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

his own division and

stood beside the Rock of Chickamauga, refusing to yield any further to

the terrible pressure.

 

The line of Thomas' army was now almost a semicircle. Polk was leading

violent attacks upon his left and center. Longstreet, used to victory,

was upon his right and behind him, and the veterans from the Army of

Northern Virginia had never fought better.

 

Dick saw the enemy all around him, and he began to lose hope. How could

they stand against such numbers? And if they tried to retreat there was

Longstreet to cut off the way. He bumped against Sergeant Whitley in the

smoke and gasped out:

 

"We're done for, Sergeant! We're done for!"

 

"No, we're not!" shouted the sergeant, firing into the advancing mass.

"We'll beat 'em back. They can't run over us!"

 

The sergeant, usually so cool, was a little mad. He was wounded in the

head, and the blood had run down over his face, dyeing it scarlet. His

brain was hot as with fire, and he hurled epithets at the enemy. His

life on the plains came back to him, and, for the time, he was like a

hurt Sioux chief who defies his foes. He called them names. He dared

them to come on. He mocked them. He told them how they had attacked

in vain all day long. He counted the number of their repulses and then

exaggerated them. He reminded them it was yet a long time until dark,

and asked them why they hesitated, why they did not come forward and

meet the death that was ready for them.

 

Dick gazed at him in astonishment. He heard many of his words through

the roar of the guns, and he saw his ensanguined face, through which

his eyes burned like two red-hot coals. Was this the quiet and kindly

Sergeant Whitley whom he had known so long? No, it was a raging tiger.

Still waters run deep, and, enveloped, at last, with the fury of battle

the sergeant welcomed wounds, death or anything else it might bring.

 

He shouted and fired his rifle again. Then he fell like a log. Dick

rushed to him at once, but he saw that he had only fainted from loss of

blood. He bound up the sergeant's head as best he could, and, easing him

against a bank, returned to the battle front.

 

A shout suddenly arose. Officers had seen through their glasses a column

of dust rising far behind them. It was so vast that it could only be

made by a great body of marching troops. But who were the men that were

making it? In all the frightful din and excitement of the battle the

question ran through the army of Thomas. If fresh enemies were coming

upon their rear they were lost! If friends there was yet hope!

 

But they could not watch the tower of dust long. The enemy in front gave

them no chance. Polk was still beating upon them, and Longstreet,

having seized a ridge, was pouring an increased fire from his advanced

position.

 

"If that cloud of dust encloses gray uniforms we're lost!" shouted

Warner in Dick's ear.

 

"But it mustn't enclose 'em," Dick shouted back. "Fate wouldn't play us

such an awful trick! We can't lose, after having done and suffered so

much!"

 

Fate would not say which. They could not send men to see, but as they

fought they watched the cloud coming nearer and nearer, and Dick,

whose lips had been moving for some time, realized suddenly that he was

praying. "O God, save us! save us!" he was saying over and over. "Send

the help to us who need it so sorely. Make us strong, O God, to meet our

enemies!"

 

He and all his comrades wore masks of dust and burned gunpowder, often

stained with scarlet. Their clothing was torn by bullets and reddened

by dripping wounds. When they shouted to one another their voices came

strained and husky from painful throats. Half the time they were blinded

by the smoke and blaze of the firing. The crash did not seem so loud to

them now, because they were partly deafened for the time by a cannonade

of such violence and length.

 

Dick looked back once more at the great cloud of dust which was now much

nearer, but there was nothing yet to indicate what it bore within, the

bayonets of the North or those of the South. His anxiety became almost

intolerable.

 

Thomas himself stood at that moment entirely alone in a clump of trees

on the elevation called Horseshoe Ridge, watching the battle, seeing the

enemy in overpowering numbers on both his flanks and even in his

rear. Apparently everything was lost. Taciturn, he never described his

feelings then, but in his soul he must have admired the magnificent

courage with which his troops stood around him, and repelled the

desperate assaults of a foe resolved to win. Although his face

grew grimmer and his teeth set hard, he, too, must have watched the

approaching cloud of dust with the most terrible anxiety. If it bore

enemies in its bosom, then in very truth everything would be lost.

 

Down a road some miles from the battlefield a force of eight thousand

men had been left as a reserve for one of the armies. They had long

heard the terrific cannonade which was sending shattering echoes through

the mountains, and both their chief and his second in command were eager

to rush to the titanic combat. They could not obtain orders from their

commander, but, at last, they marched swiftly to the field, all the

eight thousand on fire with zeal to do their part.

 

It was the eight thousand who were making the great cloud of dust,

and, as they came nearer and nearer, the suspense of Thomas' shattered

brigades grew more terrible. Dick, reckless of shell and bullets, tried

to pierce the cloud with his eyes. He caught a glimpse of a flag and

uttered a wild shout of joy. It was the stars and stripes. The eight

thousand were eight thousand of the North! He danced up and down on the

stump, and shouted at the top of his voice:

 

"They're our own men! Help is here! Help is here!"

