The Star of Gettysburg Part 18

"But the enemy was a third more numerous than we were," said Happy Tom, "and since it looks like a draw, so far as the fighting was concerned, we, being the smaller, get the honors."

"That's just the trouble," said Dalton gravely. "We are loaded down with honors. Look at the great victories we've won in the East! Has anything solid come of them? Here is the enemy on Virginia soil, just as he was before. We've given the Army of the Potomac a terrible thrashing at Fredericksburg, but there it is on the other side of the Rappahannock, just as strong as ever, and maybe stronger, because they say recruits are pouring into it."

"Stop! Stop, Dalton!" said Happy Tom. "We don't want any lecture from you. We're just having a conversation."

"All right," said Dalton, laughing, "but I gave you my opinion."

Days of comparative idleness followed. The Army of the Potomac moved farther up the river and settled itself around the village of Falmouth. The Army of Northern Virginia faced it, and along the hillsides the young Southern soldiers erected sign posts, on the boards of which were painted, in letters large enough for the Union gla.s.ses to see, the derisive words:

THIS WAY TO RICHMOND

CHAPTER VII

JEB STUART'S BALL

But Hooker, the new Northern commander, did not yet move. The chief cause was mud. The winter having been very cold in the first half, was very rainy in the second half. The numerous brooks and creeks and smaller rivers remained flooded beyond their banks, and the Rappahannock flowed a swollen and mighty stream. Ponds and little lakes stood everywhere. Roads had been destroyed by the marching of mighty ma.s.ses and the rolling of thousands of heavy wheels. Horses often sank nearly to the knee when they trod new paths through the muddy fields. There was mud, mud everywhere.

Hooker, moreover, was confronted by a long line of earthworks and other intrenchments, extending for twenty miles along the Rappahannock, and defended by the victors of Fredericksburg. After that disastrous day the Northern ma.s.ses at home were not so eager for a battle. The country realized that it was not well to rush a foe, led by men like Lee and Jackson.

But Hooker was a brave and confident man. The North, always ready, was sending forward fresh troops, and when he crossed the Rappahannock, as he intended to do, he would have more men and more guns than Burnside had led when he attacked the blazing heights of Fredericksburg. Lincoln and Stanton, warned too by the great disasters through their attempts to manage armies in the field from the Capitol, were giving Hooker a freer hand.

On the other hand, the Confederate president and his cabinet suddenly curtailed Lee's plans. A fourth of his veterans under Longstreet were drawn off to meet a flank attack of other Northern forces which seemed to be threatened upon Richmond. Lee was left with only sixty thousand men to face Hooker's growing odds.

It was not any wonder that the spirits of the Southern lads sank somewhat. Harry realized more fully every day that it was not sufficient for them merely to defeat the Northern armies. They must destroy them. The immense patriotism of those who fought for the Union always filled up their depleted ranks and more, and they were getting better generals all the time. Hanc.o.c.k and Reynolds and many another were rising to fame in the east.

The Invincibles were posted nearly opposite Falmouth, and Harry had many chances to see them. On his second visit the chessboard was mended so perfectly that the split was not visible, and the two colonels sat down to finish their game. Fifteen minutes later a dispatch from General Jackson to Colonel Leonidas Talbot arrived, telling him to leave at once by the railway in the Confederate rear for Richmond. President Davis wished detailed information from him about the fortifications along the coasts of North Carolina and South Carolina, which were now heavily threatened by the enemy.

The two colonels had not made a move, but Colonel Leonidas Talbot rose, b.u.t.toned every b.u.t.ton of his neat tunic, and said in precise tones:

"Hector, I depart in a half hour. You will, of course, have command of the regiment in my absence, and if any young lieutenants should be exceedingly obstreperous in the course of that time, perhaps I can prove to them that they are not as old as they think they are."

The colonel's severity of tone was belied by a faint twinkle in the corner of his eye, and the lads knew that they had nothing to fear, especially as Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire was quite as stern and able a guardian as Colonel Talbot.

Colonel Talbot departed, good wishes following him in a shower, and that day a young officer arrived from South Carolina and took a place in the Invincibles that had been made vacant by death.

Harry was still with his friends when this officer arrived, and the tall, slender figure and dark face of the man seemed familiar to him. A little thought recalled where he had first seen that eager gesture and the manner so intense that it betrayed an excessive enthusiasm. But when Harry did remember him he remembered him well.

