The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis Part 28

d.i.c.k and his comrades did not see this last fight, which was the dying echo of Antietam. They felt that they had defeated the enemy's purpose, but they did not rejoice over any victory. The sword of Antietam had turned back Lee and Jackson for a time and perhaps had saved the Union, but d.i.c.k was gloomy and depressed that so little had been won when they seemed to hold so much in the hollow of their hands.

This feeling spread through the whole army, and the privates, even, talked of it openly. n.o.body could forget those precious two days lost before the battle. Orders No. 191 had put all the cards in their hands, but the commander had not played them.

"I feel that we've really failed," said Warner, as they sat beside a camp fire. "The Southerners certainly fought like demons, but we ought to have been there long before Jackson came, and we ought to have whipped them, even after Jackson did come."

"But we didn't," said Pennington, "and so we've got the job to do all over again. You know, George, we're bound to win."

"Of course, Frank; but while we're doing it the country is being ripped to pieces. I'll never quit mourning over that lost chance at Antietam."

"At any rate we came off better than at the Second Mana.s.sas," said d.i.c.k.

"What's ahead of us now?"

"I don't know," replied Warner. "I saw Shepard yesterday, and he says that the Southerners are recuperating in Virginia. We need restoratives ourselves, and I don't suppose we'll have any important movements along this line for a while."

"But there'll be big fighting somewhere," said d.i.c.k.

CHAPTER XI. A FAMILY AFFAIR

Two days after the battle of Antietam, d.i.c.k went with Colonel Winchester to Washington on official duty. His nerves, shaken so severely by that awful battle, were not yet fully restored and he was glad of the little respite, and change of scene. The sights of the city and the talk of men were a restorative to him.

The capital was undoubtedly gay. The deep depression and fear that had hung over it a few weeks ago were gone. Men had believed after the Second Mana.s.sas that Lee might take Washington and this fear was not decreased when he pa.s.sed into Maryland on what seemed to be an invasion.

Many had begun to believe that he was invincible, that every Northern commander whoever he might be, would be beaten by him, but Antietam, although there were bitter complaints that Lee might have been destroyed instead of merely being checked, had changed a sky of steel into a sky of blue.

Washington was not only gay, it was brilliant. Life flowed fast and it was astonishingly vivid. A restless society, always seeking something new flitted from house to house. d.i.c.k, young and impressionable, would have been glad to share a little in it, but his time was too short. He went once with Colonel Winchester to the theatre, and the boy who had thrice seen a hundred and fifty thousand men in deadly action hung breathless over the mimic struggles of a few men and women on a painted stage.

The second day after his arrival he received a letter from his mother that had been awaiting him there. It had come by the way of Louisville through the Northern lines, and it was long and full of news. Pendleton, she said, was a sad town in these days. All of the older boys and young men had gone away to the armies, and many of them had been killed already, or had died in hospitals. Here she gave names and d.i.c.k's heart grew heavy, because in this fatal list were old friends of his.

It was not alone the boys and young men who had gone, wrote Mrs. Mason, but the middle-aged men, too. Dr. Russell had kept the Pendleton Academy open, but he had no pupil over sixteen years of age. There were no trustees, because they had all gone to the war. Senator Culver had been killed in the fighting in Tennessee, but she heard that Colonel Kenton was alive and well and with Bragg's army.

The affairs of the Union, she continued, were not going well in Tennessee and Kentucky. The terrible Confederate cavalryman Forrest had suddenly raided Murfreesborough in Tennessee, where Union regiments were stationed, and had destroyed or captured them all. Throughout the west the Southerners were raising their heads again. General Bragg, it was said, was advancing with a strong army, and was already farther north than the army of General Buell, which was in Tennessee. It was said that Louisville, one of the largest and richest of the border cities, would surely fall into the hands of the South.

d.i.c.k read the letter with changing and strong emotions. Amid the terrible struggles in the east, the west was almost blotted out of his mind. The Second Mana.s.sas and Antietam had great power to absorb attention wholly upon themselves. He had wholly forgotten for the time about Pendleton, the people whom he knew, and even his mother. Now they returned with increased strength. His memory was flooded with recollections of the little town, every house and face of which he knew.

And so the Confederates were coming north again with a great army.

Shiloh had been far from crushing them in the west. The letter had been written before the Second Mana.s.sas, and that and Lee's great fight against odds at Antietam would certainly arouse in them the wish for like achievements. He inferred that since the armies in the east were exhausted, the great field for action would be for a while, in the west, and he was seized with an intense longing for that region which was his own.

It was not coincidence, but the need for men that made d.i.c.k's wish come true almost at once. A few hours after he received his letter Colonel Winchester found him sitting in the lobby of the hotel in which d.i.c.k had twice talked with the contractor. But the boy was alone this time, and as Colonel Winchester sat down beside him he said:

"d.i.c.k, the capital has received alarming news from Kentucky. Buoyed up by their successes in the east the Confederacy is going to make an effort to secure that state. Bragg with a powerful force is already on his way toward Louisville, and we fear that he has slipped away from Buell."

