NNEngine/Gutenberg-Clean · Datasets at Hugging Face

id stringlengths 16 16	text stringlengths 151 2.3k	word_count int64 30 60	source stringclasses 1 value
twg_000012937400	meant by good comin' out o' evil!--Here's Christianna." A girl in a homespun gown and a blue sunbonnet came up the road and unlatched the little gate. She had upon her arm a small basket such as the mountain folk weave. "Good-mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good-mahnin', Mr. Cole. It cert'ny is fine weather the mountain's having." "Yes, it's fine weather, Christianna,"	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937401	answered the old man. "Come in, come in, and take a cheer!" Christianna came up the tiny path and seated herself, not in the split-bottomed chair to which he waved her, but upon the edge of the porch, with her back to the sapling that served for a pillar, and with her small, ill-shod feet just touching a bed of	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937402	heartsease. She pushed back her sunbonnet. "Dave an' Billy told us good-bye yesterday. Pap is going down the mountain to-day. Dave took the shotgun an' pap has grandpap's flintlock, but Billy didn't have a gun. He said he'd take one from the Yanks." "Sho!" exclaimed Sairy. "Didn't he have no weapon at all?" "He had a hunting-knife that was grandpap's.	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937403	An' the blacksmith made him what he called a spear-head. He took a bit o' rawhide and tied it to an oak staff, an' he went down the mountain _so_!" Her drawling voice died, then rose again. "I'll miss Billy--I surely will!" It failed again, and the heartsease at her feet ran together into a little sea of purple and	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937404	gold. She took the cape of her sunbonnet and with it wiped away the unaccustomed tears. "Sho!" said Sairy. "We'll all miss Billy. I reckon we all that stay at home air going to have our fill o' missing!--What have you got in your basket, honey?" Christianna lifted a coloured handkerchief and drew from the basket a little bag of	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937405	flowered chintz, roses and tulips, drawn up with a blue ribbon. "My! that's pretty," exclaimed Sairy. "Whar did you get the stuff?" The girl regarded the bag with soft pride. "Last summer I toted a bucket o' blackberries down to Three Oaks an' sold them to Mrs. Cleave. An' she was making a valance for her tester bed, an' I	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937406	thought the stuff was mighty pretty, an' she gave me a big piece! an' I put it away in my picture box with my glass beads. For the ribbon--I'd saved a little o' my berry money, an' I walked to Buchanan an' bought it." She drew a long breath. "My land! 't was fine in the town--High Street just crowded	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937407	with Volunteers, and the drums were beating." Her eyes shone like stars. "It's right hard on women to stay at home an' have all the excitement go away. There don't seem to be nothin' to make it up to us--" Sairy put away the ironing-board. "Sho! We've just got the little end, as usual. What's in the bag, child?" "Thar's	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937408	thread and needles in a needle-case, an' an emery," said Christianna. "I wanted a little pair of scissors that was at Mr. Moelick's, but I didn't have enough. They'd be right useful, I reckon, to a soldier, but I couldn't get them. I wondered if the bag ought to be smaller--but he'll have room for it, I reckon? _I_ think	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937409	it's right pretty." Old Tom Cole leaned over, took the tiny, flowery affair, and balanced it gently upon a horny hand. "Of course he'll have room for it! An' it's jest as pretty as they make them!--An' here he comes now, down the mountain, to thank ye himself!" Allan Gold thanked Christianna with simplicity. He had never had so pretty	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937410	a thing, and he would keep it always, and every time he looked at it he would see Thunder Run and hear the bees in the flowers. It was very kind of her to make it for him, and--and he would keep it always. Christianna listened, and then, with her eyes upon the heartsease, began to say good-bye in her	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937411	soft, drawling voice. "You're going down the mountain to-day, Mrs. Cole says. Well, good-bye. An' pap's goin' too, an' Dave an' Billy have gone. I reckon the birds won't be singin' when you come again--thar'll be ice upon the creeks, I reckon." She drew her shoulders together as though she shivered for all the May sunshine. "Well, good-bye." "I'll walk	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937412	a piece of the road with you," said Allan, and the two went out of the gate together. Sairy, a pan of biscuits for dinner in her hand, looked after them. "There's a deal of things I'd do differently if I was a man! What was the use in sayin' that every time he looked at that thar bag he'd	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937413	see Thunder Run? Thunder Run ain't a-keerin' if he sees it or if he don't see it! He might ha' said that every time he laid eyes on them roses he'd see Christianna!--Thar's a wagon comin' up the road an' a man on horseback behind. Here, I'll take the toll--" "No, I'll take it myself," said Tom, reaching for the	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937414	tobacco box which served as bank. "If I can't 'list, I reckon I can get all the news that's goin'!" He hobbled out to the gate. "Mornin', Jake! Mornin', Mr. Robinson! Yes, 't is fine weather for the crops. What--" "The Rockbridge companies are ordered off! Craig and Bedford are going, too. They say Botetourt's time will come next. Lord!	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937415	we used to think forest fires and floods were exciting! Down there in camp the boys can't sleep at night--every time a rooster crows they think it's Johnny Mason's bugle and the order to the front! Ain't Allan Gold going?" Sairy spoke from the path. "Course he's goin'--he and twenty more from Thunder Run. I reckon Thunder Run ain't goin'	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937416	to lag behind! Even Steve Dagg's goin'--though I look for him back afore the battle. Jim's goin', too, to see what he can make out of it--'t won't harm no one, I reckon, if he makes six feet o' earth." "They're the only trash in the lot," put in Tom. "The others are first-rate--though a heap of them are powerfully	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937417	young." "Thar's Billy Maydew, for instance," said Sairy. "Sho! Billy is too young to go--" "All the cadets have gone from Lexington, remarked the man on horseback. They've gone to Richmond to act as drill-masters--every boy of them with his head as high as General Washington's! I was at Lexington and saw them go. Good Lord! most of them just	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937418	children--that Will Cleave, for instance, that used to beg a ride on my load of hay! Four companies of them marched away at noon, with their muskets shining in the sun. All the town was up and out--the minister blessing them, and the people crying and cheering! Major T. J. Jackson led them." "The Thunder Run men are going in	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937419	Richard Cleave's company. He sets a heap o' store by Allan, an' wanted him for second lieutenant, but the men elected Matthew Coffin--" "Coffin's bright enough," said Tom, "but Allan's more dependable.--Well, good-day, gentlemen, an' thank ye both!" The wagon lumbered down the springtime road and the man on horseback followed. The tollgate keeper hobbled back to his chair, and	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937420	Sairy returned to her dinner. Allan was going away, and she was making gingerbread because he liked it. The spicy, warm fragrance permeated the air, homely and pleasant as the curl of blue smoke above the chimney, the little sunny porch, the buzzing of the bees in the lilacs. "Here's Allan now," said Tom. "Hey, Allan! you must have gone	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937421	a good bit o' the way?" "I went all the way," answered Allan, lifting the gourd of well-water to his lips. "Poor little thing! she is breaking her heart over Billy's going." Sairy, cutting the gingerbread into squares, held the knife suspended. "Have ye been talkin' about Billy all this time?" "Yes," said Allan. "I saw that she was unhappy	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937422	and I tried to cheer her up. I'll look out for the boy in every way I can." He took the little bag of chintz from the bench where he had laid it when he went with Christianna, and turned to the rude stair that led to his room in the half story. He was not kin to the tollgate	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937423	keepers, but he had lived long with them and was very fond of both. "I'll be down in a moment, Aunt Sairy," he said. "I wonder when I'll smell or taste your gingerbread again, and I don't see how I am going to tell you and Tom good-bye!" He was gone, humming "Annie Laurie" as he went. "'T would be	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937424	just right an' fittin'," remarked Mrs. Cole, "if half the men in the world went about with a piece of pasteboard round their necks an' written on it, 'Pity the Blind!' Dinner's most ready, Tom,--an' I don't see how I'm goin' to tell him good-bye myself." An hour later, in his small bare room underneath the mossy roof, with the	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937425	small square window through which the breezes blew, Allan stood and looked about him. Dinner was over. It had been something of a feast, with unusual dainties, and