The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis Part 14

All of d.i.c.k's senses were excited once more, and everything he saw was vivid and highly colored. Warner, cool of blood as he habitually was, had no words of rebuke for him now, because he, too, was affected in the same way. The fields and plains of Mana.s.sas were alive not alone with marching armies, but the ghosts of those who had fallen there the year before rose and walked again.

Despite the darkness everything swelled into life again for d.i.c.k. Off there was the little river of Mana.s.sas, Young's Branch, the railway station, and the Henry House, around which the battle had raged so fiercely. They would have won the victory then if it had not been for Stonewall Jackson. If he had not been there the war would have been ended on that sanguinary summer day.

But Jackson was in front of them now, and they had him fast. Lee and Jackson had thought to trap Pope, but Jackson himself was in the trap, and they would destroy him utterly. His admiration for the great Southern general had changed for the time into consuming rage. They must overwhelm him, annihilate him, sweep him from the face of the earth.

They mounted again and moved back, but did not go far.

"Get down, d.i.c.k," said Colonel Winchester. "Here's food for us, and hot coffee. I don't remember myself how long we've been in the saddle and how long we've been without food, but we mustn't go into battle until we've eaten."

d.i.c.k was the last of the officers to dismount. He, too, did not remember how long they had been in the saddle. He could not say at that moment, whether it had been one night or two. He ate and drank mechanically, but hungrily--the Union army nearly always had plenty of stores--and then he felt better and stronger.

A faint bluish tint was appearing under the gray horizon in the east.

d.i.c.k felt the touch of a light wind on his forehead. The dawn was coming.

Yes, the dawn was coming, but it was coming heavy with sinister omens and the frown of battle. Before the bluish tint in the east had turned to silver d.i.c.k heard the faint and far thudding of great guns, and closer a heavy regular beat which he knew was the gallop of cavalry.

Surely the North could not fail now. Fierce anger against those who would break up the Union surged up in him again.

The gray came at last, driving the bluish tint away, and the sun rose hot and bright over the field of Mana.s.sas which already had been stained with the blood of one fierce battle. But now the armies were far greater. Nearly a hundred and fifty thousand men were gathering for the combat, and d.i.c.k was still hoping that McClellan would come with seventy or eighty thousand more. But within the Confederate lines, where they must always win and never lose, because losing meant to lose all there was a stern determination to shatter Pope and his superior numbers before McClellan could come. Never had the genius and resolution of the two great Southern leaders burned more brightly.

As the brazen sun swung slowly up d.i.c.k felt that the intense nervous excitement he had felt the night before was seizing him again. The officers of the regiment remained on foot. Colonel Winchester had sent their horses away to some cavalrymen who had lost their own. He and his staff and other officers, dismounted, could lead the men better into battle.

And that it was battle, great and b.l.o.o.d.y, the youngest of them all could see. Never had an August day been brighter and hotter. Every object seemed to swell into new size in the vivid and burning sunlight. Plain before them lay Jackson's army. Two of his regiments were between them and a turnpike that d.i.c.k remembered well. Off to the left ran the dark ma.s.ses in gray, until they ended against a thick wood. In the center was a huge battery, and d.i.c.k from his position could see the mouths of the cannon waiting for them.

But he also saw the great line of the Northern Army. It was both deeper and longer than that of the South, and he knew that the men were full of resolve and courage.

"How many have we got here?" d.i.c.k heard himself asking Warner.

"Forty or fifty thousand, I suppose," he heard Warner replying, "and before night there will be eighty thousand. Our line is two miles long now. We ought to wrap around Jackson and crush him to death. Listen to the bugles! What a mellow note! And how they draw men on to death! And listen to the throbbing of the big cannon, too!"

Warner's face was flushed. He had become excited, as the two armies stood there, and looked at each other a moment or two like prize fighters in the ring before closing in battle. Then they heard the order to charge and far up and down the line their own cannon opened with a crash so great that d.i.c.k and his comrades could not hear one another talking.

Then they charged. The whole army lifted itself up and rushed at the enemy, animated by patriotism, the fire of battle and the desire for revenge. Among the officers were Milroy and Schenck and others who had been beaten by Jackson in the valley. There, too, was the brigade of Germans whom Jackson had beaten at Cross Keyes. Many of them were veterans of the sternest discipline known in Europe and they longed fiercely for revenge. And there were more Germans, too, under Schurz--hired Germans, fighting nearly a hundred years before to prevent the Union--and free Germans now fighting to save it.

