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

by Joseph A. Altsheler · English · Gutenberg #7862 · 510,101 chars · public domain (US)

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

Author: Joseph A. Altsheler


        
Release date: April 1, 2005 [eBook #7862]
                Most recently updated: March 10, 2018

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SWORD OF ANTIETAM: A STORY OF THE NATION'S CRISIS ***




Produced by Ken Reeder





THE SWORD OF ANTIETAM

A STORY OF THE NATION'S CRISIS

By Joseph A. Altsheler




FOREWORD


“The Sword of Antietam” tells a complete story, but it is one in
the chain of Civil War romances, begun in “The Guns of Bull Run” and
continued through “The Guns of Shiloh” and “The Scouts of Stonewall.”
 The young Northern hero, Dick Mason, and his friends are in the
forefront of the tale.


THE CIVIL WAR SERIES


 VOLUMES IN THE CIVIL WAR SERIES

  THE GUNS OF BULL RUN.
  THE GUNS OF SHILOH.
  THE SCOUTS OF STONEWALL.
  THE SWORD OF ANTIETAM.
  THE STAR OF GETTYSBURG.
  THE ROCK OF CHICKAMAUGA.
  THE SHADES OF THE WILDERNESS.
  THE TREE OF APPOMATTOX.


 PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN THE CIVIL WAR SERIES

  HARRY KENTON, A Lad Who Fights on the Southern Side.
  DICK MASON, Cousin of Harry Kenton, Who Fights on the Northern Side.
  COLONEL GEORGE KENTON, Father of Harry Kenton.
  MRS. MASON, Mother of Dick Mason.
  JULIANA, Mrs. Mason's Devoted Colored Servant.
  COLONEL ARTHUR WINCHESTER, Dick Mason's Regimental Commander.
  COLONEL LEONIDAS TALBOT, Commander of the Invincibles,
   a Southern Regiment.
  LIEUTENANT COLONEL HECTOR ST. HILAIRE, Second in Command of the
   Invincibles.
  ALAN HERTFORD, A Northern Cavalry Leader.
  PHILIP SHERBURNE, A Southern Cavalry Leader.
  WILLIAM J. SHEPARD, A Northern Spy.
  DANIEL WHITLEY, A Northern Sergeant and Veteran of the Plains.
  GEORGE WARNER, A Vermont Youth Who Loves Mathematics.
  FRANK PENNINGTON, A Nebraska Youth, Friend of Dick Mason.
  ARTHUR ST. CLAIR, A Native of Charleston, Friend of Harry Kenton.
  TOM LANGDON, Friend of Harry Kenton.
  GEORGE DALTON, Friend of Harry Kenton.
  BILL SKELLY, Mountaineer and Guerrilla.
  TOM SLADE, A Guerrilla Chief.
  SAM JARVIS, The Singing Mountaineer.
  IKE SIMMONS, Jarvis' Nephew.
  AUNT “SUSE,” A Centenarian and Prophetess.
  BILL PETTY, A Mountaineer and Guide.
  JULIEN DE LANGEAIS, A Musician and Soldier from Louisiana.
  JOHN CARRINGTON, Famous Northern Artillery Officer.
  DR. RUSSELL, Principal of the Pendleton School.
  ARTHUR TRAVERS, A Lawyer.
  JAMES BERTRAND, A Messenger from the South.
  JOHN NEWCOMB, A Pennsylvania Colonel.
  JOHN MARKHAM, A Northern Officer.
  JOHN WATSON, A Northern Contractor.
  WILLIAM CURTIS, A Southern Merchant and Blockade Runner.
  MRS. CURTIS, Wife of William Curtis.
  HENRIETTA CARDEN, A Seamstress in Richmond.
  DICK JONES, A North Carolina Mountaineer.
  VICTOR WOODVILLE, A Young Mississippi Officer.
  JOHN WOODVILLE, Father of Victor Woodville.
  CHARLES WOODVILLE, Uncle of Victor Woodville.
  COLONEL BEDFORD, A Northern Officer.
  CHARLES GORDON, A Southern Staff Officer.
  JOHN LANHAM, An Editor.
  JUDGE KENDRICK, A Lawyer.
  MR. CULVER, A State Senator.
  MR. BRACKEN, A Tobacco Grower.
  ARTHUR WHITRIDGE, A State Senator.


 HISTORICAL CHARACTERS

  ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States.
  JEFFERSON DAVIS, President of the Southern Confederacy.
  JUDAH P. BENJAMIN, Member of the Confederate Cabinet.
  U. S. GRANT, Northern Commander.
  ROBERT E. LEE, Southern Commander.
  STONEWALL JACKSON, Southern General.
  PHILIP H. SHERIDAN, Northern General.
  GEORGE H. THOMAS, “The Rock of Chickamauga.”
   ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON, Southern General.
  A. P. HILL, Southern General.
  W. S. HANCOCK, Northern General.
  GEORGE B. McCLELLAN, Northern General.
  AMBROSE E. BURNSIDE, Northern General.
  TURNER ASHBY, Southern Cavalry Leader.
  J. E. B. STUART, Southern Cavalry Leader.
  JOSEPH HOOKER, Northern General.
  RICHARD S. EWELL, Southern General.
  JUBAL EARLY, Southern General.
  WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS, Northern General.
  SIMON BOLIVAR BUCKNER, Southern General.
  LEONIDAS POLK, Southern General and Bishop.
  BRAXTON BRAGG, Southern General.
  NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST, Southern Cavalry Leader.
  JOHN MORGAN, Southern Cavalry Leader.
  GEORGE J. MEADE, Northern General.
  DON CARLOS BUELL, Northern General.
  W. T. SHERMAN, Northern General.
  JAMES LONGSTREET, Southern General.
  P. G. T. BEAUREGARD, Southern General.
  WILLIAM L. YANCEY, Alabama Orator.
  JAMES A. GARFIELD, Northern General, afterwards President of
   the United States.

  And many others


 IMPORTANT BATTLES DESCRIBED IN THE CIVIL WAR SERIES

  BULL RUN
  KERNSTOWN
  CROSS KEYS
  WINCHESTER
  PORT REPUBLIC
  THE SEVEN DAYS
  MILL SPRING
  FORT DONELSON
  SHILOH
  PERRYVILLE
  STONE RIVER
  THE SECOND MANASSAS
  ANTIETAM
  FREDERICKSBURG
  CHANCELLORSVILLE
  GETTYSBURG
  CHAMPION HILL
  VICKSBURG
  CHICKAMAUGA
  MISSIONARY RIDGE
  THE WILDERNESS
  SPOTTSYLVANIA
  COLD HARBOR
  FISHER'S HILL
  CEDAR CREEK
  APPOMATTOX



CONTENTS

    I.  CEDAR MOUNTAIN

   II.  AT THE CAPITAL

  III.  BESIDE THE RIVER

   IV.  SPRINGING THE TRAP

    V.  THE SECOND MANASSAS

   VI.  THE MOURNFUL FOREST

  VII.  ORDERS NO. 191

 VIII.  THE DUEL IN THE PASS

   IX.  ACROSS THE STREAM

    X.  ANTIETAM

   XI.  A FAMILY AFFAIR

  XII.  THROUGH THE BLUEGRASS

 XIII.  PERRYVILLE

  XIV.  SEEKING BRAGG

   XV.  STONE RIVER




THE SWORD OF ANTIETAM




CHAPTER I. CEDAR MOUNTAIN


The first youth rode to the crest of the hill, and, still sitting on his
horse, examined the country in the south with minute care through a pair
of powerful glasses. The other two dismounted and waited patiently. All
three were thin and their faces were darkened by sun and wind. But they
were strong alike of body and soul. Beneath the faded blue uniforms
brave hearts beat and powerful muscles responded at once to every
command of the will.

“What do you see, Dick?” asked Warner, who leaned easily against his
horse, with one arm over the pommel of his saddle.

“Hills, valleys, mountains, the August heat shimmering over all, but no
human being.”

“A fine country,” said young Pennington, “and I like to look at it, but
just now my Nebraska prairie would be better for us. We could at least
see the advance of Stonewall Jackson before he was right on top of us.”

Dick took another long look, searching every point in the half circle
of the south with his glasses. Although burned by summer the country
was beautiful, and neither heat nor cold could take away its
picturesqueness. He saw valleys in which the grass grew thick and
strong, clusters of hills dotted with trees, and then the blue loom of
mountains clothed heavily with foliage. Over everything bent a dazzling
sky of blue and gold.

The light was so intense that with his glasses he could pick out
individual trees and rocks on the far slopes. He saw an occasional roof,
but nowhere did he see man. He knew the reason, but he had become so
used to his trade that at the moment, he felt no sadness. All this
region had been swept by great armies. Here the tide of battle in
the mightiest of all wars had rolled back and forth, and here it was
destined to surge again in a volume increasing always.

“I don't find anything,” repeated Dick, “but three pairs of eyes are
better than none. George, you take the glasses and see what you can see
and Frank will follow.”

He dismounted and stood holding the reins of his horse while the young
Vermonter looked. He noticed that the mathematical turn of Warner's
mind showed in every emergency. He swept the glasses back and forth in
a regular curve, not looking here and now there, but taking his time and
missing nothing. It occurred to Dick that he was a type of his region,
slow but thorough, and sure to win after defeat.

“What's the result of your examination?” asked Dick as Warner passed the
glasses in turn to Pennington.

“Let x equal what I saw, which is nothing. Let y equal the result I
draw, which is nothing. Hence we have x + y which still equals nothing.”

Pennington was swifter in his examination. The blood in his veins flowed
a little faster than Warner's.

“I find nothing but land and water,” he said without waiting to be
asked, “and I'm disappointed. I had a hope, Dick, that I'd see Stonewall
Jackson himself riding along a slope.”

“Even if you saw him, how would you know it was Stonewall?”

“I hadn't thought of that. We've heard so much of him that it just
seemed to me I'd know him anywhere.”

“Same here,” said Warner. “Remember all the tales we've heard about his
whiskers, his old slouch hat and his sorrel horse.”

“I'd like to see him myself,” confessed Dick. “From all we hear he's
the man who kept McClellan from taking Richmond. He certainly played
hob with the plans of our generals. You know, I've got a cousin, Harry
Kenton, with him. I had a letter from him a week ago--passing through
the lines, and coming in a round-about way. Writes as if he thought
Stonewall Jackson was a demigod. Says we'd better quit and go home, as
we haven't any earthly chance to win this war.”

“He fights best who wins last,” said Warner. “I'm thinking I won't see
the green hills of Vermont for a long time yet, because I mean to pay
a visit to Richmond first. Have you got your cousin's letter with you,
Dick?”

“No, I destroyed it. I didn't want it bobbing up some time or other to
cause either of us trouble. A man I know at home says he's kept out of a
lot of trouble by 'never writin' nothin' to nobody.' And if you do write
a letter the next best thing is to burn it as quick as you can.”

“If my eyes tell the truth, and they do,” said Pennington, “here comes
a short, thick man riding a long, thick horse and he--the man, not the
horse--bears a startling resemblance to our friend, ally, guide and
sometime mentor, Sergeant Daniel Whitley.”

“Yes, it's the sergeant,” said Dick, looking down into the valley, “and
I'm glad he's joining us. Do you know, boys, I often think these veteran
sergeants know more than some of our generals.”

“It's not an opinion. It's a fact,” said Warner. “Hi, there, sergeant!
Here are your friends! Come up and make the same empty report that we've
got ready for the colonel.”

Sergeant Daniel Whitley looked at the three lads, and his face
brightened. He had a good intellect under his thatch of hair, and a warm
heart within his strong body. The boys, although lieutenants, and he
only a sergeant in the ranks, treated him usually as an equal and often
as a superior.

Colonel Winchester's regiment and the remains of Colonel Newcomb's
Pennsylvanians had been sent east after the defeat of the Union army at
the Seven Days, and were now with Pope's Army of Virginia, which was to
hold the valley and also protect Washington. Grant's success at
Shiloh had been offset by McClellan's failure before Richmond, and the
President and his Cabinet at Washington were filled with justifiable
alarm. Pope was a western man, a Kentuckian, and he had insisted upon
having some of the western troops with him.

The sergeant rode his horse slowly up the slope, and joined the lads
over whom he watched like a father.

“And what have the hundred eyes of Argus beheld?” asked Warner.

“Argus?” said the sergeant. “I don't know any such man. Name sounds
queer, too.”

“He belongs to a distant and mythical past, sergeant, but he'd be mighty
useful if we had him here. If even a single one of his hundred eyes were
to light on Stonewall Jackson, it would be a great service.”

The sergeant shook his head and looked reprovingly at Warner.

“It ain't no time for jokin',” he said.

“I was never further from it. It seems to me that we need a lot of
Arguses more than anything else. This is the enemy's country, and we
hear that Stonewall Jackson is advancing. Advancing where, from what and
when? There is no Argus to tell. The country supports a fairly numerous
population, but it hasn't a single kind or informing word for us. Is
Stonewall Jackson going to drop from the sky, which rumor says is his
favorite method of approach?”

“He's usin' the solid ground this time, anyway,” said Sergeant Daniel
Whitley. “I've been eight miles farther south, an' if I didn't see
cavalry comin' along the skirt of a ridge, then my eyes ain't any
friends of mine. Then I came through a little place of not more'n five
houses. No men there, just women an' children, but when I looked back I
saw them women an' children, too, grinnin' at me. That means somethin',
as shore as we're livin' an' breathin'. I'm bettin' that we new fellows
from the west will get acquainted with Stonewall Jackson inside of
twenty-four hours.”

“You don't mean that? It's not possible!” exclaimed Dick, startled.
“Why, when we last heard of Jackson he was so far south we can't expect
him in a week!”

“You've heard that they call his men the foot cavalry,” said the
sergeant gravely, “an' I reckon from all I've learned since I come east
that they've won the name fair an' true. See them woods off to the south
there. See the black line they make ag'inst the sky. I know, the same
as if I had seen him, that Stonewall Jackson is down in them forests,
comin' an' comin' fast.”

The sergeant's tone was ominous, and Dick felt a tingling at the roots
of his hair. The western troops were eager to meet this new Southern
phenomenon who had suddenly shot like a burning star across the sky, but
for the first time there was apprehension in his soul. He had seen but
little of the new general, Pope, but he had read his proclamations and
he had thought them bombastic. He talked lightly of the enemy and of the
grand deeds that he was going to do. Who was Pope to sweep away such men
as Lee and Jackson with mere words!

Dick longed for Grant, the stern, unyielding, unbeatable Grant whom he
had known at Shiloh. In the west the Union troops had felt the strong
hand over them, and confidence had flowed into them, but here they were
in doubt. They felt that the powerful and directing mind was absent.

Silence fell upon them all for a little space, while the four gazed
intently into the south, strange fears assailing everyone. Dick never
doubted that the Union would win. He never doubted it then and he never
doubted it afterward, through all the vast hecatomb when the flag of the
Union fell more than once in terrible defeat.

But their ignorance was mystifying and oppressive. They saw before them
the beautiful country, the hills and valleys, the forest and the blue
loom of the mountains, so much that appealed to the eye, and yet the
horizon, looking so peaceful in the distance, was barbed with spears.
Jackson was there! The sergeant's theory had become conviction with
them. Distance had been nothing to him. He was at hand with a great
force, and Lee with another army might fall at any time upon their
flank, while McClellan was isolated and left useless, far away.

Dick's heart missed a beat or two, as he saw the sinister picture that
he had created in his own mind. Highly imaginative, he had leaped to the
conclusion that Lee and Jackson meant to trap the Union army, the hammer
beating it out on the anvil. He raised the glasses to his eyes, surveyed
the forests in the South once more, and then his heart missed another
beat.

He had caught the flash of steel, the sun's rays falling across a
bayonet or a polished rifle barrel. And then as he looked he saw the
flash again and again. He handed the glasses to Warner and said quietly:

“George, I see troops on the edge of that far hill to the south and the
east. Can't you see them, too?”

“Yes, I can make them out clearly now, as they pass across a bit of open
land. They're Confederate cavalry, two hundred at least, I should say.”

Dick learned long afterward that it was the troop of Sherburne, but, for
the present, the name of Sherburne was unknown to him. He merely felt
that this was the vanguard of Jackson riding forward to set the trap.
The men were now so near that they could be seen with the naked eye, and
the sergeant said tersely:

“At last we've seen what we were afraid we would see.”

“And look to the left also,” said Warner, who still held the glasses.
“There's a troop of horse coming up another road, too. By George,
they're advancing at a trot! We'd better clear out or we may be enclosed
between the two horns of their cavalry.”

“We'll go back to our force at Cedar Run,” said Harry, “and report what
we've seen. As you say, George, there's no time to waste.”

The four mounted and rode fast, the dust of the road flying in a cloud
behind their horses' heels. Dick felt that they had fulfilled their
errand, but he had his doubts how their news would be received. The
Northern generals in the east did not seem to him to equal those of the
west in keenness and resolution, while the case was reversed so far as
the Southern generals were concerned.

But fast as they went the Southern cavalry was coming with equal speed.
They continually saw the flash of arms in both east and west. The force
in the west was the nearer of the two. Not only was Sherburne there, but
Harry Kenton was with him, and besides their own natural zeal they had
all the eagerness and daring infused into them by the great spirit and
brilliant successes of Jackson.

“They won't be able to enclose us between the two horns of their
horsemen,” said Sergeant Whitley, whose face was very grave, “and the
battle won't be to-morrow or the next day.”

“Why not? I thought Jackson was swift,” said Warner.

“Cause it will be fought to-day. I thought Jackson was swift, too, but
he's swifter than I thought. Them feet cavalry of his don't have to
change their name. Look into the road comin' up that narrow valley.”

The eyes of the three boys followed his pointing finger, and they now
saw masses of infantry, men in gray pressing forward at full speed. They
saw also batteries of cannon, and Dick almost fancied he could hear the
rumble of their wheels.

“Looks as if the sergeant was right,” said Pennington. “Stonewall
Jackson is here.”

They increased their speed to a gallop, making directly for Cedar Run, a
cold, clear little stream coming out of the hills. It was now about the
middle of the morning and the day was burning hot and breathless.
Their hearts began to pound with excitement, and their breath was drawn
painfully through throats lined with dust.

A long ridge covered with forest rose on one side of them and now they
saw the flash of many bayonets and rifle barrels along its lowest slope.
Another heavy column of infantry was advancing, and presently they heard
the far note of trumpets calling to one another.

“Their whole army is in touch,” said the sergeant. “The trumpets show
it. Often on the plains, when we had to divide our little force into
detachments, they'd have bugle talk with one another. We must go faster
if we can.”

They got another ounce of strength out of their horses, and now they
saw Union cavalry in front. In a minute or two they were among the blue
horsemen, giving the hasty news of Jackson's advance. Other scouts and
staff officers arrived a little later with like messages, and not long
afterward they heard shots behind them telling them that the hostile
pickets were in touch.

They watered their horses in Cedar Run, crossed it and rejoined their
own regiment under Colonel Arthur Winchester. The colonel was thin,
bronzed and strong, and he, too, like the other new men from the West,
was eager for battle with the redoubtable Jackson.

“What have you seen, Dick?” he exclaimed. “Is it a mere scouting force
of cavalry, or is Jackson really at hand?”

“I think it's Jackson himself. We saw heavy columns coming up. They were
pressing forward, too, as if they meant to brush aside whatever got in
their way.”

“Then we'll show them!” exclaimed Colonel Winchester. “We've only seven
thousand men here on Cedar Run, but Banks, who is in immediate command,
has been stung deeply by his defeats at the hands of Jackson, and he
means a fight to the last ditch. So does everybody else.”

