The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis Part 24

"What do you mean by that?"

"There was a little church at s.h.i.+loh, too. The battle raged all around it more than once. We lost it at first, but in the end we won. It's another good omen. We're bound to achieve a great victory, colonel."

"I hope and believe so. We've the materials with which to do it. But we've got to push and push hard."

The colonel raised his gla.s.ses and took a long look in front. d.i.c.k also had a pair and he, too, examined the country before them. It was a fine, rolling region and all the forest was gone, except clumps of trees here and there. The whole country would have been heavy with forest had it not been for the tramp of war.

It was now nearly noon and the sunlight was brilliant and intense. The gla.s.ses carried far. d.i.c.k saw a line of trees which he surmised marked the course of the Antietam, and he saw small detachments of cavalry which he knew were watching the advance of the Army of the Potomac.

Their purpose convinced him that Lee had not retreated across the Potomac, but that he would fight and surely lose. d.i.c.k now believed that so many good omens could not fail.

A horseman galloped toward them. It was Shepard again, dustier than ever, his face pale from weariness.

"What is it, Mr. Shepard?" asked Colonel Winchester.

"I've just reported to General McClellan that our whole command at Harper's Ferry, thirteen thousand strong, surrendered early this morning and that Jackson with picked men has already started to join Lee!"

"My G.o.d! My G.o.d!" cried the colonel. "Oh, that lost day! We ought to have fought yesterday and destroyed Lee, while Harper's Ferry was still holding out! What a day! What a day! Nothing can ever pay us back for the losing of it!"

d.i.c.k, too, felt a sinking of the heart, but despair was not written on his face as it was on that of his colonel. Jackson might come, but it would only be with a part of his force, that which marched the swiftest, and the victory of the Army of the Potomac would be all the grander. The more enemies crushed the better it would be for the Union.

"Why, colonel!" he exclaimed, "we can beat them anyhow!"

"That's so, my lad, so we can! And so we will! It was childish of me to talk as I did. Here, Johnson, blow your best on that trumpet. I want our regiment to be the first to reach the Antietam."

Johnson blew a long and mellow tune and the Winchester regiment swung forward at a more rapid gait. The weather, after a day or two of coolness, had grown intensely hot again, and the noon sun poured down upon them sheaves of fiery rays. d.i.c.k looked back, and he saw once more that vast billowing cloud of dust made by the marching army. But in front he saw only quiet and peace, save for a few distant hors.e.m.e.n who seemed to be riding at random.

"There's a little town called Sharpsburg in the peninsula formed by the Potomac and the Antietam," said Shepard, who stayed with them, his immediate work done, "and the Potomac being very low, owing to the dry season, there is one ford by which Lee can cross and go back to Virginia. But he isn't going to cross without a battle, that's sure.

The rebels are flushed with victory, they think they have the greatest leaders ever born and they believe, despite the disparity of numbers, that they can beat us."

"And I believe they can't," said d.i.c.k.

"If it were not for that lost day we'd have 'em beaten now," said Shepard, "and we'd be marching against Jackson."

The regiment in its swift advance now came nearer to the Antietam, the narrow but deep creek between its high banks. One or two shots from the far side warned them to come more slowly, and Colonel Winchester drew his men up on a knoll, waiting for the rest of the army to advance.

d.i.c.k put his gla.s.ses to his eyes, and slowly swept a wide curve on the peninsula of Antietam. Great armies drawn up for battle were a spectacle that no boy could ever view calmly, and his heart beat so hard that it caused him actual physical pain.

He saw through the powerful gla.s.ses the walls of the little village of Sharpsburg, and to the north a roof which he believed was that of the Dunkard Church, of which Shepard spoke. But his eyes came back from the church and rested on the country around Sharpsburg. The Confederate ma.s.ses were there and he clearly saw the batteries posted along the Antietam. Beyond the peninsula he caught glimpses of the broad Potomac.

There lay Lee before them again, and now was the time to destroy his army. Jackson, even with his vanguard, could not arrive before night, and the main force certainly could not come from Harper's Ferry before the morrow. Here was a full half day for the Army of the Potomac, enough in which to destroy a divided portion of the Army of Northern Virginia.

But Colonel Winchester raged again and again in vain. There was no attack. Brigade after brigade in blue came up and sat down before the Antietam. The cannon exchanged salutes across the little river, but no harm was done, and the great ma.s.ses of McClellan faced the whole peninsula, within which lay Lee with half of his army. The Winchester regiment was moved far to the north, where its officers hopefully believed that the first attack would be made. Here they extended beyond Lee's line, and it would be easy to cross the Antietam and hurl themselves upon his flank.

Despite the delay, d.i.c.k and his comrades, thrilled at the great and terrible panorama spread before them. The mid-September day had become as hot as those of August had been. The late afternoon sun was brazen, and immense clouds of dust drifted about. But they did not hide the view of the armies, arrayed for battle, and with only a narrow river between.

d.i.c.k, through his own gla.s.ses saw Confederate officers watching them also. He tried to imagine that this was Lee and that Longstreet, and that one of the Hills, and the one who wore a gorgeous uniform must surely be Stuart. Why should they be allowed to ride about so calmly?

His heart fairly ached for the attack. McClellan said that fifty thousand men were there, and that Jackson was coming with fifty thousand more, but Shepard, who always knew, said that they did not number more than twenty thousand. What a chance! What a chance! He almost repeated Colonel Winchester's words, but he was only a young staff officer and it was not for him to complain. If he said anything at all he would have to say it in a guarded manner and to his best friends.

The Winchester regiment went into camp in a pleasant grove at the northern end of the Union line. d.i.c.k and his two young comrades had no fault to find with their quarters. They had dry gra.s.s, warm air and the open sky. A more comfortable summer home for a night could not be asked.

