The Star of Gettysburg Part 30

Harry saw that Stuart's face was flushed with excitement. His eyes fairly blazed. It had fallen to him to lead the great fighting corps which had been led so long by Stonewall Jackson, and it was enough to appeal to the pride of any general. Nor had he shed any of the brilliant plumage that he loved so well. The great plume in his gold-corded hat lifted and fluttered in the wind as he galloped about. The broad sash of yellow silk still encircled his waist, and on his heels were large golden spurs. Harry, as he followed him, heard him singing to himself, "Old Joe Hooker, won't you come out of the Wilderness?" That line seemed to have taken possession of Stuart's mind.

All the staff and many of the soldiers along the battle front noted the difference between their new commander and the one who had fallen so disastrously in the night. There was never anything spectacular about Jackson. In the soberest of uniforms, save once or twice, he would ride along the battle front on his little sorrel horse, making no gestures.

It was not until the soldiers saw Stuart in the light that they knew of Jackson's fall. Then the news spread among them with astonishing rapidity, and while they liked Stuart, their hearts were with the great leader who lay wounded behind them. But eagerness for revenge added to their warlike zeal. Along the reformed lines ran a tremendous swelling cry: "Remember Jackson!"

They wheeled a little further to the right in order to come into close contact with Lee, and then, as the first red touch of the dawn showed in the Wilderness, the trumpets sounded the charge. The batteries blazed as they sent forth crashing volleys, and in a minute the thunder of guns came from the east and south, where Lee also attacked as soon as he heard the sounds of his lieutenant's charge.

Nothing could withstand the terrible onset of the troops who were still shouting "Remember Jackson!" and who were led on by a plumed knight out of the Middle Ages, shaking a great sabre and now singing at the top of his voice his favorite line, "Old Joe Hooker, won't you come out of the Wilderness?"

They swept away the skirmishers and seized the plateau of Hazel Grove which had been of such use to Hooker the night before, and the Southern batteries, planted in strength upon it, rained death on the Northern ranks. The veterans with Lee rushed forward with equal courage and fire, and from every point of the great curve cannon and rifles thundered on the Union ranks.

Harry and Dalton stayed as closely as they could with their new chief, who, reckless of the death which in truth he seemed to invite, was galloping in the very front ranks, still brandishing his great sabre, and now and then making it whirl in a coil of light about his head. He continually shouted encouragement to his men, who were already full of fiery zeal, but it was the spirit of Jackson that urged them most. It seemed to Harry, excited and worshipping his hero, that the figure of Jackson, misty and almost impalpable, still rode before him.

But it was no mere triumphal march. They met stern and desperate resistance. It was American against American. Once more the superb Northern batteries met those of the South with a fire as terrible as their own. The Union gunners willingly exposed themselves to death to save their army, and from their breastworks sixty thousand riflemen sent vast sheets of bullets.

But the Northern leader was gone. As Hooker leaned against a pillar in the portico of the Chancellor House a sh.e.l.l struck it over his head, the concussion being so violent that he was thrown to the floor, stunned and severely injured. He was carried away, unconscious, but the brave and able generals under him still sustained the battle, and had no thought of yielding.

The Southern army, Lee and Stuart in unison, never ceased to push the attack. The forces were now drawing closer together. The lines were shorter and deeper. The concentrated fire on both sides was appalling. Bushes and saplings fell in the Wilderness as if they had been levelled with mighty axes.

Harry saw a vast bank of fire and smoke and then he saw shooting above it pyramids and spires of flame. The Chancellor House and all the buildings near it, set on fire by the flames, were burning fiercely, springing up like torches to cast a lurid light over that scene of death and destruction. Then the woods, despite their spring sap and greenness, caught fire under the showers of exploding sh.e.l.ls, and their flames spread along a broad front.

The defense made by the Union army was long and desperate. No men could have shown greater valor, but they had been surprised and from the first they had been outgeneralled. An important division of Hooker's army had not been able to get into the main battle. The genius of Lee gathered all his men at the point of contact and the invisible figure of Jackson still rode at the head of his men.

