132. CXXXII.
IN A DREAM.
Here I terminate my memoirs for the present, if not forever.
The great form of Jackson has disappeared from the stage.
What remains but a cold and gloomy theatre, from which the
spectators have vanished, where the lights are extinguished, and
darkness has settled down upon the pageant?
Other souls of fire, and valor, and unshrinking nerve were
left, and their career was glorious; but the finger of Fate seemed
to mark out, with its bloody point, the name of “Chancellorsville,”
and the iron lips to unclose and mutter: “Thus far, no
further!” With the career of this man of destiny had waned
the strength of the South—when he fell, the end was in sight.
Thenceforward as good fighting as the world ever saw seemed
useless, and to attain no result. Even the soldiership of Lee—
such soldiership as renders famous forever a race and an epoch
—could achieve nothing. From the day of Chancellorsville, the
battle-flag, torn in so many glorious encounters, seemed to shine
no more in the light of victory. It drooped upon its staff, however
defiantly at times it rose—slowly it descended. It fluttered
for a moment amid the fiery storm of Gettysburg, in the woods
of Spottsylvania, and on the banks of the Appomattox; but
never again did its dazzling folds flaunt proudly in the wind, and
burn like a beacon light on victorious fields. It was natural that
the army should connect the declining fortunes of the great flag
which they had fought under with the death of him who had
rendered it so illustrious. The form of Jackson had vanished
from the scene: that king of battle had dropped his sword, and
descended into the tomb: from that moment the star of hope,
like the light of victory, seemed to sink beneath ebon clouds.
The hero had gone down in the bloody gulf of battle, and the
torrent bore us away!
In the scenes of this volume, the great soldier has appeared as
I saw him. Those of his last hours I did not witness, but many
narratives upon the subject have been printed. Those last
moments were as serene as his life had been stormy—and there,
as everywhere, he was victorious. On the field it was his enemies
he conquered: here it was pain and suffering. That faith
which overcomes all things was in his heart, and among his last
words were: “It is all right!”
In that delirium which immediately precedes death, he gave
his orders as on the battle-field, and was distinctly heard directing
A. P. Hill to “prepare for action!” But these clouds soon
passed—his eye grew calm again—and, murmuring “Let us
cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees!” he
fell back and expired.
Such was the death of this strange man. To me he seems so
great that all words fail in speaking of him. Not in this poor
page do I attempt a characterization of this king of battle: I
speak no further of him—but I loved and shall ever love him.
A body laid in state in the Capitol at Richmond, the coffin
wrapped in the pure white folds of the newly-adopted Confederate
flag; a great procession, moving to the strains of the Dead
March, behind the hearse, and the war-horse of the dead soldier;
then the thunder of the guns at Lexington; the coffin borne
upon a caisson of his own old battery, to the quiet grave—that
was the last of Jackson. Dead, he was immortal!
As I write that page here in my quiet library at Eagle's-Nest,
in October, 1865, I lay down my pen, lean back in my chair, and
murmur:
“Have I seen all that—or was it only a dream?”
The Rappahannock flows serenely yonder, through the hills,
as in other years; the autumn forests burn away, in blue and
gold and orange, as they did in the days of my youth; the
winds whisper; the sunshine laughs—it is only we who laugh
no more!
“Was that a real series of events?” I say; “or only a drama
of the imagination? Did I really hear the voice of Jackson, and
the laughter of Stuart, in those glorious charges, on those bloody
fields? Did Ashby pass before me on his milk-white steed, and
greet me by the camp-fire as his friend? Did I fight by his side
in those hot encounters, watch the flash of his sabre, and hold
his bleeding form upon my breast? Was it a real figure, that
stately form of Lee, amid the swamps of the Chickahominy, the
fire of Malvern Hill, the appalling din and smoke and blood
of Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville—of Gettysburg,
Spottsylvania, and Petersburg? Jackson, that greater than the
leader of the Ironsides—Stuart, more fiery than Rupert of the
Bloody Sword—Ashby, the pearl of chivalry and honor—Lee,
the old Roman, fighting, with a nerve so splendid, to the bitter
end—these were surely the heroes of some dream, the forms of
an excited imagination! Did Pelham press my hand, and hold
the pale face of Jean upon his heart, and fall in that stubborn
fight with Averill? Did Farley smile, and fight, and die near
the very same spot—and was it really the eyes of Stuart that
dropped bitter tears upon the pallid faces of these youths, dead
on the field of honor? Were those spring flowers of Incognita,
which lay but now before me, real clusters from the sunny
slopes of Georgia, or the flowers of a dream? Was that proud,
bronzed face of Mordaunt real? And the blue eyes, peering
from the golden curls of Violet Grafton—were they actual
eyes?”
