Pope’s army, too, as an army, was in the same situation, and the quarters for “Stonewall Jackson and 16,000 prisoners,” which the mighty bummer had ordered to be prepared at Washington, were not occupied—for John had to “skedaddle,” and just in his rear “old Stonewall” with that identical little party of 16,000 “foot cavalry” pushed bravely on, and with him went White and all his mounted men fit for duty, while Myers was sent to Loudoun in charge of dismounted men, and such as had broken down horses, for the double purpose of recruiting in both men and horses.
CHAPTER VII.
Never were the veteran hearts of the men whom Lee and Stonewall led to victory, so thrilled with triumphant pride as on that morning in September, when the wild refrain of “Maryland, my Maryland,” echoed from a thousand throats, rolled on the morning breezes over the border, and the ragged men in gray marched through the waters of the old Potomac which some of them had made to run red with the life-blood of the invading hosts of Yankeeland, who made their boasting advance, at almost the same point the year before, and added the name of Ball’s Bluff to the list of Southern victories.
But none other than those born on the soil of Maryland could fully enter into the feelings that filled the heart of our Captain when he saw the army that had tramped over the heaps of dead men, strewn from the blue and billowy James to the dashing surges of the Potomac, actually marching through the boundary that had, up to this time, been considered the de facto line of separation between the two Confederacies, and felt that of a truth the hour had come when another star would blaze in the Southern Cross, and that star the sign that Maryland, by aid of the iron legions of the Southland, had broken the rod of the Blackamoor’s god, and joined, at last, her sisters in their crusade for freedom.
It will avail nothing, however, to revert here to the bitter disappointment which quenched these proud feelings in the hearts of the brave sons of the State of Maryland, who had been battling for the cause of Southern rights, when they found no responsive greeting from the now pitifully cowed spirit of poor, conquered Maryland, and felt that in spite of the hero-blood that had baptized the wreath of glory woven for her queenly brow by such hands as Carroll, Howard, May, and a thousand others, who, in the days of yore, had made her name so famous, she was now a subjugated thing, too much afraid of the power that had bound the slavish chain upon her very soul, to lift the folded hands from which the tyrant’s fetters had just been so bravely torn, even though upon her own soil the conquering battle-flag of Dixie waved high above the bloody Northern standard.
Through treachery at the council board she had been betrayed into the power of her enemies, and had not enough spirit left to do more than gaze with sad-eyed wonder upon the war-worn soldiers whose mission to their State was to give her people an opportunity to draw their swords in an equal fight for their desecrated altars.
Maryland was dumb before her shearers, and lamb-like she submitted, while the Southern army looked vainly for the lion to awake to glory again.
At Frederick City, Capt. White fell under the displeasure of General Stuart, and was ordered by that commander to return with his company to Loudoun County, Va., but the Captain protested, saying that he was a Marylander by birth and had fought as hard as any man for the privilege of fighting once upon the soil of his native State.
The General seemed only to want an excuse to become offended with him, and exclaimed, “Do you say you have done as much as any man, for the South?”
“No, sir,” said Capt. White, “I did not say that; but I have done my duty to the South as a soldier, so far as my ability extends, as fully as anybody.”