Hey, there, Tom! For goodness’ sakes, how long is it since we seed each other? ‘Must be ‘least two months! I seed you asleep on the brick wall s’afternoon when we come riding in, but I didn’t figure on you laming so soon that we was back home. Well, ‘course you’d know Marse Robert was back, so I guess you could reckon I was. I take it real kind you dropping in the first night I’m here. I hope you’ve been enjoying the summer weather while we’ve been away. Me, I’m glad to have it a mite cooler. ‘Won’t be long till fall now. I’m glad to be back. Mind you, stables have been real good everywhere we’ve been and we’ve had some great rides—best ever—but it’s still good to be home. I reckon no one puts up a bran mash like good old Isaiah.
‘Course, Isaiah was looking after things while we was gone, warn’t he? There was Miss Agnes, and Miss Life and Mr. Custis came with us, and that young fella, Captain White, him that was in the Army long o’ Marse Robert. General Pendleton’s daughter come along, too. She’s quite a friend of Miss Agnes, you know. Maybe they felt she could help with looking after the old lady. Well, the old lady’s pretty well infirm now, Tom, you know. Can’t hardly get out of that rolling chair of hers.
It was a real fine morning when we started out. Marse Robert and me was riding, and Captain White along with us. I like his mare. She’s a real nice young filly—good goer, too—name of Bluebird. We jest took it nice and easy for a thirty-mile day—finished up at a small town in the mountains; good stables. We met up with the others there. They’d come by coaches and the railroad, you see.
Now here’s what I’ve got to tell you, Tom, and this is really something. You know what? We set out the next day, and when we started coming down out of the mountains on t’other side, I suddenly realized that I more or less knowed where I was! I hadn’t ‘zackly been over that particular chunk of road before, but jest the same I knowed them mountains and that there country—jest the smell of it! It was them same wooded mountains where I’d first met up with Marse Robert, years ago! Jest the smell of that durned ground laurel brung it back to me, even though it warn’t raining and the day was nice and sunny. ‘Course, we was traveling on a good road now—not a cloud in the sky, plenty of food inside and a good night’s sleep behind me, but jest the same I couldn’t help but recall something of that bad fall in the rain, with all the men sick and the wagons axle-deep in the mud. If’n I’m any judge, we warn’t so far away from that very same mountain, and we was back on the main pike to that town where I took the prize and Jim rode me into the tent. Made me feel jest like a colt again! But I was a durn sight happier to feel Marse Robert on my back than Captain Joe—yeah, or even Jim, even if’n he was sech a nice young fella and trained me so well. I thought of them days, and how far me and Marse Robert had come since then. I can say this to you, Tom—maybe you’re the only one I can say it to: it’s something to be not only Marse Robert’s horse, but to know that you’re Marse Robert’s horse ‘cause you’ve come through thick and thin with him and he never wanted another, never once’t.
When we set off next morning, we very soon left the coach people behind, and it might have been—oh, maybe twenty mile to this here place we was heading to. We took it easy, you know—stopped for a bite round the middle of the day; and we got in and finished up pretty early on in the afternoon.
It was quite a place, Tom. Only a small town—oh, yeah, lots smaller’n here—but jest the same there was a power of people stopping at this one big house: old fellas like Marse Robert, ‘long with their wives; lots of young ladies and gentlemen—all sorts—some of ‘em had brung their own black folks along; and, ‘course, a heap of horses, all in good stables round a fine, big yard. How I figured it, from the way they was all behaving and the high spirits they mostly seemed to be in, they’d all a-come together to have a high old time. So many horses and people, it was almost like being back in camp—’ceptin’ for the girls: more girls’n men, near’bouts. And this sure warn’t no camp. It was even grander and more showy’n them big houses where Marse Robert sometimes used to stay when we was on campaign.
The middle of this here place was a great, rambling building—real huge, Tom; I guess it’d need a hundred cats, a place like that—and it was all made of wood, painted white. They call it “The White,” one of the horses there was telling me—and this was where most of the folks stayed, amusing theirselves. It had big white columns and long, wide porches—a bit like Marse Robert’s house here, only lots bigger. And then a little ways off there was rows of cottages, and folks living in them, too. Marse Robert and the old lady had one of ‘em, with a black girl to look after them. There was whole crowds of folks came to call on them—oh, every evening, near as I could make out. Of course, Marse Robert always likes meeting different kinds of folks and talking to them. What I came to conclude after a day or two was that seeing who he is now, nearly all them folks had come there ‘specially to see him and pay their respects. Well, it’s only natchral, ain’t it?
Marse Robert soon began enjoying hisself. I could tell that from the whole feel of him and the way he was acting and talking. Whenever he came to my stable, he’d like as not have another man with him, or maybe two, and he’d kind of introduce them to me. “This here’s Traveller,” he’d say, and then they’d pat me and ask him questions, and say had I really been his one horse in all those battles, and so on. Sometimes girls came, too. There was lots of sugar in it, and I ain’t never been too proud to take a piece of sugar, Tom, you know, ‘cause I remember all them times when there warn’t none. I felt Marse Robert was more at ease with the girls than the fellas—I reckon ‘cause they warn’t wanting to talk ‘bout soldiering and fighting all the time. He’s got ‘nuff of that on his mind, you know, without being made to talk ‘bout it.