Dick, at that moment, the thrill of the gallop gone, was not so
sanguine. The great weight of Jackson's name hung over him like a
sinister menace, and the Union troops on Cedar Run were but seven
thousand. The famous Confederate leader must have at least three times
that number. Were the Union forces, separated into several armies, to
be beaten again in detail? Pope himself should be present with at least
fifty thousand men.

Their horses had been given to an orderly and Dick threw himself upon
the turf to rest a little. All along the creek the Union army, including
his own regiment, was forming in line of battle but his colonel had
not yet called upon him for any duty. Warner and Pennington were also
resting from their long and exciting ride, but the sergeant, who seemed
never to know fatigue, was already at work with his men.

“Listen to those skirmishers,” said Dick. “It sounds like the popping of
corn at home on winter evenings, when I was a little boy.”

“But a lot more deadly,” said Pennington. “I wouldn't like to be a
skirmisher. I don't mind firing into the smoke and the crowd, but I'd
hate to sit down behind a stump or in the grass and pick out the spot on
a man that I meant for my bullet to hit.”

“You won't have to do any such work, Frank,” said Warner. “Hark to it!
The sergeant was right. We're going to have a battle to-day and a big
one. The popping of your corn, Dick, has become an unbroken sound.”

Dick, from the crest of the hillock on which they lay, gazed over
the heads of the men in blue. The skirmishers were showing a hideous
activity. A continuous line of light ran along the front of both armies,
and behind the flash of the Southern firing he saw heavy masses of
infantry emerging from the woods. A deep thrill ran through him.
Jackson, the famous, the redoubtable, the unbeatable, was at hand with
his army. Would he remain unbeaten? Dick said to himself, in unspoken
words, over and over again, “No! No! No! No!” He and his comrades had
been victors in the west. They must not fail here.

Colonel Winchester now called to them, and mounting their horses they
gathered around him to await his orders. These officers, though mere
boys, learned fast. Dick knew enough already of war to see that they
were in a strong position. Before them flowed the creek. On their flank
and partly in their front was a great field of Indian corn. A quarter
of a mile away was a lofty ridge on which were posted Union guns with
gunners who knew so well how to use them. To right and left ran the long
files of infantry, their faces white but resolute.

“I think,” said Dick to Warner, “that if Jackson passes over this place
he will at least know that we've been here.”

“Yes, he'll know it, and besides he'll make quite a halt before passing.
At least, that's my way of thinking.”

There was a sudden dying of the rifle fire. The Union skirmishers
were driven in, and they fell back on the main body which was silent,
awaiting the attack. Dick was no longer compelled to use the glasses.
He saw with unaided eye the great Southern columns marching forward with
the utmost confidence, heavy batteries advancing between the regiments,
ready at command to sweep the Northern ranks with shot and shell.

Dick shivered a little. He could not help it. They were face to face
with Jackson, and he was all that the heralds of fame had promised.
He had eye enough to see that the Southern force was much greater than
their own, and, led by such a man, how could they fail to win another
triumph? He looked around upon the army in blue, but he did not see
any sign of fear. Both the beaten and the unbeaten were ready for a new
battle.

There was a mighty crash from the hill and the Northern batteries poured
a stream of metal into the advancing ranks of their foe.

The Confederate advance staggered, but, recovering itself, came on
again. A tremendous cheer burst from the ranks of the lads in blue.
Stonewall Jackson with all his skill and fame was before them, but they
meant to stop him. Numbers were against them, and Banks, their leader,
had been defeated already by Jackson, but they meant to stop him,
nevertheless.

The Southern guns replied. Posted along the slopes of Slaughter
Mountain, sinister of name, they sent a sheet of death upon the Union
ranks. But the regiments, the new and the old, stood firm. Those that
had been beaten before by Jackson were resolved not to be beaten again
by him, and the new regiments from the west, one or two of which had
been at Shiloh, were resolved never to be beaten at all.

“The lads are steady,” said Colonel Winchester. “It's a fine sign. I've
news, too, that two thousand men have come up. We shall now have nine
thousand with which to withstand the attack, and I don't believe they
can drive us away. Oh, why isn't Pope himself here with his whole army?
Then we could wipe Jackson off the face of the earth!”

But Pope was not there. The commander of a huge force, the man of
boastful words who was to do such great things, the man who sent such
grandiloquent dispatches from “Headquarters in the Saddle,” to the
anxious Lincoln at Washington, had strung his numerous forces along in
detachments, just as the others had done before him, and the booming
of Jackson's cannon attacking the Northern vanguard with his whole army
could not reach ears so far away.

The fire now became heavy along the whole Union front. All the batteries
on both sides were coming into action, and the earth trembled with the
rolling crash. The smoke rose and hung in clouds over the hills, the
valley and the cornfield. The hot air, surcharged with dust, smoke and
burned gunpowder, was painful and rasping to the throat. The frightful
screaming of the shells filled the air, and then came the hissing of the
bullets like a storm of sleet.

Colonel Winchester and his staff dismounted, giving their horses to an
orderly who led them to the rear. Horses would not be needed for the
present, at least, and they had learned to avoid needless risk.

The attack was coming closer, and the bullets as they swept through
their ranks found many victims. Colonel Winchester ordered his regiment
to kneel and open fire, being held hitherto in reserve. Dick snatched up
a rifle from a soldier who had fallen almost beside him, and he saw that
Warner and Pennington had equipped themselves in like fashion.

A strong gust of wind lifted the smoke before them a little. Dick saw
many splashes of water on the surface of the creek where bullets struck,
and there were many tiny spurts of dust in the road, where other bullets
fell. Then he saw beyond the dark masses of the Southern infantry. It
seemed to him that they were strangely close. He believed that he could
see their tanned faces, one by one, and their vengeful eyes, but it was
only fancy.

The next instant the signal was given, and the regiment fired as one.
There was a long flash of fire, a tremendous roaring in Dick's ears,
then for an instant or two a vast cloud of smoke hid the advancing gray
mass. When it was lifted a moment later the men in gray were advancing
no longer. Their ranks were shattered and broken, the ground was covered
with the fallen and the others were reeling back.

“We win! We win!” shouted Pennington, wild with enthusiasm.

“For the present, at least,” said Warner, a deep flush blazing in either
cheek.

There was no return fire just then from that point, and the smoke lifted
a little more. Above the crash of the battle which raged fiercely on
either flank, they heard the notes of a trumpet rising, loud, clear, and
distinct from all other sounds. Dick knew that it was a rallying call,
and then he heard Pennington utter a wild shout.

“I see him! I see him!” he cried. “It's old Stonewall himself! There on
the hillock, on the little horse!”

The vision was but for an instant. Dick gazed with all his eyes, and he
saw several hundred yards away a thickset man on a sorrel horse. He was
bearded and he stooped a little, seeming to bend an intense gaze upon
the Northern lines.

There was no time for anyone to fire, because in a few seconds the
smoke came back, a huge, impenetrable curtain, and hid the man and the
hillock. But Dick had not the slightest doubt that it was the great
Southern leader, and he was right. It was Stonewall Jackson on the
hillock, rallying his men, and Dick's own cousin, Harry Kenton, rode by
his side.

They reloaded, but a staff officer galloped up and delivered a written
order to Colonel Winchester. The whole regiment left the line, another
less seasoned taking its place, and they marched off to one flank, where
a field of wheat lately cut, and a wood on the extreme end, lay before
them. Behind them they heard the battle swelling anew, but Dick knew
that a new force of the foe was coming here, and he felt proud that his
own regiment had been moved to meet an attack which would certainly be
made with the greatest violence.

“Who are those men down in the wheat-field?” asked Pennington.

“Our own skirmishers,” replied Warner. “See them running forward, hiding
behind the shocks of straw and firing!”

The riflemen were busy. They fired from the shelter of every straw stack
in the field, and they stung the new Southern advance, which was already
showing its front. Southern guns now began to search the wheat field.
A shell struck squarely in the center of one of the shocks behind which
three Northern skirmishers were kneeling. Dick saw the straw fly into
the air as if picked up by a whirlwind. When it settled back it lay
in scattered masses and three dark figures lay with it, motionless and
silent. He shuddered and looked away.

The edge of the wood was now lined with Southern infantry, and on their
right flank was a numerous body of cavalry. Officers were waving their
swords aloft, leading the men in person to the charge.

“The attack will be heavy here,” said Colonel Winchester. “Ah, there are
our guns firing over our heads. We need 'em.”

The Southern cannon were more numerous, but the Northern guns, posted
well on the hill, refused to be silenced. Some of them were dismounted
and the gunners about them were killed, but the others, served with
speed and valor, sprayed the whole Southern front with a deadly shower
of steel.

It was this welcome metal that Dick and his comrades heard over their
heads, and then the trumpets rang a shrill note of defiance along the
whole line. Banks, remembering his bitter defeats and resolved upon
victory now, was not awaiting the attack. He would make it himself.

The whole wing lifted itself up and rushed through the wheat field,
firing as they charged. The cannon were pushed forward and poured in
volleys as fast as the gunners could load and discharge them. Dick
felt the ground reeling beneath his feet, but he knew that they were
advancing and that the enemy was giving way again. Stonewall Jackson and
his generals felt a certain hardening of the Northern resistance that
day. The recruits in blue were becoming trained now. They did not break
in a panic, although their lines were raked through and through by the
Southern shells. New men stepped in the place of the fallen, and the
lines, filled up, came on again.

The Northern wing charging through the wheat field continued to bear
back the enemy. Jackson was not yet able to stop the fierce masses in
blue. A formidable body of men issuing from the Northern side of the
wood charged with the bayonet, pushing the charge home with a courage
and a recklessness of death that the war had not yet seen surpassed. The
Southern rifles and cannon raked them, but they never stopped, bursting
like a tornado upon their foe.

One of Jackson's Virginia regiments gave way and then another. The men
in blue from the wood and Colonel Winchester's regiment joined, their
shouts rising above the smoke while they steadily pushed the enemy
before them.

Dick as he shouted with the rest felt a wild exultation. They were
showing Jackson what they could do! They were proving to him that he
could not win always. His joy was warranted. No such confusion had ever
before existed in Jackson's army. The Northern charge was driven like a
wedge of steel into its ranks.

Jackson had able generals, valiant lieutenants, with him, Ewell and
Early, and A. P. Hill and Winder, and they strove together to stop
the retreat. The valiant Winder was mortally wounded and died upon the
field, and Jackson, with his wonderful ability to see what was happening
and his equal power of decision, swiftly withdrew that wing of his army,
also carrying with it every gun.

A great shout of triumph rose from the men in blue as they saw the
Southern retreat.

“We win! We win!” cried Pennington again.

“Yes, we win!” shouted Warner, usually so cool.

And it did seem even to older men that the triumph was complete. The
blue and the gray were face to face in the smoke, but the gray were
driven back by the fierce and irresistible charge, and, as their flight
became swifter, the shells and grape from the Northern batteries plunged
and tore through their ranks. Nothing stopped the blue wave. It rolled
on and on, sweeping a mass of fugitives before it, and engulfing others.

Dick had no ordered knowledge of the charge. He was a part of it, and he
saw only straight in front of him, but he was conscious that all around
him there was a fiery red mist, and a confused and terrible noise of
shouting and firing. But they were winning! They were beating Stonewall
Jackson himself. His pulses throbbed so hard that he thought his
arteries would burst, and his lips were dry and blackened from smoke,
burned gunpowder and his own hot breath issuing like steam between them.

Then came a halt so sudden and terrible that it shook Dick as if by
physical contact. He looked around in wonder. The charge was spent, not
from its lack of strength but because they had struck an obstacle. They
had reckoned ill, because they had not reckoned upon all the resources
of Stonewall Jackson's mind. He had stemmed the rout in person and now
he was pushing forward the Stonewall Brigade, five regiments, which
always had but two alternatives, to conquer or to die. Hill and Ewell
with fresh troops were coming up also on his flanks, and now the blue
and the gray, face to face again, closed in mortal combat.

“We've stopped! We've stopped! Do you hear it, we've stopped!” exclaimed
Pennington, his face a ghastly reek of dust and perspiration, his eyes
showing amazement and wonder how the halt could have happened. Dick
shared in the terrible surprise. The fire in front of him deepened
suddenly. Men were struck down all about him. Heavy masses of troops in
gray showed through the smoke. The Stonewall Brigade was charging, and
regiments were charging with it on either side.

The column in blue was struck in front and on either flank. It not only
ceased its victorious advance, but it began to give ground. The men
could not help it, despite their most desperate efforts. It seemed to
Dick that the earth slipped under their feet. A tremendous excitement
seized him at the thought of victory lost just when it seemed won. He
ran up and down the lines, shouting to the men to stand firm. He saw
that the senior officers were doing the same, but there was little
order or method in his own movements. It was the excitement and bitter
humiliation that drove him on.

He stumbled in the smoke against Sergeant Whitley. The sergeant's
forehead had been creased by a bullet, but so much dust and burned
gunpowder had gathered upon it that it was as black as the face of a
black man.

“Are we to lose after all?” exclaimed Dick.

It seemed strange to him, even at that moment, that he should hear
his own voice amid such a roar of cannon and rifles. But it was an
undernote, and he heard with equal ease the sergeant's reply:

“It ain't decided yet, Mr. Mason, but we've got to fight as we never
fought before.”

The Union men, both those who had faced Jackson before and those who
were now meeting him for the first time, fought with unsurpassed valor,
but, unequal in numbers, they saw the victory wrenched from their grasp.
Jackson now had his forces in the hollow of his hand. He saw everything
that was passing, and with the mind of a master he read the meaning of
it. He strengthened his own weak points and increased the attack upon
those of the North.

Dick remained beside the sergeant. He had lost sight of Colonel
Winchester, Warner and Pennington in the smoke and the dreadful
confusion, but he saw well enough that his fears were coming true.

The attack in front increased in violence, and the Northern army was
also attacked with fiery energy on both flanks. The men had the actual
physical feeling that they were enclosed in the jaws of a vise, and,
forced to abandon all hope of victory, they fought now to escape. Two
small squadrons of cavalry, scarce two hundred in number, sent forward
from a wood, charged the whole Southern army under a storm of cannon and
rifle fire. They equalled the ride of the Six Hundred at Balaklava, but
with no poet to celebrate it, it remained like so many other charges in
this war, an obscure and forgotten incident.

Dick saw the charge of the horsemen, and the return of the few. Then
he lost hope. Above the roar of the battle the rebel yell continually
swelled afresh. The setting sun, no longer golden but red, cast a
sinister light over the trampled wheat field, the slopes and the woods
torn by cannon balls. The dead and the wounded lay in thousands, and
Banks, brave and tenacious, but with bitter despair in his heart, was
seeking to drag the remains of his army from that merciless vise which
continued to close down harder and harder.

Dick's excitement and tension seemed to abate. He had been keyed to so
high a pitch that his pulses grew gentler through very lack of force,
and with the relaxation came a clearer view. He saw the sinking red
sun through the banks of smoke, and in fancy he already felt the cool
darkness upon his face after the hot and terrible August day. He knew
that night might save them, and he prayed deeply and fervently for its
swift coming.

He and the sergeant came suddenly to Colonel Winchester, whose hat had
been shot from his head, but who was otherwise unharmed. Warner and
Pennington were near, Warner slightly wounded but apparently unaware of
the fact. The colonel, by shout and by gesture, was gathering around him
the remains of his regiment. Other regiments on either side were trying
to do the same, and eventually they formed a compact mass which, driving
with all its force back toward its old position, reached the hills and
the woods just as the jaws of Stonewall Jackson's vise shut down, but
not upon the main body.

Victory, won for a little while, had been lost. Night protected their
retreat, and they fought with a valor that made Jackson and all his
generals cautious. But this knowledge was little compensation to the
Northern troops. They knew that behind them was a great army, that Pope
might have been present with fifty thousand men, sufficient to overwhelm
Jackson. Instead of the odds being more than two to one in their favor,
they had been two to one against them.

It was a sullen army that lay in the woods in the first hour or two of
the night, gasping for breath. These men had boasted that they were
a match for those of Jackson, and they were, if they could only have
traded generals. Dick and his comrades from the west began to share in
the awe that the name of Stonewall Jackson inspired.

“He comes up to his advertisements. There ain't no doubt of it,” said
Sergeant Whitley. “I never saw anybody fight better than our men did,
an' that charge of the little troop of cavalry was never beat anywhere
in the world. But here we are licked, and thirty or forty thousand men
of ours not many miles away!”

He spoke the last words with a bitterness that Dick had never heard in
his voice before.

“It's simple,” said Warner, who was binding up his little wound with his
own hand. “It's just a question in mathematics. I see now how Stonewall
Jackson won so many triumphs in the Valley of Virginia. Give Jackson,
say, fifteen thousand men. We have fifty thousand, but we divide them
into five armies of ten thousand apiece. Jackson fights them in detail,
which is five battles, of course. His fifteen thousand defeat the ten
thousand every time. Hence Jackson with fifteen thousand men has beaten
our side. It's simple but painful. In time our leaders will learn.”

“After we're all killed,” said Pennington sadly.

“And the country is ripped apart so that it will take half a century to
put the pieces back together again and put 'em back right,” said Dick,
with equal sadness.

“Never mind,” said Sergeant Whitley with returning cheerfulness. “Other
countries have survived great wars and so will ours.”

Some food was obtained for the exhausted men and they ate it nervously,
paying little attention to the crackling fire of the skirmishers which
was still going on in the darkness along their front. Dick saw the pink
flashes along the edges of the woods and the wheat field, but his mind,
deadened for the time, took no further impressions. Skirmishers were
unpleasant people, anyway. Let them fight down there. It did not matter
what they might do to one another. A minute or two later he was ashamed
of such thoughts.

Colonel Winchester, who had been to see General Banks, returned
presently and told them that they would march again in half an hour.

“General Banks,” he said with bitter irony, “is afraid that a powerful
force of the rebels will gain his rear and that we shall be surrounded.
He ought to know. He has had enough dealings with Jackson. Outmaneuvered
and outflanked again! Why can't we learn something?”

But he said this to the young officers only. He forced a cheerfulness
of tone when he spoke to the men, and they dragged themselves wearily
to their feet in order to begin the retreat. But though the muscles
were tired the spirit was not unwilling. All the omens were sinister,
pointing to the need of withdrawal. The vicious skirmishers were still
busy and a crackling fire came from many points in the woods. The
occasional rolling thunder of a cannon deepened the somberness of the
scene.

All the officers of the regiment had lost their horses and they walked
now with the men. A full moon threw a silvery light over the marching
troops, who strode on in silence, the wounded suppressing their groans.
A full moon cast a silvery light over the pallid faces.

“Do you know where we are going?” Dick asked of the Vermonter.

“I heard that we're bound for a place called Culpeper Court House,
six or seven miles away. I suppose we'll get there in the morning, if
Stonewall Jackson doesn't insist on another interview with us.”

“There's enough time in the day for fighting,” said Pennington, “without
borrowing of the night. Hear that big gun over there on our right! Why
do they want to be firing cannon balls at such a time?”

They trudged gloomily on, following other regiments ghostly in the
moonlight, and followed by others as ghostly. But the sinister omens,
the flash of rifle firing and the far boom of a cannon, were always on
their flanks. The impression of Jackson's skill and power which Dick had
gained so quickly was deepening already. He did not have the slightest
doubt now that the Southern leader was pressing forward through the
woods to cut them off. As the sergeant had said truly, he came up to
his advertisements and more. Dick shivered and it was a shiver of
apprehension for the army, and not for himself.

