CHAPTER XII. — HOOD'S DAY.—PEACHTREE CREEK.—VALOIS' LAST TRUST.—DE GRESS' BATTERY.—DEAD ON THE FIELD OF HONOR.
A lantern burns dimly before the tent of Colonel Valois on the night of July 21, 1864. Within the lines of Atlanta there is commotion. Myriad lights flicker on the hills. A desperate army at bay is facing the enemy. Seven miles of armed environment mocks the caged tigers behind these hard-held ramparts. Facing north and east, the gladiators of the morrow lie on their arms, ready now for the summons to fall in, for a wild rush on Sherman's pressing lines. It is no holiday camp, with leafy bowers and lovely ladies straying in the moonlight. No dallying and listening to Romeos in gray and gold. No silver-throated bugles wake the night with "Lorena." No soft refrain of the "Suwanee River" melts all the hearts. It is not a gala evening, when "Maryland, my Maryland," rises in grand appeal. The now national "Dixie" tells not of fields to be won. It is a dark presage of the battle morrow. Behind grim redan and salient, the footsore troops rest from the day's indecisive righting. The foeman is not idle; all night long, rumbling trains and busy movements tell that "Uncle Billy Sherman" never sleeps. His blue octopus crawls and feels its way unceasingly. The ragged gray ranks, whose guns are their only pride, whose motto is "Move by day; fight always," are busy with the hum of preparation.
It is a month of horror. North and South stand aghast at the unparalleled butchery of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania. The awful truth that Grant has paved his bloody way to final victory with one hundred thousand human bodies since he crossed the Rapidan, makes the marrow cold in the bones of the very bravest. Sixty thousand foes, forty thousand friends, are the astounding death figures. As if the dark angel of death was not satisfied with a carnage unheard of in modern times, Johnston, the old Marshal Ney of the Confederacy, gives way, in command of the Southern army covering Atlanta, to J.B. Hood. He is the Texan lion. Grizzled Sherman laughs on the 18th of July, when his spies tell him Johnston is relieved. "Replenish every caisson from the reserve parks; distribute campaign ammunition," he says, briefly. "Hood would assault me with a corporal's guard. He will fight by day or night. I know him," Uncle Billy says.
The great Tecumseh feels a twinge as he whips out this verdict. Hood's tactics are fearful. There are thousands of mute witnesses of his own fatal rashness lying at Kenesaw, whose tongues are sealed in death. On that sad clay, Sherman out-Hooded Hood. But the blunt son of Ohio is right. He is a demi-god in intellect, and yet he has the intuition of femininity. He has caught Hood's fighting character at a glance.
There's no time to chaffer over the situation. McPherson, the pride of the army, Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga, and wary Schofield, draw in the great Union forces. Gallant Howard is in this knightly circle. "Black Jack" Logan, the "Harry Monmouth" of this coming field, connects on the 19th. There has been hot work to-day. Firing in Thomas's front tells the great strategist that Hood has tasted blood. Enough!
Sherman knows how that mad Texan will throw his desperate men to the front, in the snapping, ringing zone of fire and flame. Hooker receives the shock of the onset, reinforced by heavy batteries, whose blazing guns tear lightning-rent lanes through the Confederates. Not a second to lose. The gray swarms are pouring on like mountain wolves.
Fighting sharp and hot, the Union lines reach the strong defences of Peachtree Creek. Here Confederate Gilmer's engineering skill has prepared ditch and fraise, abattis and chevaux-de-frise, with yawning graves for the soon-forgotten brave.
McPherson, Schofield, Howard, Hooker, and Palmer are all in line, deployed with strong reserves.
Anxious Sherman sends clouds of orderly officers and scouts, right and left. Hood's defiant volleys die away. Will the rush come to-day? No; the hours wear away. The night brings quiet along the lines. Though a red harvest lies on the field, it is not the crowning effort of the entire enemy. It is only a rattling day of uneasy, hot-tempered fight.
But the awful morrow is to come. Sherman soon divines the difficulty of fathoming the Texan's real designs. Hood is familiar with the ground. Drawing back to the lines of Atlanta, Hood crouches for a desperate spring. The ridges of the red clay hills, with little valleys running to the Chattahoochee in the west, and Ocmulgee in the east, cover his manoeuvres. Corn and cotton patches, with thick forests between, lie along the extended front. A tangled undergrowth masks the entire movements of the lurking enemy.
Tireless Sherman, expectant of some demoniac rush, learns that the array before him is under Hood, Hardee, and the audacious cavalry leader, Wheeler. Stewart's and Smith's Georgian levies are also in line.
Every disposition is made by the wary antagonists. Sherman, eagle-eyed and prompt to join issue, gains a brief repose before the gray of morning looses the fires of hell. McPherson, young and brilliant, whose splendid star is in its zenith, firmly holds his exposed lines along the railroad between two valleys. In his left and rear, the forest throws out dark shades to cover friend and foe. Between the waiting armies, petty murder stays its hands. The stars sweep to the west, bringing the last morning to thousands. They are now dreaming, perhaps, of the homes they will never see. A thrill of nervous tension keeps a hundred thousand men in vague, dumb expectancy. The coming shock will be terrible. No one can tell the issue.
