93. XCIII.
WHERE AND WITH WHOM I SUPPED ON THE NIGHT OF
THE BATTLE OF SHARPSBURG.
The spectacle which met my eyes as I reached the field was
imposing.
Before me was a picturesque valley, hemmed in upon the east
by the wooded ramparts of the South Mountain, and traversed
by the winding current of the Antietam. On every eminence
rose farm-houses, now standing boldly out, now embowered in
trees. The light green of nearly ripe corn, the deeper green of
clover, and the russet-brown of ploughed land, over which the
shadows came and went, made up a landscape which must have
been charming only the day before.
Now it was torn, dismantled, and swept bare by the besom
of war. All day the opposing battalions had charged backward
and forward through those smiling fields; from behind those
peaceful farm-houses, now crowded with the dead and wounded,
sharpshooters had delivered their hot fire; the corn was trampled
under foot; the ground ploughed up with shot and shell; the
whole face of nature desolate.
On the elevated ground extending on both sides of the Antietam
were drawn up the hostile lines which all day long had
wrestled to and fro in one of the bloodiest combats of history.
Connecting them was the small bridge over the Antietam which
had been the occasion of a struggle so desperate, of which
General McClellan had said, “Tell General Burnside to hold the
bridge! The bridge! always the bridge! If that is lost, all is
lost!”
It was lost, and the battle with it. On the left, Jackson had
held his ground with that stubborn and unconquerable resolution
which accomplishes every thing. Stuart had driven back with
his artillery under Pelham the advance to turn Jackson's flank;
the sun had set, the conflict was over, and all was well.
General McClellan had attacked and been repulsed. That
meant defeat.
Passing along the lines of weary but laughing troops, cooking
rations at their camp-fires, I found General Jackson busily masticating
a cracker by his fire, and reported the cause of my
absence.
“Your escape was truly providential, Major,” he said. “We
have had some hard fighting in your absence, but have held our
ground here. With five thousand fresh troops I think we could
have driven the enemy from his position, and defeated him.”
In this opinion I afterward understood that General Lee coincided.
[1]
The General then proceeded to give me some account of the
action, and I afterward found that General McClellan's report
fully coincided with his opinions. The Federal commander had
massed his forces under Hooker against the left, where Jackson
was posted, and the failure of the attack in that portion of the
field decided the fate of the day. The fighting was desperate,
and our loss terrible—as was that of the enemy, I afterward discovered,
especially in officers; but at nightfall Jackson occupied
the ground which he originally held.
“Our friend Stuart has performed invaluable services to-day,”
said the General, warmly; “he is a very great soldier! And
that youth, Pelham! You know him, do you not?”
“Intimately, General.
“He is a very remarkable young man. He commanded to-day
nearly all the artillery of the left wing of the army, and I have
never seen more skilful handling of guns. It is really extraordinary
to find such nerve and genius in a mere boy. With a
Pelham on each flank, I believe I could whip the world!”[2]
These words delighted me. In the hurry of my narrative I
have not spoken of the warm friendship which existed between
myself and the noble young Alabamian; but, with every fight in
which I witnessed his superb and headlong courage, his coolness,
dash, and stubborn persistence, my admiration for him had
increased.
An hour after my arrival, Jackson sent me with a message to
Stuart, all his other staff-officers being absent on duty.
I found the commander of the cavalry lying under a tree, on
his red blanket, by the camp-fire, laughing and talking with his
staff. His enormous physical organization never seemed to
break down; at all hours, in all weather, under every fatigue,
Stuart was the same superb war-machine, which nothing could
affect.
He laughed heartily at the narrative of my escape, and said:
“You ought to get our friend Joyeuse” (the sobriquet of a
member of his staff) “to write your adventures. Well, we have
had a jolly time here, and nearly whipped them. Pelham has
covered himself all over with glory!”
Two Major-Generals had thus chanted the boy's praises,
and those Major-Generals were called Jackson and Stuart!
After a few more words I rose and bade the General good-night.
