The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis Part 20

"Now, did you ever hear of another piece of impudence like that?" said Watson. "It has its humorous side, I admit, and you're justified in laughing, but it's impudence all the same."

"Yes, it is impudence, and do you know, Mr. Watson, I've met the writer of that letter. He is a South Carolinian, and from his standpoint he has a real grievance. I never knew anybody else as particular about his clothes, and it seems that the uniform and shoes you furnished him are not all right. He's a gentleman and he wouldn't lie. I met him at Cedar Run, when the burying parties were going over the field. He was introduced to me by my cousin, Harry Kenton, who is on the other side.

Harry wouldn't a.s.sociate with any fellow who isn't all right."

"All the same, if I ever catch that young jackanapes of a St.

Clair--it's an easy name to remember--I'll strip my uniform off him and turn him loose for his own comrades to laugh at."

"But we won't catch either him or his comrades for a long time."

"That's so, but in the end we'll catch 'em. Now, Mr. Mason, you don't agree with me about many things, but you're only a boy and you'll know better later on. Anyway, I like you, and if you need help at any time and can reach me, come."

"I'll do so, and I thank you now," said d.i.c.k, who saw that the contractor's tone was sincere.

"That's right, good-bye. I see a senator whom I need."

They shook hands and Watson hurried away with great lightness and agility for so large a man.

d.i.c.k stayed two days longer in Was.h.i.+ngton, visiting Warner twice a day and seeing with gladness his rapid improvement. When he was with him the last time, and told him he was going to join the Army of the Potomac, Warner said:

"d.i.c.k, old man, I haven't spoken before of the way you brought me in from that last battlefield. Pennington has told me about it--but if I didn't it was not because I wasn't grateful. Up in Vermont we're not much on words--our training I suppose, though I don't say it is the best training. It's quite sure that I'd have died if you hadn't found me."

"Why, George, I looked for you as a matter of course. You'd have done exactly the same for me."

"That's just it, but I didn't get the chance. Now, d.i.c.k, there's going to be another big battle before long, and I shall be up in time for it. You'll be there, too. Couldn't you get yourself shot late in the afternoon, lie on the ground, feverish and delirious until far in the night, when I'd come for you. Then I could pay you back."

d.i.c.k laughed. He knew that at the bottom of Warner's jest lay a resolve to match the score, whenever the chance should come.

"Good-bye, George," he said. "I'll look for you in two weeks."

"Make it only ten days. McClellan will need me by that time."

But it seemed to d.i.c.k that McClellan would need him and every other man at once. Lee was marching. Pa.s.sing by the capital he had advanced into Maryland, a Southern state, but one that had never seceded. The Southerners expected to find many reinforcements here among their kindred. The regiments in gray, flushed with victory, advanced singing:

"The despot's heel is on thy sh.o.r.e, Maryland!

His torch is at thy temple door, Maryland!

Avenge the patriotic gore That flecked the streets of Baltimore And be the battle queen of yore, Maryland, my Maryland!"

d.i.c.k knew that the South expected much of Maryland. Her people were Southerners. Their valor in the Revolution was unsurpa.s.sed. People still talked of the Maryland line and its great deeds. Many of the Marylanders had already come to Lee and Jackson, and now that the Southern army, led by its famous leaders and crowned with victories, was on their soil, it was expected that they would pour forward in thousands, relieved from the fear of Northern armies.

Alarm, deep and intense, spread all through the North. McClellan, as usual, doubled Lee's numbers but he organized with all speed to meet him. d.i.c.k heard that Lee was already at Frederick, giving his troops a few days' repose before meeting any enemy who might come. The utmost confidence reigned in the South.

McClellan marched, but he advanced slowly. The old mystery and uncertainty about the Southern army returned. It suddenly disappeared from Frederick, and McClellan became extremely cautious. He had nearly a hundred thousand men, veterans now, but he believed that Lee had two hundred thousand.

Colonel Winchester again complained bitterly to d.i.c.k, who was a comrade as well as an aide.

"What we need," he said, "is a general who doesn't see double, and we haven't got him yet. We must spend less time counting the rebels and more hammering them."

"A civilian in Was.h.i.+ngton told me that," said d.i.c.k. "I believed then that he was right, and I believe it yet. If General Grant were here he'd attack instead of waiting to be attacked."

But the Army of the Potomac continued to march forward in a slow and hesitating fas.h.i.+on. d.i.c.k, despite his impatience, appreciated the position of General McClellan. No one in the Union army or in the North knew the plans of Lee and Jackson. Lee had not even consulted the President of the Confederacy but had merely notified him that he was going into Maryland.

Now Lee and Jackson had melted away again in the mist that so often overhung their movements. McClellan could not be absolutely sure they intended an important invasion of Maryland. They might be planning to fall upon the capital from another direction. The Union commander must protect Was.h.i.+ngton and at the same time look for his enemy.

