Altsheler Joseph Alexander
The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide
"You haven't told the Yanks that we're comin'."
"Will me that hoss if you get shot. I always did like a bay boss."
"Tell old Hooker that we jest had to arrange a surprise party for him."
"Tell 'em to make way there in front. We want to git into the fuss before it's all over."
"Tell Old Jack I'm here and that he can begin the battle."
Harry smiled, and sometimes chaffed back. They were boys together. Most of the troops in either army were very young. He recognized that all this talk was the product of exuberant spirits, and officers much older than he, chaffed in a like manner, took it in the same way.
But as they drew nearer, orders that all noise should cease were given, and officers were ready to enforce them. But there was little need for sternness. The soldiers themselves understood and obeyed. They were as eager as the officers to achieve a splendid triumph, and it remains a phenomenon of history how a great army came creeping, creeping within rifle shot of another, and its presence yet remained unknown.
The Southern lines now stretched for a long distance through the forest, cutting across a turnpike, down which the muzzles of four heavy guns pointed. The cavalry, not far away, were holding back their magnificent horses. Harry saw Sherburne on their flank nearest to him, and a smile of triumph passed between them. Off in the forest the strong division of A. P. Hill was advancing, the sound of their coming audible to the South but not to the North.
For an hour and a half the formation of the Southern army went on. Despite the danger of discovery, present every moment, Jackson was resolved to perfect his preparations for the attack. He was calm, methodical, and showed no emotion now, however much he may have felt it. Harry rode back and forth, sometimes with him and sometimes alone, carrying messages. He expected every instant to hear the crack of some Northern scout's rifle and his shout of alarm, but the incredible not only happened—it kept on happening. There was not a single Northern skirmisher in the bushes. The only sounds that came from their camp to the Southern scouts were the clatter of dishes and the laughter of youths who knew that no danger was near.
The sun was far down the western arch, and it seemed to Harry for a moment or two that no battle might occur that day, but a glance at Jackson and his incessant activity showed him he was mistaken. The arrangements were now almost complete. In front were the skirmishers, then the first line, and a little behind it the second line, and then Hill with the third line. Although they stood in thick forest, the lines were even and regular, despite trees and bushes.
The Invincibles were in the second line. Owing to the density of the forest, the two colonels and their young staff officers had dismounted. Harry passed them, and Colonel Talbot said to him:
"Do you know when we'll advance, Harry?"
"It can't be much longer. What time is it, Colonel?"
Colonel Talbot opened his watch, looked carefully at the face, and as he closed it again and put it back in his pocket, he replied gravely:
"It's five forty-five o'clock of a memorable afternoon, Harry."
"It's true, Leonidas," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, "and whatever happens to us, it will be a pleasure to us both to know, even beyond the grave, that we have served long under the Christian soldier and great genius, Stonewall Jackson."
"You'll both go through it," said Harry. "I know you'll be with us when our victorious army goes over the Long Bridge and enters Washington."
St. Clair and Langdon stood near, but said nothing. Harry saw that they were enveloped by the mystery, the vastness and the terrible grandeur of the occasion. So he said nothing to them, but rode back toward his commander. Then he glanced again at the sun and saw that it was low, filling all the western heavens with bars of red and yellow and gold. He looked once again at that formidable line of battle, stretching in either direction through the forest farther than he could see, the soldiers eager, excited and straining hard at the hand that held them there so firmly. It seemed now that nothing was left to be done, and the time had grown to six o'clock in the evening.
Jackson turned to Rodes, who commanded the first line of battle, just in the rear of the skirmishers, and said:
"Are you ready, General?"
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Then charge," said Jackson.
Rodes nodded toward the leader of the skirmishers, who gave the word. A powerful man put a glittering brazen bugle to his throat and blew a long, mellow note that was heard far through the forest. It was followed by a shout poured from thirty thousand throats, the guns in the turnpike fired a terrible volley straight into the Union camp, and then the whole army of Jackson, line upon line, rushed from the thickets and hurled itself upon its foe.
