"Here was where we crossed the pike—there's the old ridge. Griffin tearing up his cards—and Griffin's dead at McDowell."
"That was Fulkerson's wall—that shadow over there! There's the bank where the 65th fought.—Kernstown! I'm mighty tired, boys, but I've got a peaceful certainty that that was the only battle Old Jack's ever going to lose!"
"Old Jack didn't lose it. Garnett lost it."
"That ain't a Stonewall man said that! General Garnett's in trouble. I reckon didn't anybody lose it. Shields had nine thousand men, and he just gained it!—Shields the best man they've had in the Valley. Kernstown!—Heard what the boys at Middletown called Banks? Mr. Commissary Banks. Oh, law! that pesky rearguard again!"
The skirmish proved short and sharp. The Federal rearguard gave way, fell back on Winchester; the Confederate column, advance, main and rear, heard in the cold and hollow of the night the order: Halt. Stack arms! Break ranks! From regiment to regiment ran a further word. "One hour. You are to rest one hour, men. Lie down."
In the first grey streak of dawn a battery which had passed in turn each segment of the column, came up with the van, beyond Kernstown battlefield, and halted upon a little rise of ground. All around stretched grey, dew-wet fields and woods, and all around lay an army, sleeping, strange sight in the still and solemn light, with the birds cheeping overhead! The guns stopped, the men got down from limber and caisson, the horses were unhitched. "An hour's sleep—Kernstown battlefield!"
An officer whose command lay in the field to the left, just beyond a great breach that had been made in the stone fence, arose from the cloak he had spread in the opening and came over to the guns. "Good-morning, Randolph! Farmers and soldiers see the dawn!
| Light thickens; and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood. |
The poor guns! Even they look overmarched." As he spoke he stroked the howitzer as though it had been a living thing.
"We've got with us a stray of yours," said the artilleryman. "Says he has a cut foot, but looks like a skulker. Here you, Mr. Under-the-Bridge! come from behind that caisson—"