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Date Posted: 23:37:57 11/16/02 Sat
Author: cont'd
Subject: cont'd
In reply to: cont'd 's message, "cont'd" on 23:36:56 11/16/02 Sat

“The Cajuns,” said one of the staff, a captain named Morton. Harry did not know what “Cajuns” meant, but he was soon to learn. Meanwhile the sound of the music was pleasant in his ear, and he saw that the camp, despite the lateness of the hour, was vivid with life.

General Ewell gave Harry into Captain Morton's care, and walked away to a small tent, where he was joined by several of his senior officers for a conference. But after they had tethered their horses for the night, Captain Morton took Harry through the camp.

Harry was full of eagerness and curiosity and he asked to see first the strange “Cajuns,” those who made the music.

“They are Louisiana French,” said Morton, “not the descendants or the original French settlers in that state, but the descendants of the French by the way of Nova Scotia.”

“Oh, I see, the Acadians, the exiles.”

“Yes, that's it. The name has been corrupted into Cajuns in Louisiana. They are not like the French of New Orleans and Baton Rouge and the other towns. They are rural and primitive. You'll like them. Few of them were ever more than a dozen miles from home before. They love music, and they've got a full regimental band with them. You ought to hear it play. Why, they'd play the heart right out of you.”

“I like well enough the guitars and banjos that they're playing now. Seems to me that kind of music is always best at night.”

They had now come within the rim of light thrown out by the fires of the Acadians, and Harry stood there looking for the first time at these dark, short people, brought a thousand miles from their homes.

They were wholly unlike Virginians and Kentuckians. They had black eyes and hair, and their naturally dark faces were burned yet darker by the sun of the Gulf. Yet the dark eyes were bright and gay, sparkling with kindliness and the love of pleasure. The guitars and banjos were playing some wailing tune, with a note of sadness in the core of it so keen and penetrating that it made the water come to Harry's eyes. But it changed suddenly to something that had all the sway and lilt of the rosy South. Men sprang to their feet and clasping arms about one another began to sway back and forth in the waltz and the polka.

Harry watched with mingled amazement and pleasure. Most of the South was religious and devout. The Virginians of the valley were nearly all staunch Presbyterians, and Stonewall Jackson, staunchest of them all, never wanted to fight on Sunday. The boy himself had been reared in a stern Methodist faith, and the lightness in this French blood of the South was new to him. But it pleased him to see them sing and dance, and he found no wrong in it, although he could not have done it himself.

Captain Morton noticed Harry's close attention and he read his mind.

“They surprised me, too, at first,” he said, “but they're fine soldiers, and they've put cheer into this army many a time when it needed it most. Taylor, their commander, is a West Pointer and he's got them into wonderful trim. They're well clothed and well shod. They never straggle and they're just about the best marchers we have. They'll soon be rated high among Jackson's foot cavalry.”

Harry left the Acadians with reluctance, and when he made the round of the camp General Ewell, who had finished the conference, told him that he would have no message to send that night to Jackson. He might go to sleep, but the whole division would march early in the morning. Harry wrapped himself again in his cloak, found a place soft with moss under a tree, and slept with the soft May wind playing over his face and lulling him to deeper slumber.

He rode the next morning with General Ewell and the whole division to join Jackson's army. It was a trim body of men, well clad, fresh and strong, and they marched swiftly along the turnpike, on both sides of which Jackson was encamped further on.

Harry felt a personal pride in being with Ewell when the junction was to be made. He felt that, in a sense, he was leading in this great reinforcement himself, and he looked back with intense satisfaction at the powerful column marching so swiftly along the turnpike.

They came late in the day to Jackson's pickets, and then they saw his army, scattered through the fields on either side of the road.

Harry rejoiced once more in the grand appearance of the new division. Every coat or tunic sat straight. Every shoe-lace was tied, and they marched with the beautiful, even step of soldiers on parade. They were to encamp beyond Jackson's old army, and as they passed along the turnpike it was lined on either side by Jackson's own men, cheering with vigor.

The colonel who was in immediate charge of the encampment, a man who had never seen General Jackson, asked Harry where he might find him. Harry pointed to a man sitting on the top rail of a fence beside the road.

“But I asked for General Jackson,” said the colonel.

“That's General Jackson.”

The colonel approached and saluted. General Jackson's clothes were soiled and dusty. His feet, encased in cavalry boots that reached beyond the knees, rested upon a lower rail of the fence. A worn cap with a dented visor almost covered his eyes. The rest of his face was concealed by a heavy, dark beard.

“General Jackson, I believe,” said the officer, saluting.

“Yes. How far have those men marched?” The voice was kindly and approving.

“We've come twenty-six miles, sir.”

“Good. And I see no stragglers.”

“We allow no stragglers.”