"So I've heard. I found here a letter from my mother, and she told me all the reports from that section."

"And is Mrs. Mason well? She has not been troubled by guerillas, or in any other way?"

"Not at all. Mother's health is always good, and she has not been molested."

"d.i.c.k, it's possible that we may see Kentucky again soon."

"Can that be true, and how is it so, sir?"

"The administration is greatly alarmed about Kentucky and the west. This movement of Bragg's army is formidable, and it would be a great blow for us if he took Louisville. Dispatches have been sent east for help. My regiment and several others that really belong in the west have been asked for, and we are to start in three days. d.i.c.k, do you know how many men of the Winchester regiment are left? We shall be able to start with only one hundred and five men, and when we attacked at Donelson we were a thousand strong."

"And the end of the war, sir, seems as far off as ever."

"So it does, d.i.c.k, but we'll go, and we'll do our best. Starting from Washington we can reach Louisville in two days by train. Bragg, no matter what progress he may make across the state, cannot be there then.

If any big battle is to be fought we're likely to be in it."

The scanty remainder of the regiment was brought to Washington and two days later they were in Louisville, which they found full of alarm.

The famous Southern partisan leader, John Morgan, had been roaming everywhere over the state, capturing towns, taking prisoners and throwing all the Union communications into confusion by means of false dispatches.

People told with mingled amus.e.m.e.nt and apprehension of Morgan's telegrapher, Ellsworth, who cut the wires, attached his own instrument, and replied to the Union messages and sent answers as his general pleased. It was said that Bragg was already approaching Munfordville where there was a Northern fort and garrison. And it was said that Buell on another line was endeavoring to march past Bragg and get between him and Louisville.

But d.i.c.k found that the western states across the Ohio were responding as usual. Hardy volunteers from the prairies and plains were pouring into Louisville. While d.i.c.k waited there the news came that Bragg had captured the entire Northern garrison of four thousand men at Munfordville, the crossing of Green River, and was continuing his steady advance.

But there was yet hope that the rapid march of Buell and the gathering force at Louisville would cause Bragg to turn aside.

At last the welcome news came. Bragg had suddenly turned to the east, and then Buell arrived in Louisville. With his own force, the army already gathered there and a division sent by Grant from his station at Corinth, in Mississippi, he was at the head of a hundred thousand men, and Bragg could not muster more than half as many.

So rapid had been the pa.s.sage of events that d.i.c.k found himself a member of Buell's reorganized army, and ready to march, only thirteen days after the sun set on the b.l.o.o.d.y field of Antietam, seven hundred miles away. Bragg, they said, was at Lexington, in the heart of the state, and the Union army was in motion to punish him for his temerity in venturing out of the far south.

d.i.c.k felt a great elation as he rode once more over the soil of his native state. He beheld again many of the officers whom he had seen at Donelson, and also he spoke to General Buell, who although as taciturn and somber as ever, remembered him.

Warner and Pennington were by his side, the colonel rode before, and the Winchester regiment marched behind. Volunteers from Kentucky and other states had raised it to about three hundred men, and the new lads listened with amazement, while the unbearded veterans told them of Shiloh, the Second Mana.s.sas and Antietam.

"Good country, this of yours, d.i.c.k," said Warner, as they rode through the rich lands east of Louisville. "Worth saving. I'm glad the doctor ordered me west for my health."

"He didn't order you west for your health," said Pennington. "He ordered you west to get killed for your country."

"Well, at any rate, I'm here, and as I said, this looks like a land worth saving."

"It's still finer when you get eastward into the Bluegra.s.s," said d.i.c.k, "but it isn't showing at its best. I never before saw the ground looking so burnt and parched. They say it's the dryest summer known since the country was settled eighty or ninety years ago."

d.i.c.k hoped that their line of march would take them near Pendleton, and as it soon dropped southward he saw that his hope had come true. They would pa.s.s within twenty miles of his mother's home, and at d.i.c.k's urgent and repeated request, Colonel Winchester strained a point and allowed him to go. He was permitted to select a horse of unusual power and speed, and he departed just before sundown.

"Remember that you're to rejoin us to-morrow," said Colonel Winchester.

"Beware of guerillas. I hope you'll find your mother well."

"I feel sure of it, and I shall tell her how very kind and helpful you've been to me, sir."

"Thank you, d.i.c.k."

d.i.c.k, in his haste to be off did not notice that the colonel's voice quivered and that his face flushed as he uttered the emphatic "thank you." A few minutes later he was riding swiftly southward over a road that he knew well. His start was made at six o'clock and he was sure that by ten o'clock he would be in Pendleton.

The road was deserted. This was a well-peopled country, and he saw many houses, but nearly always the doors and shutters of the windows were closed. The men were away, and the women and children were shutting out the bands that robbed in the name of either army.