Burial of the Guns — The Burial of the Guns, Pt 2

The morning passed and no one came; the day wore on and still no advance was made by the force below.

It was suggested that the enemy had left;

he had, at least, gotten enough of that battery.

A reconnoissance, however, showed that he was still encamped at the foot of the mountain.

It was conjectured that he was trying to find a way around to take them in the rear, or to cross the ridge by the footpath.

Preparation was made to guard more closely the mountain-path across the spur, and a detachment was sent up to strengthen the picket there.

The waiting told on the men and they grew bored and restless.

They gathered about the guns in groups and talked; talked of each piece some, but not with the old spirit and vim; the loneliness of the mountain seemed to oppress them; the mountains stretching up so brown and gray on one side of them, and so brown and gray on the other, with their bare, dark forests soughing from time to time as the wind swept up the pass.

The minds of the men seemed to go back to the time when they were not so alone, but were part of a great and busy army, and some of them fell to talking of the past, and the battles they had figured in, and of the comrades they had lost.

They told them off in a slow and colorless way, as if it were all part of the past as much as the dead they named.

One hundred and nineteen times they had been in action.

Only seventeen men were left of the eighty odd who had first enlisted in the battery, and of these four were at home crippled for life.

Two of the oldest men had been among the half-dozen who had fallen in the skirmish just the day before.

It looked tolerably hard to be killed that way after passing for four years through such battles as they had been in; and both had wives and children at home, too, and not a cent to leave them to their names.

They agreed calmly that they’d have to “sort of look after them a little” if they ever got home.

These were some of the things they talked about as they pulled their old worn coats about them, stuffed their thin, weather-stained hands in their ragged pockets to warm them, and squatted down under the breastwork to keep a little out of the wind.

One thing they talked about a good deal was something to eat.

They described meals they had had at one time or another as personal adventures, and discussed the chances of securing others in the future as if they were prizes of fortune.

One listening and seeing their thin, worn faces and their wasted frames might have supposed they were starving, and they were, but they did not say so.

Towards the middle of the afternoon there was a sudden excitement in the camp.

A dozen men saw them at the same time: a squad of three men down the road at the farthest turn, past their picket; but an advancing column could not have created as much excitement, for the middle man carried a white flag.

In a minute every man in the battery was on the breastwork.

What could it mean!

It was a long way off, nearly half a mile, and the flag was small: possibly only a pocket-handkerchief or a napkin; but it was held aloft as a flag unmistakably.

A hundred conjectures were indulged in.

Was it a summons to surrender?

A request for an armistice for some purpose?

Or was it a trick to ascertain their number and position?

Some held one view, some another.

Some extreme ones thought a shot ought to be fired over them to warn them not to come on;

no flags of truce were wanted.

The old Colonel, who had walked to the edge of the plateau outside the redoubt and taken his position where he could study the advancing figures with his field-glass, had not spoken.

The lieutenant who was next in command to him had walked out after him, and stood near him, from time to time dropping a word or two of conjecture in a half-audible tone; but the Colonel had not answered a word; perhaps none was expected.

Suddenly he took his glass down, and gave an order to the lieutenant: “Take two men and meet them at the turn yonder; learn their business; and act as your best judgment advises.

If necessary to bring the messenger farther, bring only the officer who has the flag, and halt him at that rock yonder, where I will join him.

” The tone was as placid as if such an occurrence came every day.

Two minutes later the lieutenant was on his way down the mountain and the Colonel had the men in ranks.

His face was as grave and his manner as quiet as usual, neither more nor less so.

The men were in a state of suppressed excitement.

Having put them in charge of the second sergeant the Colonel returned to the breastwork.

The two officers were slowly ascending the hill, side by side, the bearer of the flag, now easily distinguishable in his jaunty uniform as a captain of cavalry, talking, and the lieutenant in faded gray, faced with yet more faded red, walking beside him with a face white even at that distance, and lips shut as though they would never open again.

They halted at the big bowlder which the Colonel had indicated, and the lieutenant, having saluted ceremoniously, turned to come up to the camp; the Colonel, however, went down to meet him.

