Altsheler Joseph Alexander
The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide
"And Clay was against it, too," said Harry; "but I suppose it's one of the things we're now fighting for, unless we should choose to liberate them ourselves after defeating the North."
"I suppose so," said Colonel Talbot, "but I am no politician or statesman. My trade unfits me for such matters. I am a West Pointer—a proud and glorious fact I consider it, too—but the life of a regular army officer makes him a man set apart. He is not really in touch with the nation. He cannot be, because he has so little personal contact with it. For that reason West Pointers should never aspire to public office. It does not suit them, and they seldom succeed in it. But here, I'm becoming a prosy old bore. Come into the house, lad. The boys are growing sentimental. Listen to their song. It's the same, isn't it, that some of our bands played at Bull Run?"
"Yes, sir, it is," replied Harry, as he joined the others in the song:
"The hour was sad, I left the maid
A lingering farewell taking,
Her sighs and tears my steps delayed
I thought her heart was breaking.
"In hurried words her name I blessed,
I breathed the vows that bind me,
And to my heart in anguish pressed
The girl I left behind me."
Most all the officers had leave for the full day. Harry and Dalton in fact were to stay overnight at the house, and, forgetful of the war, they sang one song after another as the evening waned. At nine o'clock all the guests left save Harry and Dalton.
"You and Langdon will show them to their bedrooms," said Colonel Talbot. "Take the candle. The rest of us can sit here by the firelight."
There was but a single candle, and it was already burning low, but Happy Tom and Arthur, shielding it from draughts, led the way to the second floor.
"Most of the houses were demolished by cannon shot and fire," said Langdon, "but we've a habitable room which we reserve for guests of high degree. You will note here where a cannon shot, the result of plunging fire, came slantingly through the roof and passed out at the wall on the other side. You need not get under that hole if it should rain or snow, and meanwhile it serves splendidly for ventilation. The rip in the wall serves the same purpose, and, of course, you have too much sense to fall through it. Some blankets are spread there in the corner, and as you have your heavy cloaks with you, you ought to make out. Sorry we can't treat you any better, Sir Harry of Kentucky and Sir George of Virginia, but these be distressful times, and the best the castle affords is put at your service."
"And I suspect that it's really the best," said Harry to Dalton, as St. Clair and Langdon went out. "There's straw under these blankets, George, and we've got a real bed."
The moonlight shone through two windows and the cannon-shot hole, and it was bright in the room.
"Here's a little bureau by the wall," said Dalton, "and as I intend to enjoy the luxury of undressing, I'm going to put my clothes in it, where they'll keep dry. You'll notice that all the panes have been shot out of those windows, and a driving rain would sweep all the way across the room."
"Now and then a good idea springs up in some way in that old head of yours, George. I'll do the same."
Dalton opened the top drawer.
"Something has been left here," he said.
He held up a large doll with blue eyes and yellow hair.
"As sure as we're living," said Harry, "we're in the room of little Miss Julia Moncrieffe, aged nine, the young lady who sent us the holly. Evidently they took away all their clothing and lighter articles of furniture, but they forgot the doll. Put it back, George. They'll return to Fredericksburg some day and we want her to find it there."
"You're right, Harry," said Dalton, as he replaced the doll and closed the drawer. "You and I ought to be grateful to that little girl whom we may never see."
"We won't forget," said Harry, as he undressed rapidly and lay down upon their luxurious bed of blankets and straw.
Neither of them remembered anything until they were dragged into the middle of the room next morning by St. Clair and Langdon.
"Here! here! wake up! wake up!" cried Langdon. "It's not polite to your hosts to be snoring away when breakfast is almost ready. Go down on a piece of the back porch that's left, and you'll find two pans of cold water in which you can wash your faces. It's true the pans are frozen over, but you can break the ice, and it will remind you of home and your little boyhood."
They sprang up and dressed as rapidly as they could, because when they came from the covers they found it icy cold in the room. Then they ran down, as they had been directed, broke the ice in the pans and bathed their faces.
"Fine air," said Harry.
"Yes, but too much of it," said Dalton.
"Br-h-h-h-h, how it freezes me! Look at the icicles, George! I think some new ones came to town last night! And what a cold river! I don't believe there was ever a colder-looking river than the Rappahannock!"
"And see the fogs and mists rising from it, too. It looks exactly as it did the morning of the battle."
"Let it look as it pleases," said Harry. "I'm going to make a dash for the inside and a fire!"
