s for
that."

The aide galloped forward, reported, turned, and galloped back. "General
Jackson says, sir, that if it takes every horse in your command, that
caisson is to be brought up before daylight."

The other swore. "All those miles--dark and raining!--Lieutenant
Parke!--Something told me I'd better do it in the first place!"

Brigade after brigade the Army of the Valley climbed the Blue Ridge. At
first the rain had been welcome, so weary and heated were the men. But
it never took long for the novelty of rain to wear off. Wet and silent
the troops climbed through the darkness. They had won a victory; they
were going to win others. Old Jack was as great a general as Napoleon,
and two or three hours ago it had seemed possible to his soldiers that
history might rank them with the Old Guard. But the rain was chill and
the night mournfully dark. When had they eaten? They hardly remembered,
and it was an effort to lift one leg after the other. Numbers of men
were dropping with sleep. All shivered; all felt the reaction. Back on
the plain by the river lay in trenches some hundreds of their comrades.
In the rear toiled upwards ambulances filled with wounded. There were
not ambulances enough; the wounded rode wherever there was room in any
wagon. The less badly hurt sat or lay, dully suffering, on caissons. All
as they toiled upward had visions of the field behind them. It had not
been a great battlefield, as to extent and numbers engaged, but a
horrible one. The height where the six guns had been, the gun which the
Louisianians took--the old charcoal kiln where the guns had been
planted, the ground around, the side of the ravine--these made an ugly
sight between eyelid and ball! So many dead horses!--eighty of them in
one place--one standing upright where he had reared and, dying, had been
caught and propped by a blasted pine. So many dead men, grey and blue,
lying as in pattern! And then the plain beneath, and the Stonewall's
desperate fight, and the battle in the wheat! The Federal cannon had
sheared the heads from the men. The soldiers, mounting through the
darkness in the whistling wind and rain, saw again these headless
bodies. One only, the body of a young soldier of the 2d Virginia, a
brother of the colonel of the 65th, the army was carrying with it. The
brother, wounded himself, had begged the body. At the first village
where the army halted, he would get a coffin and lay the boy in a grave
he could mark. His mo