But I don’t want you to think Marse Robert had gone all that way jest to walk round among those folks and say howdy and be treated like the commander. No, sir. He’d come to get away and be alone with me — more’n he can be here. Those summer days are long—getting shorter already now, ain’t they?—and most of the time—mornings and afternoons, too—he’d spend alone with me in the mountains. There’s some real wild, high, lonely mountains there, you know—higher’n you can imagine, Tom—and in the mornings we’d ride off and get up there for hours at a stretch—maybe not see a soul, ‘cepting now and then. You can’t imagine the enjoyment of jest trotting easy ‘long those tracks, under the sycamores and the white oaks all green and shady, and never a signal needed from either of us, ‘cause each of us knows jest what t’other wants—well, we ain’t separate, not really—and nary a thought of battle-smoke, and no soldiers a-sweating and a-cussing—jest living your life without having to think ‘bout it none. I came to know them mountains for miles around. I got to know jest where the creeks was. I got to know the best patches of grass, and when we came to one I’d stop off and begin grazing and Marse Robert, he’d jest sit easy and look out acrost the ravines below and the valleys full of trees. Up there you could see for miles. We was both doing jest what we wanted, and we didn’t want to be doing nothing else, neither. Marse Robert needs to be alone—alone with me, I mean. Well, for him that is alone. What he needs is solitude, and that’s what them mountains have got. But without me he couldn’t have it, you see.
He’s often real sad in his thoughts, Tom, you know—and can you wonder? He’s bound to be thinking of all them dead fellas. And the wounded, too—once’t you’ve heared them cry you don’t forget it, I’ll tell you. I remember a horse I seed once when we was under fire. This horse had lost his lower jaw. Every breath he was blowing blood. That kind of thing you don’t forget. But in the mountains—well, them mountains must ‘a been there an awful long time. When I’d taken a good long breather—a gallop up one of them hill tracks—then I’d feel Marse Robert’s heartsickness and bad memories all lifting like a mist and blowing away. It’s important, Tom, you know, to do things without thinking ‘bout ‘em. That’s the only way a horse and a man can really work together, but it takes a proper good man. There’s too many men think horses was jest meant to be like plows or carts. Now Marse Robert, he’d really like to be a horse. “So, Traveller,” he says out loud to me one day when we was in a rough place up in them mountains. “So, Traveller, what ought we to do?” ‘Course, he had a pretty fair idea hisself what we ought to do: it jest happened to be the same’s I had. When a horse and a man respect each other, that’s the way it works out.
Another day, we was jest getting ready to start out from this White place when two girls got to telling Marse Robert that they was going to climb the mountain back of the house. Well, you could tell that Marse Robert, he didn’t care for this notion. He figured it was kind of a rough hike—too rough for a couple of girls. All the same, he let them go off without saying nothing to ‘em. But then, after they’d been gone a little while, we set out to go up that there mountain ourselves, and I’m here to tell you, Tom, the going was real steep. Well, pretty soon we came on the girls and ‘course they was surprised to see us.
“Good afternoon,” says Marse Robert, raising his hat. “I jest had an idea you might be finding the going a little hard,” he says. “If you’ll allow me, I’ll come some of the way with you.” He invited first one of them and then t’other to ride on me, but seem’ as how they declined, he jest led me by the bridle and we-all walked up to the top and back down. ‘Fore we was done they was glad we had, too.
There was one other thing happened while we was staying at The White. We was out riding one morning, jest the two of us, through some of the hills down lower. I remember a tree sparrow singing in the brush, and a whole flock of killdeer a little way off, feeding in an open field. Then, in the distance, I seed a horseman riding towards us, and I reckoned I knowed the horse without being able to recall ‘zackly who he was. And then suddenly, as they came closer, I knowed who it was— it was Ruffian, the horse who’d been my friend at Andy’s, when we was colts together! I recognized that sorrel coloring and then, ‘soon as we came close, I remembered the smell of him—and where I’d seed him last.
He looked well cared for now. The man riding him stopped for a chat with Marse Robert. When he realized who it was, he began speaking real respectful, but Marse Robert soon made him easy. He said they warn’t soldiers no more, and ‘sides he was taking a holiday. We-all rode along together and Ruffian told me ‘bout the bad time he’d had, serving with the guns. I asked him whether he could remember me that time on the night road—well, I ain’t told you ‘bout that yet, Tom, though I—but he couldn’t recollect nothing ‘bout it. I warn’t altogether surprised. To tell you the truth, I’d thought he was dying. But now here he was on this dirt track, coat sleek and all a-shining, and him jest as bobbish as a chipmunk in spring! “You owe that to Marse Robert, you know,” I said to him.
“Who’s Marse Robert, Jeff?” he asked me. I hadn’t been called Jeff for years. It made me realize what a long time had passed since them days in Andy’s meadow. There was jest too much to explain; I left it.
Oh, he’s my man,” I said. “A good ‘un, too. How’s yours?”
“Fine!” said Ruffian. “He bought me out of the artillery depot at the end of the war and looked after me real well, till I was back to what I used to be. It’s funny, ain’t it, that we should both come back to these here parts? Do you live round here?”
“No,” I answered. “I don’t know how long we’ll be here, but our home’s over a long way east.”
“You don’t know, then, that Andy’s place ain’t more’n twenty, twenty-five mile from here?” he asks.
I’d never thought of it, Tom, you know, but now he said that, I knowed it must be right. It felt that way. I almost imagined I could smell the big meadow with the pond at the bottom.
“I’ve been back there two-three times,” said Ruffian, “when my man’s had business there. Old Andy recognized me straightaway. He never forgets a horse.”
We talked on ‘bout old times until we went our separate ways. I was hoping we’d meet again on some ride or other later on, and I believe we would have, too, if’n it hadn’t ‘a been for the way things turned out.