As the worn Confederate sentinel drags up and down before the tent of Colonel Valois, he can see the thoughtful veteran sitting, his tired head resting on a wasted hand.
Spirit and high soul alone animate now the Louisiana colonel. Hope has fled. Over his devoted head the sentinel stars swing, with neither haste nor rest, toward the occident. They will shine on Lagunitas, smiling, fringed with its primeval pines.
In her sleep, perhaps his little girl calls for him in vain. He is doomed not to hear that childish voice again.
A bundle of letters, carelessly tossed down at head-quarters, have been carried in his bosom during the day's scattering fight. They are all old in their dates, and travel-worn in following the shifting positions of his skeleton regiment. They bring him, at last, nearly a year's news.
Suddenly he springs to his feet, and his voice is almost a shriek. "Sentinel, call the corporal." In a moment, Valois, with quivering lip, says, "Corporal, ask Major Peyton to be kind enough to join me for a few moments."
When his field-officer approaches, anticipating some important charge of duty, sword and revolver in hand, the ghastly face of Valois alarms him.
"Colonel!" he cries. Valois motions him to be seated.
"Peyton," begins Valois, brokenly, "I am struck to the heart."
He is ashy pale. His head falls on his friend's bosom.
"My wife!" He needs not finish. The open letters tell the story. It is death news.
The major clasps his friend's thin hands.
"Colonel, you must bear up. We are fallen on sad, sad days." His voice fails him. "Remember to-morrow; we must stand for the South."
The chivalric Virginian's voice sounds hollow and strange. He sought the regiment, won over by Valois' lofty courage and stern military pride. To-morrow the army is to grapple and crush bold Sherman. It will be a death struggle.
Yes, out of these walls, a thunderbolt, the heavy column, already warned, was to seek the Union left, and strike a Stonewall Jackson blow. Its march will be covered by the friendly woods. The keen-eyed adjutants are already warning the captains of every detail of the attack. Calm and unmoved, the gaunt centurions of the thinned host accepted the honorable charges of the forlorn hope. Valois' powder-seasoned fragment of the army was a "corps d'elite." Peyton wondered, as he watched his suffering colonel, if either would see another sparkling jewel-braided night.
The blow of Hood must be the hammer of Thor.
"To-morrow, yes, to-morrow," mechanically replied Valois. "I will be on duty to-morrow."
"To-night, Peyton," he simply said, "I must suffer my last agony. My poor Dolores! Gone—my wife."
The tears trickled through his fingers as he bowed his graceful head.
"And my little Isabel," he softly said; "she will be an orphan. Will God protect that tender child?" Valois was talking to himself, with his eyes fixed on the dark night-shadows hiding the Federal lines. A stern, defiant gaze.
Peyton shivered with a nervous chill.
"Colonel, this must not be." In the silence of the brooding night, it seems a ghastly call from another world, this message of death.
Valois proudly checks himself.
"Peyton, I have few friends left in this land now. I want you to look these letters over." He hands him several letters from Hardin and from the priest. With tender delicacy, his hands close on the last words of affection from the gentle dark-eyed wife, who brought him the great dowry of Lagunitas, and gave him his little Isabel.
Peyton reads the words, old in date but new in their crushing force of sorrow to the husband. Resting on the stacked arms in front of his tent, the colors of Louisiana and the silken shreds of the Stars and Bars wait for the bugles of reveille calling again to battle.
Dolores dying of sudden illness, cut off in her youthful prime, was only able to receive the last rites of the Church, to smile fondly in her last moments, as she kisses the picture of the absent soldier of the Southern Cross. Fran‡ois Ribaut, the French gentleman, writes a sad letter, with no formula of the priest. He knows Maxime Valois is face to face with death, in these awful days of war. A costly sacrifice on the altar of Southern rights may be his fate at any moment.
It is to comfort, not admonish, to pledge every friendly office, that the delicate-minded padre softens the blow. Later, the priest writes of the lonely child, whose tender youth wards off the blow of the rod of sorrow.
Philip Hardin's letter mainly refers to the important business interests of the vast estate. The possibility of the orphanage of Isabel occurs. He suggests the propriety of Colonel Valois' making and forwarding a new will, and constituting a guardianship of the young heiress. In gravest terms of friendship, he reminds Valois to indicate his wishes as to the child, her nurture and education. The fate of a soldier may overtake her surviving parent any day.
Other unimportant issues drop out of sight. Hardin has told of the last attempt to fit out a schooner at a secluded lumber landing in Santa Cruz County. They tried to smuggle on board a heavy gun secretly transported there. An assemblage of desperate men, gathering in the lonely woods, were destined to man the boat. By accident, the Union League discovers the affair. Flight is forced on the would-be pirates.
