Chapter XXIII: The Living Wall at Fair Oaks

“We’re off for Richmond, now!” cried Harry, enthusiastically, as they stood at parade rest, while waiting for their turn to fall in with the advancing column. “If everything goes right, I’ll wager we’ll be walking the streets of the town inside of another week.”

“I trust you speak the truth, Harry,” answered Louis. “The question is, will everything go right? The roads are still about as bad as ever and they say the Chickahominy River is terribly swollen and the bridges far from safe.”

“If we can’t use the old bridges the rebels built, we’ll build new ones,” went on Harry Bingham, in an off-handed way, as though bridge-building were of small importance. “The only trouble ahead that I can see is, that this confounded rain may increase and wash us all off the peninsula. Creation, but I never saw such a wet season in my life! Why, ever since we started it has rained two days out of three!”

Harry was right about the rain. Perhaps some of my young readers may grow tired of these oft-repeated statements concerning the weather, but they are necessary, in order to explain why it was the army moved so slowly and why battle after battle was delayed. Old soldiers upon both sides have declared over and over again that they never saw or heard of a campaign in which rain and mud played such a large and important part, and even many war reports, usually supposed to be the briefest of communications, speak of this. In many places corduroy roads had to be constructed or the cannon would have sunk out of sight and beyond rescue, and many a faithful horse went down so deeply that he was stepped upon by others and smothered in the mire. When a company of soldiers moved every man chose his own path, hopping from one safe place to the next. Thus it took more time and endurance to cover one mile here than it would otherwise have taken to cover twenty.

Before the troops had been out a day it was rumored that more bridges would have to be built across the Chickahominy, with long approaches of logs. The next morning the Goreville Volunteers were sent out to do a part of this work.

“I didn’t enlist for a wood-chopper!” grumbled Jerry Rowe, as he joined the crowd at the river. “I’m not going to do any more of this work than I have to.”

“Why not make the best of it, Jerry?” said Louis. “The quicker the work is done, the more rapid will be our advance, and I’m sure we all want to see the campaign come to a quick as well as a successful ending.”

But Jerry did not see it that way. He had to go out, but the amount of work he did was small and he was often reprimanded for his laziness.

The labor had been going on for several hours, and Louis was beginning to wonder if it was not about time for dinner, when a shriek from the river sounded out. At first it was thought somebody had been shot, but this was not so. Jerry Rowe had tumbled overboard, and the swollen and swiftly flowing current was carrying him rapidly out of sight and hearing of his companions.

“Help! help!” he shrieked. “I can’t swim! Help!”

“It’s Jerry!” burst from Harry Bingham’s lips. “What shall we do?”

“Isn’t there a rope handy?” asked Louis, and then, as he saw Jerry sink, he added, “Get one somewhere and follow me.”

With the agility of a cat he left the half-constructed bridge and darted along the overflowed bank of the river. Once he went down, but quickly picked himself up again and continued on his run, which was with the current. “Where are you going?” asked somebody, but he did not answer.

A hundred feet farther on a gnarled oak stood, its twisted branches spreading in every direction. One branch swept the river, its outer end at least twenty-five feet from shore. Up into this tree sprang Louis, to crawl along the branch mentioned until the middle of the Chickahominy was gained. Then he swung himself downward, under the leaves.

The soldiers standing near saw his plan and cheered him. But Louis still paid no attention to them. His face was scanning the swollen stream at a point where he had seen Jerry’s white face bobbing up and down. That face was coming nearer. It was yet twenty feet from the tree when it disappeared.

Splash! with the vanishing of the face Louis had let go his hold on the oak and now he was swimming lustily forward. “Keep up, Jerry, I’ll save you!” were his words, but if Jerry heard when he reappeared he was too scared to reply.

“Help! Save me!” Those were the only words the frightened boy uttered, until he was ready to sink again. Then Louis clutched him by the arm.

“Jerry!” Before he could say another word Jerry felt his grasp, and swinging around clutched him with the strength found only in those who are drowning. The clutch was around Louis’s neck, and instantly the young Union soldier was in danger of being choked.

“Don’t--hold--on--so--tight,” he managed to gasp, but Jerry would not listen and tried to wind his long, slim legs around Louis’s body in his endeavor to hold himself above the current.

At that dangerous moment Harry arrived with a long rope, picked up close to the spot where he had been standing when the alarm rang out. He knotted one end and threw it out to the struggling pair.

Louis made a clutch for it, but missed it through Jerry’s wild endeavors. The line was thrown a second time and the youth in midstream caught the knot just as it was floating out of his reach.

