Some in the regiment began to whoop frenziedly. Many were silent. Apparently they were trying to contemplate themselves.
After the fever had left his veins, the youth thought that at last he was going to suffocate. He became aware of the foul atmosphere in which he had been struggling. He was grimy and dripping like a laborer in a foundry. He grasped his canteen and took a long swallow of the warmed water.
A sentence with variations went up and down the line. “Well, we’ve helt ’em back. We’ve helt ’em back; derned if we haven’t.” The men said it blissfully, leering at each other with dirty smiles.
The youth turned to look behind him and off to the right and off to the left. He experienced the joy of a man who at last finds leisure in which to look about him.
Underfoot there were a few ghastly forms motionless. They lay twisted in fantastic contortions. Arms were bent and heads were turned in incredible ways. It seemed that the dead men must have fallen from some great height to get into such positions. They looked to be dumped out upon the ground from the sky.
From a position in the rear of the grove a battery was throwing shells over it. The flash of the guns startled the youth at first. He thought they were aimed directly at him. Through the trees he watched the black figures of the gunners as they worked swiftly and intently. Their labor seemed a complicated thing. He wondered how they could remember its formula in the midst of confusion.
The guns squatted in a row like savage chiefs. They argued with abrupt violence. It was a grim pow-wow. Their busy servants ran hither and thither.
A small procession of wounded men were going drearily toward the rear. It was a flow of blood from the torn body of the brigade.
To the right and to the left were the dark lines of other troops. Far in front he thought he could see lighter masses protruding in points from the forest. They were suggestive of unnumbered thousands.
Once he saw a tiny battery go dashing along the line of the horizon. The tiny riders were beating the tiny horses.
From a sloping hill came the sounds of cheerings and clashes. Smoke welled slowly through the leaves.
Batteries were speaking with thunderous oratorical effort. Here and there were flags, the red in the stripes dominating. They splashed bits of warm color upon the dark lines of troops.
The youth felt the old thrill at the sight of the emblem. They were like beautiful birds strangely undaunted in a storm.
As he listened to the din from the hillside, to a deep pulsating thunder that came from afar to the left, and to the lesser clamors which came from many directions, it occurred to him that they were fighting too, over there, and over there, and over there. Heretofore he had supposed that all the battle was directly under his nose.
As he gazed around him the youth felt a flash of astonishment at the blue, pure sky and the sun gleaming on the trees and fields. It was surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment.
7
The youth awakened slowly. He came gradually back to a position from which he could regard himself. For moments he had been scrutinizing his person in a dazed way as if he had never before seen himself. Then he picked up his cap from the ground. He wriggled in his jacket to make a more comfortable fit, and kneeling, replaced his shoe. He thoughtfully mopped his reeking features.
So it was all over at last! The supreme trial had been passed. The red, formidable difficulties of war had been vanquished.
He went into an ecstasy of self-satisfaction. He had the most delightful sensations of his life. Standing as if apart from himself, he viewed that last scene. He perceived that the man who had fought thus was magnificent.
He felt that he was a fine fellow. He saw himself even with those ideals which he had considered as far beyond him. He smiled in deep gratification.
Upon his fellows he beamed tenderness and good will. “Gee! ain’t it hot, hey?” he said affably to a man who was polishing his streaming face with his coat sleeves.
“You bet!” said the other, grinning sociably. “I never seen sech dumb hotness.” He sprawled out luxuriously on the ground. “Gee, yes! An’ I hope we don’t have no more fightin’ till a week from Monday.”
There were some hand-shakings and deep speeches with men whose features were familiar, but with whom the youth now felt the bonds of tied hearts. He helped a cursing comrade to bind up a wound of the shin.
But, of a sudden, cries of amazement broke out along the ranks of the new regiment. “Here they come ag’in! Here they come ag’in!” The man who had sprawled upon the ground started up and said, “Gosh!”
The youth turned quick eyes upon the field. He discerned forms begin to swell in masses out of a distant wood. He again saw the tilted flag speeding forward.
The shells, which had ceased to trouble the regiment for a time, came swirling again, and exploded in the grass or among the leaves of the trees. They looked to be strange war flowers bursting into fierce bloom.
The men groaned. The luster faded from their eyes. Their smudged countenances now expressed a profound dejection. They moved their stiffened bodies slowly, and watched in sullen mood the frantic approach of the enemy. The slaves toiling in the temple of this god began to feel rebellion at his harsh tasks.
They fretted and complained each to each. “Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing! Why can’t somebody send us supports?”
“We ain’t never goin’ to stand this second banging. I didn’t come here to fight the hull damn’ rebel army.”
There was one who raised a doleful cry. “I wish Bill Smithers had trod on my hand, insteader me treddin’ on his’n.” The sore joints of the regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into position to repulse.
The youth stared. Surely, he thought, this impossible thing was not about to happen. He waited as if he expected the enemy to suddenly stop, apologize, and retire bowing. It was all a mistake.