“Better still. I haven't been able to keep my own men from straggling, and you'll have to teach them.”

At that moment the Acadian band began to play, and it played the merriest waltz it knew. Jackson gazed at it, took a lemon from his pocket and began to suck the juice from it meditatively. The officer stood before him in some embarrassment.

“Aren't they rather thoughtless for such serious work as war?” asked the Presbyterian general.

“I am confident, sir, that their natural gayety will not impair their value as soldiers.”

Jackson put the end of the lemon back in his mouth and drew some juice from it. The colonel bowed and retired. Then Jackson beckoned to Harry, who stood by.

“Follow him and tell him,” he said, “that the band can play as much as it likes. I noticed, too, that it plays well.”

Jackson smiled and Harry hurried after the officer, who flushed with gratification, when the message was delivered to him.

“I'll tell it to the men,” he said, “and they'll fight all the better for it.”

That night it was a formidable army that slept in the fields on either side of the turnpike, and in the silence and the dark, Stonewall Jackson was preparing to launch the thunderbolt.



CHAPTER IX. TURNING ON THE FOE
Harry was awakened at the first shoot of dawn by the sound of trumpets. It was now approaching the last of May and the cold nights had long since passed. A warm sun was fast showing its edge in the east, and, bathing his face at a brook and snatching a little breakfast, he was ready. Stonewall Jackson was already up, and his colored servant was holding Little Sorrel for him.

The army was fast forming into line, the new men of Ewell resolved to become as famous foot cavalry as those who had been with Jackson all along. Ewell himself, full of enthusiasm and already devoted to his chief, was riding among them, and whenever he spoke to one of them he cocked his head on one side in the peculiar manner that was habitual with him. Now and then, as the sun grew warmer, he took off his hat and his bald head gleamed under the yellow rays.

“Which way do you think we're going?” said the young staff officer, George Dalton, to Harry—Dalton was a quiet youth with a good deal of the Puritan about him and Harry liked him.

“I'm not thinking about it at all,” replied Harry with a laugh. “I've quit trying to guess what our general is going to do, but I fancy that he means to lead us against the enemy. He has the numbers now.”

“I suppose you're right,” said Dalton. “I've been trying to guess all along, but I think I'll give it up now and merely follow where the general leads.”

The bugles blew, the troops rapidly fell into line and marched northward along the turnpike, the Creole band began to play again one of those lilting waltz tunes, and the speed of the men increased, their feet rising and falling swiftly to the rhythm of the galloping air. Jackson, who was near the head of the column, looked back and Harry saw a faint smile pass over his grim face. He saw the value of the music.

“I never heard such airs in our Presbyterian church,” said Dalton to Harry.

“But this isn't a church.”

“No, it isn't, but those Creole tunes suit here. They put fresh life into me.”

“Same here. And they help the men, too. Look how gay they are.”

Up went the shining sun. The brilliant blue light, shot with gold, spread from horizon to horizon, little white clouds of vapor, tinted at the edges with gold from the sun, floated here and there. It was beautiful May over all the valley. White dust flew from the turnpike under the feet of so many marching men and horses, and the wheels of cannon. Suddenly the Georgia troops that had suffered so severely at McDowell began to sing a verse from the Stars and Bars, and gradually the whole column joined in:


“Now Georgia marches to the front
And close beside her come
Her sisters by the Mexique sea
With pealing trump and drum,
Till answering back from hill and glen
The rallying cry afar,
A nation hoists the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star.”

It was impossible not to feel emotion. The face of the most solemn Presbyterian of them all flushed and his eyes glowed. Now the band, that wonderful band of the Acadians, was playing the tune, and the mighty chorus rolled and swelled across the fields. Harry's heart throbbed hard. He was with the South, his own South, and he was swayed wholly by feeling.

The Acadians were leading the army. Harry saw Jackson whispering something to a staff officer. The officer galloped forward and spoke to Taylor, the commander of the Louisiana troops. Instantly the Acadians turned sharply from the turnpike and walked in a diagonal line through the fields. The whole army followed and they marched steadily northward and eastward.

Harry had another good and close view of the Massanuttons, now one vast mass of dark green foliage, and it caused his thoughts to turn to Shepard. He had no doubt that the wary and astute Northern scout was somewhere near watching the march of Stonewall. He had secured a pair of glasses of his own and he scanned the fields and forests now for a sight of him and his bold horsemen. But he saw no blue uniforms, merely farmers and their wives and children, shouting with joy at the sight of Jackson, eager to give him information, and eager to hide it from Banks.

But Harry was destined to have more than another view of the Massanuttons. Jackson marched steadily for four days, crossing the Massanuttons at the defile, and coming down into the eastern valley. The troops were joyous throughout the journey, although they had not the least idea for what they were destined, and Ewell's men made good their claim to a place of equal honor in the foot cavalry.

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