Valois' lip curls as he tells Peyton of the utter prostration of the last Confederate hope beyond the Colorado. All vain and foolish schemes.
"I wish your advice, Major," he resumes. In brief summing up, he gives Peyton the outline of his family history and his general wishes.
A final result of the hurried conclave is the hasty drawing up of a will. It is made and duly witnessed. It makes Philip Hardin guardian of the heiress and sole executor of his testament. His newly descended property he leaves to the girl child, with directions that she shall be sent to Paris. She is to be educated to the time of her majority at the "Sacred Heart." There in that safe retreat, where the world's storms cannot reach the defenceless child, he feels she will be given the bearing and breeding of a Valois. She must be fitted for her high fortunes.
He writes a fond letter to Father Francisco, to whom he leaves a handsome legacy, ample to make him independent of all pecuniary cares. He adjures that steadfast friend to shield his darling's childhood, to follow and train her budding mind in its development. He informs him of every disposition, and sends the tenderest thanks for a self-devotion of years.
The farewell signature is affixed. Colonel Valois indites to Judge Philip Hardin a letter of last requests. It is full of instructions and earnest appeal. When all is done, he closes his letter. "I send you every document suggested. My heart is sore. I can no longer write. I will lead my regiment to-morrow in a desperate assault. If I give my life for my country, Hardin, let my blood seal this sacred bond between you and me. I leave you my motherless child. May God deal with you and yours as you shall deal with the beloved little one, whose face I shall never see.
"If I had a thousand lives I would lay them down for the flag which may cover me to-morrow night. Old friend, remember a dying man's trust in you and your honor."
When Peyton has finished reading these at Colonel Valois' request, his eyes are moist. To-night the bronzed chief is as tender as a woman. The dauntless soul, strong in battle scenes, is shaken with the memories of a motherless little one. She must face the world alone, God's mercy her only stay.
Colonel Valois, who has explained the isolation of the child, has left his estate in remainder to the heirs of Judge Valois, of New Orleans.
Old and tottering to his tomb is that veteran jurist. The possible heir would be Armand, the boy student, cut off in Paris. No home-comings now. The ports are all closed.
When all is prepared, Colonel Valois says tenderly: "Peyton, I have some money left at Havana. I will endorse these drafts to you, and give you a letter to the banker there. You can keep them for me. I want you to ride into Atlanta and see these papers deposited. Let there be made a special commission for their delivery to our agent at Havana. Let them leave Atlanta at once. I want no failure if Sherman storms the city. I will not be alive to see it."
Awed by the prophetic coolness of Valois' speech, Peyton sends for his horse. He rides down to the town, where hundreds on hundreds of wounded sufferers groan on every side. Thousands desperately wait in the agony of suspense for the morrow's awful verdict. He gallops past knots of reckless merry-makers who jest on the edge of their graves. Henry Peyton bears the precious packet and delivers it to an officer of the highest rank. He is on the eve of instant departure for the sea-board. Cars and engines are crowded with the frightened people, flying from the awful shock of Hood's impending assault.
This solemn duty performed, the Major rejoins Colonel Valois at a gallop. Lying on his couch, Valois' face brightens as he springs from his rest. "It is well. I thank you," he simply says. He is calm, even cheerful. The bonhomie of his race is manifest. "Major Peyton," he says, pleasantly, "I would like you to remember the matters of this evening. Should you live through this war the South will be in wild disorder. I have referred to your kindness, in my letter to Hardin and in a paper I have enclosed to him. It is for my child. You will have a home at Lagunitas if you ever go to California."
He discusses a few points of the movement of the morrow. There is no extra solemnity in going under fire. They have lived in a zone of fire since Sherman's pickets crossed the open, months ago. But this supreme effort of Hood marks a solemn epoch. The great shops and magazines of Atlanta, the railroad repair works, foundries and arsenals, the geographical importance, studied fortifications, and population to be protected, make the city a stronghold of ultimate importance to the enfeebled South.
If the Northern bayonets force these last doors of Georgia, then indeed the cause is desperate.
When midnight approached, Colonel Valois calmly bade his friend "Good-night." Escorting him to his tent, he whispers, "Peyton, take your coffee with me to-morrow. I will send for you."
Slumber wraps friend and foe alike. All too soon the gray dawn points behind the hills. There is bustle and confusion. Shadowy groups cluster around the waning fires long before daybreak. The gladiators are falling into line. Softly, silently, day steals over the eastern hills. Is it the sun of Austerlitz or of Waterloo?
Uneasy picket-firing ushers in the battle day. Colonel Valois and Major Peyton share their frugal meal. The rattle of picket shots grows into a steady, teasing firing. Well-instructed outpost officers are carrying on this noisy mockery.
Massed behind the circling lines of Atlanta, within the radius of a mile and a half, the peerless troops who DOUBT Hood's ability, but who ADORE his dauntless bravery, are silently massed for the great attack.
