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

staff officers instantly laid Jackson down in the road, and, sheltering him with their own bodies as they lay beside him, remained perfectly still while the awful rain of steel swept over their heads again. Whether Jackson was conscious of it Harry never knew.

It was one of the most terrible moments of Harry's life. He felt the most overwhelming grief, but every nerve, nevertheless, was sensitive to the last degree. His first conviction that Jackson's wounds were mortal was in abeyance for the moment. He might yet recover and lead his dauntless legions as of old to victory, and he, like the other young officers who lay around him, was resolved to save him with his own life if he could.

The deadly rain from the cannon did not cease. It swept over their heads again and again, all the more fearful because of the darkness. Harry felt the twigs and leaves, cut from the bushes, falling on his face. The whining of the grape and shrapnel and canister united in one ferocious note. Some of it struck in the roadway beyond them and fire flew from the stones.

The general revived a little after a while and tried to get up, but one of the young officers threw his arms around him and, holding him down, said:

"Be still, General! You must! It will cost you your life to rise!"

The general made no further attempt to rise, and perhaps he lapsed into a stupor for a little space. Harry could not tell how long that dreadful shrieking and whining over their heads continued. It was five minutes perhaps, but to him it seemed interminable. Presently the missiles gave forth a new note.

"They're using shells now," said Dalton, "because they're seeking a longer range, and they're going much higher over our heads than the canister."

"And here are men approaching," said Harry. "I can make out their figures. They must be our own."

"So they are!" said Dalton, as they came nearer.

It was a heavy mass of Confederate infantry pressing forward in the darkness, and the young officers who had been so ready to give their lives for their hero lifted him to his feet. Not wishing to have the ardor of his men quenched by the sight of his wounds, Jackson bade them take him aside into the thick bushes. But Pender, the general who was leading these troops, saw him and recognized him, despite the heavy veil of darkness and smoke.

Pender rushed to Jackson, betraying the greatest grief, and said that he was afraid he must fall back before the tremendous artillery fire of the enemy. As he spoke, that fire increased. Shells and round shot, grape and canister and shrapnel shrieked through the air, and the bullets, too, were coming in thousands, whistling like hail driven by a hurricane. Men fell all about them in the darkness.

But the great soul of Jackson, wounded to death and unable to stand, was unshaken. Harry saw him suddenly straighten up, draw himself away from those who were supporting him, and say:

"You must hold your ground, General Pender! You must hold out to the very last, sir!"

Once more the eyes shot forth blue fire. Once more the unquenchable spirit had spoken. The figure reeled, and the young officers sprang to his support. He wanted to lie down there and rest, but the youths would not let him, because every form of missile hurled from a cannon's mouth was crashing among them. A litter arrived now and they carried him toward a house that had been used as a tavern. A shot struck one of the men who held the litter in his arm and he was compelled to let go. The litter tipped over and Jackson fell heavily to the ground, his whole weight crashing upon his wounded arm. Harry heard him utter then his first and only groan. The boy himself cried out in horror.

But they lifted him up again, and the litter bearers carried him on, the young officers crowded close around him. Although it was far on toward midnight, the roar of the battle swelled afresh through the Wilderness. They came presently to an ambulance, by the side of which Jackson's physician, Dr. McGuire, stood. The surgeon, tears in his eyes, bent over the general and asked him if he were badly hurt. Jackson replied that he thought he was dying.

An officer of high rank, Colonel Crutchfield, whom Jackson esteemed highly, was already lying in the ambulance, wounded severely. They put Jackson beside him and drove slowly toward the rear. Once, when Crutchfield groaned under the jolting of the ambulance, Jackson made them stop until his comrade was easier. Then the mournful procession moved on, while the battle roared and crashed about the lone ambulance that bore the stricken idol of the Confederacy, Lee's right arm, the man without whom the South could not win. Harry heard long afterward that a minister in New Orleans used in his prayer some such words as these, "Oh, Lord, when Thou in Thy infinite wisdom didst decree that the Southern Confederacy should fail, Thou hadst first to take away Thy servant, Stonewall Jackson."

Harry and Dalton might have followed the ambulance that carried Jackson away, as they were members of his staff, but they felt that their place was on this dusky battlefield. While they paused, not knowing what to do, a body of men came through the brushwood and they recognized the upright and martial figures of Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire. Just behind them were St. Clair, Langdon and the rest of the Invincibles. The two colonels turned and gazed at the retreating ambulance, a shadow for a moment in the dusk, and then a shadow gone.

"I saw them putting an officer in that ambulance, Harry," said Colonel Talbot. "Who was it?"

Harry choked and made no answer.

Colonel Talbot, surprised, turned to Dalton.

"Who was it?" he repeated.

Dalton turned his face away, and was silent.

At sight of this emotion, a sudden, terrible suspicion was born in the mind of Colonel Leonidas Talbot. It was like a dagger thrust.

"You don't mean—it can't be—" he exclaimed, in broken words.

