turning to red and gold in the east. A monstrous serpent of blue and steel was already creeping toward the ferry, increasing in length as additional regiments streamed into the road from the fields which had served for the bivouac. When Carter had seen his entire brigade file by, he set off at a canter, placed himself at the head of it, and rode on at a walk, silent and gloomy of countenance. Not even the thought that he was now a general, and had a chance to make a reputation for himself as well as for others, could enable him to quite throw off the seriousness and anxiety which beclouds the minds of men during the preliminaries of battle. The remembrance of the misery which he had wrought for his wife was no pleasant distraction. It was like a foreboding; it overshadowed him even when he was not thinking of it distinctly; it seemed to have a menacing arm which pointed him to punishment, calamity, perhaps a grave. He was like a haunted man who sees his following phantom if he turns his head ever so little.

Nevertheless, when he squarely faced the subject, and dragged it out separately from the general sombreness of the situation, it did not seem such a very hopeless misfortune. It surely was not possible that she had broken with him for life. He would win her back to him; it must be that she loved him enough to forgive him some day; he would win her back with repentance and victories. As he thought this he dashed a little way into the fields, gave a glance at the line of his brigade, and dispatched a couple of his staff to close up the rearmost files of his regiments.

Presently there was a halt: something probably going on in front: perhaps a reconnaisance: perhaps battle. The men were allowed to stack arms and sit down by the roadside. Then came news: Enemy in force at the crossing: a direct attack in front out of the question: turning movements to be made somewhere by somebody. It was a full hour after sunrise when an aid of General Emory's arrived with orders for General Carter to report for duty to General Birge.

"What is the situation?" asked the General.

"Two brigades are forming in front," replied the aid. "We have an immense line of skirmishers stretching from the Cane River on the right all along the edge of the woods, and out into the fields. But we can't go at them in front. Their ground is nearly a hundred feet higher than ours, and the crossing isn't fordable. We have got to flank them.

Closson is going up with some artillery to establish a position on our left, and from that the cavalry will turn the right wing of the enemy.

Birge is to do the same thing on this side with three brigades. He will go up about a mile--three miles from the ferry--ford the river--it's fordable up there--come round on the fellows, and give it to them over the left."

"Very good," said Carter. "If I shouldn't come back, give the General my compliments for his plan. Much obliged, Lieutenant."

At this moment the flat, dull report of a rifled iron gun came from the woods far away in front, followed a few seconds afterward by another report, still flatter in sound and much more distant, the bursting of a sh.e.l.l.

"There goes Closson," laughed the young officer. "Two twenty-pound Parrotts and four three-inch rifles! He'll wake 'em up when he gets fairly a-talking. Good luck to you, General."

And away he rode gaily, at a gallop, in the direction of the ferry.

While Birge's column countermarched, and Carter's brigade filed into the rear of it, the cannonade became lively in the front, the crashes of the guns alternating rapidly with the crashes of the sh.e.l.ls, as Closson went in with all his six pieces, and a Rebel battery of seven responded.

After half an hour of this the enemy found that a range of two thousand yards was too long for them, and became silent. Then Closson ceased firing also, and waited to hear from Birge. And now for five or six hours there was no more sound of fighting along this line, except an occasional shot from the skirmishers aimed at puffs of rifle smoke which showed rarely against the pines of the distant bluffs. The infantry column struggled over its long detour by the right; the cavalry tried in vain to force a way through the jungles on the left; the centre listened to the roar of A. J. Smith's battle in the rear, and lunched and waited.

At two o'clock Emory put everything in order to advance whenever Birge's musketry should give notice that he was closely engaged. Closson was to move forward on the left, and fire as fast as he could load. The remainder of the artillery was to gallop down the river road to the ferry, and open with a dozen or fifteen pieces. The two supporting brigades were to push through the woods as rapidly as possible and cover the artillery. The skirmishers were to cross the river wherever they could ford it, and keep up a heavy fire in order to occupy the attention of the enemy. Closson started at once, forced five of his three-inch rifles through the wood, went into battle at a range of a thousand yards, and in ten minutes dislodged the Rebel guns from their position.

But all this was mere feinting; the heavy fighting must be done by Birge.