a bunch of lilacs upon the table. Sairy had on a Sunday apron. The three had not been silent either; they had talked a good deal, but without much thought of what	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937426	was said. Perhaps it was because of this that the meal had seemed so vague, and that nothing had left a taste in the mouth. It was over, and Allan was making ready to depart. On the floor, beside the chest of drawers, stood a small hair trunk. A neighbour with a road wagon had offered to take it, and	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937427	Allan, too, down the mountain at three o'clock. In the spring of , one out of every two Confederate privates had a trunk. One must preserve the decencies of life; one must make a good appearance in the field! Allan's was small and modest enough, God knows! but such as it was it had not occurred to him to doubt	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937428	the propriety of taking it. It stood there neatly packed, the shirts that Sairy had been ironing laid atop. The young man, kneeling beside it, placed in this or that corner the last few articles of his outfit. All was simple, clean, and new--only the books that he was taking with him were old. They were his Bible, his Shakespeare,	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937429	a volume of Plutarch's Lives, and a Latin book or two beside. In a place to themselves were other treasures, a daguerreotype of his mother, a capacious huswife that Sairy had made and stocked for him, the little box of paper "to write home on" that had been Tom's present, various trifles that the three had agreed might come in	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937430	handy. Among these he now placed Christianna's gift. It was soft and full and bright--he had the same pleasure in handling it that he would have felt in touching a damask rose. He shut it in and rose from his knees. He had on his uniform. They had been slow in coming--the uniforms--from Richmond. It was only Cleave's patient insistence	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937431	that had procured them at last. Some of the companies were not uniformed at all. So enormous was the press of business upon the authorities, so limited was the power of an almost purely agricultural, non-manufacturing world suddenly to clothe alike these thousands of volunteers, suddenly to arm them with something better than a fowling-piece or a Revolutionary flintlock, that	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937432	the wonder is, not that they did so badly, but that they did so well. Pending the arrival of the uniforms the men had drilled in strange array. With an attempt at similarity and a picturesque taste of their own, most of them wore linsey shirts and big black hats, tucked up on one side with a rosette of green	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937433	ribbon. One man donned his grandfather's Continental blue and buff--on the breast was a dark stain, won at King's Mountain. Others drilled, and were now ready to march, as they came from the plough, the mill, or the forge. But Cleave's company, by virtue of Cleave himself, was fairly equipped. The uniforms had come, and there was a decent showing	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937434	of modern arms. Billy Maydew's hunting-knife and spear would be changed on the morrow for a musket, though in Billy's case the musket would certainly be the old smoothbore, calibre sixty-nine. Allan's own gun, left him by his father, rested against the wall. The young man, for all his quietude, his conscientious ways, his daily work with children, his love	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937435	of flowers, and his dreams of books, inherited from frontiersmen--whose lives had depended upon watchfulness--quickness of wit, accuracy of eye, and steadiness of aim. He rarely missed his mark, and he read intuitively and easily the language of wood, sky, and road. On the bed lay his slouch hat, his haversack, knapsack, and canteen, cartridge-box and belt, and slung over	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937436	the back of a chair was his roll of blanket. All was in readiness. Allan went over to the window. Below him were the flowers he had tended, then the great forests in their May freshness, cataracts of green, falling down, down to the valley. Over all hung the sky, divinely blue. A wind went rustling through the forest, joining	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937437	its voice to the voice of Thunder Run. Allan knelt, touching with his forehead the window-sill. "O Lord God," he said, "O Lord God, keep us all, North and South, and bring us through winding ways to Thy end at last." As he rose he heard the wagon coming down the road. He turned, put the roll of blanket over	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937438	one shoulder, and beneath the other arm assumed knapsack, haversack, and canteen, dragged the hair trunk out upon the landing, returned, took up his musket, looked once again about the small, familiar room, then left it and went downstairs. Sairy and Tom were upon the porch, the owner of the wagon with them. "I'll tote down yo' trunk," said the	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937439	latter, and presently emerged from the house with that article upon his shoulder. "I reckon I'll volunteer myself, just as soon 's harvest's over," he remarked genially. "But, gosh! you-all'll be back by then, telling how you did it!" He went down the path whistling, and tossed the trunk into the wagon. "I hate good-byes," said Allan. "I wish I	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937440	had stolen away last night." "Don't ye get killed!" answered Sairy sharply. "That's what I'm afraid of. I know you'll go riskin' yourself!" "God bless you," said Tom. "You've been like a son to us these five years. Don't you forget to write." "I won't," answered Allan. "I'll write you long letters. And I won't get killed, Aunt Sairy. I'll	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937441	take the best of care." He took the old woman in his arms. "You two have been just as good as a father and mother to me. Thank you for it. I'll never forget. Good-bye." Toward five o'clock the wagon rolled into the village whence certain of the Botetourt companies were to march away. It was built beside the river--two	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937442	long, parallel streets, one upon the water level, the other much higher, with intersecting lanes. There were brick and frame houses, modest enough; there were three small, white-spired churches, many locust and ailanthus trees, a covered bridge thrown across the river to a village upon the farther side and, surrounding all, a noble frame of mountains. There was, in those	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937443	days, no railroad. Cleave's hundred men, having the town at large for their friend, stood in no lack of quarters. Some had volunteered from this place or its neighbourhood, others had kinsmen and associates, not one was so forlorn as to be without a host. The village was in a high fever of hospitality; had the companies marching from Botetourt	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937444	been so many brigades, it would still have done its utmost. From the Potomac to the Dan, from the Eastern Shore to the Alleghenies the flame of patriotism burned high and clear. There were skulkers, there were braggarts, there were knaves and fools in Virginia as elsewhere, but by comparison they were not many, and theirs was not the voice	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937445	that was heard to-day. The mass of the people were very honest, stubbornly convinced, showing to the end a most heroic and devoted ardour. This village was not behindhand. All her young men were going; she had her company, too. She welcomed Cleave's men, gathered for the momentarily expected order to the front, and lavished upon them, as on two	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937446	other companies within her bounds, every hospitable care. The wagon driver deposited Allan Gold and his trunk before the porch of the old, red brick hotel, shook hands with a mighty grip, and rattled on toward the lower end of town. The host came out to greet the young man, two negro boys laid hold of his trunk, a passing	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937447	volunteer in butternut, with a musket as long as Natty Bumpo's, hailed him, and a cluster of elderly men sitting with tilted chairs in the shade of a locust tree rose and gave him welcome. "It's Allan Gold from Thunder Run, isn't it? Good-day, sir, good-day! Can't have too many from Thunder Run; good giant stuff! Have you somewhere to	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937448	stay to-night? If not, any one of us will be happy to look after you.--Mr. Harris, let us have juleps all round--" "Thank you very kindly, sir," said Allan, "but I must go find my captain." "I saw him," remarked a gray-haired gentleman, "just now down the street. He's seeing to the loading of his wagons, showing Jim Ball and	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937449	the drivers just how to do it--and he says he isn't going to show them but this once. They seemed right prompt to learn." "I was thar too," put in an old farmer. "'They're mighty heavy wagons,' I says, says I. 'Three times too heavy,' he says, says he. 'This company's got the largest part of its provisions for the	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937450	whole war right here and now,' says he. 'Thar's a heap of trunks,' says I. 'More than would be needed for the White Sulphur,' he says, says he. 'This time two years we'll march lighter,' says he--" There were exclamations. "Two years! Thunderation!