Traveller (34 page)

And we never seemed to get ary fresh horses sent to us. Skylark told me one time that Jine-the-Cavalry had gotten fair desperate for horses, and that a lot o' his men, who'd once been so proud and particular, was ready to ride ‘most anything on four legs if only they could get it. But you see, Tom, an Army's horses are more, much more'n its cavalry. You gotta have wagons; you gotta be able to shift the guns. I thought I noticed, towards the end of that winter, that we had fewer guns. I could have been wrong, of course, but if I was right, it must ‘a been on ‘count of we had fewer horses to pull ‘em.

I know Marse Robert felt the strain something terrible. Actually, I knowed it better'n anyone, ‘cause although he never showed it when he was talking to the men, he often used to talk to me when we was out alone together. “Oh, Traveller,” he said to me once't, when we'd stopped at a creek for me to have a drink, “it's too much—it's too much for one man!” I wanted to tell him I
knowed
we was going to beat the enemy; that I'd knowed it ever since the day when we'd won the battle in the forest, and the fellas brung that passel of Blue men up to him and said they'd surrendered. But I had to admit to myself that I'd never realized how hard ‘twas going to be to finish the job.

Well, the spring came at last, and warmer weather with it. I remember how one day Marse Robert and me rode a matter of ten mile or thereabouts to review Old Pete's lot. Old Pete had been away from us all the winter, but now he'd brung his fellas back, they certainly left Marse Robert and me with no doubts they was glad to see us again. After the review, when they'd broken ranks, hundreds of ‘em came a-crowding round us. They was laughing and cheering and laying their hands on me and on the stirrups and Marse Robert's boots—anything of ours that they could touch. I remember thinking, I'll lay the Blue men don't feel like this ‘bout their generals. Marse Robert, he was taking all the stretched-out hands he could reach, and saying, “Bless you, my men; bless you; thank you!” Even Old Pete seemed kind of— well, stirred, and ‘twarn't like him to show that sort of feeling, I'll tell you. I didn't get no real chance to talk to Hero—only a few moments— but I got the notion that they'd been having what you'd call an adventurous time.

‘Twas only a day or two after that review that we went up the mountain again—that Clark's Mountain, with the signal station on it, that I well remembered going up two summers before, when we'd watched the Blue men on the move down below us. They was there again—I could see their tents, far off—and Marse Robert spent a long time looking at them and talking with the headquarters officers. So I guessed we'd be after ‘em soon ‘nuff, for sure.

I was right, too. ‘Twas actually two days later when our Army set out. I knowed the road well ‘nuff; ‘twas the road that led into the wilderness—them same tangled-up woods where we'd beat the Blue men to pieces. Marse Robert and me was going in front, ‘long with Red Shirt and two-three of his commanders. ‘Twas clear, sunny weather— jest like it had been the year before—and I was feeling fine. It's funny; you do sometimes, even when you know there's going to be a battle. I think this time it may have been ‘cause there was no gunfire. That always worries horses, y'know. I only wished Little Sorrel and Cap-in-His-Eyes had been with us. I still missed Sorrel—missed him all the time.

We didn't go far that first day—maybe twelve mile. But any horse could tell we was looking for the enemy. ‘Course, I was an old soldier by now—older'n most in the length of time I'd been with Marse Robert—and I knowed all the signs. Horsemen kept galloping up from out the woods in front, talking to Marse Robert and pointing this way and that. Marse Robert'd ask them questions, sort of sharp and serious, and talk to Red Shirt, and then like as not he'd send one of the majors off to carry a message somewheres else. ‘Twas clear ‘nuff the enemy was blundering around in them woods—our woods—and we was going to catch ‘em in there.

All the same, we didn't catch ‘em that day. We came to a little village I remembered—we'd been there in some fighting during the winter, and real cold it was, too—and there we camped for the night all ‘mong the trees. ‘Twas pretty late at night—I hadn't been unsaddled till late; I s'pose ‘cause Marse Robert reckoned he might be off again— and Joker and me and one or two more was making the most of ‘bout half a feed of corn each, when I seed a cavalryman ride in and dismount from a horse I knowed. ‘Twas Dancer, and he was picketed right by us.