The very next day after that, Marse Robert was took sick. ‘Course, you know, Tom, he was taken sick more’n once when we was on campaign, and I could tell that this was another go of the same thing. I was left fretting in stables for quite a while, though one of the black grooms took me out for a few miles’ exercise every afternoon. I don’t reckon he much ‘preciated my buck-trot, though.
As soon as Marse Robert was on the mend, we-all shifted from this here White and went maybe ten mile to another place—pretty much the same sort. I guess he hoped the move would make him feel better but what happened was that though he’d felt well ‘nuff to ride me over there, he took a deal worse right away. “Oh, Traveller,” he said to me jest as we was arriving, “I’m afraid I’m going to be took real bad this time.” I could tell from the feel of him that he was right, too.
I didn’t see him for days—half a month or more. I guess he was laid up in bed. ‘Course, I knowed that one way or another he’d manage to see me again soon’s he could. And that was what happened, as I’ve got good reason to recall.
It was like this. One morning I was led out of stables and round into the main courtyard of this big house. It was all fenced round, you know, with gates opposite the main doors. The first person I seed was Marse Robert, in his shirt and pants, looking pretty poorly and standing on what they call the piazza—the long porch with steps up to it. He gives me our whistle and calls, “Good boy, Traveller!” Jest at that moment, into the courtyard come quite a little crowd of country folk— mostly men—carrying baskets of plums and berries and so on. Well, do you know, Tom, I recognized one of them fellas right off? The last time I’d seed him, he was sighting a gun ‘long a track in the wilderness. But they was jest about all of ‘em old soldiers from our Army, and I reckon they was near’bouts as ragged without uniforms as they had been with ‘em. Fact was, two of ‘em was wearing old uniforms, with the buttons cut off.
They all laid down their baskets and began cheering Marse Robert, right where they stood in the courtyard, and of course most of the ladies and gentlemen came out to see what all the noise was about. I’ll tell you, the sound of that cheering took me back, Tom. Only had to blink my eyes to see the Blue men running and hear the muskets! Marse Robert, he come down the steps into the courtyard, sick as he was, and shook hands with each one of ‘em. There was plenty wanted a word with me, too; they crowded round me, stroked my neck and said all sorts o’ fine things. When they left, they insisted on giving all their fruit to Marse Robert. Goodness knows what he did with it all. I guess he must ‘a told the folks who ran the place to make their own best use of it, ‘cause there was ‘nuff for near’bouts two companies of infantry.
What finally happened, when Marse Robert had recovered, was that Mr. Custis took the ladies home by coach, and us two followed in our own time. We took it easy, only going a short ways every day, ‘cause Marse Robert was still pretty weak in hisself. Nor he ain’t right yet, Tom, you know. The first day we did ‘bout thirty mile, but that left him so bad that we had to stop off for four days. After that we went— well, I’d guess ‘bout ten mile a day for three days. The last night, we stopped at that there Rockbridge place we ride out to in the afternoons.
That should have been a real nice holiday altogether; and so ‘twas, the first part. But you know, the truth is that Marse Robert’s come back weaker’n he was when he set out with Captain White. I can tell, if’n nobody else can. When we arrived this afternoon, he had to be holpen up the steps to the door. Maybe a quiet fall at home’ll be better for him than all that socializing at The White.
Me? Oh, I’m fine, Tom. Go forever! Come in tomorrow and I’ll go on telling you what happened after that great victory in the woods, when we chased the enemy back acrost the river.
June, 1863: the third summer of the war. Whoever else in the South may have been dazzled, the splendor of his victory at Chancellorsville has not blinded General Lee to the true situation of the Confederacy and its increasingly desperate plight. In that battle, the Union lost fewer than 17,000 men, the Army of Northern Virginia over 13,000—a considerably higher proportion and more than it can afford of its total effectives. In particular, the death of Stonewall Jackson is a grave and irreparable loss, as well as a severe blow to General Lee’s personal confidence and morale. The Confederacy is running out of every necessary resource—men, horses, food, clothes, boots, ammunition. The longer the war continues against so well-supplied an enemy, the surer becomes ultimate defeat. General Lee has, in effect, so advised the President in a formal letter, and recommended that every effort should be made to encourage the peace party in the North and to achieve a negotiated settlement, which may even now prove consistent with independence.
Meanwhile, what is the best use to be made of the declining though still formidable strength of the Army of Northern Virginia? The morale of the troops has never been higher, but the reorganization consequent upon the death of Jackson has inevitably resulted in a general lack of experience at corps, divisional and brigade command levels. “Our army would be invincible,” Lee writes to General Hood of the Texan division, “if it could be properly organized and officered. There is the difficulty—proper commanders.” He has to make the best selections he can from the officers available, and there is no time in which to train them. Action is imperative.
The one course that must not be taken is to wait passively south of the Rappahannock for General Hooker to recover and renew the offensive. Even his further defeat on that river would be of no substantial value, for the cost would be more lives and, as before, he would be able to escape behind it. Like McClellan in 1862, he must be induced by maneuver to move northward to some theatre of war nearer to Washington and further from Richmond. Bearing in mind the demoralized state of the Federals after their defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, Lee is prepared, as the first step in a fresh campaign, to take the risk of moving his army westward up the Rappahannock. It is probable that Hooker will conform to the Confederate movement, with the result that his own offensive—if he is projecting one—will be forestalled.
