Traveller (36 page)

All that day there was fighting as bad as any we ever went through. I told you how we'd put up thick fences made from cut-down trees. Our men and the enemy was fighting only a few feet apart, on opposite sides of them fences, and there was so many killed that in the end they couldn't hardly get near each other. They say there was trees actually cut down by the thousands of bullets shot into ‘em. ‘Twarn't till the middle of the night that Marse Robert felt able to give orders that our fellas was to come out of that dreadful place and fall back onto a new line. We lost a terrible lot of men that day.

‘Twas some time during the last hours of that fighting in the dark that I was fast asleep on my four feet—I was that much wore out— when a cavalry courier arrived, and pretty well fell off'n his horse in his hurry. Before he'd even been picketed, that horse told me Jine-the-Cavalry had been killed. That was what his man had come to tell Marse Robert.

While Marse Robert was telling the rest of the headquarters officers, I could see ‘twas as much as he could do to get the words out, and soon as he'd told them he jest turned away and went back into his tent. I asked the horse whether Skylark had been hit, but he didn't know. Cap-in-His-Eyes, I thought, Old Pete, and now Jine-the-Cavalry. What we-all going to do now? What's Marse Robert going to do?

I can't imagine what would have happened to us, Tom, if that fighting had gone on the way it did, but next morning it commenced to pouring with rain and it kept it up for several days. There was running streams every few yards and the roads was jest pools of water, deep. Even the Blue men couldn't do no attacking in that, so we got some rest at last.

I remember one thing that happened either that day or the day after. Marse Robert and me was riding along the rear of our lines together with a bunch of headquarters officers and a general or two— I forget jest which. Suddenly the enemy guns began firing and shells started dropping round. I was scared silly, like I always was, although I did my best to keep steady. Then a shell burst close and scattered dirt and fragments all over us. Three-four other horses began to get skittish and a few broke away into a gallop, so that our lot was all over the place. Marse Robert didn't like this at all. “Easy, Traveller, easy!” he said to me real sharp, pulling me in hard and holding me up tight. Soon as he had me steady, he made me go on down the lines at a walk. “Do you want them to think we're afraid?” he said, only ‘twas in a low, gentle voice that no one else could hear. Then he told General Pendleton—that was the chief artillery officer—that he warn't going to let me do anything that'd make it seem like we might be nervous under fire where the men could see.

A night or two later we left that place and marched all night—and a fine old mess ‘twas in the dark and wet. I don't recall the details after all this time, but what I do remember is that I was the first one in the Army, horse or man, to realize that Marse Robert was beginning to fall ill. It must ‘a been all the strain and the wet weather; and then, of course, he'd had no proper sleep for nights on end, and I don't reckon his food was hardly better'n what us horses was getting—and that was poor ‘nuff. The Blue men, they was still around—plenty of ‘em, jest t'other side of a little river not far off—but there warn't no heavy fighting like there'd been in the woods. The Army kept on the move, and Marse Robert rode in a carriage and stopped off at folks' houses where he could lie down and be looked after. I was either led or ridden.

They was terrible hard times: always on the move, night and day. The strain was telling on everyone, horse and man. I couldn't remember when we'd been so long engaged with the enemy. Must ‘a been all of a month now, I said one night to Joker, since that morning when I'd first seed the Blue men come out from the thick trees and we'd started the fighting in the wilderness.

“Yes,” says Joker, “an' the feed gits shorter every day, don't it? You hungry?”

I sure was, and from the look of ‘em, I reckoned the whole of headquarters was, from Marse Robert down. I was glad Lucy'd gone; even if she'd been able to bear the shellfire, she'd never have stood up to the short rations. As for the Blue men, they was like dratted mosquitoes. Whenever we killed one, there'd come another two.

I remember a chilly, wet evening and a rain that lasted all night, and then, jest at dawn, we heared the enemy yelling and firing, way out acrost the bog that the whole durned place had turned into. The yelling stretched right away into the distance. You couldn't see nothing—not from headquarters—but ‘twas plain ‘nuff they must be attacking all along our lines.