The two men met, but there was no spoken question; if the Colonel inquired it was only with the eyes.

The lieutenant spoke, however.

“He says,” he began and stopped, then began again--“he says, General Lee--” again he choked, then blurted out, “I believe it is all a lie--a damned lie.

” “Not dead?

Not killed?

” said the Colonel, quickly.

“No, not so bad as that; surrendered: surrendered his entire army at Appomattox day before yesterday.

I believe it is all a damned lie,” he broke out again, as if the hot denial relieved him.

The Colonel simply turned away his face and stepped a pace or two off, and the two men stood motionless back to back for more than a minute.

Then the Colonel stirred.

“Shall I go back with you?

” the lieutenant asked, huskily.

The Colonel did not answer immediately.

Then he said: “No, go back to camp and await my return.

” He said nothing about not speaking of the report.

He knew it was not needed.

Then he went down the hill slowly alone, while the lieutenant went up to the camp.

The interview between the two officers beside the bowlder was not a long one.

It consisted of a brief statement by the Federal envoy of the fact of Lee’s surrender two days before near Appomattox Court-House, with the sources of his information, coupled with a formal demand on the Colonel for his surrender.

To this the Colonel replied that he had been detached and put under command of another officer for a specific purpose, and that his orders were to hold that pass, which he should do until he was instructed otherwise by his superior in command.

With that they parted, ceremoniously, the Federal captain returning to where he had left his horse in charge of his companions a little below, and the old Colonel coming slowly up the hill to camp.

The men were at once set to work to meet any attack which might be made.

They knew that the message was of grave import, but not of how grave.

They thought it meant that another attack would be made immediately, and they sprang to their work with renewed vigor, and a zeal as fresh as if it were but the beginning and not the end.

The time wore on, however, and there was no demonstration below, though hour after hour it was expected and even hoped for.

Just as the sun sank into a bed of blue cloud a horseman was seen coming up the darkened mountain from the eastward side, and in a little while practised eyes reported him one of their own men--the sergeant who had been sent back the day before for ammunition.

He was alone, and had something white before him on his horse--it could not be the ammunition; but perhaps that might be coming on behind.

Every step of his jaded horse was anxiously watched.

As he drew near, the lieutenant, after a word with the Colonel, walked down to meet him, and there was a short colloquy in the muddy road; then they came back together and slowly entered the camp, the sergeant handing down a bag of corn which he had got somewhere below, with the grim remark to his comrades, “There’s your rations,” and going at once to the Colonel’s camp-fire, a little to one side among the trees, where the Colonel awaited him.

A long conference was held, and then the sergeant left to take his luck with his mess, who were already parching the corn he had brought for their supper, while the lieutenant made the round of the camp; leaving the Colonel seated alone on a log by his camp-fire.

He sat without moving, hardly stirring until the lieutenant returned from his round.

A minute later the men were called from the guns and made to fall into line.

They were silent, tremulous with suppressed excitement; the most sun-burned and weather-stained of them a little pale; the meanest, raggedest, and most insignificant not unimpressive in the deep and solemn silence with which they stood, their eyes fastened on the Colonel, waiting for him to speak.

He stepped out in front of them, slowly ran his eye along the irregular line, up and down, taking in every man in his glance, resting on some longer than on others, the older men, then dropped them to the ground, and then suddenly, as if with an effort, began to speak.

His voice had a somewhat metallic sound, as if it were restrained; but it was otherwise the ordinary tone of command.

It was not much that he said: simply that it had become his duty to acquaint them with the information which he had received: that General Lee had surrendered two days before at Appomattox Court-House, yielding to overwhelming numbers; that this afternoon when he had first heard the report he had questioned its truth, but that it had been confirmed by one of their own men, and no longer admitted of doubt; that the rest of their own force, it was learned, had been captured, or had disbanded, and the enemy was now on both sides of the mountain; that a demand had been made on him that morning to surrender too; but that he had orders which he felt held good until they were countermanded, and he had declined.