Back, then, for a start—though warily and corps by corps— to Culpeper County. But then whither? Not again to northern Virginia, not to the plains of Manassas. Northern Virginia is stripped and bare, and besides, the enemy, if again defeated there, will—as Pope did—simply retire behind the prepared defenses near Washington. Yet there is a still stronger reason—the most compelling of all—for choosing to march elsewhere. The army is almost starving; and their own commissariat cannot feed them. To remain in existence at all, they must go where they can commandeer food and horse fodder. If the Potomac, then, is to be crossed a second time, it must be towards the plains of Pennsylvania, with the objects of maintaining the troops, drawing the enemy northwestward and thwarting his plans for the summer. And there, on those plains, perhaps, will recur the opportunity to win a great victory, to march to the Susquehanna and, by bringing home to the North the power and valor of the Army of Northern Virginia, to effect the peace that will confer independence upon the South.
The 2nd Corps, under the newly promoted Lieutenant General Ewell, is the first to move northward, followed by Longstreet and then by A. P. Hill. Such opposition as the Federals offer en route is successfully overcome. Ewell crosses the Potomac and presses on into Pennsylvania. On June 25th, General Lee, riding with Longstreet’s corps, himself fords the river at William sport.
‘Twarn’t very long after our great victory in the woods, Tom, as I was telling you ‘bout, that Marse Robert went back to our old headquarters downriver of the little town. We stayed on there more’n half a month. Lucy and me had the same old shed—the one the snow had blowed into so bad the night Sorrel was brought in late—but they’d patched it up and repaired it, and anyways now summer had come we often didn’t spend nights in it. We was picketed in the open. A horse always prefers to be in the open, you know, even in the rain. If I’m out to grass and it starts blowing or raining, I’d always rather get behind a wall or a good thick hedge than go into a shed. Leaves you free to run if’n you have to, don’t it? Marse Robert’s always knowed this, of course, but it’s surprising how many men don’t. They shut us up all the time and then wonder why we get nervy. I don’t really care for a shed, ‘ceptin’ to get away from the flies in hot weather. I’ve knowed horses their men thought was bad-tempered or stupid by nature, but it was really on ‘count of all the time they made them spend cooped up inside. A good horse needs to get out plenty, like we do here. We spent a lot of time in the open down by that railroad track.
‘Course, the generals kept a-coming to see Marse Robert all the time. He didn’t ride me a great deal during that month. He mostly took Lucy, the way he generally did when there warn’t no fighting and he was jest out looking round. I was happy ‘nuff to go for exercise with Dave along the hills. There was still lots of Blue men over t’other side of the river, but they evidently warn’t aiming on coming acrost. They’d had ‘nuff of that.
Little by little I come to realize that Cap-in-His-Eyes must be dead. He never came to the generals’ meetings with Marse Robert. At first I reckoned this must be on ‘count of the wound Dancer had told me about. He’d need time to get better, I thought. But what really brung it home to me, in the end, was Marse Robert hisself. He was a changed man, and I could feel it surer’n anyone else. Even his way of talking to me sounded different. For a time I thought it was ‘cause he was wore out after the battle, but after a while I knowed it was more’n that. I remember one afternoon—he’d taken me out hisself for a ride round the gun positions—-when he’d got off to fix my girth. There was no one around, and suddenly he gave a kind of sob and laid his head agin my neck. “Oh, Traveller,” he said, “what’s to become of us? I’ve lost my right arm!” All I knowed at the time was that something had made him wretched. I didn’t know jest what—there was ‘nuff things, after all— and I can’t remember jest when I understood that it was Cap-in-His-Eyes he meant he’d lost. But by the time we broke up that headquarters by the railroad and Marse Robert finally said “Strike the tent!” I felt like I’d knowed it ever since the night I’d heared the news from Dancer in the firelight. Our best general was gone for good.
All the time we was marching upcountry—long beside the mountains—I could feel Marse Robert was out of spirits, though whenever he was talking to the other generals he pretended he warn’t. I remember, the day before we crossed the big river again, he rode right up the column from rear to front, stopping off whenever we came to anyone he wanted to speak with. We rode beside General Ringlets for a while, and he was full of high spirits and fight. He was always one for show, was Ringlets. There was a man with him, an officer he called “Eppa,” and Marse Robert and this here Eppa was riding ‘long and talking together for a goodish while. His horse, Sovereign, seemed in a sort of a gloomy mood, and after a while I asked him whether he was finding the flies troublesome or what.
“Flies are bad ‘nuff,” answers Sovereign, “but I can tell my man figures we’re in for a whole heap of trouble. He’s got a notion we may get beat, and if we do, we’ll have a job to get back all this way.”
“Beat by the Blue men?” I said. “Us? When was we ever? Anyways, wherever we’re going there’ll be plenty of grass, for a change. Look at them poor old mules over there—see their ribs sticking out? They need to eat. I wouldn’t wonder if’n we didn’t finish the Blue men for fare-you-well this time. Then maybe you’ll have a real rest and let yourself feel more cheerful.”
“Well, Traveller,” he says, “I s’pose you ought to know. You must ‘a seed a deal more’n I have.”
The truth was, I felt I probably didn’t know all that much more’n he did. He looked a real old veteran, but I reckoned ‘twas my job to act cheerful, jest like Marse Robert was doing. By the time we parted, I’d got him into better spirits—better’n my own, really, ‘cause I knowed Marse Robert jest couldn’t help thinking all the time how much better off we’d be if’n only we had Cap-in-His-Eyes ‘long with us.