It was jest at that moment I realized for the first time where we'd got to. I seed the shape of some trees on the skyline and caught the smell of a swamp down below. And then I remembered the first battle I'd ever been in, two years before and jest this time of year. We was right on the spot, I recollected, too, how Marse Robert had asked the young Texas general whether he could drive the Blue men out o' the swamp, and how he'd said “I'll try”—and done it. I'd been a young horse then, I thought. I'd seed plenty since, and I felt a lot older— yeah, more'n two years older by a deal.

All you could see was the battle-smoke hanging over the fields, and the shells a-falling. After a while I seed some of our wounded stumbling back out of the wet haze, but not that many. There was no general retreat and no confusion. We must be holding the Blue men off, I guessed.

As it happened, Marse Robert and me was entirely alone in the headquarters field, ‘cept for Dave. All our staff officers had been sent off to one place and another. The firing seemed to have been going on for hours. I figured it must be gettin' on to midday, near's I could tell. There was no sun, you see, Tom. ‘Twas all foggy an' cloudy, the battle-smoke an' the fog all mixed up together. After a while the firing died down and I guessed the enemy must ‘a quit.

‘Twas only later that I heared from other horses what had happened. Sure ‘nuff, the Blue men had attacked like crazy—everywhere, right along our lines. But we'd stood firm and gone on shooting ‘em down till at last it seems the ones who was still waiting to attack had simply refused to go on—refused to obey their orders. They'd lost thousands of men inside an hour. ‘Seems that was one of the greatest victories we ever won, that day, only I never seed none of it. And if'n I'd only a-knowed, ‘twas to be our last really big battle. But all I seed at the time was the soaking-wet fields in the haze, the creek flowing muddy and thick, and Marse Robert talking to two-three old gentlemen as warn't no soldiers at all—some sort of old fellas that had come a-visiting. One of their horses told me they'd ridden out from the city on purpose to talk to General Lee.

“And if this is bein' a soldier,” says this horse, ducking and dancing at every bang of a shell and zip of a bullet, “you can keep it. The quicker me and my master get back to the city the better. I don't care if'n you
are
the General's horse. I'd rather go on belongin' to old Judge Meredith. He's a sensible man—knows how to keep a horse out of trouble, too.”

I was goin' to say something back, but next moment a shell burst ‘way acrost the field and this horse was gone like a rocket, judge and all. He took some getting back, too. The old judge was fairly wild. I recollect how he said—

Hey, Tom, listen! Ain't that Miss Life a-calling for you? She'll be wanting to know you're safe and indoors on a sharp night like this. Better run along and jine Baxter by the fire up yonder. And jest you take what's left of that chipmunk out o' here, too. That's the sort of mess that attracts rats, an' you're s'posed to be here to get rid of ‘em.

You've heared ‘bout Ajax, Tom, have you? It's upset me a powerful lot, I can tell you. Poor old Ajax!—to go and kill hisself now, in a silly way like that, after all we've been through together. ‘Course, he wouldn't never have noticed nothing ‘bout that sharp prong on the gate latch, Ajax wouldn't. I'd seed it. I've knowed for a long time that that prong was dangerous—sharp as a bay'net. I've always took good care to avoid it.

I warn't around in the field when it happened. Lucy told me. ‘Seems Ajax ran hisself right full tilt onto the prong—'warn't even looking where he was going, Lucy said. There was blood all over the place and he was laying dead, right there, in a couple of minutes. Stabbed hisself to the heart. I'll lay Marse Robert's real upset. It's a wonder he'd never noticed the prong hisself.

I can't say Ajax and me was ever real close. You couldn't exactly make a friend out of Ajax. He was kind of a loner—warn't really a sociable horse. But we'd been together so long—oh, yeah, must be all of five years, first on campaign and then here. Marse Robert couldn't never really make much use of Ajax—too tall—but he didn't feel he could get rid of him, ‘cause he'd been a gift, so Ajax once told me, from some people back home.

