The Brigade Commander Read online

at this point, and the maudlin tears were notaltogether insincere. His own wife and children he heartily loved, andremembered them now with honest tenderness. At home he was not a drinkerand a rough; only amid the hardships and perils of the field.

  "That was the end of it, Wallis," he repeated. "And what was it while itlasted? What does a woman leave her husband for? Why does she separatefrom him over the grave of her innocent first-born? There are twentyreasons, but they must all of them be good ones. I am sorry to give itas my decided opinion, Wallis, in perfect confidence, that they must allbe whopping good ones. Well, that was the beginning; only the beginning.After that he held on for a while, breaking the bread of life to askedaddling flock, and then he bolted. The next known of him, threeyears later, he enlisted in your regiment, a smart but seedy recruit,smelling strongly of whiskey."

  "I wish I smelt half as strong of it myself," grumbled Wallis. "It mightkeep out the swamp fever."

  "That's the true story of Col. John James Waldron," continued OldGrumps, with a groan which was very somnolent, as if it were a twin to asnore. "That's the true story."

  "I don't believe the first word of it--that is to say, Colonel, I thinkyou have been misinformed--and I'll bet you two to one on it. If he wasnothing more than a minister, how did he know drill and tactics?"

  "Oh, I forgot to say he went through West Point--that is, nearlythrough. They graduated him in his third year by the back door, Wallis."

  "Oh, that was it, was it? He was a West Pointer, was he? Well, then, thebacksliding was natural, and oughtn't to count against him. A member ofBenny Haven's church has a right to backslide anywhere, especially asthe Colonel doesn't seem to be any worse than some of the rest of us,who haven't fallen from grace the least particle, but took our stand atthe start just where we are now. A fellow that begins with a handful oftrumps has a right to play a risky game."

  "I know what euchered him, Wallis. It was the old Little Joker; andthere's another of the same on hand now."

  "On hand where? What are you driving at, Colonel?"

  "He looks like a boy. I mean she looks like a boy. You know what Imean, Wallis; I mean the boy that makes believe to wait on him. Andher brother is in camp, got here to-night. There'll be an explanationto-morrow, and there'll be bloodshed."

  "Good-night, Colonel, and sleep it off," said Wallis, rising fromthe side of a man whom he believed to be sillily drunk and altogetheruntrustworthy. "You know we get after the rebs at dawn."

  "I know it--goo-night, Adjutant--gawbless-you," mumbled Old Grumps."We'll lick those rebs, won't we?" he chuckled. "Goo-night, ole fellow,an' gawblessyou."

  Whereupon Old Grumps fell asleep, very absurdly overcome by liquor, weextremely regret to concede, but nobly sure to do his soldierly duty assoon as he should awake.

  Stumbling wearily blanketward, Wallis found his Major and regimentalcommander, the genial and gallant Gahogan, slumbering in a peace likethat of the just. He stretched himself anear, put out his hand to touchhis sabre and revolver, drew his caped great-coat over him, moved onceto free his back of a root or pebble, glanced languidly at a singlestruggling star, thought for an instant of his far-away mother, turnedhis head with a sigh and slept. In the morning he was to fight, andperhaps to die; but the boyish veteran was too seasoned, and also tootired, to mind that; he could mind but one thing--nature's pleading forrest.

  In the iron-gray dawn, while the troops were falling dimly andspectrally into line, and he was mounting his horse to be ready fororders, he remembered Gildersleeve's drunken tale concerning thecommandant, and laughed aloud. But turning his face toward brigadeheadquarters (a sylvan region marked out by the branches of a greatoak), he was surprised to see a strange officer, a fair young man incaptain's uniform, riding slowly toward it.

  "Is that the boy's brother?" he said to himself; and in the next instanthe had forgotten the whole subject; it was time to form and present theregiment.

  Quietly and without tap of drum the small, battle-worn battalions filedout of their bivouacs into the highway, ordered arms and waited forthe word to march. With a dull rumble the field-pieces trundled slowlyafter, and halted in rear of the infantry. The cavalry trotted offcircuitously through the fields, emerged upon a road in advance andlikewise halted, all but a single company, which pushed on for half amile, spreading out as it went into a thin line of skirmishers.