The summer before when we’d crossed the big river, ‘twas by moonlight, and I hadn’t really seed the size of it. This time it was a wet morning—jest pouring down rain and all the men and horses soaked through before they got to wading at all. You could see the whole length of the column splashing ahead, stretching out quite a ways even before it started going up the bank on the far side. I remember watching one old fella with a wagon and a pair of mules climbing down to fix the drag on his wheel and then taking a-holt of the bridles and backing down the slope into the water as he led the mules in. There was a band a-playing on the bank, and all the surface of the river, ‘far’s you could see either way, was kind of speckled and glinting under the rain. There was a little town on the further bank, all the roofs glistening, and the folks all out of doors, never mind the rain, to watch us as we came acrost.
Marse Robert and me, we crossed the river with Old Pete and General Ringlets, us three horses splashing acrost side by side. Ringlets was riding a young horse, a black gelding called Romeo. He hadn’t been long with the general and had almost no experience, but he’d struck me as a good-natured sort of beast, anxious to please his master and show he had as much spunk as any horse in the Army. As we come up the further bank, he jibbed and backed off for jest a moment before getting hisself pulled together. What had startled him was a little crowd of ladies, all standing together in the rain under a flock of umbrellas. ‘Course, anything strange or unusual’ll startle a young horse, and I could guess that Romeo had never seed no umbrellas till then—’specially bright green and blue ones like these. Ringlets held him in as one of the ladies stepped up and asked Marse Robert if’n he was General Lee.
Marse Robert said he was. Then she went into a whole long speech, introducing each o’ the other ladies and telling him they was all mighty glad to see him and his Army come acrost the river. She said we was saviors of freedom and a whole lot more that I couldn’t understand. Marse Robert listened to all this real polite, while the rain jest ran off’n us in streams and Romeo fidgeted from side to side. And then, if you please, when at last she’d done talking, this lady up with a big wreath of flowers, which she figured she was going to hang round my neck! A lot of horses would have shied, I reckon, when she suddenly lifted up this big, colored thing—for a moment I didn’t know what ‘twas—right in front of my nose, but I jest stood steady—well, maybe I tossed my head; I couldn’t say—and waited. Marse Robert tells her he reckons she’s mighty kind, but he don’t think the flowers would look quite right, seeing as how we was soldiers on campaign.
Then these ladies started pressing Marse Robert that he really ought to accept the flowers; they was all on our side, they said. But Marse Robert, he stuck to it that there was jest no way a commanding general’s horse could go around with a great wreath of flowers round his neck. I was glad, ‘cause I felt the same. A fine fool I’d look, coming into the headquarters picket lines all covered over with red and blue flowers! I’d never hear the last o’ that! In the end Marse Robert won. He accepted the flowers and said how much he ‘preciated the ladies’ kindness and all the trouble they’d took, and then he gave them to one of our soldiers to carry.
Jest the same, the ladies’ welcome seemed to have lifted Marse Robert’s spirits and cheered his mood. Headquarters had jest been set up, in a hickory grove a mile or so outside the town, when we had another visit—this time from a little boy I remembered to have come into camp and spoken to Marse Robert the summer before. Marse Robert made quite a fuss over this young man and had him sit down to eat with Major Taylor and General Red Shirt and hisself. Then Old Pete jined in, and said how would the boy like to become a soldier and ride ‘long with him and his fellas? When me and Hero and the rest was led up for the generals, Red Shirt told one of the soldiers to bring a horse for the boy. I forget which of us ‘twas, but anyways the boy was jest a little fella and he couldn’t mount him up. Marse Robert lifted him into the saddle and said by and by he’d be ready for the cavalry. They was all full of jokes when we rode off to inspect the camps.
Next morning, when we struck the tent and set out on the march, it was still raining. We only had a few miles to go to the next town. I remembered it from the summer before, when Marse Robert had been riding round with his hands all bandaged up and a soldier to lead me. That had been a real bad time for me, Tom, as I’ve told you, and I didn’t much relish seeing that town again. But everyone was friendly and ‘peared glad to see us, and a lot o’ people was cheering Marse Robert and me as we rode through town.
Next thing was, another bunch of ladies come up and regular surrounded us. One of them had a pair of scissors, and it turned out that what she wanted was a lock of Marse Robert’s hair. Marse Robert, he says no, he needed all the hair he’d got left, and why didn’t she have some of Ringlets’, seeing as how he’d got more to spare. But she didn’t care for that notion. In the end we-all jest told them good-day and rode on.
We went maybe twenty mile that afternoon, and when we got to the next town Red Shirt come to meet us; he must ‘a gone ahead, I reckon, that same morning. “Ah, General Hill,” says Marse Robert, riding up to him, “I’m mighty glad to see you again, and your fellas all in sech fine order.” Marse Robert never missed a chance of praising and encouraging. There was another big hullabaloo, with folks gathering in the square, but soon’s he could Marse Robert took us out of town and ‘stablished headquarters near some woods, ‘longside a little stream. I remember what a nice, quiet evening’s grazing that was, with the sun coming out after the rain and everything fresh and green. Smelt real good. Me and Joker stood head to tail, swished the flies and loafed around. Everything ‘bout headquarters was jest like it always was on campaign: the tents, the baggage wagons and ambulances, the old mules stamping round under the trees, couple of red-and-blue cloths on sticks to show where we was; messengers a-coming and a-going, Bryan and Meredith getting everything ready for Marse Robert’s supper and Perry a-setting on a log and whistling while he cleaned his boots. It was mighty peaceful. I was expecting Skylark and Jine-the-Cavalry to ride up any minute, or maybe Vot-you-voz. I hadn’t seed nothing of Jine-the-Cavalry for several days now, and it seemed kind of queer, ‘cause I’d come to understand, from talking to Skylark, that Marse Robert relied on him to tell him where the Blue men was and what they was up to.