The Northern army was paralyzed for a moment. Never was surprise more sudden and terrific. Brave as anybody, the Union men rushed to their arms, but there was no time to use them. The flood was upon them and overwhelmed them. The German regiments were cut to pieces in an instant, and the demoralized survivors retreated into the mass. Elsewhere a battery was manned and stopped for a moment the Southern advance, but only for a moment. It, too, was overwhelmed by the Southern artillery which rushed forward, firing as fast as the cannoneers could load and reload.
Jackson himself was with his artillery, shouting to them and encouraging them, and Harry, trying to follow him, found it hard to keep clear of the guns. The second and third lines of the Southern army pressed forward with the first, and the terrific impact overwhelmed everything. The Northern officers showed supreme courage in their attempt to stem the rout. Everyone on horseback was either killed or wounded, and their bravery and self-sacrifice were in vain. Nothing could stem the relentless tide that poured upon them. Harry had never before seen the Southern troops so exultant. Jackson's march of a whole day, unseen, almost by the side of the enemy, and then his sudden attack upon his right flank, made their battle rush fierce and irresistible. They might be stayed for a few moments, but they swept on and on, carrying before them the blue brigades.
The scene, while extraordinarily vivid to Harry, was nevertheless wild and confused. The fire of the cannon and rifles on a long line was so rapid and terrific that he was almost blinded by the incessant blaze, which was like one solid sheet of flame. The dense smoke gathered once more among the bushes and trees and the forest was filling with a tremendous shouting.
Harry kept as close as he could to his general, who was now in the very heart of the conflict. But it was a difficult task. His clothing was torn by bushes and briars, and boughs whipped him across the face. Now and then in a rift in the smoke he beheld a terrible sight. The ground was covered with the arms and blankets and tents of the Union army. Ahead of them were great masses of men, retreating and jammed among the wagons. The horses, many of them wounded, were running about, neighing in pain and terror. Officers, their uniforms often red from wounds, were rushing everywhere, seeking to stay the panic.
Yet the Union officers at last succeeded in getting some order out of the chaos. A battery was rallied on a hill and threw a sleet of steel on the charging men in gray. Some of the seasoned infantry regiments were managing to form a line and they were beginning to send back a rifle fire. Harry felt that the resistance in front of them was hardening a little.
But as usual the eye of Jackson saw everything, even through the flame and smoke and confusion of a battle fought in dense forests and thickets.
He galloped up the turnpike himself, his staff hot at his heels, and shouting to the gunners and pointing forward, he urged on the artillery. Then he rode among the infantry, and they, as eager as he, rushed on at increased speed. Yet the Northern resistance was still hardening. Some of the German regiments atoned for their earlier panic by reforming and making a brave resistance. Other regiments formed behind a breastwork.
"They are going to make a bold stand," shouted Harry to Dalton.
"But it will not help them," the Virginian replied.
The Southern battle front, which for a few minutes had lost cohesion, now swelled higher than ever. Led by Jackson in person, nearly all the officers in front sword in hand, the whole division with a mighty shout charged. Harry saw the Invincibles in the first line, the two colonels, one on either flank, waving their swords and their faces young again with the battle fire. But it was only a glimpse. Then they were lost from his sight in the fire and smoke.
There could be no sufficient defense against the charge of such a foe, numerous, prepared and wild with victory. They swept over the breastwork, they seized the cannon, they took prisoners, and before them they swept the right wing of the Union army in irreparable rout and confusion. Harry had not seen its like in the whole war, nor was he destined to see it again. An entire corps had been annihilated. The Wilderness was filled with the fragments of regiments seeking to join the main force with Hooker at Chancellorsville.
Harry thought Jackson would stop. They were now in the deep woods. The sun was almost gone. The shadows from the east had crept over the whole sky, and it was already dark among the dense thickets of the Wilderness. An hour had passed since the first rush, and few generals would have had the daring to push on in the forest, dark already and rapidly growing darker. But Jackson was one of the few. He continued to urge on his men, and he sent his staff officers galloping back and forth to help in the task. There was a road in the very rear of Hooker. He intended to seize it, and he was resolved before the night closed down utterly to plant himself so firmly against the very center of the Union army that Hooker's complete defeat in the morning would be sure.
