‘Seems like quite a while since you been in here to see me, Tom. You killed that many rats early on this summer, I s’pose you’ve no particular reason to come and sit in here nights. ‘Met the goat, have you? That’s Sandy. Marse Robert’s put him in here for company, seeing as how Ajax is down in the other shed. And powerful good company he is, too. Sandy, this is Tom the Nipper, Marse Robert’s commander of ratcatchers. He has the most refined manners of any cat I’ve met.
Y’know, one thing I like ‘bout this here place is that even though we’re pretty far on with summer now, the flies ain’t all that bad. Why, I’ve knowed ‘em worse this time of year when we was up north. But ‘course, any Army draws flies—the crowds of men and horses natcherly breed ‘em. It’s different here. Well, for one thing it’s cooler, an’ ‘tain’t a lot o’ horses, neither. S’afternoon, when me and Marse Robert was riding over to Rockbridge, he stopped off once’t or twice’t, like he gen’rally does, to talk with folks ‘long the way. He’s that friendly, they’ve all got to know him real well. He was talking to this old fella quite a spell—’bout his corn crop, I figure, from the way they was both looking at the plants. I was hitched to the gate an’ hardly a fly come round. Jest had to twitch my skin and stamp some; that was ‘nuff to fix ‘em.
That was what set me to remembering ‘bout the time I was telling you, Tom, when we was down south and doing all that digging round the creeks and swamps. Now down there it’s skeeters pretty well round the year, but the time we was there was the best time of year for losing ‘em, so this horse told me—nearest it ever gets to winter, he said. It was jest getting to early spring, and I was dreading what a full crop of skeeters would be like—worse’n flies, I ‘spect—when one day we-all lit out and headed north on the railroad. I was a-feared it was back to the dad-burn mountain, but Marse Robert, I reckon he knowed I was worried, ‘cause he came several times to have a word with me and make sure I was all right on the journey.
What we came to warn’t the mountain, though. It was a city— the biggest city in the world. Leastways, I’ve never seed or heared tell of a bigger one. I can’t really describe it, Tom. It’s a thousand times bigger’n this here little town—lots more houses, more people, more noise. When we got off the railroad—why, it was like the whole world was a city—streets and streets, an’ all full of horses and carts, crowds of people pushing up and down the sidewalks and everywhere men shouting to each other over the noise of wheels on the cobblestones. And that’s not all, neither. There was them kind of long wagons with flat tops; carriages like, and full of men and women, with horses to pull ‘em on rails, running up and down the streets. Don’t they jest ‘bout rattle and bang, too? I was being ridden by one of Marse Robert’s soldiers, and I s’pect I was kinda hard to handle, ‘cause I was feeling a mite nervous and skittish then. But Brown-Roan was a lot of help; he’d seed all o’ this truck before, and his acting manageable made me feel quieter, too. ‘Sides, there was plenty more horses round and they warn’t letting things faze them one bit.
What really fazed me, when we got to Marse Robert’s place in this here city, was there was that durned Richmond in the stable, his loose box right next to mine. I hadn’t figured on meeting him ever again, not never; and there he was. When he seed me, he jest wrinkled his nose and laid his ears back. It was evidently jest as nasty a surprise for him as it was for me. What I know now is that Richmond knowed real well, even then, that Marse Robert found him a troublesome fella and was looking out for a better horse. He didn’t know—but he was going to— that I was that better horse. Well, maybe he did know, for he never really troubled to make an enemy of Brown-Roan. It was me in particular he didn’t like.
I didn’t care for the stables in the city. There warn’t ‘nuff for a horse to do. ‘Fact, there was nothing to do, ‘cause of Marse Robert seemed to have quit riding. I couldn’t make it out. ‘Course, he used to come into the stable to look us over and talk to us, but it was jest only for a few minutes mostly, and then he always seemed to have something else uppermost in his mind. The stablemen used to take us out for exercise, and they’d ride us ‘longside the big river, but I couldn’t never really get to liking it, ‘cause I knowed I warn’t working for Marse Robert. And anyway, like I was telling you, Tom, ‘far as I was concerned Marse Robert had become the center of things. He was my whole world. I know I was difficult once’t or twice’t. I couldn’t relax, and there warn’t one of the soldiers looking after us that I really took to. ‘Sides, they kept a-changing, and that didn’t help none neither. ‘Nother thing that didn’t help was the few times Marse Robert did take me out hisself, I could tell—a good horse can always tell, Tom, you know—that he was out o’ sorts and discontented. Whatever ‘twas he had to do in that city, he didn’t like it. What it come down to was he was fretting and so was I.
‘Twarn’t really surprising, though, that I felt strung up tight. You could feel the same thing all over the city—in the men and women, I mean: the way they stood, the way they moved and held theirselves, the sound of their voices. They didn’t know it, maybe, but I felt it whenever I was out of my stable. I noticed it most particular in the soldiers. The whole place was filling up with more and more soldiers. They’d come marching through the streets, sometimes, when we was a-riding out—bands playing, and always a fella out in front carrying one of these here colored cloths on sticks. You see, they’re real important, Tom—them colored cloths on sticks. Soldiers can’t be soldiers unless they’ve got one of ‘em going on in front. What? Oh, never mind why. I do know, mind you, but I can’t tell you, ‘cause it’s a military secret. They control the weather, an’ make sick men better an’ a whole lot of other things—never you mind. The cloth I particularly got to know was red, with blue crisscross stripes and sort of spiky white spots on, but each bunch of soldiers had their own kind, you see. The noises the bands made was different, too, but they had their favorites, and I got so’s I could recognize the particular sorta beat of some of them noises.