The officers of Valois' regiment, summoned by the adjutant, receive their Colonel's final instructions. His steady eye turns fondly on the men who have been his comrades, friends, and devoted admirers. "Gentlemen," he says, "we will have serious work to-day. I shall expect you to remember what Georgia hopes from Louisiana."
Springing to his saddle, he doffs his cap as the head of the regiment files by, in flank movement. The lithe step, steady swing, and lightly poised arms proclaim matchless veterans. They know his every gesture in the field. He is their idol.
As Peyton rides up, he whispers (for the colors have passed), "Henry, if you lead the regiment out of this battle, I ask you never to forget my last wishes." The two friends clasp hands silently. With a bright smile, whose light lingers as he spurs past the springy column, he takes the lead, falcon-eyed, riding down silently into the gloomy forest-shades of death.
A heavy mass of troops, pushing out in swift march, works steadily to the Union left, and gains its ground rapidly. The Seventeenth Corps of Blair, struck in flank, give way. The Sixteenth Union Corps of Dodge are quickly rushed up. The enemy are struck hard. Crash and roar of battle rise now in deafening clamor. Away to the unprotected Union rear ride the wild troopers of Wheeler. The whole left of Sherman's troops are struck at disadvantage. They are divided, or thrown back in confusion toward Decatur. The desperate struggle sways to and fro till late in the day. With a rush of Hood's lines, Murray's battery of regular artillery is captured. The Stars and Bars sweep on in victory.
Onward press the Confederate masses in all the pride of early victory. The Fifteenth Corps, under Morgan L. Smith, make a desperate attempt to hold on at a strong line of rifle pits. The seething gray flood rolls upon them and sends them staggering back four hundred yards. Over two cut-off batteries, the deadly carnage smites blue and gray alike. Charge and countercharge succeed in the mad struggle for these guns. Neither side can use them until a final wave shall sweep one set of madmen far away.
With desperate valor, Morgan L. Smith at last claims the prize. His cheering troops send double canister from the regained batteries into the gray columns of attack. General Sherman, at a deserted house, where he has made his bivouac, paces the porch like a restless tiger. The increasing firing on the left, tells him of this heavy morning attack. A map spread on a table catches his eye from time to time. The waiting crowd of orderlies and staff officers have, one by one, dashed off to reform the lines or strengthen the left. While the firing all along the line is everywhere ominous, the roar on the left grows higher and higher. Out from the fatal woods begin to stream weary squads of the wounded and stragglers. The floating skulkers hover at the edge of the red tide of conflict.
Ha! A wounded aide dashes up with tidings of the ominous gap on the left. That fearful sweep of Wheeler's cavalry to the rear is known at last by the fires of burning trains. With a few brief words of counsel, and a nod of his stately head, McPherson, the splendid light of battle on his brow, gallops away to reform these broken lines. The eye of the chief must animate his corps.
Hawk-eyed Sherman watches the glorious young general as he turns into the forest. A grim look settles on the general's face. He runs his eye over the map. As the tiger's approach is heralded by the clatter of the meaner animals, so from out that forest the human debris tell of Hood's battle hammer crashing down on that left "in air." Is there yet time to reform a battle, now fighting itself in sudden bloody encounters? All is at haphazard. A sigh of relief. McPherson is there. His ready wit, splendid energy, and inspiring presence are worth a thousand meaner souls, in the wild maelstrom of that terrible July day.
Old Marshal Tecumseh, with unerring intuition, knows that the creeping skirmishers have felt the whole left of his position. With the interior lines and paths of the forest to aid, if anything has gone wrong, if gap or lap has occurred, then on those unguarded key-points and accidental openings, the desperate fighters of the great Texan will throw their characteristic fierceness. Atlanta's tall chimneys rise on the hills to the west. There, thousands, with all at stake, listen to the rolling notes of this bloody battle. High in the air, bursting shells with white puffs light up the clouds of musketry smoke. Charging yells are borne down the wind, with ringing answering cheers. The staccato notes of the snapping Parrotts accentuate the battle's din.
Sherman, with cloudy brow, listens for some news of the imperilled left wing. Is the iron army of the Tennessee to fail him now? Seven miles of bayonets are in that great line, from left to right, headed by McPherson, Schofield, and Thomas, the flower of the Union Army.
Looking forward to a battle outside Atlanta, a siege, or a flanking bit of military chesswork, the great Union commander is dragged now into a purely defensive battle. Where is McPherson?
Sherman has a quarter of an hour of horrible misgiving. He saw the mad panic of the first Bull Run. He led the only compact body of troops off that fatal field himself. It was his own brigade. In his first-fought field, he showed the unshakable nerve of Macdonald at Wagram. But he has also seen the fruits of the wild stampede of McCook and Crittenden's divisions since at Chickamauga. It tore the laurels from Rosecrans' brow. Is this to be a panic? Rosecrans' defeat made Sherman the field-marshal of the West.