Driven forward thus by all the motives that sway men in battle, the Union army rushed upon Jackson. Confident from many victories and trusting absolutely in their leader the Southern defense received the mighty charge without flinching. The wood now swarmed with riflemen and they filled the air with their bullets, so many of them that their pa.s.sage was like the continual rush of a hurricane. Along the whole line came the same metallic scream, and the great battery in the center was a volcano, pouring forth a fiery hurricane of shot and sh.e.l.l.

d.i.c.k felt their front lines being shorn. Although he was untouched it was an actual physical sensation. He could see but little save that fearful blaze in their faces, and the cries of the wounded and dying were drowned by the awful roar of so many cannon and rifles.

The cloud of dust and smoke had become immense and overwhelming in an instant, but it was pierced always in front by the blaze of fire, and by its flaming light d.i.c.k saw the long lines of the Southern men, their faces gray and fixed, as he knew those of his own comrades were.

But the charge, brave, even reckless, failed. The brigades broke in vain on Jackson's iron front. Riddled by the fire of the great battery and of the riflemen they could not go on and live. The Germans had longed for revenge, but they did not get it. The South Carolinians fell upon them at the edge of the wood and hurled them back. They rallied, and charged again, but again they were handled terribly, and were forced back by the charging ma.s.ses of the Southerners.

d.i.c.k had been at Shiloh. He had seen the men of the west in a great battle, and now he saw the men of the east in a battle yet greater.

There it had been largely in the forest, here it was mostly in the open, yet he saw but little more. One of the extraordinary features of this battle was dust. Trampled up from the dry fields by fighting men in scores of thousands it rose in vast floating clouds that permeated everything. It was even more persistent than the smoke. It clogged d.i.c.k's throat. It stung and burnt him like powder. Often it filled his eyes so completely that for a moment or two he could not see the blaze of the cannon and rifle fire, almost in his face.

But as they fell back he felt again that sensation of actual physical pain, although he was still untouched. Added to it was an intense mental anguish. They were failing! They had been driven back! They had not crushed Jackson! He forgot all about Colonel Winchester, and his comrades Warner and Pennington. He forgot all about his own danger in this terrible reversal of his hopes, and he began to shout angrily at the men to stand. He did not know by and by that no sound came from his mouth, that words could not come from a throat so choked with dust and burned gunpowder.

But the charge was made again. The thudding great guns now told all the Northern divisions where Jackson was. The eighty thousand men of Pope were crowding forward to attack him, and the batteries were galloping over the plateau to add to the volume of shot and sh.e.l.l that was poured upon the Southern ranks.

d.i.c.k was quite unconscious of the pa.s.sage of time. Hope had sprung anew in his breast. He heard a report that ten thousand fresh troops under Kearney had arrived and were attacking the Southerners in the wood.

He knew by the immense volume of fire coming from that point that the report was true, and he heard that McDowell, too, would soon be at hand with nearly thirty thousand men.

Then he saw Colonel Winchester, his face a ma.s.s of grime and his clothing flecked with blood. But he did not seem to have suffered any wound and he was calmly rallying his men.

"It's hot!" d.i.c.k shouted, why he knew not.

"Yes, my boy, and it will soon be hotter! Look at the new brigades coming into battle! See them on both right and left! We'll crush Jackson yet!"

It was now mid-morning, and neither Colonel Winchester nor any other of the Northern officers facing the Southern force knew that Lee and the other Southern army was at hand. The front ranks of Longstreet were already in battle, and the most difficult and dangerous of all tasks was accomplished. Two armies coming from points widely divergent, but acting in concert had joined upon the field of battle at the very moment when the junction meant the most. Lee had come, but McClellan and the Army of the Potomac were far away.

d.i.c.k heard the trumpets calling again, and once more they charged, hurling heavy ma.s.ses now upon the wood, which was held by the Southern general, A. P. Hill. Rifle fire gave way to bayonet charges by either side, and after swaying back and forth the Union men held the wood for a while, but at last they were driven out to stay, and as they retreated cannon and rifles decimated their ranks.

The regiment had suffered so terribly that after its retreat it was compelled to lie down a while and rest. d.i.c.k gasped for breath, but he was not as much excited as he had been earlier in the day. Perhaps one can become hardened to anything. Although he and his immediate comrades were resting he could see no diminution of the battle.

