The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide, Joseph A. Altsheler [best value ebook reader txt] 📗

out most of the sunlight. Despite the blaze of the firing, both pursuer and pursued were enveloped in heavy shadows.

Harry had nothing to do but to keep near his general, in case he was wanted. But he watched everything with the utmost interest. Once he looked back and saw the Invincibles, few in number, but still preserving their regiment, marching in brave style along the plank road. Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire were riding side by side at its head, and in all the army there were not two more erect and soldierly figures than theirs.

They soon heard heavy artillery discharges from the other force on the pike, and the fire in front of them increased heavily. Nevertheless both forces pushed resolutely onward. Harry had no idea what it all meant. The movements of Hooker were a mystery to him, but he felt the presence of an enveloping danger, through which, however, he felt sure that the sword of Jackson could slash.

He saw that the generals were neglecting no precautions. The scouts and hardy riflemen were now pressing through all the forests and thickets, like Indians trailing in the Wilderness. They kept the two forces, the one on the plank road and the other on the pike, in touch. McLaws, who had shown so much spirit and judgment at Antietam, led on the pike.

Now the fighting increased on both roads. Batteries faced batteries and cavalry charged. But Harry felt all the time that these were not supreme efforts. The opposing force seemed to be merely a curtain before Hooker, and as the Southern army advanced the curtain was drawn steadily back, but it was always there.

One of the encounters rose almost to the dignity of a battle. A heavy division of Northern regulars drove in all the Southern skirmishers, but Jackson, sending forward a strong force, pushed back the regulars in their turn. Harry watched the fighting most of the time, but at other times he watched his general's face. It was the usual impenetrable mask, but late in the afternoon Harry saw a sudden sparkle in the blue eye. He always believed that at that moment the general divined the enemy's intentions, but the boy never had any way of knowing.

Scouts came in presently and reported that another heavy column was marching from the Rappahannock to join Hooker in the Wilderness, and now the advance of the Southern force became slower. It was obvious to Harry that Jackson, while resolute to follow Hooker, intended to guard against all possibility of ambush. Harry knew nothing then of the Chancellor House, but Dalton told him.

"It's a big place," he said, "standing on a heavy ridge surrounded by thick timber, and it's a natural presumption that Hooker will stop there. From the timbered ridge his cannon can sweep every approach."

Harry had no doubt that Hooker would halt at the Chancellor House. It was incredible that a great army of brave and veteran troops should continue to retreat before a force which his scouts had surely informed Hooker was far smaller, and only a portion of the Confederate army. It must be merely a part of some comprehensive plan, and he was confirmed in his belief by the increasing stubbornness of the defense.

There was not sufficient room on either the plank road or the pike for all the Confederate infantry, and masses were toiling through the dense thickets of bushes and briars and creeping vines. The afternoon was growing late, and while it was yet brilliant sunshine in the open, it was dark and somber in the Wilderness.

The division of Jackson seemed almost lost in the forest and undergrowth. The cavalry riding along some of the narrow paths were checked by large forces in front, and fell back under the protection of their own infantry. On another path a strong body of Southern skirmishers drove back those of the North, but were checked in their turn by a heavy fire of artillery.

Harry witnessed the repulse of the Southern riflemen and saw them crowding back down the path and through the bushes which lined it on either side. He also saw the usually calm and imperturbable face of Jackson show annoyance. The general signed to his staff, and, galloping forward a hundred yards or so, joined Stuart, who was just in front. Stuart also showed annoyance, but, more emotional than Jackson, he expressed it in a much greater degree. His face was red with anger. Harry, who as usual kept close behind his commander, heard their talk.

"General Stuart," said General Jackson, "we must find some position from which we can open a flanking fire upon that Northern battery."

"Aye, sir," said Stuart. "Nothing would delight me more. The narrowness of the road, and their place at the head of it, give them an immense advantage. Ah, sir, here is a bridle path leading to the right. Maybe it will give us a chance."

The two generals, followed by their staffs and a battery, turned from the main body into the narrow path and pushed their way between the masses of thick undergrowth, bearing steadily toward the right. But the road was so narrow that not more than two could go abreast, the generals in their eagerness still leading the way.

Harry, rising up in his stirrups, tried to see over the dense undergrowth, but patches of saplings and scrub oaks farther on hid the view. Nevertheless he caught the flash of heavy guns and saw many columns of smoke rising. It was toward their left now, and they would soon be parallel with it, whence their own guns would open a flanking fire, if any open spot or elevation could be found.

They had gone about a half mile, when Stuart uttered an exclamation and pointed to a hillock. It was not necessary to say anything, because everyone knew that this was the place for the guns.

"Now we'll drop a few shells of our own among those Yankee gunners and see how they like it," said Dalton.

The cannon were unlimbering rapidly, but the open space on the hillock was so small that only one gun could be brought up, and it sent a shot toward the Union lines. The Union artillery, superb as always, marked the spot whence the shot came, and in an instant two batteries, masked by the woods, poured a terrible fire upon the hillock and those about it.