In accordance with human nature he and the boy officers who were his
good comrades talked together, but their sentences were short and
broken.

“Marching toward a court house,” said Pennington. “What'll we do when we
get there? Lawyers won't help us.”

“Not so much marching toward a court house as marching away from
Jackson,” said the Vermonter.

“We'll march back again,” said Dick hopefully.

“But when?” said Pennington. “Look through the trees there on our right.
Aren't those rebel troops?”

Dick's startled gaze beheld a long line of horsemen in gray on their
flank and only a few hundred yards away.




CHAPTER II. AT THE CAPITAL


The Southern cavalry was seen almost at the same time by many men in the
regiments, and nervous and hasty, as was natural at such a time, they
opened a scattering fire. The horsemen did not return the fire, but
seemed to melt away in the darkness.

But the shrewdest of the officers, among whom was Colonel Winchester,
took alarm at this sudden appearance and disappearance. Dick would have
divined from their manner, even without their talk, that they believed
Jackson was at hand. Action followed quickly. The army stopped and
began to seek a strong position in the wood. Cannon were drawn up, their
mouths turned to the side on which the horsemen had appeared, and the
worn regiments assumed the attitude of defense. Dick's heart throbbed
with pride when he saw that they were as ready as ever to fight,
although they had suffered great losses and the bitterest of
disappointments.

“What I said I've got to say over again,” said Pennington ruefully: “the
night's no time for fighting. It's heathenish in Stonewall Jackson to
follow us, and annoy us in such a way.”

“Such a way! Such a way!” said Dick impatiently. “We've got to learn to
fight as he does. Good God, Frank, think of all the sacrifices we are
making to save our Union, the great republic! Think how the hateful old
monarchies will sneer and rejoice if we fall, and here in the East our
generals just throw our men away! They divide and scatter our armies in
such a manner that we simply ask to be beaten.”

“Sh! sh!” said Warner, as he listened to the violent outbreak, so
unusual on the part of the reserved and self-contained lad. “Here come
two generals.”

“Two too many,” muttered Dick. A moment or two later he was ashamed of
himself, not because of what he had said, but because he had said it.
Then Warner seized him by the arm and pointed.

“A new general, bigger than all the rest, has come,” he said, “and
although I've never seen him before I know with mathematical certainty
that it's General John Pope, commander-in-chief of the Army of
Virginia.”

Both Dick and Pennington knew instinctively that Warner was right.
General Pope, a strongly built man in early middle years, surrounded by
a brilliant staff, rode into a little glade in the midst of the troops,
and summoned to him the leading officers who had taken part in the
battle.

Dick and his two comrades stood on one side, but they could not keep
from hearing what was said and done. In truth they did not seek to
avoid hearing, nor did many of the young privates who stood near and who
considered themselves quite as good as their officers.

Pope, florid and full-faced, was in a fine humor. He complimented the
officers on their valor, spoke as if they had won a victory--which would
have been a fact had others done their duty--and talked slightingly of
Jackson. The men of the west would show this man his match in the art of
war.

Dick listened to it all with bitterness in his heart. He had no doubt
that Pope was brave, and he could see that he was confident. Yet it took
something more than confidence to defeat an able enemy. What had become
of those gray horsemen in the bush? They had appeared once and they
could appear again. He had believed that Jackson himself was at hand,
and he still believed it. His eyes shifted from Pope to the dark woods,
which, with their thick foliage, turned back the moonlight.

“George,” he whispered to Warner, “do you think you can see anything
among those trees?”

“I can make out dimly one or two figures, which no doubt are our scouts.
Ah-h!”

The long “Ah-h!” was drawn by a flash and the report of a rifle. A
second and a third report came, and then the crash of a heavy fire. The
scouts and sentinels came running in, reporting that a great force with
batteries, presumably the whole army of Jackson, was at hand.

A deep murmur ran through the Union army, but there was no confusion.
The long hours of fighting had habituated them to danger. They were
also too tired to become excited, and in addition, they were of as stern
stuff at night as they had been in the morning. They were ready to fight
again.

Formidable columns of troops appeared through the woods, their bayonets
glistening in the moonlight. The heavy rifle fire began once more,
although it was nearly midnight, and then came the deep thunder of
cannon, sending round shot and shells among the Union troops. But the
men in blue, harried beyond endurance, fought back fiercely. They shared
the feelings of Pennington. They felt that they had been persecuted,
that this thing had grown inhuman, and they used rifles and cannon with
astonishing vigor and energy.

Two heavy Union batteries replied to the Southern cannon, raking the
woods with shell, round shot and grape, and Dick concluded that in the
face of so much resolution Jackson would not press an attack at night,
when every kind of disaster might happen in the darkness. His own
regiment had lain down among the leaves, and the men were firing at the
flashes on their right. Dick looked for General Pope and his brilliant
staff, but he did not see them.

“Gone to bring up the reserves,” whispered Warner, who saw Dick's
inquiring look.

But the Vermonter's slur was not wholly true. Pope was on his way to his
main force, doubtless not really believing that Jackson himself was
at hand. But the little army that he left behind fighting with renewed
energy and valor broke away from the Southern grasp and continued its
march toward that court house, in which the boys could see no merit.
Jackson himself, knowing what great numbers were ahead, was content to
swing away and seek for prey elsewhere.

They emerged from the wood toward morning and saw ahead of them great
masses of troops in blue. They would have shouted with joy, but they
were too tired. Besides, nearly two thousand of their men were killed or
wounded, and they had no victory to celebrate.

Dick ate breakfast with his comrades. The Northern armies nearly always
had an abundance of provisions, and now they were served in plenty. For
the moment, the physical overcame the mental in Dick. It was enough to
eat and to rest and to feel secure. Thousands of friendly faces were
around them, and they would not have to fight in either day or dark for
their lives. Their bones ceased to ache, and the good food and the good
coffee began to rebuild the worn tissues. What did the rest matter?

After breakfast these men who had marched and fought for nearly twenty
hours were told to sleep. Only one command was needed. It was August,
and the dry grass and the soft earth were good enough for anybody. The
three lads, each with an arm under his head, slept side by side. At noon
they were still sleeping, and Colonel Winchester, as he was passing,
looked at the three, but longest at Dick. His gaze was half affection,
half protection, but it was not the boy alone whom he saw. He saw also
his fair-haired young mother in that little town on the other side of
the mountains.

While Dick still slept, the minds of men were at work. Pope's army,
hitherto separated, was now called together by a battle. Troops from
every direction were pouring upon the common center. The little army
which had fought so gallantly the day before now amounted to only
one-fourth of the whole. McDowell, Sigel and many other generals joined
Pope, who, with the strange faculty of always seeing his enemy too
small, while McClellan always saw him too large, began to feed upon his
own sanguine anticipations, and to regard as won the great victory that
he intended to win. He sent telegrams to Washington announcing that his
triumph at Cedar Run was only the first of a series that his army would
soon achieve.

It was late in the afternoon when Dick awoke, and he was amazed to see
that the sun was far down the western sky. But he rubbed his eyes and,
remembering, knew that he had slept at least ten hours. He looked down
at the relaxed figures of Warner and Pennington on either side of him.
They still slumbered soundly, but he decided that they had slept long
enough.

“Here, you,” he exclaimed, seizing Warner by the collar and dragging him
to a sitting position, “look at the sun! Do you realize that you've lost
a day out of your bright young life?”

Then he seized Pennington by the collar also and dragged him up. Both
Warner and Pennington yawned prodigiously.

“If I've lost a day, and it would seem that I have, then I'm glad of
it,” replied Warner. “I could afford to lose several in such a pleasant
manner. I suppose a lot of Stonewall Jackson's men were shooting at me
while I slept, but I was lucky and didn't know about it.”

“You talk too long,” said Pennington. “That comes of your having taught
school. You could talk all day to boys younger than yourself, and they
were afraid to answer back.”

“Shut up, both of you,” said Dick. “Here comes the sergeant, and I think
from his look he has something to say worth hearing.”

Sergeant Whitley had cleansed the blood and dust from his face, and
a handkerchief tied neatly around his head covered up the small
wound there. He looked trim and entirely restored, both mentally and
physically.

“Well, sergeant,” said Dick ingratiatingly, “if any thing has happened
in this army you're sure to know of it. We'd have known it ourselves,
but we had an important engagement with Morpheus, a world away, and we
had to keep it. Now what is the news?”

“I don't know who Morpheus is,” replied the sergeant, laughing, “but
I'd guess from your looks that he is another name for sleep. There is no
news of anything big happenin'. We've got a great army here, and Jackson
remains near our battlefield of yesterday. I should say that we number
at least fifty thousand men, or about twice the rebels.”

“Then why don't we march against 'em at once?”

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders. It was not for him to tell why
generals did not do things.

“I think,” he said, “that we're likely to stay here a day or two.”

“Which means,” said Dick, his alert mind interpreting at once, “that
our generals don't know what to do. Why is it that they always seem
paralyzed when they get in front of Stonewall Jackson? He's only a man
like the rest of them!”

He spoke with perfect freedom in the presence of Sergeant Whitley,
knowing that he would repeat nothing.

“A man, yes,” said Warner, in his precise manner, “but not exactly like
the others. He seems to have more of the lightning flash about him. What
a pity such a leader should be on the wrong side! Perhaps we'll have his
equal in time.”

“Is Jackson's army just sitting still?” asked Dick.

“So far as scouts can gather, an' I've been one of them,” replied
Sergeant Whitley, “it seems to be just campin'. But I wish I knew which
way it was goin' to jump. I don't trust Jackson when he seems to be
nappin'.”

But the good sergeant's doubts were to remain for two days at least. The
two armies sat still, only two miles apart, and sentinels, as was common
throughout the great war, became friendly with one another. Often they
met in the woods and exchanged news and abundant criticism of generals.
At last there was a truce to bury the dead who still lay upon the
sanguinary field of Cedar Run.

Dick was in charge of one of these burial parties, and toward the close
of the day he saw a familiar figure, also in command of a burial party,
although it was in a gray uniform. His heart began to thump, and
he uttered a cry of joy. The unexpected, but not the unnatural, had
happened.

“Oh, Harry! Harry!” he shouted.

The strong young figure in the uniform of a lieutenant in the Southern
army turned in surprise at the sound of a familiar voice, and stood,
staring.

“Dick! Dick Mason!” he cried. Then the two sprang forward and grasped
the hands of each other. There was no display of emotion--they were of
the stern American stock, taught not to show its feelings--but their
eyes showed their gladness.

“Harry,” said Dick, “I knew that you had been with Jackson, but I had no
way of knowing until a moment ago that you were yet alive.”

“Nor I you, Dick. I thought you were in the west.”

“I was, but after Shiloh, some of us came east to help. It seemed after
the Seven Days that we were needed more here than in the west.”

“You never said truer words, Dick. They'll need you and many more
thousands like you. Why, Dick, we're not led here by a man, we're led
by a thunderbolt. I'm on his staff, I see him every day. He talks to
me, and I talk to him. I tell you, Dick, it's a wonderful thing to serve
such a genius. You can't beat him! His kind appears only a few times in
the ages. He always knows what's to be done and he does it. Even if your
generals knew what ought to be done, most likely they'd do something
else.”

Harry's face glowed with enthusiasm as he spoke of his hero, and Dick,
looking at him, shook his head sadly.

“I'm afraid that what you say is true for the present at least, Harry,”
 he said. “You beat us now here in the east, but don't forget that we're
winning in the west. And don't forget that here in the east even, you
can never wear us out. We'll be coming, always coming.”

“All right, old Sober Sides, we won't quarrel about it. We'll let time
settle it. Here come some friends of mine whom I want you to know.
Curious that you should meet them at such a time.”

Two other young lieutenants in gray uniforms at the head of burial
parties came near in the course of their work, and Harry called to them.

“Tom! Arthur! A moment, please! This is my cousin, Dick Mason, a Yankee,
though I think he's honest in his folly. Dick, this is Arthur St. Clair,
and this is Tom Langdon, both friends of mine from South Carolina.”

They shook hands warmly. There was no animosity between them. Dick
liked the looks and manners of Harry's friends. He could have been their
friend, too.

“Harry has talked about you often,” said Happy Tom Langdon. “Says you're
a great scholar, and a good fellow, all right every way, except the
crack in your head that makes you a Yankee. I hope you won't get hurt in
this unpleasantness, and when our victorious army comes into Washington
we'll take good care of you and release you soon.”

Dick smiled. He liked this youth who could keep up the spirit of fun
among such scenes.

“Don't you pay any attention to Langdon, Mr. Mason,” said St. Clair. “If
he'd only fight as well and fast as he talks there'd be no need for the
rest of us.”

“You know you couldn't win the war without me,” said Langdon.

They talked a little more together, then trumpets blew, the work was
done and they must withdraw to their own armies. They had been engaged
in a grewsome task, but Dick was glad to the bottom of his heart to have
been sent upon it. He had learned that Harry still lived, and he had met
him. He did not understand until then how dear his cousin was to him.
They were more like brothers than cousins. It was like the affection
their great-grandfathers, Henry Ware and Paul Cotter, had felt for each
other, although those famous heroes of the border had always fought
side by side, while their descendants were compelled to face each other
across a gulf.

They shook hands and withdrew slowly. At the edge of the field, Dick
turned to wave another farewell, and he found that Harry, actuated
by the same motive at the same time, had also turned to make a like
gesture. Each waved twice, instead of once, and then they disappeared
among the woods. Dick returned to Colonel Winchester.

“While we were under the flag of truce I met my cousin, Harry Kenton,”
 he said.

“One of the lucky fortunes of war.”

“Yes, sir, I was very glad to see him. I did not know how glad I was
until I came away. He says that we can never beat Jackson, that nothing
but death can ever stop him.”

“Youth often deceives itself, nor is age any exception. Never lose hope,
Dick.”

“I don't mean to do so, sir.”

The next morning, when Dick was with one of the outposts, a man of
powerful build, wonderfully quick and alert in his movements, appeared.
His coming was so quick and silent that he seemed to rise from the
earth, and Dick was startled. The man's face was uncommon. His features
were of great strength, the eyes being singularly vivid and penetrating.
He was in civilian's dress, but he promptly showed a pass from General
Pope, and Dick volunteered to take him to headquarters, where he said he
wished to go.

Dick became conscious as they walked along that the man was examining
him minutely with those searching eyes of his which seemed to look one
through and through.

“You are Lieutenant Richard Mason,” said the stranger presently, “and
you have a cousin, Harry Kenton, also a lieutenant, but in the army of
Stonewall Jackson.”

Dick stared at him in amazement.

“Everything you say is true,” he said, “but how did you know it?”

“It's my business to know. Knowledge is my sole pursuit in this great
war, and a most engrossing and dangerous task I find it. Yet, I would
not leave it. My name is Shepard, and I am a spy. You needn't shrink.
I'm not ashamed of my occupation. Why should I be? I don't kill. I don't
commit any violence. I'm a guide and educator. I and my kind are the
eyes of an army. We show the generals where the enemy is, and we
tell them his plans. An able and daring spy is worth more than many
a general. Besides, he takes the risk of execution, and he can win no
glory, for he must always remain obscure, if not wholly unknown. Which,
then, makes the greater sacrifice for his country, the spy or the
general?”

“You give me a new point of view. I had not thought before how spies
risked so much for so little reward.”

Shepard smiled. He saw that in spite of his logic Dick yet retained
that slight feeling of aversion. The boy left him, when they arrived at
headquarters, but the news that Shepard brought was soon known to the
whole army.

Jackson had left his camp. He was gone again, disappeared into the
ether. “Retreated” was the word that Pope at once seized upon, and he
sent forth happy bulletins. Shepard and other scouts and spies reported
a day or two later that Jackson's army was on the Rapidan, one of the
numerous Virginia rivers. Then Dick accompanied Colonel Winchester, who
was sent by rail to Washington with dispatches.

He did not find in the capital the optimism that reigned in the mind of
Pope. McClellan was withdrawing his army from Virginia, but the eyes of
the nation were turned toward Pope. Many who had taken deep thought of
the times and of men, were more alarmed about Pope than he was about
himself. They did not like those jubilant dispatches from “Headquarters
in the Saddle.” There was ominous news that Lee himself was marching
north, and that he and Jackson would soon be together. Anxious eyes
scanned the hills about Washington. The enemy had been very near once
before, and he might soon be near again.

Dick had an hour of leisure, and he wandered into an old hotel, at which
many great men had lived. They would point to Henry Clay's famous chair
in the lobby, and the whole place was thick with memories of Webster,
Calhoun and others who had seemed almost demigods to their own
generation.

But a different crowd was there now. They were mostly paunchy men who
talked of contracts and profits. One, to whom the others paid deference,
was fat, heavy and of middle age, with a fat, heavy face and pouches
under his eyes. His small eyes were set close together, but they
sparkled with shrewdness and cunning.

The big man presently noticed the lad who was sitting quietly in one
of the chairs against the wall. Dick's was an alien presence there, and
doubtless this fact had attracted his attention.

“Good day to you,” said the stranger in a bluff, deep voice. “I take
it from your uniform, your tan and your thinness that you've come from
active service.”

“In both the west and the east,” replied Dick politely. “I was at
Shiloh, but soon afterward I was transferred with my regiment to the
east.”

“Ah, then, of course, you know what is going on in Virginia?”

“No more than the general public does. I was at Cedar Run, which both we
and the rebels claim as a victory.”

The man instantly showed a great increase of interest.

“Were you?” he said. “My own information says that Banks and Pope were
surprised by Jackson and that the rebel general has merely drawn off to
make a bigger jump. Did you get that impression?”

“Will you tell me why you ask me these questions?” said Dick in the same
polite tone.

“Because I've a big stake in the results out there. My name is John
Watson, and I'm supplying vast quantities of shoes and clothing to our
troops.”

Dick turned up the sole of one of his shoes and picked thoughtfully at a
hole half way through the sole. Little pieces of paper came out.

“I bought these, Mr. Watson, from a sutler in General Pope's army,” he
said. “I wonder if they came from you?”

A deeper tint flushed the contractor's cheeks, but in a moment he threw
off anger.

“A good joke,” he said jovially. “I see that you're ready of wit,
despite your youth. No, those are not my shoes. I know dishonest men are
making great sums out of supplies that are defective or short. A great
war gives such people many opportunities, but I scorn them. I'll not
deny that I seek a fair profit, but my chief object is to serve my
country. Do you ever reflect, my young friend, that the men who clothe
and feed an army have almost as much to do with winning the victory as
the men who fight?”

“I've thought of it,” said Dick, wondering what the contractor had in
mind.

“What regiment do you belong to, if I may ask? My motive in asking these
questions is wholly good.”

“One commanded by Colonel Winchester, recently sent from the west. We've
been in only one battle in the east, that fought at Cedar Run against
Jackson.”

Watson again looked at Dick intently. The boy felt that he was being
measured and weighed by a man of uncommon perceptions. Whatever might be
his moral quality there could be no question of his ability.

“I am, as I told you before,” said Watson, “a servant of my country. A
man who feeds and clothes the soldiers well is a patriot, while he who
feeds and clothes them badly is a mere money grubber.”

He paused, as if he expected Dick to say something, but the boy was
silent and he went on:

“It is to the interest of the country that it be served well in all
departments, particularly in the tremendous crisis that we now face. Yet
the best patriot cannot always get a chance to serve. He needs
friends at court, as they say. Now this colonel of yours, Colonel
Winchester--I've observed both him and you, although I approached you
as if I'd never heard of either of you before--is a man of character and
influence. Certain words from him at the right time would be of great
value, nor would his favorite aide suffer through bringing the matter to
his attention.”

