The Star of Gettysburg Part 28

Harry Kenton, his horse shot under him, again was in the front line of the Southern troops that followed the ma.s.s of fugitives down the road toward the Chancellor House. In the mad rush he lost sight of Jackson for the time, and found himself mingled with the Invincibles. Both the colonels were bleeding from slight wounds, but with fire equal to that of any youth they were still at the head of their troops, leading them straight toward the Union center.

Harry only had time to glance at his friends and receive their glances in return, and then he found Jackson again. Catching one of the riderless horses, so numerous, he sprang upon him and rode close behind his general, where Dalton, a slight bullet wound in the arm, had been able to remain through all the confusion.

Now the Southern troops were crashing through the woods and bearing down upon the Chancellor House. The blaze of the cannon and rifles lit up the early night, and the crash and tumult around the place became indescribable. Many a Northern officer thought that all was lost, but the trained artillerymen of the North never flinched. Occupying an eminence, battery after battery was wheeled into line, until fifty cannon manned by the best gunners in the world were pouring an awful fire upon the Southern front. Jackson's men were compelled to stop, and elsewhere the Southern line was halted also by the density of the thickets.

Yet it was but a lull. It was far into the night. Nevertheless, Jackson meant to push the battle. He rode among his troops and encouraged them for another effort. Everywhere he was received with tremendous cheers, and the men were willing and eager to push on the attack. Lee, his chief, meanwhile was closing in with the smaller force. The whole line was reformed. Jackson cried to Hill and Lane and other generals to push on. The whole army was in line for a fresh attack, and they could hear the sounds made by the enemy cutting down timber and fortifying.

It was now nearly nine o'clock at night, and save for the fires that burned here and there and the flash of the picket firing, the night that hung over the Wilderness was dark and heavy.

Harry pa.s.sed once more near the Invincibles, who were lying down, panting with weariness, but exultant. They had lost a third of their numbers in the attack, but the wounds of his own friends were not serious.

"Do you know whether we charge them again, Harry?" asked Colonel Talbot.

"I don't know, sir; but you know General Jackson."

"Then it probably means that we attack. Keep down, Captain Bertrand! Those Northern pickets in the bushes in front of us are active, and, upon my word, they know how to shoot, as the honorable wounds of many of us attest!"

Bertrand, eager to see the enemy, was standing on a hillock, and he did not seem to hear the words of his chief. A rifle cracked in the bushes and he fell back without a word. The arms of St. Clair received him and eased him gently to the earth. But Harry saw at a glance that the man and his fevered ambitions were gone forever. He was dead before he touched the ground.

"I'm glad that I was the one to catch his body," said St. Clair simply.

Harry was moved at the fall of this man, although he had never really liked him, but he went on and rejoined his general. Colonel Talbot was right. Jackson was still intent upon pressing the attack. Night and darkness were now nothing to him. He meant to achieve Hooker's ruin.

Harry always believed afterward that he felt the shadow of the great tragedy soon to come. The roar of the cannon had died down, but from every direction came the firing of scattered riflemen, skirmishers and pickets. They buzzed like angry bees, and no man on the front of either army was safe from their sting. But all through the Wilderness along the line of Jackson's charge the dead and wounded lay. Here and there clumps of fallen and dead wood of the winter before, set on fire by the sh.e.l.ls, were burning slowly. The smoke from so much firing drifted in vast banks of vapor through the forest. The air was filled with bitter odors.

Harry felt a sensation of awe and terror, not terror inspired by man, but of the unknown or uncontrolled forces that drive men to meet one another in such deadly combat. Now night did not suffice to stop the t.i.tanic struggle. He saw all around him the regiments ready for a new attack, and he plainly heard in front of him the thud of axes as the Northern men cut down trees for their defense. Now and then stray moonbeams, penetrating the forest and the smoke, fell over them like discs of burnished silver, but faded quickly.