The bugles sang the charge again all along the Southern line, and in the dying twilight, lit by the flame of cannon and rifles, they swept forward, driving all resistance before them.
It was one of the most appalling moments in the history of a nation which has had to win its way with immense toil and through many dangers. Hooker, brave, not lacking in ability, but far from being a match for the extraordinary combination that faced him, two men of genius working in perfect harmony, had been sitting with two of his staff officers on the portico of the Chancellor House. He was serene and confident. He knew the courage of his soldiers and their numbers. The cannonade in his front had died down. He was a full-faced man, ruddy and stalwart, and with his powerful army of veterans he felt equal to anything. There was nothing to indicate that the Southern army was not in full retreat, as he had stated in his dispatch earlier in the day. The thought of Jackson had passed out of his mind for the time, because his long columns, he was sure, were marching farther and farther away.
Hooker, as the cool of the later afternoon, so pleasant after the heat of the day, came on, felt an increase of satisfaction. All his great forces would be massed in the morning. Now and then he heard in the east the far sound of cannon like muttering thunder on the horizon, but after a while it ceased entirely. He heard that distant thunder in the south, too, but it passed farther and farther away, and he felt sure that it came from his valiant guns hanging on the rear guard of the retreating Jackson.
One wonders what must be the feelings of a man who, sitting in apparent security, is suddenly plunged into a terrible pit. Commanders less able than Hooker have had better luck. What had he to fear? With one hundred and thirty thousand veterans of the Army of the Potomac within call, almost any other general in his place would have felt a like security. But he had not fathomed fully the daring and skill of the two men who confronted him.
It is related that on the approach of that memorable evening there was a remarkable peace and quiet at the Chancellor House itself. Hooker was conversing quietly with his aides. Officers inside the house were copying orders. The distant mutter of the guns that came now and then was harmonious and rather soothing. The east was already darkening and it seemed that a quiet sun would set over the Wilderness.
The cannonade in the south seemed to pass into a new direction, but the officers at the Chancellor House did not give it much attention. Hooker was still quiet and confident. Suddenly a terrific crash of cannon fire came from a point in the northwest. It was followed by another and then others, so swiftly that they merged. It never ceased for an instant and it rapidly rolled nearer. Hooker and his officers leaped to their feet and gazed appalled at the forest whence came those ominous sounds. An officer ran upon the plank road and took a look through his glasses.
"Good God!" he cried, as he turned quickly back. "Here they come!"
Down the road was pouring a mass of fugitives, and they brought with them news that did not suffer in the telling, either in magnitude or color. Stonewall Jackson and the bulk of the rebel army had suddenly fallen on their wing, they said, and he and his men were hard upon their heels. Hooker passed in a moment from the certainty of victory to the certainty that his army must fight for its very existence. Yet he and his generals showed presence of mind and great courage in the crisis, bringing forward troops rapidly and, above all, massing the superb artillery.
Harry Kenton, his horse shot under him, again was in the front line of the Southern troops that followed the mass of fugitives down the road toward the Chancellor House. In the mad rush he lost sight of Jackson for the time, and found himself mingled with the Invincibles. Both the colonels were bleeding from slight wounds, but with fire equal to that of any youth they were still at the head of their troops, leading them straight toward the Union center.
Harry only had time to glance at his friends and receive their glances in return, and then he found Jackson again. Catching one of the riderless horses, so numerous, he sprang upon him and rode close behind his general, where Dalton, a slight bullet wound in the arm, had been able to remain through all the confusion.
Now the Southern troops were crashing through the woods and bearing down upon the Chancellor House. The blaze of the cannon and rifles lit up the early night, and the crash and tumult around the place became indescribable. Many a Northern officer thought that all was lost, but the trained artillerymen of the North never flinched. Occupying an eminence, battery after battery was wheeled into line, until fifty cannon manned by the best gunners in the world were pouring an awful fire upon the Southern front. Jackson's men were compelled to stop, and elsewhere the Southern line was halted also by the density of the thickets.
