"I know all about a shotgun. I could learn the other."
"What's your name?"
"Philip Deaderick."
"Well, come into the firelight, Deaderick, so that I can see you."
Deaderick came, showed a powerful figure, and a steady bearded face. "Well," said the Alabamian, "the blow on your head doesn't seem to have put you out of the running! I'll try you, Deaderick."
"I am much obliged to you, sir."
"I haven't any awkward squad into which to put you. You'll have to learn, and learn quickly, by watching the others. Take him and enroll him, Haralson, and turn him over to Dreux and the Howitzer. Now, Deaderick, the Horse Artillery is heaven to a good man who does his duty, and it's hell to the other kind. I advise you to try for heaven. That's all. Good-night."
Day broke over the field of Groveton, over the plains of Manassas. Stonewall Jackson moved in force westward from the old battle-ground. South of Bull Run, between Young's Branch and Stony Ridge, ran an unfinished railroad. It was bordered by woods and rolling fields. There were alternate embankments and deep railroad cuts. Behind was the long ridge and Catharpin Run, in front, sloping gently to the little stream, green fields broken to the north by one deep wood. Stonewall Jackson laid his hand on the railroad with those deep cuts and on the rough and rising ground beyond. In the red dawn there stretched a battle front of nearly two miles. A. P. Hill had the left. Trimble and Lawton of Ewell's had the centre, Jackson's own division the right, Jubal Early and Forno of Ewell's a detached force on this wing. There were forty guns, and they were ranged along the rocky ridge behind the infantry. Jeb Stuart guarded the flanks.
The chill moisture of the morning, the dew-drenched earth, the quiet woods, the rose light in the sky—the troops moving here and there to their assigned positions, exchanged opinions. "Ain't it like the twenty-first of July, 1861?"—"It air and it ain't—mostly ain't!"—"That's true! Hello! they are going to give us the railroad cut! God bless the Manassas Railroad Company! If we'd dug a whole day we couldn't have dug such a ditch as that!"—"Look at the boys behind the embankment! Well, if that isn't the jim-dandiest breastwork! 'N look at the forty guns up there against the sky!"—"Better tear those vines away from the edge. Pretty, aren't they? All the blue morning glories. Regiment's swung off toward Manassas Junction! Now if Longstreet should come up!"—"Maybe he will. Wouldn't it be exciting? Come up with a yell same as Kirby Smith did last year! Wonder where the Yankees are?" "Somewhere in the woods, the whole hell lot of them."—"Some of them aren't a hell lot. Some of them are right fine. Down on the Chickahominy I acquired a real respect for the Army of the Potomac—and a lot of it'll be here to-day. Yes, sir, I like Fitz John Porter and Sykes and Reynolds and a lot of them first rate! They can't help being commanded by The-Man-without-a-Rear. That's Washington's fault, not theirs."—"Yes, sir, Ricketts and Meade and Kearney and a lot of them are all right."—"Good Lord, what a shout! That's either Old Jack or a rabbit."—"It's Old Jack! It's Old Jack! He's coming along the front. Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! He's passed. O God! I wish that Bee and Bartow and all that fell here could see him and us now."—"There's Stuart passing through the fields. What guns are those going up Stony Ridge?—Pelham and the Horse Artillery."—"Listen! Bugles! There they come! There they come! Over the Henry Hill." Attention!
About the middle of the morning the cannonading ceased. "There's a movement this way," said A. P. Hill on the left. "They mean to turn us. They have ploughed this wood with shells, and now they're coming to sow it. All right, men! General Jackson's looking!—and General Lee will be here to-night to tell the story to. I suppose you'd like Marse Robert to say, 'Well done!' All right, then, do well!—I don't think we're any too rich, Garrett, in ammunition. Better go tell General Jackson so."