Still, if’n I didn’t see Skylark or Star of the East or any of their cavalry friends, I certainly seed some unusual horses come into the Army during them few days. Looking back now, Tom, I can see we was getting jest about desperate for horses. We’d lost a lot in the fighting, and others had wasted away to nothing during the winter, and I guess there warn’t ‘nuff left back home to replace them. Anyway, wherever we went on this campaign, we took up horses—any horses a-tall, whatever we could get. It was that evening or the next, while I was grazing and thinking ‘bout nothing in particular, that I suddenly seed a little group of our soldiers—artillerymen—coming down the nearby track with three of the biggest horses I’d ever seed in all my born days. They was huge. They warn’t jest cart horses, they was cart horses and then some. I jest stood and stared at ‘em. I’d never seed nothing like ‘em before, and I’m sure they’d never seed nor heared nor smelt nothing like our camp. They was acting real nervous, and ‘cause they was so big the men was having some trouble with them. As I watched, one of them shied at the sun flashing on a tin bucket or some sech, and fairly dragged the two fellas who was leading him acrost the track and back.
“The three of ‘em together’s too much,” says one of these soldiers. “Let’s hitch this one here and come back for him when we’ve got t’other two to battery headquarters.”
So then they hitched this huge great mountain of a horse to a rail not far from where I was, and went long with the others. The horse looked quiet ‘nuff now, only fretting and upset, like he didn’t know what was going to happen next. I felt sorry for him, so I gave him a neigh from where I was, and then I strolled acrost and gave him a nice, friendly nicker. He answered nervously, like he didn’t know whether I was a friend or not.
“Jest come in?” I asked, sniffing him over. He smelt of hay and oats, mighty well fed. “Cheer up. It’s not so bad once’t you get used to it.”
“Oh, dey joost take me avay,” he said. “Dey take me avay! Master’s angry, missus she’s crying, very bad. Hardly finished de hay—”
“You come from a farm?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, alvays on de farm,” he said. “Never been off de farm. Dose soldiers take me—master’s very angry, says he’ll be ruint.”
Well, you know, Tom, I could see what he meant. I mean, if’n some fellas was to come in here now, and say they was requisitioning cats and took you away with ‘em to some strange, noisy place, like nothing you’d ever seed or smelt, I reckon you’d be tolerable scairt, too. I tried to think how I could cheer him up.
“You pull heavy loads on the farm?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, yes,” he answered. “All us Percherons pull, ve pull vagons, ve pull plows, ve pull big carts—pull any t’ing.”
“Well, all you’ll have to pull here’ll be a gun,” I said.
“Vot’s a gun?” he asks, rolling his eyes white.
Jest then I seed the men a-coming back for him.
“Oh, it’ll be nothing for the likes of you,” I says. “A great big fella like you. You’d pull a hundred guns—you’ll find it easy after the farm.”
I didn’t believe it, mind you. I was jest trying to cheer him up. In spite of his size, I couldn’t help thinking he looked clumsy and flabby. If he’d never been off the farm where he was born, it was going to take him a long while to get used to the artillery—and the artillery horses, too. They was real mean, most of ‘em. The life was ‘nuff to make any horse mean—the noise and the danger and all the limbering and unlimbering in the smoke and dust. He’d soon thin down on that.
Come to think of it now, after all this time I don’t know whether we ever really got much out of all the horses we took up in them parts. They was nearly all great clumsy Percherons, or else some as called theirselves Conestogas. They needed a big feed—more’n twice what our horses could live on—and yet they couldn’t do half the work. And as for standing up to the hardship and exposure of campaigning—well, there jest warn’t no comparison to us. They warn’t made for it. Later on, when things got real bad, it was a shame to see how they suffered. I mean, can you imagine—well, of course, Tom, you’ve never seed a Percheron, but I was going to say can you imagine one of them Percherons being driven to dash off at full gallop with a gun? And what their daily ration with us was, was mostly dry broom sedge and maybe a quarter of a feed of weevily corn.
Still, we warn’t forever taking horses and supplies from the country folk. Marse Robert was always very particular ‘bout treating people right. “You jest remember, all of you,” he said one day to a bunch of soldiers he was talking to in camp, “you jest remember that we only make war on armed men. The biggest disgrace you can bring on the Army is harming anything that belongs to ordinary folk.” And it was that same day that he got down off my back, right there on the road opposite a pasture, and put up some rails with his own hands. One of our fellas had left ‘em down and the cattle could have strayed. He didn’t have no chance, though, when it come to pinching hats. It was desperate hot jest then, Tom, you see, and a lot of our fellas had no hats. So whenever we was marching through crowds, usually one or two of ‘em’d snatch a man’s hat off’n his head and run back into the ranks faster’n a dog on a scent. ‘Twarn’t no use the man complaining to an officer. No one could tell which soldier had done it, and we warn’t a-going to halt the march nohow jest for that.
There was still no sign of Jine-the-Cavalry or any of his ‘uns, and after a day or so I realized that this was worrying Marse Robert. “Where can General Stuart be?” I heared him say more’n once to Major Taylor. I remembered how Skylark had told me that most of their work was riding around behind the Blue men and finding out what they was up to, and I couldn’t help wondering whether maybe they’d run into the Blue men and got into a passel of trouble, or maybe lost their way back. One thing was for sure, and that was that Marse Robert was feeling the lack of them. “What can we do without cavalry?” he said to Colonel Long as we was riding out of camp one morning. “I’ve never known this to happen before. It’s like being blind.” Jest the same, I couldn’t remember when I’d seed our Army in better spirits; and better off, horse an’ man, than the time when we’d crossed the river the year before.