The flanking column had a hard road to travel. After fording the Cane River it entered a country of thickets, swamps and gullies so difficult of pa.s.sage that five hours were spent in marching barely five miles. Two regiments were deployed in advance as skirmishers; the others followed in columns of division doubled on the centre. At one time the whole force went into line of battle on a false alarm of the near presence of the enemy. Then the nature of the ground forced it to move for nearly a mile in the ordinary column of march. It floundered through swampy undergrowths; it forded a deep and muddy bayou. About two o'clock in the afternoon it came out upon a clearing in full view of a bluff, forty or fifty feet in height, flanked on one side by the river, and on the other by a marshy jungle connecting with a lake. Along the brow of this bluff lay Polignac's left wing, an unknown force of Texan riflemen, all good shots, and impetuous fighters, elated moreover with pursuit and the expectation of victory. Here Carter received an order to charge with his brigade.

"Very good," he answered, in a loud, satisfied, confident tone, at the same time throwing away his segar. "Let me look at things first. I want to see where to go in."

A single glance told him that the river side was una.s.sailable. He galloped to the right, inspected the boggy jungle, glared at the lake beyond, and decided that nothing could be done in that quarter.

Returning to the brigade he once more surveyed the ground in its front.

It would be necessary to take down a high fence, cross an open field, take down a second fence, and advance up the hill under a close fire of musketry. But he was not dispirited by the prospect; he was no longer the silent, sombre man of the morning. The whizzing of the Texan bullets, the sight of the b.u.t.ternut uniforms, and ugly broadbrims which faced him, had cleared his deep breast of oppression, and called the fighting fire into his eyes. He swore loudly and gaily; he would flog those dirty rapscallions; he would knock them high and dry into the other world; he would teach them not to get in his way.

"Go to the regimental commanders," he shouted to his staff officers.

"Tell them to push straight at the hill. Tell them, Guide right."

On went the regiments, four in number, keeping even pace with each other. There was a halt at the first fence while the men struggled with the obstacle, climbing it in some places, and pus.h.i.+ng it over in others. The General's brow darkened with anxiety lest the temporary confusion should end in a retreat; and spurring close up to the line he rode hither and thither, cheering the soldiers onward.

"Forward, my fine lads," he said. "Down with it. Jump it. Now then. Get into your ranks. Get along, my lads."

On went the regiments, moving at the ordinary quickstep, arms at a right-shoulder-s.h.i.+ft, ranks closed, gaps filled, unfaltering, heroic.

The dead were falling; the wounded were crawling in numbers to the rear; the leisurely hum of long-range bullets had changed into the sharp, mult.i.tudinous _whit-whit_ of close firing; the stifled crash of b.a.l.l.s. .h.i.tting bones, and the soft _chuck_ of flesh-wounds mingled with the outcries of the sufferers; the bluff in front was smoking, rattling, wailing with the incessant file-fire; but the front of the brigade remained unbroken, and its rear showed no stragglers. The right hand regiment floundered in a swamp, but the other hurried on without waiting for it. As the momentum of the movement increased, as the spirits of the men rose with the charge, a stern shout broke forth, something between a hurrah and a yell, swelling up against the rebel musketry, and defying it. Gradually the pace increased to a double-quick, and the whole ma.s.s ran for an eighth of a mile through the whistling bullets. The second fence disappeared like frost-work, and up the slope of the hill struggled the panting regiments. When the foremost ranks had nearly reached the summit, a sudden silence stifled the musketry. Polignac's line wavered, ceased firing, broke and went to the rear in confusion.

The clamor of the charging yell redoubled for a moment, and then died in the rear of a tremendous volley. Now the Union line was firing, and now the rebels were falling. Such was the charge which carried the crossing, and gained the battle of Cane River.

But Brigadier-General John Carter had already fallen gloriously in the arms of victory.

At the moment that the fatal shot struck him he had forgotten his guilt and remorse in the wild joy of successful battle. He was on horseback, closely following his advancing brigade, and watching its spirited push, and listening to its mad yell, with such a smile of soldierly delight and pride that it was a pleasure to look upon his bronzed, confident, heroic face. It would have been strange to a civilian to hear the stream of joyful curses with which he expressed his admiration and elation.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n them! see them go in!" he said. "G.o.d d.a.m.n their souls! I can put them anywhere!"

He had just uttered these words when a Minie-ball struck him in the left side, just below the ribs, with a _thud_ which was audible ten feet from him in spite of the noise of the battle. He started violently in the saddle, and then bent slowly forward, laying his right hand on the horse's mane. He was observed to carry his left hand twice toward the wound without touching it, as if desirous, yet fearful, of ascertaining the extent of the injury. The blow was mortal, and he must have known it, yet he retained his ruddy bronze color for a minute or two. With the a.s.sistance of two staff officers he dismounted and walked eight or ten yards to the shade of a tree, uttering not a groan, and only showing his agony by the manner in which he bent forward, and the spasmodic clutch with which he held to those supporting shoulders. But when he had been laid down, it was visible enough that there was not half an hour's life in him. His breath was short, his forehead was thickly beaded with a cold perspiration, and his face was of an ashy pallor stained with streaks of ghastly yellow.

