The Rock of Chickamauga, Joseph A. Altsheler [best book club books txt] 📗

drew off to the far western shore and lay there, puffing

smoke defiantly. Their fight with the batteries had lasted five hours

and they had suffered severely. It seemed strange to Dick that none of

them had been sunk, and in fact it was strange. All had been hit many

times, and one had been pierced by nearly fifty shot or shell. Their

killed or wounded were numerous, but their commanders and crews were

still resolute, and ready to go into action whenever General Grant

wished.

 

"Spunky little fellows," said Pennington. "We don't have many boats out

where I live, but I must hand a bunch of laurel to the navy every time."

 

"And you can bind wreaths around the hair of those navy fellows, too,"

said Warner, "and sing songs in their honor whether they win or lose."

 

"Now I wonder what's next," said Dick.

 

To their surprise the gunboats opened fire again just before sundown,

and the batteries replied fiercely. Rolling clouds of smoke mingled

with the advancing twilight, and the great guns from either side flashed

through the coming darkness. Then from a stray word or two dropped

by Colonel Winchester Dick surmised the reason of this new and rather

distant cannonade.

 

He knew that General Grant had transports up the river above Grand Gulf,

and he believed that they were now coming down the stream under cover of

the bombardment and the darkness. He confided his belief to Warner, who

agreed with him. Presently they saw new coils of smoke in the darkness

and knew they were right. The transports, steaming swiftly, were soon

beyond the range of the batteries, and then the gun boats, drawing off,

dropped down the river with them.

 

Long before the boats reached a point level with Grant's camp the army

was being formed in line for embarkation on the gunboats and transports.

The horses were to be placed on one or two of the transports and the men

filled all the other vessels.

 

"You can't down Grant," said Pennington. "A failure with him merely

means that he's going to try again."

 

"But don't forget the navy and the Father of Waters," said Dick, as

their transports swung from the shore upon the dark surface of the

river. "The mighty rivers help us. Look how we went up the Cumberland

and the Tennessee and now we've harnessed a flowing ocean for our

service."

 

"Getting poetical, Dick," said Warner.

 

"I feel it and so do you. You can't see the bluffs any more. There's

nothing in sight, but the lights of the steamers and the transports. We

must be somewhere near the middle of the stream, because I can't make

out either shore."

 

There were two regiments aboard the transport, the Winchester and one

from Ohio, which had fought by their side at both Perryville and Stone

River. Usually these boys chattered much, but now they were silent,

permeated by the same feelings that had overwhelmed Dick. In the

darkness--all lights were concealed as much as possible--with both banks

of the vast river hidden from them, they felt that they were in very

truth afloat upon a flowing ocean.

 

They knew little about their journey, except that they were destined for

the eastern shore, the same upon which Grand Gulf stood, but they did

not worry about this lack of knowledge. They were willing to trust to

Grant, and most of them were already asleep, upon the decks, in the

cabins, or in any place in which a human body could secure a position.

 

Dick did not sleep. The feeling of mystery and might made by the

tremendous river remained longer in his sensitive and imaginative

nature. His mind, too, looked backward. He knew that the great

grandfathers of Harry Kenton and himself, the famous Henry Ware and the

famous Paul Cotter, had passed up and down this monarch of streams.

He knew of their adventures. How often had he and his cousin, who now,

alas! was on the other side, listened to the stories of those mighty

days as they were handed from father to son! Those lads had floated

in little boats and he was on a steamer, but it seemed to him that the

river with its mighty depths took no account of either, steamer or canoe

being all the same to its vast volume of water.

 

He was standing by the rail looking over, when happening to glance back

he saw by the ship's lantern what he thought was a familiar face. A

second glance and he was sure. He remembered that fair-haired Ohio lad,

and, smiling, he said:

 

"You're one of those Ohio boys who, marching southward from its mouth

in the Ohio, drank the tributary river dry clear to its source, the

mightiest achievement in quenching thirst the world has ever known.

You're the boy, too, who told about it."

 

The youth moved forward, gazed at him and said:

 

"Now I remember you, too. You're Dick Mason of the Winchester regiment.

I heard the Winchesters were on board, but I haven't had time to look

around. It was hot when we drank up the river, but it was hotter that

afternoon at Perryville. God! what a battle! And again at Stone

River, when the Johnnies surprised us and took us in flank. It was you

Kentuckians then who saved us."

 

"Just as you would have saved us, if it had been the other way."

 

"I hope so. But, Mason, we left a lot of the boys behind. A big crowd

stopped forever at Perryville, and a bigger at Stone River."

 

"And we left many of ours, too. I suppose we'll land soon, won't we, and

then take these Grand Gulf forts with troops."

 

"Yes, that's the ticket, but I hear, Mason, it's hard to find a landing

on the east side. The banks are low there and the river spreads out to

a vast distance. After the boats go as far as they can we'll have to get

off in water up to our waists and wade through treacherous floods."

 

The question of landing was worrying Grant at that time and worrying him

terribly. The water spread far out over the sunken lands and he might

have to drop down the river many miles before he could find a landing on

solid ground, a fact which would scatter his army along a long line, and

expose it to defeat by the Southern land forces. But his anxieties were

relieved early in the morning when a colored man taken aboard from a

canoe told him of a bayou not five miles below Grand Gulf up which his

gunboats and transports could go and find a landing for the troops on

solid ground.