Dick saw clearly now, but he was not impulsive. Experience was teaching
him, while yet a boy, to speak softly.

“The young aide of whom you speak,” he said, “would never think of
mentioning such a matter to the colonel, of whom you also speak, and
even if he should, the colonel wouldn't listen to him for a moment.”

Watson shrugged his shoulders slightly, but made no other gesture of
displeasure.

“Doubtless you are well informed about this aide and this colonel,” he
said, “but it's a pity. If more food is thrown to the sparrows than they
can eat, is it any harm for other birds to eat the remainder?”

“I scarcely regard it as a study in ornithology.”

“Ornithology? That's a big word, but I suppose it will serve. We'll
drop the matter, and if at any time my words here should be quoted I'll
promptly deny them. It's a bad thing for a boy to have his statements
disputed by a man of years who can command wealth and other powerful
influences. Unless he had witnesses nobody would believe the boy. I tell
you this, my lad, partly for your own good, because I'm inclined to like
you.”

Dick stared. There was nothing insulting in the man's tone. He seemed
to be thoroughly in earnest. Perhaps he regarded his point of view as
right, and Dick, a boy of thought and resource, saw that it was not
worth while to make a quarrel. But he resolved to remember Watson,
feeling that the course of events might bring them together again.

“I suppose it's as you say,” he said. “You're a man of affairs and you
ought to know.”

Watson smiled at him. Dick felt that the contractor had been telling
the truth when he said that he was inclined to like him. Perhaps he was
honest and supplied good materials, when others supplied bad.

“You will shake hands with me, Mr. Mason,” he said. “You think that
I will be hostile to you, but maybe some day I can prove myself your
friend. Young soldiers often need friends.”

His eyes twinkled and his smile widened. In spite of his appearance and
his proposition, something winning had suddenly appeared in the manner
of this man. Dick found himself shaking hands with him.

“Good-bye, Mr. Mason,” said Watson. “It may be that we shall meet on the
field, although I shall not be within range of the guns.”

He left the lobby of the hotel, and Dick was rather puzzled. It was
his first thought to tell Colonel Winchester about him, but he finally
decided that Watson's own advice to him to keep silent was best. He and
Colonel Winchester took the train from Washington the next day, and on
the day after were with Pope's army on the Rapidan.

Dick detected at once a feeling of excitement or tension in this army,
at least among the young officers with whom he associated most. They
felt that a storm of some kind was gathering, either in front or on
their flank. McClellan's army was now on the transports, leaving behind
the Virginia that he had failed to conquer, and Pope's, with a new
commander, was not yet in shape. The moment was propitious for Lee and
Jackson to strike, and the elusive Jackson was lost again.

“Our scouts discover nothing,” said Warner to Dick. “The country is
chockfull of hostility to us. Not a soul will tell us a word. We have to
see a thing with our own eyes before we know it's there, but the people,
the little children even, take news to the rebels. A veil is hung before
us, but there is none before them.”

“There is one man who is sure to find out about Jackson.”

“Who?”

Dick's only answer was a shake of the head. But he was thinking of
Shepard. He did not see him about the camp, and he had no doubt that he
was gone on another of his dangerous missions. Meanwhile newspapers from
New York and other great cities reflected the doubts of the North. They
spoke of Pope's grandiloquent dispatches, and they wondered what had
become of Lee and Jackson.

Dick, an intense patriot, passed many bitter moments. He, like others,
felt that the hand upon the reins was not sure. Instead of finding the
enemy and assailing him with all their strength, they were waiting in
doubt and alarm to fend off a stroke that would come from some unknown
point out of the dark.

The army now lay in one of the finest parts of Virginia, a region of
picturesque mountains, wide and fertile valleys, and of many clear
creeks and rivers coming down from the peaks and ridges. To one side lay
a great forest, known as the Wilderness, destined, with the country near
it, to become the greatest battlefield of the world. Here, the terrible
battles of the Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville,
the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and others less sanguinary, but great
struggles, nevertheless, were to be fought.

But these were yet in the future, and Dick, much as his eyes had been
opened, did not yet dream how tremendous the epic combat was to be. He
only knew that to-day it was the middle of August, the valleys were very
hot, but it was shady and cool on the hills and mountains. He knew, too,
that he was young, and that pessimism and gloom could not abide long
with him.

He and Warner and Pennington had good horses, in place of those that
they had lost at Cedar Run, and often they rode to the front to see
what might be seen of the enemy, which at present was nothing. Their
battlefield at Cedar Run had been reoccupied by Northern troops and Pope
was now confirmed in his belief that his men had won a victory there.
And this victory was to be merely a prelude to another and far greater
one.

As they rode here and there in search of the enemy, Dick came upon
familiar ground. Once more he saw the field of Manassas which had been
lost so hardly the year before. He remembered every hill and brook and
curve of the little river, because they had been etched into his brain
with steel and fire. How could anyone forget that day?

“Looks as if we might fight our battle of last year over again, but on a
much bigger scale,” he said to Warner.

“Here or hereabouts,” said the Vermonter, “and I think we ought to win.
They've got the better generals, but we've got more men. Besides, our
troops are becoming experienced and they've shown their mettle. Dick,
here's a farmer gathering corn. Let's ask him some questions, but I'll
wager you a hundred to one before we begin that he knows absolutely
nothing about the rebel army. In fact, I doubt that he will know of its
existence.”

“I won't take your bet,” said Dick.

They called to the man, a typical Virginia farmer in his shirt sleeves,
tall and spare, short whiskers growing under his chin. There was not
much difference between him and his brother farmer in New England.

“Good-day,” said Warner.

“Good-day.”

“You seem to be working hard.”

“I've need to do it. Farm hands are scarce these days.”

“Farming is hard work.”

“Yes; but it's a lot safer than some other kinds men are doin'
nowadays.”

“True, no doubt, but have you seen anything of the army?”

“What army?”

“The one under Lee and Jackson, the rebel army.”

“I ain't heard of no rebel army, mister. I don't know of any such people
as rebels.”

“You call it the Confederate army. Can you tell us anything about the
Confederate army?”

“What Confederate army, mister? I heard last month when I went in to the
court house that there was more than one of them.”

“I mean the one under Lee and Jackson.”

“That's cur'us. A man come ridin' 'long here three or four weeks ago.
Mebbe he was a lightnin' rod agent an' mebbe he had patent medicines to
sell, he didn't say, but he did tell me that General Jackson was in one
place an General Lee was in another. Now which army do you mean?”

“That was nearly a month ago. They are together now.”

“Then, mister, if you know so much more about it than I do, what are you
askin' me questions for?”

“But I want to know about Lee and Jackson. Have you seen them?”

“Lord bless you, mister, them big generals don't come visitin' the likes
o' me. You kin see my house over thar among the trees. You kin search it
if you want to, but you won't find nothin'.”

“I don't want to search your house. You can't hide a great army in a
house. I want to know if you've seen the Southern Army. I want to know
if you've heard anything about it.”

“I ain't seed it. My sight's none too good, mister. Sometimes the
blazin' sun gits in my eyes and kinder blinds me for a long time. Then,
too, I'm bad of hearin'; but I'm a powerful good sleeper. When I sleep I
don't hear nothin', of course, an' nothin' wakes me up. I just sleep on,
sometimes dreamin' beautiful dreams. A million men wouldn't wake me, an'
mebbe a dozen armies or so have passed in the night while I was sleepin'
so good. I'd tell you anything I know, but them that knows nothin' has
nothin' to tell.”

Warner's temper, although he had always practiced self-control, had
begun to rise, but he checked it, seeing that it would be a mere foolish
display of weakness in the face of the blank wall that confronted him.

“My friend,” he said with gravity, “I judge from the extreme ignorance
you display concerning great affairs that you sleep a large part of the
time.”

“Mebbe so, an' mebbe not. I most gen'ally sleep when I'm sleepy. I've
heard tell there was a big war goin' on in these parts, but this is my
land, an' I'm goin' to stay on it.”

“A good farmer, if not a good patriot. Good day.”

“Good day.”

They rode on and, in spite of themselves, laughed.

“I'm willing to wager that he knows a lot about Lee and Jackson,” said
Warner, “but the days of the rack and the thumbscrew passed long ago,
and there is no way to make him tell.”

“No,” said Dick, “but we ought to find out for ourselves.”

Nevertheless, they discovered nothing. They saw no trace of a Southern
soldier, nor did they hear news of any, and toward nightfall they rode
back toward the army, much disappointed. The sunset was of uncommon
beauty. The hot day was growing cool. Pleasant shadows were creeping
up in the east. In the west a round mountain shouldered its black bulk
against the sky. Dick looked at it vaguely. He had heard it called
Clark's Mountain, and it was about seven miles away from the Union army
which lay behind the Rapidan River.

Dick liked mountains, and the peak looked beautiful against the red and
yellow bars of the western horizon.

“Have you ever been over there?” he said to Pennington and Warner.

“No; but a lot of our scouts have,” replied Pennington. “It's just a
mountain and nothing more. Funny how all those peaks and ridges crop
up suddenly around here out of what seems meant to have been a level
country.”

“I like it better because it isn't level,” said Dick. “I'm afraid George
and I wouldn't care much for your prairie country which just rolls on
forever, almost without trees and clear running streams.”

“You would care for it,” said Pennington stoutly. “You'd miss at first
the clear rivers and creeks, but then the spell of it would take hold of
you. The air you breathe isn't like the air you breathe anywhere else.”

“We've got some air of our own in Vermont that we could brag about, if
we wanted to,” said Warner, defiantly.

“It's good, but not as good as ours. And then the vast distances, the
great spaces take hold of you. And there's the sky so high and so clear.
When you come away from the great plains you feel cooped up anywhere
else.”

Pennington spoke with enthusiasm, his nostrils dilating and his eyes
flashing. Dick was impressed.

“When the war's over I'm going out there to see your plains,” he said.

“Then you're coming to see me!” exclaimed Pennington, with all the
impulsive warmth of youth. “And George here is coming with you. I won't
show you any mountains like the one over there, but boys, west of the
Platte River, when I was with my father and some other men I watched for
three days a buffalo herd passing. The herd was going north and all
the time it stretched so far from east to west that it sank under each
horizon. There must have been millions of them. Don't you think that was
something worth seeing?”

“We're surely coming,” said Dick, “and you be equally sure to have your
buffalo herd ready for us when we come.”

“It'll be there.”

“Meanwhile, here we are at the Rapidan,” said the practical Warner, “and
beyond it is our army. Look at that long line of fires, boys. Aren't
they cheering? A fine big army like ours ought to beat off anything. We
almost held our own with Jackson himself at Cedar Run, and he had two to
one.”

“We will win! We're bound to win!” said Dick, with sudden access of
hope. “We'll crush Lee and Jackson, and next summer you and I, George,
will be out on the western plains with Frank, watching the buffalo
millions go thundering by!”

They forded the Rapidan and rejoined their regiment with nothing to
tell. But it was cheerful about the fires. Optimism reigned once more in
the Army of Virginia. McClellan had sent word to Pope that he would have
plenty of soldiers to face the attack that now seemed to be threatened
by the South. Brigades from the Army of the Potomac would make the Army
of Virginia invincible.

Dick having nothing particular to do, sat late with his comrades before
one of the finest of the fires, and he read only cheerful omens in the
flames. It was a beautiful night. The moon seemed large and near, and
the sky was full of dancing stars. In the clear night Dick saw the black
bulk of Clark's Mountain off there against the horizon, but he could not
see what was behind it.




CHAPTER III. BESIDE THE RIVER


Dick was on duty early in the morning when he saw a horseman coming at
a gallop toward the Rapidan. The man was in civilian clothing, but his
figure seemed familiar. The boy raised his glasses, and he saw at once
that it was Shepard. He saw, too, that he was urging his horse to its
utmost speed.

The boy's heart suddenly began to throb, and there was a cold, prickling
sensation at the roots of his hair. Shepard had made an extraordinary
impression upon him and he did not believe that the man would be coming
at such a pace unless he came with great news.

He saw Shepard stop, give the pass word to the pickets, then gallop on,
ford the river and come straight toward the heart of the army. Dick ran
forward and met him.

“What is it?” he cried.

“General Pope's tent! Where it is! I can't wait a minute.”

Dick pointed toward a big marquee, standing in an open space, and
Shepard leaping from his horse and abandoning it entirely, ran toward
the marquee. A word or two to the sentinels, and he disappeared inside.

Dick, devoured with curiosity and anxiety, went to Colonel Winchester
with the story of what he had seen.

“I know of Shepard,” said the colonel. “He is the best and most daring
spy in the whole service of the North. I think you're right in inferring
that he rides so fast for good cause.”

Shepard remained with the commander-in-chief a quarter of an hour. When
he came forth from the tent he regained his horse and rode away without
a word, going in the direction of Clark's Mountain. But his news was
quickly known, because it was of a kind that could not be concealed.
Pennington came running with it to the regiment, his face flushed and
his eyes big.

“Look! Look at the mountain!” he exclaimed.

“I see it,” said Warner. “I saw it there yesterday, too, in exactly the
same place.”

“So did I, but there's something behind it. Lee and Jackson are there
with sixty or eighty thousand men! The whole Southern army is only six
or seven miles away.”

Even Warner's face changed.

“How do you know this?” he asked.

“A spy has seen their army. They say he is a man whose reports are never
false. At any rate orders have already been issued for us to retreat
and I hear that we're going back until we reach the Rappahannock, behind
which we will camp.”

Dick knew very well now that it was Shepard who brought the news, and
Pennington's report about the retreat was also soon verified. The
whole army was soon in motion and a feeling of depression replaced
the optimism of the night before. The advance had been turned into a
retreat. Were they to go back and forth in this manner forever? But
Colonel Winchester spoke hopefully to his young aides and said that the
retreat was right.

“We're drawing out of a trap,” he said, “and time is always on our side.
The South to win has to hit hard and fast, and in this case the Army of
the Potomac and the Army of Virginia may join before Lee and Jackson can
come up.”

The lads tried to reconcile themselves, but nevertheless they did not
like retreat. Dick with his powerful glasses often looked back toward
the dark bulk of Clark's Mountain. He saw nothing there, nor anything in
the low country between, save the rear ranks of the Union army marching
on.

But Shepard had been right. Lee and Jackson, advancing silently and with
every avenue of news guarded, were there behind the mountain with sixty
thousand men, flushed with victories, and putting a supreme faith in
their great commanders who so well deserved their trust. The men of
the valley and the Seven Days, wholly confident, asked only to be led
against Pope and his army, and most of them expected a battle that very
day, while the Northern commander was slipping from the well-laid trap.

Pope's judgment in this case was good and fortune, too, favored him.
Before the last of his men had left the Rapidan Lee himself, with his
staff officers, climbed to the summit of Clark's Mountain. They were
armed with the best of glasses, but drifting fogs coming down from
the north spread along the whole side of the mountain and hung like a
curtain between it and the retreating army. None of their glasses could
pierce the veil, and it was not until nearly night that rising winds
caught the fog and took it away. Then Lee and his generals saw a vast
cloud of dust in the northwest and they knew that under it marched
Pope's retreating army.

The Southern army was at once ordered forward in pursuit and in the
night the vanguard, wading the Rapidan, followed eagerly. Dick and his
comrades did not know then that they were followed so closely, but
they were destined to know it before morning. The regiment of Colonel
Winchester, one of the best and bravest in the whole service, formed a
part of the rearguard, and Dick, Warner and Pennington rode with their
chief.

The country was broken and they crossed small streams. Sometimes they
were in open fields, and again they passed through long stretches of
forest. There was a strong force of cavalry with the regiment, and the
beat of the horses' hoofs made a steady rolling sound which was not
unpleasant.

But Dick found the night full of sinister omens. They had left the
Rapidan in such haste that there was still a certain confusion of
impressions. The gigantic scale of everything took hold of him. One
hundred and fifty thousand men, or near it, were marching northward in
two armies which could not be many miles apart. The darkness and the
feeling of tragedy soon to come oppressed him.

He listened eagerly for the sounds of pursuit, but the long hours passed
and he heard nothing. The rear guard did not talk. The men wasted no
strength that way, but marched stolidly on in the moonlight. Midnight
passed and after a while it grew darker. Colonel Winchester and his
young officers rode at the very rear, and Pennington suddenly held up
his hand.

“What is it?” asked Colonel Winchester.

“Somebody following us, sir. I was trained out on the plains to take
notice of such things. May I get down and put my ear to the ground? I
may look ridiculous, sir, but I can make sure.”

“Certainly. Go ahead.”

Pennington sprang down and put his ear to the road. He did not listen
long, but when he stood up again he said:

“Horsemen are coming. I can't tell how many, but several hundreds at
least.”

“As we're the very last of our own army, they must be Southern cavalry,”
 said Colonel Winchester. “If they want to attack, I dare say our boys
are willing.”

Very soon they heard clearly the gallop of the cavalry, and the men
heard it also. They looked up and turned their faces toward those who
must be foes. Despite the dimness Dick saw their eyes brighten. Colonel
Winchester had judged rightly. The boys were willing.

The rear guard turned back and waited, and in a few minutes the Southern
horsemen came in sight, opening fire at once. Their infantry, too, soon
appeared in the woods and fields and the dark hours before the dawn were
filled with the crackle of small arms.

Dick kept close to Colonel Winchester who anxiously watched the pursuit,
throwing his own regiment across the road, and keeping up a heavy fire
on the enemy. The Union loss was not great as most of the firing in the
dusk, of necessity, was at random, and Dick heard bullets whistling all
about him. Some times the bark flew from trees and now and then there
was a rain of twigs, shorn from the branches by the showers of missiles.

It was arduous work. The men were worn by the darkness, the uncertainty
and the incessant pursuit. The Northern rear guard presented a strong
front, retreating slowly with its face to the enemy, and always
disputing the road. Dick meanwhile could hear through the crash of
the firing the deep rumble of Pope's great army with its artillery and
thousands of wagons continually marching toward the Rappahannock. His
mind became absorbed in a vital question. Would Lee and Jackson come up
before they could reach the bigger river? Would a battle be forced the
next day while the Union army was in retreat? He confided his anxieties
to Warner who rode by his side.

“I take it that it's only a vanguard that's pursuing us,” said the
Vermonter. “If they were in great force they'd have been pushing harder
and harder. We must have got a good start before Lee and Jackson found
us out. We know our Jackson, Dick, and he'd have been right on top of us
without delay.”

“That's right, George. It must be their cavalry mostly. I suppose Jeb
Stuart is there leading them. At any rate we'll soon know better what's
doing. Look there toward the east. Don't you see a ray of light behind
that hill?”

“I see it, Dick.”

“Is it the first ray of the morning, or is it just a low star?”

“It's the dawn, Dick, and mighty glad I am to see it. Look how fast it
comes!”

The sun shot up, over the hill. The sky turning to silver soon gave way
to gold, and the clear August light poured in a flood over the rolling
country.

Dick saw ahead of him a vast cloud of dust extending miles from east
to west, marking where the army of Pope pushed on its retreat to the
Rappahannock. There was no need to search for the Northern force. The
newest recruit would know that it was here.

