XXXV. — “SOON WITH ANGELS I’LL BE MARCHING.”
Let me rapidly pass over the events of the tenth of May.
Gordon’s little brigade had been ordered to follow on the rear of the enemy, while Fitz Lee moved round by Taylorsville to get in front of them.
Stuart rode and met Gordon, gave the brave North Carolinian, so soon to fall, his last orders; and then hastened back to Fitz Lee, who had continued to press the enemy.
They had struck the Central railroad, but the gray cavaliers were close on them. Colonel Robert Randolph, that brave soul, doomed like Gordon, charged them furiously here, took nearly a hundred prisoners, and drove them across the road.
At this moment Stuart returned, and pushed forward toward Taylorsville, from which point he intended to hasten on and get in their front.
About four in the afternoon we reached Fork church, and the command halted to rest.
Stuart stretched himself at full length, surrounded by his staff, in a field of clover; and placing his hat over his face to protect his eyes from the light, snatched a short sleep, of which he was very greatly in need.
The column again moved, and that night camped near Taylorsville, awaiting the work of the morrow.
At daylight on the 11th, Stuart moved toward Ashland. Here he came up with the enemy; attacked them furiously, and drove them before him, and out of the village, killing, wounding, and capturing a considerable number.
Then he put his column again in motion, advanced rapidly by the Telegraph road toward Yellow Tavern, a point near Richmond, where he intended to intercept the enemy—the moment of decisive struggle, to which all the fighting along the roads of Hanover had only been the prelude, was at hand.
Stuart was riding at the head of his column, looking straight forward, and with no thought, apparently, save that of arriving in time.
He was no longer gay. Was it the coming event; was it the loss of sleep; the great interest at stake; the terrible struggle before him? I know not; but he looked anxious, feverish, almost melancholy.
“My men and horses are tired, jaded, and hungry, but all right,” he had written to General Bragg, from Ashland.
And these words will serve in large measure to describe the condition of the great commander himself.
I was riding beside him, when he turned to me and said, in a low tone:—
“Do you remember a conversation which we had at Orange, Surry, that night in my tent?”
“Yes, general.”
“And what I said?”
“Every word is engraved, I think, upon my memory.”
“Good. Do not let one thing ever escape you. Remember, that I said what I say again to-day, that ‘Virginia expects every man to do his duty!’”
“I will never forget that, general.”
He smiled, and rode on. For half a mile he was silent. Then I heard escape from his lips, in a low, musing voice, a refrain which I had never heard him sing before—
“Soon with angels I’ll be marching!”{1}
{Footnote 1: Real}
I know not why, but that low sound made me shiver.