It was real spring—a perfect day, sunny and warm—more’n a month after we’d come, when a big crowd of soldiers—horse and foot— come marching into the city. The fella who was riding me out turned back to watch. The people on the sidewalks was all a-cheering and a-waving their hats. It made them forget their troubles and look real happy. The gardens was all full of flowers, I ‘member, and the women was running out of their houses and giving the soldiers cakes and flowers as they marched ‘long the street. After a bit you could smell the flowers better’n what you could the soldiers—and that’s saying something. The soldiers stuck the flowers in their caps, in their guns, round their necks. I ‘spect that was the best day of their lives, a lot of ‘em.
Twice’t, ‘long ‘bout that time, Marse Robert took me out hisself and rode me out of the city and down the river—some four mile, I guess. All I ‘member ‘bout it is men digging and working everywhere. Mud and high water, and Marse Robert calling out to ‘em and urging ‘em on. But that was when I first heared guns, Tom: the real big guns— the bangs! When they began, we was crossing the river flats. The noise— oh, you can’t describe it! And the ground shook. To a horse, that’s even more frightening than the noise. You never lose the fear of that. I was rarin’ up and dancing about, and Marse Robert had his hands full to calm me down. What did finally calm me was the sight of one of Marse Robert’s soldiers on Richmond. Richmond was really making trouble, an’ I didn’t nohow want to be like him. All the same, we warn’t in a battle that day. I hadn’t been in one yet, and I’d no idea what was going on. What I guess now is that the Blue men—I hadn’t even seed any Blue men then—was trying to get up the river, but we stopped ‘em with our banging away.
I’ll tell you ‘bout the next time I was in the bangs, Tom, ‘cause that really was an important time—for Marse Robert and for me and for everybody.
It was early summer, only not so’s you could tell it. The weather had turned real bad. It had been raining and raining for days. Marse Robert had been riding Brown-Roan mostly—Richmond once’t or twice’t. This particular morning, though, he rode me out of the city and we headed east. Marse Taylor was with us, I remember, and one or two more. That day was dull and cloudy, but no rain. I could hear some bangs, but they was a long ways off. The road was soft and muddy, and there was plenty of trees either side, and a wooden plank house or two in the clearings. What you’d call sheltered, really. Marse Robert seemed sort of dejected and restless. He rode along without a word, but I could feel he was on edge. I felt on edge, too. I reckon I knowed we was a-heading for trouble, but I didn’t know ‘zackly what sort.
We came to a bend in the road, and up ahead, in the scrubland, there was a whole passel of our soldiers, all in long lines stretching jest ‘bout as far as you could see. They was on edge, too. Everybody was waiting for something. Marse Robert got off and began talking to another man I figured was a general like hisself. This other man was giving orders, and round where we was people kept a-coming and a-going. A long ways off there was everlasting bangs, but still nothing ‘peared to happen. The soldiers didn’t move. We must have stuck round there for the best part of three-four hours.
Then the other general called for his horse and rode away, and jest as he did, a man in ordinary clothes—not a soldier—came riding up to us. Marse Robert walked forward to meet him.
I liked the look of this other man’s horse. As he came up, he nickered to me real friendly, and I nickered back. His man dismounts and hitches him ‘longside me.
“You’re Traveller, ain’t you?” this horse asks me straight off. “I’ve heared o’ you. My name’s Thunder. Is that General Lee, your man?”
“Sure,” I says. “He’s the boss round here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” says this other horse, but still very friendly. “My man’s the boss. He’s the President, and he’s the boss of the whole shooting match. You stick around and you’ll see for yourself.”
“What’s he doing here?” I says.
“There’s going to be a battle,” says Thunder. “A bad one, too, if’n I know anything ‘bout it. I’m scairt. I only hope to goodness we get out of it all right.”
“How do you know?” I says.
“Can’t you hear the guns and the muskets?” he says, looking real nervous and rolling his eye. “Our fellas must be attacking the enemy right this minute.”
So then Marse Robert and this here President mounts us again and we set off on the road. It was getting pretty late in the afternoon now and the sun was a-dropping down towards the top of the woods behind us. It had turned out a finer evening than what the day had been.
Suddenly, ‘fore I knowed what was happening, there commenced an infernal row and all round us confusion sech as you never seed, Tom, and can’t imagine. I could see whole lines of our gray soldiers going forward—or trying to—’mong the trees and scrub, shouting and yelling. Every second or so there’d be a great bang—smoke and flame— and some of ‘em would fall down, screaming and cussing, over in the logs and the bushes. There was smoke everywhere, and that was the first time, Tom, that I smelt that smell—what they call battle-smoke. Two fellas come limping back past us, one holding t’other up. You could see they was both hurt real bad. One was as good as blind, and the blood was streaming down his face. The other kept on kind o’ crying, “Ah! Ah!” There was horsemen everywhere, galloping ‘bout in the smoke and shouting to each other. No one could tell what they was meant to be doing.
