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Slade, who had led the gang that had killed his men Slade, whose face haunted Blackburn's dreams the man the Circle L outfit held responsible for the massacre that day on the plains above the big valley. Lurking in the metal cylinders of the two weapons on the desk was that death which Warden, Singleton, Slade, and the others deserved at his hands.
To be in readiness to protect his own left and rear, by reenforcing Miles's Division, at Centreville and along the ridge to Blackburn's Ford, he temporarily holds back Howard's Brigade of Heintzelman's Division at the point where the cross-road to Sudley Springs Ford-along which Hunter's Division, followed by the Brigades of Franklin and Wilcox, of Heintzelman's Division, have already gone-intersects the Warrenton Pike.
Earlier in the morning Evans has supposed, from the cannonade of Tyler's batteries among the pines on the hills obliquely opposite the Enemy's left, as well as from the sound of the cannonade of the Union batteries away down the stream on the Enemy's right, near Blackburn's Ford, that McDowell is about to make an attack upon the whole front of the Rebel line of defense along Bull Run-by way of the Stone Bridge, and the various fords below it, which cross that stream.
The men who got along held life cheaper than a handful of coppers. That's what I meant when I walked around the hall talking of the ghosts of Panama. For I was beginning to see. Silas Blackburn's fear, his trip to Smithtown, were the first indications of the presence of the other Blackburn. The papers outlined him more clearly.
He was next man in; so, directly the departure of the previous head of Blackburn's left a vacancy, he stepped into it, and the machinery of the house had gone on as smoothly as if there had been no change at all. But Kennedy had gone in against a slack and antagonistic house, with weak prefects to help him, and a fussy house-master; and he had fought them all for a term, and looked like winning.
This report, which I had not read probably since its date till now, recalls to me vividly the whole scene of the affair at Blackburn's Ford, when for the first time in my life I saw cannonballs strike men and crash through the trees and saplings above and around us, and realized the always sickening confusion as one approaches a fight from the rear; then the night-march from Centreville, on the Warrenton road, standing for hours wondering what was meant; the deployment along the edge of the field that sloped down to Bull-Run, and waiting for Hunter's approach on the other aide from the direction of Sudley Springs, away off to our right; the terrible scare of a poor negro who was caught between our lines; the crossing of Bull Run, and the fear lest we should be fired on by our own men; the killing of Lieutenant-Colonel Haggerty, which occurred in plain sight; and the first scenes of a field strewed with dead men and horses.
After riding in triumph over the School House, Bedell's, and Mulholland's, Blackburn's had met its next door neighbour, Kay's, in the final, and, to the surprise of the great majority of the school, was showing up badly. The match was affording one more example of how a team of average merit all through may sometimes fall before a one-man side.
Upon the northern bank of the Run, in the thick woods opposite Mitchell's and Blackburn's fords, was believed to be the mass of the invaders. There had been a certitude that the battle would join about these fords. Beauregard's plan was to cross at MacLean's and fall upon the Federal left. Johnston had acceded, and with the first light orders had gone to the brigadiers.
Whenever I go near Silas Blackburn's body I receive a very powerful impression that his death in that room from such a wound goes deeper than ordinary murder, deeper than a case of recurrent aphasia." His eyes widened. He turned with Graham and Bobby at the sound of an automobile coming through the woods. "Probably the coroner at last," he said.
He suspects there has been a weakening of the Enemy's force at the bridge, in order to strengthen his right for some purpose. And what can that purpose be, but to throw his augmented right upon our left, at Blackburn's Ford, and so, along the ridge-road, upon Centreville? Thus McDowell guesses, and guesses well.
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