A company of blue soldiers were cut off by a wave of charging gray. Themen were trying to surrender. Their officers drew their revolvers andordered them to break through. A sullen4 private shouted:
"Shoot your officers!"Every commander dropped in his tracks. And the men were marched to therear. Hour after hour the flames of hell swirled5 in endless waves aboutthis angle of the Southern trenches6. Line after line of blue brokeagainst it and eddied7 down its sides in slimy pools.
Color bearers waved their flags in each other's faces, clinched8 andfought, hand to hand, like devils. Two soldiers on top of the trench,their ammunition9 spent, choked each other to death and rolled down theembankment among the mangled10 bodies that filled the ditch.
In this mass of struggling maniacs11 men were fighting with guns, swords,handspikes, clubbed muskets13, stones and fists. Night brought no pause tosave the wounded or bury the dead.
For five days Grant circled his blue hosts in a whirlpool of deathtrying in vain to break Lee's trenches. He gave it up. The stolid,silent man of iron nerves watched the stream of wagons14 bearing thewounded, groaning15 and shrieking16, from the field. Lee's forces had beenhandled with such skill the impact of numbers had made but littleimpression.
Thirty thousand dead and mangled lay on the field.
The stark17 fighter of the West was facing a new problem. The devotion ofLee's men was a mania12. He was unconquerable in a square hand-to-handfight in the woods.
A truce18 to bury the dead followed. They found them piled six layers deepin the trenches, blue and gray locked in the last embrace. Black wingswere flapping over them unafraid of the living. Their red beaks19 weretearing at eyes and lips, while deep below yet groaned20 and moved thewounded.
Again Grant sought to flank his wily foe21. This time he beat Lee to thespot. The two armies rushed for Cold Harbor in parallel columns flashingat each other deadly volleys as they marched. Lee took second choice ofground and entrenched22 on a gently sloping line of hills. They swung increscent as at Fredericksburg.
With consummate23 skill he placed his guns and infantry24 to catch bothflanks and front of the coming foe. And then he waited for Grant tocharge. Thousands of men in the blue ranks were busy now sewing theirnames in their underclothing.
With the first streak25 of dawn, at 4:30, they charged. They walked intothe mouth of a volcano flaming tons of steel and lead in their faces.
The scene was sickening. Nothing like it had, to this time, happened inthe history of man.
_Ten thousand men in blue fell in twenty minutes._Meade ordered Smith to renew the assault. Daring a court martial26, Smithflatly refused.
The story of the next seventy-two hours our historians have refused torecord. Through the smothering27 heat of summer for three days and nightsthe shrieks28 and groans29 of the wounded rose in endless waves of horror.
No hand could be lifted to save. With their last breath they begged,wept, cried, prayed for water. No man dared move in the storm-sweptspace. Here and there a heroic boy in blue caught the cry of a woundedcomrade and crawled on his belly30 to try a rescue only to die in theembrace of his friend.
When the truce was called to clear the shambles31 every man of the tenthousand who had fallen was dead--save two. The salvage32 corps33 walked ina muck of blood. They slipped and stumbled and fell in its festeringpools. The flies and vultures were busy. Dead horses, dead men, smashedguns, legs, arms, mangled bodies disemboweled, the earth torn into anashen crater34.
In the thirty days since Grant had met Lee in the wilderness35, theNorthern army had lost sixty thousand men, the bravest of our race.
Lee's losses were not so great but they were tragic36. They were as greatin proportion to the number he commanded.
Grant paused to change his plan of campaign. The procession ofambulances into Washington had stunned37 the Nation. Every city, town,village, hamlet and country home was in mourning. A stream of protestagainst the new Commander swept the North. Lincoln refused to removehim. And on his head was heaped the blame for all the anguish38 of thebitter years of failure.
His answer to his critics was remorseless.