For five hours the battle raged, and at last the repeated charges of the Southern troops and the deadly fire of their artillery prevailed.

The Northern army, its breastworks carried by storm, was driven out of Chancellorsville and, defeated but not routed, began its slow and sullen retreat. Thirty thousand men killed or wounded attested the courage and endurance with which the two sides had fought.

The Army of the Potomac, defeated but defiant and never crushed by defeat, continued its slow retreat to Fredericksburg, and for a little s.p.a.ce the guns were silent in the Wilderness.

The men of Hooker, although surprised and outgeneralled, had shown great courage in battle, and after the defeat of Chancellorsville the retreat was conducted with much skill. Lee had been intending to push another attack, but, as usual after the great battles of the Civil War, Chancellorsville was followed by a terrific storm. It burst over the Wilderness in violence and fury.

The thunder was so loud and the lightning so vivid that it seemed for a while as if another mighty combat were raging. Then the rain came in a deluge, and the hoofs of horses and the wheels of cannon sank so deep in the spongy soil of the Wilderness that it became practically impossible to move the army.

After a night of storm, Harry and Dalton rode forward with Sherburne and his troop of cavalry, sent by Stuart to beat up the enemy and see what he was doing. They found that Hooker's whole army had crossed the river in the night on his bridges.

Twice the Northern army had been driven back across the Rappahannock at the same place-after Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville-but Harry felt no elation as he returned slowly through the mud with Sherburne.

"If it were in my power," he said, "I'd gladly trade the victory of Chancellorsville, and more like it, to have our General back."

By "our General" he of course meant Jackson, and both Sherburne and Dalton nodded a.s.sent. The news had come to them that Jackson was not doing well. His shattered arm had been amputated near the shoulder, and the report spread through the army that he was sinking. Just after the victory, Lee, with his wonted greatness of soul, had sent him a note that it was chiefly due to him. Jackson, although in great pain, had sent back word that General Lee was very kind, "but he should give the praise to G.o.d."

The deep religious feeling was no affectation with him. It showed alike in victory and suffering. It was a part of the man's being, bred into every fiber of his bone and flesh.

As soon as the news of Hooker's escape across the Rappahannock had been told, Harry and Dalton asked leave of Stuart to visit General Jackson. It was given at once. Stuart added, moreover, that he had merely taken them on his staff while the battle lasted. They were now to return to their own chief. But his heart warmed to them both and he said to them that if they happened to need a friend to come to him.

They thanked Stuart and rode away, two very sober youths indeed. Both were appalled by the vast slaughter of Chancellorsville. Harry began to have a feeling that their victories were useless. After every triumph the enemy was more numerous and powerful than ever. And the cloud of Jackson's condition hung heavy over both. When he was first struck down in the Wilderness, Harry had felt no hope for him, and now that premonition was coming true.

They learned that he was in the Chandler House at a little place called Guiney's Station, and they rode briskly toward it. They pa.s.sed many troops in camp, resting after their tremendous exertions, many of whom knew them to be officers of Jackson's staff. They were besieged by these. Young soldiers fairly clung to their horses and demanded news of Jackson, who, they had heard, was dying. Harry and Dalton returned replies as hopeful as they could make them, but their faces belied their word. Gloom hung over the Southern army which had just won its most brilliant victory.

Harry and Dalton found the same gloom at the Chandler House. The officers who were there welcomed them in subdued tones, and in the house everybody moved silently. The general's wife and little daughter had just arrived from Richmond, and they were with him. But after a while the two young lieutenants were admitted. Jackson spoke a few words to both, as they bent beside his bed, and commended them as brave soldiers. Harry knew now, when he looked at the thin face and the figure scarcely able to move, that the great Jackson was going.

They went out oppressed by grief, and sought the Invincibles, whom they at last found encamped in an old orchard. Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire sat beneath an apple tree, and the chessboard was between them.

"They've been sitting there an hour," whispered Langdon, "but they haven't made a single move, nor will they make one if they stay there all day. It's in my mind that neither of them sees the chessmen. Instead they see the General-they visited him this morning."

Harry did not speak to the two colonels, but turned away.

