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

The battle swelled in volume and fierceness along the banks of Willoughby Run. There was a continuous roar of rifles and cannon, and the still, heavy air of the morning conducted the sound to the divisions that were coming up and to the trembling inhabitants of the little town who had fled for refuge to the farmhouses in the valley.

Harry and George had still managed to keep close together. Both had been grazed by bullets, but these were only trifles. They saw that the division was not making much progress. The men in blue were holding their ground with extraordinary stubbornness. Although the Southern fire, coming closer, had grown much more deadly, they refused to yield.

Buford, who had chosen that battlefield and who was the first to command upon it, would not let his men give way. His great hour had come, and he may have known it. Watching through his glasses he had seen long lines of Southern troops upon the hills, marching toward Gettysburg. He knew that they were the corps of Hill, drawn by the thunder of the battle, and he felt that if he could hold his ground yet a while longer help for him too would come, drawn in the same manner.

Harry once caught sight of this officer, a native of Kentucky like himself. He was covered with dust and perspiration, but he ran up and down, encouraging his men and often aiming the cannon himself. It was good fortune for the North that he was there that day. The Southern generals, uncertain whether to push the battle hard or wait for Lee, recoiled a little before his tremendous resistance.

But the South hesitated only for a moment. Hill, pale from an illness, but always full of fire and resolution, was hurrying forward his massive columns, their eagerness growing as the sound of the battle swelled. They would overwhelm the Union force, sweep it away.

Yet the time gained by Buford had a value beyond all measurements. The crash of the battle had been heard by Union troops, too, and Reynolds, one of the ablest Union generals, was leading a great column at the utmost speed to the relief of the general who had held his ground so well. A signalman stationed in the belfry of the seminary reported to Buford the advance of Reynolds, and the officer, eager to verify it, rushed up into the belfry.

Then Buford saw the columns coming forward at the double quick, Reynolds in his eagerness galloping at their head, and leaving them behind. He looked in the other direction and he saw the men of Hill advancing with equal speed. He saw on one road the Stars and Stripes and on the other the Stars and Bars. He rushed back down the steps and met Reynolds.

"The devil is to pay!" he cried to Reynolds.

"How do we stand?"

"We can hold on until the arrival of the First Corps."

Buford sprang on his horse, and the two generals, reckless of death, galloped among the men, encouraging the faint-hearted, reforming the lines, and crying to them to hold fast, that the whole Army of the Potomac was coming.

Harry felt the hardening of resistance. The smoke was so dense that he could not see for a while the fresh troops coming to the help of Buford, but he knew nevertheless that they were there. Then he heard a great shouting behind him, as Hill's men, coming upon the field, rushed into action. But Jackson, the great Jackson whom he had followed through all his victories, the man who saw and understood everything, was not there!

The genius of battle was for the moment on the other side. Reynolds, so ably pushing the work that Buford had done, was seizing the best positions for his men. He was acting with rapidity and precision, and the troops under him felt that a great commander was showing them the way. His vigor secured the slopes and crest of Cemetery Hill, but the Southern masses nevertheless were pouring forward in full tide.

The combat had now lasted about two hours, and, a stray gust of wind lifting the smoke a little, Harry caught a glimpse of a vast blazing amphitheater of battle. He had regarded it at first as an affair of vanguards, but now he realized suddenly that this was the great battle they had been expecting. Within this valley and on these ridges and hills it would be fought, and even as the thought came to him the conflict seemed to redouble in fury and violence, as fresh brigades rushed into the thick of it.

Harry's horse was killed by a shell as he rode toward a wood on the Cashtown road, which both sides were making a desperate effort to secure. Fortunately he was able to leap clear and escape unhurt. In a few moments Dalton was dismounted in almost the same manner, but the two on foot kept at the head of the column and rushed with the skirmishers into the bushes. There they knelt, and began to fire rapidly on the Union men who were advancing to drive them out.

Harry saw an officer in a general's uniform leading the charge. The bullets of the skirmishers rained upon the advance. One struck this general in the head, when he was within twenty yards of the riflemen, and he fell stone dead. It was the gallant and humane Reynolds, falling in the hour of his greatest service. But his troops, wild with ardor and excitement, not noticing his death, still rushed upon the wood.

The charge came with such violence and in such numbers that the Southern skirmishers and infantry in the wood were overpowered. They were driven in a mass across Willoughby Run. A thousand, General Archer among them, were taken prisoners.

Harry and Dalton barely escaped, and in all the tumult and fury of the fighting they found themselves with another division of the Southern army which was resisting a charge made with the same energy and courage that marked the one led by Reynolds. But the charge was beaten back, and the Southerners, following, were repulsed in their turn.

The battle, which had been raging for three hours with the most extraordinary fury, sank a little. Harry and Dalton could make nothing of it. Everything seemed wild, confused, without precision or purpose, but the fighting had been hard and the losses great.