"We must fight to win. Grant is the ablest general we have. His lossesare appalling39. But the struggle is now on to the bitter end. Ourresources of men and money are exhaustless. The South cannot replace herfallen sons. Her losses, therefore, are fatal!"War had revealed to all at last that the Abolition41 crusade had beenbuilt on a lie. The negro had proven a bulwark42 of strength to the South.
Had their theories been true, had the slaves been beaten and abused theBlack Bees would surely have swarmed43. A single Southern village put tothe torch by black hands would have done for Lee's army what no opponenthad been able to do. It would have been destroyed in a night. TheConfederacy would have gone down in hopeless ruin.
Not a black hand had been raised against a Southern man or woman inall the raging hell. This fact is the South's vindication44 against theslanders of the Abolitionists. The negroes stood by their old masters.
They worked his fields; they guarded his women and children; theymourned over the graves of their fallen sons.
And now in the supreme45 hour of gathering46 darkness came the last act ofthe tragedy--the arming of the Northern blacks and the training of theirhands to slay47 a superior race.
In the first year of the war Lincoln had firmly refused the prayer ofThomas Wentworth Higginson that he be allowed to arm and drill the BlackLegions of the North. Later the pressure could not be resisted. Thedaily murder of the flower of the race had lowered its morale48. It hadlowered the value set on racial trait and character. The Cavalier andPuritan, with a thousand years of inspiring history throbbing49 in theirveins, had become mere50 cannon51 fodder52. The cry for men and still more menwas endless. And this cry must be heard, or the war would end.
Men of the white breed were clasping hands at last across the linesunder the friendly cover of the night. They spoke53 softly through theirtears of home and loved ones. The tumult54 and the shout had passed. Thejeer and taunt55, blind passion and sordid56 hate lay buried in the long,deep graves of a hundred fields of blood.
Grant's new plan of campaign resulted in the deadlock57 of Petersburg.
The two armies now lay behind thirty-five miles of deep trenches with astretch of volcano-torn, desolate58 earth between them.
The Black Legions were massed for a dramatic ending of the war. Grant,Meade, and Burnside had developed a plan. Hundreds of sappers and minersburrowed under the shell-torn ground for months, digging a tunnel underLee's fortress59 immediately before Petersburg.
The tunnel was not complete before Lee's ears had caught the sound. Acounter tunnel was hastily begun but Grant's men had reached the spotunder the center of Elliot's salient before the Confederates couldintercept them.
Grant skillfully threw a division of his army on the north side of theJames and made a fierce frontal attack on Richmond while he gatheredthe flower of his army, sixty-five thousand men with his Black Legions,before the tunnel that would open the way into Petersburg.
Lee was not misled by the assault on Richmond. But it was absolutelynecessary to meet it, or the Capital would have fallen. He wascompelled, in the face of the threatened explosion and assault, todivide his forces and weaken his lines before the tunnel.
His men were on the ground beyond the James to intercept60 the columnmoving toward Richmond. When the assault failed, Hancock and Sheridanimmediately recrossed the river to take part in the capture ofPetersburg and witness the end of the Confederacy.
The tons of powder were stored under the fort and the fuse set. TheBlack battalions61 stood ready to lead the attack and enter Petersburgfirst.
At the final council of war, the plan was changed. A division of NewEnglanders, the sons of Puritan fathers and mothers, were set to thisgrim task and the negroes were ordered to follow.
High words had been used at the Council. The whole problem of race andracial values was put to the test of the science of anthropology63 and ofmathematics. The fuse would be set before daylight. The charge must bemade in darkness with hundreds of great guns flaming, shrieking, shakingthe earth. The negro could not be trusted to lead in this work. He hadfollowed white officers in the daylight and under their inspiration hadfought bravely. But he was afraid of the dark. It was useless to mincematters. The council faced the issue. He could not stand the terrors ofthe night in such a charge.
The decision was an ominous64 one for the future of America--ominousbecause merciless in its scientific logic65. The same power which hadgiven the white man his mastery of science and progress in the centuriesof human history gave him the mastery of his brain and nerves in thedark. For a thousand years superstition66 had been trained out of hisbrain fiber67. He could hold a firing line day or night. The darkness washis friend, not his enemy.
