The man nearest him, combing his beard with ostentation, burst into a laugh. "Did you hear that, fellows? Steve's grumbling because he wasn't let to do it all! Poor Steve! poor Hotspur! poor Pistol!" He bent, chuckling, over the pool that served him for mirror. "You stop calling me dirty names!" growled Steve, and, his toilet ended well-nigh before begun, slouched across to fire and breakfast. The former was large, the latter small. Jackson's ammunition wagons, double-teamed, were up with the army, but all others back somewhere east of Front Royal.
Breakfast was soon over—"sorry breakfast!" The assembly sounded, the column was formed, Winder made his brigade a short speech. Steve listened with growing indignation. "General Banks, falling back from Strasburg, is trying to get off clear to Winchester. ('Well, let him! I don't give a damn!') We want to intercept him at Middletown. ('Oh, do we?') We want to get there before the head of his column appears, and then to turn and strike him full. ('O Lord! I ain't a rattler!') We want to beat him in the middle Valley—never let him get to Winchester at all! ('I ain't objecting, if you'll give the other brigades a show and let them do it!') It's only ten miles to Middletown. ('Only!') A forced march needed. ('O Gawd!') Ashby and Chew's Battery and a section of the Rockbridge and the skirmishers and Wheat's Tigers are ahead. ('Well, if they're so brash, let them wipe out Banks and welcome! And if one damned officer that's ahead gits killed, I won't mourn him.') Ewell with Trimble's Brigade and the First Maryland, Courtenay and Brockenborough are off, making as the bird flies for Winchester! ('We ain't birds. We're men, and awful tired men, too.') Steuart with the 2d and 6th cavalry are already at Newtown. ('What in hell do I care if they air?') Campbell and Taliaferro and Elzey and Scott and the Stonewall and the balance of the guns form the main column, and at Middletown we're going to turn and meet Banks. ('Gawd! more fighting, on an empty stomach, and dog-tired!') General Jackson says, 'Men, we're going to rid the Valley of Virginia of the enemy. Press on.' You know what an avalanche is. ('Knowed it before you was born. It's a place where you hide till the man you hate worse than pison oak comes by!') Let the Stonewall now turn avalanche; fall on Banks at Middletown and grind him small!—Fours right! Forward! March! ('Oh, Gawd! my cut foot! It's my lasting hope that—sh!—Fool Tom Jackson'll break you same as he broke Garnett')."
The morning, at first divinely cool and sweet, turned hot and languid, humid and without air. It made the perspiration stream, and then the dust rose from the road, and the two together caused the most discomfortable grime! It marked all faces, and it lodged between neck and neckband and wrist and wristband where it chafed the skin. It got deep into the shoes—through holes enough, God knows!—and there the matter became serious, for many a foot was galled and raw. It got into eyes and they grew red and smarting. It stopped ear and nostril. It lined the mouth; it sifted down the neck and made the body miserable. At the starting, as the men quit the green banks of Shenandoah, several of the æsthetic sort had been heard to comment upon the beauty of the scenery. Possibly the soul for beauty lasted, but as for the scenery, it vanished. The brigade was now upon the Front Royal and Winchester pike, moving in the foot and wheel prints of the advance, and under and through an extended cirrhus cloud of dirty saffron. The scenery could not be viewed through it—mere red blotches and blurs. It was so heavy that it served for darkness. Men saw each other dimly at the distance of ten feet, and mounted officers and couriers went by, dun and shapeless, through the thick powder.
Steve could not be said to mind grime (Sergeant Mathew Coffin did; he was forever wiping it away with what remained to him of a handkerchief), but the stuff in his shoes made his feet hurt horribly. It was in his mouth besides, where it made him thirsty. He eyed an object dangling from the belt of the man next him, and since from long habit it had become easy to him to break the tenth commandment he broke it again—into a thousand pieces. At last, "Where did you get that canteen?"
"Picked it up at McDowell. Ef 't warn't covered with dust you could see the U. S."
"Empty, I reckon?"
"Nop. Buttermilk."
"O Gawd! I could drink Thunder Run dry!"
"Sorry. Reckon we'll come to a stream bimeby. Saving the milk 'gainst an emergency."
It did not appear that we would come to a stream, or a spring, or a well, or anything liquid—to anything but awful miles of dust and heat, trudged over by anything but three-leagued boots. Despite the spur of Winder's speech the brigade moved with dispiriting slowness. It was not the first in column; there were troops ahead and troops behind, and it would perhaps have said that it was not its part to overpass the one and outstrip the other. The whole line lagged. "Close up, men! close up!" cried the officers, through dust-lined throats. "If it's as hot as ginger, then let the ginger show! Step out!" Back from the head of the column came peremptory aides. "Press on! General Jackson says, 'Press on!'—Yes; he knows you marched twenty-six miles yesterday, and that it's hot weather! All the same we've got to get there!—Thank you, colonel, I will take a swallow! I'm damned tired myself."