“Jerry--let--go, do!” he pleaded, but Jerry was deaf to all appeals. Seeing this, Louis held his breath as well as he was able, while Harry and a dozen others who had followed to the scene of the trouble pulled in with might and main.

Louis felt the bottom with a sigh of relief. “You can walk ashore now,” he cried, wrenching himself free at last.

“Is--is it safe?” spluttered Jerry.

“Yes; try it for yourself.”

With great caution Jerry did as told. Striking bottom in water which was hardly up to his waist, he made a dash for dry land. Having reached this, he did not even look back to see if Louis was safe, but struck out for camp, five hundred feet away.

“By gosh!” muttered Harry, as Louis gave him a certain glance. “If there is a meaner fellow in our camp than Jerry Rowe I have still to find him.”

“He didn’t waste breath in thanking you, did he?” put in Hornsby, who was in the crowd.

“The chances are that Jerry won’t believe I did anything for him,” answered Louis, when he had recovered his breath. “He may even say that he could have saved himself if he had been left alone.” And this is what Jerry actually did, much to his discredit and to the disgust of all who heard him. But the others did not forget Louis, and he was spoken of as a brave boy in blue for a long while to come.

The building of the bridge occupied two days more, and then the Goreville Volunteers struck camp again and moved forward another mile nearer the Confederate capital. Serious fighting was now “in the air” and the men were kept under strict discipline. The rival armies, each over a hundred thousand strong, were about to engage in the first of the great battles of the campaign, a battle called by the Unionists Fair Oaks, and by the Confederates Seven Pines, both names belonging to certain territories of the battlefield, which was many miles in extent.

To go into the details of this battle, great and important as it was, would be beyond the scope of this tale, so we will only take a brief review ere we return, to follow the fortunes of Louis on one side and Andy upon the other.

The battle was fought mostly upon very low and level ground, abounding in swamps and small streams, and covered nearly everywhere with heavy woods. The railroad to Richmond ran nearly east and west, and parallel to it, half a mile southward, ran the Williamsburg road. There was also a cross road called the Nine Mile Road. The woods were thickest near to Richmond and here many trees had been laid low, to serve as a shelter to the Confederate troops and to obstruct the advance of the Union army.

After hard work upon bridges and roads the leading troops under General McClellan had advanced to a position which was within five miles of Richmond. The body of men in advance were well supported by others and there were strong divisions also scattered to the north and south.

In the meantime General Johnston had become afraid that another part of the Union army, under General McDowell, a part that had been watching Washington, would join General McClellan in the attack upon Richmond. He had called upon General Jackson, who had been confronting McDowell in the Shenandoah Valley, and was assured that Jackson would keep McDowell “very much interested” where he was--and he did. General McDowell’s command had been promised to General McClellan and to have it held back was a great blow to the Union commander-in-chief. Had McDowell’s troops been sent down to the peninsula it is certain that Richmond would have been in far more danger of being taken than it was.

So, assured that McDowell would be held in check, and receiving reinforcements of his own, the Confederate commander-in-chief resolved to force the fighting instead of holding back as before. He knew that the right and left wings of the Union forces were divided by the Chickahominy River, and he chose for the conflict a time when the elements might help him. The battle started upon Saturday, the 31st of May. On Friday, the day before, one of the heaviest thunder storms yet experienced upon the peninsula broke forth, and the Chickahominy, already much swollen, became a raging torrent, which swept away some of the bridges and put swimming or further bridge-building just then out of the question. In this fearful storm the Confederate troops were brought forward, some from Richmond on the railroad cars, to confront the enemy at daybreak, General Johnston feeling assured that he could defeat one wing of the Union troops before the other could come to the relief.

The attack was not wholly expected, yet something was “in the air,” and the troops were held in readiness for action. Louis spent six hours in a rifle-pit, with Harry next to him. The rain beat upon them pitilessly and soon they were in water up to their knees.

“By ginger, but this is worse than fighting,” grumbled Harry, when crash! bang! came a thunder clap and a stroke of lightning, and a giant oak not a hundred feet away was split in twain and toppled over. The oak was over in the direction of the Confederate picket line, and a scrambling in the bushes followed, showing that some of the boys in gray were hustling to get out of further danger of that sort. Half an hour later the water rushed into the rifle pits in such a stream that the defenses had to be abandoned.