We asked him what was the news. He told us Jine-the-Cavalry and his ‘uns was out a fair way ahead in the Wilderness, and they'd been keeping close to the enemy and watching ‘em on the march.

They crossed the river,” said Dancer, “and now they're trying to go straight down through these here woods and out t'other side. General Stuart's idea is that we ought to attack ‘em soon as we can, while they're all snarled up among the trees.”

“Haven't they got a road?” I asked.

“It's precious little use to them,” says Dancer. “There's thousands of'em—men and wagons—all bunched up together. My hooves, though, they've got some cavalry! Great, sleek horses—you can smell the oats in ‘em half a mile off!”

Well, seemed like Jine-the-Cavalry's news appealed to Marse Robert a whole heap. When we set off at dawn next morning, he was real cheerful. Jine-the-Cavalry hisself had ridden back out of the forest, and him and Red Shirt set out with Marse Robert, straight long the road into the thick of the wilderness.

Now I know you go out into the woods round here quite a bit, Tom, prowlin' around and hunting—poor little chipmunks, and squirrels, too, I reckon. But all the same I'd best try and give you some idea of what this here Wilderness was like, ‘cause it sure warn't like no other battlefield I'd ever been on—not even like the one the year before, when Cap-in-His-Eyes and Sorrel had gone for good. This place where we was advancing was mostly pine and oak, each in big, wide patches, with a whole lot of underbrush. There was great thickets of brush— places where men couldn't hardly force their way, let alone see through or get guns or horses through. Fellas could split up from others and lose ‘em in less'n a minute and have a job to find ‘em again. Soldiers usually fight in lines, you know, but here there was no more chance of fighting in lines than what there was of plowing. And at night—well, at night you might as well have been blindfolded, like I've once't or twice't seed done to nervous horses to lead ‘em past something they was afeared of. Often, the men didn't know which way they was s'posed to be facing for to fight. I figure a lot of ‘em shot fellas on their own side, and so did the enemy, too. I heared tell afterwards of men going out a few yards to get water and finding they'd landed theirselves in enemy hands. And ‘course there was snakes and poison ivy and all manner of things, and a man in the dark could poke his eye out on a pointed stick. This was the place where Marse Robert figured we could give the enemy a licking. In fact, I've never felt him so eager for battle.

We didn't have to look for it long, neither. We'd set out in the same direction as the day before, and passed a place where we'd entrenched and fought during the winter. We was going along a road not much wider'n a cow path, but each side of it was trees thick as hay in a crib, with jest little bitty clearings here and there. The horsemen had been coming and going all morning, and it must ‘a been ‘bout midday, I s'pose, when we-all heared heavy firing up in the woods ahead. Marse Robert acted like he usually did—lit out and rode ahead, and Red Shirt and Jine-the-Cavalry with him. But we never come on no fighting, not in two-three hours.

We'd turned off the track, I remember, into a clearing and up a little nothin' of a hill with trees, where I guess Marse Robert thought he might be able to see anything there was to see without being spotted hisself. Him and the others had dismounted and they was all a-talking together, when all of a sudden a whole line of Blue men come out from among the pines, only jest a bit of a ways ahead and below us. They was there maybe a minute before they disappeared again, but ‘twas ‘nuff to show we'd gotten real close to the fighting we'd been looking for.

Marse Robert had hardly had time to give some orders to Red Shirt when a terrible racket broke out from ahead of us—firing, yelling— yeah, and a gun or two. The trees was so thick none of us couldn't see nothing, but ‘twas plain that this was what they call an attack in force.

That attack went on all the rest of the afternoon. Me and Marse Robert was going best as we could ‘mong the trees, moving troops, giving orders and hearing reports. Those people couldn't shift us, and they must ‘a lost a chance of men a-trying. It had come on dark ‘fore the firing finally stopped. I'd had no water—we'd been too busy—and I still remember stopping off by a little creek for one of the best drinks I've ever had. While I had my head down, a courier come up to us, but he had to wait. Marse Robert wouldn't let him interrupt my drink. I figured I'd earned it right ‘nuff, so I jest took my time.