Yet it was but a lull. It was far into the night. Nevertheless, Jackson meant to push the battle. He rode among his troops and encouraged them for another effort. Everywhere he was received with tremendous cheers, and the men were willing and eager to push on the attack. Lee, his chief, meanwhile was closing in with the smaller force. The whole line was reformed. Jackson cried to Hill and Lane and other generals to push on. The whole army was in line for a fresh attack, and they could hear the sounds made by the enemy cutting down timber and fortifying.
It was now nearly nine o'clock at night, and save for the fires that burned here and there and the flash of the picket firing, the night that hung over the Wilderness was dark and heavy.
Harry passed once more near the Invincibles, who were lying down, panting with weariness, but exultant. They had lost a third of their numbers in the attack, but the wounds of his own friends were not serious.
"Do you know whether we charge them again, Harry?" asked Colonel Talbot.
"I don't know, sir; but you know General Jackson."
"Then it probably means that we attack. Keep down, Captain Bertrand! Those Northern pickets in the bushes in front of us are active, and, upon my word, they know how to shoot, as the honorable wounds of many of us attest!"
Bertrand, eager to see the enemy, was standing on a hillock, and he did not seem to hear the words of his chief. A rifle cracked in the bushes and he fell back without a word. The arms of St. Clair received him and eased him gently to the earth. But Harry saw at a glance that the man and his fevered ambitions were gone forever. He was dead before he touched the ground.
"I'm glad that I was the one to catch his body," said St. Clair simply.
Harry was moved at the fall of this man, although he had never really liked him, but he went on and rejoined his general. Colonel Talbot was right. Jackson was still intent upon pressing the attack. Night and darkness were now nothing to him. He meant to achieve Hooker's ruin.
Harry always believed afterward that he felt the shadow of the great tragedy soon to come. The roar of the cannon had died down, but from every direction came the firing of scattered riflemen, skirmishers and pickets. They buzzed like angry bees, and no man on the front of either army was safe from their sting. But all through the Wilderness along the line of Jackson's charge the dead and wounded lay. Here and there clumps of fallen and dead wood of the winter before, set on fire by the shells, were burning slowly. The smoke from so much firing drifted in vast banks of vapor through the forest. The air was filled with bitter odors.
Harry felt a sensation of awe and terror, not terror inspired by man, but of the unknown or uncontrolled forces that drive men to meet one another in such deadly combat. Now night did not suffice to stop the titanic struggle. He saw all around him the regiments ready for a new attack, and he plainly heard in front of him the thud of axes as the Northern men cut down trees for their defense. Now and then stray moonbeams, penetrating the forest and the smoke, fell over them like discs of burnished silver, but faded quickly.
The firing of the skirmishers increased. Twigs and leaves cut off by the bullets fell in little showers to the earth. Harry, on horseback now, saw an impatient look pass over the general's face. The intrepid fighter, A. P. Hill, was coming up fast, but not fast enough for Stonewall Jackson. He turned and rode back toward him, careless of the danger from the Northern skirmishers, who might at any moment see him.
"General," said one of his staff in protest, "don't expose yourself so much."
"There is no danger," said the general quickly. "The enemy is routed and we must push him hard. Hurry to General Hill and tell him to press forward."
The little group of men, Jackson and his staff, rode on. It was very dark where they were, in the shade of the stunted forest. No moonlight reached them there. Jackson paused, listening to the rising fire of the skirmishers. A rifle suddenly flashed in the thickets before them. Northern troops, lost in the bush and the darkness, were coming directly their way.
Jackson turned and, followed by his staff, rode toward his own lines. The men of a North Carolina regiment, dimly seeing a group of horsemen coming down upon them, thought they were about to be attacked, and an officer gave an order to fire. He was obeyed at once, and the most costly volley fired by Southern troops in the whole war sent the deadly bullets whistling into Jackson's group.
Officers and horses fell, shot down by their own men. Jackson was struck in the right hand and received two bullets in his left arm. One cut an artery and another shattered the bone near the shoulder. The reins dropped from his hands, and his horse, the famous Little Sorrel, broke violently away, rushing through the woods toward the Northern lines. A bough struck Jackson in the face and he reeled in the saddle. But with a violent effort he righted himself, seized the bridle in his stricken right hand, and turned back his frightened horse.