At eight o’clock the Goreville Volunteers were ready for the march. Dirty and wet, they yet presented a determined appearance as they drew up in two lines, each man in light marching order, with a day’s rations in his haversack and forty rounds of ammunition in his cartridge box. Each gun had been cleaned and oiled, and every bayonet was as bright as when it left the arsenal--for the terror of a bayonet lies in its brightness as well as its pointedness.

“Forward, march!” the word of command did not come until nearly eleven o’clock, and even then the volunteers moved only a few hundred feet.

“It’s going to be another fizzle,” growled Jerry Rowe, under his breath, when a sharp rattle of musketry ahead caused him to jump and turn pale. The savage battle of Fair Oaks, Jerry never forgot and he never said “fizzle” again.

The attack proved to be nothing but a skirmish, but not long after noon the battle began in earnest and was kept up until sundown, when both sides lay down almost exhausted, but knowing that the fray must be continued at dawn, despite the fact that it was God’s day of rest.

The real battle had been in progress in front about an hour when there came a sudden panic, brought on by the retreat of a portion of a division which had been almost cut in two by the mad attack of a great body of Confederates. “They are coming upon us a hundred thousand strong! We’ll have to fall back!” was the cry, which made Louis’s heart leap into his throat. Was the scene at Bull Run to be repeated?

“Halt, men! About face!” came the command. “Don’t be cowards! We can whip them yet!” And a fresh division was advanced, and those who were retreating took heart. Now the Goreville Volunteers were going to the front, the second company in the regiment. Along the muddy road they went, leaping over fallen trees and over the dirt embankments which had been thrown up.

Bang! crack! bang! The enemy was in sight and the front line of the Confederates had opened fire upon them. Down the Union boys dropped to their knees, and a part of the deadly fire spent itself over their heads. Then a Confederate battery, situated in a woods to the right, opened its thunder, with grape and canister.

“Forward!” came down the line again, and on the boys in blue went for twenty yards more. “Fire!” was the next cry, and from the long line came a spurt of pure white smoke, and scores of Confederates were seen to throw up their hands and fall. But their forces did not waver. Constantly reinforced, they came on, blazing away as rapidly as the men could load, while their battery spoke out more spitefully than ever. Slowly the Union troops were forced back, foot by foot over the torn up and swampy ground. There was a mist in the air, and now this and the thick smoke for a time hid all from view.

“If only we could capture that battery!” This was the thought in the mind of many a Union commander and private. A desperate attempt was made, a whole regiment advancing upon it in one solid mass. Twice the battery belched forth, tearing great holes in the Union ranks, but these were closed up and soon the boys in blue stood at the very muzzles of the cannons.

But now came a ringing shout from the Confederate rear. A troop of cavalry was coming up, and in the fore were the gallant Montgomery Grays, with Andy in the saddle, looking as brave and wildly daring as any of them. Ever since the defeat at Williamsburg they had been spoiling for a fight, and now they rode in and surrounded the battery.

“Charge!” came the cry from Captain Montgomery, and the Grays charged as never before, riding fairly on top of the bayonets of the gallant Union men. Down went many a poor foot-soldier on his back, while half a dozen saddles were emptied of owners who would never ride again. The shock was fearful, and it was instantly followed by a hand-to-hand conflict upon every side. For ten minutes this continued, and during that time Captain Montgomery received a severe bayonet thrust through his left arm. He might have been killed had not one of his men seen the act and shot dead the Union soldier who did the deed. Then an additional force of Confederate cavalry dashed up, and the Union regiment was compelled to retreat, leaving two hundred dead and wounded upon the field.

“Arlington!”

It was a call from Captain Montgomery, who still sat upon his horse, although pale and weak from loss of blood.

“Yes, captain,” and Andy touched his plumed hat.

“Ride down into yonder woods and ask General Parkhurst, if you can find him, if we can cross the new road at that point. I imagine the enemy is trying to plant a battery up there somewhere.”

“I will, sir. But, captain, hadn’t you better go to the rear and have your wound dressed?”

“I’ll go later on. Hurry now, for every moment is precious.”

Saluting, Andy dashed away upon his mission. The woods mentioned were low and thick, and the Confederates had cut two roads through them to transport supplies from one part of the vast battlefield to another. Never dreaming of danger in that territory, Andy dashed along among the trees until a turn in the path was gained.

Suddenly a shout went up. “A Johnny Reb, boys, and on horseback! Capture him!” Instantly Andy halted. But it was too late. From the woods upon either side of the path appeared at least a dozen Union skirmishers, and the young Confederate was instantly surrounded, while several rifle barrels were pointed directly at his head.