But the firing began somewhere on the regimental line and ripped along in both directions. The level sheets of flame developed great clouds of smoke that tumbled and tossed in the mild wind near the ground for a moment, and then rolled through the ranks as through a gate. The clouds were tinged an earthlike yellow in the sunrays and in the shadows were a sorry blue. The flag was sometimes eaten and lost in this mass of vapor, but more often it projected, sun-touched, resplendent.
Into the youth’s eyes there came a look that one can see in the orbs of a jaded horse. His neck was quivering with nervous weakness, and the muscles of his arms felt numb and bloodless. His hands, too, seemed large and awkward, as if he was wearing invisible mittens. And there was a great uncertainty about his knee joints.
The words that comrades had uttered previous to the firing began to recur to him. “Oh, say, this is too much of a good thing! What do they take us for—why don’t they send supports? I didn’t come here to fight the hull damned rebel army.”
He began to exaggerate the endurance, the skill, and the valor of those who were coming. Himself reeling from exhaustion, he was astonished beyond measure at such persistency. They must be machines of steel. It was very gloomy struggling against such affairs, wound up perhaps to fight until sundown.
He slowly lifted his rifle and, catching a glimpse of the thickspread field, he blazed at a cantering cluster. He stopped then and began to peer as best he could through the smoke. He caught changing views of the ground covered with men who were all running like pursued imps, and yelling.
To the youth it was an onslaught of redoubtable dragons. He became like the man who lost his legs at the approach of the red and green monster. He waited in a sort of horrified, listening attitude. He seemed to shut his eyes and wait to be gobbled.
A man near him, who up to this time had been working feverishly at his rifle, suddenly stopped and ran with howls. A lad whose face had borne an expression of exalted courage, the majesty of him who dares give his life, was, at an instant, smitten abject. He blanched like one who has come to the
edge of a cliff at midnight and is suddenly made aware. There was a revelation. He, too, threw down his gun and fled. There was no shame in his face. He ran like a rabbit.
Others began to scamper away through the smoke. The youth turned his head, shaken from his trance by this movement as if the regiment was leaving him behind. He saw the few fleeting forms.
He yelled then with fright, and swung about. For a moment, in the great clamor, he was like a proverbial chicken. He lost the direction of safety. Destruction threatened him from all points.
Directly he began to speed toward the rear in great leaps. His rifle and cap were gone. His unbuttoned coat bulged in the wind. The flap of his cartridge box bobbed wildly, and his canteen, by its slender cord, swung out behind. On his face was all the horror of those things which he imagined.
The Night of Chancellorsville
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
I tell you I didn’t have any notion what I was getting into or I wouldn’t of gone down there. They can have their army—it seems to me they were all acting like a bunch of yellow bellies. But my friend Nell said to me:
“Look here, Nora, Philly is as dead as Baltimore and we’ve got to eat this summer.” She’d just got a letter from a girl that said they were living fine down there in “old Virginia.” The soldiers were getting big pay offs and figuring maybe they’d stay there all summer, till the Johnny Rebs gave up. They got their pay regular too, and a good clean-looking girl could ask—well, I forget now, because after what happened to us I guess you can’t expect me to remember anything.
I’ve always been used to decent treatment—somehow when I meet a man, no matter how fresh he is in the beginning, he comes to respect me in the end and I’ve never had things done to me like some girls, getting left in a strange town or had my purse stolen.
Well, I started to tell you how I went down to the army in “old Virginia.” Never again! Wait till you hear.
I’m used to travelling nice—once when I was a little girl my daddy took me on the cars to Baltimore—we lived in York, Pa.—and we couldn’t have been more comfortable; we had pillows and the men came through with baskets of oranges and apples, you know, singing out:
“Want to buy some oranges or apples—or beer.”
You know what they sell—but I never took any beer because—
Oh I know, I’ll go on—You only want to talk about the war, like all you men. But if that’s their idea what a war is—
Well, they stuck us all in one car and a fresh guy took our tickets and winked and said:
“Oh, you’re going down to Hooker’s army.”
The lights was terrible in the car, smoky and not cleaned so everything looked sort of yellow. And say that car was so old it was falling to pieces.
There must have been forty girls in it, a lot of them from Baltimore and Philly. Only there were three or four that weren’t gay—I mean they were more, oh you know, rich people that sat up front; every once in a while an officer would pop in his head from the next car and ask them if they wanted anything. I was in the seat behind with Nell and we heard him whisper:
“You’re in pretty terrible company but we’ll be there in a few hours and we’ll go right to headquarters, and I’ll promise you solid comfort.”
I never will forget that night. None of us had any food except some girls behind us had some sausage and bread, and they gave us what they had left. There was a spigot you turned but no water came out. After about two hours, stopping every two minutes it seemed to me, a couple of lieutenants, loaded to the gills, came in from the next car and offered Nell and me some whiskey out of a bottle. Nell took some and I pretended to and they sat on the side of our seats. One of them started to make up to her but just then the officer that had spoken to the women, pretty high up I guess, a major or a general, came back again and asked:
“You all right? Anything I can do?”
