The Shades of the Wilderness: A Story of Lee's Great Stand, Joseph A. Altsheler [new reading txt] 📗

campfires shining through the thickets, and their spies told them that, despite his great losses, there was no sign of retreat in Grant's camp.

An appalling night settled down on the Wilderness. The North American Continent never saw one more savage and terrible. Twenty thousand wounded were scattered through the thickets and dense shades, and spreading fires soon brought death to many whom the bullets had not killed at once. The smoke, the mists and vapors gathered into one dense cloud, that hung low and made everything clammy to the touch.

Lee stood under the boughs of an oak, and ate food that had been prepared for him hastily. But, as Harry saw, the act was purely mechanical. He was watching as well as he could what was going on in front, and he was giving orders in turns to his aides. Harry's time had not yet come, and he kept his eyes on his chief.

There was no exultation in the face of Lee. He had drawn Grant into the Wilderness and then he had held him fast in a battle of uncommon size and fierceness. But nothing was decided. He had studied the career of Grant, and he knew that he had a foe of great qualities with whom to deal. He would have to fight him again, and fight very soon. He heard too with a sorrow, hard to conceal, the reports of his own losses. They were heavy enough and the gaps now made could never be refilled. The Army of Northern Virginia, which had been such a powerful instrument in his hands, must fight with ever diminishing numbers.

Harry was sent to inquire into the condition of Longstreet, whom he found weak physically and suffering much pain. But the veteran was upborne by the success of the day and his belief in ultimate victory. He bade Harry tell the commander-in-chief that his men were fit to fight again and better than ever, at the first shoot of dawn.

Harry rode back in the night, the burning trees serving him for torches. Nearly all the soldiers were busy. Some were gathering up the wounded and others were building breastworks. His eyes were reddened by the powder-smoke, and often the heavy black masses of vapor were impenetrable, save where the forest burned. Now he came to a region where the dead and wounded were so thick that he dismounted and led his horse, lest a hoof be planted upon any one of them. But he noticed that here as in other battles the wounded made but little complaint. They suffered in silence, waiting for their comrades to take them away.

Then he passed around a section of forest that was burning fiercely. Here Southern and Union soldiers had met on terms of peace and were making desperate efforts to save their helpless comrades. Harry would have been glad to give aid himself, but he was too well trained now to turn aside when he rode for Lee.

He saw many dark figures passing before the flaming background, and as he walked more slowly than he thought, he saw one that looked remarkably familiar to him. It was impossible to see the face, but he knew the walk and the lift of the shoulders. Discipline gave way to impulse now, and he ran forward crying:

"Dick! Dick!"

Dick Mason, who had just dragged a wounded man beyond the range of the flames, turned at the sound of the voice. Even had Harry seen his face at first he would not have known him nor would Dick have known Harry. Both were black with ashes, smoke and burned gunpowder. But Dick knew the voice in an instant. Once more were the two cousins to meet in peace on an unfinished battlefield.

Each driven by the same impulse stepped forward, and their hands met in the strong grasp of blood kindred and friendship, which war itself could not sever.

"You're alive, Harry!" said Dick. "It seems almost impossible after what has happened to-day."

"And you too are all right. Not harmed, I see, though your face is an African black."

"I should call your own color dark and smoky."

"I wasn't sure that you were in the East. When did you come?"

"With General Grant, and I knew that you were on General Lee's staff. I've a message to give him by you. Oh! you needn't laugh. It's a good straight talk."

"Go ahead then and say it to me."

"You say to General Lee that it's all over. Tell him to quit and send his soldiers home. If he doesn't he'll be crushed."

Harry laughed again and waved his finger at the somber battlefield, upon which he stood.

"Does this look like it?" he asked. "We're farther forward to-night than we were this morning. Wouldn't General Grant be glad if he could say as much?"

"It makes no difference. I know you don't believe me, but it's so. The North is prepared as it never was before. And Grant will hammer and hammer forever. We know what a man Lee is. The whole North admits it, but I tell you the sun of the South is setting."

"You're growing poetical and poetry is no argument."

"But unlimited men, unlimited cannon and rifles, unlimited ammunition and supplies and a general who is willing to use them, are. Of course I know that you can't carry any such message to General Lee, but I feel it to be the truth."

"We've a great general and a great army that say, no."

Nobody paid any attention to the two. It was merely another one of those occasions when men of the opposing sides stood together amid the dead and wounded, and talked in friendly fashion. But Harry knew that he could not delay long.

"I've got to go, Dick," he said. "And I've a message too, one that I want you to deliver to General Grant."

"What is it?"

"Tell him that we've more than held our own to-day, and that we'll thrash him like thunder to-morrow, and whenever and wherever he may choose, no matter what the odds are against us."

Dick laughed.

"I see that you won't believe even a little bit of what I tell you," he said "and maybe if I were in your place I wouldn't either. But it's true all the same. Good-by, Harry."

The two hands, covered with battle grime, met again in the strong grasp of blood kindred and friendship.