Headquarters only stayed three or four days at that place ‘side the woods, though. I was hoping we’d be there longer, but when you’re a soldier there’s never no telling. It was a dark, stormy morning when we struck the tent and moved off, and Marse Robert seemed as gloomy as the sky. He kept asking different people ‘bout General Stuart, but whatever he was told it certainly warn’t nothing he wanted to hear. We finished up next afternoon at an old sawmill. All the sawmill folks seemed to have gone, so headquarters jest took it over for the night.
In the morning the weather was better, with a nice breeze. “You mark what I say, Traveller,” said Joker as we was being saddled up. “We’re going to hit on some Blue men before tonight.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“Oh, jest a hunch,” said Joker. “Wherever they are, they’re not far off. Don’t tell me we’ve come all this way not to find ‘em.”
Soon’s he was in the saddle, Marse Robert called up Old Pete to ride with him. As we set off, I told Hero what Joker had said. Hero ‘peared to be of the same mind. “The horses always know before the men,” he said. “The enemy’s near’bouts, sure ‘nuff. Other side of these here mountains we’re heading for, I reckon.”
By the time we’d got to the mountains, the road had growed so thick and crowded with our soldiers on the march that Marse Robert and Old Pete took me and Hero on ahead, with the rest of headquarters following. We was well on the way up, and nicely out of all the dust and tromping, when suddenly Hero pricked up his ears.
“Didn’t I say so?”
There was no mistaking what we could hear off a ways. It was distant gunfire, coming from the direction in which we was headed. I could tell Marse Robert was wondering what it might mean. You see, Tom, when you’re on campaign and you hear guns off out of sight, it may mean nothing much or it may be the start of a battle—there’s no telling without you get news back by a horseman. But no horseman came, and Marse Robert was growing more and more impatient and uneasy.
“We’re in the dark!” he said to Old Pete. “We’re in the dark and that’s the truth of it. We’ve been in the dark ever since we crossed the river.”
We reached the top and looked down on t’other side, which was all steep ravines and gorges. The firing was louder now, and there was more of it, but still you couldn’t rightly see what was happening.
“I’m going on ahead!” says Marse Robert to Old Pete, and with that he put me into a gallop and down the hill we went, leaving Old Pete to wait for his own soldiers to come up.
Pretty soon we came to a little town, and this was where we met up with Red Shirt. Red Shirt was a while talking with Marse Robert, but when I asked Champ, his horse, he told me they didn’t know what the firing meant any more’n what we did. It was kind of rolling, hilly country we was in, and the sound of the guns came echoing from the other side of the hills. Red Shirt rode off to try to find out more, and when he was gone Marse Robert walked me forward a little ways, leaving the rest of headquarters a-waiting where they was. I could tell jest from the feel of his hands and the way he was sitting that he was worried.
“Oh, Traveller,” he says, stroking my neck, but more like he was talking to hisself, really. “Oh, Traveller, what can have become of Stuart? We ought to have heared from him long before now.”
Another general rode up to us—one of Red Shirt’s commanders— but I could tell he didn’t know what was going on neither.
“If that’s their whole Army,” Marse Robert says to him, “we’ll have to fight a battle here. But there’s jest no telling.”
They didn’t talk much more. Marse Robert called up headquarters and we galloped on towards the sound of the firing. We could hear musketry now, as well as the guns, and I could see a long cloud of smoke on the horizon.
I don’t exactly recollect, Tom, how long we kept going—several miles, that’s for sure—but finally we left the hills behind and came out into more open country. And here we found whole crowds of our fellas, all spread out and waiting. I could see now that there was fighting going on up ahead, in the distance.
It was a hot afternoon. We waited there, Marse Robert and me, while he set about finding out what was going on. I could smell the crushed thyme in the grass, which was all tromped down, and there was any number of grasshoppers zipping away. It’s funny, ain’t it, how nothing disturbs them fellas? I remember dropping my nose for a bit of a browse round—Marse Robert never minded that—and I seed one sitting and rubbing his back legs together where I could almost have munched him up. He flew away—well, they good as fly, don’t they?— when some officer planted one of our red-and-blue cloths on sticks right there, to show where Marse Robert had taken up his position.
It was plain that pretty soon the word began to get round that me and Marse Robert had arrived at this here battle. You see, Tom, when Marse Robert was running a battle, there was always horsemen coming and going to tell him what was happening and take his orders. I’d come to know a lot of the courier horses by now and mostly they came from Jine-the-Cavalry. Not this afternoon, though. These was Red Shirt’s officers. Jine-the-Cavalry’s outfit ‘peared to have vanished off the face of the earth.
To begin with, ‘far as I could make out, the Blue men was hard at it getting back out of our way; anyhow, their guns warn’t firing like they’d been when Marse Robert and me first heared them up the mountain. But then they suddenly started up again, way over beyond the outskirts of the town, and a few minutes later one of Red Shirt’s commanders come galloping up to Marse Robert. I knowed his horse, a chestnut called Trumpeter, so I asked him what was a-going on.
“We’ve got them beat all to a frazzle,” says Trumpeter. “They’ve all run away into the town back there, but we’re fixing to take that, too.”
“Then what are their guns firing for,” I asked, “over there on the sunset side?”