Then I knowed that this other horse had been right: his man was the boss. He had to be, ‘cause Marse Robert was jest sitting still and letting him take care of things. To tell the truth, Marse Robert had plenty of work keeping me quiet, ‘cause I was all over the road. “Easy, Traveller, easy!” I wonder how often since then I’ve heared them same words? The other horse was calm as you like, and his man, this here President, he was giving orders, pointing up the road and shouting, and two soldiers on horses lit out like crazy the way we’d come, to see to whatever he’d said had got to be done.
It was getting on to twilight now, and more and more of our soldiers was streaming back out of the thickets. A whole lot of ‘em was wounded and they all ‘peared to be frightened. A man rode up and tried to tell the President to mind hisself and clear out o’ there, but he jest shook him off and kept on a-giving out his orders.
I’d become hysterical near ‘bouts, and it was only Marse Robert’s voice and hands that kept me from charging away through the soldiers, jest knocking ‘em over. And then, all of a sudden, Marse Robert grabbed the President’s arm and pointed up the road. Two men was carrying a stretcher and shouting to the soldiers to get out o’ the way. They came right up to us. Laying on the stretcher was the other general—the man Marse Robert had been talking to when we first got there. Anyone could see he was shot to blazes—hurt real bad. He was groaning with pain and his gray uniform was all soaked in blood. The President bent down and spoke to him and so did Marse Robert, but he could hardly say a word. You could tell they was both real upset to see him that way. They hadn’t expected nothing like that. “Why, durn it!” says the President’s horse to me. “General Johnston! Now that’s terrible bad! Anything can happen now.”
They carried the general away. The banging gradually died down and our own soldiers, in little groups, came back acrost the road and throwed theirselves down every which way among the trees. They was beat to a frazzle—jest plumb wore out. But I figure the enemy must have been beat, too, ‘cause they didn’t show. After a while, all I could hear in the near dark was voices giving orders and wounded men crying and cussing.
Then another man—’nother general—come up out of the trees and commenced to talking and explaining things to the President and Marse Robert. All I understood of this was that finally the President told this man to make the soldiers stay where they was for the night. Then him and Marse Robert turned us back the way we’d come, and off we went— that’s to say, best we could.
The road was all tromped to deep mush; it was bad going. We went through crowds of soldiers in the dark, and other horses pulling ambulances full of wounded men. I could smell blood everywhere—men and horses, too—but I warn’t afraid now the bangs had stopped. I figured we was going home.
All along the road, Marse Robert and the President was talking, talking together—’bout the battle having gone so bad, I guess, and ‘bout this here General Johnston being hurt so terrible. But after a while, there was a long silence ‘tween them. And then at last the President says, “General Lee, I want you to take over command of the Army. You start tomorrow.” Well, that’s jest how I recall it, Tom, y’know. And I remember what his horse said to me, too. He said, “I sure hope you enjoy yourself.”
June 1, 1862. The plight of the Confederacy is desperate. Despite all diplomatic efforts, not one of the European powers has acknowledged the independence of the South: they are waiting upon the event. The withholding of cotton exports has proved an ineffective blunder, for there is a glut of cotton on the world market, and now the Confederacy has lost incoming funds that might have bought the arms so urgently needed. The Federal naval blockade is beginning to bite. In the West, the war has gone badly. New Orleans is lost and so is the whole state of Missouri.
Worst of all, General McClellan, having landed a Federal army of more than 90,000 men on the southeastern tip of the Virginia Peninsula lying between the York and the James Rivers, has advanced sixty miles to the very outskirts of Richmond. Despite a brilliant diversionary campaign by Stonewall Jackson in the Shen-andoah Valley, the Confederate capital seems about to fall to McClellan. Two days ago, the Confederate army defending the city, commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston, launched a counterattack upon McClellan—the so-called battle of Seven Pines. Yesterday General Robert E. Lee, chafing and frustrated in his anomalous post as “conductor of military operations under the direction of the President,” himself rode out of Richmond to view what he could of the battlefield. Arrived there, he was shortly joined by none other than President Davis. Under Federal fire, as darkness fell the two saw the mismanaged Confederate attack peter out into a drawn battle, in which General Johnston himself was seriously wounded.
General Lee, now aged fifty-five, has been appointed by the President to the command of the army. His reputation is not particularly high, and little enthusiasm attends the announcement. Lee is regarded by Johnston’s lieutenants as a nonentity and the nearest thing to a mere staff officer. Richmond newspapers disparage him. Since last August he has conducted a small and unsuccessful campaign in western Virginia, and then spent four months of the winter strengthening the coastal defenses of South Carolina. Now, at no notice at all, the fate of Richmond itself has been laid upon his shoulders.
What use is a general in the field without a steady and reliable horse? About as much use as a shepherd without a dog.