“Long may you wave!” was his gay reply, as he stretched
himself upon his blanket; and I rode back through the darkness.
Stuart had spoken in ardent terms of Pelham, but he had not
referred to his own reckless gallantry, his obstinate stand when
Hooker tried to turn our left, and, his headlong gallop on his
beautiful “Lady Margaret” across the front of a Federal regi
ment, who, recognizing his high rank, poured a murderous volley
into him at the distance of fifty yards!
He had passed unscathed. The fatal bullet was not moulded
then, which struck him at the Yellow Tavern.
A quarter of a mile from Stuart's bivouac, I passed a battalion
of artillery, grimly frowning toward the enemy, from the rising
ground where it was placed in battery, and, when I asked who
commanded it, the reply was “Pelham.”
Ten paces further I found him seated by the camp-fire
among his men, and laughing gayly with a young Federal
officer, who was munching a cracker.
As I approached, the officer turned round. It was my
brother Will!
In an instant he had risen, and with all the ardor of a boy
thrown his arm around my neck. A hundred exclamations of
delight followed, a hundred questions were asked. Will seemed
positively overwhelmed with joy.
His presence was soon explained. A company of Federal
cavalry had charged Pelham's guns that day—Will had led
them—and one of the cannoneers had coolly swept the young
lieutenant from his saddle with a sponge staff.[3]
When his
company retreated, torn to pieces by Pelham's canister, Will had
remained in the hands of his enemies.
In the commander of the horse artillery, however, he had
soon discovered an old comrade. He and Pelham had been
intimate friends at West Point, just before the war, and they
met each other with a shout of pleasure.
Seated by the camp-fire, they had exchanged a thousand jests
and recollections, interspersed with boyish laughter.
“Well,” said Pelham, as he stood by the fire, after shaking
hands with me, “that's what I call romantic! I thought that
my meeting with Will was curious, but here he finds his
brother.”
“And the best brother you ever saw!” laughed Will, “if he
is a rebel! I wish I was in the Southern army.”
And, passing from laughter to sighs, the boy looked gloomy.
“Stop all that talk, Will,” said Pelham. “And that reminds
me that we have had no supper. We live splendidly in the
Southern army generally—pheasants, woodcock, champagne,
and Havana cigars, for regular rations! But the commissary
seems to have forgotten us to-night. Suppose we go over to
that house yonder, and get something better than hard tack.”
“All right!” was the gay reply of Will as he rose.
“First, however,” said Pelham, with mock solemnity, “I will
take your parole, lieutenant, not to communicate directly or
indirectly with the inhabitants of that house.”
“Oh, bother! Jack,” was the reply; “I intend to ask for a
drink the very first thing!”
“That is only reasonable,” returned Pelham laughing. “Come
on, Surry, go with us.”
It did not take much persuasion to induce me to do so, and
ten minutes' walk brought us to the house—a plain but elegant
mansion, evidently the residence of a gentleman.
I was still absorbed in talking with Will—interrogating him,
replying to his questions, exchanging a hundred laughing or
sighing recollections—when Pelham was heard exclaiming in a
low tone:
“Glorious! they are just at supper!”
And he beckoned to me to come to the window and look.
Through a vine-clad window, I saw a gentleman and his family
at supper. There was something familiar in the face of one
of the young ladies, but I could not see her very distinctly. I
soon had a better opportunity. Pelham had gone and knocked,
and the old gentleman rose and came to the door.
As soon as he saw us he evidently comprehended the object of
our visit, and very courteously invited us to come in to supper.
We entered, and what was my surprise to see Will suddenly
run forward, and, with all the abandon of a boy, throw his arms
around the young lady whose face I thought I had recognized!
The embrace was followed by an astounding explosion in the
way of a kiss—and then a grand tableau! The young girl
blushing to the whites of her eyes, a second damsel standing
primly erect, the old gentleman utterly dumbfounded, the old
lady holding up her hands, and a pretty little girl of about ten,
with a quantity of bright curls, looking with eyes of wild amazement
at the spectacle.
