“General!” called Canon, hurrying to him.
Jackson stirred, stretched. The blood danced about on his sleeve, then disappeared.
Canon saw to his relief that it had been simply shade from an oak branch, falling on Jackson’s left side.
“Forgive me, Colonel,” said Jackson, sitting up. “I decided what we must do, and fell asleep in the planning of it.” Rising to his feet, Jackson tossed into the grass the spent lemon he still had held.
Noticing the strange look on Canon’s face, Jackson said, “Rabe, all you all right?”
Canon could not quite shake the effects of the apparition, but he nodded.
“I guess so, General,” he said. “But the shade struck on you very strangely. I thought for a moment that you had been wounded somehow and I have to admit it gave me a turn.
“I didn’t notice you dropping off and you seemed awfully still, and pale as, uh . . .,” Canon trailed off the sentence in embarrassment.
“As death,” finished Jackson. “Don’t be afraid of the word, or of the event, for my sake. The Lord has already fixed the time and place of my death. I assure you that it does not bother me one bit.”
Canon nodded again. But a chill shook him all the same.
Riding across the ridge back to headquarters, Canon asked Jackson what he had decided to do. Jackson’s secrecy, especially with his own leaders, could be infuriating. Sometimes he would answer a question like Canon’s; usually he pretended not to hear.
Obstinately, Canon decided that he had to have an answer.
“What are we going to do, General?” he prodded Jackson.
“Very well, I will tell you,” said Jackson, as the horses stepped along side by side. “I will suggest to General Lee that he remain in Richmond for the time being. I believe that we have John Pope and his men under cower. If they are cowed as I believe they are, then we are blessed with a strategic opportunity which General Lee will grasp and appreciate.
“Pope will not move until help from McClellan arrives. But that help will be almighty slow in coming. Little Mac has little love for the man who has replaced him as commanding general of the Army of the Potomac.
“So we will gesture and demonstrate against Pope for a couple of weeks until we are sure he is convinced we plan to assault him full scale. When that happens, we will leave enough men here to keep him occupied and the rest of us will have a game of fox and hounds with the Union Army.”
“And we will be the sly fox?” suggested Canon.
“We had better be,” said Jackson, “or we shall be the dead fox.”
“Where will this fox find a hiding hole?” persisted Canon.
“Colonel, can you keep a secret?” said Jackson.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. So can I,” said Jackson, and spurred his horse.
The morning of August 26 dawned dark and drear. A soft rain drummed lightly on tin roofed warehouses stretched across the plains of Manassas. The area looked far different from a year ago when the plain had hosted the war’s first battle.
Soon after the victorious Southern troops had withdrawn, the Union had fortified the railhead there and created one of the largest supply depots in the world.
Lincoln wanted the supply depot impregnable and the army worked to make it so. It lay in the middle of a triangle of Union armies. Seventy-file miles to the left was McClellan with eighty-seven thousand troops, behind Manassas lay Washington with its home guard of fifty thousand. To the right was the beleaguered Pope and his entrenched army of sixty-two thousand.
Here at Manassas, trainload after trainload of materials and supply were dumped, waiting to be waggoned to troops in the field. The railhead was a solid square mile of clustered warehouses and boxcars filled to bursting with everything from cigars to caviar.
Two supply sergeants were sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch of one of the warehouses, cursing the rain and the boredom of army life.
“Believe it’s starting to slack,” said one, speaking tiredly of the rain.
“Naw,” was the laconic reply. “Thunder coming from the South.”
Louder and louder grew the thunder, and with it came wild yells. The two men rose and peered intently up the street. They turned and ran. Inside, the men had barely bolted the door when clattering hoofbeats drowned the sound of rain and all other sound outside.
A little lieutenant came out of his office in a flurry, cursing at the noise and trying to make sense of the jabberings from his sergeants.
All three quieted when a gray rider on a black horse came crashing through the large warehouse window. One of the sergeants panicked and reached for his holster before the young lieutenant had time to surrender. He fell with a bullet in his brain. Surrender was quickly tendered.
Almost in a panic himself, the lieutenant had trouble forming words.
“Wh-wh-who are you?” he said.
Canon pointed to the dual patch on his gray sleeve. “We are the Black Horse Cavalry of the Stonewall Brigade,” he said, keeping a tight rein on a quivering Scratch. “And sitting right up at the top of the hill outside is Stonewall Jackson.”
Only three days earlier, the lieutenant had seen an official dispatch which assured Washington that Jackson and his army were a hundred miles away, whipping the pants off John Pope each time he tried to lift his head.
“Just what is there to your Stonewall Goddamn Jackson,” cried the perplexed lieutenant, “and do his men have wheels or wings?” It was a question which echoed across the North, when reports of the capture of the Union supply depot spread. One year earlier, it had taken Irwin McDowell four days to march the Federal army fifty miles. Stonewall Jackson had marched his army sixty-two miles in forty-eight hours. It was an accomplishment unheard of at the time.
“The feat of the feet” earned yet another nickname for the Stonewall Army: “Jackson’s Foot Cavalry.”
Two hours after Canon crashed through the warehouse window, twenty thousand tattered and bone-weary rebel soldiers streamed into a foretaste of paradise. Jackson had captured what amounted to the world’s largest general store.
A starving, shoeless, half naked mob found itself surrounded by literally tons of things that had filled the hungry dreams of each of its members.
Shoes during the march practically melted off the feet of those few who had shoes. Never mind. Here are boxcars full of boots! Cigars were scarce in the Southern army. Here are crates full of Havanas!
Sugar and coffee had been nonexistent. Just open the door to this warehouse! Have a fifty-pound sack of each. Only the liquor is forbidden. Have hams, smoked oysters, all the fresh fruit you want.
Fresh fruit!
Stonewall Jackson sat on the steps of a warehouse porch, an orange in each hand. Forage cap low over his eyes to deflect the setting sun, knee high brown cavalry boots crossed leg over leg, stained gray coat open to the evening breeze, Jackson held his left hand high to better balance his internal organs.
Canon and two or three other officers were stretched out on the porch. Canon had made a sandwich which required a loaf of bread and most of a small ham. One of the officers lounging near him remarked that just a photograph of the sandwich would weigh a pound, at least. Canon smiled and continued to munch happily.
Feasting continued far into the night.
Next morning, latrine lines were long as rich, plentiful food took its toll on bodies used to privation.