--This war'll be over before persimmons are ripe! Why, the boys haven't volunteered but for one year--and even	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937451	that seemed kind of senseless! Two years! He's daft!" "I dunno," quoth the other. "If fighting's like farming it's all-fired slow work. Anyhow, that's what he said. 'This time two years we'll march lighter,' he says, says he, and then I came away. He's down by the old warehouse by the bridge, Mr. Gold--and I just met Matthew Coffin and	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937452	he says thar's going to be a parade presently." An hour later, in the sunset glow, in a meadow by the river, the three companies paraded. The new uniforms, the bright muskets, the silken colours, the bands playing "Dixie," the quick orders, the more or less practised evolutions, the universal martial mood, the sense of danger over all, as yet	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937453	thrilling only, not leaden, the known faces, the loved faces, the imminent farewell, the flush of glory, the beckoning of great events--no wonder every woman, girl, and child, every old man and young boy who could reach the meadow were there, watching in the golden light, half wild with enthusiasm! Wish I was in de land ob cotton, Old times	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937454	dar am not forgotten Look away! look away! Dixie Land. At one side, beneath a great sugar maple, were clustered a number of women, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts, of those who were going forth to war. They swayed forward, absorbed in watching, not the companies as a whole, but one or two, sometimes three or four figures therein. They had	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937455	not held them back; never in the times of history were there more devotedly patriotic women than they of the Southern States. They lent their plaudits; they were high in the thoughts of the men moving with precision beneath the great flag of Virginia, to the sound of music, in the green meadow by the James. The colours of the	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937456	several companies had been sewed by women, sitting together in dim old parlours, behind windows framed in roses. One banner had been made from a wedding gown. Look away! look away! Look away down South to Dixie! The throng wept and cheered. The negroes, slave and free, belonging to this village and the surrounding country, were of an excellent type,	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937457	worthy and respectable men and women, honoured by and honouring their "white people." A number of these were in the meadow by the river, and they, too, clapped and cheered, borne away by music and spectacle, gazing with fond eyes upon some nursling, or playmate, or young, imperious, well-liked master in those gleaming ranks. Isaac, son of Abraham, or Esau	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937458	and Jacob, sons of Isaac, marching with banners against Canaan or Moab, may have heard some such acclaim from the servants left behind. Several were going with the company. Captain and lieutenants, and more than one sergeant and corporal had their body-servants--these were the proudest of the proud and the envied of their brethren. The latter were voluble. "Des look	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937459	at Wash,--des look at Washington Mayo! Actin' lak he own er co'te house an' er stage line! O my Lawd! wish I wuz er gwine! An dat dar Tullius from Three Oaks--he gwine march right behin' de captain, an' Marse Hairston Breckinridge's boy he gwine march right behin' him!--Dar de big drum ag'in!" In Dixie land I'll take my stand,	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937460	To live and die in Dixie! Look away! Look away! Look away down South to Dixie! The sun set behind the great mountain across the river. Parade was over, ranks broken. The people and their heroes, some restless, others tense, all flushed of cheek and bright of eye, all borne upon a momentous upward wave of emotion, parted this way	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937461	and that, to supper, to divers preparations, fond talk, and farewells, to an indoor hour. Then, presently, out again in the mild May night, out into High Street and Low Street, in the moonlight, under the odour of the white locust clusters. The churches were lit and open; in each there was brief service, well attended. Later, from the porch	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937462	of the old hotel, there was speaking. It drew toward eleven o'clock. The moon was high, the women and children all housed, the oldest men, spent with the strain of the day, also gone to their homes, or their friends' homes. The Volunteers and a faithful few were left. They could not sleep; if war was going to be always	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937463	as exciting as this, how did soldiers ever sleep? There was not among them a man who had ever served in war, so the question remained unanswered. A Thunder Run man volunteered the information that the captain was asleep--he had been to the house where the captain lodged and his mother had come to the door with her finger on	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937464	her lips, and he had looked past her and seen Captain Cleave lying on a sofa fast asleep. Thunder Run's comrades listened, but they rather doubted the correctness of his report. It surely wasn't very soldier-like to sleep--even upon a sofa--the night before marching away! The lieutenants weren't asleep. Hairston Breckinridge had a map spread out upon a bench before	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937465	the post office, and was demonstrating to an eager dozen the indubitable fact that the big victory would be either at Harper's Ferry or Alexandria. Young Matthew Coffin was in love, and might be seen through the hotel window writing, candles all around him, at a table, covering one pale blue sheet after another with impassioned farewells. Sergeants and corporals	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937466	and men were wakeful. Some of these, too, were writing letters, sending messages; others joined in the discussion as to the theatre of war, or made knots of their own, centres of conjectures and prophecy; others roamed the streets, or down by the river bank watched the dark stream. Of these, a few proposed to strip and have a swim--who	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937467	knew when they'd see the old river again? But the notion was frowned upon. One must be dressed and ready. At that very moment, perhaps, a man might be riding into town with the order. The musicians were not asleep. Young Matthew Coffin, sealing his letter some time after midnight, and coming out into the moonlight and the fragrance of	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937468	the locust trees, had an inspiration. All was in readiness for the order when it should come, and who, in the meantime, wanted to do so prosaic a thing as rest? "Boys, let us serenade the ladies!" The silver night wore on. So many of the "boys" had sisters, that there were many pretty ladies staying in the town or	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937469	at the two or three pleasant old houses upon its outskirts. Two o'clock, three o'clock passed, and there were yet windows to sing beneath. Old love songs floated through the soft and dreamy air; there was a sense of angelic beings in the unlit rooms above, even of the flutter of their wings. Then, at the music's dying fall, flowers	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937470	were thrown; there seemed to descend a breath, a whisper, "Adieu, heroes--adored, adored heroes!" A scramble for the flowers, then out at the gate and on to the next house, and so _da capo_. Dawn, though the stars were yet shining, began to make itself felt. A coldness was in the air, a mist arose from the river, there came	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937471	a sensation of arrest, of somewhere an icy finger upon the pulse of life. Maxwelton's braes are bonnie, Where early fa's the dew, And 't was there that Annie Laurie Gie'd me her promise true,-- They were singing now before an old brick house in the lower street. There were syringas in bloom in the yard. A faint light was	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937472	rising in the east, the stars were fading. Gie'd me her promise true Which ne'er forgot shall be-- Suddenly, from High Street, wrapped in mist, a bugle rang out. The order--the order--the order to the front! It called again, sounding the assembly. _Fall in, men, fall in!_ At sunrise Richard Cleave's company went away. There was a dense crowd in	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937473	the misty street, weeping, cheering. An old minister, standing beside the captain, lifted his arms--the men uncovered, the prayer was said, the blessing given. Again the bugle blew, the women cried farewell. The band played "Virginia," the flag streamed wide in the morning wind. Good-bye, good-bye, and again good-bye! _Attention! Take arms! Shoulder arms! Right face!