The firing of the skirmishers increased. Twigs and leaves cut off by the bullets fell in little showers to the earth. Harry, on horseback now, saw an impatient look pa.s.s over the general's face. The intrepid fighter, A. P. Hill, was coming up fast, but not fast enough for Stonewall Jackson. He turned and rode back toward him, careless of the danger from the Northern skirmishers, who might at any moment see him.

"General," said one of his staff in protest, "don't expose yourself so much."

"There is no danger," said the general quickly. "The enemy is routed and we must push him hard. Hurry to General Hill and tell him to press forward."

The little group of men, Jackson and his staff, rode on. It was very dark where they were, in the shade of the stunted forest. No moonlight reached them there. Jackson paused, listening to the rising fire of the skirmishers. A rifle suddenly flashed in the thickets before them. Northern troops, lost in the bush and the darkness, were coming directly their way.

Jackson turned and, followed by his staff, rode toward his own lines. The men of a North Carolina regiment, dimly seeing a group of hors.e.m.e.n coming down upon them, thought they were about to be attacked, and an officer gave an order to fire. He was obeyed at once, and the most costly volley fired by Southern troops in the whole war sent the deadly bullets whistling into Jackson's group.

Officers and horses fell, shot down by their own men. Jackson was struck in the right hand and received two bullets in his left arm. One cut an artery and another shattered the bone near the shoulder. The reins dropped from his hands, and his horse, the famous Little Sorrel, broke violently away, rushing through the woods toward the Northern lines. A bough struck Jackson in the face and he reeled in the saddle. But with a violent effort he righted himself, seized the bridle in his stricken right hand, and turned back his frightened horse.

Harry had sat still in his saddle, petrified with horror. Then he urged forward his horse and tried to reach his general, but another aide, Captain Wilbourn, was before him. Wilbourn seized the reins of Little Sorrel and then Harry felt the thrill of horror again as he saw Jackson reel forward and fall. But he was caught in the arms of the faithful Wilbourn.

They laid Jackson on the ground, and a courier was sent in haste for his personal physician, Dr. McGuire. Harry sprang down, and abandoning his horse, which he never saw again, knelt beside his general. Wilbourn with a penknife was cutting the sleeve from the shattered arm.

The whole battle pa.s.sed away for Harry. Death was in his heart at that moment. When he looked at the white, drawn face of Jackson and his shattered arm, he had no hope then, nor did he ever have any afterwards, save for a few moments. The paladin of the Confederacy was gone, shot down in the dark by his own men.

General Hill, who also had been in great danger from the bullets of the North Carolinians, galloped up, sprang from his horse and helped to bind up the shattered arm.

"Are you much hurt, General?" he asked, his face distorted with grief and alarm.

"I fear so," was the reply, in a weak voice, "and I have suffered all my wounds from my own men. I think my right arm is broken."

Harry remained motionless. He saw Dalton by his side, and he also saw tears on his face. Jackson closed his eyes and uttered no word of complaint, although it was obvious that he was suffering terribly. General Hill felt his pulse. He was rapidly growing weaker. Harry was so stunned that he would not have known what to do, even had not senior officers been present. When his pulse began to beat again he remained silent, waiting upon his superiors.

But Harry was now alert and watchful again. He heard the heavy firing of the skirmishers on the right, on the left, and in front, and through the darkness he saw the flashes of flame. The little group around the fallen man was detached from the army and the enemy might come upon them at any moment. Even as he looked, two Union skirmishers came through the thicket and, pausing, their rifles in the hollows of their arms, looked intently at the shadowy figures before them, trying to discern who and what they were. It was General Hill who acted promptly. Turning to Harry and Dalton, he said in a low tone:

"Take charge of those men."

The two young lieutenants, with levelled pistols, instantly sprang forward and seized the soldiers before they had time to resist. They were given to orderlies and sent to the rear. Harry and Dalton returned to the side of their fallen general. While all stood there trying to decide what to do, an aide who had gone down the road reported that a battery of Northern artillery was unlimbering just before them.

"Then we must take the General away at once," said Hill.

Hill lifted in his arms the great leader who was now almost too weak to speak, although he opened his eyes once, and, as ever, thoughtful of his troops and the cause for which he fought, said.

