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

Yet the grim fighter, Longstreet, never ceased to push on his brigades. The combat was now often face to face, and sharpshooters, hidden in every angle and hollow of the earth, picked off men by hundreds. The great rocky mass known as the Devil's Den was filled with Northern sharpshooters and for a long time they stung the Southern flank terribly, until a Southern battery, noticing whence the deadly stream of bullets issued, sprayed it with grape and canister until most of the sharpshooters were killed, while those who survived fled like wolves from their lairs.

The day was now passing, but Harry could see no decrease in the fury of the battle. Longstreet was still hurling his men forward, and they were met with cannon and rifle and bayonet. The Confederate line now grew more compact. The brigades were brought into closer touch, and, gathering their strength anew, they rushed forward in a charge, heavier and more desperate than any that had gone before. Generals and colonels led them in person. Barksdale, young, but with snow-white hair, was riding at the very front of the line, and he fell, dying, in the Union ranks.

The Southern charge was stopped again on the left wing of the Union army, and with the coming of the night the battle there sank, but elsewhere the South was meeting with greater success. Ewell, making a renewed and fierce attack at sunset, drove in the Northern right, and, seconded by Early, took their defenses there. But the darkness was coming fast, and although the firing went on for a long time, it ceased at last, with the two enemies still face to face and the battle drawn.

Harry, who had expected to see a glorious victory won by the setting of the sun, was deeply depressed. His youth did not keep him from seeing that very little advantage had been won in that awful conflict of the afternoon, and he saw also that the Army of the Potomac had been fighting as if it had been improved by defeat. Nor had Lee thrown in his whole force where it was needed most. If Jackson had only been there! Harry pictured his swift flank movement, his lightning stroke, and the crumpling up of the enemy. Jackson loomed larger than ever now to his disappointed and excited mind.

Harry had been all day long and far into the night on Seminary Hill. Often he had scarcely moved for an hour, and now, when the firing ceased and he stood up and tried to peer into the valley of death, he found his limbs so stiff for a minute or two that he could scarcely move. His eyes ached and his throat was raw from smoke and the fumes of burned gunpowder. But as he shook himself and stretched his muscles, he regained firmness of both mind and body.

"We didn't win much," he said to Dalton.

"Not to-day, but we will to-morrow. Harry, wasn't it awful? It looks to me down there like a pit of destruction."

And Dalton described it truly. The losses of the day before had been doubled. Thirty thousand men on the two sides had now fallen, and there was another day to come.

Harry saw that the generals themselves were assailed by doubts and fears. He with other young staff officers witnessed the council of Lee and his leading officers in the moonlight on Seminary Ridge. Some spoke of retreat. A drawn battle in the enemy's country, and with an inferiority of numbers, was for them equivalent to a defeat. Others pointed out, however, that while their losses had been enormous, the courage and spirit of the Army of Northern Virginia were unshaken. Stuart with the cavalry, expected earlier, would certainly be up soon, and, after all, the day had not been without its gains. Longstreet held the Peach Orchard and Ewell was in the Union defenses on the flank of Gettysburg.

But Lee thought most of the troops. These ragged veterans of his who had been invincible asked to be led once more against the enemy. A spirit so high as theirs could not be denied. His decision was given. They would stay and smash the Union army on the morrow.

Harry heard of the decision. He had never doubted that it would be so. They must surely win the next day with the addition of Pickett's men and Stuart's cavalry. He wondered why Stuart had not come up already, but he learned the next morning that a good reason had held him back.

The Union cavalry, always vigilant now, had intercepted Stuart in the afternoon and had given him battle, just when the combat of the second day had begun at Gettysburg. Gregg led the horsemen in blue and there was another combat like that at Brandy Station, now about five thousand sabres on a side. There was a long and desperate struggle in which neither force could win, young Custer in particular showing uncommon skill and courage for the North, while Wade Hampton performed prodigies for the South. At last they drew off by mutual consent, Gregg into the forest, while Stuart, with his reduced force, rode on in the night to Lee. But Gregg in holding back Stuart had struck the Southern army a great blow.

Harry and Dalton with nothing to do received permission to go among the soldiers, and as they marked their spirits, their own rose. Then they passed down toward the battlefield. Harry had some idea that they might again find the Invincibles, as they had found them the night before, but their time was too short. The Invincibles were somewhere in the front, he learned, and, disappointed, he and Dalton turned back into the valley.

The night was clear and bright, and they saw many men coming and going from a cold spring under the shadow of the trees. Some of them were wounded and limped painfully. Others carried away water in their hats and caps for comrades too badly wounded to move. Harry observed that some wore the blue, and some the gray. Both he and Dalton were assailed by a burning thirst at the sight of the water, and they went to the spring.