  Meanwhile a strange interview took place near the great oak which hadsheltered brigade headquarters. As the unknown officer, whom Wallis hadnoted, approached it, Col. Waldron was standing by his horse readyto mount. The commandant was a man of medium size, fairly handsome inperson and features, and apparently about twenty-eight years of age.Perhaps it was the singular breadth of his forehead which made the lowerpart of his face look so unusually slight and feminine. His eyes weredark hazel, as clear, brilliant, and tender as a girl's, and brimmingfull of a pensiveness which seemed both loving and melancholy. Fewpersons, at all events few women, who looked upon him ever looked beyondhis eyes. They were very fascinating, and in a man's countenance verystrange. They were the kind of eyes which reveal passionate romances,and which make them.

  By his side stood a boy, a singularly interesting and beautiful boy,fair-haired and blue-eyed, and delicate in color. When this boy sawthe stranger approach he turned as pale as marble, slid away fromthe brigade commander's side, and disappeared behind a group of staffofficers and orderlies. The new-comer also became deathly white as heglanced after the retreating youth. Then he dismounted, touched hiscap slightly and, as if mechanically, advanced a few steps, and saidhoarsely, "I believe this is Colonel Waldron. I am Captain Fitz Hugh, ofthe --th Delaware."

  Waldron put his hand to his revolver, withdrew it instantaneously, andstood motionless.

  "I am on leave of absence from my regiment, Colonel," continued FitzHugh, speaking now with an elaborate ceremoniousness of utterancesignificant of a struggle to suppress violent emotion. "I suppose youcan understand why I made use of it in seeking you."

  Waldron hesitated; he stood gazing at the earth with the air of one whorepresses deep pain; at last, after a profound sigh, he raised his eyesand answered:

  "Captain, we are on the eve of a battle. I must attend to my publicduties first. After the battle we will settle our private affair."

  "There is but one way to settle it, Colonel."

  "You shall have your way if you will. You shall do what you will. I onlyask what good will it do to _her?_"

  "It will do good to _me_, Colonel," whispered Fitz Hugh, suddenlyturning crimson. "You forget _me_."

  Waldron's face also flushed, and an angry sparkle shot from underhis lashes in reply to this utterance of hate, but it died out in aninstant.

  "I have done a wrong, and I will accept the consequences," he said."I pledge you my word that I will be at your disposal if I survive thebattle. Where do you propose to remain meanwhile?"

  "I will take the same chance, sir. I propose to do my share in thefighting if you will use me."

  "I am short of staff officers. Will you act as my aid?"

  "I will, Colonel," bowed Fitz Hugh, with a glance which expressedsurprise, and perhaps admiration, at this confidence.

  Waldron turned, beckoned his staff officers to approach, and said,"Gentlemen, this is Captain Fitz Hugh of the --th Delaware. He hasvolunteered to join us for the day, and will act as my aid. And now,Captain, will you ride to the head of the column and order it forward?There will be no drum-beat and no noise. When you have given your orderand seen it executed, you will wait for me."

  Fitz Hugh saluted, sprang into his saddle and galloped away. A fewminutes later the whole column was plodding on silently towardits bloody goal. To a civilian, unaccustomed to scenes of war, thetranquillity of these men would have seemed very wonderful. Many of thesoldiers were still munching the hard bread and raw pork of their meagrebreakfasts, or drinking the cold coffee with which they had filled theircanteens the day previous. Many more were chatting in an undertone,grumbling over their sore feet and
other discomfits, chaffing eachother, and laughing. The general bearing, however, was grave, patient,quietly enduring, and one might almost say stolid. You would have said,to judge by their expressions, that these sunburned fellows were merelydoing hard work, and thoroughly commonplace work, without a prospect ofadventure, and much less of danger. The explanation of this calmness, sobrutal perhaps to the eye of a sensitive soul, lies mainly in the factthat they were all veterans, the survivors of marches, privations,maladies, sieges, and battles. Not a regiment present numbered fourhundred men, and the average was not above three hundred. Thewhole force, including artillery and cavalry, might have been abouttwenty-five hundred sabres and bayonets.