Heth now commanded on the field for the South and Doubleday for the North. Each general began to rectify his lines and try to see what had happened. The Confederate batteries opened, but did not do much damage, and while the lull continued, more men came for the North.

Harry and Dalton had found their way to Heth, who told them to stay with him until Lee came. Heth was making ready to charge a brigade of stalwart Pennsylvania lumbermen, who, however, managed to hold their position, although they were nearly cut to pieces. Hill now passed along the Southern line, and like the other Southern leaders, uncertain what to do in this battle brought on so strangely and suddenly, ceased to push the Union lines with infantry, but opened a tremendous fire from eighty guns. The whole valley echoed with the crash of the cannon, and the vast clouds of smoke began to gather again. The Union forces suffered heavy losses, but still held their ground.

Harry thought, while this comparative lull in close fighting was going on, that Dalton and he should get back to General Lee with news of what was occurring, although he had no doubt the commander-in-chief was now advancing as fast as he could with the full strength of the army. Still, duty was duty. They had been sent forward that they might carry back reports, and they must carry them.

"It's time for us to go," he said to Dalton.

"I was just about to say that myself."

"We can safely report to the general that the vanguards have met at Gettysburg and that there are signs of a battle."

Dalton took a long, comprehensive look over the valley in which thirty or forty thousand men were merely drawing a fresh breath before plunging anew into the struggle, and said:

"Yes, Harry, all the signs do point that way. I think we can be sure of our news."

They had not been able to catch any of the riderless horses galloping about the field, and they started on foot, taking the road which they knew would lead them to Lee. They emerged from some bushes in which they had been lying for shelter, and two or three bullets whistled between them. Others knocked up the dust in the path and a shell shrieked a terrible warning over their heads. They dived back into the bushes.

"Didn't you see that sign out there in the road?" asked Harry.

"Sign! Sign! I saw no sign," said Dalton.

"I did. It was a big sign, and it read, in big letters: 'No Thoroughfare.'"

"You must be right. I suppose I didn't notice it, because I came back in such a hurry."

They had become so hardened to the dangers of war that, like thousands of others, they could jest in the face of death.

"We must make another try for it," said Dalton. "We've got to cross that road. I imagine our greatest danger is from sharpshooters at the head of it."

"Stoop low and make a dash. Here goes!"

Bent almost double, they made a hop, skip and jump and were in the bushes on the other side, where they lay still for a few moments, panting, while the hair on their heads, which had risen up, lay down again. Quick as had been their passage, fully a dozen ferocious bullets whined over their heads.

"I hate skirmishers," said Harry. "It's one thing to fire at the mass of the enemy, and it's another to pick out a man and draw a bead on him."

"I hate 'em, too, especially when they're firing at me!" said Dalton. "But, Harry, we're doing no good lying here in the bushes, trying to press ourselves into the earth so the bullets will pass over our heads. Heavens! What was that?"

"Only the biggest shell that was ever made bursting near us. You know those Yankee artillerymen were always good, but I think they've improved since they first saw us trying to cross the road."

"To think of an entire army turning away from its business to shoot at two fellows like ourselves, who ask nothing but to get away!"

"And it's time we were going. The bushes rise over our heads here. We must make another dash."

They rose and ran on, but to their alarm the bushes soon ended and they emerged into a field. Here they came directly into the line of fire again, and the bullets sang and whistled around them. Once more they read in invisible but significant letters the sign, "No Thoroughfare," and darted back into the wood from which they had just come, while shells, not aimed at them, but at the armies, shrieked over their heads.

"It's not the plan of fate that we should reach General Lee just yet," said Harry.

"The shells and bullets say it isn't. What do you think we ought to do?"

Harry rose up cautiously and began to survey their position. Then he uttered a cry of joy.

"More of our men are coming," he exclaimed, "and they are coming in heavy columns! I see their gray jackets and their tanned faces, and there, too, are the Invincibles. Look, you can see the two colonels, riding side by side, and just behind them are St. Clair and Langdon!"

Dalton's eyes followed Harry's pointing finger, and he saw. It was a joyous sight, the masses of their own infantry coming down the road in perfect order, and their own personal friends not two hundred yards away. But the Northern artillerymen had seen them too, and they began to send up the road a heavy fire which made many fall. Ewell's men came on, unflinching, until they unlimbered their own guns and began to reply with fierce and rapid volleys.

The two youths sprang from the brush and rushed directly into the gray ranks of the Invincibles before they could be fired upon by mistake as enemies. The two colonels had dismounted, but they recognized the fugitives instantly and welcomed them.

"Why this hurry, Lieutenant Kenton?" said Colonel Talbot politely.

"We were trying to reach General Lee, and not being