"Take care of yourself, old man!"

The words, exactly alike, were uttered by the two simultaneously.

Both were stirred deeply. Harry sprang on his horse, looked back once, waving his hand, and rode rapidly to General Lee. Later in the night, he received permission to hunt up the Invincibles, his heart full of fear that they had perished utterly in the gloomy pit called the Wilderness, lit now only by the fire of death.

He left his horse with an orderly and walked toward the point where he had last seen them. He passed thousands of soldiers, many wounded, but silent as usual, while the unhurt were sleeping where they had dropped. The Invincibles were not at the point where he had seen them last, and the colonels of several scattered regiments could not tell him what had become of them. But he continued to seek them although the fear was growing in his heart that the last man of the Invincibles had died under the Northern cannon.

His search led toward the enemy's lines. Almost unconsciously he went in that direction, however, his knowledge of the two colonels telling him that they would take the same course. He turned into a little cove, partly sheltered by the dwarfed trees and he heard a thin voice saying:

"Nonsense, Leonidas. I scarcely felt it, but yours, old friend, is pretty bad. You must let me attend to it. Keep still! I'll adjust the bandage."

"Hector, why do you make a fuss over me, when I'm only slightly hurt, and sacrifice yourself, a severely injured man!"

"With all due respect you'd better let me attend to you both," said a voice that Harry recognized as St. Clair's.

"And maybe I could help a little," said another that he knew to be Happy Tom's. But their voices, like those of the colonels, were weak. Still he had positive proof that they were alive, and, as his heart gave a joyful throb or two, he stepped into the glade. There was enough light for him to see Colonel Leonidas Talbot, and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, sitting side by side on the grass with their backs against the earthly wall, very pale from loss of blood, but with heads erect and eyes shining with a certain pride. St. Clair and Langdon lay on the grass, one with an old handkerchief, blood-soaked, bound about his head and the other with a bandage tightly fastened over his left shoulder. Beyond them lay a group of soldiers.

"Good evening, heroes!" said Harry lightly as he stepped forward.

He was welcomed with an exclamation of joy from them all.

"We meet again, Harry," said Colonel Talbot, "and it is the second time since morning. I fancy that second meetings to-day have not been common. We have the taste of success in our mouths, but you'll excuse us for not rising to greet you. We are all more or less affected by the missiles of the enemy and for some hours at least neither walking nor standing will be good for us."

"Mohammed must come to all the mountains," said St. Clair, weakly holding out a hand.

Harry greeted them all in turn, and sat down with them. He was overflowing with sympathy, but it was not needed.

"A glorious day," said Colonel Leonidas Talbot.

"Truly," said Harry.

"A most glorious day," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire.

"Most truly," said Harry.

"An especially glorious day for the Invincibles," said Colonel Talbot.

"The most glorious of all possible days for the Invincibles," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire.

There was an especial emphasis to their words that aroused Harry's attention.

"The Invincibles have had many glorious days," he said. "Why should this be the most glorious of them all?"

"We went into battle one hundred and forty-seven strong," replied Colonel Talbot quietly, "and we came out with one hundred and forty-seven casualties, thirty-nine killed and one hundred and eight wounded. We lay no claim to valor, exceeding that of many other regiments in General Lee's glorious army, but we do think we've made a fairly excellent record. Do you see those men?"

He pointed to a silent group stretched upon the turf, and Harry nodded.

"Not one of them has escaped unhurt, but most of us will muster up strength enough to meet the enemy again to-morrow, when our great general calls."

Harry's throat contracted for a moment.

"I know it, Colonel Talbot," he said. "The Invincibles have proved themselves truly worthy of their name. General Lee shall hear of this."

"But in no boastful vein, Harry," said Colonel Talbot. "We would not have you to speak thus of your friends."

"I do not have to boast for you. The simple truth is enough. I shall see that a surgeon comes here at once to attend to your wounded. Good night, gentlemen."

"Good night," said the four together. Harry walked back toward General Lee's headquarters, full of pride in his old comrades.

CHAPTER XVI SPOTTSYLVANIA

Harry secured a little sleep toward morning, and, although his nervous tension had been very great, when he lay down, he felt greatly strengthened in body and mind. He awakened Dalton in turn, and the two, securing a hasty breakfast, sat near the older members of the staff, awaiting orders. The commander-in-chief was at the edge of the little glade, talking earnestly with Hill, and several other important generals.

Harry often saw through the medium of his own feelings, and the rim of the sun, beginning to show over the eastern edge of the Wilderness, was blood red. The same crimson and sinister tinge showed through the west which was yet in the dusk. But in east and west there were certain areas of light, where the forest fires yet smoldered.

Both sides had thrown up hasty breastworks of earth or timber, but the two armies were unusually silent. A space of perhaps a mile and a half lay between them, but as the light increased neither moved. There was no crackle of rifle fire along their fronts. The skirmishers, usually so active, seemed to be exhausted, and the big guns were at rest. The fierce and tremendous fighting of the two days before