  At the beginning of the march Waldron fell into the rear of his staffand mounted orderlies. Then the boy who had fled from Fitz Hugh droppedout of the tramping escort, and rode up to his side.

  "Well, Charlie," said Waldron, casting a pitying glance at the yetpallid face and anxious eyes of the youth, "you have had a sad fright. Imake you very miserable."

  "He has found us at last," murmured Charlie in a tremulous sopranovoice. "What did he say?"

  "We are to talk to-morrow. He acts as my aide-de-camp to-day. I ought totell you frankly that he is not friendly."

  "Of course, I knew it," sighed Charlie, while the tears fell.

  "It is only one more trouble--one more danger, and perhaps it may pass.So many _have_ passed."

  "Did you tell him anything to quiet him? Did you tell him that we weremarried?"

  "But we are not married yet, Charlie. We shall be, I hope."

  "But you ought to have told him that we were. It might stop him fromdoing something--mad. Why didn't you tell him so? Why didn't you thinkof it?"

  "My dear little child, we are about to have a battle. I should like tocarry some honor and truth into it."

  "Where is he?" continued Charlie, unconvinced and unappeased. "I want tosee him. Is he at the head of the column? I want to speak to him, justone word. He won't hurt me."

  She suddenly spurred her horse, wheeled into the fields, and dashedonward. Fitz Hugh was lounging in his saddle, and sombrely surveying thepassing column, when she galloped up to him.

  "Carrol!" she said, in a choked voice, reining in by his side, andleaning forward to touch his sleeve.

  He threw one glance at her--a glance of aversion, if not of downrighthatred, and turned his back in silence.

  "He is my husband, Carrol," she went on rapidly. "I knew you didn'tunderstand it. I ought to have written you about it. I thought I wouldcome and tell you before you did anything absurd. We were married assoon as he heard that his wife was dead."

  "What is the use of this?" he muttered hoarsely. "She is not dead. Iheard from her a week ago. She was living a week ago."

  "Oh, Carrol!" stammered Charlie. "It was some mistake then. Is itpossible! And he was so sure! But he can get a divorce, you know. Sheabandoned him. Or _she_ can get one. No, _he_ can get it--of course,when she abandoned him. But, Carrol, she _must_ be dead--he was _so_sure."

  "She is _not_ dead, I tell you. And there can be no divorce. Insanitybars all claim to a divorce. She is in an asylum. She had to leave him,and then she went mad."

  "Oh, no, Carrol, it is all a mistake; it is not so. Carrol," shemurmured in a voice so faint that he could not help glancing at her,half in fury and half in pity. She was slowly falling from her horse.He sprang from his saddle, caught her in his arms, and laid her on theturf, wishing the while that it covered her grave. Just then one ofWaldron's orderlies rode up and exclaimed: "What is the matter withthe--the boy? Hullo, Charlie."

  Fitz Hugh stared at the man in silence, tempted to tear him from hishorse. "The boy is ill," he answered when he recovered his self-command."Take charge of him yourself." He remounted, rode onward out of sightbeyond a thicket, and there waited for the brigade commander, now andthen fingering his revolver. As Charlie was being placed in an ambulanceby the orderly and a sergeant's wife, Waldron came up, reined in hishorse violently, and asked in a furious voice, "Is that boy hurt?

  "Ah--fainted," he added immediately. "Thank you, Mrs. Gunner. Take goodcare of him--the best of care, my dear woman, and don't let him leaveyou all day."

  Further on, when Fitz Hugh silently fell into his escort, he merelyglanced at him in a furtive way, and then cantered on rapidly to thehead of the cavalry. There he beckoned to the tall, grave, iron-grayChaplain of the Tenth, and rode with him for nearly an hour, apart,engaged in low and seemingly impassioned discourse. From this interviewMr. Colquhoun returned to the escort with a strangely solemnized, tendercountenance, while the commandant, with a more cheerful air than he hadyet worn that day, gave himself to his martial duties, inspecting thelandscape incessantly with his glass, and sending frequently for newsto the advance scouts. It may properly be stated here that the Chaplainnever divulged to any one the nature of the conversation which he hadheld with his Colonel.