_ FORWARD, MARCH! BY ASHBY'S	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937474	GAP The 65th Virginia Infantry, Colonel Valentine Brooke, was encamped to the north of Winchester in the Valley of Virginia, in a meadow through which ran a stream, and upon a hillside beneath a hundred chestnut trees, covered with white tassels of bloom. To its right lay the 2d, the 4th, the 5th, the 27th, and the 33d Virginia, forming	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937475	with the 65th the First Brigade, General T. J. Jackson. The battery attached--the Rockbridge Artillery--occupied an adjacent apple orchard. To the left, in other July meadows and over other chestnut-shaded hills, were spread the brigades of Bee, Bartow, and Elzey. Somewhere in the distance, behind the screen of haze, were Stuart and his cavalry. Across the stream a brick farmhouse,	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937476	ringed with mulberry trees, made the headquarters of Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the forces of the Confederacy--an experienced, able, and wary soldier, engaged just now, with eleven thousand men, in watching Patterson with fifteen thousand on the one hand, and McDowell with thirty-five thousand on the other, and in listening attentively for a voice from Beauregard with twenty thousand at	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937477	Manassas. It was the middle of July, . First Brigade headquarters was a tree--an especially big tree--a little removed from the others. Beneath it stood a kitchen chair and a wooden table, requisitioned from the nearest cabin and scrupulously paid for. At one side was an extremely small tent, but Brigadier-General T. J. Jackson rarely occupied it. He sat beneath	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937478	the tree, upon the kitchen chair, his feet, in enormous cavalry boots, planted precisely before him, his hands rigid at his sides. Here he transacted the business of each day, and here, when it was over, he sat facing the North. An awkward, inarticulate, and peculiar man, with strange notions about his health and other matters, there was about him	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937479	no breath of grace, romance, or pomp of war. He was ungenial, ungainly, with large hands and feet, with poor eyesight and a stiff address. There did not lack spruce and handsome youths in his command who were vexed to the soul by the idea of being led to battle by such a figure. The facts that he had fought	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937480	very bravely in Mexico, and that he had for the enemy a cold and formidable hatred were for him; most other things against him. He drilled his troops seven hours a day. His discipline was of the sternest, his censure a thing to make the boldest officer blench. A blunder, a slight negligence, any disobedience of orders--down came reprimand, suspension,	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937481	arrest, with an iron certitude, a relentlessness quite like Nature's. Apparently he was without imagination. He had but little sense of humour, and no understanding of a joke. He drank water and sucked lemons for dyspepsia, and fancied that the use of pepper had caused a weakness in his left leg. He rode a raw-boned nag named Little Sorrel, he	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937482	carried his sabre in the oddest fashion, and said "oblike" instead of "oblique." He found his greatest pleasure in going to the Presbyterian Church twice on Sundays and to prayer meetings through the week. Now and then there was a gleam in his eye that promised something, but the battles had not begun, and his soldiers hardly knew what it	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937483	promised. One or two observers claimed that he was ambitious, but these were chiefly laughed at. To the brigade at large he seemed prosaic, tedious, and strict enough, performing all duties with the exactitude, monotony, and expression of a clock, keeping all plans with the secrecy of the sepulchre, rarely sleeping, rising at dawn, and requiring his staff to do	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937484	likewise, praying at all seasons, and demanding an implicity of obedience which might have been in order with some great and glorious captain, some idolized Napoleon, but which seemed hardly the due of the late professor of natural philosophy and artillery tactics at the Virginia Military Institute. True it was that at Harper's Ferry, where, as Colonel T. J. Jackson,	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937485	he had commanded until Johnston's arrival, he had begun to bring order out of chaos and to weave from a high-spirited rabble of Volunteers a web that the world was to acknowledge remarkable; true, too, that on the second of July, in the small affair with Patterson at Falling Waters, he had seemed to the critics in the ranks not	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937486	altogether unimposing. He emerged from Falling Waters Brigadier-General T. J. Jackson, and his men, though with some mental reservations, began to call him "Old Jack." The epithet implied approval, but approval hugely qualified. They might have said--in fact, they did say--that every fool knew that a crazy man could fight! The Army of the Shenandoah was a civilian army, a	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937487	high-spirited, slightly organized, more or less undisciplined, totally inexperienced in war, impatient and youthful body of men, with the lesson yet to learn that the shortest distance between two points is sometimes a curve. In its eyes Patterson at Bunker Hill was exclusively the blot upon the escutcheon, and the whole game of war consisted in somehow doing away with	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937488	that blot. There was great chafing at the inaction. It was hot, argumentative July weather; the encampment to the north of Winchester in the Valley of Virginia hummed with the comments of the strategists in the ranks. Patterson should have been attacked after Falling Waters. What if he was entrenched behind stone walls at Martinsburg? Patterson should have been attacked	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937489	upon the fifteenth at Bunker Hill. What if he has fifteen thousand men?--what if he has _twenty_ thousand?--What if McDowell is preparing to cross the Potomac? And now, on the seventeenth, Patterson is at Charlestown, creeping eastward, evidently going to surround the Army of the Shenandoah! Patterson is the burning reality and McDowell the dream--and yet Johnston won't move to	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937490	the westward and attack! _Good Lord! we didn't come from home just to watch these chestnuts get ripe! All the generals are crazy, anyhow._ It was nine, in the morning of Thursday the eighteenth,--a scorching day. The locusts were singing of the heat; the grass, wherever men, horses, and wagon wheels had not ground it into dust, was parched to	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937491	a golden brown; the mint by the stream looked wilted. The morning drill was over, the 65th lounging beneath the trees. It was almost too hot to fuss about Patterson, almost too hot to pity the sentinels, almost too hot to wonder where Stuart's cavalry had gone that morning, and why "Old Joe" quartered behind the mulberries in the brick	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937492	farmhouse, had sent a staff officer to "Old Jack," and why Bee's and Bartow's and Elzey's brigades had been similarly visited; almost too hot to play checkers, to whittle a set of chessmen, to finish that piece of Greek, to read "Ivanhoe" and resolve to fight like Brian de Bois Gilbert and Richard Coeur de Lion in one, to write	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937493	home, to rout out knapsack and haversack, and look again at fifty precious trifles; too hot to smoke, to tease Company A's pet coon, to think about Thunder Run, to wonder how pap was gettin' on with that thar piece of corn, and what the girls were sayin'; too hot to borrow, too hot to swear, too hot to go	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937494	down to the creek and wash a shirt, too hot--"What's that drum beginning for? _The long roll! The Army of the Valley is going to move! Boys, boys, boys! We are going north to Charlestown! Boys, boys, boys! We are going to lick Patterson!_" At noon the Army of the Valley, the First Brigade leading, uncoiled itself, regiment by regiment,	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937495	from the wide meadow and the chestnut wood, swept out upon the turnpike--and found its head turned toward the south! There was stupefaction, then tongues were loosed. "What's this--what's this, boys? Charlestown ain't in this direction. Old Joe's lost his bearings! Johnny Lemon, you go tell him so--go ask Old Jack if you can't. Whoa, there! The fool's going!! Come	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937496	back here quick, Johnny, afore the captain sees you! O hell! we're going right back through Winchester!" A wave of anger swept over the First Brigade. The 65th grew intractable, moved at a snail's pace. The company officers went to and fro. "Close up, men, close up! No, I don't know any more than you do--maybe it's some roundabout way.	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937497	Close up--close up!" The colonel rode along the line. "What's the matter here? You aren't going to a funeral! Think it's a fox hunt, boys, and step out lively!" A courier arrived from the head of the column. "General Jackson's compliments to Colonel Brooke, and he says if this regiment isn't in step in three minutes he'll leave it with	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937498	the sick in Winchester!" The First Brigade, followed by Bee, Bartow, and Elzey, marched sullenly down the turnpike, into Winchester, and through its dusty streets. The people were all out, old men, boys, and women thronging the brick sidewalks. The army had seventeen hundred sick in the town. Pale faces looked out of upper windows; men just recovering from dysentery,	60	gutenberg
twg_000012937499	from measles, from fever, stumbled out of shady front yards and fell into line; others, more helpless, started, then wavered back. "Boys, boys! you ain't never going to leave us here for the Yanks to take? Boys--boys--" The citizens, too, had their say. "Is Winchester to be left to Patterson? We've done our best by you--and you go marching away!"	60	gutenberg