One of the ladies kind of whispered to him, and he turned to the drunk that was talking to Nell and made him go back in the other car. After that there was only one officer with us; he wasn’t really so drunk, just feeling sick.
“This certainly is a jolly looking gang,” he says. “It’s good you can hardly see them in this light. They look as if their best friend just died.”
“What if they do,” Nell answered back. “How would you look yourself if you come all the way from Philly and then climbed in a car like this?”
“I come all the way from the Seven Days, Sister,” he answered; pretty soon he left and said he’d try and get us some water or coffee, which was what we wanted.
The car kept rocking and it made us both feel funny. Some of the girls was sick and some was sound asleep on each other’s shoulders.
“Hey, where is this army?” Nell demanded. “Down in Mexico?”
I was kind of half asleep myself by that time and didn’t answer.
The next thing I knew I was woke up by a storm, the car was stopped again and I said, “It’s raining.”
“Raining!” said Nell. “That’s cannon—they’re having a battle.”
“Oh. Well, after this ride I don’t care who wins.”
It seemed to be getting louder all the time, but out the windows you couldn’t see anything on account of the mist.
In about half an hour another officer came in the car—he looked pretty messy as if he’d just crawled out of bed: his coat was still unbuttoned and he kept hitching up his trousers as if he didn’t have any suspenders.
“All you ladies outside,” he said, “we need this car for the wounded.”
“What?”
“Hey!”
“We paid for our tickets, didn’t we?”
“I don’t care. We need all the cars for the wounded and the other cars are about filled up.”
“Hey! We didn’t come down to fight in any battle!”
“It doesn’t matter what you came down for—you’re in a battle, a hell of a battle.”
I was scared I can tell you. I thought maybe the Rebs would capture us and send us down to one of those prisons you hear about where they starve you to death unless you sing Dixie all the time and kiss niggers.
“Hurry up now!”
But another officer had come in who looked more nice.
“Stay where you are, ladies,” he said, and then he said to the officer, “What do you want to do, leave them standing on the siding! If Sedgewick’s Corps is broken like they say the Rebs may come up in this direction!” Some of the girls began crying out loud. “These are northern women after all.”
“These are—”
“Oh shut up—go back to your command. I’m detailed to this transportation job, and I’m taking these girls to Washington with us.”
I thought they were going to hit each other but they both walked off together, and we sat wondering what we were going to do.
What happened next I don’t quite remember. The cannon were sometimes very loud and then sometimes more far away, but there was firing of shots right near us and a girl down the car had her window smashed. I heard a whole bunch of horses gallop by our windows but I still couldn’t see anything.
This went on for half an hour—gallopings and more shots. We couldn’t tell how far away but they sounded like up by the engine.
Then it got quiet and two guys came into our car—we all knew right away they were rebels, not officers, just plain private ones with guns. One had on a brown blouse and one a blue blouse and I was surprised because I thought they always wore grey. They were disgusting looking and very dirty; one had a big pot of jam he’d smeared all over his face and the other had a box of crackers.
“Hi, ladies.”
“What you gals doin’ down here?”
“Kaint you see, Steve, this is old Joe Hooker’s staff.”
“Reckin we ought to take ’em back to the General?”
They talked outlandish like that—I could hardly understand they talked so funny.
One of the girls got hysterical, she was so scared and
that made them kind of shy. They were just kids I guess, under those beards, and one of them tipped his hat or whatever the old thing was:
“We’re not fixin’ to hurt you.”
At that moment there was a whole bunch more shooting down by the engine and the rebs turned and ran. We were glad I can tell you.
Then about fifteen minutes later in came one of our officers. This was another new one.
“You better duck down!” he shouted to us, “they may shell this train. We’re starting you off as soon as we load two more ambulances on board.”
Half of us was on the floor already. The rich women sitting ahead of Nell and me went up into the car ahead where the wounded were—I heard one of them say to see if they could do anything. Nell thought she’d look in too, but she came back holding her nose—she said it smelled awful in there.
It was lucky she didn’t go in because two of the girls did try and see if they could help, but the nurses sent them right back, as if they was dirt under their feet.
After I don’t know how long the train began to move. A soldier came in and poured the oil out of all our lights except one and took it into the wounded car, so now we could hardly see at all.
If the trip down was slow the trip back was terrible. The wounded began groaning and we could hear in our car, so nobody couldn’t get a decent sleep. We stopped everywhere.
When we got in Washington at last there was a lot of people in the station and they were all anxious about what had happened to the army, but I said you can search me. All I wanted was my little old room and my little old bed. I never been treated like that in my life. One of the girls said she was going to write to President Lincoln about it.
And in the papers next day they never said anything about how our train got attacked or about us girls at all! Can you beat it?
Chickamauga
THOMAS WOLFE