Later intelligence satisfied him that to attempt to hold out further would be useless, and would involve needless waste of life; he had determined, therefore, not to attempt to hold their position longer; but to lead them out, if possible, so as to avoid being made prisoners and enable them to reach home sooner and aid their families.

His orders were not to let his guns fall into the enemy’s hands, and he should take the only step possible to prevent it.

In fifty minutes he should call the battery into line once more, and roll the guns over the cliff into the river, and immediately afterwards, leaving the wagons there, he would try to lead them across the mountain, and as far as they could go in a body without being liable to capture, and then he should disband them, and his responsibility for them would end.

As it was necessary to make some preparations he would now dismiss them to prepare any rations they might have and get ready to march.

All this was in the formal manner of a common order of the day; and the old Colonel had spoken in measured sentences, with little feeling in his voice.

Not a man in the line had uttered a word after the first sound, half exclamation, half groan, which had burst from them at the announcement of Lee’s surrender.

After that they had stood in their tracks like rooted trees, as motionless as those on the mountain behind them, their eyes fixed on their commander, and only the quick heaving up and down the dark line, as of horses over-laboring, told of the emotion which was shaking them.

The Colonel, as he ended, half-turned to his subordinate officer at the end of the dim line, as though he were about to turn the company over to him to be dismissed; then faced the line again, and taking a step nearer, with a sudden movement of his hands towards the men as though he would have stretched them out to them, began again: “Men,” he said, and his voice changed at the word, and sounded like a father’s or a brother’s, “My men, I cannot let you go so.

We were neighbors when the war began--many of us, and some not here to-night; we have been more since then--comrades, brothers in arms; we have all stood for one thing--for Virginia and the South; we have all done our duty--tried to do our duty; we have fought a good fight, and now it seems to be over, and we have been overwhelmed by numbers, not whipped--and we are going home.

We have the future before us--we don’t know just what it will bring, but we can stand a good deal.

We have proved it.

Upon us depends the South in the future as in the past.

You have done your duty in the past, you will not fail in the future.

Go home and be honest, brave, self-sacrificing, God-fearing citizens, as you have been soldiers, and you need not fear for Virginia and the South.

The war may be over; but you will ever be ready to serve your country.

The end may not be as we wanted it, prayed for it, fought for it; but we can trust God; the end in the end will be the best that could be; even if the South is not free she will be better and stronger that she fought as she did.

Go home and bring up your children to love her, and though you may have nothing else to leave them, you can leave them the heritage that they are sons of men who were in Lee’s army.

” He stopped, looked up and down the ranks again, which had instinctively crowded together and drawn around him in a half-circle; made a sign to the lieutenant to take charge, and turned abruptly on his heel to walk away.

But as he did so, the long pent-up emotion burst forth.

With a wild cheer the men seized him, crowding around and hugging him, as with protestations, prayers, sobs, oaths--broken, incoherent, inarticulate--they swore to be faithful, to live loyal forever to the South, to him, to Lee.

Many of them cried like children; others offered to go down and have one more battle on the plain.

The old Colonel soothed them, and quieted their excitement, and then gave a command about the preparations to be made.

This called them to order at once;

and in a few minutes the camp was as orderly and quiet as usual: the fires were replenished; the scanty stores were being overhauled; the place was selected, and being got ready to roll the guns over the cliff;

the camp was being ransacked for such articles as could be carried, and all preparations were being hastily made for their march.

The old Colonel having completed his arrangements sat down by his camp-fire with paper and pencil, and began to write; and as the men finished their work they gathered about in groups, at first around their camp-fires, but shortly strolled over to where the guns still stood at the breastwork, black and vague in the darkness.

Soon they were all assembled about the guns.

One after another they visited, closing around it and handling it from muzzle to trail as a man might a horse to try its sinew and bone, or a child to feel its fineness and warmth.

They were for the most part silent, and when any sound came through the dusk from them to the officers at their fire, it was murmurous and fitful as of men speaking low and brokenly.

