The Little Regiment, and Other Episodes of the American Civil War
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THE LITTLE REGIMENT
AND OTHER EPISODES OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
BY STEPHEN CRANE
Author of The Red Badge of Courage, and Maggie
COPYRIGHT, 1896, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
_Copyright, 1895, 1896, by Stephen Crane._
CONTENTS.
THE LITTLE REGIMENT
THREE MIRACULOUS SOLDIERS
A MYSTERY OF HEROISM
AN INDIANA CAMPAIGN
A GRAY SLEEVE
THE VETERAN
THE LITTLE REGIMENT.
I.
The fog made the clothes of the men of the column in the roadway seem ofa luminous quality. It imparted to the heavy infantry overcoats a newcolour, a kind of blue which was so pale that a regiment might have beenmerely a long, low shadow in the mist. However, a muttering, one partgrumble, three parts joke, hovered in the air above the thick ranks, andblended in an undertoned roar, which was the voice of the column.
The town on the southern shore of the little river loomed spectrally, afaint etching upon the gray cloud-masses which were shifting with oilylanguor. A long row of guns upon the northern bank had been pitiless intheir hatred, but a little battered belfry could be dimly seen stillpointing with invincible resolution toward the heavens.
The enclouded air vibrated with noises made by hidden colossal things.The infantry tramplings, the heavy rumbling of the artillery, made theearth speak of gigantic preparation. Guns on distant heights thunderedfrom time to time with sudden, nervous roar, as if unable to endure insilence a knowledge of hostile troops massing, other guns going toposition. These sounds, near and remote, defined an immensebattle-ground, described the tremendous width of the stage of theprospective drama. The voices of the guns, slightly casual, unexcited intheir challenges and warnings, could not destroy the unutterableeloquence of the word in the air, a meaning of impending struggle whichmade the breath halt at the lips.
The column in the roadway was ankle-deep in mud. The men swore piouslyat the rain which drizzled upon them, compelling them to stand alwaysvery erect in fear of the drops that would sweep in under theircoat-collars. The fog was as cold as wet cloths. The men stuffed theirhands deep in their pockets, and huddled their muskets in their arms.The machinery of orders had rooted these soldiers deeply into the mudprecisely as almighty nature roots mullein stalks.
They listened and speculated when a tumult of fighting came from the dimtown across the river. When the noise lulled for a time they resumedtheir descriptions of the mud and graphically exaggerated the number ofhours they had been kept waiting. The general commanding their divisionrode along the ranks, and they cheered admiringly, affectionately,crying out to him gleeful prophecies of the coming battle. Each manscanned him with a peculiarly keen personal interest, and afterwardspoke of him with unquestioning devotion and confidence, narratinganecdotes which were mainly untrue.
When the jokers lifted the shrill voices which invariably belonged tothem, flinging witticisms at their comrades, a loud laugh would sweepfrom rank to rank, and soldiers who had not heard would lean forward anddemand repetition. When were borne past them some wounded men with grayand blood-smeared faces, and eyes that rolled in that helplessbeseeching for assistance from the sky which comes with supreme pain,the soldiers in the mud watched intently, and from time to time asked ofthe bearers an account of the affair. Frequently they bragged of theircorps, their division, their brigade, their regiment. Anon they referredto the mud and the cold drizzle. Upon this threshold of a wild scene ofdeath they, in short, defied the proportion of events with thatsplendour of heedlessness which belongs only to veterans.
"Like a lot of wooden soldiers," swore Billie Dempster, moving his feetin the thick mass, and casting a vindictive glance indefinitely;"standing in the mud for a hundred years."
"Oh, shut up!" murmured his brother Dan. The manner of his words impliedthat this fraternal voice near him was an indescribable bore.
"Why should I shut up?" demanded Billie.
"Because you're a fool," cried Dan, taking no time to debate it; "thebiggest fool in the regiment."
There was but one man between them, and he was habituated. These insultsfrom brother to brother had swept across his chest, flown past his face,many times during two long campaigns. Upon this occasion he simplygrinned first at one, then at the other.
The way of these brothers was not an unknown topic in regimental gossip.They had enlisted simultaneously, with each sneering loudly at the otherfor doing it. They left their little town, and went forward with theflag, exchanging protestations of undying suspicion. In the camp lifethey so openly despised each other that, when entertaining quarrels werelacking, their companions often contrived situations calculated to bringforth display of this fraternal dislike.
Both were large-limbed, strong young men, and often fought with friendsin camp unless one was near to interfere with the other. This latterhappened rather frequently, because Dan, preposterously willing for anymanner of combat, had a very great horror of seeing Billie in a fight;and Billie, almost odiously ready himself, simply refused to see Danstripped to his shirt and with his fists aloft. This sat queerly uponthem, and made them the objects of plots.
When Dan jumped through a ring of eager soldiers and dragged forth hisraving brother by the arm, a thing often predicted would almost come topass. When Billie performed the same office for Dan, the predictionwould again miss fulfilment by an inch. But indeed they never foughttogether, although they were perpetually upon the verge.