Here men who an hour or two ago had been striving their utmost to kill one another were gathered together and spoke as friends. When one went away another took his place. No thought of strife occurred to them, although there would be plenty of it on the morrow. They even jested and foes complimented foes on their courage. Harry and Dalton drank, and paused a few moments to hear the talk.

The moon rode high, and it has looked down upon no more extraordinary scene than this, the enemies drinking together in friendship at the spring, and all about them the stony ramparts of the hills, bristling with cannon, and covered with riflemen, ready for a red dawn, and the fields and ridges on which thirty thousand had already fallen, dead or wounded.

"Another meeting, Mr. Kenton," said a man who had been bent down drinking. As he rose the moonlight shone full upon his face and Harry was startled. And yet it was not strange that he should be there. The face revealed to Harry was one of uncommon power. It seemed to him that the features had grown more massive. The powerful chin and the large, slightly curved nose showed indomitable spirit and resolution. The face was tanned almost to blackness by all kinds of weather. Harry would not have known him at first, had it not been for his voice.

"We do meet in unexpected places and at unexpected times, Mr. Shepard," he said.

"I'm not merely trying to be polite, when I tell you that I'm glad to find you alive. You and I have seen battles, but never another like this."

"And I can truthfully welcome you, Mr. Shepard, as an old acquaintance and no real enemy."

It was an impulse but a noble one that made the two, different in years and so unlike, shake hands with a firm and honest grip.

"Your army will come again in the morning," said Shepard, not as a question, but as a statement of fact.

"Can you doubt it?"

"No, I don't, but to-morrow night, Mr. Kenton, you will recall what I told you at our first meeting in Montgomery more than two years ago."

"You said that we could not win."

"And you cannot. It was never possible. Oh, I know that you've won great victories against odds! You've done better than anybody could have expected, but you had genius to help you, while we were led by mediocrity in the saddle. But you have reached your zenith. Mark how the Union veterans fought to-day. They're as brave and resolute as you are, and we have the position and the men. You'll never get beyond Gettysburg. Your invasion is over. Hereafter you fight always on the defensive."

Harry was startled by his emphasis. The man spoke like an inspired prophet of old. His eyes sparkled like coals of fire in the dark, tanned face. The boy had never before seen him show so much emotion, and his heart sank at the appalling prophecy. Then his courage came back.

"You predict as you hope, Mr. Shepard," he said.

Shepard laughed a little, though not with mirth, and said:

"It is well that it should be settled here. There will be death on a greater scale than any the war has yet seen, but it will have to come sooner or later, and why not at Gettysburg? Good-bye, I go back to the heights. May we both be alive to-morrow night to see which is right."

"The wish is mine, too," said Harry sincerely.

Shepard turned away and disappeared in the darkness. Harry rejoined Dalton who was on the other side of the spring, and the two returned to Seminary Ridge, where they walked among sleeping thousands. They found their way to their comrades of the staff, and their physical powers collapsing at last they fell on the ground where they soon sank into a heavy sleep. The great silence came again. Sentinels walked back and forth along the hostile lines, but they made no noise. There was little moving of brigades or cannon now. The town itself became a town of phantom houses in the moonlight, nearly all of them still and deserted. On all the slopes of the hostile ridges lay the sleeping soldiers, and on the rocks and fields between lay the dead in thousands. But from the crest of Little Round Top, the precious hill so hardly won, the Union officers watched all through the night, and, now and then, they went through the batteries for which they were sure they were going to have great use.

Harry and Dalton awoke at the same time. Another day, hot and burning, had come, and the two armies once more looked across the valley at each other. Harry soon heard the booming of cannon off to his right, where Ewell's corps stood. It came from the Northern guns and for a long time those of the South did not answer. But after a while Harry's practiced ear detected the reply. The hostile wings facing each other were engaged in a fierce battle. He saw the flash of the guns and the rising smoke, but the center of the Army of Northern Virginia and the other wing did not yet move. He looked questioningly at Dalton and Dalton looked questioningly at him.

They expected every instant that the combat would spread along the entire front, but it did not. For several hours they listened to the thunder of the guns on the left, and then they knew by the movement of the sound that the Southern wing had been driven back, not far it is true, but still it had been compelled to yield, and again Harry's heart sank.

But it rose once more when he concluded that Lee must be massing his forces in the center. The left wing had been allowed to fight against overwhelming numbers in order that the rest of the army might be left free to strike a crushing blow.

Then noon came and the battle on their left died completely. Once more the great silence held the field and Harry was mystified and awed. Lee, as calm and impassive as ever, said little. The ridges confronted one another, bristling with