"Tell Colonel Gilliman," he said, mentioning the senior colonel of the brigade, and then paused to catch his breath before he resumed, "tell him to keep straight forward."

These were the first words that he had spoken since he was. .h.i.t. His voice had already sunk from a clear, sonorous ba.s.s to a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

Presently, as the smoking and roaring surge of battle rolled farther to the front a chaplain and a surgeon came up, followed by several ambulance men bearing stretchers. The chaplain was attached to Carter's old regiment, and had served under him since its formation. The surgeon, a Creole by birth, a Frenchman by education, philosophical and roue, belonged to a Louisiana loyal regiment, and had known the General in other days, when he was a dissipated, spendthrift lieutenant of the regular army, stationed at Baton Rouge. He gave him a large cup of whiskey, uncovered the wound, probed it with his finger, and said nothing, looked nothing.

"Why don't you do something?" whispered the chaplain eagerly, and almost weeping.

"I have done all that is--essential," he replied, with a slight shrug of the shoulders.

"How do you feel, General?" asked the chaplain, turning to his dying commander.

"Going," was the whispered answer.

"Going!--Oh, going where?" implored the other, sinking on his knees.

"General, have you thought of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ?"

For a moment Carter's deep voice returned to him, as, fixing his stern eyes on the chaplain, he answered, "Don't bother!--where is the brigade?"

Perhaps he thought it unworthy of him to seek G.o.d in his extremity, when he had neglected Him in all his hours of health. Perhaps he felt that he owed his last thoughts to his country and his professional duties.

Perhaps he did not mean all that he said.

It was strange to note the power of military discipline upon the chaplain. Even in this awful hour, when it was his part to fear no man, he evidently quailed before his superior officer. Under the pressure of a three years' habit of obedience and respect, cowed by rank and that audacious will accustomed to domination, he shrank back into silence, covering his face with his hands, and no doubt praying, but uttering no further word.

"General, the brigade has carried the position," said one of the staff-officers.

Carter smiled, tried to raise his head, dropped it slowly, drew a dozen labored breaths, and was dead.

"_Il a maintenu jusq'au bout son personnage_," said the surgeon, letting fall the extinct pulse. "_Sa mort est tout ce qu'il y a de plus logique._"

So he thought, and very naturally. He had only known him in his evil hours; he judged him as all superficial acquaintances would have judged; he was not aware of the tenderness which existed at the bottom of that pa.s.sionate nature. With another education Carter might have been a James Brainard or a St. Vincent de Paul. With the training that he had, it was perfectly logical that in his last moments he should not want to be bothered about Jesus Christ.

The body was borne on a stretcher in rear of the victorious columns until they halted for the night, when it was buried in the private cemetery of a planter, in presence of Carter's former regiment. Among the spectators was Colburne, stricken with real grief as he thought of the bereaved wife. Throughout the army the regret was general and earnest over the loss of this brave and able officer, apparently just entering upon a career of long-deserved promotion. In a letter to Ravenel, Colburne related the particulars of Carter's death, and closed with a fervent eulogium on his character as a man and his services as a soldier, forgetting that he had sometimes drunk too deeply, and that there were suspicions against him of other vices. It is thus that young and generous spirits are apt to remember the dead, and it is thus always that a soldier laments for a worthy commander who has fallen on the field of honor.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

LILLIE DEVOTES HERSELF ENTIRELY TO THE RISING GENERATION.

Lillie wished to return, at least for a while, to her old quarters in the New Boston House. A desire to go back by a.s.sociation to some part of her life which had been happy may have influenced her in this choice; and she was so quietly earnest in it that her father yielded, although he feared that the recollections connected with the place would increase her melancholy. They had been there only three days when he read with a shock the newspaper report of the battle of Cane River, and the death of "the lamented General Carter." He did not dare mention it to her, and sought to keep the journals out of her reach. This was easy enough, for she never went out alone, rarely spoke to any one but her father, and devoted her time mostly to her child and her sewing. But about a week after their arrival, as the Doctor came in to dinner from a morning's reading in the college library, he found her weeping quietly over a letter which lay open in her lap. She handed it to him, merely saying, "Oh, papa!"

He glanced through it hastily; it was Colburne's account of Carter's death.

"I knew this, my dear," he said. "But I did not dare to tell you. I hope you are able to bear it. There is a great deal to bear in this world.

But it is for our good."