They expressed longing for such conflict. As a matter of truth, they hadat one time made full arrangement for it, but even with theencouragement and interest of half of the regiment they somehow failedto achieve collision.
If Dan became a victim of police duty, no jeering was so destructive tothe feelings as Billie's comment. If Billie got a call to appear at theheadquarters, none would so genially prophesy his complete undoing asDan. Small misfortunes to one were, in truth, invariably greeted withhilarity by the other, who seemed to see in them great re-enforcement ofhis opinion.
As soldiers, they expressed each for each a scorn intense and blasting.After a certain battle, Billie was promoted to corporal. When Dan wastold of it, he seemed smitten dumb with astonishment and patrioticindignation. He stared in silence, while the dark blood rushed toBillie's forehead, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Dan atlast found his tongue, and said: "Well, I'm durned!" If he had heardthat an army mule had been appointed to the post of corps commander, histone could not have had more derision in it. Afterward, he adopted afervid insubordination, an almost religious reluctance to obey the newcorporal's orders, which came near to developing the desired strife.
It is here finally to be recorded also that Dan, most ferociouslyprofane in speech, very rarely swore in the presence of his brother; andthat Billie, whose oaths came from his lips with the grace of fallingpebbles, was seldom known to express himself in this manner when nearhis brother Dan.
At last the afternoon contained a suggestion of evening. Metallic criesrang suddenly from end to end of the column. They inspired at once aquick, business-like adjustment. The long thing stirred in the mud. Themen had hushed, and were looking across the river. A moment later theshadowy mass of pale blue figures was moving steadily toward the stream.There could be heard from the town a clash of swift fighting andcheering. The noise of the shoot
ing coming through the heavy air had itssharpness taken from it, and sounded in thuds.
There was a halt upon the bank above the pontoons. When the column wentwinding down the incline, and streamed out upon the bridge, the fog hadfaded to a great degree, and in the clearer dusk the guns on a distantridge were enabled to perceive the crossing. The long whirling outcriesof the shells came into the air above the men. An occasional solid shotstruck the surface of the river, and dashed into view a sudden verticaljet. The distance was subtly illuminated by the lightning from thedeep-booming guns. One by one the batteries on the northern shorearoused, the innumerable guns bellowing in angry oration at the distantridge. The rolling thunder crashed and reverberated as a wild surfsounds on a still night, and to this music the column marched across thepontoons.
The waters of the grim river curled away in a smile from the ends of thegreat boats, and slid swiftly beneath the planking. The dark, riddledwalls of the town upreared before the troops, and from a region hiddenby these hammered and tumbled houses came incessantly the yells andfirings of a prolonged and close skirmish.
When Dan had called his brother a fool, his voice had been so decisive,so brightly assured, that many men had laughed, considering it to begreat humour under the circumstances. The incident happened to rankledeep in Billie. It was not any strange thing that his brother had calledhim a fool. In fact, he often called him a fool with exactly the sameamount of cheerful and prompt conviction, and before large audiences,too. Billie wondered in his own mind why he took such profound offencein this case; but, at any rate, as he slid down the bank and on to thebridge with his regiment, he was searching his knowledge for somethingthat would pierce Dan's blithesome spirit. But he could contrive nothingat this time, and his impotency made the glance which he was once ableto give his brother still more malignant.
The guns far and near were roaring a fearful and grand introduction forthis column which was marching upon the stage of death. Billie felt it,but only in a numb way. His heart was cased in that curious dissonantmetal which covers a man's emotions at such times. The terrible voicesfrom the hills told him that in this wide conflict his life was aninsignificant fact, and that his death would be an insignificant fact.They portended the whirlwind to which he would be as necessary as abutterfly's waved wing. The solemnity, the sadness of it came nearenough to make him wonder why he was neither solemn nor sad. When hismind vaguely adjusted events according to their importance to him, itappeared that the uppermost thing was the fact that upon the eve ofbattle, and before many comrades, his brother had called him a fool.
Dan was in a particularly happy mood. "Hurray! Look at 'em shoot," hesaid, when the long witches' croon of the shells came into the air. Itenraged Billie when he felt the little thorn in him, and saw at the sametime that his brother had completely forgotten it.
The column went from the bridge into more mud. At this southern endthere was a chaos of hoarse directions and commands. Darkness was comingupon the earth, and regiments were being hurried up the slippery bank.As Billie floundered in the black mud, amid the swearing, sliding crowd,he suddenly resolved that, in the absence of other means of hurting Dan,he would avoid looking at him, refrain from speaking to him, payabsolutely no heed to his existence; and this done skilfully would, heimagined, soon reduce his brother to a poignant sensitiveness.
At the top of the bank the column again halted and rearranged itself, asa man after a climb rearranges his clothing. Presently the greatsteel-backed brigade, an infinitely graceful thing in the rhythm andease of its veteran movement, swung up a little narrow, slanting street.
Evening had come so swiftly that the fighting on the remote borders ofthe town was indicated by thin flashes of flame. Some building was onfire, and its reflection upon the clouds was an oval of delicate pink.