The Star of Gettysburg Part 31

"You may not believe me," said Shepard, "but I felt pleasure when I heard your voice and recognized your face. I am glad to know that you did not fall in the great battle."

"I do believe you, and I am not merely exchanging compliments when I say that I rejoice that you, too, came out of it alive."

"Nevertheless, luck was against us then," said Shepard, and Harry, even at the distance, saw a shadow cross his face. "I saw the great flank movement of Jackson and I understood its nature. I was on my way to General Hooker with all speed to warn him, and I would have got there in time had it not been for a chance bullet that stunned me. That bullet cost us thousands of men."

"And the bullets that struck General Jackson will cost us a whole army corps."

"We hear that they were fired by your own men."

"So they were. A North Carolina company in the darkness took us for the enemy."

"I don't rejoice over the fall of a great and valiant foe, but whether Jackson lived or died the result would be the same. I told you long ago that the forces of the Union could never be beaten in the long run, and I repeated it to you another time. Now I repeat it once more. We have lost two great battles here, but you make no progress. We menace you as much as ever."

"But your newspapers say you're growing very tired. There's no nation so big that it can't be exhausted."

"But you'll be exhausted first. So long, I see some of our generals coming out on the bluffs with their gla.s.ses. I suppose we mustn't appear too friendly."

"Good-bye, Mr. Shepard. We've lost Jackson, but we've many a good man yet. I think our next great battle will be farther north."

They had not spoken as enemies, but as friends who held different views upon an important point, and now they rowed back peacefully, each to his own sh.o.r.e.

With the return of Longstreet, the Southern army was raised to greater numbers than at Chancellorsville. With Stuart's matchless cavalry it numbered nearly eighty thousand men, most of them veterans, and a cry for invasion came from the South. What was the use of victories like Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, if they merely left matters where they were? The fighting hitherto had been done on Southern soil. The South alone had felt the presence of war. It was now time for the North to have a taste of it.

Harry and his comrades heard this cry, and it seemed to them to be full of truth. They ought to strike straight at the heart of the enemy. When their victorious brigades threatened Philadelphia and New York, the two great commercial centers of the North, then the Northern people would not take defeat so easily. It would be a different matter altogether when a foe appeared at their own doors.

Rumors that the invasion would be undertaken soon spread thick and fast. Harry saw his general, Lee now in place of Jackson, in daily conference with his most trusted lieutenants. Longstreet and A. P. Hill were there often, and one day Harry saw riding toward headquarters a man who had only one leg and who was strapped to his saddle. But a strong Roman nose and a sharp, penetrating eye showed that he was a man of force and decision. Once, when he lifted his hat to return a salute, he showed a head almost wholly bald.

Harry looked at him for a moment or two unknowing, and then crying "General Ewell!" ran forward to greet him.

Harry was right. It was what was left of him who had been Jackson's chief lieutenant in the Valley campaigns and who had fallen wounded so terribly at the Second Mana.s.sas. After nine months of suffering, here he was again, as resolute and indomitable as ever, able to ride only when he was strapped in his saddle, but riding as much as any other general, nevertheless.

And Ewell, who might well have retired, was one of those who had most to lose by war. He had a great estate in the heart of a rich country near Virginia's ancient capital, Williamsburg. There he had lived in a large house, surrounded by a vast park, all his own. Even as the man, maimed in body but as dauntless of mind as ever, rode back to Lee, his estate was in the hands of Union troops. He had all to lose, but did not hesitate.

Harry saluted him and spoke to him gladly. Ewell turned his piercing eyes upon him, hesitated a moment, and then said:

"It's Kenton, young Harry Kenton of Jackson's staff. I remember you in the Valley now. We've lost the great Jackson, but we'll beat the Yankees yet."

Then he let loose a volley of oaths, much after the fashion of the country gentleman of that time, both in America and England. But Harry only smiled.

"I'm to have command of Jackson's old corps, the second," said Ewell, "and if you're not placed I'll be glad to have you on my staff."

