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Blucher once had dared openly to oppose these "peace apostles," and disregarded the instructions received from the allied monarchs to move farther back from Paris, and, instead of crossing the Seine, retreat with his army to Chaumont and Langres. This order filled the field-marshal with anger, and his generals and staff-officers shared it.
His brother Joe Davis's plantation was not far off; one of my staff-officers went there, with a few soldiers, and took a pair of carriage-horses, without my knowledge at the time. He found Joe Davis at home, an old man, attended by a young and affectionate niece; but they were overwhelmed with grief to see their country overran and swarming with Federal troops.
It was now about 4 o'clock in the afternoon and we were in a critical situation, but having ordered Merritt to bring Devin and Davies to Dinwiddie by the Boydton road, staff-officers were sent to hurry Custer to the same point, for with its several diverging roads the Court House was of vital importance, and I determined to stay there at all hazards.
Death pulls even staff-officers by the ears. Baka162 wrote well—that Death seizes on sinners at dinners, and on silken frocks she often knocks, and monks’ cowls she slashes like satin sashes, and the curb of girls she raps like shoulder-straps. Mother Death, says Baka, like an onion, brings tears from the dears she embraces, and fondles alike both the baby that drowses and the rake that carouses!
Staff-officers were also despatched to hurry up Griffin with the Fifth Corps, and his tired men redoubled their strides. My troops too were hard up for rations, for in the pursuit we could not wait for our trains, so I concluded to secure if possible these provisions intended for Lee. To this end I directed Young to send four of his best scouts to Burkeville Junction.
I talked with him a good deal, also with General Cadwalader, and with the staff-officers of General Patterson, viz., Fitz-John Porter, Belger, Beckwith, and others, all of whom seemed encouraged to think that the war was to be short and decisive, and that, as soon as it was demonstrated that the General Government meant in earnest to defend its rights and property, some general compromise would result.
Except those belonging to the General and staff-officers, there was not a single horse in the whole army. To have taken on shore a large park of artillery would have been, under such circumstances, absolute folly, indeed, the pieces which were actually landed, proved in the end of very little service, and were drawn by seamen sent from the different ships for the purpose.
While the salad was being served one of the staff-officers was called to the telephone. When he returned the general raised inquiring eyebrows. "N'importe, mon général," he answered. "Colonel telephoned that the Boches attacked in force south of " and he named a certain sector, "but that we have driven them back with heavy losses."
He stopped, dismounted the staff-officers accompanying him did the same and Lee uncovered his head, and stood in an attitude of profound respect and attention, while the earnest prayer proceeded, in the midst of the thunder of artillery and the explosion of the enemy's shells. Other incidents indicating the simple and earnest piety of Lee will be presented in the course of this narrative.
Menehould, Kellerman, with twenty thousand of the army of Metz, and some thousands of volunteers who had joined him in the march, made his appearance to the west of Dumouriez, on the very evening when Westerman and Thouvenot, two of the staff-officers of Dumouriez, galloped in with the tidings that Brunswick's army had come through the upper passes of the Argonne in full force, and was deploying on the heights of La Lune, a chain of eminences that stretch obliquely from south-west to north-east opposite the high ground which Dumouriez held, and also opposite, but at a shorter distance from, the position which Kellerman was designed to occupy.
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