Traveller (38 page)

There was mighty little to burn, too. We ‘most never seed a fire when we was riding down the lines. All the wood there was had been burned up long ago. The men got real filthy, too, living in them soaking-wet trenches and dugouts. There was no soap, and ‘course they couldn't heat no water for washing. I could tell how much it upset Marse Robert to see them in sech a bad way. He'd stop to talk to groups of fellas here and there, and one'd say, “I got no boots, General,” or, “I ain't had a meal in two days, General.” “Oh, Traveller,” he said to me once't, when we was riding away from a bunch of ‘em on the lines, “what can I do? Where's it going to end? Jest got to go on, that's all.” He was beginning to look grayer hisself and a durned sight older, and often at the end of a day I could tell from the way he dismounted that he was wore out. ‘Twas a strange life. Sometimes we'd be out all day on the lines in all sorts o' wind and weather, and then again we'd ride up to the big city and spend a few hours at Marse Robert's home with the old lady. Even in them days she was a cripple: she was in a rolling chair. She used to do all she could to persuade Marse Robert to give hisself an easier life. ‘Twas her and Major Taylor between them that finally got Marse Robert to agree, for his own sake, to move headquarters out of tents and into a house with stables. This house belonged to a man called Mr. Turnbull and ‘twas ‘bout two mile outside the city where the Blue men had blowed the hole in the ground. I felt better when we'd moved in there. Everyone was more comfortable, horses and men.

Not that there was any more to eat. People used to send Marse Robert presents of food, but he'd never accept them. I heared him tell Colonel Marshall one day that he wouldn't eat any blamed thing that was better'n what the men had. As for the horses, I know ‘twas a hard business for the Army to keep any cavalry together at all. Every scrap of fodder was gone and the horses had to be sent miles away, all over the country, jest to find ‘nuff to survive.

Things went on like this for months, till at last the leaves started to show on the trees again and the weather took a turn for the better. I was glad to see the spring coming, ‘cause I knowed it would bring on the time when we'd settle with the Blue men once't and for all. Oh, sure, I knowed it was going to be a hard ‘nuff job, but even I didn't foresee what it would cost us or what a desperate business ‘twas going to turn out.

Late March, 1865. The tattered, starving Army of Northern Virginia, reduced to some 50,000 effectives and those irreplaceable, with no lack of men ailing from prolonged exposure to mud and rain, of men carrying in their pockets letters from wives or parents telling of conditions at home grown desperate on account of their long absence, continues to hold forty miles of half-flooded earthworks against the overwhelming numbers of General Grant. With the irretrievable loss of the Shenandoah Valley in early March, General Sheridan's cavalry have perforce become free—spreading destruction on their way—to join the Union forces besieging Richmond and Petersburg. The Confederate troops are so thin on the ground and so short of ammunition that if it were not for the dread with which their past fighting power has filled the hearts of the enemy, the line would long ago have been broken. General Lee, whose courage and endurance continue to inspire his men as no other general's since Alexander, has far too much military discernment to be under any delusion. Both his men and his horses are worn out and he has no reserves whatever. With the ending of winter, either the breaking of his line or the turning of his flank— most probably, he thinks, the southern, Petersburg flank—is inevitable. “You must not be surprised if calamity befalls us,” he wrote in early February to the Secretary of War. His advice that he should withdraw the army westward into mountain terrain, where it could subsist indefinitely as a fighting force, having been rejected by President Davis with the insistence that at all costs Richmond must be held to the last, what can he do but put his trust in God, set a daily example of staunchness and valor to officers and men and await what his young aide, Colonel Taylor, has termed “the dread contingency”?

My goodness, Tom, I never ‘spected anything like this, did you? ‘Course, I'd seed they was building a new house for Marse Robert, but I never dreamt part of it was going to be this big new stable for me. I can't get over it! Marse Robert led me in hisself s'afternoon and made sure everything was jest the way it ought to be. Ain't it mighty fine? Not a draft in the place, and Marse Robert's quarters right ‘longside! I've never been so well stabled in all my born days, and all I can say is I hope Marse Robert feels the same. Do you know what he said when he brung me in here this evening? He said it was going to be real fine to be under the same roof with his old friend. ‘Going to make a lot of difference to both of us, these new quarters are, ‘cause the truth is we're neither of us as young as we was and we can both do with some extra comfort. Why don't you settle down there in the straw and make yourself at home? This is a sight better'n them lines I was telling you ‘bout—the lines we was holding opposite the Blue men in the siege, with next to nothing to eat and shells likely to start dropping any time of the day or night. Yes, we've certainly seed some hard times, me and Marse Robert, so maybe we're entitled to feel we've earned a home even as good as this ‘un.

