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The Burial of the Guns-Part5_Thomas Nelson Page(1853-1922)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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had been faithfully kept by the men. This made a difference in her position

for which even the bullets in her wheels did not wholly atone; even Harris,



the sergeant of her detachment, felt that.

It was only a few days later, however, that abundant atonement was made.



The new general did not retire across the Rapidan after his first defeat,

and a new battle had to be fought: a battle, if anything, more furious,



more terrible than the first, when the dead filled the trenches

and covered the fields. He simply marched by the left flank,



and Lee marching by the right flank to head him, flung himself upon him again

at Spottsylvania Court-House. That day the Cat, standing in her place



behind the new and temporary breastwork thrown up when the battery was posted,

had the felloes of her wheels, which showed above the top of the bank,



entirely cut away by Minie-bullets, so that when she jumped in the recoil

her wheels smashed and let her down. This covered all old scores.



The other guns had been cut down by shells or solid shot;

but never before had one been gnawed down by musket-balls.



From this time all through the campaign the Cat held her own beside

her brazen and bloody sisters, and in the cold trenches before Petersburg



that winter, when the new general -- Starvation -- had joined the one

already there, she made her bloody mark as often as any gun on the long lines.



Thus the old battery had come to be known, as its old commander, now colonel

of a battalion, had come to be known by those in yet higher command.



And when in the opening spring of 1865 it became apparent to the leaders

of both armies that the long line could not longer be held if a force



should enter behind it, and, sweeping the one partially unswept portion

of Virginia, cut the railways in the southwest, and a man was wanted



to command the artillery in the expedition sent to meet this force,

it was not remarkable that the old Colonel and his battalion should be



selected for the work. The force sent out was but small; for the long line

was worn to a thin one in those days, and great changes were taking place,



the consequences of which were known only to the commanders. In a few days

the commander of the expedition found that he must divide his small force



for a time, at least, to accomplish his purpose, and sending the old Colonel

with one battery of artillery to guard one pass, must push on



over the mountain by another way to meet the expected force, if possible,

and repel it before it crossed the farther range. Thus the old battery,



on an April evening of 1865, found itself toiling alone up the steep

mountain road which leads above the river to the gap, which formed



the chief pass in that part of the Blue Ridge. Both men and horses looked,

in the dim and waning light of the gray April day, rather like shadows



of the beings they represented than the actual beings themselves.

And anyone seeing them as they toiled painfully up, the thin horses



floundering in the mud, and the men, often up to their knees,

tugging at the sinking wheels, now stopping to rest, and always moving



so slowly that they seemed scarcely to advance at all, might have thought them

the ghosts of some old battery lost from some long gone and forgotten war



on that deep and desolate mountain road. Often, when they stopped,

the blowing of the horses and the murmuring of the river in its bed below



were the only sounds heard, and the tired voices of the men when they spoke

among themselves seemed hardly more articulate sounds than they.



Then the voice of the mounted figure on the roan horse half hidden in the mist

would cut in, clear and inspiring, in a tone of encouragement more than



of command, and everything would wake up: the drivers would shout

and crack their whips; the horses would bend themselves on the collars and



flounder in the mud; the men would spring once more to the mud-clogged wheels,

and the slow ascent would begin again.



The orders to the Colonel, as has been said, were brief: To hold the pass

until he received further instructions, and not to lose his guns.



To be ordered, with him, was to obey. The last streak of twilight

brought them to the top of the pass; his soldier's instinct



and a brief recognizance made earlier in the day told him that this was

his place, and before daybreak next morning the point was as well fortified



as a night's work by weary and supperless men could make it.

A prettier spot could not have been found for the purpose; a small plateau,



something over an acre in extent, where a charcoal-burner's hut

had once stood, lay right at the top of the pass. It was a little higher



on either side than in the middle, where a small brook,

along which the charcoal-burner's track was yet visible,



came down from the wooded mountain above, thus giving a natural crest

to aid the fortification on either side, with open space for the guns,






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