Harry had sat still in his saddle, petrified with horror. Then he urged forward his horse and tried to reach his general, but another aide, Captain Wilbourn, was before him. Wilbourn seized the reins of Little Sorrel and then Harry felt the thrill of horror again as he saw Jackson reel forward and fall. But he was caught in the arms of the faithful Wilbourn.
They laid Jackson on the ground, and a courier was sent in haste for his personal physician, Dr. McGuire. Harry sprang down, and abandoning his horse, which he never saw again, knelt beside his general. Wilbourn with a penknife was cutting the sleeve from the shattered arm.
The whole battle passed away for Harry. Death was in his heart at that moment. When he looked at the white, drawn face of Jackson and his shattered arm, he had no hope then, nor did he ever have any afterwards, save for a few moments. The paladin of the Confederacy was gone, shot down in the dark by his own men.
General Hill, who also had been in great danger from the bullets of the North Carolinians, galloped up, sprang from his horse and helped to bind up the shattered arm.
"Are you much hurt, General?" he asked, his face distorted with grief and alarm.
"I fear so," was the reply, in a weak voice, "and I have suffered all my wounds from my own men. I think my right arm is broken."
Harry remained motionless. He saw Dalton by his side, and he also saw tears on his face. Jackson closed his eyes and uttered no word of complaint, although it was obvious that he was suffering terribly. General Hill felt his pulse. He was rapidly growing weaker. Harry was so stunned that he would not have known what to do, even had not senior officers been present. When his pulse began to beat again he remained silent, waiting upon his superiors.
But Harry was now alert and watchful again. He heard the heavy firing of the skirmishers on the right, on the left, and in front, and through the darkness he saw the flashes of flame. The little group around the fallen man was detached from the army and the enemy might come upon them at any moment. Even as he looked, two Union skirmishers came through the thicket and, pausing, their rifles in the hollows of their arms, looked intently at the shadowy figures before them, trying to discern who and what they were. It was General Hill who acted promptly. Turning to Harry and Dalton, he said in a low tone:
"Take charge of those men."
The two young lieutenants, with levelled pistols, instantly sprang forward and seized the soldiers before they had time to resist. They were given to orderlies and sent to the rear. Harry and Dalton returned to the side of their fallen general. While all stood there trying to decide what to do, an aide who had gone down the road reported that a battery of Northern artillery was unlimbering just before them.
"Then we must take the General away at once," said Hill.
Hill lifted in his arms the great leader who was now almost too weak to speak, although he opened his eyes once, and, as ever, thoughtful of his troops and the cause for which he fought, said.
"Tell them it's only a wounded Confederate soldier whom you are carrying."
Then he closed his eyes again and lay heavy and inert in Hill's arms. Hill held him on his feet, and the young staff officers, now crowding around, supported him. Thus aided he walked among the trees until they came to the road. It was as dark as ever, save for the flash of the firing which went on continuously to right, to left, and in front, mingled now with the sinister rumble of cannon.
Harry, helping to support Jackson and overwhelmed with grief, felt as if the end of the world had come. The darkness, the flash of the rifles, the mutter of cannon, the blaze of gunpowder, the fierce shouts that rose now and then in the thickets, the foul odors, made him think that they had truly reached the infernal regions.
The lieutenant, who saw the battery unlimbering, had not been deceived by his imagination. Just as they entered the road it fired a terrible volley of grape and shrapnel. Luckily in the darkness it fired high, and the little Southern group heard the deadly sleet crashing in the bushes and boughs over their heads.
The devoted young staff officers instantly laid Jackson down in the road, and, sheltering him with their own bodies as they lay beside him, remained perfectly still while the awful rain of steel swept over their heads again. Whether Jackson was conscious of it Harry never knew.
It was one of the most terrible moments of Harry's life. He felt the most overwhelming grief, but every nerve, nevertheless, was sensitive to the last degree. His first conviction that Jackson's wounds were mortal was in abeyance for the moment. He might yet recover and lead his dauntless legions as of old to victory, and he, like the other young officers who lay around him, was resolved to save him with his own life if he could.