The Southern vanguard was behind them and not many hundred yards away.
Dick distinctly saw the cavalry, riding along the road, and hundreds
of skirmishers pushing through the woods and fields. He judged that
the force did not number many thousands and that it could not think of
assailing the whole Union army. But with the coming of day the vigor of
the attack increased. The skirmishers fired from the shelter of every
tree stump, fence or hillock and the bullets pattered about Dick and his
comrades.

The Union rear guard maintained its answering fire, but as it was
retreating it was at a disadvantage. The regiments began to suffer. Many
men were wounded. The fire became most galling. A sudden charge by the
rearguard was ordered and it was made with spirit. The Southern van was
driven back, but when the retreat was resumed the skirmishers and the
cavalry came forward again, always firing at their retreating foe.

“I judge that it's going to be a very hot morning,” said Colonel
Winchester, wiping away a few drops of blood, where a bullet had barely
touched his face. “I think the wind of that bullet hurt me more than its
kiss. There will be no great battle to-day. We can see now that they
are not yet in strong enough force, but we'll never know a minute's rest
until we're behind the Rappahannock. Oh, Dick, if McClellan's army
were only here also! This business of retreating is as bitter as death
itself!”

Dick saw the pain on his colonel's face and it was reflected on his own.

“I feel it, sir, in the same way. Our men are just as eager as the
Johnnies to fight and they are as brave and tenacious. What do you think
will happen, sir?”

“We'll reach the Rappahannock and take refuge behind it. We command the
railroad bridge there, and can cross and destroy it afterward. But the
river is broad and deep with high banks and the army of the enemy cannot
possibly force the passage in any way while we defend it.”

“And after that, sir?”

“God alone knows. Look out, Dick, those men are aiming at us!”

Colonel Winchester seized the bridle of Dick's horse and pulled him
violently to one side, pulling his own horse in the same direction
in the same manner. The bullets of half a dozen Southern skirmishers,
standing under the boughs of a beech tree less than two hundred yards
away, hissed angrily by them.

“A close call,” said the colonel. “There, they've been scattered by our
own riflemen and one of them remains to pay the toll.”

The reply of the Northern skirmishers had been quick, and the gray
figure lying prone by the trunk of the tree told Dick that the colonel
had been right. He was shaken by a momentary shudder, but he could not
long remember one among so many. They rode on, leaving the prone figure
out of sight, and the Southern cavalry and skirmishers pressed forward
afresh.

Many of the Union men had food in their saddle bags, and supplies were
sent back for those who did not have it. Colonel Winchester who was
now thoroughly cool, advised his officers to eat, even if they felt no
hunger.

“I'm hungry enough,” said Pennington to Dick. “Out on the plains, where
the air is so fresh and so full of life I was always hungry, and I
suppose I brought my appetite here with me. Dick, I've opened a can of
cove oysters, and that's a great deal for a fellow on horseback to
do. Here, take your share, and they'll help out that dry bread you're
munching.”

Dick accepted with thanks. He learned that he, too, could eat with a
good appetite while bullets were knocking up dust only twenty yards
away. Meanwhile there was a steady flash of firing from every wood and
cornfield behind them.

As he ate he watched and he saw an amazing panorama. Miles in front
the great cloud of dust, cutting across from horizon to horizon swelled
slowly on toward the Rappahannock. Behind them rode the Southern cavalry
and masses of infantry were pressing forward, too. Far off on either
flank rolled the pleasant country, its beauty heightened by the loom of
blue mountains.

Colonel Winchester had predicted truly. The fighting between the
Northern rearguard, and the Southern vanguard never ceased. Every moment
the bullets were whistling, and occasionally a cannon lent its deep roar
to the crackling fire of the rifles. Daring detachments of the Southern
cavalry often galloped up and charged lagging regiments. And they were
driven off with equal courage and daring.

The three boys took especial notice of those cavalry bands and began
to believe at last that they could identify the very men in them. Dick
looked for his cousin, Harry Kenton. He was sure that he would be there
in the front--but he did not see him. Instead he saw after a while an
extraordinary figure on a large black horse, a large man in magnificent
uniform, with a great plume in his hat. He was nearer to them than any
other Southern horseman, and he seemed to be indifferent to danger.

“Look! look! There's Jeb Stuart!” exclaimed Dick. He had heard so
much about the famous Stuart and his gorgeous uniform that he knew him
instinctively, and, Warner and Pennington, as their eyes followed his
pointing finger felt the same conviction.

Three of the Northern riflemen fired at once at the conspicuous target,
and Dick breathed a little sigh of relief when all their bullets missed.
Then the brilliant figure turned to one side and was lost in the smoke.

“Well,” said Pennington. “We've seen Stonewall Jackson and Jeb Stuart
both in battle against us. I wonder who will come next.”

“Lee is due,” said Warner, “but I doubt whether his men will let him
expose himself in such a way. We'll have to slip under cover to get a
chance of seeing him.”

The hours went on, and the fight between rear guard and vanguard never
ceased. That column of dust miles long was at the same distance in
front, continuing in its slow course for the river, but the foes in
contact were having plenty of dust showers of their own. Dick's throat
and mouth burned with the dust and heat of the pitiless August day, and
his bones ached with the tension and the long hours in the saddle. But
his spirit was high. They were holding off the Southern cavalry and he
felt that they would continue to do so.

About noon he ate more cold food, and then rode on, while the sun blazed
and blazed and the dust whirled in clouds like the “dust devils” of the
desert, continually spitting forth bullets instead of sand. Late in
the afternoon he heard the sound of many trumpets, and saw the Southern
cavalry getting together in a great mass. A warning ran instantly
among the Union troops and the horsemen in blue and one or two infantry
regiments drew closer together.

“They're going to charge in force,” said Colonel Winchester to Dick.
“See, our rearguard has lost touch with our main army, leaving a side
opening between. They see this chance and intend to make the most of
it.”

“But our men are willing and anxious to meet them,” said Dick. “You can
see it in their faces.”

He had made no mistake, as the fire in their rear deepened, and they
saw the gathering squadrons of gray cavalry, a fierce anger seized the
retreating Union rearguard. Those wasps had been buzzing and stinging
them all day long and they had had enough of it. They could fight, and
they would, if their officers would let them. Now it seemed that the
officers were willing.

A deep and menacing mutter of satisfaction ran along the whole line.
They would show the Southerners what kind of men they were. Colonel
Winchester drew his infantry regiment into a small wood which at that
point skirted the road.

“There is no doubt that we've found it at the right time,” said Warner.

Both knew that the forest would protect the infantry from the fierce
charges of the Southern cavalry, while proving no obstacle to the
Northern defense. His own cavalry was gathering in the road ready to
meet Jeb Stuart and his squadrons.

The three boys sat on their horses within the covering of the trees,
and watched eagerly, while the hostile forces massed for battle. The
Southern cavalry was supported by infantry also on its flanks, and once
again Dick caught sight of Jeb Stuart with his floating plume. But that
time he was too far away for any of the Northern riflemen to reach him
with a bullet, and as before he disappeared quickly in the clouds of
dust and smoke which never ceased to float over both forces.

“Look out! The charge!” suddenly exclaimed Colonel Winchester.

They heard the thunder of the galloping horses, and also the flash of
many rifles and carbines. Cavalry met cavalry but the men in gray reeled
back, and as they retreated the Northern infantry in the wood sent a
deadly fire into the flank of the attacking force. The Southern infantry
replied, and a fierce battle raged along the road and through the woods.
Dick heard once more the rattling of bullets on bark, and felt the twigs
falling upon his face as they were shorn off by the missiles.

“We hold the road and we'll hold it for a while,” exclaimed Colonel
Winchester, exultation showing in his tone.

“Why can't we hold it all the time?” Dick could not refrain from asking.

“Because we are retreating and the Southerners are continually coming
up, while our army wishes to go away.”

Dick glanced through the trees and saw that great clouds of dust still
were rolling toward the northwest. It must be almost at the Rappahannock
now, and he began to appreciate what this desperate combat in the woods
meant. They were holding back the Southern army, while their men could
cross the river and reform behind it.

The battle swayed back and forth, and it was most desperate between
the cavalry. The bugles again and again called the gray horsemen to the
charge, and although the blue infantry supported their own horsemen with
a heavy rifle fire, and held the wood undaunted, the Northern rear
guard was forced to give way at last before the pressure of numbers and
attacks that would not cease.

Their own bugles sounded the retreat and they began to retire slowly.

“Do we run again?” exclaimed Pennington, a tear ploughing its way
through the smoky grime on his cheek.

“No, we don't run,” replied Warner calmly, “We're forced back, and the
rebels will claim a victory but we haven't fought for nothing. Lee and
Jackson will never get up in time to attack our army before it's over
the river.”

The regiment began its slow retreat. It had not suffered much, owing to
the shelter of the forest, and, full of courage and resolution, it was a
formidable support on the flank of the slowly retreating cavalry.

The evening was now at hand. The sun was setting once more over the
Virginia hills destined to be scarred so deeply by battle, but attack
and defense went on. As night came the thudding of cannon added to the
tumult, and then the three boys saw the Rappahannock, a deep and wide
stream flowing between high banks crested with timber. Ahead of them
Pope's army was crossing on the bridge and in boats, and masses
of infantry supported by heavy batteries had turned to protect the
crossing. The Southern vanguard could not assail such a powerful
force, and before the night was over the whole Union army passed to the
Northern side of the Rappahannock.

Dick felt a mixture of chagrin and satisfaction as he crossed the river,
chagrin that this great army should draw back, as McClellan's had been
forced to draw back at the Seven Days, and satisfaction that they were
safe for the time being and could prepare for a new start.

But the feeling of exultation soon passed and gave way wholly to
chagrin. They were retreating before an army not exceeding their own,
in numbers, perhaps less. They had another great force, the Army of the
Potomac, which should have been there, and then they could have bade
defiance to Lee and Jackson. The North with its great numbers, its fine
courage and its splendid patriotism should never be retreating. He felt
once more as thousands of others felt that the hand on the reins was
neither strong nor sure, and that the great trouble lay there. They
ought not to be hiding behind a river. Lee and Jackson did not do it.
Dick remembered that grim commander in the West, the silent Grant, and
he did not believe he would be retreating.

Long after darkness came the firing continued between skirmishers across
the stream, but finally it, too, waned and Dick was permitted to throw
himself upon the ground and sleep with the sleeping thousands. Warner
and Pennington slept near him and not far away was the brave sergeant.
Even he was overpowered by fatigue and he slept like one dead, never
stirring.

Dick was awakened next morning by the booming of cannon. He had become
so much used to such sounds that he would have slept on had not the
crashes been so irregular. He stood up, rubbed his eyes and then looked
in the direction whence came the cannonade. He saw from the crest of a
hill great numbers of Confederate troops on the other side of the river,
the August sun glittering over thousands of bayonets and rifle barrels,
and along the somber batteries of great guns. The firing, so far as he
could determine, was merely to feel out or annoy the Northern army.

It was a strange sight to Dick, one that is not looked upon often, two
great armies gazing across a river at each other, and, sure to meet,
sooner or later, in mortal combat. It was thrilling, awe-inspiring, but
it made his heart miss a beat or two at the thought of the wounds and
death to come, all the more terrible because those who fought together
were of the same blood, and the same nation.

Warner and Pennington joined him on the height where he stood, and they
saw that in the early hours before dawn the Northern generals had not
been idle. The whole army of Pope was massed along the left bank of
the river and every high point was crowned with heavy batteries of
artillery. There had been a long drought, and at some points the
Rappahannock could be forded, but not in the face of such a defence as
the North here offered.

Colonel Winchester himself came a moment or two later and joined them as
they gazed at the two armies and the river between. Both he and the boys
used their glasses and they distinctly saw the Southern masses.

“Will they try to cross, sir?” asked Dick of the colonel.

“I don't think so, but if they do we ought to beat them back. Meanwhile,
Dick, my boy, every day's delay is a fresh card in our hand. McClellan
is landing his army at Aquia Creek, whence it can march in two days to
a junction with us, when we would become overwhelming and irresistible.
But I wish it didn't take so long to disembark an army!”

The note of anxiety in his voice did not escape Dick. “You wish then to
be sure of the junction between our two armies before Lee and Jackson
strike?”

“Yes, Dick. That is what is on my mind. The retreat of this army,
although it may have caused us chagrin, was most opportune. It gave
us two chances, when we had but one before. But, Dick, I'm afraid. I
wouldn't say this to anybody but you and you must not repeat me. I wish
I could divine what is in the mind of those two men, Lee and Jackson.
They surely have a plan of some kind, but what is it?”

“Have we any definite news from the other side, sir?”

“Shepard came in this morning. But little ever escapes him, and he says
that the whole Southern army is up. All their best leaders are there.
Lee and Jackson and Longstreet and the Hills and Early and Lawton and
the others. He says that they are all flushed with confidence in their
own courage and fighting powers and the ability of their leaders. Oh,
if only the Army of the Potomac would come! If we could only stave off
battle long enough for it to reach us!”

“Don't you think we could do it, sir? Couldn't General Pope retreat on
Washington then, and, as they continued to follow us, we could turn and
spring on them with both armies.”

But Colonel Winchester shook his head.

“It would never do,” he said. “All Europe, eager to see the Union
split, would then help the Confederacy in every possible manner. The old
monarchies would say that despite our superior numbers we're not able to
maintain ourselves outside the defenses of Washington. And these things
would injure us in ways that we cannot afford. Remember, Dick, my boy,
that this republic is the hope of the world, and that we must save it.”

“It will be done, sir,” said Dick, almost in the tone of a young
prophet. “I know the spirit of the men. No matter how many defeats are
inflicted upon us by our own brethren we'll triumph in the end.”

“It's my own feeling, Dick. It cannot, it must not be any other way!”

Dick remained upborne by a confidence in the future rather than in the
present, and throughout the morning he remained with his comrades, under
arms, but doing little, save to hear the fitful firing which ran along
a front of several miles. But later in the day a heavy crash came from a
ford further up the stream.

Under cover of a great artillery fire Stuart's cavalry dashed into the
ford, and drove off the infantry and a battery posted to defend it. Then
they triumphantly placed heavy lines of pickets about the ford on the
Union side.

It was more than the Union lads could stand. A heavy mass of infantry,
Colonel Winchester's regiment in the very front of it, marched forward
to drive back these impertinent horsemen. They charged with so much
impetuosity that Stuart's cavalry abandoned such dangerous ground. All
the pickets were drawn in and they retreated in haste across the stream,
the water foaming up in spurts about them beneath the pursuing bullets.

Then came a silence and a great looking back and forth. The threatening
armies stared at each other across the water, but throughout the
afternoon they lay idle. The pitiless August sun burned on and the dust
that had been trodden up by the scores of thousands hung in clouds low,
but almost motionless.

Dick went down into a little creek, emptying into the Rappahannock, and
bathed his face and hands. Hundreds of others were doing the same. The
water brought a great relief. Then he went back to Colonel Winchester
and his comrades, and waited patiently with them until evening.

He remembered Colonel Winchester's words earlier in the day, and, as the
darkness came, he began to wonder what Lee and Jackson were thinking. He
believed that two such redoubtable commanders must have formed a plan by
this time, and, perhaps in the end, it would be worth a hundred thousand
men to know it. But he could only stare into the darkness and guess and
guess. And one guess was as good as another.

The night seemed portentous to him. It was full of sinister omens. He
strove to pierce the darkness on the other shore with his eyes, and see
what was going on there, but he distinguished only a black background
and the dim light of fires.

Dick was not wrong. The Confederate commanders did have a plan and the
omens which seemed sinister to him were sinister in fact. Jackson with
his forces was marching up his side of the Rappahannock and the great
brain under the old slouch hat was working hard.

When Lee and Jackson found that the Union army on the Rapidan
had slipped away from them they felt that they had wasted a great
opportunity to strike the retreating force before it reached the
Rappahannock, and that, as they followed, the situation of the
Confederacy would become most critical. They would leave McClellan and
the Army of the Potomac nearer to Richmond, their own capital, than they
were. Nevertheless Lee, full of daring despite his years, followed, and
the dangers were growing thicker every hour around Pope.

Dick, with his regiment, moved the next morning up the river. The enemy
was in plain view beyond the stream, and Shepard and the other spies
reported that the Southern army showed no signs of retiring. But Shepard
had said also that he would not be able to cross the river again. The
hostile scouts and sharpshooters had become too vigilant. Yet he was
sure that Lee and Jackson would attempt to force a passage higher up,
where the drought had made good fords.

“It's well that we're showing vigilance,” said Colonel Winchester to
Dick. He had fallen into the habit of talking much and confidentially to
the boy, because he liked and trusted him, and for another reason which
to Dick was yet in the background.

“Do you feel sure that the rebels will attempt the crossing?” asked
Dick.

“Beyond a doubt. They have every reason to strike before the Army of the
Potomac can come. Besides, it is in accord with the character of their
generals. Both Lee and Jackson are always for the swift offensive, and
Early, Longstreet and the Hills are the same way. Hear that booming
ahead! They're attacking one of the fords now!”

At a ford a mile above and also at another a mile or two further on, the
Southern troops had begun a heavy fire, and gathered in strong masses
were threatening every moment to attempt the passage. But the Union
guns posted on hills made a vigorous reply and the time passed in heavy
cannonades. Colonel Winchester, his brows knitted and anxious, watched
the fire of the cannon. He confided at last to his favorite aide his
belief that what lay behind the cannonade was more important than the
cannonade itself.

“It must be a feint or a blind,” he said. “They fire a great deal,
but they don't make any dash for the stream. Now, the rebels haven't
ammunition to waste.”

“Then what do you think they're up to, sir?”

“They must be sending a heavy force higher up the river to cross where
there is no resistance. And we must meet them there, with my regiment
only, if we can obtain no other men.”

The colonel obtained leave to go up the Rappahannock until nightfall,
but only his own regiment, now reduced to less than four hundred men,
was allotted to him. In truth his division commander thought his purpose
useless, but yielded to the insistence of Winchester who was known to
be an officer of great merit. It seemed to the Union generals that they
must defend the fords where the Southern army lay massed before them.

Dick learned that there was a little place called Sulphur Springs some
miles ahead, and that the river there was spanned by a bridge which
the Union cavalry had wrecked the day before. He divined at once that
Colonel Winchester had that ford in mind, and he was glad to be with him
on the march to it.

They left behind them the sound of the cannonade which they learned
afterward was being carried on by Longstreet, and followed the course of
the stream as fast as they could over the hills and through the woods.
But with so many obstacles they made slow progress, and, in the close
heat, the men soon grew breathless. It was also late in the afternoon
and Dick was quite sure that they would not reach Sulphur Springs before
nightfall.

“I've felt exactly this same air on the great plains,” said Pennington,
as they stopped on the crest of a hill for the troops to rest a little.
“It's heavy and close as if it were being all crowded together. It makes
your lungs work twice as hard as usual, and it's also a sign.”

“Tell your sign, old weather sharp,” said Warner.

“It's simple enough. The sign may not be so strong here, but it applies
just as it does on the great plains. It means that a storm is coming.
Anybody could tell that. Look there, in the southwest. See that cloud
edging itself over the horizon. Things will turn loose to-night. Don't
you say the same, sergeant? You've been out in my country.”

Sergeant Whitley was standing near them regarding the cloud attentively.

“Yes, Mr. Pennington,” he replied. “I was out there a long time and I'd
rather be there now fighting the Indians, instead of fighting our own
people, although no other choice was left me. I've seen some terrible
hurricanes on the plains, winds that would cut the earth as if it was
done with a ploughshare, and these armies are going to be rained on
mighty hard to-night.”

Dick smiled a little at the sergeant's solemn tone, and formal words,
but he saw that he was very much in earnest. Nor was he one to underrate
weather effects upon movements in war.