I promised to tell you, didn't I, ‘bout our very last campaign, after the siege ended? Well, an' that sure
was
a bad time—'bout the worst I can remember, but the way it finally ended was jest bout the most surprising thing that happened in all the years me and Marse Robert's been together. You see, Marse Robert had decided—I knowed he had—that by this time we'd all done more'n ‘nuff of this here fighting, and that now the spring was coming we had to finish those people off once and for all. Yeah, but that warn't so easy done—no, not even by Marse Robert hisself. You see, first of all ‘twas a question of picking the best place—where to go about it. That's what us soldiers call strategy, you know, Tom—picking the right time and place to fight. Well, you've done it yourself, han't you? And that spring we had to try a whole lot of times, and a whole lot of places, looking for the right one.

I remember—oh, yeah, I remember this all right—being woke up in the pitch dark at that there Turnbull headquarters of ours and being saddled up by Dave. What the heck's coming now, I thought; some shenanigans, I'll lay. Well, if'n I'm not used to that by now I don't know a horse in the Army that is. I could make out Marse Robert standing outside the door, all dressed and ready, with Marse Taylor and a lot more. I was led up, he mounted me and off we rode in the dark.

We didn't go all that far, though; we went jest acrost to a hill behind our lines, where another of our commanders, General Gordon, was stood waiting for Marse Robert. Down in front of us the trenches was crowded with our fellas, getting ready to attack. I could feel it. Before an attack, you see, Tom, there's always something—well, real uneasy—in the air, and the horses can feel it as much as the men. But this was the most silent thing I'd ever knowed. ‘Twas all along of doing it at night, I guess; the Blue men didn't know what we was up to and we didn't want em to find out.

Then, away off in the dark, some fella fired a gun, and that was the signal for our men to advance. There was plenty of yelling and firing started up then all right, but me and Marse Robert, we jest stood and waited where we was at, As it growed light, you could make out the fighting, way out at a kind of fort on the Blue men's line, but as Marse Robert still didn't move, I figured it couldn't be going too well. I could feel as much, too, from the look of the officers coming back to report to Marse Robert, and the way they spoke. We stayed where we was about four hours, I guess, till finally Marse Robert, he give the order to stop the fighting and come back. But my land! Tom, coming back, there was a power of our poor fellas knocked over by musket fire. The Blue men had brung up reinforcements, you see, and they was jest too many for us. Oh, yeah, they was fine and dandy as long as we was going t'other way. ‘Parently this was one time when we hadn't been able to beat ‘em like we usually did.

So that was the first time. Natcherly, Marse Robert was disappointed and I could tell, like I always could, that he felt sad and upset. I remember how we rode back, him and me, almost by ourselves, and how we met young Marse Rob and Marse Rooney coming to meet us. Soon as he seed them, he smiled and showed how glad he was. He did his best to act like there was nothing gone wrong; thanked them for coming so quick, and said he was sorry to have to tell them their cavalry wouldn't be needed after all. It didn't fool Marse Rob's horse none, though. “My stars, Traveller!” he says to me when we was side by side. What the heck's gone wrong?” I told him I reckoned our attack must a failed. Oh, well,” he says, “then 1 guess we shan't have to be killed jest yet, shall we?”

There warn't very long to wait till the second time. Best as I can recall, it come ‘bout four days later, and it happened a good way to the west, outside the city. ‘Twas a real nasty morning, pouring with rain, and Marse Robert rode me out—I remember the mud over my fetlocks; jiminy, how I hate deep mud!—to meet General Ringlets. ‘Course, I couldn't understand all they said to each other, but ‘fore Marse Robert and me rode back to headquarters, I'd got it that General Ringlets had been ordered to attack those people. So this'll be it, I thought. Ringlets'll hammer them to bits, like he did with his charge that time in the big battle up north.