There was no sound of the noisy controversy which was generally heard, the give-and-take of the camp-fire, the firing backwards and forwards that went on on the march;

if a compliment was paid a gun by one of its special detachment, it was accepted by the others; in fact, those who had generally run it down now seemed most anxious to accord the piece praise.

Presently a small number of the men returned to a camp-fire, and, building it up, seated themselves about it, gathering closer and closer together until they were in a little knot.

One of them appeared to be writing, while two or three took up flaming chunks from the fire and held them as torches for him to see by.

In time the entire company assembled about them, standing in respectful silence, broken only occasionally by a reply from one or another to some question from the scribe.

After a little there was a sound of a roll-call, and reading and a short colloquy followed, and then two men, one with a paper in his hand, approached the fire beside which the officers sat still engaged.

“What is it, Harris?

” said the Colonel to the man with the paper, who bore remnants of the chevrons of a sergeant on his stained and faded jacket.

“If you please, sir,” he said, with a salute, “we have been talking it over, and we’d like this paper to go in along with that you’re writing.

” He held it out to the lieutenant, who was the nearer and had reached forward to take it.

“We s’pose you’re agoin’ to bury it with the guns,” he said, hesitatingly, as he handed it over.

“What is it?

” asked the Colonel, shading his eyes with his hands.

“It’s just a little list we made out in and among us,” he said, “with a few things we’d like to put in, so’s if anyone ever hauls ‘em out they’ll find it there to tell what the old battery was, and if they don’t, it’ll be in one of ‘em down thar ‘til judgment, an’ it’ll sort of ease our minds a bit.

” He stopped and waited as a man who had delivered his message.

The old Colonel had risen and taken the paper, and now held it with a firm grasp, as if it might blow away with the rising wind.

He did not say a word, but his hand shook a little as he proceeded to fold it carefully, and there was a burning gleam in his deep-set eyes, back under his bushy, gray brows.

“Will you sort of look over it, sir, if you think it’s worth while?

We was in a sort of hurry and we had to put it down just as we come to it;

we didn’t have time to pick our ammunition; and it ain’t written the best in the world, nohow.

” He waited again, and the Colonel opened the paper and glanced down at it mechanically.

It contained first a roster, headed by the list of six guns, named by name: “Matthew”, “Mark”, “Luke”, and “John”, “The Eagle”, and “The Cat”; then of the men, beginning with the heading: “Those killed”.

Then had followed “Those wounded”, but this was marked out.

Then came a roster of the company when it first entered service; then of those who had joined afterward; then of those who were present now.

At the end of all there was this statement, not very well written, nor wholly accurately spelt: “To Whom it may Concern: We, the above members of the old battery known, etc. , of six guns, named, etc. , commanded by the said Col. etc. , left on the 11th day of April, 1865, have made out this roll of the battery, them as is gone and them as is left, to bury with the guns which the same we bury this night.

We’re all volunteers, every man; we joined the army at the beginning of the war, and we’ve stuck through to the end;

sometimes we aint had much to eat, and sometimes we aint had nothin’, but we’ve fought the best we could 119 battles and skirmishes as near as we can make out in four years, and never lost a gun.

Now we’re agoin’ home.

We aint surrendered; just disbanded, and we pledges ourselves to teach our children to love the South and General Lee; and to come when we’re called anywheres an’ anytime, so help us God.

” There was a dead silence whilst the Colonel read.

“‘Taint entirely accurite, sir, in one particular,” said the sergeant, apologetically; “but we thought it would be playin’ it sort o’ low down on the Cat if we was to say we lost her unless we could tell about gittin’ of her back, and the way she done since, and we didn’t have time to do all that.

” He looked around as if to receive the corroboration of the other men, which they signified by nods and shuffling.

The Colonel said it was all right, and the paper should go into the guns.

“If you please, sir, the guns are all loaded,” said the sergeant; “in and about our last charge, too; and we’d like to fire ‘em off once more, jist for old times’ sake to remember ‘em by, if you don’t think no harm could come of it?

