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Page 40
The fire had been forgotten as we talked, and I turned to see it dull
and lifeless. "It hasn't gone out, however," I said, and coughed as I
swallowed smoke. "There's no smoke without some fire," I poked the logs
together. "That's an old saw; but it's true all the same."
"Old saws always are true," said the General. "If there isn't something
in them that people know is so they don't get old--they die young. I
believe in the ridden-to-death proverbs--little pitchers with big
ears--cats with nine lives--still waters running deep--love at first
sight, and the rest. They're true, too." His straight look challenged me
to dispute him.
The pine knots caught and blazed up, and I went back comfortably into my
chair and laughed at him.
"O General! Come! You don't believe in love at first sight."
I liked to make him talk sentiment. He was no more afraid of it than of
anything else, and the warmest sort came out of his handling natural and
unashamed.
"I don't? Yes, I do, too," he fired at me. "I know it happens,
sometimes."
With that the lines of his face broke into the sunshiniest smile. He
threw back his head with sudden boyishness, and chuckled, "I ought to
know; I've had experience," he said. His look settled again
thoughtfully. "Did I ever tell you that story--the story about the day I
rode seventy-five miles? Well, I did that several times--I rode it once
to see my wife. But this was the first time, and a good deal happened.
It was a history-making day for me all right. That was when I was
aide-de-camp to General Stoneman. Have I told you that?"
"No," I said; and "oh, do tell me." I knew already that a fire and a
deep chair and one of the General's stories made a good combination.
His manner had a quality uncommon to storytellers; he spoke as if what
he told had occurred not in times gone by, but perhaps last week; it was
more gossip than history. Probably the sharp, full years had been so
short to him that the interval between twenty and seventy was no great
matter; things looked as clear and his interest was as lively as a
half-century ago. This trick of mind made a narrative of his vivid. With
eyes on the fire, with his dominant voice absorbing the crisp sound of
the crackling wood, he began to talk.
"It was down in Virginia in--let me see--why, certainly, it was in
'63--right away after the battle of Chancellorsville, you know." I kept
still and hoped the General thought I knew the date of the battle of
Chancellorsville. "I was part of a cavalry command that was sent from
the Army of the Potomac under General Stoneman--I was his aide. Well,
we did a lot of things--knocked out bridges and railroads, and all that;
our object was, you see, to destroy communication between Lee's army and
Richmond. We even got into Richmond--we thought every Confederate
soldier was with Lee at the front, and we had a scheme to free the
prisoners in Libby, and perhaps capture Jefferson Davis--but we counted
wrong. The defence was too strong, and our force too small; we had to
skedaddle, or we'd have seen Libby in a way we didn't like. We found a
negro who could pilot us, and we slipped out through fields and swamps
beyond the reach of the enemy. Then the return march began. Let me put
that log on."
"No. Talk," I protested; but the General had the wood in his vigorous
left hand--where a big scar cut across the back.
"You needn't be so independent," he threw at me. "Now you've got a
splinter in your finger--serves you right." I laughed at the savage
tone, and his eyes flashed fiercely--and he laughed back.
"What was I talking about--you interrupted. Oh, that march. Well, we'd
had a pretty rough time when the march back began. For nine days we
hadn't had a real meal--just eaten standing up, whatever we could get
cooked--or uncooked. We hadn't changed our clothes, and we'd slept on
the ground every night."
"Goodness!" I interjected with amateur vagueness. "What about the
horses?"
"Oh, they got it, too," the General said carelessly. "We seldom
unsaddled them at all, and when we did it was just to give them a
rub-down and saddle again. We'd made one march toward home and halted,
late at night, when General Stoneman called for his aide-de-camp. I went
to him, rather sleepy, and he told me he'd decided to communicate with
his chief and report his success, and that I was to start at daylight
and find the Army of the Potomac. I had my pick of ten of the best men
and horses from the brigade, and I got off at gray dawn with them, and
with the written report in my boot to the commanding general, and verbal
orders to find him wherever he might be. Nothing else, except the
tools--swords and pistols, and that sort of thing. Oh, yes, there was
one thing more. General Ladd, who was a Virginian, had given my chief a
letter for his people, thinking we'd get into their country. His family
were all on the Confederate side of the fence, while he was a Union
officer. That was not uncommon in our civil war. But we didn't get near
the Ladd estate, and so Stoneman commissioned me to return the letter to
the general with the explanation. Does this bore you?" he stopped
suddenly to ask, and his alert eye shot the glance at me like a bullet.
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