of the musketry. There were battle flags, squares of
crimson with a starry Andrew's cross. They went forward, they shrank
back. Standard-bearers were killed. Gaunt, powder-grimed hands caught at
the staves, lifted them; the battle-flags went forward again.
Doubleday struck and Ricketts. They charged against Stonewall Jackson
and the narrow grey sea. All the ground was broken; alignment was lost;
blue waves and grey went this way and that in a broken, tumultuous fray.
But the blue waves were the heavier; in mass alone they outdid the grey.
They pushed the grey sea back, back, back toward the dark wood about the
Dunkard church! Then Stonewall Jackson came along the front, riding in a
pelting, leaden rain. "Steady, men. Steady! God is over us!" His men
received him with a cry of greeting and enthusiasm that was like a
shriek, it was so wild and high. His power upon them had grown and
grown. He was Stonewall Jackson! He was Stonewall Jackson! First, they
would die for those battle-flags and the cause they represented; second,
they would die for one another, comrades, brethren! third, they would
die for Stonewall Jackson! They lifted their voices for him now, gaunt
and ragged troops with burning eyes. _Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall
Jackson! Virginia! Virginia! Virginia! the South! the South!_ He turned
his horse, standing in the whistling, leaden rain. "Forward, and drive
them!"
Lawton and D. H. Hill leaped against Meade. He was a staunch fighter,
but he gave back. The wood about the Dunkard church appeared to writhe
like Dante's wood, it was so full of groaning, of maimed men beside the
tree trunks. The dead lay where they fell, and the living stepped upon
them. Meade gave back, back--and then Mansfield came in thunder to
reinforce the blue.
The grey fought as even in this war they had hardly fought before. They
were so gaunt, they were so ragged, they were so tired! But something
ethnic was coming more and more rapidly to the front. They were near
again to savage nature. The Maryland woods might have been thicker,
darker, the small church might have been some boulder altar beside some
early Old World river. They were a tribe again, and they were fighting
another and much larger tribe whom they had reason, reason, reason to
hate! Their existence was at stake and the existence of all that their
hearts held dear. They fought with fury. About each were his
tribesmen--all were brothers! Brother fought for brother, brother
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