At Missionary Ridge, even the invincibles of the South fled their lines in sudden impulse, giving up an almost impregnable position. The haughty old artillerist, Braxton Bragg, was forced to officially admit that stampede. He added a few dozen corpses to his disciplinary "graveyards," "pour encourager les autres." Panic may attack even the best army.
Is it panic now swelling on the breeze of this roaring fight? Fast and far his hastily summoned messengers ride. To add a crowning disaster to the confusion of the early morning death grapple, the sun does not touch the meridian before a bleeding aide brings back McPherson's riderless horse. Where is the general? Alas, where?
Dashing far ahead of his staff and orderlies, tearing from wood to wood, to close in the fatal gap and reface his lines—a volley from a squad of Hood's pickets drops the great corps commander, McPherson, a mangled corpse, in the forest. No such individual loss to either army has happened since Stonewall Jackson's untimely end at Chancellorsville.
His rifled body is soon recovered. With super-human efforts it is borne to the house in the clearing and laid at General Sherman's feet.
Lightning flashes of wit traverse Sherman's brain. Every rebel straggler is instantly searched as he is swept in. The invaluable private papers of General McPherson, the secret orders, and campaign plans are found in the haversack of one of the captured skirmishers. These, at least, are safe.
With this blow, comes the news of the Seventeenth Corps being thrown back, far out of its place, by the wild rush of Hood's braves. All goes wrong. The day is lost.
Will it be a Bull Run?
No! The impetuous Logan tears along his lines. "Black Jack's" swarthy face brings wild cheers from the men, who throw themselves madly on the attacking lines, seeking vengeance. The Fifteenth Corps' rifles are sounding shotted requiem salvos for their lost leader. The Seventeenth holds on and connects. The Sixteenth Corps, struck heavily in flank by the victorious Confederates, faces into line of battle to the left. It grimly holds on, and pours in its leaden hail. Smith's left flank doubled back, joining Leggett, completes the reformed line. From high noon till the darkness of the awful night, a general conflict rages along the whole front. War in its grim horror.
Sherman, casting a wistful glance on the body of McPherson, stands alert. He is as bristling as a wild boar at bay. Sherman at his best.
Is this their worst? No, for at four in the afternoon, a terrific sally from Atlanta throws the very flower of the assailants on the bloody knoll, evermore to be known as "Leggett's Hill." There is madness and demoniac fury in the way those gray columns struggle for that ridge.
In vain does Hood send out his bravest stormers to crown the wished-for position of Leggett.
Sherman is as sure of Atlanta now, as if his eagles towered over its domes. Drawing to the left the corps of Wood, massing Schofield with twenty heavy guns playing on Hood's charging columns, Sherman throws Wood, backed by John A. Logan's victorious veterans, on the great body of the reeling assailants. The final blow has met its stone wall, in the lines of Leggett. The blue takes up the offensive, with wild cheers of triumph. They reach "Uncle Billy's" ears.
Some decisive stroke must cut the tangle of the involved forces. When Hood sees that his devoted troops have not totally crushed the Union left, when his columns reel back from Leggett's Hill, mere fragments, he knows that even his dauntless men cannot be asked to try again that fearful quest. It is checkmate!
But Wheeler is still careering in destruction around Sherman's rear parks, and ravaging his supplies. Hood persists in his desperate design to pierce the Union lines somewhere. He throws away his last chance of keeping an army together. His fiery valor bade him defend Atlanta from the OUTSIDE. He now sends a last thunderbolt crashing on the Decatur road.
During the day Valois' regiment has been thrown in here and there. The stern colonel gazes with pride on the seasoned fighters at their grim work.
But it is after four when Colonel Valois is ordered to mass his regiment, followed by the last reserve, and lead it to the front in the supreme effort of this awful day. His enemy in front is a Union battery, which has been a flail to the Southern army.
In dozens of encounters the four heavy twenty-pound Parrotts of De Gress have been an object of the maddest attack. Superbly handled, in the best equipment, its high power, long range, and dashing energy have given to this battery the rank in the West, which John Pelham's light artillery gained under Lee's eyes in Virginia. The pride of Sherman's artillery is the famous battery of De Gress. To-day it has been dealing out death incessantly, at half musket-range. It has swept rank on rank of the foes away. Now, with the frenzy of despair, General Hood sends a forlorn column to pierce the Union lines, carry the road, and take those renowned guns. A lull betokens the last rush.
Riding to the front, Colonel Valois reins up beside Major Peyton. There is only time for a few last directions. A smile which haunts Peyton for many a long day, flashes on Maxime Valois' stern lips. He dashes on, waving his sword, and cries in his ringing voice,
"Come on, boys, for Louisiana!"
Springing like panthers into the open, the closed ranks bound toward the fated guns at a dead run. Ha! There was a crashing salvo. Now, it is load and fire at will. Right and left, fire pours in on the guns, whose red flashes singe the very faces of the assailants. Peyton's quick eye sees victory wavering. Dashing towards the guns he cheers his men. As he nears the battery the Louisiana color-bearer falls dead. Henry Peyton seizes the Pelican flag, and dashes on over friends, dead and dying, as his frightened steed races into the battery.