 

A vast shout of relief rose from Thomas' army as the eight thousand

still coming swiftly joined them. Granger was their leader, but

Steedman, his lieutenant, galloped at once to Thomas, who still stood in

the clump of trees, and asked him what he wanted him to do. The general,

calm and taciturn as ever, pointed toward a long hill that flamed with

the enemy's guns, and said three words:

 

"Take that ridge!"

 

Steedman galloped back and the eight thousand charged at once. The

battle in front sank a little, as if the others wished to watch the new

combat. Dick had been dragged down from the stump by Warner, but the two

stood erect with Pennington, their eyes turned toward the ridge. Colonel

Winchester was near them, his attention fixed upon the same place.

 

The eight thousand firing their rifles and supported by artillery

charged at a great pace. The whole ridge blazed with fire, and the

dead and wounded went down in sheaves. But Dick could not see that they

faltered. Hoarse shouts came again from his dry and blackened lips:

 

"They will take it! they will take it! Look how they face the guns!" he

was crying.

 

"So they will!" said Warner. "See what a splendid charge! Now they're

hidden! What a column of smoke! It floats aside, and, look, our men are

still going on! Nothing can stop them! They must have lost thousands,

but they reach the slope, and as sure as there's a sun in the heavens

they're going up it!"

 

That tremendous cheer burst again from the beleaguered Union army.

Granger and Steedman, with their fresh troops, were rushing up the

slopes of the formidable ridge, and though three thousand of the eight

thousand fell, they took it, hurling back the advancing columns of the

South, and securing the rear of Thomas.

 

Then the Winchester men and others about them went wild with joy. They

leaped, they danced, they sang, until they were commanded to make ready

for a new attack. Rosecrans in Chattanooga, with the most of his army

there also in wild confusion, had sent word to Thomas to retire, to

which Thomas had replied tersely: "It will ruin the army to withdraw it

now; this position must be held till night."

 

And he made good his resolve. The Southern masses attacked once more

with frightful violence, and once more Thomas withstood them. The field

was now darkening in the twilight, and, having saved the Union army

from rout and wreck, Thomas, impervious to attack, fell back slowly to

Chattanooga.

 

The greatest battle of the West, one of the most desperate ever fought,

came to a close. Thirty-five thousand men, killed or wounded, had fallen

upon the field. The South had won a great but barren victory. She had

not been able to reap the fruits of so much skill and courage, because

Thomas and his men, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, had stood in the

way. Never had a man more thoroughly earned the title of honor that he

bore throughout the rest of his life, "The Rock of Chickamauga."

 

Chickamauga, though, was a sinister word to the North. Gettysburg and

Vicksburg had stemmed the high tide of the Confederacy, and many had

thought the end in sight. But the news from "The River of Death" told

them that the road to crowning success was still long and terrible.

CHAPTER XV. BESIDE THE BROOK

 

When the slow retreat began Dick looked for the sergeant. But a stalwart

figure, a red bandage around the head, rose up and confronted him. It

was Sergeant Whitley himself, a little unsteady yet on his feet, but

soon to be as good as ever.

 

"Thank you for looking for me, Mr. Mason," he said, "but I came to, some

time ago. I guess the bullet found my skull too hard, 'cause it just ran

'roun' it, and came out on the other side. I won't even be scarred, as

my hair covers up the place."

 

"Can you walk all right?" asked Dick, overjoyed to find the sergeant was

not hurt badly.

 

"Of course I can, Mr. Mason, an' I'm proud to have been with General

Thomas in such a battle. I didn't think human bein's could do what our

men have done."

 

"Nor did I. It was impossible, but we've done it all the same."

 

Colonel Winchester rejoiced no less than the lads over the sergeant's

escape. All the officers of the regiment liked him, and they had an

infinite respect for his wisdom, particularly when danger was running

high. They were glad for his own sake that he was alive, and they were

glad to have him with them as they retreated into Chattanooga, because

the night still had its perils.

 

The moon, though clouded, was out as they withdrew slowly. On their

flanks there was still firing, as strong detachments skirmished with one

another, but the Winchester men as yet paid little attention to it. They

said grimly to one another that two days in the infernal regions were

enough for one time. They looked back at the vast battlefield and the

clumps of pines burning now like funeral torches, and shuddered.

 

The retreat of Thomas was harried incessantly. Longstreet and Forrest

were eager to push the attack that night and the next day and make the

victory complete. They and men of less rank dreamed of a triumph which

should restore the fortunes of the Confederacy to the full, but Bragg

was cautious. He did not wish to incur the uttermost risk, and the roll

of his vast losses might well give him pause also.

 

Nevertheless Southern infantry and cavalry hung on the flanks and rear

of the withdrawing Union force. The cloudy moon gave sufficient light

for the sharpshooters, whose rifles flashed continuously. The lighter

field guns moved from the forests and bushes, and the troops of Thomas

were compelled to turn again and again to fight them off.

 

The Winchester regiment was