That day—that day I was telling you ‘bout, Tom—that’s what they call “coming under fire.” That was the first day I ever come under fire. I was scairt out o’ my wits—dancing ‘bout all over the place—and I don’t reckon that there President’s horse was no better, neither. Sometimes it seems like I’ve reg’lar lived under fire from that day to this. I mean, if it’s not bangs right now, then it’s going to be bangs, or else it has been bangs an’ you’re still shaking. And if it’s not that, why then you can go to sleep and jest dream ‘bout bangs instead. Only there’s been no bangs now—no more ground shaking—for a long time—oh, two summers. Marse Robert, he put a stop to the bangs, you see, in the end. Well, I’ll tell you all ‘bout that some other time. For now, I’ll— Hey, stop batting my tail around, and jest listen, will ya? I’ve had ‘nuff folks messing with my tail.
Where was I? Oh, yeah: first thing that happened after that day was we-all moved out of the city. I was right glad bout that. As I told you, I’d never liked living in the city—no grass, lots of smoke in the air and Marse Robert ‘parently too busy to ride. But now that was all going to change. Marse Robert hisself rode me out to this here farm place, a mile or so out of town, on the same road where we’d talked to the President. We lived there best part of a month, I figure. The house was very plain and trim, jest like t’other used to be when we was down south. When we got there, I remember, Perry and Meredith and the other fella—a white fella, Bryan he was called—they was all bustling round, getting the place ready and talking to the farm lady—Miss Dabbs, they called her. Us three horses was given a nice stable, warm an’ dry. There was a plenty of other horses around, course, but the General’s horses had their own stable.
It needed to be warm an’ dry, too. My ears and tail, didn’t it rain ‘bout then? You never seed nothing like it. Rained like it was never going to stop. My chief recollection of them days at old Miss Dabbs’s is the everlasting rain. You’d ‘a drowned for sure. Do you know, Tom, I more’n once seed horses mired knee-deep? True.
The funny thing was Marse Robert, he seemed real pleased. More it rained, better he liked it. “Aha, Traveller,” he says to me one day, jest as we was setting out in a real downpour, “this’ll keep ‘em quiet! Couldn’t be better, could it?” My oats! I thought; I don’t see how it could be much worse. Still, if it pleased Marse Robert, that was all right with me; he must have his reasons. ‘Nother day, Marse Taylor looks up at the sky and says to him, “Strikes me, sir, Little Mac’s going to need his mac today,” and then they both bust out laughing like to split. They was real happy. Blest if I was.
And nor was the soldiers. You should have heared ‘em swearing and cussing. ‘Cause Marse Robert, he had ‘em on the same as before digging! All in the rain—I can see ‘em still—the long, long lines of men, soaking wet, cussing up a storm and the shovels shining in the rain and the pits half-full of water, plop-plop-plop as fast they was dug.
“Hey, Gin’ral!” A fella calls out to Marse Robert one day, real sassy, “Hey, Gin’ral! We-all didn’t jine up to do nigger work! We-all jined up to fight!”
“We’ve got to protect Richmond first, my man,” answers Marse Robert. “Then we’ll fight, sure ‘nuff.”
I didn’t rightly know what he meant, or why we had to protect Richmond. Of all the cussed, ornery horses I ever met, Richmond was jest about the worst. I really got to hate him, and he took care I did, too. I don’t know what had been done to him when he was a colt, but that horse hated jest ‘bout everybody and everything. He was a big bay stallion, and one way or ‘nother he was never tired of saying so. He was full of hisself, Richmond was. “You ball-less gray brute,” he said to me one day, “do you reckon Marse Robert’s going to get any use out o’ you? Why, he only took you to do your master a favor.” He’d never use my right name, neither. He always called me Greenbrier, jest ‘cause he knowed I didn’t like it. “Oh, here comes Greenbrier” he’d say to Brown-Roan when I come in streaming wet from a long day on the trenches with Marse Robert. “He wouldn’t know what to do with a mare if he had a field-full to choose from!” He hated all other horses, and if he had to go near any he didn’t know, he’d commence to squealing. As time went on, he got to know sure ‘nuff that Marse Robert preferred me to hisself, and that made him still madder. I never used to answer him back; I didn’t have to, after all. I’d jest toss my head and eat my hay.
Brown-Roan was another matter. I liked Brown-Roan. He was what’s knowed as “a nice, quiet horse.” He never did no one any harm in his life. Trouble was the poor fella was jest too quiet. He hadn’t got the keep-going or the spunk you needed to be one of Marse Robert’s horses. There’s awful big demands on a general’s horse, Tom, you see; it’s not like reg’lar work. You might go thirty mile in a day, and then, jest when you figure you’re going into stable, the general suddenly needs another five mile or more out of you. You’ve got to love your man to be up to that—you’ve got to feel what he feels. You’ve got to be part of your man. Poor Brown-Roan was never that.
“Oh, I wish I’d ‘a never jined up with Marse Robert,” he says to me one evening when he’d come in soaked through. “I warn’t made for this!”
“Why,” I says to him—one of our soldiers was rubbing him down at the time—”you’ve got to look at it different. You couldn’t have a better horseman for a master. And you’re a general’s horse. That ought to make you mighty proud.”
“I know it makes me tired,” says he, stamping his nearside rear hoof. “I believe I’ve strained a muscle.” He was forever believing he’d strained a muscle.
You couldn’t dislike Brown-Roan. He was always pleasant in his temper, and he was no quitter, neither. ‘Best he could, he gave what he had, but he jest hadn’t got ‘nuff; the shame was no one—not even Marse Robert—found out in time. I only wish they had.