That night—well, Tom, you never seed sech a mess in all your born days. We rode around to speak to as many officers and men as we could, but the truth was that both sides was jest ‘bout lost astray—the fellas hardly knowed up from down. And in them tangles the enemy might be anywheres. Even to make a noise in the dark, jest a-pushing through the brush, might be ‘nuff to make some fella loose off at you. We pretty soon gave it up and came back. Headquarters warn't hardly no distance at all behind the line that was being held by Red Shirt's bunch. You could hear the enemy out there in the dark, plain as plain.

‘Twas the usual disturbed night—messengers all the time. I don't reckon Marse Robert got any sleep at all. I know I didn't. I felt sure the enemy was fixing to attack again as soon as it was light. And so they did, and they was closer even than I'd figured—right in among the trees out jest ahead.

Well, I thought, Red Shirt's fellas'll hold them; they always do. And if'n we need ‘em, Marse Robert'll be ordering up some more men. But after a while I began to feel kind of shaky—well, real scared, to tell you the truth. Our fellas had been fighting off attacks all the day before, and they was real tuckered out. For all I knowed, the Blue men might have sent up a fresh lot during the night. But one thing was clear: fellas was straggling back and breaking away from the front, and there come more and more of ‘em all the time. They was jest wore out; they couldn't take no more. ‘Struck me we was well on the way to gettin' ourselves licked.

Marse Robert, he seed all this same's I did. He jest stopped to give some orders to Marse Taylor and then he rode me out from headquarters into the road, right in the middle of our fellas that was doing the sneaking off. Pretty soon he spotted their commander.

“General McGowan!” he hollers. “Is this your splendid brigade running like a flock of geese?”

The general tells him they ain't no ways beat. They jest needed a place to form up so's they could fight again.

Another general—General Wilcox, ‘twas—rode up to us. Marse Robert told him to go and fetch Old Pete, and he went off like a flash.

We came back into the headquarters field, where there was a whole row of our guns lined up. By this time I was real frightened—yes, Tom, I was. You could see the Blue men—masses of ‘em—plain as plain on the edge of the woods ahead, not more'n two hundred yards off. I'd never in my life been so close to Blue foot soldiers before, ‘ceptin' for prisoners. I could foresee anything happening—half of headquarters shot, Marse Robert took prisoner—anything at all.

Then our guns blasted off, right beside me. Well, you can't never think ‘bout nothing when the guns are firing and the ground's shaking. It's as much as any good horse can do jest to stand still. There was sech a mess as you never seed—officers yelling, soldiers crowding every which way and the battle-smoke so thick ‘twas ‘nuff to choke you and nothing to be made out at all.

Suddenly, in the middle of all this, I caught a glimpse of a crowd of soldiers running towards us from behind, a-waving their muskets. They come right up to the guns, which was still firing.

“Who are you, my boys?” yells Marse Robert.

Who are you, indeed, I thought. Don't he know? I could have told him who they was. There was only one bunch like that in the Army.

“Texas boys!” answers one of ‘em. “Texas boys!”

Marse Robert offs with his hat and waves it over his head.

“Hurrah for Texas!” he yells. “Hurrah for Texas!”

Then there we was, him and me, moving round and forming them Texas fellas into line of battle. As soon as he seed they was ready, Marse Robert rode me to the left of the line and out in front.

“Forward, men!” he shouts. “I'll lead you myself!”

Snakes alive! Like thunder you will! I thought. Marse Robert personally leading a charge agin the Blue men? I'd never figured on this. ‘Course, I'm an awful coward, Tom, you know. Gunfire I'd more or less got used to—'much as I ever did—but leading a charge? I wonder who offers the biggest mark, I thought. The General's horse, I guess. Well, here we go!

But matters was took out of our control—yeah, they was took out of Marse Robert's own control. “No! No!” the Texas fellas all began yelling. “No! Go back, General Lee, go back!”

Marse Robert, he took not a blind bit of notice. I could feel, where he sat, that he'd somehow changed. ‘Twas like he was in a trance. He was jest fixing on nothing ‘cept leading them fellas straight into the heart of the Blue men and licking ‘em, and nothing was going to stop him.

“Go back, General Lee!” they yelled. A whole bunch of ‘em stopped and turned round towards him. “We won't go on unless you go back!”