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

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      “Well, sergeant,” said Dick ingratiatingly, “if any thing has happened in this army you’re sure to know of it. We’d have known it ourselves, but we had an important engagement with Morpheus, a world away, and we had to keep it. Now what is the news?”

      “I don’t know who Morpheus is,” replied the sergeant, laughing, “but I’d guess from your looks that he is another name for sleep. There is no news of anything big happenin’. We’ve got a great army here, and Jackson remains near our battlefield of yesterday. I should say that we number at least fifty thousand men, or about twice the rebels.”

      “Then why don’t we march against ‘em at once?”

      The sergeant shrugged his shoulders. It was not for him to tell why generals did not do things.

      “I think,” he said, “that we’re likely to stay here a day or two.”

      “Which means,” said Dick, his alert mind interpreting at once, “that our generals don’t know what to do. Why is it that they always seem paralyzed when they get in front of Stonewall Jackson? He’s only a man like the rest of them!”

      He spoke with perfect freedom in the presence of Sergeant Whitley, knowing that he would repeat nothing.

      “A man, yes,” said Warner, in his precise manner, “but not exactly like the others. He seems to have more of the lightning flash about him. What a pity such a leader should be on the wrong side! Perhaps we’ll have his equal in time.”

      “Is Jackson’s army just sitting still?” asked Dick.

      “So far as scouts can gather, an’ I’ve been one of them,” replied Sergeant Whitley, “it seems to be just campin’. But I wish I knew which way it was goin’ to jump. I don’t trust Jackson when he seems to be nappin’.”

      But the good sergeant’s doubts were to remain for two days at least. The two armies sat still, only two miles apart, and sentinels, as was common throughout the great war, became friendly with one another. Often they met in the woods and exchanged news and abundant criticism of generals. At last there was a truce to bury the dead who still lay upon the sanguinary field of Cedar Run.

      Dick was in charge of one of these burial parties, and toward the close of the day he saw a familiar figure, also in command of a burial party, although it was in a gray uniform. His heart began to thump, and he uttered a cry of joy. The unexpected, but not the unnatural, had happened.

      “Oh, Harry! Harry!” he shouted.

      The strong young figure in the uniform of a lieutenant in the Southern army turned in surprise at the sound of a familiar voice, and stood, staring.

      “Dick! Dick Mason!” he cried. Then the two sprang forward and grasped the hands of each other. There was no display of emotion—they were of the stern American stock, taught not to show its feelings—but their eyes showed their gladness.

      “Harry,” said Dick, “I knew that you had been with Jackson, but I had no way of knowing until a moment ago that you were yet alive.”

      “Nor I you, Dick. I thought you were in the west.”

      “I was, but after Shiloh, some of us came east to help. It seemed after the Seven Days that we were needed more here than in the west.”

      “You never said truer words, Dick. They’ll need you and many more thousands like you. Why, Dick, we’re not led here by a man, we’re led by a thunderbolt. I’m on his staff, I see him every day. He talks to me, and I talk to him. I tell you, Dick, it’s a wonderful thing to serve such a genius. You can’t beat him! His kind appears only a few times in the ages. He always knows what’s to be done and he does it. Even if your generals knew what ought to be done, most likely they’d do something else.”

      Harry’s face glowed with enthusiasm as he spoke of his hero, and Dick, looking at him, shook his head sadly.

      “I’m afraid that what you say is true for the present at least, Harry,” he said. “You beat us now here in the east, but don’t forget that we’re winning in the west. And don’t forget that here in the east even, you can never wear us out. We’ll be coming, always coming.”

      “All right, old Sober Sides, we won’t quarrel about it. We’ll let time settle it. Here come some friends of mine whom I want you to know. Curious that you should meet them at such a time.”

      Two other young lieutenants in gray uniforms at the head of burial parties came near in the course of their work, and Harry called to them.

      “Tom! Arthur! A moment, please! This is my cousin, Dick Mason, a Yankee, though I think he’s honest in his folly. Dick, this is Arthur St. Clair, and this is Tom Langdon, both friends of mine from South Carolina.”

      They shook hands warmly. There was no animosity between them. Dick liked the looks and manners of Harry’s friends. He could have been their friend, too.

      “Harry has talked about you often,” said Happy Tom Langdon. “Says you’re a great scholar, and a good fellow, all right every way, except the crack in your head that makes you a Yankee. I hope you won’t get hurt in this unpleasantness, and when our victorious army comes into Washington we’ll take good care of you and release you soon.”

      Dick smiled. He liked this youth who could keep up the spirit of fun among such scenes.

      “Don’t you pay any attention to Langdon, Mr. Mason,” said St. Clair. “If he’d only fight as well and fast as he talks there’d be no need for the rest of us.”

      “You know you couldn’t win the war without me,” said Langdon.

      They talked a little more together, then trumpets blew, the work was done and they must withdraw to their own armies. They had been engaged in a grewsome task, but Dick was glad to the bottom of his heart to have been sent upon it. He had learned that Harry still lived, and he had met him. He did not understand until then how dear his cousin was to him. They were more like brothers than cousins. It was like the affection their great-grandfathers, Henry Ware and Paul Cotter, had felt for each other, although those famous heroes of the border had always fought side by side, while their descendants were compelled to face each other across a gulf.

      They shook hands and withdrew slowly. At the edge of the field, Dick turned to wave another farewell, and he found that Harry, actuated by the same motive at the same time, had also turned to make a like gesture. Each waved twice, instead of once, and then they disappeared among the woods. Dick returned to Colonel Winchester.

      “While we were under the flag of truce I met my cousin, Harry Kenton,” he said.

      “One of the lucky fortunes of war.”

      “Yes, sir, I was very glad to see him. I did not know how glad I was until I came away. He says that we can never beat Jackson, that nothing but death can ever stop him.”

      “Youth often deceives itself, nor is age any exception. Never lose hope, Dick.”

      “I don’t mean to do so, sir.”

      The next morning, when Dick was with one of the outposts, a man of powerful build, wonderfully quick and alert in his movements, appeared. His coming was so quick and silent that he seemed to rise from the earth, and Dick was startled. The man’s face was uncommon. His features were of great strength, the eyes being singularly vivid and penetrating. He was in civilian’s СКАЧАТЬ