Every historian owes his reader an explanation of whatever is
obscure. The meaning of all this scene will be better understood
if the kind reader will turn back to the chapter headed,
“I chase and come up with a Federal officer.” In my conversation
with Will on that occasion, he said: “What's become of
Jenny Clayton? At the North still? Pshaw! Why don't she
come home?” The young lady before us was Miss Jenny Clayton,
a remote cousin of ours, from Virginia, who had been
Will's sweetheart when they were children. Her father, a timid
man, of lukewarm feeling toward the Confederacy, had sent her
to the North to be educated; she had come to visit a schoolmate,
the daughter of Mr. Curtis, our host—and so we all met!
A few words explained every thing, and the old gentleman
laughed heartily.
“Come, sit down, sit down, gentlemen!” he said to Pelham
and myself. “I am what you call a `Union man,' but I am not a
churl on that account.”
And he hospitably busied himself in heaping up our plates
with smoking “viands”—see the novelists. “Viands,” on the
present occasion, meant beef hash, hot bread, milk, butter,
coffee, preserves, and that succulent edible called “apple butter.”
That hash! that “apple butter!”—that gorgeous, magical
supper!—memory still returns to it, and dwells upon it with the
fond and lingering tenderness of a lover who remembers the
bright hours of his happiness!
At last we rose, casting eloquent glances, illuminated by
smiles—each at each.
Will sat down by Jenny Clayton, who was soon running on
with him in the gayest manner, and Pelham had drawn to his
side the pretty little fairy with the curls, who—astounding
event!—declared herself an inveterate rebel!
“That is true,” said the old gentleman, laughing. “Carrie
can't bear her own people, and runs to all the gray-coats.”
“But I don't like your flag,” said the little girl, “it looks so
bloody!”
And she shook her head sadly, looking with her great blue
eyes, half covered with golden ringlets, at Pelham. That gaze
was met by Pelham with a long, sad, yearning look, which I
could not understand. The penetrating eyes had grown soft, the
laughter of the lips disappeared, an expression of longing tenderness
relaxed the features of the young soldier—and, without
seeming aware of what he was doing, he drew the child toward
him.
His arm encircled the slender form, his lips were pressed to
hers in a long, lingering kiss; and then, as he turned aside his
head, I saw tears in his eyes.
“You are the very image of a little sister I have,” he said, in
a low voice, “far away in Alabama.”
The words were drowned in the laughter of Will and Miss
Jenny Clayton, who seemed to have become better friends than
ever.
When finally we rose, and bade our hospitable entertainers
good-night, I thought that Miss Jenny Clayton had quite succeeded
in effacing the image of Miss Henrietta Fitzhugh.
I have remembered this evening ever since; but nothing
dwells more clearly in my recollection than that kiss bestowed
by Pelham on the child, and the tender words he murmured as
he pressed her to his heart.
That night Will slept by my side at General Jackson's head-quarters,
or rather we spent the night together, talking of old
days, and friends at home. Why should I record that conversation
of two brothers? It would scarcely interest the reader.
The chill winds of the September night, fanning the embers of
the camp-fire, bore away the words.
On the next day, as I have said, we remained in line of battle
facing the enemy, defying General McClellan to renew the attack.
On the day after, General Lee was on the south bank of the
Potomac—leaving only, growled the New York Tribune, “the
débris of his late camps, two disabled pieces of artillery, a few
hundred of his stragglers, perhaps two thousand of his wounded,
and as many more of his unburied dead—not a sound field-piece,
caisson, ambulance, or wagon. He takes with him the supplies
gathered in Maryland, and the rich spoils of Harper's Ferry.”
Will was back to his command. To spare him the tedium of
a prison, I had succeeded in having his name added to the list
of Federal prisoners captured at Harper's Ferry, and released
upon parole not to serve until exchanged. With a close pressure
of the hand we had parted.
Such had been, from first to last, my experiences of the
“Maryland Campaign.”