The New Englanders were pushed forward for the attack. The grimpreparations were hurried. The pioneers were marshaled with axes andentrenching tools. A train pulled in from City Point with crowds ofextra surgeons, their amputating tables and bandages ready. The wagonswere loaded with picks and shovels69 to bury the dead quickly in thescorching heat of July.
The men waited in impatience70 for the explosion. It had been set for twoo'clock. For two hours they stood listening. Their hearts were beatinghigh at first. The delay took the soul out of them. They were angry,weary, cursing, complaining.
The fuse had gone out. Another had to be trained and set. As the Maineregiments gripped their muskets waiting for the explosion of the mine, anegro preacher in the second line behind them was haranguing72 the BlackBattalions. His drooning, voodoo voice rang through the woods in weirdechoes:
"Oh, my men! Dis here's gwine ter be er great fight. De greatest fightin all de war. We gwine ter take ole Petersburg dis day. De day erJuberlee is come. Yes, Lawd! An' den68 we take Richmon', 'stroy Lee'sarmy an' en' dis war. Yas, Lawd, an' 'member dat Gen'l Grant an' Gen'lBurnside, an' Gen'l Meade's is all right here a-watch-in' ye! An' memberdat I'se er watchin' ye. I'se er sargint in dis here comp'ny. Any youtries ter be a skulker73, you'se gwine ter git a beyonet run clean frooye--yas, Lawd! You hear me!"He had scarcely finished his harangue74 when a smothering peal75 of thundershook the world. The ground rocked beneath the feet of the men. Somewere thrown backwards76. Some staggered and caught a comrade's shoulder.
A pillar of blinding flame shot to the stars. A cloud of smoke rolledupward and spread its pall40 over the trembling earth. A shower of humanflesh and bones spattered the smoking ground.
The men in front shivered as they brushed the pieces of red meat fromtheir hands and clothes.
The artillery77 opened. Hundreds of guns were pouring shells from theirflaming mouths. The people of Petersburg leaped from their beds andpressed into the streets stunned by the appalling shock and the storm ofartillery which followed.
The ground in front of the tunnel had been cleared of the abatis.
Burnside's New England veterans rushed the crater. A huge hole had beentorn in Lee's fortifications one hundred yards long and sixty feet wideand twenty-five feet in depth.
The hole proved a grave. The charging troops floundered in its spongy,blood-soaked sides. They stumbled and fell into its pit. The regimentsin the rear, rushing through the smoke and stumbling over the mangledpieces of flesh of Elliott's three hundred men who had been torn topieces, were on top of the line in front before they could clear thecrumbling walls.
When the charging hosts at last reached the firm ground inside theConfederate lines, the men in gray were rallying. Their guns had beentrained on the yawning chasm79 now a struggling, squirming, cursing massof blue. Slowly order came out of chaos80 and Burnside's men swung to theright and to the left and swept Lee's trenches for three hundred yardsin each direction. The charging regiments71 poured into them and found thesecond Confederate line. Elliott's men who yet lived, driven from theirouter line by the resistless rush of the attack, retreated to a deepravine, rallied and held this third line.
Lee reached the field and took command. Mahone's men came to the rescuemarching with swift, steady tread. They took their position on the crestwhich commanded the open space toward the captured trenches.
As Wright's brigade moved into position, the Black Battalions wereordered to charge. They had been hurried through the crater and intothe trenches on the right and left. At the signal they swarmed over theworks, with a voodoo yell, and in serried81 black waves, charged the menin gray. In broad daylight the Southerners saw for the first time theplan of the dramatic attack.
The white men of the South shrieked82 an answer and gripped their muskets.
The cry they gave came down the centuries from three thousand years ofhistory. It came from the hearts of a conquering race of men. They hadheard the Call of the Blood of the Race that rules the world.
