The Man in Gray: A Romance of North and South Part 76

Why did the war crowd on the streets and in the ranks burst into song as they marched to kill their fellow men?

To find the answer we must go back to the dawn of human history and see man, as yet a savage beast, with but one impulse the dominant force in life, the archaic impulse to slay.

All wars are not begun in this elemental fas.h.i.+on. There are wars of defense forced on innocent nations by brutal aggressors. But the joy that thrills the soul of the crowd on the declaration of war is always the simple thing. It is the roar of the lion as he springs on his prey.

In this Song to the Soul of John Brown there was no thought of freeing a slave. War was not declared on that ground. The President who called them had no such purpose. The men who marched had no such idea. They sang "Glory, Glory Hallelujah! Glory, Glory Hallelujah!" because they saw Red.

The restraints of Law, Religion and Tradition had been lifted. The primitive beast that had been held in check by civilization, rose with a shout and leaped to its ancient task. The homicidal wish--fancy with which the human mind had toyed in times of peace in dreams and reveries--was now a living reality.

Not one in a thousand knew what the war was about. And this one in a thousand who thought he knew was mistaken. It had been made legal to kill. They were marching to kill. They shouted. They sang.

They were marching to the most utterly senseless and unnecessary struggle in the history of our race. The North in the hours of sanity which preceded the outburst did not wish war. The South in her sane moments never believed it possible. Yet the h.e.l.l-lit tragedy of brothers marching to slay their brothers had come. Nothing could dampen the enthusiasm of this first joyous mob.

On the night of the twentieth of July the Army of the North was encamped about seven miles from Beaureguard's lines at Bull Run. The volunteers were singing, shouting, girding their loins for the fray. They had heard the firing on the first skirmish line. Fifteen or twenty men had been killed it was reported.

The Red Thought leaped!

At two o'clock before day on Sunday morning, the order came to advance against the foe. The deep thrill of the elemental man swept the crowd.

They had come loaded down with baggage. They hurled it aside and got their guns.

What many of them were afraid of was that the whole rebel army would escape before they could get into the thick of it. Many had brought handcuffs and ropes along with which to manacle their prisoners and have sport with them after the fight, another ancient pastime of our half-ape ancestors. They threw down some of their blankets but held on to their handcuffs.

When the first crash of battle came these raw recruits on both sides fought with desperate bravery for nine terrible hours. They fought from dawn until three o'clock in the afternoon under the broiling Southern sun of July. Charge and counter charge left their toll of the dead and then the tired archaic muscles began to wonder when it would end. Why hadn't victory come? Where were the prisoners they were to manacle?

Both sides were sick with hunger and weariness. The Southerners were expecting reinforcements from Mana.s.sas Junction. The Northerners were expecting reinforcements. Their eyes were turned toward the same road which led from the Shenandoah Valley.

A dust cloud suddenly rose over the hill. A fresh army was marching on the scene. North and South looked with straining eyes. They were not long in doubt. The first troops suddenly swung in on the right flank of the Southern army and began to form their lines to charge the North.

Suddenly from this fresh Southern line rose a new cry. From two thousand throats came the shrill, elemental, savage shout of the hunter in sight of his game--the fierce Rebel Yell.

They charged the Northern lines and then pandemonium--blind, unreasoning wolf-panic seized the army that had marched with songs and shouts to kill. They broke and fled. They cut the traces of their horses, left the guns, mounted and rode for life.

The mob engulfed the buggies and carriages of Congressmen and picnickers who had come out from Was.h.i.+ngton to see the fun. A rebellion crushed at a blow!

Stuart at the head of his Black Horse Cavalry, his saber flas.h.i.+ng, cut his way through this mob again and again.

When the smoke of battle lifted, the dazed, ill-organized ambulance corps searched the field for the first toll of the Blood Feud. They found only nine hundred boys slain and two thousand six hundred wounded.

They lay weltering in their blood in the smothering heat and dust and dirt.

The details of men were busy burying the dead, some of their bodies yet warm.

The morning after dawned black and lowering and the rain began to pour in torrents. Through the streets of Was.h.i.+ngton the stragglers streamed.

The plumes which waved as they sang were soaked and drooping. Their gorgeous, new uniforms were wrinkled and mud-smeared.

The President called for five hundred thousand men this time. The joy and glory of war had gone.

But war remained.

War grim, gaunt, stark, hideous--as remorseless as death.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

In a foliage-embowered house on a hill near Was.h.i.+ngton Colonel Jeb Stuart, Commander of the Confederate Cavalry, had made his headquarters.

Neighing horses were hitched to the swaying limbs. They pawed the ground, wheeled and whinnied their impatience at inaction. Every man who sat in one of those saddles owned his mount. These boys were the flower of Southern manhood. The Confederate Government was too poor to furnish horses for the Cavalry. Every man, volunteering for this branch of the service, must bring his own horse and equipment complete. The South only furnished a revolver and carbine. At the first battle of Bull Run they didn't have enough of them even for the regiments Stuart commanded.

Whole companies were armed only with the pikes which John Brown had made for the swarming of the Black Bees at Harper's Ferry. They used these pikes as lances.

The thing that gave the Confederate Cavalry its impetuous dash, its fire and efficiency was the fact that every man on horseback had been born in the saddle and had known his horse from a colt. From the moment they swung into line they were veterans.

The North had no such riders in the field as yet. Brigadier-General Phillip St. George Cooke was organizing this branch of the service. It would take weary months to train new riders and break in strange horses.

Until these born riders, mounted on their favorites, could be killed or their horses shot from under them, there would be tough work ahead for the Union Cavalry.

A farmer approached at sunset. He gazed on the array with pride.

He lifted his gray head and shouted:

"Hurrah for our boys! Old Virginia'll show 'em before we're through with this!"

A sentinel saluted the old man.

"I've come for Colonel Stuart. His wife and babies are at my house.

He'll understand. Tell him."

The farmer watched the spectacle. Straight in front of the little portico on its tall staff fluttered the Commander's new, blood-red battle flag with its blue St. Andrew's cross and white stars rippling in the wind. Spurs were clanking, sabers rattling. A courier dashed up, dismounted and entered the house. Young officers in their new uniforms were laughing and chatting in groups before the door.

An escort brought in a Federal Cavalry prisoner on his mount. The boys gathered around him and roared with laughter. He was a good-natured Irishman who could take a joke. His horse was loaded down with a hundred pounds of extra equipment. The Irishman had half of it strapped on his own back.

A boy shouted:

"For the Lord's sake, did you take him with all that freight?"

An escort roared:

"That's why we took him. He couldn't run."

The boy looked at the solemn face of the prisoner and chaffed:

"And why have ye got that load on your own back, man?"

Without cracking a smile the Irishman replied:

"An' I thought me old horse had all he could carry!"

The boys roared, pulled him down, took off his trappings and told him to make himself at home.