The Man in Gray: A Romance of North and South Part 80

The report from Chancellorsville drifted slowly and ominously northward.

The White House was still. The dead were walking beside the lonely, tall figure who paced the floor in dumb anguish, pausing now and then at the window to look toward the hills of Virginia.

Lee's fame now filled the world and the North shivered at the sound of it.

Volunteering had ceased. But the cannon were still calling for fodder.

The draft was applied. And when it was resisted in fierce riots, the soldiers trained their guns on their own people. The draft wheel was turned by bayonets and the ranks of the army filled with fresh young bodies to be mangled.

Hooker fell before Lee's genius and Meade took his place.

The Confederate Government, flushed with its costly victories, once more sought a political sensation by the invasion of the North. Lee marched his army of veterans into Pennsylvania.

At Gettysburg he met Meade.

The first day the Confederates won. They drove the blue army back through the streets of the village and their gallant General, John F.

Reynolds, was killed.

The second day was one of frightful slaughter. The Union army at its close had lost twenty thousand men, the Confederate fifteen thousand.

The moon rose and flooded the rocky field of blood and death with silent glory. From every shadow and from every open s.p.a.ce through the hot breath of the night came the moans of thousands and high above their chorus rang the cries for water.

No succor could be given. The Confederates were ma.s.sing their artillery on Seminary Ridge. The Union legions were burrowing and planting new batteries.

Fifteen thousand helpless, wounded men lay on the field through the long hours of the night.

At ten o'clock a wounded man began to sing one of the old hymns of Zion whose words had come down the ages wet with tears and winged with human hopes. In five minutes ten thousand voices, from blue and gray, had joined. Some of them quivered with agony. Some of them trembled with a dying breath. For two hours the hills echoed with the unearthly music.

At a council of war Longstreet begged Lee to withdraw from Gettysburg and pick more favorable ground. Reinforced by the arrival of Pickett's division of fifteen thousand fresh men and Stuart's Cavalry, he decided to renew the battle at dawn.

The guns opened at the crack of day. For seven hours the waves of blood ebbed and flowed.

At noon there was a lull.

At one o'clock a puff of white smoke flashed from Seminary Ridge. The signal of the men in gray had pealed its death call. Along two miles on this crest they had planted a hundred and fifty guns. Suddenly two miles of flame burst from the hills in a single fiery wreath. The Federal guns answered until the heavens were a h.e.l.l of bursting, screaming, roaring sh.e.l.ls.

At three o'clock the storm died away and the smoke lifted.

Pickett's men were deploying in the plain to charge the heights of Cemetery Ridge. Fifteen thousand heroic men were forming their line to rush a hill on whose crest lay seventy-five thousand entrenched soldiers backed by four hundred guns.

Pickett's bands played as on parade. The gray ranks dressed on their colors. And then across the plain, with banners flying, they swept and climbed the hill. The ranks closed as men fell in wide gaps. Not a man faltered. They fell and lay when they fell. Those who stood moved on and on. A handful reached the Union lines on the heights. Armistead with a hundred men broke through, lifted his red battle flag and fell mortally wounded. The gray wave in sprays of blood ebbed down the hill, and the battle ended. Meade had lost twenty-three thousand men and seventeen generals. Lee had lost twenty thousand men and fourteen generals.

The swollen Potomac was behind Lee and his defeated army. So sure was Stanton of the end that he declared to the President:

"If a single regiment of Lee's army ever gets back into Virginia in an organized condition it will prove that I am totally unfit to be Secretary of War."

The impossible happened.

Lee got back into Virginia with every regiment marching to quick step and undaunted spirit. He crossed the swollen Potomac, his army in fighting trim, every gun intact, carrying thousands of fat Pennsylvania cattle and four thousand prisoners of war taken on the b.l.o.o.d.y hills of Gettysburg.

The rejoicing in Washington was brief. Meade fell before the genius of Lee, and Grant, the stark fighter of the West, took his place.

The new Commander was granted full authority over all the armies of the Union. He placed Sherman at Chattanooga in command of a hundred thousand men and ordered him to invade Georgia. He sent Butler with an army of fifty thousand up the Peninsula against Richmond on the line of McClellan's old march. He raised the army of the Potomac to a hundred and forty thousand effective fighting soldiers, placed Phil Sheridan in command of his cavalry, put himself at the head of this magnificent army and faced Lee on the banks of the Rapidan. He was but a few miles from Chancellorsville where Hooker's men had baptized the earth in blood the year before.

A new draft of five hundred thousand had given Grant unlimited men for the coming whirlwind. His army was the flower of Northern manhood. He commanded the best-equipped body of soldiers ever a.s.sembled under the flag of the Union. His baggage train was sixty miles long and would have stretched the entire distance from his crossing at the Rapidan to Richmond.

Lee's army had been recruited to its normal strength of sixty-two thousand. Again the wily Southerner antic.i.p.ated the march of his foe and crept into the tangled wilderness to meet him where his superiority would be of no avail.

Confident of his resistless power Grant threw his army across the Rapidan and plunged into the wilderness. From the dawn of the first day until far into the night the conflict raged. As darkness fell Lee had pushed the blue lines back a hundred yards, captured four guns and a number of prisoners. At daylight they were at it again. As the Confederate right wing crumpled and rolled back, Long-street arrived on the scene and threw his corps into the breach.

Lee himself rode forward to lead the charge and restore his line. At sight of him, from thousands of parched throats rose the cries:

"Lee to the rear!"

"Go back, General Lee!"

"We'll settle this!"

They refused to move until their leader had withdrawn. And then with a savage yell they charged and took the field.

Lee sent Longstreet to turn Grant's left as Jackson had done at Chancellorsville. The movement was executed with brilliant success.

Hanc.o.c.k's line was smashed and driven back on his second defenses.

Wardsworth at the head of his division was mortally wounded and fell into Longstreet's hands. At the height of his triumph in a movement that must crumple Grant's army back on the banks of the river, Longstreet fell, shot by his own men. In the change of commanders the stratagem failed in its big purpose.

In two days Grant lost sixteen thousand six hundred men, a greater toll than Hooker paid when he retreated in despair.

Grant merely chewed the end of his big cigar, turned to his lieutenant and said:

"It's all right, Wilson. We'll fight again."

The two armies lay in their trenches watching each other in grim silence.

CHAPTER XLII

In Lee's simple tent on the battlefield amid the ghostly trees of the wilderness his Adjutant-General, Walter Taylor, sat writing rapidly.

Sam, his ebony face shining, stood behind trying to look over his shoulder. He couldn't make it out and his curiosity got the better of him.

"What dat yer writin' so hard, Gin'l Taylor?"

Without lifting his head the Adjutant continued to write.

"Orders of promotion for gallantry in battle, Sam."

"Is yer gwine ter write one fer my young Ma.r.s.e Robbie?"

Taylor paused and looked up. The light of admiration overspread his face.