Without an order from their commanders, with a single impulse, the wholeSouthern line leaped from their cover and dashed on the advancing BlackLegions in a counter charge so swift, so terrible, there was but asingle crash and the yell of white victory rang over the field. TheBlacks broke and piled pell mell into the trenches and on into the hellhole of the crater.
Fifty of Lee's guns were now pouring a steady stream of shells into thispit of the damned.
The charging gray lines rolled over the captured trenches. They ringedthe edge of the crater with a circle of flaming muskets. The writhingmass of dead, dying, wounded and living, scrambling83 blacks and whites,was a thing for devil's joy. At the bottom of the pit the heap was tenfeet deep in moving flesh. In vain the terror-stricken blacks scrambledup the slippery sides through clouds of smoke. They fell backward androlled down the crumbling78 walls.
Young John Doyle stood on the brink84 of this crater, his eyes aflamewith revenge. His musket2 was so hot at last he threw it down, tore acartridge belt from the body of a dead negro trooper, seized his rifleand went back to his task.
Sickened at last by the holocaust86, the officers of the South orderedtheir men to cease firing. They had charged without orders. They refusedto take orders. The officers began to strike them with their swords!
"Cease firing!""Damn you, stop it!"Their orders rang around the flaming curve in vain. They seized the menby their collars and dragged them back. The gray soldiers tore away,rushed to the smoking rim62 and fired as long as they had a cartridge85 intheir belts.
It was the poor white man who got beyond control at the sight of theseyelling black troops wearing the uniform of the Republic. Had theirsouls leaped the years and seen in a vision dark-skinned hosts chargingthe ranks of white civilization in a battle for supremacy87 of the world?
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1
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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5
swirled
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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eddied
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| 起漩涡，旋转( eddy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
clinched
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| v.（尤指两人）互相紧紧抱[扭]住( clinch的过去式和过去分词 )；解决（争端、交易），达成（协议） | |
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ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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maniacs
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| n.疯子（maniac的复数形式） | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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muskets
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| n.火枪，（尤指）滑膛枪( musket的名词复数 ) | |
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wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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16
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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truce
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| n.休战，(争执，烦恼等的)缓和；v.以停战结束 | |
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beaks
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| n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者 | |
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groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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entrenched
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| adj.确立的，不容易改的(风俗习惯) | |
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consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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26
martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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smothering
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的现在分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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28
shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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29
groans
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| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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30
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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shambles
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| n.混乱之处；废墟 | |
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salvage
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| v.救助，营救，援救；n.救助，营救 | |
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corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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crater
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| n.火山口，弹坑 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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41
abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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42
bulwark
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| n.堡垒，保障，防御 | |
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43
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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44
vindication
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| n.洗冤，证实 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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46
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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47
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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48
morale
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| n.道德准则，士气，斗志 | |
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49
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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50
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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51
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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52
fodder
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| n.草料；炮灰 | |
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53
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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54
tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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55
taunt
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| n.辱骂，嘲弄；v.嘲弄 | |
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56
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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57
deadlock
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| n.僵局，僵持 | |
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58
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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59
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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60
intercept
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| vt.拦截，截住，截击 | |
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61
battalions
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| n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍 | |
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62
rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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63
anthropology
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| n.人类学 | |
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64
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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65
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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66
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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67
fiber
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| n.纤维，纤维质 | |
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68
den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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69
shovels
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| n.铲子( shovel的名词复数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份v.铲子( shovel的第三人称单数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
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70
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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71
regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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72
haranguing
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| v.高谈阔论( harangue的现在分词 ) | |
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73
skulker
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| n.偷偷隐躲起来的人，偷懒的人 | |
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74
harangue
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| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
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75
peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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76
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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77
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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78
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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79
chasm
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| n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突 | |
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80
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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81
serried
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| adj.拥挤的；密集的 | |
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82
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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83
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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84
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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85
cartridge
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| n.弹壳，弹药筒；(装磁带等的)盒子 | |
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86
holocaust
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| n.大破坏；大屠杀 | |
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87
supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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