Harry could control his feelings no longer.

"Yes, Colonel," he burst forth. "It was he, Stonewall Jackson, shot down in the darkness and by mistake by our own men!"

"Was he hurt badly?"

"One arm was shattered completely, and he was shot through the hand of the other."

The moonlight shone on Harry's face just then, and the colonel, as he looked at him, drew in his breath with a deep gasp.

"So bad as that!" he muttered. "I did not think our champion could fall."

Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, Langdon and St. Clair, who had heard him, also turned pale, but were silent.

"We must not tell it," said Harry. "General Jackson did not wish it to be known to the soldiers, and there is fighting yet to be done. Here comes General Hill!"

Harry and Dalton flung themselves into the ranks of the Invincibles. Hill took command in Jackson's place, but was soon badly wounded by a fragment of shell, and was taken away. Then Stuart, the great horseman, rode up and led the troops to meet the return attack for which the Northern forces were massing in their front. Harry saw Stuart as he came, eager as always for battle, his plumed hat shining in the light of the moon, which was now clear and at the full.

"If Jackson can lead no longer, then Stuart can," said Colonel Talbot, looking proudly at the gallant knight who feared no danger. "What time is it, Hector?"

"Nearly midnight, Leonidas."

"And no time for fighting, but fighting will be done. Can't you hear their masses gathering in the wood?"

"I do, Hector. The Yankees, despite their terrible surprise, have shown great spirit. It is not often that routed troops can turn and put on the defense those who have routed them."

"Yes, and they'll be on us in a minute," said Harry.

It was much lighter now, owing to the clearness of the moon and the lifting of the smoke caused by a lull in the firing. But Harry was right in his prediction. Within five minutes the Northern artillery, sixty massed guns, opened with a frightful crash. Once more that storm of steel swept through the woods, but now the lack of daylight helped the Southerners. Many were killed and wounded, but most of the rain of death passed over their heads, as they were all lying on the ground awaiting the charge, and the Northern gunners, not able to choose any targets, fired in the general direction of the Southern force.

The cannon fire went on for several minutes, and then, with a mighty shout, the Northern force charged, but in a great confused struggle in the woods and darkness it was beaten back, and soon after midnight the battle for that day ceased.

Yet there was no rest for the troops. Stuart, appreciating the numbers of his enemy and fearing another attack, moved his forces to the side to close up the gap between himself and Lee, in order that the Southern army should present a solid line for the new conflict that was sure to come in the morning.

All that night the Wilderness gave forth the sound of preparations made by either side, and Harry neither slept nor had any thought of it. He knew well that the battle was far from over, and he knew also that the Union army had not yet been defeated. Hooker's right wing had been crushed by the sudden and tremendous stroke of Jackson, but his center had rallied powerfully on Chancellorsville, and instead of a mere defense had been able to attack in the night battle. The fall of Jackson, too, had paralyzed for a time the Southern advance, and Lee, with the slender forces under his immediate eye, had not been able to make any progress.

Harry and Dalton finally left the Invincibles and reported to General Stuart, who instantly recognized Harry.

"Ah," he said, "you were on the staff of General Jackson!"

"Yes, sir," replied Harry, "and so was Lieutenant Dalton here. We report to you for duty."

"Then you'll be on mine for to-night. After that General Lee will dispose of you, but I have much for you both to do before morning."

Stuart was acting with the greatest energy and foresight, manning his artillery and strengthening his whole line. But he knew that it was necessary to inform his commander-in-chief of all that was happening, in order that Lee in the morning might have the two portions of the Southern army in perfect touch and under his complete command. He selected Wilbourn to reach him, and Harry was detailed to accompany that gallant officer. They were well fitted to tell all that had happened, as they had been in the thick of the battle and had been present at the fall of Jackson.

The two officers, saying but little, rode side by side through the Wilderness. They were so much oppressed with grief that they did not have the wish to talk. Both were devotedly attached to Jackson, and to both he was a hero, without fear and without reproach. They heard behind them the occasional report of a rifle. But it was only a little picket firing. Most of the soldiers, worn out by such tremendous efforts, lay upon the ground in what was a stupor rather than sleep.

As they rode forward they met pickets of their own men who told them where Lee and his staff were encamped, and they rode on, still in silence, for some time. Harry's cheeks were touched by a freshening breeze which had the feel of coming dawn, and he said at last:

"The morning can't be far away, Captain."

"No, the first light of sunrise will appear very soon. It seems to me I can see a faint touch of gray now over the eastern forest."

They were riding now through the force that had been left by General Lee. Soldiers lay all around them and in all positions, most to rise soon for the fresh battle, and some, as Harry could tell by their rigidity, never to rise at all.

They asked again for Lee as they went on, and a sentinel directed them to a clump of pines. Wilbourn and Harry dismounted and walked toward a number of sleeping forms under the pines. The figures, like those of the soldiers, were relaxed and as still as death.