” The Colonel reflected a moment and said it might be done; they might fire each gun separately as they rolled it over, or might get all ready and fire together, and then roll them over, whichever they wished.

This was satisfactory.

The men were then ordered to prepare to march immediately, and withdrew for the purpose.

The pickets were called in.

In a short time they were ready, horses and all, just as they would have been to march ordinarily, except that the wagons and caissons were packed over in one corner by the camp with the harness hung on poles beside them, and the guns stood in their old places at the breastwork ready to defend the pass.

The embers of the sinking camp-fires threw a faint light on them standing so still and silent.

The old Colonel took his place, and at a command from him in a somewhat low voice, the men, except a detail left to hold the horses, moved into company-front facing the guns.

Not a word was spoken, except the words of command.

At the order each detachment went to its gun; the guns were run back and the men with their own hands ran them up on the edge of the perpendicular bluff above the river, where, sheer below, its waters washed its base, as if to face an enemy on the black mountain the other side.

The pieces stood ranged in the order in which they had so often stood in battle, and the gray, thin fog rising slowly and silently from the river deep down between the cliffs, and wreathing the mountain-side above, might have been the smoke from some unearthly battle fought in the dim pass by ghostly guns, yet posted there in the darkness, manned by phantom gunners, while phantom horses stood behind, lit vaguely up by phantom camp-fires.

At the given word the laniards were pulled together, and together as one the six black guns, belching flame and lead, roared their last challenge on the misty night, sending a deadly hail of shot and shell, tearing the trees and splintering the rocks of the farther side, and sending the thunder reverberating through the pass and down the mountain, startling from its slumber the sleeping camp on the hills below, and driving the browsing deer and the prowling mountain-fox in terror up the mountain.

There was silence among the men about the guns for one brief instant and then such a cheer burst forth as had never broken from them even in battle: cheer on cheer, the long, wild, old familiar rebel yell for the guns they had fought with and loved.

The noise had not died away and the men behind were still trying to quiet the frightened horses when the sergeant, the same who had written, received from the hand of the Colonel a long package or roll which contained the records of the battery furnished by the men and by the Colonel himself, securely wrapped to make them water-tight, and it was rammed down the yet warm throat of the nearest gun: the Cat, and then the gun was tamped to the muzzle to make her water-tight, and, like her sisters, was spiked, and her vent tamped tight.

All this took but a minute, and the next instant the guns were run up once more to the edge of the cliff; and the men stood by them with their hands still on them.

A deadly silence fell on the men, and even the horses behind seemed to feel the spell.

There was a long pause, in which not a breath was heard from any man, and the soughing of the tree-tops above and the rushing of the rapids below were the only sounds.

They seemed to come from far, very far away.

Then the Colonel said, quietly, “Let them go, and God be our helper, Amen.

” There was the noise in the darkness of trampling and scraping on the cliff-top for a second; the sound as of men straining hard together, and then with a pant it ceased all at once, and the men held their breath to hear.

One second of utter silence; then one prolonged, deep, resounding splash sending up a great mass of white foam as the brass-pieces together plunged into the dark water below, and then the soughing of the trees and the murmur of the river came again with painful distinctness.

It was full ten minutes before the Colonel spoke, though there were other sounds enough in the darkness, and some of the men, as the dark, outstretched bodies showed, were lying on the ground flat on their faces.

Then the Colonel gave the command to fall in in the same quiet, grave tone he had used all night.

The line fell in, the men getting to their horses and mounting in silence; the Colonel put himself at their head and gave the order of march, and the dark line turned in the darkness, crossed the little plateau between the smouldering camp-fires and the spectral caissons with the harness hanging beside them, and slowly entered the dim charcoal-burner’s track.

Not a word was spoken as they moved off.

They might all have been phantoms.

Only, the sergeant in the rear, as he crossed the little breastwork which ran along the upper side and marked the boundary of the little camp, half turned and glanced at the dying fires, the low, newly made mounds in the corner, the abandoned caissons, and the empty redoubt, and said, slowly, in a low voice to himself, “Well, by God!

”