The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis. Altsheler Joseph Alexander

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ saw the charge of the horsemen, and the return of the few. Then he lost hope. Above the roar of the battle the rebel yell continually swelled afresh. The setting sun, no longer golden but red, cast a sinister light over the trampled wheat field, the slopes and the woods torn by cannon balls. The dead and the wounded lay in thousands, and Banks, brave and tenacious, but with bitter despair in his heart, was seeking to drag the remains of his army from that merciless vise which continued to close down harder and harder.

      Dick’s excitement and tension seemed to abate. He had been keyed to so high a pitch that his pulses grew gentler through very lack of force, and with the relaxation came a clearer view. He saw the sinking red sun through the banks of smoke, and in fancy he already felt the cool darkness upon his face after the hot and terrible August day. He knew that night might save them, and he prayed deeply and fervently for its swift coming.

      He and the sergeant came suddenly to Colonel Winchester, whose hat had been shot from his head, but who was otherwise unharmed. Warner and Pennington were near, Warner slightly wounded but apparently unaware of the fact. The colonel, by shout and by gesture, was gathering around him the remains of his regiment. Other regiments on either side were trying to do the same, and eventually they formed a compact mass which, driving with all its force back toward its old position, reached the hills and the woods just as the jaws of Stonewall Jackson’s vise shut down, but not upon the main body.

      Victory, won for a little while, had been lost. Night protected their retreat, and they fought with a valor that made Jackson and all his generals cautious. But this knowledge was little compensation to the Northern troops. They knew that behind them was a great army, that Pope might have been present with fifty thousand men, sufficient to overwhelm Jackson. Instead of the odds being more than two to one in their favor, they had been two to one against them.

      It was a sullen army that lay in the woods in the first hour or two of the night, gasping for breath. These men had boasted that they were a match for those of Jackson, and they were, if they could only have traded generals. Dick and his comrades from the west began to share in the awe that the name of Stonewall Jackson inspired.

      “He comes up to his advertisements. There ain’t no doubt of it,” said Sergeant Whitley. “I never saw anybody fight better than our men did, an’ that charge of the little troop of cavalry was never beat anywhere in the world. But here we are licked, and thirty or forty thousand men of ours not many miles away!”

      He spoke the last words with a bitterness that Dick had never heard in his voice before.

      “It’s simple,” said Warner, who was binding up his little wound with his own hand. “It’s just a question in mathematics. I see now how Stonewall Jackson won so many triumphs in the Valley of Virginia. Give Jackson, say, fifteen thousand men. We have fifty thousand, but we divide them into five armies of ten thousand apiece. Jackson fights them in detail, which is five battles, of course. His fifteen thousand defeat the ten thousand every time. Hence Jackson with fifteen thousand men has beaten our side. It’s simple but painful. In time our leaders will learn.”

      “After we’re all killed,” said Pennington sadly.

      “And the country is ripped apart so that it will take half a century to put the pieces back together again and put ‘em back right,” said Dick, with equal sadness.

      “Never mind,” said Sergeant Whitley with returning cheerfulness. “Other countries have survived great wars and so will ours.”

      Some food was obtained for the exhausted men and they ate it nervously, paying little attention to the crackling fire of the skirmishers which was still going on in the darkness along their front. Dick saw the pink flashes along the edges of the woods and the wheat field, but his mind, deadened for the time, took no further impressions. Skirmishers were unpleasant people, anyway. Let them fight down there. It did not matter what they might do to one another. A minute or two later he was ashamed of such thoughts.

      Colonel Winchester, who had been to see General Banks, returned presently and told them that they would march again in half an hour.

      “General Banks,” he said with bitter irony, “is afraid that a powerful force of the rebels will gain his rear and that we shall be surrounded. He ought to know. He has had enough dealings with Jackson. Outmaneuvered and outflanked again! Why can’t we learn something?”

      But he said this to the young officers only. He forced a cheerfulness of tone when he spoke to the men, and they dragged themselves wearily to their feet in order to begin the retreat. But though the muscles were tired the spirit was not unwilling. All the omens were sinister, pointing to the need of withdrawal. The vicious skirmishers were still busy and a crackling fire came from many points in the woods. The occasional rolling thunder of a cannon deepened the somberness of the scene.

      All the officers of the regiment had lost their horses and they walked now with the men. A full moon threw a silvery light over the marching troops, who strode on in silence, the wounded suppressing their groans. A full moon cast a silvery light over the pallid faces.

      “Do you know where we are going?” Dick asked of the Vermonter.

      “I heard that we’re bound for a place called Culpeper Court House, six or seven miles away. I suppose we’ll get there in the morning, if Stonewall Jackson doesn’t insist on another interview with us.”

      “There’s enough time in the day for fighting,” said Pennington, “without borrowing of the night. Hear that big gun over there on our right! Why do they want to be firing cannon balls at such a time?”

      They trudged gloomily on, following other regiments ghostly in the moonlight, and followed by others as ghostly. But the sinister omens, the flash of rifle firing and the far boom of a cannon, were always on their flanks. The impression of Jackson’s skill and power which Dick had gained so quickly was deepening already. He did not have the slightest doubt now that the Southern leader was pressing forward through the woods to cut them off. As the sergeant had said truly, he came up to his advertisements and more. Dick shivered and it was a shiver of apprehension for the army, and not for himself.

      In accordance with human nature he and the boy officers who were his good comrades talked together, but their sentences were short and broken.

      “Marching toward a court house,” said Pennington. “What’ll we do when we get there? Lawyers won’t help us.”

      “Not so much marching toward a court house as marching away from Jackson,” said the Vermonter.

      “We’ll march back again,” said Dick hopefully.

      “But when?” said Pennington. “Look through the trees there on our right. Aren’t those rebel troops?”

      Dick’s startled gaze beheld a long line of horsemen in gray on their flank and only a few hundred yards away.

      CHAPTER II. AT THE CAPITAL

      The Southern cavalry was seen almost at the same time by many men in the regiments, and nervous and hasty, as was natural at such a time, they opened a scattering fire. The horsemen did not return the fire, but seemed to melt away in the darkness.

      But the shrewdest of the officers, among whom was Colonel Winchester, took alarm at this sudden appearance and disappearance. Dick would have divined from their manner, even without their talk, that they believed Jackson was at hand. Action followed quickly. The army stopped and began to seek a strong position in the wood. Cannon were drawn up, their mouths turned to the side on which the horsemen had appeared, and the worn regiments assumed the attitude of defense. Dick’s heart throbbed with pride when he saw that they were as ready as ever to fight, although СКАЧАТЬ