“What will it mean to the two armies, sergeant?” he asked.

“Depends upon what happens before she busts. If a rebel force is then
across it's bad for us, but if it ain't the more water between us an'
them the better. This, I take it, is the end of the drought, and a flood
will come tumbling down from the mountains.”

The sun now darkened and the clouds gathered heavily on the Western
horizon. Colonel Winchester's anxiety increased fast. It became evident
that the regiment could not reach Sulphur Springs until far into
the night, and, still full of alarms, he resolved to take a small
detachment, chiefly of his staff, and ride forward at the utmost speed.

He chose about twenty men, including Dick, Warner, Pennington, Sergeant
Whitley, and another veteran who were mounted on the horses of junior
officers left behind, and pressed forward with speed. A West Virginian
named Shattuck knew something of the country, and led them.

“What is this place, Sulphur Springs?” asked Colonel Winchester of
Shattuck.

“Some big sulphur springs spout out of the bank and run down to the
river. They are fine and healthy to drink an' there's a lot of cottages
built up by people who come there to stay a while. But I guess them
people have gone away. It ain't no place for health just at this time.”

“That's a certainty,” said Colonel Winchester.

“An' then there's the bridge, which, as we know, the cavalry has broke
down.”

“Fortunately. But can't we go a little faster, boys?”

There was a well defined road and Shattuck now led them at a gallop.
As they approached the springs they checked their speed, owing to the
increasing darkness. But Dick's good ears soon told him that something
was happening at the springs. He heard faintly the sound of voices, and
the clank and rattle which many men with weapons cannot keep from making
now and then.

“I'm afraid, sir,” he said to Colonel Winchester, “that they're already
across.”

The little troop stopped at the command of its leader and all listened
intently. It was very dark now and the wood was moaning, but the columns
of air came directly from the wood, bearing clearly upon their crest the
noises made by regiments.

“You're right, Dick,” said Colonel Winchester, bitter mortification
showing in his tone. “They're there, and they're on our side of the
river. Oh, we might have known it! They say that Stonewall Jackson
never sleeps, and they make no mistake, when they call his infantry foot
cavalry!”

Dick was silent. He shared his leader's intense disappointment, but he
knew that it was not for him to speak at this moment.

“Mr. Shattuck,” said Colonel Winchester, “how near do you think we can
approach without being seen?”

“I know a neck of woods leading within a hundred yards of the cottages.
If we was to leave our horses here with a couple of men we could slip
down among the trees and bushes, and there ain't one chance in ten that
we'd be seen on so dark a night.”

“Then you lead us. Pawley, you and Woodfall hold the horses. Now follow
softly, lads! All of you have hunted the 'coon and 'possum at night, and
you should know how to step without making noise.”

Shattuck advanced with certainty, and the others, true to their
training, came behind him in single file, and without noise. But as they
advanced the sounds of an army ahead of them increased, and when they
reached the edge of the covert they saw a great Confederate division
on their side of the stream, in full possession of the cottages and
occupying all the ground about them. Many men were at work, restoring
the wrecked bridge, but the others were eating their suppers or were at
rest.

“There must be seven or eight thousand men here,” said Dick, who did not
miss the full significance of the fact.

“So it seems,” said Warner, “and I'm afraid it bodes ill for General
Pope.”




CHAPTER IV. SPRINGING THE TRAP


Lying close in the bushes the little party watched the Southerners
making themselves ready for the night. The cottages were prepared for
the higher officers, but the men stacked arms in the open ground all
about. As well as they could judge by the light of the low fires,
soldiers were still crossing the river to strengthen the force already
on the Union side.

Colonel Winchester suppressed a groan. Dick noticed that his face was
pallid in the uncertain shadows, and he understood the agony of spirit
that the brave man must suffer when he saw that they had been outflanked
by their enemy.

Sergeant Whitley, moving forward a little, touched the colonel on the
arm.

“All the clouds that we saw a little further back,” he said, “have
gathered together, an' the storm is about to bust. See, sir, how fast
the Johnnies are spreadin' their tents an' runnin' to shelter.”

“It's so, sergeant,” said Colonel Winchester. “I was so much absorbed in
watching those men that I thank you for reminding me. We've seen enough
anyway and we'd better get back as fast as we can.”

They hurried through the trees and bushes toward their horses, taking
no particular pains now to deaden their footsteps, since the Southerners
themselves were making a good deal of noise as they took refuge.

But the storm was upon them before they could reach their horses. The
last star was gone and the somber clouds covered the whole heavens. The
wind ceased to moan and the air was heavy with apprehension. Deep and
sullen thunder began to mutter on the southwestern horizon. Then came
a mighty crash and a great blaze of lightning seemed to cleave the sky
straight down the center.

The lightning and thunder made Dick jump, and for a few moments he
was blinded by the electric glare. He heard a heavy sound of something
falling, and exclaimed:

“Are any of you hurt?”

“No,” said Warner, who alone heard him, “but we're scared half to
death. When a drought breaks up I wish it wouldn't break up with such a
terrible fuss. Listen to that thunder again, won't you!”

There was another terrible crash of thunder and the whole sky blazed
with lightning. Despite himself Dick shrank again. The first bolt had
struck a tree which had fallen within thirty feet of them, but the
second left this bit of the woods unscathed.

A third and a fourth bolt struck somewhere, and then came the rush and
roar of the rain, driven on by a fierce wind out of the southwest. The
close, dense heat was swept away, and the first blasts of the rain were
as cold as ice. The little party was drenched in an instant, and every
one was shivering through and through with combined wet and cold.

The cessation of the lightning was succeeded by pitchy darkness, and the
roaring of the wind and rain was so great that they called loudly to one
another lest they lose touch in the blackness. Dick heard Warner on his
right, and he followed the sound of his voice. But before he went much
further his foot struck a trailing vine, and he fell so hard, his head
striking the trunk of a tree, that he lay unconscious.

The cold rain drove so fiercely on the fallen boy's face and body that
he revived in two or three minutes, and stood up. He clapped his hand to
the left side of his head, and felt there a big bump and a sharp ache.
His weapons were still in his belt and he knew that his injuries were
not serious, but he heard nothing save the drive and roar of the wind
and rain. There was no calling of voices and no beat of footsteps.

He divined at once that his comrades, wholly unaware of his fall, when
no one could either see or hear it, had gone on without missing him.
They might also mount their horses and gallop away wholly ignorant that
he was not among them.

Although he was a little dazed, Dick had a good idea of direction and
he plunged through the mud which was now growing deep toward the little
ravine in which they had hitched their horses. All were gone, including
his own mount, and he had no doubt that the horse had broken or slipped
the bridle in the darkness and followed the others.

He stood a while behind the trunk of a great tree, trying to shelter
himself a little from the rain, and listened. But he could hear neither
his friends leaving nor any foes approaching. The storm was of uncommon
fury. He had never seen one fiercer, and knowing that he had little to
dread from the Southerners while it raged he knew also that he must make
his way on foot, and as best he could, to his own people.

Making a calculation of the direction and remembering that one might
wander in a curve in the darkness, he set off down the stream. He meant
to keep close to the banks of the Rappahannock, and if he persisted he
would surely come in time to Pope's army. The rain did not abate. Both
armies were flooded that night, but they could find some measure of
protection. To the scouts and skirmishers and to Dick, wandering through
the forest, nature was an unmitigated foe.

But nothing could stop the boy. He was resolved to get back to the army
with the news that a heavy Southern force was across the Rappahannock.
Others might get there first with the fact, but one never knew. A
hundred might fall by the wayside, leaving it to him alone to bear the
message.

He stumbled on. He was able to keep his cartridges dry in his pouch, but
that was all. His wet, cold clothes flapped around him and he shivered
to the bone. He could see only the loom of the black forest before him,
and sometimes he slipped to the waist in swollen brooks. Then the wind
shifted and drove the sheets of rain, sprinkled with hail, directly in
his face. He was compelled to stop a while and take refuge behind a big
oak. While he shivered in the shelter of the tree the only things that
he thought of spontaneously were dry clothes, hot food, a fire and a
warm bed. The Union and its fate, gigantic as they were, slipped away
from his mind, and it took an effort of the will to bring them back.

But his will made the effort, and recalling his mission he struggled
on again. He had the river on his right, and it now became an unfailing
guide. It had probably been raining much earlier in the mountains along
the headwaters and the flood was already pouring down. The river swished
high against its banks and once or twice, when he caught dim glimpses
of it through the trees, he saw a yellow torrent bearing much brushwood
upon its bosom.

He had very little idea of his progress. It was impossible to judge of
pace under such circumstances. The army might be ten miles further on
or it might be only two. Then he found himself sliding down a muddy and
slippery bank. He grasped at weeds and bushes, but they slipped through
his hands. Then he shot into a creek, swollen by the flood, and went
over his head.

He came up, gasping, struck out and reached the further shore. Here he
found bushes more friendly than the others and pulled himself upon the
bank. But he had lost everything. His belt had broken in his struggles,
and pistols, small sword and ammunition were gone. He would be helpless
against an enemy. Then he laughed at the idea. Surely enemies would not
be in search of him at such a time and such a place.

Nevertheless when he saw an open space in front of him he paused at
its edge. He could see well enough here to notice a file of dim figures
riding slowly by. At first his heart leaped up with the belief that they
were Colonel Winchester and his own people, but they were going in the
wrong direction, and then he was able to discern the bedraggled and
faded Confederate gray.

The horsemen were about fifty in number and most of them rode with the
reins hanging loose on their horses' necks. They were wrapped in cloaks,
but cloaks and uniforms alike were sodden. A stream of water ran from
every stirrup to the ground.

Dick looked at them attentively. Near the head of the column but on
one side rode a soldierly figure, apparently that of a young man of
twenty-three or four. Just behind came three youths, and Dick's heart
fairly leaped when he saw the last of the three. He could not mistake
the figure, and a turning of the head caused him to catch a faint
glimpse of the face. Then he knew beyond all shadow of doubt. It was
Harry and he surmised that the other two were his comrades, St. Clair
and Langdon, whom he had met when they were burying the dead.

Dick was so sodden and cold and wretched that he was tempted to call out
to them--the sight of Harry was like a light in the darkness--but the
temptation was gone in an instant. His way lay in another direction.
What they wished he did not wish, and while they fought for the triumph
of the South it was his business to endure and struggle on that he might
do his own little part for the Union.

But despite the storm and his sufferings, he drew courage from nature
itself. While a portion of the Southern army was across it must be a
minor portion, and certainly the major part could not span such a flood
and attack. The storm and time allied were now fighting for Pope.

He wandered away a little into the open fields in order to find easier
going, but he came back presently to the forest lining the bank of the
river, for fear he should lose his direction. The yellow torrent of the
Rappahannock was now his only sure guide and he stuck to it. He wondered
why the rain and wind did not die down. It was not usual for a storm so
furious to last so long, but he could not see any abatement of either.

He became conscious after a while of a growing weakness, but he had
recalled all the powers of his will and it was triumphant over his body.
He trudged on on feet that were unconscious of sensation, and his face
as if the flesh were paralyzed no longer felt the beat of the rain.

A mile or two further and in the swish of the storm he heard hoofbeats
again. Looking forth from the bushes he saw another line of horsemen,
but now they were going in the direction of Pope's army. Dick recognized
these figures. Shapeless as he might appear on his horse that was
Colonel Winchester, and there were the broad shoulders of Sergeant
Whitley and the figures of the others.

He rushed through the dripping forest and shouted in a tone that
could be heard above the shriek of wind and rain. Colonel Winchester
recognized the voice, but the light was so dim that he did not recognize
him from whom it came. Certainly the figure that emerged from the forest
did not look human.

“Colonel,” cried Dick, “it is I, Richard Mason, whom you left behind!”

“So it is,” said Sergeant Whitley, keener of eye than the others.

The whole troop set up a shout as Dick came forward, taking off his
dripping cap.

“Why, Dick, it is you!” exclaimed Colonel Winchester in a tone of
immeasurable relief. “We missed you and your horse and hoped that you
were somewhere ahead. Your horse must have broken loose in the storm.
But here, you look as if you were nearly dead! Jump up behind me!”

Dick made an effort, but his strength failed and he slipped back to
the ground. He had not realized that he was walking on his spirit and
courage and that his strength was gone, so powerful had been the buffets
of the wind and rain.

The colonel reached down, gave him a hand and a strong pull, and with
a second effort Dick landed astride the horse behind the rider. Then
Colonel Winchester gave the word and the sodden file wound on again.

“Dick,” said the colonel, looking back over his shoulder, “you come as
near being a wreck as anything that I've seen in a long time. It's lucky
we found you.”

“It is, sir, and I not only look like a wreck but I feel like one. But
I had made up my mind to reach General Pope's camp, with the news of the
Confederates crossing, and I think I'd have done it.”

“I know you would. But what a night! What a night! Not many men can be
abroad at such a time. We have seen nothing.”

“But I have, sir.”

“You have! What did you see?”

“A mile or two back I passed a line of Southern horsemen, just as wet
and bedraggled as ours.”

“Might they not have been our own men? It would be hard to tell blue and
gray apart on such a night.”

“One could make such a mistake, but in this case it was not possible.
I saw my own cousin, Harry Kenton, riding with them. I recognized them
perfectly.”

“Then that settles it. The Confederate scouts and cavalry are abroad
to-night also, and on our side of the river. But they must be few who
dare to ride in such a storm.”

“That's surely true, sir.”

But both Dick and his commanding officer were mistaken. They still
underrated the daring and resolution of the Confederate leaders,
the extraordinary group of men who were the very bloom and flower of
Virginia's military glory, the equal of whom--two at least being in the
very first rank in the world's history--no other country with so small a
population has produced in so short a time.

Earlier in the day Stuart, full of enterprise, and almost insensible to
fatigue, had crossed the Rappahannock much higher up and at the head
of a formidable body of his horsemen, unseen by scouts and spies, was
riding around the Union right. They galloped into Warrenton where the
people, red hot as usual for the South, crowded around them cheering and
laughing and many of the women crying with joy. It was like Jackson and
Stuart to drop from the clouds this way and to tell them, although the
land had been occupied by the enemy, that their brave soldiers would
come in time.

News, where a Northern force could not have obtained a word, was poured
out for the South. They told Stuart that none of the Northern cavalry
was about, and that Pope's vast supply train was gathered at a little
point only ten miles to the southeast. Stuart shook his plumed head
until his long golden hair flew about his neck. Then he laughed aloud
and calling to his equally fiery young officers, told them of the great
spoil that waited upon quickness and daring.

The whole force galloped away for the supply train, but before it
reached it the storm fell in all its violence upon Stuart and his men.
Despite rain and darkness Stuart pushed on. He said afterward that it
was the darkest night he had ever seen. A captured negro guided them on
the final stage of the gallop and just when Dick was riding back to
camp behind Colonel Winchester, Stuart fell like a thunderbolt upon the
supply train and its guard.

Stuart could not drive wholly away the Northern guard, which though
surprised, fought with great courage, but he burned the supply train,
then galloped off with prisoners, and Pope's own uniform, horses,
treasure chest and dispatch book. He found in the dispatch book minute
information about the movements of all the Union troops, and Pope's
belief that he ought to retreat from the river on Washington. Doubtless
the Confederate horseman shook his head again and again and laughed
aloud, when he put this book, more precious than jewels, inside his gold
braided tunic, to be taken to Lee and Jackson.

But these things were all hidden from the little group of weary men
who rode into Pope's camp. Colonel Winchester carried the news of the
crossing--Early had made it--to the commander, and the rest sought the
best shelter to be found. Dick was lucky enough to be taken into a tent
that was thoroughly dry, and the sergeant who had followed him managed
to obtain a supply of dry clothing which would be ready for him when he
awoke.

Dick did not revive as usual. He threw all of his clothing aside and
water flew where it fell, put on dry undergarments and crept between
warm blankets. Nevertheless he still felt cold, and he was amazed at his
own lack of interest in everything. He might have perished out there in
the stream, but what did it matter? He would probably be killed in some
battle anyway. Besides, their information about the crossing of the
rebels was of no importance either. The rebels might stay on their side
of the Rappahannock, or they might go back. It was all the same either
way. All things seemed, for the moment, useless to him.

He began to shiver, but after a while he became so hot that he wanted to
throw off all the cover. But he retained enough knowledge and will
not to do so, and he sank soon into a feverish doze from which he was
awakened by the light of a lantern shining in his face.

He saw Colonel Winchester and another man, a stranger, who held a small
leather case in his hand. But Dick was in such a dull and apathetic
state that he had no curiosity about them and he shut his eyes to keep
out the light of the lantern.

“What is it, doctor?” he heard Colonel Winchester asking.

“Chill and a little fever, brought on by exposure and exhaustion. But
he's a hardy youth. Look what a chest and shoulders! With the aid of
these little white pills of mine he'll be all right in the morning.
Colonel, Napoleon said that an army fights on its stomach, which I
suppose is true, but in our heavily watered and but partly settled
country, it must fight sometimes on a stomach charged with quinine.”

“I was afraid it might be worse. A dose or two then will bring him
around?”

“Wish I could be so sure of a quick cure in every case. Here, my lad,
take two of these. A big start is often a good one.”

Dick raised his head obediently and took the two quinine pills. Soon he
sank into a condition which was as near stupor as sleep. But before he
passed into unconsciousness he heard the doctor say:

“Wake him soon enough in the morning, Colonel, to take two more. What a
wonderful thing for our armies that we can get all the quinine we want!
The rebel supply, I know, is exhausted. With General Quinine on our side
we're bound to win.”

“But that isn't the only reason, doctor. Now--” Their voices trailed
away as Dick sank into oblivion. He had a dim memory of being awakened
the next morning and of swallowing two more pills, but in a minute or
two he sank back into a sleep which was neither feverish nor troubled.
When he awoke the dark had come a second time. The fever was wholly
gone, and his head had ceased to ache.

Dick felt weak, but angry at himself for having broken down at such
a time, he sat up and began to put on the dry uniform that lay in the
tent. Then he was astonished to find how great his weakness really was,
but he persevered, and as he slipped on the tunic Warner came into the
tent.

“You've been asleep a long time,” he said, looking at Dick critically.

“I know it. I suppose I slept all through the night as well as the day.”

“And the great battle was fought without you.”

Dick started, and looked at his comrade, but Warner's eyes were
twinkling.

“There's been no battle, and you know it,” Dick said.

“No, there hasn't been any; there won't be any for several days at
least. That whopping big rain last night did us a service after all. It
was Early who crossed the river, and now he is in a way cut off from the
rest of the Southern army. We hear that he'll go back to the other side.
But Stuart has curved about us, raided our supply train and destroyed
it. And he's done more than that. He's captured General Pope's important
papers.”

“What does it mean for us?”

“A delay, but I don't know anything more. I suppose that whatever is
going to happen will happen in its own good time. You feel like a man
again, don't you Dick? And you can have the consolation of knowing that
nothing has happened all day long when you slept.”

Dick finished his dressing, rejoined his regiment and ate supper with
the other officers around a fine camp fire. He found that he had a good
appetite, and as he ate strength flowed rapidly back into his veins. He
gathered from the talk of the older officers that they were still hoping
for a junction with McClellan before Lee and Jackson could attack. They
expected at the very least to have one hundred and fifty thousand men in
line, most of them veterans.

But Dick saw Shepard again that evening. He had come from a long journey
and he reported great activity in the Southern camp. When Dick said
that Lee and Jackson would have to fight both Pope and McClellan the spy
merely replied:

“Yes, if Pope and McClellan hurry.”