So deadly was the steel rain that the little force was put out of action at once. Harry had never beheld a more terrifying scene. Most of the horses and men around the first cannon were killed. One horse and one gunner fell dead across its wheels. Other horses, wounded and screaming with pain and fright, rushed into the dense undergrowth and were caught by the trailing vines and thrown down. Some of the cavalrymen themselves were knocked out of the saddle by the fleeing horses, but they quickly regained their seats.

A second discharge from many guns sent another rain equally as deadly upon the hillock and its vicinity. More men and horses fell, and a scene of wild confusion followed. Attempting to turn about and escape from that spot of death, the cannon crashed together. There was not room for all the men and horses and guns. Most of them were compelled to plunge into the undergrowth and struggle desperately through it for shelter.

But Harry did not forget the two generals who were worth so much to the South. It would be fate's bitterest irony if Jackson and Stuart were killed in a small flanking movement, when, as was obvious to everyone, a battle of the first magnitude was just before them. And yet, while fragments of steel, hot and hissing, fell all around them, Jackson and Stuart and all the members of their staffs escaped without hurt.

The deadly fire followed them as they retreated, but the two generals rode on, unharmed. Harry and Dalton breathed deep sighs of relief when they were out of range.

"If a bullet had gone through my left side," said Dalton, "it wouldn't have come near my heart."

"Why not?"

"Because my heart was in my mouth. In fact, I don't think it has gone back yet to its natural place. The Yankees certainly have the guns."

"And the gunners who know how to use them. But doesn't it feel good, George, to be back on the plank road?"

"It does. I'll take my chance in open battle, but when I'm tangled up among bushes and vines and briars, I do hate to have a hundred-pound shell fired from an invisible gun burst suddenly on the top of my head. What's all that firing off there to the left and farther on?"

"It means that some of our people have got deeper into the Wilderness than we have, and are feeling out Hooker. I imagine we won't go much farther. Look how the night's dropping down. I'd hate to pass a night alone in such a place as this Wilderness. It would be like sleeping in a graveyard."

"You won't have to spend the night alone here. I wish I was as sure of Heaven as that. You'll have something like two hundred thousand near neighbors."

The sun set and darkness swept over the Wilderness, but it was still lighted at many points by the flash of the firing and, after that ceased, by the campfires. Jackson's advance was at an end for the time. He was fully in touch with his enemy and understood him. Hooker had retreated as far as he would go. When the fog cleared away in the morning the men in the captive balloons had informed him that heavy Southern columns were marching toward Chancellorsville. He was sure now that the full strength of the Southern army was before him, and he continued to fortify the Chancellor House and the plateau of Hazel Grove. He also threw up log breastworks through the heavily wooded country, and his lines, bristling with artillery and defended now by six score thousand men, extended along a front of six miles.

Jackson's division lay in the Wilderness before Hooker, but out of cannon shot. All along that vast front hundreds and hundreds of pickets and riflemen on either side were keeping a vigilant watch. Jackson and his staff had dismounted and were eating their suppers around one of the campfires. The general was again impassive.

After the supper Harry walked a little distance and found the Invincibles, resting comfortably on the trodden undergrowth. The two colonels had preserved the neatness of their attire, and whatever they felt, neither showed any anxiety. But St. Clair and Langdon were free of speech.

"Well, Harry," said Happy Tom, "is Old Jack going to send us up against intrenchments and four to one?"

"He hasn't confided in me, but I don't think he means to do any such thing. He remembers, as even a thick-head like you, Happy, would remember, how the splendid army of Burnside beat itself to pieces against our works at Fredericksburg."

"Well, then, why are we here?"

"There's sense in your question, Tom, but I can't answer it."

"No, there isn't any sense in it," interrupted St. Clair. "Do you suppose for an instant that Lee and Jackson would bring us here if they didn't have a mighty good reason for it?"

"That's so," admitted Happy Tom; "but General Lee isn't here. Yes, he is! Listen to the cheering!"

They sprang to their feet and saw Lee coming through the woods on his white horse, Traveler, a roar of cheers greeting him as he advanced. Behind him came new brigades, and Harry believed that the whole Southern army was now united before Hooker.

Lee dismounted and Jackson went forward to meet his chief. The staffs stood at a respectful distance as the two men met and began to talk, glancing now and then toward the distant lights that showed where the army of Hooker stood.

CHAPTER IX CHANCELLORSVILLE

Harry and Dalton sat down on a tiny hillock and waited while the two generals carried on their long conference, to which now and then they summoned McLaws, Anderson, Pender and other division or brigade commanders. The two lads even then felt the full import of that memorable night.

Nature herself had stripped away all softness, leaving only sternness and desolation for the terrible drama which was about to be played in the Wilderness. The night was dark, and to Harry's imaginative mind the forest turned to some vast stretch of the ancient, primitive