And there was plenty of food, too. The Army of the Potomac never lacked it. The coffee was already boiling in the pots, and beef and pork were frying in the skillets. Heavenly aromas arose.

d.i.c.k and his comrades ate and drank, and then lay down in the grove. If they must rest they would rest well. Now and then they heard the booming of guns, and just before dark there had been a short artillery duel across the Antietam, but now the night was quiet, save for the murmur and movement of a great army. Through the darkness came the sound of many voices and the clank of moving wheels.

d.i.c.k asked permission for his two comrades and himself to go down near the river and obtained it.

"But don't get shot," cautioned Colonel Winchester. "The Confederate riflemen will certainly be on watch on the other side of the stream."

d.i.c.k promised and the three went forward very carefully among some bushes. They were led on by curiosity and they did not believe that they would be in any great danger. The singular friendliness which always marked the pickets of the hostile armies in the Civil War would prevail.

It was several hundred yards down to the Antietam, and luckily the ribbon of bushes held out. But when they were half way to the stream a thick, dark figure rose up before them. d.i.c.k, in an instant, recognized Sergeant Whitley.

"We want to get a nearer view of the enemy," said the boy.

"I'll go with you," said the sergeant. "I'm on what may be called scouting duty. Besides, I've a couple of friends down there by the river, but on the other side."

"Friends on the other side of the Antietam. What do you mean, sergeant?"

"I was scouting along there and I came across 'em. Only one in fact is an old acquaintance, an' he's just introduced me to the other."

"That's cryptic."

"I don't rightly know what 'cryptic' means, but I guess I don't make myself understood well. In my campaign on the plains against the Indians I had a comrade named Bill Brayton. A Tennesseean, Bill was an' a fine feller, too. Him an' me have bunked together many a time an' we've dug out of the snow together, too, after the blizzards was over. But when we saw the war comin' up, Bill had fool notions. Said he didn't know anything 'bout the right an' wrong of it, guessed there was some of each on each side, but whichever way his state would flop, he'd flop. Well, we waited. Tennessee flopped right out of the Union an' Bill flopped with it.

"I felt powerful sorry when Bill told me good-bye, and so did he. I ain't seen or heard of him since 'till to-night, when I was cruisin'

down there by the side of the river in the dark an' keepin' under cover of the bushes. Had no intention of shootin' anybody. Just wanted to take a look. I saw on the other side a dim figure walkin' up an' down, rifle on shoulder. Thought I noticed something familiar about it, an' the longer I watched the sh.o.r.er I was.

"At last I crept right to the edge of the bank an' layin' down lest some fool who didn't know the manners of our war take a pot shot at me, I called out, 'Bill Brayton, you thick-headed rebel, are you well an'

doin' well?'

"You ought to have seen him jump. He stopped walkin', dropped his rifle in the hollow of his arm, looked the way my voice come and called out, likewise in a loud voice: 'Who's callin' me a thick-headed rebel? Is it some blue-backed Yankee? You know we see nothin' of you but your backs.

Come out in the light, an' I'll let some sense into you with a bullet.'

"'Oh, no I won't,' says I, still layin' close, an' not mindin' his taunt 'bout seein' our backs only. 'You couldn't hit me if I stood up an'

marked the place on my chest. Nothin' will save you but them days on the plain in the blizzards when you was more useful with a shovel than you are with a rifle, 'cause to-morrow at sunrise we're goin' to cross this little river and tie all you fellows hand an' foot an' take you away as prisoners to Was.h.i.+ngton.'

"That made him mighty mad, but the part 'bout the blizzards on the plains set him to thinkin', too. 'Who in thunderation are you?' sez he.

'You're Bill Brayton, of Tennessee, fightin' in the rebel army, when you ought to know better,' says I. 'Now, who in thunderation am I?'

'Sufferin' Moses!' says he, 'that voice grows more like his every time he speaks. It can't be that empty-headed galoot, Dan Whitley, who never knew nothin' 'bout the rights an' wrongs of the war, an' had to go off with the Yanks!'

"'It's him an' n.o.body else,' says I, as I rose right up an' stood there on the bank, 'an' mighty glad am I to see you Bill, an' to know that your fool head ain't knocked off by a cannon ball.' He sh.o.r.ely jumped up an' down with pleasure an' he called back: 'The good Lord certainly watches over them that ain't got any sense. Dan, you flat-headed, hump-backed, round-shouldered, thin-chested, knock-kneed, club-footed son of a gun, I was never so glad to see anybody before in my life.'

"His eyes were s.h.i.+nin' with delight an' I know mine was, too. Reunions of old friends who for all each know have been dead a year or two, clean blowed to pieces by sh.e.l.ls, or shot through by a hundred rifle bullets are powerful affectin'. He come down to the edge of the river an' he shot questions across to me, an' I shot questions at him, an' I felt as if a brother had riz from the dead. An' as we can't shake hands we reaches out the muzzles of our guns and shakes them towards each other in the most friendly way. Then another picket comes up, fellow by name of Henderson, from Mississippi. Bill introduces him to his good old pal, an' we three have a friendly talk. Guess they're down there yet, if you want to see 'em. I liked that fellow, Henderson, too, though he was a powerful boaster."

"All right," said d.i.c.k. "Lead on, but don't get us shot."

They went cautiously through the bushes to the bank of the river, and then the sergeant blew softly between his fingers. Two figures at once appeared on the other side, and Sergeant Whitley and the boys rose up.

"Mr. Brayton and Mr. Henderson," said the sergeant politely, "I want to introduce my friends, Lieutenant Mason, Lieutenant Warner and Lieutenant Pennington."