The deadly rain from the cannon did not cease. It swept over their heads again and again, all the more fearful because of the darkness. Harry felt the twigs and leaves, cut from the bushes, falling on his face. The whining of the grape and shrapnel and canister united in one ferocious note. Some of it struck in the roadway beyond them and fire flew from the stones.
The general revived a little after a while and tried to get up, but one of the young officers threw his arms around him and, holding him down, said:
"Be still, General! You must! It will cost you your life to rise!"
The general made no further attempt to rise, and perhaps he lapsed into a stupor for a little space. Harry could not tell how long that dreadful shrieking and whining over their heads continued. It was five minutes perhaps, but to him it seemed interminable. Presently the missiles gave forth a new note.
"They're using shells now," said Dalton, "because they're seeking a longer range, and they're going much higher over our heads than the canister."
"And here are men approaching," said Harry. "I can make out their figures. They must be our own."
"So they are!" said Dalton, as they came nearer.
It was a heavy mass of Confederate infantry pressing forward in the darkness, and the young officers who had been so ready to give their lives for their hero lifted him to his feet. Not wishing to have the ardor of his men quenched by the sight of his wounds, Jackson bade them take him aside into the thick bushes. But Pender, the general who was leading these troops, saw him and recognized him, despite the heavy veil of darkness and smoke.
Pender rushed to Jackson, betraying the greatest grief, and said that he was afraid he must fall back before the tremendous artillery fire of the enemy. As he spoke, that fire increased. Shells and round shot, grape and canister and shrapnel shrieked through the air, and the bullets, too, were coming in thousands, whistling like hail driven by a hurricane. Men fell all about them in the darkness.
But the great soul of Jackson, wounded to death and unable to stand, was unshaken. Harry saw him suddenly straighten up, draw himself away from those who were supporting him, and say:
"You must hold your ground, General Pender! You must hold out to the very last, sir!"
Once more the eyes shot forth blue fire. Once more the unquenchable spirit had spoken. The figure reeled, and the young officers sprang to his support. He wanted to lie down there and rest, but the youths would not let him, because every form of missile hurled from a cannon's mouth was crashing among them. A litter arrived now and they carried him toward a house that had been used as a tavern. A shot struck one of the men who held the litter in his arm and he was compelled to let go. The litter tipped over and Jackson fell heavily to the ground, his whole weight crashing upon his wounded arm. Harry heard him utter then his first and only groan. The boy himself cried out in horror.
But they lifted him up again, and the litter bearers carried him on, the young officers crowded close around him. Although it was far on toward midnight, the roar of the battle swelled afresh through the Wilderness. They came presently to an ambulance, by the side of which Jackson's physician, Dr. McGuire, stood. The surgeon, tears in his eyes, bent over the general and asked him if he were badly hurt. Jackson replied that he thought he was dying.
An officer of high rank, Colonel Crutchfield, whom Jackson esteemed highly, was already lying in the ambulance, wounded severely. They put Jackson beside him and drove slowly toward the rear. Once, when Crutchfield groaned under the jolting of the ambulance, Jackson made them stop until his comrade was easier. Then the mournful procession moved on, while the battle roared and crashed about the lone ambulance that bore the stricken idol of the Confederacy, Lee's right arm, the man without whom the South could not win. Harry heard long afterward that a minister in New Orleans used in his prayer some such words as these, "Oh, Lord, when Thou in Thy infinite wisdom didst decree that the Southern Confederacy should fail, Thou hadst first to take away Thy servant, Stonewall Jackson."
Harry and Dalton might have followed the ambulance that carried Jackson away, as they were members of his staff, but they felt that their place was on this dusky battlefield. While they paused, not knowing what to do, a body of men came through the brushwood and they recognized the upright and martial figures of Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire. Just behind them were St. Clair, Langdon and the rest of the Invincibles. The two colonels turned and gazed at the retreating ambulance, a shadow for a moment in the dusk, and then a shadow gone.
"I saw them putting an officer in that ambulance, Harry," said Colonel Talbot. "Who was it?"