They found the colonels and the rest of the staff in the sitting-room, all except two, who were acting as cooks, but their work ceased in a moment or two, as breakfast was ready. It consisted of coffee and bread and ham left over from the night before. A heap of timber glowed in the fireplace and shot forth ruddy flames. Harry's soul fairly warmed within him.
"Sit down, all of you," said Colonel Talbot, "and we'll help one another."
They ate with the appetite of the soldier, and Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire, finishing first, withdrew to a wide window seat. There they produced the board and box of chessmen and proceeded to rearrange them exactly as they were before the battle of Fredericksburg.
"You will recall that your king was in great danger, Leonidas," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire.
"Truly I do, Hector, but I do not think it beyond my power to rescue him."
"It will be a hard task, Leonidas."
"Hector, I would have you to remember that I am an officer in the Army of Northern Virginia, and the Army of Northern Virginia prefers hard tasks to easy ones."
"You put the truth happily, Leonidas, but I must insist that your position is one of uncommon danger."
"I recognize the fact fully, Hector, but I assert firmly that I will rescue my red king."
Harry, his part of the work finished, watched them. The two gray heads bent lower and lower over the table until they almost touched. Everybody maintained a respectful silence. Colonel Talbot's brow was corded deeply with thought. It was a full quarter of an hour before he made a move, and then his opponent looked surprised.
"That does not seem to be your right move, Leonidas."
"But it is, Hector, as you will see presently."
"Very well. I will now choose my own course."
Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire's own brow became corded and knotted as he put his whole mental energy upon the problem. Harry watched them a little while, and then strolled over to the other window, where St. Clair was looking at the ruined town.
"Curious how people can find entertainment in so slow a game," he said, nodding toward the two colonels.
"That same game has been going on for more than a year," said St. Clair, with a slight smile. "It's odd how something always breaks it up. I wonder what it will be this time. But it's an intelligent game, Harry."
"I don't think a sport is intellectual, merely because it is slow."
Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire made a move, Colonel Leonidas Talbot made another, and then promptly uttered a little cry of triumph.
"My king is free! He is free! You made no royal capture, Hector!" he exclaimed joyously.
"It is so, Leonidas. I did not foresee your path of retreat. I must enter upon a new campaign against you."
Harry, who was looking toward the heights on the other side of the river, saw a flash of flame and a puff of smoke. A rumbling noise came to him.
"What is it, Harry?" asked Colonel Talbot.
"A Yankee cannon. I suppose it was telling us Christmas is over. The ball struck somewhere in Fredericksburg."
"A waste of good ammunition. Why, they've done all the damage to Fredericksburg that they can do. It's your move, Hector."
Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire corded and knotted his brow again, and once more the two heads nearly met over the chessboard. A whistling sound suddenly came from the street without. Something struck with a terrible impact, and then followed a blinding flash and roar. The whole house shook and several of the men were thrown down, but in a half minute they sprang to their feet.
Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire were standing erect, staring at each other. The chessmen were scattered on the floor and the board was split in half. A fragment of the exploding shell had entered the window and passing directly between them had done the damage. The same piece had gone entirely through the opposite wall.
Harry's quick glance told him that nothing had suffered except the chessboard. He sprang forward, picked up the two halves, and said:
"No real harm has been done. Two strips underneath, a few tacks, and it's as good again as ever."
The other lads carefully gathered up the scattered chessmen and announced that not one of them was injured.
"Thank you, boys," said Colonel Talbot. "It is a pleasing thing to see that, despite the war, the young still show courtesy to their elders. You will bear in mind, Hector, when this game is resumed at a proper time and place, that the position of one of your knights was very delicate."
"Assuredly I will not forget it, Leonidas. It will be no trouble to either of us to replace them exactly as they were at a moment's notice."
Harry and Dalton were compelled now to return to General Jackson, and they did so, after leaving many thanks with their generous hosts. Heavy winter rains began. The country on both sides of the Rappahannock became a vast sea of mud, and the soldiers had to struggle against all the elements, because the rains were icy and the mud formed a crust through which they broke in the morning.
While they lingered here news came of the great battle in the West, fought on the last day of the old year and the first day of the new, along the banks of Stone River. Harry and his comrades looked for a triumph there like that which they had won, and they were deeply disappointed when they heard the result.