  Nothing further of note occurred until the little army, after two hoursof plodding march, wound through a sinuous, wooded ravine, entered abroad, bare, slightly undulating valley, and for the second time halted.Waldron galloped to the summit of a knoll, pointed to a long eminencewhich faced him some two miles distant, and said tranquilly, "There isour battle-ground."

  "Is that the enemy's position?" returned Captain Ives, hisadjutant-general. "We shall have a tough job if we go at it from here."

  Waldron remained in deep thought for some minutes, meanwhile scanningthe ridge and all its surroundings.

  "What I want to know," he observed, at last, "is whether they haveoccupied the wooded knolls in front of their right and around theirright flank."

  Shortly afterward the commander of the scout ing squadron came ridingback at a furious pace.

  "They are on the hill, Colonel," he shouted.

  "Yes, of course," nodded Waldron; "but have they occupied the woodswhich veil their right front and flank?"

  "Not a bit of it; my fellows have cantered all through, and up to thebase of the hill."

  "Ah!" exclaimed the brigade commander, with a rush of elation. "Then itwill be easy work. Go back, Captain, and scatter your men throughthe wood, and hold it, if possible. Adjutant, call up the regimentalcommanders at once. I want them to understand my plan fully."

  In a few minutes, Gahogan, of the Tenth; Gildersleeve, of theFourteenth; Peck, of the First; Thomas, of the Seventh; Taylor, of theEighth, and Colburn, of the Fifth, were gathered around their commander.There, too, was Bradley, the boyish, red-cheeked chief of the artillery;and Stilton, the rough, old, bearded regular, who headed the cavalry.The staff was at hand, also, including Fitz Hugh, who sat his horse alittle apart, downcast and sombre and silent, but nevertheless keenlyinterested. It is worthy of remark, by the way, that Waldron tookno special note of him, and did not seem conscious of any disturbingpresence. Evil as the man may have been, he was a thoroughly goodsoldier, and just now he thought but of his duties.

  "Gentlemen," he said, "I want you to see your field of battle. The enemyoccupy that long ridge. How shall we reach it?"

  "I think, if we got at it straight from here, we shan't miss it,"promptly judged Old Grumps, his red-oak countenance admirably cheerfuland hopeful, and his jealousy all dissolved in the interest ofapproaching combat.

  "Nor they won't miss us nuther," laughed Major Gahogan. "Betther slideour infantree into thim wuds, push up our skirmishers, play wid our gunsfor an hour, an' thin rowl in a couple o' col'ms."

  There was a general murmur of approval. The limits of volunteerinvention in tactics had been reached by Gahogan. The other regimentalcommanders looked upon him as their superior in the art of war.

  "That would be well, Major, if we could do nothing better," saidWaldron. "But I do not feel obliged to attack the front seriouslyat all. The rebels have been thoughtless enough to leave that longsemicircle of wooded knolls unoccupied, even by scouts. It stretchesfrom the front of their centre clear around their right flank. I shalluse it as a veil to cover us while we get in
to position. I shall throwout a regiment, a battery, and five companies of cavalry, to make afeint against their centre and left. With the remainder of the brigadeI shall skirt the woods, double around the right of the position, andclose in upon it front and rear."

  "Loike scissors blades upon a snip o' paper," shouted Gahogan, indelight. Then he turned to Fitz Hugh, who happened to be nearest him,and added, "I tell ye he's got the God o' War in um. He's the burnin'bussh of humanity, wid a God o' Battles inside on't."

  "But how if they come down on our thin right wing?" asked a cautiousofficer, Taylor, of the Eighth. "They might smash it and seize our lineof retreat."

  "Men who have taken up a strong position, a position obviously chosenfor defence, rarely quit it promptly for an attack," replied Waldron."There is not one chance in ten that these gentlemen will make aconsiderable forward movement early in the fight. Only the greatestgeniuses jump from the defensive to the offensive. Besides, we must holdthe wood. So long as we hold the wood in front of their centre we savethe road."

  Then came personal and detailed instructions. Each regimental commanderwas told whither he should march, the point where he should halt toform line, and the direction by which he should attack. The mass ofthe command