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meant by good comin' out o' evil!--Here's Christianna." A girl in a homespun gown and a blue sunbonnet came up the road and unlatched the little gate. She had upon her arm a small basket such as the mountain folk weave. "Good-mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good-mahnin', Mr. Cole. It cert'ny is fine weather the mountain's having." "Yes, it's fine weather, Christianna,"

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answered the old man. "Come in, come in, and take a cheer!" Christianna came up the tiny path and seated herself, not in the split-bottomed chair to which he waved her, but upon the edge of the porch, with her back to the sapling that served for a pillar, and with her small, ill-shod feet just touching a bed of

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heartsease. She pushed back her sunbonnet. "Dave an' Billy told us good-bye yesterday. Pap is going down the mountain to-day. Dave took the shotgun an' pap has grandpap's flintlock, but Billy didn't have a gun. He said he'd take one from the Yanks." "Sho!" exclaimed Sairy. "Didn't he have no weapon at all?" "He had a hunting-knife that was grandpap's.

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An' the blacksmith made him what he called a spear-head. He took a bit o' rawhide and tied it to an oak staff, an' he went down the mountain _so_!" Her drawling voice died, then rose again. "I'll miss Billy--I surely will!" It failed again, and the heartsease at her feet ran together into a little sea of purple and

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gold. She took the cape of her sunbonnet and with it wiped away the unaccustomed tears. "Sho!" said Sairy. "We'll all miss Billy. I reckon we all that stay at home air going to have our fill o' missing!--What have you got in your basket, honey?" Christianna lifted a coloured handkerchief and drew from the basket a little bag of

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flowered chintz, roses and tulips, drawn up with a blue ribbon. "My! that's pretty," exclaimed Sairy. "Whar did you get the stuff?" The girl regarded the bag with soft pride. "Last summer I toted a bucket o' blackberries down to Three Oaks an' sold them to Mrs. Cleave. An' she was making a valance for her tester bed, an' I

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thought the stuff was mighty pretty, an' she gave me a big piece! an' I put it away in my picture box with my glass beads. For the ribbon--I'd saved a little o' my berry money, an' I walked to Buchanan an' bought it." She drew a long breath. "My land! 't was fine in the town--High Street just crowded

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with Volunteers, and the drums were beating." Her eyes shone like stars. "It's right hard on women to stay at home an' have all the excitement go away. There don't seem to be nothin' to make it up to us--" Sairy put away the ironing-board. "Sho! We've just got the little end, as usual. What's in the bag, child?" "Thar's

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thread and needles in a needle-case, an' an emery," said Christianna. "I wanted a little pair of scissors that was at Mr. Moelick's, but I didn't have enough. They'd be right useful, I reckon, to a soldier, but I couldn't get them. I wondered if the bag ought to be smaller--but he'll have room for it, I reckon? _I_ think

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it's right pretty." Old Tom Cole leaned over, took the tiny, flowery affair, and balanced it gently upon a horny hand. "Of course he'll have room for it! An' it's jest as pretty as they make them!--An' here he comes now, down the mountain, to thank ye himself!" Allan Gold thanked Christianna with simplicity. He had never had so pretty

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a thing, and he would keep it always, and every time he looked at it he would see Thunder Run and hear the bees in the flowers. It was very kind of her to make it for him, and--and he would keep it always. Christianna listened, and then, with her eyes upon the heartsease, began to say good-bye in her

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soft, drawling voice. "You're going down the mountain to-day, Mrs. Cole says. Well, good-bye. An' pap's goin' too, an' Dave an' Billy have gone. I reckon the birds won't be singin' when you come again--thar'll be ice upon the creeks, I reckon." She drew her shoulders together as though she shivered for all the May sunshine. "Well, good-bye." "I'll walk

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a piece of the road with you," said Allan, and the two went out of the gate together. Sairy, a pan of biscuits for dinner in her hand, looked after them. "There's a deal of things I'd do differently if I was a man! What was the use in sayin' that every time he looked at that thar bag he'd

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see Thunder Run? Thunder Run ain't a-keerin' if he sees it or if he don't see it! He might ha' said that every time he laid eyes on them roses he'd see Christianna!--Thar's a wagon comin' up the road an' a man on horseback behind. Here, I'll take the toll--" "No, I'll take it myself," said Tom, reaching for the

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tobacco box which served as bank. "If I can't 'list, I reckon I can get all the news that's goin'!" He hobbled out to the gate. "Mornin', Jake! Mornin', Mr. Robinson! Yes, 't is fine weather for the crops. What--" "The Rockbridge companies are ordered off! Craig and Bedford are going, too. They say Botetourt's time will come next. Lord!

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we used to think forest fires and floods were exciting! Down there in camp the boys can't sleep at night--every time a rooster crows they think it's Johnny Mason's bugle and the order to the front! Ain't Allan Gold going?" Sairy spoke from the path. "Course he's goin'--he and twenty more from Thunder Run. I reckon Thunder Run ain't goin'

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to lag behind! Even Steve Dagg's goin'--though I look for him back afore the battle. Jim's goin', too, to see what he can make out of it--'t won't harm no one, I reckon, if he makes six feet o' earth." "They're the only trash in the lot," put in Tom. "The others are first-rate--though a heap of them are powerfully

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young." "Thar's Billy Maydew, for instance," said Sairy. "Sho! Billy is too young to go--" "All the cadets have gone from Lexington, remarked the man on horseback. They've gone to Richmond to act as drill-masters--every boy of them with his head as high as General Washington's! I was at Lexington and saw them go. Good Lord! most of them just

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children--that Will Cleave, for instance, that used to beg a ride on my load of hay! Four companies of them marched away at noon, with their muskets shining in the sun. All the town was up and out--the minister blessing them, and the people crying and cheering! Major T. J. Jackson led them." "The Thunder Run men are going in

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Richard Cleave's company. He sets a heap o' store by Allan, an' wanted him for second lieutenant, but the men elected Matthew Coffin--" "Coffin's bright enough," said Tom, "but Allan's more dependable.--Well, good-day, gentlemen, an' thank ye both!" The wagon lumbered down the springtime road and the man on horseback followed. The tollgate keeper hobbled back to his chair, and

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Sairy returned to her dinner. Allan was going away, and she was making gingerbread because he liked it. The spicy, warm fragrance permeated the air, homely and pleasant as the curl of blue smoke above the chimney, the little sunny porch, the buzzing of the bees in the lilacs. "Here's Allan now," said Tom. "Hey, Allan! you must have gone

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a good bit o' the way?" "I went all the way," answered Allan, lifting the gourd of well-water to his lips. "Poor little thing! she is breaking her heart over Billy's going." Sairy, cutting the gingerbread into squares, held the knife suspended. "Have ye been talkin' about Billy all this time?" "Yes," said Allan. "I saw that she was unhappy

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and I tried to cheer her up. I'll look out for the boy in every way I can." He took the little bag of chintz from the bench where he had laid it when he went with Christianna, and turned to the rude stair that led to his room in the half story. He was not kin to the tollgate