The army marched near the Potomac, and d.i.c.k, as he rode with his regiment, saw McClellan several times. It had not been many months since he took his great army by sea for what seemed to be the certain capture of Richmond, but McClellan, although a very young man for so high a position, had already changed much. His face was thinner, and it seemed to d.i.c.k that he had lost something of his confident look. The awful Seven Days and his bitter disappointment had left their imprint.

Nevertheless he was trim, neat and upright, and always wore a splendid uniform. An unfailing favorite with the soldiers, they cheered him as he pa.s.sed, and he would raise his hat, a flush of pride showing through the tan of his cheeks.

"If a general, after being defeated, can still retain the confidence of his army he must have great qualities of some kind," said d.i.c.k to Colonel Winchester.

"That's true, d.i.c.k. McClellan lost at the Seven Days, and he has just taken over an army that was trapped and beaten under Pope, but behold the spirits of the men, although the Second Mana.s.sas is only a few days away. McClellan looks after the private soldier, and if he could only look after an army in the way that he organizes it this war would soon be over."

d.i.c.k noticed that the colonel put emphasis on the "if" and his heart sank a little. But it soon rose again. The Army of the Potomac was now a veteran body. It had been tested in the fire of defeat, and it had emerged stronger and braver than ever.

But d.i.c.k did not like the mystery about Lee and Jackson. They had an extraordinary ability to drop out of sight, to draw a veil before them so completely that no Union scout or skirmisher could penetrate it. And these disappearances were always full of sinister omens, portending a terrible attack from an unknown quarter. But when d.i.c.k looked upon the great and brave Army of the Potomac, nearly a hundred thousand strong, his apprehensions disappeared. The Army of the Potomac could not be beaten, and since Lee and Jackson were venturing so far from their base, they might be destroyed. He confided his faith to Pennington who rode beside him.

"I tell you, Frank, old man," he said, "the Southern army may never get back into Virginia."

"Not if we light a prairie fire behind it and set another in front. Then we'll have 'em trapped same as they trapped us at Mana.s.sas. Wouldn't it be funny if we'd turn their own trick on 'em, and end the war right away?"

"It would be more than funny. It would be grand, superb, splendid, magnificent. But I wish old George was here. Why did he want to get in the way of that bullet? I hate to think of ending the war without him."

"Maybe he'll get up in time yet, d.i.c.k. I saw him a few hours before we started. The doctors said that youth, clean blood and clean living counted for a lot--I guess George would put it at ninety per cent, and that his wound, the bullet having gone through, would heal at a record rate."

"Then we'll see him soon. When he's strong enough to ride a horse, nothing can hold him back."

"That's so. I see houses ahead. What place is it, d.i.c.k?"

"It must be Frederick. We had reports that the Johnnies were about here, but they must have vanished, since no bullets meet us. The colonel is looking through his gla.s.ses, and, as he does not check his horse, it is evident that the enemy is not there."

"But maybe he has been there, and if he has we'll just take his place.

I like the looks of these Maryland towns, Frank, and they're not so hostile to us."

Colonel Winchester's skeleton regiment, now not amounting to more than three hundred men, was in the vanguard and it rode forward rapidly. The people received them without either enthusiasm or marked hostility. Yet the Union vanguard obtained news. Lee had been there with his army, but he had gone away! Where! They could not say. The Southern officers had been silent and the soldiers had not known. None of the people of Frederick had been allowed to follow. A cloud of cavalry covered the Southern movements.

"Not so definite after all," said d.i.c.k. "We know that the Southern army has been here, but we don't know where it has gone."

"At any rate," said Pennington, "we're on the trail, and we're bound to find it sooner or later. I learned from the hunters in Nebraska that when you strike the trail of a buffalo herd, all you had to do was to keep on and you'd strike the herd itself."

It was not yet noon and McClellan's army began to go into camp at Frederick. d.i.c.k and Pennington got a chance to stroll about a little, and they picked up much gossip. Young women, with strong Southern proclivities, looked with frowning eyes upon their blue uniforms, but the frank and pleasant smiles of the two lads disarmed them. Older women of the same proclivities did not melt so easily, but continued to regard them with a hard and burning gaze.

But there were men strongly for the Union, and the two friendly lads picked up many details from them. They showed them a grove in which Lee, Jackson, Longstreet and D. H. Hill had all been camped at once. People had gone there daily for a glimpse of these famous men.

They also showed the boys the very spot where Stonewall Jackson had come near to making an ignominious end of his great career. His faithful horse, Little Sorrel, had been worn out by incessant marchings and must rest for a while. The people gave him a splendid horse, but one that had not been broken well. The first time he mounted it a band happened to begin playing, the horse sprang wildly, the saddle girth broke and Jackson was thrown heavily to the ground.

"You'd better believe there was excitement then," said the narrator, a clerk in one of the stores. "Everybody ran forward to pick up the general. He had been thrown so hard that he was stunned and had big bruises. That horse did him more damage than all the armies of the North have done. I can tell you there was alarm for a while among the Johnnies, but they say he was all over it before he left."