There, every horse is down. The guns are now silent. A knot of men, with clubbed rammers, bayonet thrusts, and quick revolver shots, fight for the smoking cannon. A cheer goes up. De Gress's guns are taken. Peyton turns his head to catch a glimpse of Colonel Valois. Grasping the star-spangled guidon of the battery with his bridle hand, Valois cuts down its bearer.
A wild yell rises as a dozen rebel bayonets are plunged into a defiant fugitive, for he has levelled his musket point-blank and shot Valois through the heart.
The leader's frightened charger bounds madly to the front, and the Louisiana colonel falls heavily to the ground.
Clasped in his clenched hands, the silken folds of the captured battery flag are dyed with his blood. A dozen willing arms raise the body, bearing it to one side, for the major, mindful of the precious moments, yells to "swing the guns and pass the caissons." In a minute, the heavy Parrotts of De Gress are pouring their shrapnel into the faces of the Union troops, who are, three hundred yards away, forming for a rush to recapture them.
As the cannon roar their defiance to the men who hold them dear, Peyton bends over Maxime Valois. The heart is stilled forever. With his stiffening fingers clutching his last trophy, the "Stars and Stripes," there is the light of another world shining on the face of the dead soldier of the Southern Cross. Before sending his body to the rear, Henry Peyton draws from Valois' breast a packet of letters. It is the last news from the loved wife he has rejoined across the shadowy river. United in death. Childish Isabel is indeed alone in the world. A rain of shrieking projectiles and bursting shells tells of the coming counter-charge.
Drawing back the guns by hand to a cover for the infantry, and rattling the caissons over a ridge to screen the ammunition boxes, the shattered rebel ranks send volleys into the faces of the lines of Schofield, now coming on at a run.
The captured Parrotts ring and scream. One over-heated gun of the battery bursts, adding its horrors to the struggle. Logan's men are leaping over the lines to right and left, bayoneting the gunners. The Louisianians give way and drift to the rear. The evening shadows drop over crest, wood, and vale. When the first stars are in the skies Hood's shattered columns stream back into Atlanta. The three guns of De Gress have changed hands again. Even the bursted piece falls once more under the control of the despairing Union artillery captain. He has left him neither men, horses, fittings, nor harness available—only three dismantled guns and the wreck of his fourth piece. But they are back again! Sherman's men with wildest shouts crowd the field. They drive the broken remnants of the proud morning array under the guns of the last lines of the doomed city. Dare-devil Hood has failed. The desperate dash has cost ten thousand priceless men. The brief command of the Texan fighter has wrecked the invaluable army of which Joe Johnston was so mindful.
McPherson, who joined the subtlety of Stonewall to the superb bearing of Sidney Johnston, a hero born, a warrior, and great captain to be, lies under the stars in the silent chambers of the Howard House.
General Sherman, gazing on his noble features, calm in death, silently mourns the man who was his right hand. Thomas, Schofield, Howard, Logan, and Slocum stand beside the dead general. They bewail the priceless sacrifice of Peachtree Creek.
In the doomed city of Atlanta, there is gloom and sadness. With the fragments of the regiment which adored him, a shattered guard of honor, watching over him with yet loaded guns, in charge of the officers headed by Major Peyton, the body of Maxime Valois rests within the Southern lines.
For the dear land of his birth he had abandoned the fair land of his choice. With the captured banner of his country in his hand, he died in the hour of a great personal triumph, "under the Stars and Bars." Game to the last.
High-souled and devoted, the son of Louisiana never failed the call of his kinsmen. He carried the purest principles to the altar of Secession.
Watching by the shell from which the dauntless spirit had fled in battle and in storm, Henry Peyton feels bitterly that the fate of Atlanta is sealed. He knows the crushing of their weak lines will follow. He can picture Sherman's heavy columns taking city after city, and marching toward the blue sea.
The end is approaching. A gloomier darkness than the night of the last battle broods over the Virginian. With pious reverence, he hastens to arrange the few personal matters of his chief. He knows not the morrow. The active duties of command will soon take up all his time. He must keep the beloved regiment together.
For, of the two or three companies left of a regiment "whose bayonets were once a thousand," Henry Peyton is the colonel now. A "barren honor," yet inexpressibly dear to him.
In the face of the enemy, within the lines held hard by the reorganizing fragments of yesterday's host, the survivors bury the brave leader who rode so long at their head. Clad in his faded gray, the colonel lies peacefully awaiting the great Reveille.
When the sloping bayonets of the regiment glitter, for the last time, over the ramparts their generous blood has stained in fight, as the defeated troops move away, many a stout heart softens as they feel they are leaving alone and to the foe the lost idol of their rough worship.