"We found the body of Bertrand yesterday," said Langdon, "and buried it just where he fell."

"I'm glad of that," said Harry.

Harry and Dalton lingered at the Chandler House with the staff to which they belonged. Three days pa.s.sed and Sunday came. Jackson was sinking all the while, and that morning the doctor informed his wife that he was about to die. Pneumonia had followed the weakness from his wounds and his breathing had grown very faint. Mrs. Jackson herself told him that all hope for him was gone, and he heard the words with resignation.

After a while, as Harry learned, his mind began to wander. He spoke in disjointed sentences of the army, of his battles, of his boyhood and of his friends. This lasted into the afternoon, when he sank into unconsciousness. Then came his death, and it was much like that of Napoleon. He awoke suddenly from a deep stupor and cried out, in a clear voice:

"Order A. P. Hill to prepare for action! Pa.s.s the infantry to the front! Tell Major Hawks-"

He stopped, seemed to sink into a stupor again, but a little later roused suddenly from it once more, and said, in the same clear voice:

"Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."

Then, as his eyes closed, the soul of the great Christian soldier pa.s.sed into the fathomless beyond, to sit in peace with Cromwell and Washington, and in time with Lee and Grant and Thomas, who were yet to come.

That night a whole army wept.

CHAPTER X

THE NORTHERN MARCH

It was days before Harry felt as if life could move on in the usual way. He had loved Jackson next to his father. In fact, in the absence of his own father the great general had stood in that place to him. He had received from him so many marks of approval, and, riding as a trusted member of Jackson's staff, his head had been in such a rosy cloud of glory and victory, that now it seemed for a while as if the world had come to an end.

He was disappointed, too, that they had reaped so little from Chancellorsville. He believed at times that his general had died in vain. He had but to ride a little distance and see the enemy across the Rappahannock, where he had been so many months, with the same bristling guns and the same superior forces.

He had been eager, like all the other young officers, to move directly after the battle and attack the foe on his own ground, but when he talked with the two colonels he realized that their numbers were too small. They must wait for Longstreet's great division, which had been detached from the battle to guard against a possible flank attack upon Richmond. Oh, if Longstreet and his twenty thousand veterans had been at Chancellorsville! And if Jackson had not fallen just at the moment when he was about to complete the destruction of Hooker's right wing! He believed that then they would have annihilated the Army of the Potomac, that only a few fugitives from it would have escaped across the Potomac. The time came to him in after years when he often asked himself would such a result have been a good result for the American people.

But now he was only a boy, as old, it is true, as many boys who led companies, or even regiments, and the days were sufficient for his thoughts. He was not thinking of the distant years and what they might bring. Both he and Dalton felt joy when General Lee sent for them and told them that, having been valued members of General Jackson's staff, they were now to become members of his own. All he asked of them was to serve him as well as they had served General Jackson.

Harry was moved so deeply that he could scarcely thank him. He felt springing up in his breast the same affection and hero-worship for Lee that he had felt for Jackson. And as the close a.s.sociation with Lee continued, this feeling grew both in his heart and in that of Dalton.

The soul of youth cannot be kept down, and Harry's spirits returned as he rode back and forth on Lee's errands. Moreover, spring was in full tide and his blood rose with it. The Wilderness, in which the dead men lay, and all the surrounding country were turning a deep green, and the waters of the Rappahannock often flashed in gold or silver as the sun blazed or grew dim. Pleasant relations between the sentries on the two sides of the river were renewed. Tobacco, newspapers, and other harmless articles were pa.s.sed back and forth, when the officers conveniently turned their backs. Nor was it always that the younger officers turned away.

Harry was in a boat near the right bank when he saw another boat about thirty yards from the left sh.o.r.e. It contained a half dozen men, and he recognized one of the figures at once. Putting his hands, trumpet-shaped, to his mouth, he shouted:

"Mr. Shepard! Oh, I say, Mr. Shepard!"

The man looked up, and, evidently recognizing Harry, he had the boat rowed a little nearer. Harry had his own moved forward a little, and he stopped at a point where they could talk conveniently.