The Scouts of Stonewall: The Story of the Great Valley Campaign, Altsheler [best non fiction books of all time txt] 📗
- Author: Altsheler
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Harry made copies of all the orders and sealed them.
“Deliver every one to the man to whom it is addressed,” said Jackson, “and then report to me. But be sure that you say nothing of their contents to anybody.”
The boy, still burning with zeal, hurried forth with the orders, delivered them all, and came back to the tent, where he found the general dictating to another aide. Jackson glanced at him and Harry, saluting, said:
“I have given all the orders, sir, to those for whom they were intended.”
“Very well,” said Jackson. “Wait and I shall have more messages for you to carry.”
He turned to the second aide, but seeming to remember something, looked at his watch.
“Have you had any breakfast, Mr. Kenton?” he said.
“No, sir.”
“Any sleep?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When?”
“I slept well, sir, night before last.”
Harry's reply was given in all seriousness. Jackson smiled. The boy's reply and his grave manner pleased him.
“I won't give you any more orders just now,” he said. “Go out and get something to eat, but do not be gone longer than half an hour. You need sleep, too—but that can wait.”
“I shall be glad to carry your orders, sir, now. The food can wait, too. I am not hungry.”
Harry spoke respectfully. There was in truth an appealing note in his voice. Jackson gave him another and most searching glance.
“I think I chose well when I chose you,” he said. “But go, get your breakfast. It is not necessary to starve to death now. We may have a chance at that later.”
The faintest twinkle of grim humor appeared in his eyes and Harry, withdrawing, hastened at once to the Invincibles, where he knew he would have food and welcome in plenty.
St. Clair and Langdon greeted him with warmth and tried to learn from him what was on foot.
“There's a great bustle,” said Langdon, “and I know something big is ahead. This is the last day of the Old Year, and I know that the New Year is going to open badly. I'll bet you anything that before to-morrow morning is an hour old this whole army will be running hot-foot over the country, more afraid of Stonewall Jackson than of fifty thousand of the enemy.”
“But you've been in training for it,” said Harry with a laugh.
“So I have, but I don't want to train too hard.”
Harry ate and drank and was back at General Jackson's tent in twenty minutes. He had received a half hour but he was learning already to do better than was expected of him.
CHAPTER III. STONEWALL JACKSON'S MARCH
Harry took some orders to brigadiers and colonels. He saw that concentration was going on rapidly and he shared the belief of his comrades that the army would march in the morning. He felt a new impulse of ambition and energy. It continually occurred to him that while he was doing much he might do more. He saw how his leader worked, with rapidity and precision, and without excitement, and he strove to imitate him.
The influence of Jackson was rapidly growing stronger upon the mind of the brilliant, sensitive boy, so susceptible to splendor of both thought and action. The general, not yet great to the world, but great already to those around him, dominated the mind of the boy. Harry was proud to serve him.
He saw that Jackson had taken no sleep, and he would take none either. Soon the question was forgotten, and he toiled all through the afternoon, glad to be at the heart of affairs so important.
Winchester was a sprightly little city, one of the best in the great valley, inhabited by cultivated people of old families, and Southern to the core. Harry and his young comrades had found a good welcome there. They had been in many houses and they had made many friends. The Virginians liked his bright face and manners. Now they could not fail to see that some great movement was afoot, and more than once his new friends asked him its nature, but he replied truthfully that he did not know. In the throb of great action Winchester disappeared from his thoughts. Every faculty was bent upon the plans of Jackson, whatever they might be.
The afternoon drew to a close and then the short winter twilight passed swiftly. The last night of the Old Year had come, and Harry was to enter at dawn upon one of the most vivid periods in the life of any boy that ever lived, a period paralleled perhaps only by that of the French lads who followed the young Bonaparte into the plains of Italy. Harry with all his dreams, arising from the enormous impression made upon him by Jackson, could not yet foresee what lay before him.
He was returning on foot from one of his shorter errands. He had ridden throughout the afternoon, but the time came when he thought the horse ought to rest, and with the coming of the twilight he had walked. He was not conscious of any weakness. His body, in a way, had become a mere mechanism. It worked, because the will acted upon it like a spring, but it was detached, separate from his mind. He took no more interest in it than he would in any other machine, which, when used up, could be cast aside, and be replaced with a new one.
He glanced at the camp, stretching through the darkness. Much fewer fires were burning than usual, and the men, warned to sleep while they could, had wrapped themselves already in their blankets. Then he entered the tent of Jackson with the reply to an order that he had taken to a brigadier.
The general stood by a wall of the tent, dictating to an aide who sat at the little table, and who wrote by the light of a small oil lamp. Harry saluted and gave him the reply. Jackson read it. As he read Harry staggered but recovered himself quickly. The overtaxed body was making a violent protest, and the vague feeling that he could throw away the old and used-up machine, and replace it with a new one was not true. He caught his breath sharply and his face was red with shame. He hoped that his general had not seen this lamentable weakness of his.
Jackson, after reading the reply, resumed his dictation. Harry was sure that the general had not seen. He had not noticed the weakness in an aide of his who should have no weakness at all! But Jackson had seen and in a few hours of contact he had read the brave, bright
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