But Marse Robert was terrible busy in them days! He had a whole lot on his mind. I haven’t given you no idea, Tom. Very often we’d be out all day, up and down them gun pits and trenches, and mostly in the rain. Even Marse Taylor told him one day that he figured he’d surely done ‘nuff, and he’d wear hisself out. “I can’t ask those men to stand anything I won’t stand myself,” he answered. “How can I expect them to keep working in that rain if’n they don’t see me out there with ‘em?”
Sure ‘nuff, pretty soon I could see the soldiers was getting more chipper, and the reason was they was trustful of Marse Robert. He was forever praising them and telling them their work was the best he’d ever seed. He made ‘em dig like they was to bury a pack of horses, but he’d always remember to put in a joke or a good word. After a bit the grumbling stopped, and when we come round it’d be “Howdy, General!” or “Come and have a look at this, General!” Now and then someone’d say, “How’s your horse today, General?” And he’d say, “Fine—couldn’t want for a better.” ‘Course, for all I know he may have said that when he was on Richmond, too. Some of them fellas couldn’t tell a dad-burn horse from a bucket. They was only young boys for the most part, you know, Tom—lot of ‘em younger’n the boys you can see round here now.
As the days went by, I gradually got to know most of the people who came to see the General. There was one afternoon in particular comes back to me now. It jest happened to be hot and sunny for a change, and I was hitched to the rails in front of the house when a young fella comes riding up on a real fine brown horse. Now this young fella, he was what you might call a sight to see. First of all, he’d strike anyone as an uncommon robust and vigorous kind of a man. He warn’t tall out o’ the ordinary, but he was powerful and broad-shouldered, and there was a kinda go and dash ‘bout him, so’s you felt he’d be ready to jump his horse over the house if’n anyone dared him to. The way he was turned out, smart warn’t no word for it. He had gold spurs on his boots. His hat was sorta looped up with a gold-colored brooch and there was a great, floating black plume stuck in it. His jacket was covered with gold braid and all the buttons was bright gold, too. His gloves, which looked new, came up to his elbows and he had a yellow silk sash tied round his waist. On ‘count of the day being hot, he’d throwed back his cape, and you could see it was all lined with some sorta very fine, shining-smooth stuff, bright scarlet. Although he had a huge, curling mustache and a big brown beard—biggest I ever seed, I reckon—the way he was acting he’d put anyone in mind not so much of a general as of some young fella riding out for a whole load of fun. I ‘member there was some red roses stuck in his horse’s headstall, and as he come riding up he was a-singin’—jest out of high spirits, so I figured.
As for his horse, he made me feel like I was some kinda smalltime cob. And I’m telling you, Tom, I’ve never been in the habit of calling other horses real fine. That’s what’s knowed as self-respect. But this here horse, he had a very quiet, superior kind of a manner, like he knowed everyone knowed he was so good there was no need even to be mentioning it. All his movements was very refined and confident, an’ he’d been groomed so he shone glossy all over. But his appearance warn’t the end of it—not by a long piece. I sorta got an uncomfortable notion that he might jest be able to give me a considerable run over twenty mile. Anyone could see he had quality from his nose to his hooves.
I nickered to him and he nickered back. Nothing quarrelsome; nothing wrong there. His master dismounted, hitched him ‘longside and took a good look at me.
Jest then Perry come out of the house, toting a bucket of garbage.
“Hey!” calls out the young fella, putting his hand on my nose. “What horse is this?”
“Dat’s Traveller, General, sah,” answers Perry. “General Lee’s horse.”
“Howdy there, Traveller!” says he. “Why, you look too good to stand fretting on a rail. If you want to have a good time, jine the cavalry! Jine the cavalry!”
He’d plainly taken a liking to me, and I found myself feeling the same way ‘bout him. I even felt that if Marse Robert hadn’t ‘a been my master, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad belonging to this young fella. For one thing, you could tell at a glance that he was a natchral-born horseman like no one else in the world. He was the only other man ‘sides Marse Robert who ever made me feel that he was a kind of horse hisself. The way he looked me over, I figured he understood every last thing ‘bout me. And yet it didn’t make me fidgety or nervous, on account of it was a sympathetic sort of understanding.
Jest then Marse Robert came out of the house hisself. The young fella saluted him and then they shook hands and walked away together, talking. Marse Robert ‘peared to regard him as an old friend.
“Who’s your master?” I asked the brown horse.
Now you gotta know, Tom, that ever since I jined up with Marse Robert, I’d got into the habit of considering myself as good as any other horse, and better’n most; an’ they mostly went along with this and acted according. But now I found myself being looked at by this horse—well, sort of judicious-like, as you might say.
“You don’t know?” he says at length, and then he don’t say no more, so in the end I had to say, “No, I don’t.”
“That’s General Jeb Stuart,” he says, “commanding the cavalry in this here Army.”
This made me feel so small I almost mouthed at him, like I was a colt again. I began to explain that Marse Robert and me hadn’t been all that long in command. That was all right, though; this horse—Skylark, he told me he was called—had all the good manners of someone that knows his own worth.