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keepers, but he had lived long with them and was very fond of both. "I'll be down in a moment, Aunt Sairy," he said. "I wonder when I'll smell or taste your gingerbread again, and I don't see how I am going to tell you and Tom good-bye!" He was gone, humming "Annie Laurie" as he went. "'T would be

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just right an' fittin'," remarked Mrs. Cole, "if half the men in the world went about with a piece of pasteboard round their necks an' written on it, 'Pity the Blind!' Dinner's most ready, Tom,--an' I don't see how I'm goin' to tell him good-bye myself." An hour later, in his small bare room underneath the mossy roof, with the

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small square window through which the breezes blew, Allan stood and looked about him. Dinner was over. It had been something of a feast, with unusual dainties, and a bunch of lilacs upon the table. Sairy had on a Sunday apron. The three had not been silent either; they had talked a good deal, but without much thought of what

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was said. Perhaps it was because of this that the meal had seemed so vague, and that nothing had left a taste in the mouth. It was over, and Allan was making ready to depart. On the floor, beside the chest of drawers, stood a small hair trunk. A neighbour with a road wagon had offered to take it, and

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Allan, too, down the mountain at three o'clock. In the spring of , one out of every two Confederate privates had a trunk. One must preserve the decencies of life; one must make a good appearance in the field! Allan's was small and modest enough, God knows! but such as it was it had not occurred to him to doubt

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the propriety of taking it. It stood there neatly packed, the shirts that Sairy had been ironing laid atop. The young man, kneeling beside it, placed in this or that corner the last few articles of his outfit. All was simple, clean, and new--only the books that he was taking with him were old. They were his Bible, his Shakespeare,

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a volume of Plutarch's Lives, and a Latin book or two beside. In a place to themselves were other treasures, a daguerreotype of his mother, a capacious huswife that Sairy had made and stocked for him, the little box of paper "to write home on" that had been Tom's present, various trifles that the three had agreed might come in

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handy. Among these he now placed Christianna's gift. It was soft and full and bright--he had the same pleasure in handling it that he would have felt in touching a damask rose. He shut it in and rose from his knees. He had on his uniform. They had been slow in coming--the uniforms--from Richmond. It was only Cleave's patient insistence

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that had procured them at last. Some of the companies were not uniformed at all. So enormous was the press of business upon the authorities, so limited was the power of an almost purely agricultural, non-manufacturing world suddenly to clothe alike these thousands of volunteers, suddenly to arm them with something better than a fowling-piece or a Revolutionary flintlock, that

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the wonder is, not that they did so badly, but that they did so well. Pending the arrival of the uniforms the men had drilled in strange array. With an attempt at similarity and a picturesque taste of their own, most of them wore linsey shirts and big black hats, tucked up on one side with a rosette of green

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ribbon. One man donned his grandfather's Continental blue and buff--on the breast was a dark stain, won at King's Mountain. Others drilled, and were now ready to march, as they came from the plough, the mill, or the forge. But Cleave's company, by virtue of Cleave himself, was fairly equipped. The uniforms had come, and there was a decent showing

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of modern arms. Billy Maydew's hunting-knife and spear would be changed on the morrow for a musket, though in Billy's case the musket would certainly be the old smoothbore, calibre sixty-nine. Allan's own gun, left him by his father, rested against the wall. The young man, for all his quietude, his conscientious ways, his daily work with children, his love

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of flowers, and his dreams of books, inherited from frontiersmen--whose lives had depended upon watchfulness--quickness of wit, accuracy of eye, and steadiness of aim. He rarely missed his mark, and he read intuitively and easily the language of wood, sky, and road. On the bed lay his slouch hat, his haversack, knapsack, and canteen, cartridge-box and belt, and slung over

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the back of a chair was his roll of blanket. All was in readiness. Allan went over to the window. Below him were the flowers he had tended, then the great forests in their May freshness, cataracts of green, falling down, down to the valley. Over all hung the sky, divinely blue. A wind went rustling through the forest, joining

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its voice to the voice of Thunder Run. Allan knelt, touching with his forehead the window-sill. "O Lord God," he said, "O Lord God, keep us all, North and South, and bring us through winding ways to Thy end at last." As he rose he heard the wagon coming down the road. He turned, put the roll of blanket over

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one shoulder, and beneath the other arm assumed knapsack, haversack, and canteen, dragged the hair trunk out upon the landing, returned, took up his musket, looked once again about the small, familiar room, then left it and went downstairs. Sairy and Tom were upon the porch, the owner of the wagon with them. "I'll tote down yo' trunk," said the

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latter, and presently emerged from the house with that article upon his shoulder. "I reckon I'll volunteer myself, just as soon 's harvest's over," he remarked genially. "But, gosh! you-all'll be back by then, telling how you did it!" He went down the path whistling, and tossed the trunk into the wagon. "I hate good-byes," said Allan. "I wish I

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had stolen away last night." "Don't ye get killed!" answered Sairy sharply. "That's what I'm afraid of. I know you'll go riskin' yourself!" "God bless you," said Tom. "You've been like a son to us these five years. Don't you forget to write." "I won't," answered Allan. "I'll write you long letters. And I won't get killed, Aunt Sairy. I'll

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take the best of care." He took the old woman in his arms. "You two have been just as good as a father and mother to me. Thank you for it. I'll never forget. Good-bye." Toward five o'clock the wagon rolled into the village whence certain of the Botetourt companies were to march away. It was built beside the river--two

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long, parallel streets, one upon the water level, the other much higher, with intersecting lanes. There were brick and frame houses, modest enough; there were three small, white-spired churches, many locust and ailanthus trees, a covered bridge thrown across the river to a village upon the farther side and, surrounding all, a noble frame of mountains. There was, in those

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days, no railroad. Cleave's hundred men, having the town at large for their friend, stood in no lack of quarters. Some had volunteered from this place or its neighbourhood, others had kinsmen and associates, not one was so forlorn as to be without a host. The village was in a high fever of hospitality; had the companies marching from Botetourt

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been so many brigades, it would still have done its utmost. From the Potomac to the Dan, from the Eastern Shore to the Alleghenies the flame of patriotism burned high and clear. There were skulkers, there were braggarts, there were knaves and fools in Virginia as elsewhere, but by comparison they were not many, and theirs was not the voice

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that was heard to-day. The mass of the people were very honest, stubbornly convinced, showing to the end a most heroic and devoted ardour. This village was not behindhand. All her young men were going; she had her company, too. She welcomed Cleave's men, gathered for the momentarily expected order to the front, and lavished upon them, as on two

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other companies within her bounds, every hospitable care. The wagon driver deposited Allan Gold and his trunk before the porch of the old, red brick hotel, shook hands with a mighty grip, and rattled on toward the lower end of town. The host came out to greet the young man, two negro boys laid hold of his trunk, a passing

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volunteer in butternut, with a musket as long as Natty Bumpo's, hailed him, and a cluster of elderly men sitting with tilted chairs in the shade of a locust tree rose and gave him welcome. "It's Allan Gold from Thunder Run, isn't it? Good-day, sir, good-day! Can't have too many from Thunder Run; good giant stuff! Have you somewhere to

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stay to-night? If not, any one of us will be happy to look after you.--Mr. Harris, let us have juleps all round--" "Thank you very kindly, sir," said Allan, "but I must go find my captain." "I saw him," remarked a gray-haired gentleman, "just now down the street. He's seeing to the loading of his wagons, showing Jim Ball and

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the drivers just how to do it--and he says he isn't going to show them but this once. They seemed right prompt to learn." "I was thar too," put in an old farmer. "'They're mighty heavy wagons,' I says, says I. 'Three times too heavy,' he says, says he. 'This company's got the largest part of its provisions for the