"I thank you very much, General," said Harry with great sincerity, "but General Lee has taken me over, because I was with Jackson."

"Then you'll have all the fighting you want," said the indomitable Ewell. "General Lee never hesitates to strike. But don't be the fool that I was and get your leg shot off. If anything has to go, let it be an arm. Look at me. I could ride with any man in all Virginia, a state of hors.e.m.e.n, and now a couple of men have to come and fasten me in the saddle with straps. But never mind."

He rode cheerily on, and Harry, turning back, met St. Clair and Langdon. Both showed a pleased excitement.

"What is it?" asked Harry.

"Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire are at it again, and there have been results!"

"What has happened?"

"Colonel Talbot has lost a bishop and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire has lost a knight. Each claims that he has gained a technical advantage in position, and they've stopped playing to argue about it. From the way they act you'd think they were Yankee generals. See 'em over there under the boughs of that tree, sitting on camp stools, with the chessmen on another camp stool between them."

Harry looked over a little ridge and saw the two colonels, who were talking with great earnestness, each obviously full of a desire to convince the other.

"My dear Hector," said Colonel Talbot, "each of us has taken a piece. It is not so much a question of the relative value of these pieces as it is of the position into which you force your opponent."

"Exactly so, Leonidas. I agree with you on that point, and for that reason I aver that I have made a tactical gain."

"Hector, you are ordinarily a man of great intelligence, but in this case you seem to have lost some part of your mental powers."

"One of us has suffered such a loss, and while I am too polite to name him, I am sure that I am not the man."

"Ah, well, we'll not accuse each other while the issue still hangs in doubt. Progress with the game will show that I am right."

When Harry pa.s.sed that way an hour later they were still bent over the board, the best of friends again, but no more losses had been suffered by either.

May was almost spent and spring was at the full. The Southern army was now at its highest point in both numbers and effectiveness. Only Jackson was gone, but he was a host and more, and when Lee said that he had lost his right arm, he spoke the truth, as he was soon to find. Yet the Southern power was at the zenith and no shadow hung over the veteran and devoted troops who were eager to follow Lee in that invasion of the North of which all now felt sure.

Doubts were dispelled with the close of May. Harry was one of the young officers who carried the commander-in-chief's orders to the subordinate generals, and while he knew details, he wondered what the main plan would be. Young as he was he knew that no pa.s.sage could be forced across the Rappahannock in the face of the Army of the Potomac, which was now as numerous as ever, and which could sweep the river and its sh.o.r.es with its magnificent artillery. But he had full confidence in Lee. The spell that Jackson had thrown over him was transferred to Lee, who swayed his feelings and judgment with equal power.

The figure of Lee in the height and fullness of victory was imposing. An English general who saw him, and who also saw all the famous men of his time, wrote long afterward that he was the only great man he had ever seen who looked all his greatness. Tall, strongly built, with thick gray hair, a short gray beard, clipped closely, ruddy complexion and blue eyes, he was as careful in dress as Jackson had been careless. He spoke with a uniform politeness, not superficial, but from the heart, and his glance was nearly always grave and benevolent.

General Lee in these warm days of late spring occupied a large tent. Even when the army was not on the march he invariably preferred tents to houses, and now Harry saw nearly all the famous Southern generals in the east pa.s.sing through that door. There was Longstreet, blue of eye like Lee, full bearded, thick and powerful, and proud of his horsemanship, in which he excelled.

Ewell, too, stumped in on his crutches, vigorous, enthusiastic, but never using profane language where Lee was. And there was A. P. Hill, of soldierly slenderness and of fine, pleasing manner; McLaws, who had done so well at Antietam; Pickett, not yet dreaming of the one marvelous achievement that was to be his; Old Jubal Early, as he was familiarly called, bald, bearded, rheumatic, profane, but brave and able; Hood, tall, yellow-haired; Pender, the North Carolinian, not yet thirty, religious like Jackson, and doomed like him to fall soon in battle; Tieth, Edward Johnson, Anderson, Trimble, Stuart, as gay and dandyish as ever; Ramseur, Jones, Daniel, young Fitzhugh Lee; Pendleton, Armistead, and a host of others whose names remained memorable to him. They were all tanned and sun-burned men. Few had reached early middle age, and the shadows of death were already gathering for many of them.