Major Peyton preserves for the fatherless child the personal relics of his departed friend. Before it is too late, he despatches them to the coast, to be sent to Havana, to await Judge Hardin's orders at the bankers'. The news of the fate of Colonel Valois, and the last wishes of the dead Confederate, are imparted in a letter to Judge Hardin by Peyton.
In the stern realities of the last retreat, fighting and marching, after the winter snows have whitened the shot-torn fields around Atlanta; sick of carnage and the now useless bloodshed, Colonel Peyton leads his mere detachment to the final scene of the North Carolina surrender. Grant's iron hand has closed upon Petersburg's weakened lines. Sheridan's invincible riders, fresh from the Shenandoah, have shattered the steadfast at Five Forks.
Gloomy days have fallen, also, on the cause in the West. The despairing valor of the day at Franklin and the assault on Nashville only needlessly add to the reputation for frantic bravery of the last of the magnificent Western armies of the Confederacy. Everywhere there are signs of the inevitable end. With even the sad news of Appomattox to show him that the great cause is irretrievably lost, there are bitter tears in Henry Peyton's eyes when he sees the flags of the army he has served with, lowered to great Sherman in the last surrender.
The last order he will ever give to them turns out for surrender the men whose reckless bravery has gilded a "Lost Cause" with a romantic halo of fadeless glory. Peyton sadly sheathes the sword he took from Maxime Valois' dead hands. Southward, he takes his way. Virginia is now only a graveyard and one vast deserted battle-field. The strangers' bayonets are shining at Richmond. He cannot revisit the scenes of his boyhood. A craving seizes him for new scenes and strange faces. He yearns to blot out the war from his memory. He dreams of Mexico, Cuba, or the towering Andes of South America. His heart is too full to linger near the scenes where the red earth lies heaped over his brethren of the sword. Back to Atlanta he travels, with the returning fragments of the men who are now homeward bound. All is silent now. From wood and hill no rattling fire wakes the stillness of these days. The blackened ruins and the wide swath cut by Sherman tell him how true was the prediction that the men of the Northwest would "hew their way to the Gulf with their swords." He finds the grave of Valois, when dismantled and crippled Atlanta receives him again. Standing there, alone, the pageantry of war has rolled away. The battle-fields are covered with wild roses. The birds nest in the woods where Death once reigned supreme. High in the air over Atlanta the flag of the country waves, on the garrison parade, with not a single star erased.
On his way to a self-appointed exile, the Virginian has seen the wasted fields, blackened ruins, and idle disheartened communities of the conquered, families brought to misery, and the young arms-bearing generation blotted out. Hut and manor-house have been licked up by the red torch of war. The hollow-eyed women, suffering children, and dazed, improvident negroes, wander around aimlessly. Bridges, mills and factories in ruins tell of the stranger's torch, and the crashing work of the artillery. Tall, smokeless chimneys point skywards as monuments of desolation.
Bowed in defeat, their strongholds are yet occupied by the blue-coated victors. All that is left of the Southern communities lingers in ruined homes and idle marts. They now are counting the cost of attempted secession, in the gloom of despair.
The land is one vast graveyard. The women who mourn husbands and lovers stray over fields of strife, and wonder where the loved one sleeps. Friend and foe, "in one red burial blent," are lying down in the unbroken truce of death.
Atlanta's struggle against the restless Sherman has been only wasted valor, a bootless sacrifice. Her terrific sallies, lightning counter-thrusts, and final struggles with the after-occupation, can be traced in the general desolation, by every step of the horrible art of war.
Here, by the grave of his intrepid comrade, Henry Peyton reviews the past four years. His scars and wasted frame tell him of many a deadly fray, and the dangers of the insane fight for State rights.
The first proud days of the war return. Hopes that have failed long since are remembered. The levy and march to the front, the thousand watch-fires glittering around the unbroken hosts, whose silken-bordered banners tell of the matchless devotion of the women clinging blindly to the cause.
Peyton thinks now of the loved and lost who bore those flags, to-day furled forever, to the front, at Bull Run, Shiloh, the Seven Days, Groveton, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Chickamauga, and Spottsylvania.
The foreign friends in Europe, the daring rovers of the sea who carried the Stars and Bars from off New York to Singapore and far Behring Straits. What peerless leaders. Such deep, sagacious statesmen. The treasures of the rich South, the wealth of King Cotton, all wasted uselessly. A popular devotion, which deeply touched the magnanimous Grant in the supreme hour of victory, has been lavished on the altar of the Confederacy where Davis, Lee, and Jackson were enthroned. Fallen gods now, but still majestic and yet revered.
Peyton thinks with an almost breaking heart of all these sacrifices for the Lost Cause. By his friend's grave he feels that an awful price has been paid for the glories of the short-lived Confederacy.
The noble-hearted Virginian dares not hope that there may yet be found golden bands of brotherhood to knit together the children of the men who fought under gray and blue. Frankly acknowledging the injustice of the early scorn of the Northern foe, he knows, from glances cast backward over the storied fields, the vigor of the North was under-estimated. The men of Donelson, Antietam, Stone River, Vicksburg, awful Gettysburg, of Winchester, and Five Forks, are as true and tried as ever swung a soldier's blade.