But Dick learned that night that Pope was not discouraged. He had an
army full of fighting power, and eager to meet its enemy. He began the
next day to move up the river in order that he might face Lee's whole
force as it attempted to cross at the upper fords. Their spirits
increased as they learned that Early, through fear of being cut off, was
going back to join the main Southern army.

The ground had now dried up after the great storm, but the refreshed
earth took on a greener tinge, and the air was full of sparkle and life.
Dick had not seen such elasticity among the troops in a long time. As
they marched they spoke confidently of victory. One regiment took up a
song which had appeared in print just after the fall of Sumter:


          “Men of the North and West,
              Wake in your might.
           Prepare as the rebels have done
              For the fight.
           You cannot shrink from the test;
           Rise!  Men of the North and West.”


Another regiment took up the song, and soon many thousands were singing
it; those who did not know the words following the others. Dick felt
his heart beat and his courage mount high, as he sang with Warner and
Pennington the last verse:


          “Not with words; they laugh them to scorn,
              And tears they despise.
           But with swords in your hands
              And death in your eyes!
           Strike home!  Leave to God all the rest;
           Strike!  Men of the North and West!”


The song sung by so many men rolled off across the fields, and the woods
and the hills gave back the echo.

“We will strike home!” exclaimed Dick, putting great emphasis on the
“will.” “Our time for victory is at hand.”

“The other side may think they're striking home; too,” said Warner,
speaking according to the directness of his dry mathematical mind. “Then
I suppose it will be a case of victory for the one that strikes the
harder for home.”

“That's a fine old mind of yours. Don't you ever feel any enthusiasm?”

“I do, when the figures warrant it. But I must reckon everything with
care before I permit myself to feel joy.”

“I'm glad I'm not like you, Mr. Arithmetic, Mr. Algebra, Mr. Geometry
and Mr. Trigonometry.”

“You mustn't make fun of such serious matters, Dick. It would be a noble
thing to be the greatest professor of mathematics in the world.”

“Of course, George, but we wouldn't need him at this minute. But here
we are back at those cottages in which I saw the Southern officers
sheltering themselves. Well, they're ours again and I take it as a good
omen.”

“Yes, here we rest, as the French general said, but I don't know that I
care about resting much more. I've had about all I want of it.”

Nevertheless they spent the day quietly at the Sulphur Springs, and lay
down in peace that night. But the storm cloud, the blackest storm cloud
of the whole war so far, was gathering.

Lee, knowing the danger of the junction between Pope and McClellan had
resolved to hazard all on a single stroke. He would divide his army.
Jackson, so well called “the striking arm,” would pass far around
through the maze of hills and mountains and fall like a thunderbolt
upon Pope's flank. At the sound of his guns Lee himself would attack in
front.

As Dick and his young comrades lay down to sleep this march, the
greatest of Stonewall Jackson's famous turning movements, had begun
already. Jackson was on his horse, Little Sorrel, his old slouch hat
drawn down over his eyes, his head bent forward a little, and the great
brain thinking, always thinking. His face was turned to the North.

Just a little behind Jackson rode one of his most trusted aides, Harry
Kenton, a mere youth in years, but already a veteran in service. Not
far away was the gallant young Sherburne at the head of his troop of
cavalry, and in the first brigade was the regiment of the Invincibles
led by Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant Colonel Hector St.
Hilaire. Never had the two colonels seemed more prim and precise, and
not even in youth had the fire of battle ever burned more brightly in
their bosoms.

Jackson meant to pass around his enemy's right, crossing the Bull Run
Mountain at Thoroughfare Gap, then strike the railway in Pope's rear.
Longstreet, one of the heaviest hitters of the South, meanwhile was
to worry Pope incessantly along the line of the Rappahannock, and when
Jackson attacked they were to drive him toward the northeast and away
from McClellan.

The hot August night was one of the most momentous in American history,
and the next few days were to see the Union in greater danger than it
has ever stood either before or since. Perhaps it was not given to the
actors in the drama to know it then, but the retrospect shows it now.
The North had not attained its full fighting strength, and the genius of
the two great Southern commanders was at the zenith, while behind them
stood a group of generals, full of talent and fearless of death.

Jackson had been directly before Sulphur Springs where Dick lay with the
division to which he belonged. But Jackson, under cover of the darkness,
had slipped away and the division of Longstreet had taken its place so
quietly that the Union scouts and spies, including Shepard himself, did
not know the difference.

Jackson's army marched swiftly and silently, while that of Pope slept.
The plan of Lee was complicated and delicate to the last degree, but
Jackson, the mainspring in this organism, never doubted that he could
carry it out. His division soon left the rest of the army far behind, as
they marched steadily on over the hills, the fate of the nation almost
in the hollow of their hands.

The foot cavalry of Jackson were proud of their ability that night. They
carried only three days' rations, expecting to feed off the enemy at
the end of that time. Near midnight they lay down and slept a while,
but long before dawn they were in line again marching over the hills and
across the mountains. There were skirmishers in advance on either side,
but they met no Union scouts. The march of Jackson's great fighting
column was still unseen and unsuspected. A single Union scout or a
message carried by a woman or child might destroy the whole plan, as a
grain of dust stops all the wheels and levers of a watch, but neither
the scout, the woman nor the child appeared.

Toward dawn the marching Southerners heard far behind them the thunder
of guns along the Rappahannock. They knew that Longstreet had opened
with his batteries across the river, and that those of Pope were
replying. The men looked at one another. There was a deep feeling of
excitement and suspense among them. They did not know what all this
marching meant, but they had learned to trust the man who led them. He
had led them only to victory, and they did not doubt that he was doing
so again.

The march never paused for an instant. On they went, and the sound of
the great guns behind them grew fainter and fainter until it faded away.
Where were they going? Was it a raid on Washington? Were they to hurl
themselves upon Pope's rear, or was there some new army that they were
to destroy?

Up swept the sun and the coolness left by the storm disappeared. The
August day began to blaze again with fierce burning heat, but there was
no complaint among Jackson's men. They knew now that they were on one of
his great turning movements, on a far greater scale than any hitherto,
and full of confidence, they followed in the wake of Little Sorrel.

In the daylight now Jackson had scouts and skirmishers far in front and
on either flank. They were to blaze the way for the army and they made
a far out-flung line, through which no hostile scout could pass and
see the marching army within. At the close of the day they were still
marching, and when the sun was setting Jackson stood by the dusty
roadside and watched his men as they passed. For the first time in that
long march they broke through restraint and thundering cheers swept
along the whole line as they took off their caps to the man whom they
deemed at once their friend and a very god of war. The stern Jackson
giving way so seldom to emotion was heard to say to himself:

“Who can fail to win battles with such men as these?”

Jackson's column did not stop until midnight. They had been more than
twenty-four hours on the march, and they had not seen a hostile soldier.
Harry Kenton himself did not know where they were going. But he lay down
and gratefully, like the others, took the rest that was allowed to him.
But a few hours only and they were marching again under a starry sky.
Morning showed the forest lining the slopes of the mountains and then
all the men seemed to realize suddenly which way they were going.

This was the road that led to Pope. It was not Washington, or
Winchester, or some unknown army, but their foe on the Rappahannock that
they were going to strike. A deep murmur of joy ran through the ranks,
and the men who had now been marching thirty hours, with but little
rest, suddenly increased their speed. Knowledge had brought them new
strength.

They entered the forest and passed into Thoroughfare Gap, which leads
through Bull Run Mountain. The files narrowed now and stretched out in a
longer line. This was a deep gorge, pines and bushes lining the summits
and crests. The confined air here was closer and hotter than ever, but
the men pressed on with undiminished speed.

Harry Kenton felt a certain awe as he rode behind Jackson, and looked
up at the lofty cliffs that enclosed them. The pines along the summit on
either side were like long, green ribbons, and he half feared to see
men in blue appear there and open fire on those in the gorge below. But
reason told him that there was no such danger. No Northern force could
be on Bull Run Mountain.

Harry had not asked a question during all that march. He had not
known where they were going, but like all the soldiers he had supreme
confidence in Jackson. He might be going to any of a number of places,
but the place to which he was going was sure to be the right place.
Now as he rode in the pass he knew that they were bound for the rear of
Pope's army. Well, that would be bad for Pope! Harry had no doubt of it.

They passed out of the gap, leaving the mountain behind them, and swept
on through two little villages, and over the famous plateau of Manassas
Junction which many of them had seen before in the fire and smoke of the
war's first terrible day. Here were the fields and hills over which
they had fought and won the victory. Harry recognized at once the places
which had been burned so vividly into his memory, and he considered it a
good omen.

Not so far away was Washington, and so strongly was Harry's imagination
impressed that he believed he could have seen through powerful glasses
and from the crest of some tall hill that they passed, the dome of the
Capitol shining in the August sun. He wondered why there was no attack,
nor even any alarm. The cloud of dust that so many thousands of marching
men made could be seen for miles. He did not know that Sherburne and the
fastest of the rough riders were now far in front, seizing every Union
scout or sentinel, and enabling Jackson's army to march on its great
turning movement wholly unknown to any officer or soldier of the North.
Soon he would stand squarely between Pope and Washington.

Before noon, Stuart and his wild horsemen joined them and their spirits
surged yet higher. All through the afternoon the march continued, and
at night Jackson fell upon Pope's vast store of supplies, surprising and
routing the guard. Taking what he could use he set fire to the rest and
the vast conflagration filled the sky.

Night came with Jackson standing directly in the rear of Pope. The trap
had been shut down, and it was to be seen whether Pope was strong enough
to break from it.




CHAPTER V. THE SECOND MANASSAS


The sunbeams seemed fairly to dance over the dusty earth. The dust was
not only over the earth, but over everything, men, animals, wagons and
tents. Dick Mason who had struggled so hard through a storm but a few
nights ago now longed for another like it. Anything to get away from
this blinding blaze.

But he soon forgot heat and dust. He was conscious of a great quiver
and thrill running through the whole army. Something was happening.
Something had happened, but nobody knew what. Warner and Pennington felt
the same quiver and thrill, because they looked at him as if in inquiry.
Colonel Winchester showed it, too. He said nothing, but gazed uneasily
toward the Northern horizon. Dick found himself looking that way also.
Along the Rappahannock there was but little firing now, and he began to
forget the river which had loomed so large in the affairs of the armies.
Perhaps the importance of the Rappahannock had passed.

It was said that Pope himself with his staff had ridden away toward
Washington, but Dick did not know. Far off toward the capital he
saw dust clouds, but he concluded that they must be made by marching
reinforcements.

The long hot hours dragged and then came a messenger. It was Shepard who
had reported to headquarters and who afterwards came over to the shade
of a tree where Colonel Winchester and his little staff were gathered.
He was on the verge of exhaustion. He was black under the eyes and the
veins of his neck were distended. Dust covered him from head to foot.
He threw himself on the ground and drank deeply from a canteen of cool
water that Dick handed to him. All saw that Shepard, the spy, the man
whose life was a continual danger, who had never before shown emotion,
was in a state of excitement, and if they waited a little he would speak
of his own accord.

Shepard took the canteen from his lips, drew several long deep breaths
of relief and said:

“Do you know what I have seen?”

“I don't, but I infer from your manner, Shepard, that it must be of
great importance,” said Colonel Winchester.

“I've seen Stonewall Jackson at the head of half of Lee's army behind
us! Standing between us and Washington!”

“What! Impossible! How could he get there?”

“It's possible, because it's been done--I've seen the rebel army behind
us. In these civilian clothes of mine, I've been in their ranks, and
I've talked with their men. While they were amusing us here on the
Rappahannock with their cannon, Jackson with the best of the army
crossed the river higher up, passed through Thoroughfare Gap, marching
two or three days before a soul of ours knew it, and then struck our
great camp at Bristoe Station.”

“Shepard, you must be sunstruck!”

“My mind was never clearer. What I saw at close range General Pope
himself saw at long range. He and his staff and a detachment came near
enough to see the looting and burning of all our stores--I don't suppose
so many were ever gathered together before. But I was right there. You
ought to have seen the sight, Colonel, when those ragged rebels who
had been living on green corn burst into our camp. I've heard about the
Goths and Vandals coming down on Rome and it must have been something
like it. They ate as I never saw anybody eat before, and then throwing
away their rags they put on our new uniforms which were stored there in
thousands. At least half the rebel army must now be wearing the Union
blue. And the way they danced about and sang was enough to make a loyal
man's heart sick.”

“You told all this to General Pope?”

“I did, sir, but I could not make him believe the half of it. He insists
that it can only be a raiding detachment, that it is impossible for a
great army to have come to such a place. But, sir, I was among them. I
know Stonewall Jackson, and I saw him with my own eyes. He was there
at the head of thirty thousand men, and we've already lost stores worth
millions and millions. Jeb Stuart was there, too. I saw him. And I saw
Munford, who leads Jackson's cavalry since the death of Turner Ashby.
Oh, they'll find out soon enough that it's Jackson. We're trapped, sir!
I tell you we're trapped, and our own commander-in-chief won't believe
it. Good God, Colonel, the trap has shut down on us and if we get out of
it we've got to be up and doing! This is no time for waiting!”

Colonel Winchester saw from the rapidity and emphasis with which Shepard
spoke that his excitement had increased, but knowing the man's great
devotion to the Union he had no rebuke for his plain speech.

“You have done splendid work, Mr. Shepard,” he said, “and the
commander-in-chief will recognize what great risks you have run for
the cause. I've no doubt that the accuracy of your reports will soon be
proved.”

Colonel Winchester in truth believed every word that Shepard had said,
sinister though they were. He said that Jackson was behind them, that
he had done the great destruction at Bristoe Station and he had not the
slightest doubt that Jackson was there.

Shepard flushing a little with gratification at Colonel Winchester's
praise quickly recovered his customary self possession. Once more he was
the iron-willed, self-contained man who daily dared everything for the
cause he served.

“Thank you, Colonel,” he said, “I've got to go out and get a little food
now. All I say will be proved soon enough.”

The three boys, like Colonel Winchester, did not doubt the truth of
Shepard's news, and they looked northeast for the dust clouds which
should mark the approach of Jackson.

“We've been outmaneuvered,” said Warner to Dick, “but it's no reason why
we should be outfought.”

“No, George, it isn't. We've eighty thousand men as brave as any in the
world, and, from what we hear they haven't as many. We ought to smash
their old trap all to pieces.”

“If our generals will only give us a chance.”

Shepard's prediction that his news would soon prove true was verified
almost at once. General Pope himself returned to his army and dispatch
after dispatch arrived stating that Jackson and his whole force had been
at Bristoe Station while the Union stores were burning.

“Now is our chance,” said Dick to his comrades, “why doesn't the general
move on Jackson at once, and destroy him before Lee can come to his
help?”

“I'm praying for it,” said Warner.

“From what I hear it's going to be done,” said Pennington.

Their hopes came true. Pope at once took the bold course, and marched on
Jackson, but the elusive Stonewall was gone. They tramped about in
the heat and dust in search of him. One portion of the army including
Colonel Winchester's regiment turned off in the afternoon toward a place
of a few houses called Warrenton. It lay over toward the Gap through
which Jackson had gone and while the division ten thousand strong did
not expect to find anything there it was nevertheless ordered to look.

Dick rode by the side of his colonel ready for any command, but the
mystery, and uncertainty had begun to weigh upon him again. It seemed
when they had the first news that Jackson was behind them, that they had
a splendid opportunity to turn upon him and annihilate him before Lee
could come. But he was gone. They had looked upon the smoldering ruins
of their great supply camp, but they had found there no trace of a
Confederate soldier. Was Harry Kenton right, when he told them they
could not beat Jackson? He asked himself angrily why the man would not
stay and fight. He believed, too, that he must be off there somewhere to
the right, and he listened eagerly but vainly for the distant throb of
guns in the east.

A cloud of dust hovered over the ten thousand as they marched on in the
blazing sunshine. The country was well peopled, but all the inhabitants
had disappeared save a few, and from not one of these could they obtain
a scrap of information.

Dick noticed through the dusty veil a heavy wood on their left extending
for a long distance. Then as in a flash, he saw that the whole forest
was filled with troops, and he saw also two batteries galloping from it
toward the crest of a ridge. It occurred to him instantly that here was
the army of Jackson, and others who saw had the same instinctive belief.

There was a flash and roar from the batteries. Shot and shell cut
through the clouds of dust and among the ranks of the men in blue. Now
came from the forest a vast shout, the defiant rebel yell and nobody in
the column doubted that Jackson was there. He had swung away toward the
Gap, where Lee could come to him more readily, and he would fight the
whole Union army until Lee came up.

As the roar of the first discharge from the batteries was dying swarms
of skirmishers sprang up from ambush and poured a storm of bullets upon
the Union front and flanks. A cry as of anguish arose from the column
and it reeled back, but the men, many of them hardy young farmers from
the West, men of staunch stuff, were eager to get at the enemy and the
terrible surprise could not daunt them. Uttering a tremendous shout they
charged directly upon the Southern force.

It was a case largely of vanguards, the main forces not yet having come
up, but the two detachments charged into each other with a courage and
fierceness that was astounding. In a minute the woods and fields were
filled with fire and smoke, and hissing shells and bullets. Men fell by
hundreds, but neither side yielded. The South could not drive away the
North and the North could not hurl back the South.

The field of battle became a terrible and deadly vortex. The fire of the
opposing lines blazed in the faces of each other. Often they were
only three or four score yards apart. Ewell, Jackson's ablest and most
trusted lieutenant, fell wounded almost to death, and lay long upon the
field. Other Southern generals fell also, and despite their superior
numbers they could not drive back the North.

Dick never had much recollection of the combat, save a reek of fire
and smoke in which men fought. He saw Colonel Winchester's horse
pitch forward on his head and springing from his own he pulled the
half-stunned colonel to his feet. Both leaped aside just in time to
avoid Dick's own falling horse, which had been slain by a shell. Then
the colonel ran up and down the lines of his men, waving his sword and
encouraging them to stand fast.

The Southern lines spread out and endeavored to overlap the Union men,
but they were held back by a deep railroad cut and masses of felled
timber. The combat redoubled in fury. Cannon and rifles together made
a continuous roar. Both sides seemed to have gone mad with the rage of
battle.

The Southern generals astonished at such a resistance by a smaller
force, ordered up more men and cannon. The Union troops were slowly
pushed back by the weight of numbers, but then the night, the coming
of which neither had noticed, swept down suddenly upon them, leaving
fifteen hundred men, nearly a third of those engaged, fallen upon the
small area within which the two vanguards had fought.

But the Union men did not retreat far. Practically, they were holding
their ground, when the darkness put an end to the battle, and they were
full of elation at having fought a draw with superior numbers of the
formidable Jackson. Dick, although exultant, was so much exhausted that
he threw himself upon the ground and panted for breath. When he was able
to rise he looked for Warner and Pennington and found them uninjured.
So was Sergeant Whitley, but the sergeant, contrary to his custom, was
gloomy.

“What's the matter, sergeant?” exclaimed Dick in surprise. “Didn't we
give 'em a great fight?”

“Splendid, Mr. Mason, I don't believe that troops ever fought better
than ours did. But we're not many here. Where's all the rest of our
army? Scattered, while I'm certain that Jackson with twenty-five or
thirty thousand men is in front of us, with more coming. We'll fall
back. We'll have to do it before morning.”

The sergeant on this occasion had the power of divination. An hour
after midnight the whole force which had fought with so much heroism
was withdrawn. It was a strange night to the whole Union army, full of
sinister omens.