It is like a dream to me that I looked upon these faces—that I
touched the honest hand of Hood; gave back the courteous
smile of Ambrose Hill; spoke with the hardy Longstreet, the
stubborn Ewell, Hampton the fearless, and the dashing and
chivalric Lees. Souls of fire and flame—with a light how steady
burned these stately names! how they fought, these hearts of
oak! But did they live their lives, these men and their comrades,
as I seem to remember? At Manassas, Sharpsburg, and
Chancellorsville, was it two, three, and four to one that they
defeated?—and at Appomattox, in that black April of 1865, was
it really a force of only eight thousand muskets, which Lee long
refused to surrender to one hundred and forty thousand? Did
these events take place in a real world, on an actual arena—or
did all those figures move, all those voices sound, in some realm
of the imagination? It was surely a dream—was it not?—that
the South fought so stubbornly for those four long years, and
bore the blood-red battle-flag aloft in so many glorious encounters,
amid foes so swarming and so powerful—that she
would not yield, although so many brave hearts poured their
blood out on the weird plains of Manassas, the fair fields of the
valley, by the sluggish waters of the Chickahominy, or amid the
sombre thickets of the Spottsylvania Wilderness!
But the dream was glorious—not even the immedicabile vulnus
of surrender can efface its splendor. Still it moves me, and
possesses me; and I live forever in that past. Fond violet eyes,
that shone once at The Oaks, and now shine at Eagle's-Nest!—
be not clouded with displeasure. It is only a few comrades of
the old time I am thinking of—a few things I have seen in the
long-gone centuries when we used to wear gray, and marched
under the red flag of the South! It is of these I dream—as
memory goes back to them I live once more in the days that are
dead. All things recall the scenes and personages of those years;
and bring back from the tomb the phantom figures. They speak
to me, as in the former time, with their kindly voices—the pale,
dim faces flush, the eyes flash.
At all times—everywhere—the Past comes into the Present,
and possesses it. As I awake at morning, the murmur of the
river breeze is the low roll of drums from the forest yonder,
where the camps of infantry are aroused by the reveille. In the
moonlight nights, when all is still, a sound comes, borne upon
the breeze, from some dim land—I seem to hear the bugles. In
the thunder of some storm, I hear the roar of artillery.
Even now, as the glory of the sunlight falls on the great landscape
of field and forest and river, a tempest gathers on the
shores of the Rappahannock. The sunlight disappears, sucked
in by the black and threatening clouds which sweep from the far
horizon; a gigantic pall seems slowly to descend upon the landscape,
but a moment since so beautiful and smiling; the lurid
lightnings flicker like quick tongues of flame, and, as these fiery
serpents play amid the ebon mass, a mighty wind arises, swells,
and roars on through the splendid foliage of the forest, where
the year is dying on its couch of blood.
That is only a storm, you may say, perhaps—to me it is more.
Look! those variegated colors of the autumn leaves are the
flaunting banners of an army drawn up there in line of battle,
and about to charge. Listen! that murmur of the Rappahannock
is the shuffling sound of a great column on its march!—hush!
there is the bugle!—and that rushing wind in the trees of the
forest is the charge of Stuart and his horsemen! How the hoof-strokes
tear along! how the phantom horsemen shout as they
charge!—how the ghost of Stuart rides!
See the banners yonder, where the line of battle is drawn up
against the autumn woods—how their splendid colors burn, how
they flaunt and wave and ripple in the wind—proud and defiant!
Is that distant figure on a horse the man of Port Republic and
Chancellorsville, with his old yellow cap, his dingy coat, his
piercing eyes—and is that humming sound the cheering of the
“Foot Cavalry,” as they greet him? Look how the leafy banners—red
as though dyed in blood—point forward, rippling as
they come! See that vivid, dazzling flash!—is it lightning, or
the glare of cannon? Hear that burst of thunder, like the
opening roar of battle—Jackson is advancing!
A quick throb of the heart—a hand half reaching out to
clutch the hilt of the battered old sword on the wall—then I
sink back in my chair.
It was only a dream!
FINIS.