"Tell them it's only a wounded Confederate soldier whom you are carrying."

Then he closed his eyes again and lay heavy and inert in Hill's arms. Hill held him on his feet, and the young staff officers, now crowding around, supported him. Thus aided he walked among the trees until they came to the road. It was as dark as ever, save for the flash of the firing which went on continuously to right, to left, and in front, mingled now with the sinister rumble of cannon.

Harry, helping to support Jackson and overwhelmed with grief, felt as if the end of the world had come. The darkness, the flash of the rifles, the mutter of cannon, the blaze of gunpowder, the fierce shouts that rose now and then in the thickets, the foul odors, made him think that they had truly reached the infernal regions.

The lieutenant, who saw the battery unlimbering, had not been deceived by his imagination. Just as they entered the road it fired a terrible volley of grape and shrapnel. Luckily in the darkness it fired high, and the little Southern group heard the deadly sleet crashing in the bushes and boughs over their heads.

The devoted young staff officers instantly laid Jackson down in the road, and, sheltering him with their own bodies as they lay beside him, remained perfectly still while the awful rain of steel swept over their heads again. Whether Jackson was conscious of it Harry never knew.

It was one of the most terrible moments of Harry's life. He felt the most overwhelming grief, but every nerve, nevertheless, was sensitive to the last degree. His first conviction that Jackson's wounds were mortal was in abeyance for the moment. He might yet recover and lead his dauntless legions as of old to victory, and he, like the other young officers who lay around him, was resolved to save him with his own life if he could.

The deadly rain from the cannon did not cease. It swept over their heads again and again, all the more fearful because of the darkness. Harry felt the twigs and leaves, cut from the bushes, falling on his face. The whining of the grape and shrapnel and canister united in one ferocious note. Some of it struck in the roadway beyond them and fire flew from the stones.

The general revived a little after a while and tried to get up, but one of the young officers threw his arms around him and, holding him down, said:

"Be still, General! You must! It will cost you your life to rise!"

The general made no further attempt to rise, and perhaps he lapsed into a stupor for a little s.p.a.ce. Harry could not tell how long that dreadful shrieking and whining over their heads continued. It was five minutes perhaps, but to him it seemed interminable. Presently the missiles gave forth a new note.

"They're using sh.e.l.ls now," said Dalton, "because they're seeking a longer range, and they're going much higher over our heads than the canister."

"And here are men approaching," said Harry. "I can make out their figures. They must be our own."

"So they are!" said Dalton, as they came nearer.

It was a heavy ma.s.s of Confederate infantry pressing forward in the darkness, and the young officers who had been so ready to give their lives for their hero lifted him to his feet. Not wishing to have the ardor of his men quenched by the sight of his wounds, Jackson bade them take him aside into the thick bushes. But Pender, the general who was leading these troops, saw him and recognized him, despite the heavy veil of darkness and smoke.

Pender rushed to Jackson, betraying the greatest grief, and said that he was afraid he must fall back before the tremendous artillery fire of the enemy. As he spoke, that fire increased. Sh.e.l.ls and round shot, grape and canister and shrapnel shrieked through the air, and the bullets, too, were coming in thousands, whistling like hail driven by a hurricane. Men fell all about them in the darkness.

But the great soul of Jackson, wounded to death and unable to stand, was unshaken. Harry saw him suddenly straighten up, draw himself away from those who were supporting him, and say:

"You must hold your ground, General Pender! You must hold out to the very last, sir!"

Once more the eyes shot forth blue fire. Once more the unquenchable spirit had spoken. The figure reeled, and the young officers sprang to his support. He wanted to lie down there and rest, but the youths would not let him, because every form of missile hurled from a cannon's mouth was crashing among them. A litter arrived now and they carried him toward a house that had been used as a tavern. A shot struck one of the men who held the litter in his arm and he was compelled to let go. The litter tipped over and Jackson fell heavily to the ground, his whole weight crashing upon his wounded arm. Harry heard him utter then his first and only groan. The boy himself cried out in horror.