I think poor old Ajax felt it, you know—that he warn't really valued; or at least, that he warn't a lot of use to Marse Robert—though other soldiers rode him, of course. Dave often rode him and he got on well with Dave. And I remember once't Colonel Marshall took him on for quite a few days. He might have worked up a lot of resentment agin me, but he never did. He was a real sober, stolid sort—ready to do what he was told and accept it. I guess he was a kind of a dull fella. I never could get much out of him at all. Never let hisself get bothered by enemy fire, though, nor by short rations nor any of the other hardships we-all went through. He was as good a soldier as any of us. I've often wondered whether he wouldn't have turned out livelier and more chipper if'n it'd jest so happened he'd suited Marse Robert down to the ground.
My
life would have been different then, too. There'd have been him and me. I guess I've always more or less taken Ajax for granted. But I'm going to miss him now, sure ‘nuff. We lost so many—horses and men. I didn't figure we had any more to lose after all this time.

Come to think of it, I remember Marse Robert taking Ajax one day, jest after the battle in the wet and mist that I was telling you ‘bout—the time the old judge's horse bolted acrost the field. But that was ‘cause I was being shod. Marse Robert was always real particular ‘bout that, even at times when you'd have thought he'd have been far too busy with the fighting. Shoeing, girths, throatbands—all that kind of thing he'd see to personally. He generally used to fold my blanket hisself. And one thing in particular I always remember: he was a great one for dismounting so's I could get a rest. He dismounted as often as he could—and that was more'n Old Pete did, I noticed. People used to be astonished that I stayed so fresh all day. I'd be fresh after sixteen mile or more. Well, ‘twas partly me—I don't say it warn't. But a lot of it was on ‘count of Marse Robert's habit of dismounting whenever he could.

‘Twas jest after that battle that Marse Robert recovered ‘nuff to be able to ride again. He felt the men must have missed seeing him round, I guess, ‘cause during all the maneuvering that followed that battle (and my land, warn't it hot weather, too! ‘Never been so thirsty on a day's work), he took particular care to get out ‘mong the men and talk to ‘em plenty. I enjoyed it. Thanks to Dave, I was always well groomed and shining, and the men liked to see me and gather round. There was no sugar goin'—nobody had none—but plenty of nose-stroking and praise and all that. I remember one day, when we was riding past a company that was fallen out beside the road, a fella gets up, waves his hand to Marse Robert and calls out, “Howdy do, Dad!” Anyone could see he was gone part crazy, standing blinkin' there in his old rags in the sunshine. “Howdy do, my man!” answers Marse Robert right away, gives him a smile and on we went. I don't reckon Marse Robert recognized the fella, but I remembered him all right. Marse Robert had spoken to him that night of the battle in the woods, same night as Cap-in-His-Eyes was hit; he'd been toting ammunition out of a wagon, ‘long with three-four other soldiers. He hadn't been crazy then. He must have had ‘nuff to make him, since. There was beginning to be more and more like that. ‘Twas the short rations and the hard marches—that and the continual fear. And besides, you know, Tom, there was sickness everywhere. I didn't feel so good myself sometimes. I found myself getting confused and didn't always understand what was going on as clear as I used to. ‘Twas like everyone was living in a kind of daze from the hunger and the fear.

Another thing comes back to me now. One time when we was out by ourselves, and Marse Robert'd dismounted to take a quick nap under a tree by the road, I was hitched to a post, jest quietly grazing around. After a while I could hear a marching column coming nearer, making a fair lot of noise—you know, laughing and calling out to one another, ‘coutrements clattering and all the rest. Then two or three of the men caught sight of Marse Robert, and word went round quick as lightning. They all went by quiet as a bunch of snails; they jest about tiptoed past where we was, not to interrupt Marse Robert's nap.

Mid-June, 1864. General Grant, having during the previous month repeatedly failed, with more than twice their numbers, to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia in the field and finally suffered a severe reverse at Old Cold Harbor, has broken contact, marched across the peninsula east of Richmond and made use of transport boats to throw his army across the James River to the southern bank. From here he has advanced upon the city of Petersburg, twenty miles south of Richmond, but his assault has been halted by the determined resolution of General Beauregard, with no more than two or three thousand men. General Lee, having reached the city with his army on June 18th, has immediately put in hand the necessary dispositions and works to withstand the siege by superior numbers that is now inevitable. This siege, which will extend to include Richmond, is to last for nine and a half months, until the beginning of April, 1865
.