“Glad to know you, Traveller,” he says. “Dare say you’ll be seeing a good deal of us—that’s to say, when we’re around. There’s quite a passel of us belonging to General Stuart—Star of the East’s a particular friend of mine. And ‘sides him, there’s Lady Margaret and Lily of the Valley. Only, we spend a lot of our time riding round behind the Blue men, you know, finding things out.”
“The Blue men?” I says. “Who are they?”
Even that didn’t shake him out of his manners: “Why, the enemy,” he says.
I didn’t even rightly know what that meant, Tom, any more’n you do. But before he could go on, Marse Robert and “Jine-the-Cavalry” came back, and Marse Robert called out to two soldiers to lead us over into the shade and give Skylark a feed. We fetched up in different places, so that was all I seed of him that time. But he was right. We did come to see a lot of each other, and I got to know Jine-the-Cavalry very well, too.
I had my own names for the people Marse Robert seed the most of: it come easier. For one thing, as far as I could make out they was mostly called General Hill. Well, leastways, two of ‘em was. Don’t ask me why. How can we understand half the crazy things men do? Anyways, I came to think of them two Hills as “Red Shirt” and “the Little General.” I say I had my own names; like one of ‘em, General Pickett— a youngish fella—I called “Ringlets,” on account of his long, scented hair—but there was one that all the soldiers called the same’s I did, an’ that was “Old Pete”—General Longstreet. I never entirely liked Old Pete. Hard to say ‘zackly why, but somehow I got the notion that he didn’t really respect Marse Robert or like the idea of Marse Robert being his boss. ‘Course, I couldn’t understand a lot of their talk, but very often, as we went along, I could tell jest from the sound of their voices that he was argufying with Marse Robert and kinda telling him what he ought to do. And Marse Robert, Tom, you see, he was always so kind and gentlemanly to everybody, he never could bring hisself to tell this here Pete to go and jump in the ditch, like he oughta. I knowed Marse Robert jest couldn’t do that to save his life, but quite often I used to feel like kicking Old Pete myself. Jest the sound of his voice worried me. Still, he was a soldier sure ‘nuff, and a lot braver under fire’n what I was, as I found out later on. But in them days I’m speaking of now, I didn’t know what we was in for n’more’n if I’d been old Miss Dabbs’s cat.
I knowed there was something in the wind, though. Us horses are always sensitive to any kind of uneasiness or tenseness, Tom, you know, and that time I could feel the stress kinda building up all over, day by day. One day, ‘stead of ‘tending to the digging, Marse Robert and Colonel Long—Ginger, his horse was called; nice fella—rode us out five or six mile north and acrost a bit of a river. Marse Robert and me stopped on a slope t’other side of this here river, and he held up a pair of bottles to his eyes. What? No, ‘course I don’t understand why. But he was forever holding up them bottles.
“Now, Colonel Long,” he says, pointing out over the country, “how can we get at those people? What ought we to do?”
I wonder how many times I’ve heared Marse Robert say that since. I come to know jest rightly what it meant—trouble, always. When he said that to someone, like it might be Jine-the-Cavalry or Red Shirt or Colonel Long, he didn’t really want them to answer him back. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t. It was a kind of game with Marse Robert. He already knowed what he was going to do. Colonel Long knowed that, so he didn’t say nothing.
The two of em rode round a while, Marse Robert sometimes talking and pointing, and then again holding them bottles up to his eyes. The reason it puzzled me was that there was no soldiers digging—no one there at all ‘cepting him and Marse Long.
When we got back to old Miss Dabbs’s, first person we seed outside was Old Pete. “Ah, General Longstreet,” says Marse Robert; and him and Old Pete got to talking right there in the yard. Marse Robert was scratching in the dust with a stick, and pointing here and there. They was at it a long time.
Over the next few days lots of people came and went—Red Shirt, the Little General—yeah, and the President, too. And somehow I got the idea they was all in some kind of secret together. I couldn’t bottom it out; and you see, there warn’t no other horse I could ask. I’d never ask Richmond nothing, and all Brown-Roan knowed was that he didn’t like the mounting feeling of strain. Well, neither did I—and yet, Tom, do you know? I felt, too, that I didn’t want to be left out of it, whatever it was.
One afternoon, not long after that ride acrost the river, I was grazing in the meadow, right ‘longside the yard outside the house. I knowed Marse Robert was inside, and I couldn’t help wondering what he could be a-doing all that time. You see, Tom, we’d growed that close I sometimes used to feel a mite jealous and grudging on days when he was a long time indoors and we warn’t together. It was fine weather for a change, and suddenly I seed the dust of horsemen quite a ways off. Turned out there was two of ‘em, riding up to the house. First thing, I could see the horses was all tuckered out. They was sweating, frothing at their bits and panting. I didn’t envy them. Wherever they’d come from, they’d come far and they’d come fast. One of the men dismounted very slow and stiff, and gave his horse to the other. Then he walked up to the door, and Perry came and spoke with him a piece. Then he came back and jest leant over agin the fence, with his head dropped down on his chest and his cap pulled right down over his eyes like he didn’t want no one to know who he was. I could smell his sweat from where I was standing. And that was the first time I ever seed Cap-in-His-Eyes—General Stonewall Jackson, to give him his right name.
