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

to victory or death.

It was an occasion, too, when the personal presence of a leader meant everything. Every man knew Lee and tremendous rolling cheers greeted his arrival, cheers that could be heard above the thunder of cannon and rifles. It infused new courage into them and they gathered themselves for the rush upon their victorious foe.

Gordon of Georgia, spurring through the smoke, seized Lee's horse by the bridle. He did not mean to have their commander-in-chief sacrificed in a charge.

"This is no place for you, General Lee!" he cried. "Go to the rear!"

Lee did not yet turn, and Gordon shouted:

"These men are Virginians and Georgians who have never failed. Go back, I entreat you!"

Then Gordon turned to the troops and cried, as he rose on his toes in his stirrups:

"Men, you will not fail now!"

Back came the answering shout:

"No! No!" and the whole mass of troops burst into one thunderous, echoing cry:

"Lee to the rear! Lee to the rear! Lee to the rear!"

Nor would they move until Lee turned and rode back. Then, led by Gordon, they charged straight upon their foe, who met them with an equal valor. All day long the battle of Spottsylvania, equal in fierceness and desperation to that of the Wilderness, swayed to and fro. To Harry as he remembered them they were much alike. Charge and defense, defense and charge. Here they gained a little, and there they lost a little. Now they were stumbling through sanguinary thickets, and then they rushed across little streams that ran red.

The firing was rapid and furious to an extraordinary degree. The air rained shell and bullets. Areas of forest between the two armies were mowed down. More than one large tree was cut through entirely by rifle bullets. Other trees here, as in the Wilderness, caught fire and flamed high.

Midnight put an end to the battle, with neither gaining the victory and both claiming it. Harry had lost another horse, killed under him, and now he walked almost dazed over the terrible field of Spottsylvania, where nearly thirty thousand men had fallen, and nothing had yet been decided.

Yet in Harry's heart the fear of the grim and silent Grant was growing. The Northern general had fought within a few days two battles, each the equal of Waterloo, and Harry felt sure that he was preparing for a third. The combat of the giants was not over, and with an anxious soul he waited the next dawn. They remained some days longer in the Wilderness, or the country adjacent to it, and there was much skirmishing and firing of heavy artillery, but the third great pitched battle did not come quite as soon as Harry expected. Even Grant, appalled by the slaughter, hesitated and began to maneuver again by the flank to get past Lee. Then the fighting between the skirmishers and heavy detached parties became continuous.

During the days that immediately followed Harry was much with Sherburne. The brave colonel was one of Stuart's most trusted officers. Despite the forests and thickets there was much work for the cavalry to do, while the two armies circled and circled, each seeking to get the advantage of the other.

Sheridan, they heard, was trying to curve about with his horsemen and reach Richmond, and Stuart, with his cavalry, including Sherburne's, was sent to intercept him, Harry riding by Sherburne's side. It was near the close of May, but the air was cool and pleasant, a delight to breathe after the awful Wilderness.

Stuart, despite his small numbers, was in his gayest spirits, and when he overtook the enemy at a little place called Yellow Tavern he attacked with all his customary fire and vigor. In the height of the charge, Harry saw him sink suddenly from his horse, shot through the body. He died not long afterward and the greatest and most brilliant horseman of the South passed away to join Jackson and so many who had gone before. Harry was one of the little group who carried the news to Lee, and he saw how deeply the great leader was affected. So many of his brave generals had fallen that he was like the head of a family, bereft.

Nevertheless the lion still at bay was great and terrible to strike. It was barely two weeks after Spottsylvania when Lee took up a strong position at Cold Harbor, and Grant, confident in his numbers and powerful artillery, attacked straightaway at dawn.

Harry was in front during that half-hour, the most terrible ever seen on the American continent, when Northern brigade after brigade charged to certain death. Lee's men, behind their earthworks, swept the field with a fire in which nothing could live. The charging columns fairly melted away before them and when the half-hour was over more than twelve thousand men in blue lay upon the red field.

Grant himself was appalled, and the North, which had begun to anticipate a quick and victorious end of the war, concealed its disappointment as best it could, and prepared for another campaign.

Grant and Lee, facing each other, went into trenches along the lines of Cold Harbor, and the hopes of the young Southern soldiers after the victory there rose anew. But Harry was not too sanguine, although he kept his thoughts to himself.

The officers of the Invincibles had recovered from their wounds, and Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, sitting in a trench, resumed their game of chess.

Colonel Talbot took a pawn, the first man captured by either since early spring.

"That was quite a victory," he said.

"Not important! Not important, Leonidas!"

"And why not, Hector?"

"Because you've left the way to your king easier. I shall promptly move along that road."

"As Grant moved through the Wilderness."

"Don't depreciate Grant, Leonidas. He never stops pounding. We've fought two great battles with him in the Wilderness and a third at Cold Harbor, but he's still out there facing us. Can't you see the Yankees with your glasses, Harry?"

"Yes, sir, quite clearly. They're about to fire a shot from a big gun in a wood. There it goes!"

The deep note of the cannon came to them, passed on, and then rolled back in echoes like a threat.

Appendix: Transcription notes:

The following modifications were applied while transcribing the printed book to etext:

Chapter 1
Page 6, para 1, change "criticise" to "criticize", for consistency
Page 20, para 6, fix typo, "calvaryman"
Page 21, para 8, change "things" to "thing"

Chapter 2
Page 35, para 2, add missing hyphen in "commander-in-chief"

Chapter 3
Page 48, para 1, change "where-ever" to "wherever"
Page 49, para 2, fix typo, period should be comma
Page 49, para 2, change "gaints" to "giants", which is my best guess
as to what it should be

Chapter 4
Page 74, para 7, add missing period

Chapter 7
Page 124, para 6, fix typo "qouth"
Page 132, para 14, "Pleasonton" should be "Pleasanton"

Chapter 10
Page 182, para 5, add missing close-quotes

Chapter 11
Page 208, para 6, add missing close-quotes

Chapter 12
Page 229, para 3, fix typo, "dulplicate"

Chapter 13
Page 245, para 3, change "with" to "was"

Chapter 14
Page 260, para 2, removed a badly-misplaced comma

Chapter 16
Page 301, para 4, moved a badly-misplaced comma

Chapter 2, page 34, para 3 contains the phrase "rest and realization". Probably should be "relaxation", but maybe not, so I left it as is.

The following words were printed with accented vowels or with the "ae" ligature, but these few occurrences hardly warrant an 8-bit version of the text:
cooperation fete reentered Plataea Thermopylae

As with all the books in this series, there are many instances where commas seem to be missing or misplaced, but, except as noted above, I refrained from "fixing" these.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shades of the Wilderness, by Joseph A. Altsheler