“It’s the Bald General’s fellas coming up,” says Trumpeter. “They’ll roll the Blue men up, after the licking they’ve jest had from us.”
I could tell that Marse Robert had told Trumpeter’s man to go back and order his ‘uns to attack. Oh, Tom, you should ‘a heared that Yell as they went forward! Marse Robert and me, we went forward jest behind them, and in less than an hour ‘twas all over. We’d driven those people right out of the town and cut them up real bad. I remember how Marse Robert rode me downhill, over the creek at the bottom and up onto the ridge t’other side. We could see the town plain now, about half a mile below us, with two hills beyond it. The Blue men was all a-running off towards the hills—masses of ‘em. Anyone could see they was licked, but there was still a few more up atop them hills.
Jest as I was wondering what we’d be doing next, up comes Old Pete on Hero. Old Pete took a long look at the town and the Blue men near the hills, and then he began talking almost afore Marse Robert had said a word. ‘Course, I couldn’t understand what he was saying to Marse Robert, but what I did know, Tom—and no horse could have mistaken this—was that he was laying down the law and more or less telling Marse Robert jest what he ought to do. He was saying what orders Marse Robert had best be giving and where our fellas had to go.
Marse Robert listened quietly—well, you know, Tom; you know yourself Marse Robert seldom lets anything upset him—and after a little he jest said something like if’n the Blue men was there, then we must attack them. But this didn’t seem to suit Old Pete. He broke in and said a whole lot more, and I knowed Marse Robert was beginning to feel angry. I couldn’t help wondering whether he’d tell Old Pete straight out that it warn’t him that was commanding the Army. I reckon he might have, too, only jest then Colonel Long came up to report, and after him another officer I didn’t know, whose horse told me they’d come from General Ewell—the Bald General—who’d got his ‘uns already into the town.
Old Pete seemed to me to have turned real sulky. ‘Far as I recollect, he hardly answered the next time Marse Robert spoke to him, and soon after that (it was getting on to evening now), he rode off—to get back to his men, he said, who was coming up by the same road we’d come by.
There was no more firing now from anywhere ahead, and Marse Robert and me set off down the hill for the town, ‘long with Major Taylor and a few more. I remember how we went by a passel o’ prisoners standing round the outskirts. Some of them recognized Marse Robert and pointed him out as we went by.
We pulled up at a house jest outside town. There was a little rose garden there, all in bloom, and a power of horses hitched to the rails. I could see the Bald General limping down the path to meet Marse Robert as he dismounted—the Bald General had a wooden leg, Tom, you know; he’d lost a leg in the fighting—and some of his commanders ‘long with him. The Cussing General—General Early—was one of them. I always thought of him that way, ‘cause I don’t believe he ever spoke without a-cussing, even when he was talking to Marse Robert.
All I can tell you, Tom, after all this time, is that I knowed at once’t that the Bald General was feeling powerful jittery. You could tell that jest by looking at him. Whenever I smell evening roses now, it makes me recollect being hitched to that fence and seeing the Bald General and Marse Robert and the Cussing General and the rest walking off into a little kinda wooden house set among the roses and talking as they went.
The Bald General’s horse was hitched right ‘longside me. “What’s the matter with your master?” I asked. “I thought your outfit had took the town and whupped the enemy?”
“They have,” he answered, “but now, ‘parently, my man don’t know what to do next. They’ve all been trying to tell him, but he can’t make up his mind. He’s like that, you know. He’s a good master to me and all his fellas like him, but it’s always the same—he can’t decide for hisself.”
Well, the sun moved around and down into the west, the flies got less troublesome and the air began to cool, and still we-all stood there, blowing and stamping, while the generals talked in the rose garden. There was a fine red sunset and if’n you didn’t know otherwise you’d have thought it was jest as nice and peaceful an evening as could be.
I kept looking at those two hills sticking up on the far side of the town. Hoof and tail! I thought. What is there to be a-talking ‘bout all this time? Even I can tell we ought to get on and take those hills afore the Blue men can dig in on ‘em. I remembered how much care Marse Robert had taken before the battle in the snow, when him and me was riding round and fixing our guns where they’d be able to shoot whichever way the Blue men came at us. That’s what we call a good field of fire, Tom, you know. If’n only we could get some guns up on those hills now, I thought, the Blue men’d be running away like they did two months ago in the forest. I wish Sorrel was here. I wish Cap-in-His-Eyes would come a-riding round the corner now, and hitch Sorrel up and give me a pat and a word. I wanted my feed and I could have drunk a bucket and more. Only, we didn’t get none, ‘cause no one knowed how soon our generals would be done and wanting us.
Well, at last Marse Robert and the Bald General came out of the rose garden, still talking together. All I could tell from looking at them was that Marse Robert was pressing the Bald General to do something and the Bald General didn’t like it. Marse Robert kept turning his head and stressing what he was saying with his hands, and the Bald General kept on jest a-listening and nodding, saying very little and looking down at the ground. He warn’t like Old Pete; he warn’t argufying back. He put me more in mind of a horse that’s gotten afeared of something in the road—you know, a pile of sacks, maybe, or a milk churn—and jest don’t want to go on past it.
A minute or two later we was riding away, back to the ridge where we’d talked to Old Pete. Headquarters had been fixed up in a little house jest below the ridge and overlooking the town. I remember the stable had plenty of rats—Joker said he figured you could walk on ‘em—but I was too tired to take much notice. Soon as he’d fed and watered us, Dave lay down to sleep in the hay, jest like that. I’d come to know what that meant. Orders must ‘a been given for a mighty early start next morning.