T’other man who’d come in with him had taken the horses round to the stable yard back o’ the house, and so there was no one around ‘cepting me and this man leaning hard on the fence, with his head down on his chest. He was covered with dust, and the sweat had made long streaks on his face. I figured he must be some soldier who’d been sent to deliver a message. But what struck me most ‘bout him, jest at that moment, was the way he seemed perfectly content to do nothing at all. I mean, Tom, you know what men are like, don’t you? ‘Cepting when they’re asleep, they’re very seldom doing nothing at all. Either they’re talking, or they’re eating or drinking, or mending this or cleaning that. This man jest simply stayed put, like now he’d got his journey over he warn’t aiming to do nothing else. He put me in mind of a tree; that’s to say, he ‘peared like he was doing all he had to do jest standing there and nothing was going to shift him. And yet somehow he made me feel he was friendly. I sorta sidled along the fence till I was close up to him, and at that he looked round and spoke to me and stroked my nose, but all the time ‘twas plain he was a-thinking ‘bout something else. He was a tall, gaunt, awkward-looking kind of a fella, and his clothes worn all anyhow. I wondered why he didn’t go and ask for somethin’ to eat and drink. I remember, too, that as I went back to grazing, he suddenly throwed both his hands up in the air. ‘Looked real strange. I couldn’t make him out at all.
Jest then who should come riding up the road but the Little General, and when he seed Cap-in-His-Eyes leaning on the fence, he called out to him like he was real s’prised. “Why, Jackson,” he says, “what the devil are you doing here?” “Ah, Hill!” answers the other fella. And then the Little General got down and shook hands jest like Cap-in-His-Eyes was his oldest friend. As they stood there talking together, I realized that this awkward-looking soldier must be another general, and a pretty important one, too. Well, actually I only reckoned this a bit later on, ‘cause what happened then was they both went in the house together, and soon after, Red Shirt and Old Pete turned up. So then I knowed that all these here generals must ‘a come to hear what Marse Robert had got to say to em. They stayed a long time, too, ‘cause they hadn’t come out by sunset, when I was taken back to stables. I felt Marse Robert had left me real flat, that time.
Well, ‘course I don’t recollect everything, Tom, not day by day. What I recall next is maybe two-three days later, and Marse Robert riding me out at early morning through great crowds of soldiers and guns and wagons on the road, till we stopped at another farm, up top a long slope. Beyond us, the road went down the other side to a river—’cepting the bridge was all smashed—and from there back up to a little village—if’n you could call it a village; a few houses, that’s all. It was clear, open ground—more’n a mile, I’d say—nice and green after the rain, and some trees down beside the river. It all looked real peaceful.
We stayed there most of the day, and the President came, riding Thunder, and a whole lot of other important-looking people, some of ‘em soldiers and some not. Mid-afternoon, when I was reckoning it must be ‘bout time we was going home, all of a sudden I got the shock of my life. It was so durned unexpected. The bangs began, over on t’other side of the river. It was fighting, like that other evening by the road in the woods. The whole valley, all round, was full of firing, echoing up and down. Everywhere bugles was blowing, men getting on their horses. The soldiers—hundreds of ‘em—who’d been lying down beside the road in the sunshine, all jumped up and got into lines. People was calling out orders, harness jingling, hooves thudding, messengers dashing here and there—you never seed such a commotion all in a minute. Far off, over the river, there was big guns firing, and I could see that there battle-smoke. Pretty soon I could smell it, too.
What was happening was our soldiers was attacking, and that was the first time, Tom, that I actually seed the Blue men. There was crowds of ‘em on t’other side of the river, and all round that little village place—only they was all running away and our fellas was coming on acrost the fields, and shooting as they came.
Anyways, that was how it looked like to begin with. But pretty soon the smoke seemed to cover everything. I reckoned it must have got to real bad fighting, and our men might likely be in as much trouble as the Blue men.
That there President’s horse, Thunder, was hitched nearabouts. “What’s going on?” I asked him. “What are they doing?” I hadn’t been expecting none of it, you see.
“Killing each other,” he said. “Best they can, I mean.”
“Killing each other?” I says to him. “For goodness’ sake, why they doing that?”
He kinda looked me over for a bit without answering. At last he said, “You really the General’s horse? You’re real green, ain’t you? Killing each other? That’s what men do. You didn’t know?”
“But why?” I said.
“Oh, for gosh sakes!” he snorted through his nose. “You might’s well ask me why the sun goes acrost the sky. It’s what they do, like flies bite. They always have and they always will.”
I thought ‘bout this, best as I could for all the noise and confusion. And it struck me that Jim and Andy and all the fellas back home hadn’t gone in for killing each other. So there must be some sort of between-whiles now and then.
“Don’t they sometimes stop?” I said. “Like flies in winter?”
“That’s so,” he answered. “But if’n I’ve understood it rightly, they won’t stop for good until either the Blue men or our men quit and say they’ve had ‘nuff. And that’s a long time off, I reckon. You can forget it. Flies don’t stop biting, do they?”
I was going to ask him some more, but jest then the President’s man came up and took Thunder away. Next thing I knowed, the Little General was on his horse, too, and line after line of our soldiers was going down to the river. They throwed down some planks and got acrost, even without no bridge, and pretty soon I seed the President go acrost on his horse.