He has seen the country's flag of stars stream out bravely against the tide of defeat. If American valor needs a champion the men who saw the "Yankees" at Seven Pines, Gaines Mill, Marye's Heights, and holding in fire and flame the batteries of Corinth and Knoxville, will swear the embittered foes were worthy of each other.
The defeated Confederate veteran, as he plucks a rose from the grass growing over the gallant Valois, bitterly remembers the useless sacrifices of the whole Southern army to the "Virginia policy." A son of the "old State" himself, he can feel now, in the sorrow and silence of defeat, that the early triumphs of the war were wasted. The great warlike generation was frittered away on the Potomac.
Devoted to Lee, he still mourns the lost months of the fall of '61, when, flushed with triumph, the Confederates could have entered Washington. Then Maryland would have risen "en masse." Foreign lands would have been won over. An aggressive policy even in 1862, after the Peninsula, might have changed the final result. The dead Californian's regrets for the abandonment of all effort in the Pacific, the cutting-off and uselessness of the great trans-Mississippi region, all return to him in vain sorrow.
By Maxime Valois' grave, Peyton wonders if the battle-consecrated blood of the sons has washed away the sins of the fathers. He knows not of the brighter days, when the past shall seem a vision of romance. When our country will smile in peace and brotherhood, from ocean to ocean. Sadly he uncovers his head. He leaves Maxime Valois lying in the proud silence of the soldier's grave—"dead on the field of honor."
To New Orleans Colonel Peyton repairs. On making search, he finds that Judge Valois has not survived the collapse of the Confederacy. His only son is abroad, in Paris. The abandoned plantations and family property are under the usual load of debt, taxes, and all the legal confusion of a change of rulers.
Peyton thanks the dead soldier in his heart for the considerable legacy of his unused balances. He is placed beyond immediate necessity. He leaves the land where the Southern Cross met defeat. He wishes to wander over Cuba, Mexico, and toward the West. At Havana, he finds that the documents and articles forwarded by the agents to Judge Hardin have been duly sent though never acknowledged.
The letters taken from Colonel Valois' body he seals in a packet. He trusts that fate may lead him some day westward. They are too precious to risk. He may some day tell the little lady of Lagunitas, of the gallant father whose thoughts, before his last battle, were only for the beloved "little one." She is confided, as a trust, from the dying to Judge Hardin. She is surely safe in the sheltering care of Valois' oldest friend. A "Southern gentleman."
Peyton for years can bring back the tender solemnity of Maxime Valois' face, as he reads his charge to Hardin.
"And may God deal with you and yours, as you deal with me and mine."
The devoted father's appeal would touch a heart of stone.
The folly of not beginning active war in the West; the madness of not seizing California at the outset; the rich prizes of the Pacific left ungathered, for has not Semmes almost driven Yankee ships from the sea with the Alabama, and does not Waddell, with the cockle-shell Shenandoah, burn and destroy the entire Pacific whaling fleet? The free-booter sails half around the world, unchallenged, after the war. Oh, coward Knights of the Golden Circle! Fools, and blind, to let California slip from your grasp!
Maxime Valois was right. Virginian rule ruined the Confederacy. Too late, too late!
Had Sidney Johnston lived; had Robert E. Lee been willing to leave sacred Virginia uncovered for a fortnight in the days before he marshalled the greatest army the Southerners ever paraded, and invaded the North boldly, a peace would have resulted.
Peyton thinks bitterly of the irreparable loss of Sidney Johnston. He recalls the death of peerless Jackson. Jackson, always aggressive, active, eager to reach for the enemy, and ever successful.
Wasted months when the prestige was with the South, the fixed determination of Lee to keep the war in Virginia, and Davis's deadly jealousy of any leading minds, seem to have lost the brightest chances of a glorious success.
Peyton condemns the military court of Davis and the intrenched pageantry of Lee's idle forces. The other armies of the Confederacy fought, half supplied, giving up all to hold the Virginia lines. He cannot yet realize that either Sherman or Grant might have baffled Sidney Johnston had he lived. Lee was self-conscious of his weakness in invasion. He will not own that Philip Sheridan's knightly sword might have reached the crest of the unconquered Stonewall Jackson.
Vain regret, shadowy dreams, and sad imaginings fill Colonel Peyton's mind. The thrilling struggles of the Army of the West, its fruitless victories, and unrewarded heroism make him proud of its heroes. Had another policy ruled the Confederate military cabinet, success was certain. But he is now leaving his friend's grave.
The birds are singing in the forest. As the sun lights up the dark woods where McPherson died, into Henry Peyton's war-tried soul enters the peace which broods over field and incense-breathing trees. Far in the East, the suns of future years may bring happier days, when the war wounds are healed. The brothers of the Union may find a nobler way to reach each other's hearts than ball or bayonet. But he cannot see these gleams of hope.