Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

"Ride off again. Stop those fires instantly. My God! the fools want to tell the enemy just when we start."

This outburst raised his spirits, and after swallowing a cocktail he sat down to breakfast with some appetite. The toughness of the cold boiled chicken, and the dryness and hardness of the army biscuit served as a further distraction, and enabled him to utter a joke about such delicacies being very suitable for projectiles. But he was still nervous, uneasy, eager, driven by the sin which was past, and dragged by the battle which was before, so that any long reveling at the banquet was impossible. He quitted the empty cracker box which served him for a table, and paced grimly up and down until his orderly came to buckle on his sword, and his servant brought him his horse.

"How are the saddle-pockets, Cato?" he asked.

"Oh, day's chuck full, Gen'l. Hull cold chicken in dis yere one, an' bottle o' whisky in dis yere."

Carter swung himself slowly and heavily into his saddle. He was weary, languid and feverish with want of sleep, and trouble of mind. In truth he was physically and morally a much discomforted Brigadier General. Without waiting for other directions than his example, his five staff officers mounted also and fell into a group behind him. In their rear was the brigade flag-bearer escorted by half-a-dozen cavalry-men. The sombre dawn was turning to red and gold in the east. A monstrous serpent of blue and steel was already creeping toward the ferry, increasing in length as additional regiments streamed into the road from the fields which had served for the bivouac. When Carter had seen his entire brigade file by, he set off at a canter, placed himself at the head of it, and rode on at a walk, silent and gloomy of countenance. Not even the thought that he was now a general, and had a chance to make a reputation for himself as well as for others, could enable him to quite throw off the seriousness and anxiety which beclouds the minds of men during the preliminaries of battle. The remembrance of the misery which he had wrought for his wife was no pleasant distraction. It was like a foreboding; it overshadowed him even when he was not thinking of it distinctly; it seemed to have a menacing arm which pointed him to punishment, calamity, perhaps a grave. He was like a haunted man who sees his following phantom if he turns his head ever so little. Nevertheless, when he squarely faced the subject, and dragged it out separately from the general sombreness of the situation, it did not seem such a very hopeless misfortune. It surely was not possible that she had broken with him for life. He would win her back to him; it must be that she loved him enough to forgive him some day; he would win her back with repentance and victories. As he thought this he dashed a little way into the fields, gave a glance at the line of his brigade, and dispatched a couple of his staff to close up the rearmost files of his regiments.

Presently there was a halt: something probably going on in front: perhaps a reconnaisance: perhaps battle. The men were allowed to stack arms and sit down by the roadside. Then came news: Enemy in force at the crossing: a direct attack in front out of the question: turning movements to be made somewhere by somebody. It was a full hour after sunrise when an aid of General Emory's arrived with orders for General Carter to report for duty to General Birge.

"What is the situation?" asked the General.

"Two brigades are forming in front," replied the aid. "We have an immense line of skirmishers stretching from the Cane River on the right all along the edge of the woods, and out into the fields. But we can't go at them in front. Their ground is nearly a hundred feet higher than ours, and the crossing isn't fordable. We have got to flank them. Closson is going up with some artillery to establish a position on our left, and from that the cavalry will turn the right wing of the enemy. Birge is to do the same thing on this side with three brigades. He will go up about a mile—three miles from the ferry—ford the river—it's fordable up there—come round on the fellows, and give it to them over the left."

"Very good," said Carter. "If I shouldn't come back, give the General my compliments for his plan. Much obliged, Lieutenant."