Then Marse Robert called for me, and we went down and over the river, too, and straight up the road on t’other side—straight up to that little village place. And when we got there—oh, my! It was lots worse’n I can tell you, Tom. ‘Course, I seed plenty worse since, but that was the first time. There was dead men—dead horses, too—laying round everywhere, and worse’n that was the wounded and the dying, all crying and hollering out something terrible. And all the time the bangs kept on, right in ‘mongst where we was. Suddenly there’d be a kinda howling noise in the air, coming closer, and then a great, bright flash and a bang that knocked all the sense out o’ you. There was horses squealing and men running away and crawling under anything they could find— fences, bushes—anything. I couldn’t see a lot for the smoke. I do remember a loose horse come charging down out of the smoke, straight towards us. He jest missed me. One of the flying stirrup irons hit me acrost the withers as he went by. Once’t I actually had to step over two dead men on the ground. Oh, I seed things I couldn’t tell you, Tom.
There warn’t no Blue men left in the village—only dead ‘uns. We’d chased ‘em all out. But after a bit I realized what was happening. Them bangs can go an awful long way through the air, y’see. They can go as far as right acrost this town—further’n that, too. The Blue men had run off—retreated, as they call it—a mile or so to a lot of trees out t’other side of the village, and that’s where the bangs was coming from. Some of our fellas had gone out to get ‘em there, too.
In the middle of all this ruckus, Marse Robert was sitting on my back jest as quiet and steady as if we was out watching the men a-digging. I could feel his pulse perfectly regular, and his breathing real easy—which was more’n mine was. After a bit I reckoned I understood. The way I figured it at that time, nothing could hurt Marse Robert. The bangs couldn’t hit him, and he knowed this. I reckoned that’s why the President had made him head of the Army. And if I was his horse, then maybe I couldn’t be hurt neither. Well, I mean, I hoped this more’n I really believed it. I’d jest gone rigid—I couldn’t move my mouth or my jaw or my neck, and my hindquarters felt like they was made of wood and didn’t belong to me at all.
Then I realized that Marse Robert knowed jest how I was feeling. In the middle of all this, he was finding the time to reassure me. He kept talking to me, quiet and steady-like, and every now and then he’d lean forward and stroke my face or my neck. He wanted me to try’n relax, to trust him and believe that the two of us was on top of all this. I knowed he was, but I warn’t so sure ‘bout me.
Jest then a horse come a-tearing out ‘tween two of the shacks. His ears was laid back and his eyes was rolling all white. Anybody’d know he was terrified—bolting. The man on his back was terrified, too. He couldn’t stop his horse, and he was leaning right over its neck, which of course didn’t help him none. They’d frightened each other to pieces, that was what it come to. I’d no sooner seed them than they was gone, but I could hear the man shouting still—he was making ‘nuff noise to frighten a whole pack of horses.
Reckon I don’t want to be a horse like that, I thought. A fine sight that’d be—the General’s horse bolting off with him. I tried to stand entirely still, but I jest couldn’t help pawing the ground some. What really fixed me was that there was no alarm or excitement at all in what Marse Robert was doing or saying. If I’d ‘a been stone-deaf, and able to go by nothing ‘cept the feel of his hands and knees, I wouldn’t have knowed when there was a bang and when there warn’t.
Not far off, standing in all the wreckage, I could see the President and a whole crowd of other fellas—they warn’t soldiers—’long with him. Marse Robert kept looking acrost to them, and after a bit he rode me over to where they was.
“Mr. President,” says he, real chilly-like, “who is this army of people and what are they doing here?” (Bang! Bang!)
The President, he looked real taken aback.
“Er—well—er, General,” he says. “It’s not my Army.”
“Well, it cert’nly ain’t mine,” answers Marse Robert, “and this is no place for it.”
And do you know, Tom, at that the President jest touched his hat and took the whole crowd off down the hill? I nickered after Thunder— I couldn’t help it— “Who did you say was boss of this whole durned outfit?” He didn’t answer me back, neither.
We stayed where we was, and the guns from beyond the village, out by the trees, they went on until well after sunset and for quite a while after that, even in the dark. Marse Robert kept right on a-riding up and down; we went everywhere. We went and talked to Old Pete, and then to Red Shirt and to the Little General. Everyone struck me as being in pretty low spirits. ‘Far as I could understand it, we’d been ‘specting to beat the Blue men all hollow and drive ‘em off, but we hadn’t managed to do it. We’d only druv ‘em out of the village, and they was still fighting out by the creek ‘mong the trees. And top o’ that, a whole lot of our fellas had been shot—more’n what theirs had. That was what it come down to.
It was getting on to the middle of the night when Marse Robert rode me back acrost the river, and up to the farm on the hill. When he got down, Tom, he stood by my head a while and petted me. “That’s my brave Traveller,” he says. “Well done! Well done, Traveller; you’re the greatest horse in the world! Thank you!”
I was jest a-shaking all over, and when I got in to stable I couldn’t even have told you whether Richmond said anything spiteful or not. If he did, I didn’t hear it. I had a drink and a feed and went to sleep as tired as I’d ary been in my whole life.