Harry had not been under fire. He and Dalton, the rest of Jackson’s staff and the general himself merely watched. Nor did Jackson give any further orders to his able lieutenant, Ewell. He allowed him to make the battle his own, and in Harry’s opinion he was making it right.
There came a silence that seemed interminably long to Harry. The sunlight blazed down, and the two armies stood looking at each other across a field that was strewn with the fallen. It would have been folly for the men in blue to charge again, and it was the chief business of the Southern troops to hold them back. Therefore they stood in their positions and watched. Harry judged that the bulk of Fremont’s army was not yet up. It was this failure to bring superior numbers to bear at the right time that was always the ruin of the Northern generals in the valley, because the genius on the other side invariably saw the mistake and profited by it.
Harry and Dalton still waited, wondering. Jackson himself sat quietly on his horse, and issued no order. The Northern troops were motionless, and Harry, who knew how precious time was, with the rest of Fremont’s army coming up, wondered again. But Trimble, the commander of the Southern riflemen hidden in the wood, saw a chance. He would send his men under cover of the forest and hurl them suddenly upon the Northern flank. Ewell gave his consent, and said that he would charge, too, if the movement were successful.
Harry, watching, saw the Southern regiments in the wood steal from the forest, pass swiftly up a ravine, and then, delivering a shattering fire at short range, charge with the bayonet upon the Northern flank. The men in blue, surprised by so fierce an onset, gave way. Uttering the rebel yell, the Southerners followed and pushed them further and further. Ewell’s quick eye, noting the success, sent forward his own center in a heavy charge.
Fremont, from the rear, hurried forward new troops, but they were beaten as fast as they arrived. The batteries were compelled to unlimber and take to flight, the fresh brigade dispatched by Fremont was routed, and the whole Southern line pressed forward, driving the Northern army before it.
“General Jackson was wise in trusting to General Ewell,” said Dalton to Harry. “He’s won a notable victory. I wonder how far he’ll push it.”
“Not far, I think. All Ewell’s got to do is to hold Fremont, and he has surely held him. There’s Shields on the other side of the river with whom we have to deal. Do you know, George, that all the time we’ve been sitting here, watching that battle in front of us, I’ve been afraid we’d hear the booming of the guns on the other side of the river, telling that Shields was up.”
“We scorched their faces so badly there in Cross Keys that they must be hesitating. Lord, Harry, how old Stonewall plays with fire. To attack and defeat one army with the other only a few miles away must take nerves all of steel.”
“But if Ewell keeps on following Fremont he’ll be too far away when we turn to deal with Shields.”
“But he won’t go too far. There are the trumpets now recalling his army.”
The mellow notes were calling in the eager riflemen, who wished to continue the pursuit, but the army was not to retire. It held the battlefield, and now that the twilight was coming the men began to build their fires, which blazed through the night within sight of those of the enemy. The sentinels of the two armies were within speaking distance of one another, and often in the dark, as happened after many another battle in this war, Yank and Reb passed a friendly word or two. They met, too, on the field, where they carried away their dead and wounded, but on such errands there was always peace.
Those hours of the night were precious, but Fremont did not use them. Defeated, he held back, magnifying the numbers of his enemy, fearing that Jackson was in front of him with his whole army, and once more out of touch with his ally, Shields.