"How do you do, Captain Bertrand?" he said-the man wore the uniform of a captain.

Bertrand stared at Harry, and then he gradually remembered. It was not strange that he was puzzled at first, as in the two years that had pa.s.sed since Bertrand was in Colonel Kenton's house at Pendleton, Harry had grown much larger and more powerful, and was deeply tanned by all kinds of weather. But when he did recall him his greeting was full of warmth.

"Ah, now I know!" he exclaimed. "It is Harry Kenton, the son of Colonel George Kenton! And we held that meeting at your father's house on the eve of the war! And then we went up to Frankfort, and we did not take Kentucky out of the Union."

"No, we didn't," said Harry with a laugh. "Captain Bertrand, Lieutenant St. Clair and Lieutenant Langdon."

But Bertrand had known them both in Charleston, and he shook their hands with zeal and warmth, showing what Harry thought-as he had thought the first time he saw him-an excess of manner.

"We've a fine big dry place under this tree," said St. Clair. "Let's sit down and talk. You're the new Captain in our regiment, are you not?"

"Yes," replied Bertrand. "I've just come from Richmond, where I met my chief, that valiant man, Colonel Leonidas Talbot. I have been serving mostly on the coast of the Carolinas, and when I asked to be sent to the larger theater of war they very naturally a.s.signed me to one of my own home regiments. Alas! there is plenty of room for me and many more in the ranks of the Invincibles."

"We have been well shot up, that's true," said Langdon, whom nothing could depress more than a minute, "but we've put more than a million Yankees out of the running."

"How are your Knights of the Golden Circle getting on?" asked Harry.

Bertrand flushed a little, despite his swarthiness.

"Not very well, I fear," he replied. "It has taken us longer to conquer the Yankees than we thought."

"I don't see that we've begun to conquer them as a people or a section," said St. Clair, who was always frank and direct. "We've won big victories, but just look and you'll see 'em across the river there, stronger and more numerous than ever, and that, too, on the heels of the big defeat they sustained at Fredericksburg. And, if you'll pardon me, Captain, I don't believe much in the great slave empire that the Knights of the Golden Circle planned."

Bertrand's black eyes flashed.

"And why not?" he asked sharply.

"To take Cuba and Mexico would mean other wars, and if we took them we'd have other kinds of people whom we'd have to hold in check with arms. A fine mess we'd make of it, and we haven't any right to jump on Cuba and Mexico, anyway. I've got a far better plan."

"And what is that?" asked Bertrand, with an increasing sharpness of manner.

"The North means to free our slaves. We'll defeat the North and show to her that she can't. Then we'll free 'em ourselves."

"Free them ourselves!" exclaimed Bertrand. "What are we fighting for but the right to hold our own property?"

"I didn't understand it exactly that way. It seems to me that we went to war to defend the right of a state to go out of the Union when it pleases."

"I tell you, this war is being fought to establish our t.i.tle to our own."

"It's all right, so we fight well," said Harry, who saw Bertrand's rising color and who believed him to be tinged with fanaticism; "it's all that can be asked of us. After Happy Tom sleeps in the White House with his boots on, as he says he's going to do, we can decide, each according to his own taste, what he was fighting for."

"I've known all the time what was in my mind," said Bertrand emphatically. "Of course, the extension of the new republic toward the north will be cut off by the Yankees. Then its expansion must be southward, and that means in time the absorption of Mexico, all the West Indies, and probably Central America."

St. Clair was about to retort, but Harry gave him a warning look and he contented himself with rolling into a little easier position. Harry foresaw that these two South Carolinians would not be friends, and in any event he hated fruitless political discussions.

Bertrand excused himself presently and went away.

"Arthur," said Harry, "I wouldn't argue with him. He's a captain in the Invincibles now, and you're a lieutenant. It's in his power to make trouble for you."

"You're not appealing to any emotion in me that might bear the name of fear, are you, Harry?"

"You know I'm not. Why argue with a man who has fire on the brain? Although he's older than you, Arthur, he hasn't got as good a rein on his temper."

"You can't resist flattery like that, can you, Arthur? I know I couldn't," said Happy Tom, grinning his genial grin.

St. Clair's face relaxed.