 

Dick was asleep when the boats entered the bayou, but he was soon

awakened by the noise of landing. It was then that most of the

Winchester and of the Ohio regiment discovered that they were comrades,

thrown together again by the chances of war, and there was a mighty

welcome and shaking of hands. But it did not interfere with the rapidity

of the landing. The Winchester regiment was promptly ordered forward

and, advancing on solid ground, took a little village without firing a

shot.

 

All that day troops came up and Grant's army, after having gone away

from Grand Gulf in darkness, was coming back to it in daylight.

 

"They say that Pemberton at Vicksburg could gather together fifty

thousand men and strike us, while we've only twenty thousand here," said

Pennington.

 

"But he isn't going to do it," said Warner. "How do I know? No, I'm not

a prophet nor the son of a prophet. There's nothing mysterious about

This man Grant who leads us knows the value of time. He makes up his

mind fast and he acts fast. The Confederate commander doesn't do either.

So Grant is bound to win. Let z equal resolution and y equal speed and

we have z plus y which equals resolution and speed, that is victory."

 

"I hope it will work out that way," said Dick, "but war isn't altogether

mathematics."

 

"Not altogether, but that beautiful study plays a great part in every

campaign. People are apt to abuse mathematics, when they don't know what

they're talking about. The science of mathematics is the very basis of

music, divine melody, heaven's harmony."

 

"You needn't tell me," said Pennington, "that a plus b and z minus y

lie at the basis of 'Home, Sweet Home' and the 'Star Spangled Banner.'

I accept a lot of your tales because you come from an old state like

Vermont, but there's a limit, George."

 

Warner looked at him pityingly.

 

"Frank," he said, "I'm not arguing with you. I'm telling you. Haven't

you known me long enough to accept whatever I say as a fact, and to

accept it at once and without question? Not to do so is an insult to me

and to the truth. Now say over slowly with me: 'The basis of music is

mathematics.'"

 

They said slowly together:

 

"The basis of music is mathematics."

 

"Now I accept your apologies," said Warner loftily.

 

Pennington laughed.

 

"You're a queer fellow, George," he said. "When this war is over and I

receive my general's uniform I'm coming up into the Vermont mountains

and look your people over. Will it be safe?"

 

"Of course, if you learn to read and write by then, and don't come

wearing your buffalo robe. We're strong on education and manners."

 

"Why, George," said Pennington in the same light tone, "I could

read when I was two years old, and, as for writing, I wrote a lot of

text-books for the Vermont schools before I came to the war."

 

"Shut up, you two," said Dick. "Don't you know that this is a war and

not a talking match?"

 

"It's not a war just now, or at least there are a few moments between

battles," retorted Warner, "and the best way I can use them is in

instructing our ignorant young friend from Nebraska."

 

Their conversation was interrupted by Colonel Winchester, who ordered

the regiment to move to a new point. General Grant had decided to attack

a little town called Port Gibson, which commanded the various approaches

to Grand Gulf. If he could take that he might shut up Bowen and his

force in Grand Gulf. On the other hand, if he failed he might be shut

in himself by Confederate armies gathering from Jackson, Vicksburg, and

elsewhere. The region, moreover, was complicated for both armies by the

mighty Mississippi and the Big Black River, itself a large stream, and

there were deep and often unfordable bayous.

 

But Grant showed great qualities, and Dick, who was experienced enough

now to see and know, admired him more than ever. He pushed forward with

the utmost resolution and courage. His vanguard, led by McClernand, and

including the Winchester regiment, seized solid ground near Port Gibson,

but found themselves confronted by a formidable Southern force. Bowen,

who commanded in Grand Gulf, was brave and able. Seeing the Union army

marching toward his rear, and knowing that if Grant took it he would be

surrounded, both on land and water, by a force outnumbering his nearly

three to one, he marched out at once and took station two miles in front

of Port Gibson.

 

Dick was by the side of Colonel Winchester as he rode forward. The faint

echo of shots from the skirmishers far in front showed that they had

roused up an enemy. Glasses were put in use at once.

 

"The Confederates are before us," said Colonel Winchester.

 

"So they are, and we're going to have hard fighting," said a major.

"Look what a position!"

 

Dick said nothing, but he was using his glasses, too. He saw before him

rough ground, thickly sown with underbrush. There was also a deep ravine

or rather marsh choked with vines, bushes, reeds, and trees that like a

watery soil. The narrow road divided and went around either end of the

long work, where the two divisions united again on a ridge, on which

Bowen had placed his fine troops and artillery.

 

"I don't see their men yet, except a few skirmishers," said Dick.

 

"No, but we'll find them in some good place beyond it," replied Colonel

Winchester, divining Bowen's plan.

 

It was night when the army in two divisions, one turning to the right

and the other to the left, began the circuit of the great marshy ravine.

Dick noticed that the troops who had struggled so long in mud and water

were eager. Here, west of the Alleghanies, the men in blue were always

expecting to win.

 

The sky was sown with stars, casting a filmy light over the marching

columns. Dick was with the troops passing to the right, and he observed

again their springy and eager tread.

 

Nor was the night without a lively note. Skirmishers, eager riflemen

prowling among the bushes, fired often at one another, and now and then

a Union cannon sent a shell screaming into some thick clump of forest,

lest a foe be lurking there