But the high spirits of the Southern army merely became higher as they began to make rapid but secret preparation for departure. The soldiers did not know where they were going, except that it was into the North, and they began to discuss the nature of the country they would find there. Harry took the message to the Invincibles to pack and march. Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire reluctantly dropped their unfinished game, put up the chessmen, and in an hour the Invincibles-few, but trim and strong-were marching to a position farther up the river.

The corps of Longstreet was to lead the way, and it would march the next morning. Harry now knew that the army would advance by way of the Shenandoah valley. The Northern troops had been raiding in the great valley and again had retaken Winchester, the pleasant little city so beloved of Jackson. Harry shared the anger at this news that Jackson would have felt had he been alive to hear it.

Harry was well aware, however, that the army could not slip away from its opponent. Hooker, still in command, was watching on the heights across the river, and there were the captive balloons hovering again in the sky. But the spirit of the troops was such that they did not care whether their march was known or not.

Harry and Dalton were awake early on the morning of the third of June, and they saw the corps of Longstreet file silently by, the bugle that called them away being the first note of the great and decisive Gettysburg campaign. They were better clothed and in better trim than they had been in a long time. They walked with an easy, springy gait, and the big guns rumbled at the heels of the horses, fat from long rest and the spring gra.s.s. They were to march north and west to Culpeper, fifty miles away, and there await the rest of the army.

Harry and Dalton felt great exhilaration. Movement was good not only for the body, but for the spirit as well. It made the blood flow more freely and the brain grow more active. Moreover, the beauty of the early summer that had come incited one to greater hope.

The great adventure had now begun, but it was not unknown to Hooker and his watchful generals on the other sh.o.r.e. The ground was dry and they had seen a column of dust rise and move toward the northwest. Their experienced eyes told them that such a cloud must be made by marching troops, and the men in the balloons with their gla.s.ses were able to catch the gleam of steel from the bayonets of Longstreet's men as they took the long road to Gettysburg.

Hooker had good men with him. He, too, as he stood on the left bank of the Rappahannock, was surrounded by able and famous generals, and others were to come. There was Meade, a little older than the others, but not old, tall, thin, stooped a bit, wearing gla.s.ses, and looking like a scholar, with his pale face and ragged beard, a cold, quiet man, able and thorough, but without genius. Then came Reynolds, modest and quiet, who many in the army claimed would have shown the genius that Meade lacked had it not been for his early death, for he too, like Pender, would soon be riding to a soldier's grave. And then were Doubleday and Newton and Hanc.o.c.k, a great soldier, a man of magnificent presence, whose air and manner always inspired enthusiasm, soon to be known as Hanc.o.c.k the Superb; Sedgwick, a soldier of great insight and tenacity; Howard, a religious man, who was to come out of the war with only one arm; Hunt and Gibbon, and Webb and Sykes, and Sloc.u.m and Pleasanton, who commanded the cavalry, and many others.

These men foresaw the march of Lee into the North, and the people behind them realized that they were no longer carrying the battle to the enemy. He was bringing it to them. Apprehension spread through the North, but it was prepared for the supreme effort. The Army of the Potomac, despite Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, had no fear of its opponent, and the veterans in blue merely asked for another chance.

On the following morning and the morning after, Ewell's corps followed Longstreet in two divisions toward the general rendezvous at Culpeper Court House, but Lee himself, although most of his troops were now gone, did not yet move. Hill's corps had been held to cover any movement of the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg, and Lee and his staff remained there for three days after Longstreet's departure.

The Invincibles had gone, but Harry and Dalton were just behind Lee, who sat on his white horse, Traveler, gazing through his gla.s.ses toward a division of the Army of the Potomac which on the day before had crossed the Rappahannock, under a heavy fire from Hill's men.