As far to left and right as the eye reached, cannon and rifles blazed and thundered. In front of their own exhausted regiment hundreds of sharpshooters, creeping forward, were now pouring a deadly fire among the Southern troops who held the wood. They were men of the west and northwest, accustomed all their lives to the use of firearms, and if a Confederate officer in the forest showed himself for a moment it was at the risk of his life. Captains and lieutenants fell fast beneath the aim of the sharpshooters.

The burning sun was at the zenith, pouring fiery rays upon the vast conflict which raged along a front of two miles. Pope himself was now upon the field and his troops were pouring from every point to his aid.

So deadly was the fire of the sharpshooters that they regained the wood, driving out the Southerners who had exhausted their cartridges. Hill's division of the Confederates was almost cut to pieces by the cannon and rifles, and the Southern leaders from their posts on the hills saw brigades and regiments continually coming to the help of the North.

d.i.c.k saw or rather felt the fortunes of the North rising again, and as his regiment stood up for action once more he began to shout with the others in triumph. The roar of the battle grew so steady that the voices of men became audible and articulate beneath it.

"They shut their trap down upon us, but we're breaking that trap all to pieces," he heard Pennington say.

"Looks as if we might win a victory," said the cooler Warner.

Then he heard no more, as they were once again upon the enemy who received them almost hand to hand, and the battle swelled anew. It was now long past noon, and in that prodigious canopy of dust and fire and smoke it seemed for a while that the Union army in truth had shattered the trap. The men in gray were borne back by the courage and weight of their opponents. Hooker, Kearney, Reynolds and all the gallant generals of the North continually urged on their troops. Confidence in victory at last pa.s.sed through all the army, and incited it to greater efforts.

But Jackson was undaunted. Never was he cooler. Never did his genius shine more brilliantly. Never did any man in all the fury and turmoil of battle, amid a thousand conflicting reports and appalling confusion, have a keener perception, a greater power to sum up what was actually pa.s.sing, and a better knowledge of what to do.

Lee was a mile away, standing on a wooded hill, the bearded Longstreet by his side, watching the battle in his immediate front, where acc.u.mulating ma.s.ses under Pope's own eye were gathering. On the other flank where Jackson stood and the conflict was heaviest he trusted all to his great lieutenant and not in vain.

Jackson had formed his plan. There came for a few moments a lull in the battle which had now lasted nine hours, and then gathering a powerful reserve he sent them charging through the wood with the bayonet. d.i.c.k saw the ma.s.sive line of glittering steel coming on at the double quick and he felt his regiment giving back. The men could not help it.

Physically exhausted and with ammunition running low they slowly yielded the wood. Many of the youths wept with rage, but although they had lost thousands in five desperate charges they were compelled to see all five fail.

d.i.c.k, aghast, gazed at Warner through the smoke.

"It's true!" gasped Warner, "we didn't break the trap, d.i.c.k. But maybe they'll succeed off there to the left! Our own commander is there, and they say that Lee himself has come to the help of Jackson!"

They had been driven back at all points and their own battle was dying, but off to the left it thundered a while longer, and then as night suddenly rushed over the field it, too, sank, leaving the hostile forces on that wing also still face to face, but with the North pushed back.

The coming of night was as sudden to d.i.c.k as if it had been the abrupt dropping of a great dark blanket. In the fury of conflict he had not noticed the gathering shadows in the west. The dimness around him, if he had taken time to think about it, he would have ascribed to the vast columns of dust that eddied and surged about.

Again it was the dust that he felt and remembered. The surging back and forth of seven score thousand men, the tread of horses and the wheels of hundreds of cannon raised it in such quant.i.ties that it covered the forest and the armies with a vast whitish curtain. Even in the darkness it showed dim and ghastly like a funeral veil.

Out of that fatal forest came a dreadful moaning. d.i.c.k did not know whether it was the wind among the leaves or the dying. Once more the ghosts of the year before walked the fatal field, but the ghosts of this year would be a far greater company. They had not broken the trap and d.i.c.k knew that the battle was far from over.

It would be renewed in the morning with greater fierceness than ever, but he was grateful for the present darkness and rest. He and his comrades had thrown themselves upon the ground, and they felt as if they could never move again. Their bones did not ache. They merely felt dead within them.

d.i.c.k was roused after a long time. The camp cooks were bringing food and coffee. He saw a figure lying at his feet as still as death, and he shoved it with his foot.