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whole war right here and now,' says he. 'Thar's a heap of trunks,' says I. 'More than would be needed for the White Sulphur,' he says, says he. 'This time two years we'll march lighter,' says he--" There were exclamations. "Two years! Thunderation!--This war'll be over before persimmons are ripe! Why, the boys haven't volunteered but for one year--and even

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that seemed kind of senseless! Two years! He's daft!" "I dunno," quoth the other. "If fighting's like farming it's all-fired slow work. Anyhow, that's what he said. 'This time two years we'll march lighter,' he says, says he, and then I came away. He's down by the old warehouse by the bridge, Mr. Gold--and I just met Matthew Coffin and

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he says thar's going to be a parade presently." An hour later, in the sunset glow, in a meadow by the river, the three companies paraded. The new uniforms, the bright muskets, the silken colours, the bands playing "Dixie," the quick orders, the more or less practised evolutions, the universal martial mood, the sense of danger over all, as yet

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thrilling only, not leaden, the known faces, the loved faces, the imminent farewell, the flush of glory, the beckoning of great events--no wonder every woman, girl, and child, every old man and young boy who could reach the meadow were there, watching in the golden light, half wild with enthusiasm! Wish I was in de land ob cotton, Old times

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dar am not forgotten Look away! look away! Dixie Land. At one side, beneath a great sugar maple, were clustered a number of women, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts, of those who were going forth to war. They swayed forward, absorbed in watching, not the companies as a whole, but one or two, sometimes three or four figures therein. They had

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not held them back; never in the times of history were there more devotedly patriotic women than they of the Southern States. They lent their plaudits; they were high in the thoughts of the men moving with precision beneath the great flag of Virginia, to the sound of music, in the green meadow by the James. The colours of the

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several companies had been sewed by women, sitting together in dim old parlours, behind windows framed in roses. One banner had been made from a wedding gown. Look away! look away! Look away down South to Dixie! The throng wept and cheered. The negroes, slave and free, belonging to this village and the surrounding country, were of an excellent type,

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worthy and respectable men and women, honoured by and honouring their "white people." A number of these were in the meadow by the river, and they, too, clapped and cheered, borne away by music and spectacle, gazing with fond eyes upon some nursling, or playmate, or young, imperious, well-liked master in those gleaming ranks. Isaac, son of Abraham, or Esau

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and Jacob, sons of Isaac, marching with banners against Canaan or Moab, may have heard some such acclaim from the servants left behind. Several were going with the company. Captain and lieutenants, and more than one sergeant and corporal had their body-servants--these were the proudest of the proud and the envied of their brethren. The latter were voluble. "Des look

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at Wash,--des look at Washington Mayo! Actin' lak he own er co'te house an' er stage line! O my Lawd! wish I wuz er gwine! An dat dar Tullius from Three Oaks--he gwine march right behin' de captain, an' Marse Hairston Breckinridge's boy he gwine march right behin' him!--Dar de big drum ag'in!" In Dixie land I'll take my stand,

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To live and die in Dixie! Look away! Look away! Look away down South to Dixie! The sun set behind the great mountain across the river. Parade was over, ranks broken. The people and their heroes, some restless, others tense, all flushed of cheek and bright of eye, all borne upon a momentous upward wave of emotion, parted this way

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and that, to supper, to divers preparations, fond talk, and farewells, to an indoor hour. Then, presently, out again in the mild May night, out into High Street and Low Street, in the moonlight, under the odour of the white locust clusters. The churches were lit and open; in each there was brief service, well attended. Later, from the porch

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of the old hotel, there was speaking. It drew toward eleven o'clock. The moon was high, the women and children all housed, the oldest men, spent with the strain of the day, also gone to their homes, or their friends' homes. The Volunteers and a faithful few were left. They could not sleep; if war was going to be always

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as exciting as this, how did soldiers ever sleep? There was not among them a man who had ever served in war, so the question remained unanswered. A Thunder Run man volunteered the information that the captain was asleep--he had been to the house where the captain lodged and his mother had come to the door with her finger on

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her lips, and he had looked past her and seen Captain Cleave lying on a sofa fast asleep. Thunder Run's comrades listened, but they rather doubted the correctness of his report. It surely wasn't very soldier-like to sleep--even upon a sofa--the night before marching away! The lieutenants weren't asleep. Hairston Breckinridge had a map spread out upon a bench before

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the post office, and was demonstrating to an eager dozen the indubitable fact that the big victory would be either at Harper's Ferry or Alexandria. Young Matthew Coffin was in love, and might be seen through the hotel window writing, candles all around him, at a table, covering one pale blue sheet after another with impassioned farewells. Sergeants and corporals

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and men were wakeful. Some of these, too, were writing letters, sending messages; others joined in the discussion as to the theatre of war, or made knots of their own, centres of conjectures and prophecy; others roamed the streets, or down by the river bank watched the dark stream. Of these, a few proposed to strip and have a swim--who

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knew when they'd see the old river again? But the notion was frowned upon. One must be dressed and ready. At that very moment, perhaps, a man might be riding into town with the order. The musicians were not asleep. Young Matthew Coffin, sealing his letter some time after midnight, and coming out into the moonlight and the fragrance of

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the locust trees, had an inspiration. All was in readiness for the order when it should come, and who, in the meantime, wanted to do so prosaic a thing as rest? "Boys, let us serenade the ladies!" The silver night wore on. So many of the "boys" had sisters, that there were many pretty ladies staying in the town or

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at the two or three pleasant old houses upon its outskirts. Two o'clock, three o'clock passed, and there were yet windows to sing beneath. Old love songs floated through the soft and dreamy air; there was a sense of angelic beings in the unlit rooms above, even of the flutter of their wings. Then, at the music's dying fall, flowers

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were thrown; there seemed to descend a breath, a whisper, "Adieu, heroes--adored, adored heroes!" A scramble for the flowers, then out at the gate and on to the next house, and so _da capo_. Dawn, though the stars were yet shining, began to make itself felt. A coldness was in the air, a mist arose from the river, there came

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a sensation of arrest, of somewhere an icy finger upon the pulse of life. Maxwelton's braes are bonnie, Where early fa's the dew, And 't was there that Annie Laurie Gie'd me her promise true,-- They were singing now before an old brick house in the lower street. There were syringas in bloom in the yard. A faint light was

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rising in the east, the stars were fading. Gie'd me her promise true Which ne'er forgot shall be-- Suddenly, from High Street, wrapped in mist, a bugle rang out. The order--the order--the order to the front! It called again, sounding the assembly. _Fall in, men, fall in!_ At sunrise Richard Cleave's company went away. There was a dense crowd in

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the misty street, weeping, cheering. An old minister, standing beside the captain, lifted his arms--the men uncovered, the prayer was said, the blessing given. Again the bugle blew, the women cried farewell. The band played "Virginia," the flag streamed wide in the morning wind. Good-bye, good-bye, and again good-bye! _Attention! Take arms! Shoulder arms! Right face!_ FORWARD, MARCH! BY ASHBY'S

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GAP The 65th Virginia Infantry, Colonel Valentine Brooke, was encamped to the north of Winchester in the Valley of Virginia, in a meadow through which ran a stream, and upon a hillside beneath a hundred chestnut trees, covered with white tassels of bloom. To its right lay the 2d, the 4th, the 5th, the 27th, and the 33d Virginia, forming