All the same, Marse Robert didn't seem in a very good humor. I couldn't tell why; but ‘course, he always knowed everything, and maybe he'd already figured it out that we might not be able to finish the Blue men off this time—'cause the way things turned out, we didn't.

Next morning it was still raining, and out we went, Marse Robert and me—I remember how hungry I was, and wondering whether Marse Robert felt the same; there was never more'n half of nothing to eat, you know, Tom—to see how Ringlets was getting on. There was a whole chance of fighting going on up ahead, but I couldn't make things out all that clearly. We didn't meet Ringlets, but Marse Robert told some of the other generals they was to go on and attack. He was jest finishing the talking when our fellas started in on their own account—that's how keen they was! This time we
did
go forward, Marse Robert and me, ‘cause we could see the Blue men dashing away like crazy acrost a little creek. We came up to the creek and I remember we come on a whole crowd of enemy prisoners there. Marse Robert walks me over to ‘em. There was one officer bleeding something terrible; he couldn't hardly stand. “Are you badly wounded, Major? “asks Marse Robert. “Yes, sir,” answers the major, “I figure I am.” “Oh, I'm sorry. I
am
sorry, Major,” says Marse Robert. Then he turns to the fellas in charge of the prisoners and says, “Be sure and take good care of him, gentlemen.” It reminded me of that time after the battle up north, when that other enemy fella had been shouting out, “Hurrah for the Union!”

‘Twarn't long after that when General Eppa came riding back to us out of the fighting. You remember, Tom, don't you, I told you ‘bout General Eppa, and how me and Marse Robert rode along with him and Ringlets one of the days when we was marching up north to the big river? I told you how his horse, Sovereign, said he'd got a notion we might get beat and I told him he was talking hogwash.

General Eppa was riding this same Sovereign now. They came up to us looking like they'd both been dragged through a hedge backwards. Sovereign was limping, and bleeding plenty from a great, ragged gash ‘long his flank. General Eppa's scabbard was bent almost double and he had three separate bullet holes through his jacket.

“Thunder and lightning, Traveller,” says Sovereign, “we've had a time, I'll tell you! There's ‘nuff Blue men out there to start a town, and you'd think the air was made of bullets. We're lucky to be alive. Our fellas are going to have to retreat—nothin' else for it.”

What with the way things was going, Marse Robert warn't in a very good temper, and he spoke sharp to General Eppa. “I wish you'd sew those places up,” he says, pointing to the bullet holes. “I don't like to see them.”

Well, natcherly, that annoyed General Eppa, after all he'd jest been through. ‘Course, he couldn't talk back to Marse Robert, but all the same he found something to say. “General Lee,” he answered, “allow me to go back home and see my wife and I will have them sewed up.”

Well, come down to it, Marse Robert had always liked Eppa, and this tickled him. “The idea,” he says, “the
idea
of talking about going to see wives! It's perfectly ridiculous, sir.”

I can't remember jest how we finished up, that day. But that was the second time, and it hadn't worked out any better'n the first.

But there was worse to come, if'n only I knowed. Let me see, it warn't that night—no, ‘twas the night after—when heavy enemy firing and shelling started up in the dark. Marse Robert was in bed at headquarters, and Old Pete and Red Shirt was there talking to him. All us horses was wide awake, of course—you couldn't be nothing else. All of a sudden Marse Robert and the others came hurrying out of the house and stood around trying to make out what was going on. ‘Twas still awful dark and no one could see much, but after a minute Red Shirt said something to Marse Robert and went dashing for his horse. I knowed his horse well, of course. He was the same one he'd had all along—old Champ. Champ was even more of a veteran ‘n what I was. He'd been with Red Shirt longer'n I'd been with Marse Robert, carried him through ‘nuff bangs and bullets for fifty horses and never seemed no different any time you met him, day or night—always very easy and friendly in his ways. I'd always cottoned to him and respected him. As Red Shirt mounted, I gave him a quick, friendly nicker, and jest at the same moment I heared Major Venable call out to Red Shirt to take care and not go risking hisself. Then they was gone. Red Shirt was off to jine his men.