Pope, in his quest for Jackson, had heard about sunset the booming of
guns in the west, but he could not believe that the Southern general
was there. Many of his dispatches had been captured by the hard-riding
cavalry of Stuart. His own division commanders had lost touch with him.
It was not possible for him to know what to do until morning, and no
one could tell him. Meanwhile Longstreet was advancing in the darkness
through the Gap to reinforce Jackson.

Dick had found another horse belonging to a slain owner, and, in the
darkness, his heart full of bitterness, he rode back beside Colonel
Winchester toward Manassas. Could they never win a big victory in the
east? The men were brave and tenacious. They had proved it over and over
again, but they were always mismanaged. It seemed to him that they were
never sent to the right place at the right time.

Nevertheless, many of the Northern generals, able and patriotic,
achieved great deeds before the dawn of that momentous morning.
Messengers were riding in the darkness in a zealous attempt to gather
the forces together. There was yet abundant hope that they could crush
Jackson before Lee came, and in the darkness brigade after brigade
marched toward Warrenton.

Dick, after tasting all the bitterness of retreat, felt his hopes rise
again. They had not really been beaten. They had fought a superior force
of Jackson's own men to a standstill. He could never forget that. He
cherished it and rolled it under his tongue. It was an omen of what was
to come. If they could only get leaders of the first rank they would
soon end the war.

He found himself laughing aloud in the anticipation of what Pope's Army
of Virginia would do in the coming day to the rebels. It might even
happen that McClellan with the Army of the Potomac would also come upon
the field. And then! Lee and Jackson thought they had Pope in a trap!
Pope and McClellan would have them between the hammer and the anvil, and
they would be pounded to pieces!

“Here, stop that foolishness, Dick! Quit, I say, quit it at once!”

It was Warner who was speaking, and he gripped Dick's arm hard, while he
peered anxiously into his face.

“What's the matter with you?” he continued. “What do you find to laugh
at? Besides, I don't like the way you laugh.”

Dick shook himself, and then rubbed his hand across his brow.

“Thanks, George,” he said. “I'm glad you called me back to myself. I was
thinking what would happen to the enemy if McClellan and the Army of the
Potomac came up also, and I was laughing over it.”

“Well, the next time, don't you laugh at a thing until it happens. You
may have to take your laugh back.”

Dick shook himself again, and the nervous excitement passed.

“You always give good advice, George,” he said. “Do you know where we
are?”

“I couldn't name the place, but we're not so far from Warrenton that we
can't get back there in a short time and tackle Jackson again. Dick, see
all those moving lights to right and left of us. They're the brigades
coming up in the night. Isn't it a weird and tremendous scene? You and I
and Pennington will see this night over and over again, many and many a
time.”

“It's so, George,” said Dick, “I feel the truth of what you say all
through me. Listen to the rumble of the cannon wheels! I hear 'em on
both sides of us, and behind us, and I've no doubt, too, that it's going
on before us, where the Southerners are massing their batteries. How the
lights move! It's the field of Manassas again, and we're going to win
this time!”

All of Dick'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 Manassas 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 Dick. Off
there was the little river of Manassas, 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, Dick,” 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.”

Dick 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.
Dick 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 Dick 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 Manassas 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 Dick 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 Dick 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 bloody, 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 Dick remembered well. Off to the left ran the dark
masses in gray, until they ended against a thick wood. In the center was
a huge battery, and Dick 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?” Dick 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 Dick 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
passage 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 shell.

Dick 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 Dick 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 masses of the Southerners.

Dick 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
Dick'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 shell that was poured
upon the Southern ranks.

Dick was quite unconscious of the passage 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 mass 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!” Dick 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.

Dick heard the trumpets calling again, and once more they charged,
hurling heavy masses 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. Dick 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.

Dick 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 passed 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
passing, 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
accumulating masses 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. Dick
saw the massive 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.

Dick, aghast, gazed at Warner through the smoke.

“It's true!” gasped Warner, “we didn't break the trap, Dick. 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 Dick 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 quantities 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. Dick 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
Dick 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.

Dick 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.

“Get up, Frank,” he said. “You're not dead.”

“No, I'm not, but I'm as good as dead. You just let me finish dying in
peace.”

Dick shoved him again and Pennington sat up. When he saw the food and
coffee he suddenly remembered to be hungry. Warner was already eating
and drinking. Off to the left they still heard cannon and rifles,
although the sound was sinking. Occasionally flashes from the mouths of
the great guns illumined the darkness.

Dick did not know what time it was. He had no idea how long he had
been lying upon the ground panting, the air surcharged with menace and
suspense. The vast clouds of dust, impregnated with burned gunpowder
still floated about, and it scorched his mouth and throat as he breathed
it.

The boys, after eating and drinking lay down again. They still heard the
firing of pickets, but it was no more than the buzzing of bees to them,
and after a while they fell into the sleep of nervous and physical
exhaustion. But while many of the soldiers slept all of the generals
were awake.

It was a singular fact but in the night that divided the great battle
of the Second Manassas into two days both sides were full of confidence.
Jackson's men, who had borne the brunt of the first day, rested upon
their arms and awaited the dawn with implicit confidence in their
leader. On the other flank Lee and Longstreet were massing their men for
a fresh attack.

The losses within the Union lines were replaced by reinforcements. Pope
rode among them, sanguine, full of hope, telegraphing to Washington that
the enemy had lost two to his one, and that Lee was retreating toward
the mountains.

Dick slept uneasily through the night, and rose to another hot August
sun. Then the two armies looked at each other and it seemed that each
was waiting for the other to begin, as the morning hours dragged on and
only the skirmishers were busy. During this comparative peace, the heavy
clouds of dust were not floating about, and Dick whose body had come to
life again walked back and forth with his colonel, gazing through their
glasses at the enemy. He scarcely noticed it, but Colonel Winchester's
manner toward him had become paternal. The boy merely ascribed it to the
friendly feeling an officer would feel for a faithful aide, but he knew
that he had in his colonel one to whom he could speak both as a friend
and a protector. Walking together they talked freely of the enemy who
stood before them in such an imposing array.

“Colonel,” said Dick, “do you think General Pope is correct in stating
that one wing of the Southern army is already retreating through
Thoroughfare Gap?”

“I don't, Dick. I don't think it is even remotely probable. I'm quite
sure, too, that we have the whole Confederate army in front of us. We'll
have to beat both Lee and Jackson, if we can.”

“Where do you think the main attack will be?”

“On Jackson, who is still in front of us. But we have waited a long
time. It must be full noon now.”

“It is past noon, sir, but I hear the trumpets, calling up our men.”

“They are calling to us, too.”

The regiment shifted a little to the right, where a great column was
forming for a direct attack upon the Confederate lines. Twenty thousand
men stood in a vast line and forty thousand were behind them to march in
support.

Dick had thought that he would be insensible to emotions, but his heart
began to throb again. The spectacle thrilled and awed him--the great
army marching to the attack and the resolute army awaiting it. Soon he
heard behind him the firing of the artillery which sent shot and shell
over their heads at the enemy. A dozen cannon came into action, then
twenty, fifty, a hundred and more, and the earth trembled with the
mighty concussion.

Dick felt the surge of triumph. They had yet met no answering fire.
Perhaps General Pope and not Colonel Winchester had been right after
all, and the Confederates were crushed. Awaiting them was only a rear
guard which would flee at the first flash of the bayonets in the wood.

The great line marched steadily onward, and the cannon thundered and
roared over the heads of the men raking the wood with steel. Still
no reply. Surely the sixty thousand Union men would now march over
everything. They were driving in the swarms of skirmishers. Dick could
see them retreating everywhere, in the wood over the hills and along an
embankment.

Warner was on his right and Pennington on his left. Dick glanced at them
and he saw the belief in speedy victory expressed on the faces of both.
It seemed to him, too, that nothing could now stop the massive
columns that Pope was sending forward against the thinned ranks of the
Confederates.

They were much nearer and he saw gray lines along an embankment and in
a wood. Then above the crash and thunder of their covering artillery he
heard another sound. It was the Southern bugles calling with a piercing
note to their own men just as the Northern trumpets had called.

Dick saw a great gray multitude suddenly pour forward. It looked to him
in the blur and the smoke like an avalanche, and in truth it was a human
avalanche, a far greater force of the South than they expected to
meet there. Directly in front of the Union column stood the Stonewall
Brigade, and all the chosen veterans of Stonewall Jackson's army.

“It's a fight, face to face,” Dick heard Colonel Winchester say.

Then he saw a Union officer, whose name he did not know suddenly gallop
out in front of the division, wave his saber over his head and shout
the charge. A tremendous rolling cry came from the blue ranks and Dick
physically felt the whole division leap forward and rush at the enemy.

Dick saw the officer who had made himself the leader of the charge
gallop straight at a breastwork that the Southerners had built, reach
and stand, horse and rider, a moment at the top, then both fall in
a limp heap. The next instant the officer, not dead but wounded, was
dragged a prisoner behind the embankment by generous foes who had
refused to shoot at him until compelled to do so.

The Union men, with a roar, followed their champion, and Dick felt a
very storm burst upon them. The Southerners had thrown up earthworks at
midnight and thousands of riflemen lying behind them sent in a fire at
short range that caused the first Union line to go down like falling
grain. Cannon from the wood and elsewhere raked them through and
through.

It was a vortex of fire and death. The Confederates themselves were
losing heavily, but taught by the stern Jackson and knowing that his eye
was upon them they refused to yield. The Northern charge broke on their
front, but the men did not retreat far. The shrill trumpet called them
back to the charge, and once more the blue masses hurled themselves upon
the barrier of fire and steel, to break again, and to come yet a third
time at the trumpet's call. Often the combatants were within ten yards
of one another, but strive as they would the Union columns could not
break through the Confederate defense.

Elsewhere the men of Hill and Longstreet showed a sternness and valor
equal to that of Jackson's. Their ranks held firm everywhere, and now,
as the long afternoon drew on, the eye of Lee, watching every rising
and falling wave of the battle, saw his chance. He drew his batteries
together in great masses and as the last charge broke on Jackson's lines
the trumpets sounded the charge for the Southern troops who hitherto had
stood on the defensive.

Dick heard a tremendous shout, the great rebel yell, that he had heard
so often before, and that he was destined to hear so often again.
Through the clouds of smoke and dust he saw the long lines of Southern
bayonets advancing swiftly. His regiment, which had already lost more
than half its numbers, was borne back by an appalling weight.

Then hope deserted the boy for the first time. The Union was not to be
saved here on this field. It was instead another lost Manassas, but far
greater than the first. The genius of Lee and Jackson which bore up
the Confederacy was triumphing once again. Dick shut his teeth in grim
despair. He heard the triumphant shouts of the advancing enemy, and he
saw that not only his own regiment, but the whole Northern line, was
being driven back, slowly it is true, but they were going.

Now at the critical moment, Lee was hurling forward every man and gun.
Although his army was inferior in numbers he was always superior at the
point of contact, and his exultant veterans pressed harder and harder
upon their weakening foes. Only the artillery behind them now protected
Dick and his comrades. But the Confederates still came with a rush.

Jackson was leading on his own men who had stood so long on the
defensive. The retreating Union line was broken, guns were lost, and
there was a vast turmoil and confusion. Yet out of it some order finally
emerged, and although the Union army was now driven back at every point
it inflicted heavy losses upon its foe, and under the lead of brave
commanders great masses gathered upon the famous Henry Hill, resolved,
although they could not prevent defeat, to save the army from
destruction.

Night was coming down for the second time upon the field of battle, lost
to the North, although the North was ready to fight again.

Lee and Jackson looked upon the heavy Union masses gathered at the Henry
Hill, and then looking at the coming darkness they stopped the attack.
Night heavier than usual came down over the field, covering with
its friendly veil those who had lost and those who had won, and the
twenty-five thousand who had fallen.




CHAPTER VI. THE MOURNFUL FOREST


As the night settled down, heavy and dark, and the sounds of firing
died away along the great line, Dick again sank to the ground exhausted.
Although the battle itself had ceased, it seemed to him that the drums
of his ears still reproduced its thunder and roar, or at least the echo
of it was left upon the brain.

He lay upon the dry grass, and although the night was again hot and
breathless, surcharged with smoke and dust and fire, he felt a
chill that went to the bone, and he trembled all over. Then a cold
perspiration broke out upon him. It was the collapse after two days of
tremendous exertion, excitement and anxiety. He did not move for eight
or ten minutes, blind to everything that was going on about him, and
then through the darkness he saw Colonel Winchester standing by and
looking down at him.

“Are you all right, Dick, my boy?” the colonel asked.

“Yes, sir,” replied Dick, as his pride made him drag himself to his
feet. “I'm not wounded at all. I was just clean played out.”

“You're lucky to get off so well,” said the colonel, smiling sadly.
“We've lost many thousands and we've lost the battle, too. The killed or
wounded in my regiment number more than two-thirds.”

“Have you seen anything of Warner and Pennington, sir? I lost sight of
them in that last terrible attack.”

“Pennington is here. He has had a bullet through the fleshy part of his
left arm, but he's so healthy it won't take him long to get well. I'm
sorry to say that Warner is missing.”

“Missing, sir? You don't say that George has been killed?”

“I don't say it. I'm hoping instead that he's been captured.”

Dick knew what the colonel meant. In Colonel Winchester's opinion only
two things, death or capture, could keep Warner from being with them.

“Maybe he will come in yet,” he said. “We were mixed up a good deal when
the darkness fell, and he may have trouble in finding our position.”

“That's true. There are not so many of us left, and we do not cover any
great area of ground. Lie still, Dick, and take a little rest. We
don't know what's going to happen in the night. We may have to do more
fighting yet, despite the darkness.”

The colonel's figure disappeared in the shadow, and Dick, following his
advice, lay quiet. All around him were other forms stretched upon the
earth, motionless. But Dick knew they were not dead, merely sleeping.
His own nervous system was being restored by youth and the habit
of courage. Yet he felt a personal grief, and it grew stronger with
returning physical strength. Warner, his comrade, knitted to him by ties
of hardship and danger, was missing, dead no doubt in the battle. For
the moment he forgot about the defeat. All his thoughts were for the
brave youth who lay out there somewhere, stretched on the dusty field.

Dick strained his eyes into the darkness, as if by straining he might
see where Warner lay. He saw, indeed, dim fires here and there along a
long line, marking where the Confederates now stood, or rather lay. Then
a bitter pang came. It was ground upon which the Union army had stood in
the morning.

The rifle fire, which had died down, began again in a fitful way. Far
off, skirmishers, not satisfied with the slaughter of the day, were
seeing what harm they could do in the dark. Somewhere the plumed and
unresting Stuart was charging with his horsemen, driving back some
portion of the Union army that the Confederate forces might be on their
flank in the morning.

But Dick, as he lay quietly and felt his strength, mental and physical,
returning, was taking a resolution. Down there in front of them and in
the darkness was the wood upon which they had made five great assaults,
all to fail. In front of that mournful forest, and within its edge, more
than ten thousand men had fallen. He had no doubt that Warner was among
them.

His sense of direction was good, and, as his blurred faculties regained
their normal keenness, he could mark the exact line by which they
had advanced, and the exact line by which they had retreated. Warner
unquestionably lay near the edge of the wood and he must seek him. Were
it the other way, Warner would do the same.

Dick stood up. He was no longer dizzy, and every muscle felt steady and
strong. He did not know what had become of Colonel Winchester, and his
comrades still lay upon the ground in a deep stupor.

It could not be a night of order and precision, with every man numbered
and in his place, as if they were going to begin a battle instead of
just having finished one, and Dick, leaving his comrades, walked calmly
toward the wood. He passed one sentinel, but a few words satisfied him,
and he continued to advance. Far to right and left he still heard the
sound of firing and saw the flash of guns, but these facts did not
disturb him. In front of him lay darkness and silence, with the horizon
bounded by that saddest of all woods where the heaped dead lay.

Dick looked back toward the Henry Hill, on the slopes of which were the
fragments of his own regiment. Lights were moving there, but they were
so dim they showed nothing. Then he turned his face toward the enemy's
position and did not look back again.

The character of the night was changing. It had come on dark and heavy.
Hot and breathless like the one before, he had taken no notice of the
change save for the increased darkness. Now he felt a sudden damp touch
on his face, as if a wet finger had been laid there. The faintest of
winds had blown for a moment or two, and when Dick looked up, he saw
that the sky was covered with black clouds. The saddest of woods had
moved far away, but by some sort of optical illusion he could yet see
it.

Save for the distant flash of random firing, the darkness was intense.
Every star was gone, and Dick moved without any guide. But he needed
none. His course was fixed. He could not miss the mournful wood hanging
there like a pall on the horizon.

His feet struck against something. It was a man, but he was past all
feeling, and Dick went on, striking by and by against many more. It was
impossible at the moment to see Warner's face, but he began to feel
of the figures with his hands. There was none so long and slender as
Warner's, and he continued his search, moving steadily toward the wood.

He saw presently a lantern moving over the field, and he walked toward
it. Three men were with the lantern, and the one who carried it held it
up as he approached. The beams fell directly upon Dick, revealing his
pale face and torn and dusty uniform.

“What do you want, Yank?” called the man.

“I'm looking for a friend of mine who must have fallen somewhere near
here.”

The man laughed, but it was not a laugh of joy or irony. It was a laugh
of pity and sadness.

“You've shorely got a big look comin',” he said. “They're scattered all
around here, coverin' acres an' acres, just like dead leaves shook by
a storm from the trees. But j'in us, Yank. You can't do nothin' in the
darkness all by yourself. We're Johnny Rebs, good and true, and I may
be shootin' straight at you to-morrow mornin', but I reckon I've got
nothin' ag'in you now. We're lookin' for a brother o' mine.”

Dick joined them, and the four, the three in gray and the one in blue,
moved on. A friendly current had passed between him and them, and there
would be no thought of hostility until the morning, when it would come
again. It was often so in this war, when men of the same blood met in
the night between battles.

“What sort of a fellow is it that you're lookin' for?” asked the man
with the lantern.

“About my age. Very tall and thin. You could mark him by his height.”

“It takes different kinds of people to make the world. My brother ain't
like him a-tall. Sam's short, an' thick as a buffalo. Weighs two twenty
with no fat on him. What crowd do you belong to, youngster?”

“The division on our right. We attacked the wood there.”

“Well, you're a bully boy. Give me your hand, if you are a Yank. You
shorely came right up there and looked us in the eyes. How often did you
charge us?”

“Five times, I think. But I may be mistaken. You know it wasn't a day
when a fellow could be very particular about his count.”

“Guess you're right there. I made it five. What do you say, Jim?”

“Five she was.”

“That settles it. Jim kin always count up to five an' never make a
mistake. What you fellers goin' to do in the mornin'?”

“I don't know.”

“Pope ain't asked you yet what to do. Well, Bobby Lee and Old Stonewall
ain't been lookin' for me either to get my advice, but, Yank, you
fellers do just what I tell you.”

“What's that?”

“Pack up your clothes before daylight, say good-bye, and go back
to Washington. You needn't think you kin ever lick Marse Bobby an'
Stonewall Jackson.”

“But what if we do think it? We've got a big army back there yet, and
more are always coming to us. We'll beat you yet.”

“There seems to be a pow'ful wide difference in our opinions, an'
I can't persuade you an' you can't persuade me. We'll just let the
question rip. I'm glad, after all, Yank, it's so dark. I don't want to
see ten thousand dead men stretched out in rows.”

“We're going to get a wettin

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