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with the 65th the First Brigade, General T. J. Jackson. The battery attached--the Rockbridge Artillery--occupied an adjacent apple orchard. To the left, in other July meadows and over other chestnut-shaded hills, were spread the brigades of Bee, Bartow, and Elzey. Somewhere in the distance, behind the screen of haze, were Stuart and his cavalry. Across the stream a brick farmhouse,

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ringed with mulberry trees, made the headquarters of Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the forces of the Confederacy--an experienced, able, and wary soldier, engaged just now, with eleven thousand men, in watching Patterson with fifteen thousand on the one hand, and McDowell with thirty-five thousand on the other, and in listening attentively for a voice from Beauregard with twenty thousand at

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Manassas. It was the middle of July, . First Brigade headquarters was a tree--an especially big tree--a little removed from the others. Beneath it stood a kitchen chair and a wooden table, requisitioned from the nearest cabin and scrupulously paid for. At one side was an extremely small tent, but Brigadier-General T. J. Jackson rarely occupied it. He sat beneath

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the tree, upon the kitchen chair, his feet, in enormous cavalry boots, planted precisely before him, his hands rigid at his sides. Here he transacted the business of each day, and here, when it was over, he sat facing the North. An awkward, inarticulate, and peculiar man, with strange notions about his health and other matters, there was about him

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no breath of grace, romance, or pomp of war. He was ungenial, ungainly, with large hands and feet, with poor eyesight and a stiff address. There did not lack spruce and handsome youths in his command who were vexed to the soul by the idea of being led to battle by such a figure. The facts that he had fought

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very bravely in Mexico, and that he had for the enemy a cold and formidable hatred were for him; most other things against him. He drilled his troops seven hours a day. His discipline was of the sternest, his censure a thing to make the boldest officer blench. A blunder, a slight negligence, any disobedience of orders--down came reprimand, suspension,

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arrest, with an iron certitude, a relentlessness quite like Nature's. Apparently he was without imagination. He had but little sense of humour, and no understanding of a joke. He drank water and sucked lemons for dyspepsia, and fancied that the use of pepper had caused a weakness in his left leg. He rode a raw-boned nag named Little Sorrel, he

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carried his sabre in the oddest fashion, and said "oblike" instead of "oblique." He found his greatest pleasure in going to the Presbyterian Church twice on Sundays and to prayer meetings through the week. Now and then there was a gleam in his eye that promised something, but the battles had not begun, and his soldiers hardly knew what it

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promised. One or two observers claimed that he was ambitious, but these were chiefly laughed at. To the brigade at large he seemed prosaic, tedious, and strict enough, performing all duties with the exactitude, monotony, and expression of a clock, keeping all plans with the secrecy of the sepulchre, rarely sleeping, rising at dawn, and requiring his staff to do

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likewise, praying at all seasons, and demanding an implicity of obedience which might have been in order with some great and glorious captain, some idolized Napoleon, but which seemed hardly the due of the late professor of natural philosophy and artillery tactics at the Virginia Military Institute. True it was that at Harper's Ferry, where, as Colonel T. J. Jackson,

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he had commanded until Johnston's arrival, he had begun to bring order out of chaos and to weave from a high-spirited rabble of Volunteers a web that the world was to acknowledge remarkable; true, too, that on the second of July, in the small affair with Patterson at Falling Waters, he had seemed to the critics in the ranks not

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altogether unimposing. He emerged from Falling Waters Brigadier-General T. J. Jackson, and his men, though with some mental reservations, began to call him "Old Jack." The epithet implied approval, but approval hugely qualified. They might have said--in fact, they did say--that every fool knew that a crazy man could fight! The Army of the Shenandoah was a civilian army, a

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high-spirited, slightly organized, more or less undisciplined, totally inexperienced in war, impatient and youthful body of men, with the lesson yet to learn that the shortest distance between two points is sometimes a curve. In its eyes Patterson at Bunker Hill was exclusively the blot upon the escutcheon, and the whole game of war consisted in somehow doing away with

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that blot. There was great chafing at the inaction. It was hot, argumentative July weather; the encampment to the north of Winchester in the Valley of Virginia hummed with the comments of the strategists in the ranks. Patterson should have been attacked after Falling Waters. What if he was entrenched behind stone walls at Martinsburg? Patterson should have been attacked

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upon the fifteenth at Bunker Hill. What if he has fifteen thousand men?--what if he has _twenty_ thousand?--What if McDowell is preparing to cross the Potomac? And now, on the seventeenth, Patterson is at Charlestown, creeping eastward, evidently going to surround the Army of the Shenandoah! Patterson is the burning reality and McDowell the dream--and yet Johnston won't move to

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the westward and attack! _Good Lord! we didn't come from home just to watch these chestnuts get ripe! All the generals are crazy, anyhow._ It was nine, in the morning of Thursday the eighteenth,--a scorching day. The locusts were singing of the heat; the grass, wherever men, horses, and wagon wheels had not ground it into dust, was parched to

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a golden brown; the mint by the stream looked wilted. The morning drill was over, the 65th lounging beneath the trees. It was almost too hot to fuss about Patterson, almost too hot to pity the sentinels, almost too hot to wonder where Stuart's cavalry had gone that morning, and why "Old Joe" quartered behind the mulberries in the brick

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farmhouse, had sent a staff officer to "Old Jack," and why Bee's and Bartow's and Elzey's brigades had been similarly visited; almost too hot to play checkers, to whittle a set of chessmen, to finish that piece of Greek, to read "Ivanhoe" and resolve to fight like Brian de Bois Gilbert and Richard Coeur de Lion in one, to write

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home, to rout out knapsack and haversack, and look again at fifty precious trifles; too hot to smoke, to tease Company A's pet coon, to think about Thunder Run, to wonder how pap was gettin' on with that thar piece of corn, and what the girls were sayin'; too hot to borrow, too hot to swear, too hot to go

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down to the creek and wash a shirt, too hot--"What's that drum beginning for? _The long roll! The Army of the Valley is going to move! Boys, boys, boys! We are going north to Charlestown! Boys, boys, boys! We are going to lick Patterson!_" At noon the Army of the Valley, the First Brigade leading, uncoiled itself, regiment by regiment,

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from the wide meadow and the chestnut wood, swept out upon the turnpike--and found its head turned toward the south! There was stupefaction, then tongues were loosed. "What's this--what's this, boys? Charlestown ain't in this direction. Old Joe's lost his bearings! Johnny Lemon, you go tell him so--go ask Old Jack if you can't. Whoa, there! The fool's going!! Come

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back here quick, Johnny, afore the captain sees you! O hell! we're going right back through Winchester!" A wave of anger swept over the First Brigade. The 65th grew intractable, moved at a snail's pace. The company officers went to and fro. "Close up, men, close up! No, I don't know any more than you do--maybe it's some roundabout way.

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Close up--close up!" The colonel rode along the line. "What's the matter here? You aren't going to a funeral! Think it's a fox hunt, boys, and step out lively!" A courier arrived from the head of the column. "General Jackson's compliments to Colonel Brooke, and he says if this regiment isn't in step in three minutes he'll leave it with

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the sick in Winchester!" The First Brigade, followed by Bee, Bartow, and Elzey, marched sullenly down the turnpike, into Winchester, and through its dusty streets. The people were all out, old men, boys, and women thronging the brick sidewalks. The army had seventeen hundred sick in the town. Pale faces looked out of upper windows; men just recovering from dysentery,

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from measles, from fever, stumbled out of shady front yards and fell into line; others, more helpless, started, then wavered back. "Boys, boys! you ain't never going to leave us here for the Yanks to take? Boys--boys--" The citizens, too, had their say. "Is Winchester to be left to Patterson? We've done our best by you--and you go marching away!"

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