Harry had a copy of a Richmond paper and he was reading from it to an attentive circle, but he stopped to comment:
"Ours was the smaller army, but we drove them back and held a part of the field. Two or three days later we withdrew to Chattanooga. Well, I don't call it much of a victory to thump your enemy and then go away, leaving him in possession of the field."
"But the enemy was a third more numerous than we were," said Happy Tom, "and since it looks like a draw, so far as the fighting was concerned, we, being the smaller, get the honors."
"That's just the trouble," said Dalton gravely. "We are loaded down with honors. Look at the great victories we've won in the East! Has anything solid come of them? Here is the enemy on Virginia soil, just as he was before. We've given the Army of the Potomac a terrible thrashing at Fredericksburg, but there it is on the other side of the Rappahannock, just as strong as ever, and maybe stronger, because they say recruits are pouring into it."
"Stop! Stop, Dalton!" said Happy Tom. "We don't want any lecture from you. We're just having a conversation."
"All right," said Dalton, laughing, "but I gave you my opinion."
Days of comparative idleness followed. The Army of the Potomac moved farther up the river and settled itself around the village of Falmouth. The Army of Northern Virginia faced it, and along the hillsides the young Southern soldiers erected sign posts, on the boards of which were painted, in letters large enough for the Union glasses to see, the derisive words:
THIS WAY TO RICHMOND
CHAPTER VII
JEB STUART'S BALL
But Hooker, the new Northern commander, did not yet move. The chief cause was mud. The winter having been very cold in the first half, was very rainy in the second half. The numerous brooks and creeks and smaller rivers remained flooded beyond their banks, and the Rappahannock flowed a swollen and mighty stream. Ponds and little lakes stood everywhere. Roads had been destroyed by the marching of mighty masses and the rolling of thousands of heavy wheels. Horses often sank nearly to the knee when they trod new paths through the muddy fields. There was mud, mud everywhere.
Hooker, moreover, was confronted by a long line of earthworks and other intrenchments, extending for twenty miles along the Rappahannock, and defended by the victors of Fredericksburg. After that disastrous day the Northern masses at home were not so eager for a battle. The country realized that it was not well to rush a foe, led by men like Lee and Jackson.
But Hooker was a brave and confident man. The North, always ready, was sending forward fresh troops, and when he crossed the Rappahannock, as he intended to do, he would have more men and more guns than Burnside had led when he attacked the blazing heights of Fredericksburg. Lincoln and Stanton, warned too by the great disasters through their attempts to manage armies in the field from the Capitol, were giving Hooker a freer hand.
On the other hand, the Confederate president and his cabinet suddenly curtailed Lee's plans. A fourth of his veterans under Longstreet were drawn off to meet a flank attack of other Northern forces which seemed to be threatened upon Richmond. Lee was left with only sixty thousand men to face Hooker's growing odds.
It was not any wonder that the spirits of the Southern lads sank somewhat. Harry realized more fully every day that it was not sufficient for them merely to defeat the Northern armies. They must destroy them. The immense patriotism of those who fought for the Union always filled up their depleted ranks and more, and they were getting better generals all the time. Hancock and Reynolds and many another were rising to fame in the east.
The Invincibles were posted nearly opposite Falmouth, and Harry had many chances to see them. On his second visit the chessboard was mended so perfectly that the split was not visible, and the two colonels sat down to finish their game. Fifteen minutes later a dispatch from General Jackson to Colonel Leonidas Talbot arrived, telling him to leave at once by the railway in the Confederate rear for Richmond. President Davis wished detailed information from him about the fortifications along the coasts of North Carolina and South Carolina, which were now heavily threatened by the enemy.
The two colonels had not made a move, but Colonel Leonidas Talbot rose, buttoned every button of his neat tunic, and said in precise tones:
"Hector, I depart in a half hour. You will, of course, have command of the regiment in my absence, and if any young lieutenants should be exceedingly obstreperous in the course of that time, perhaps I can prove to them that they are not as old as they think they are."
The colonel's severity of tone was belied by a faint twinkle in the corner of his eye, and the lads knew that they had nothing to fear, especially as Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire was quite as stern and able a guardian as Colonel Talbot.
Colonel Talbot departed, good wishes following him in a shower, and that day a young officer arrived from South Carolina and took a place in the Invincibles that had been made vacant by death.
Harry was still with his friends when this officer arrived, and the tall, slender figure and dark face of the man seemed familiar to him. A little thought recalled where he had first seen that eager gesture and the manner so intense that it betrayed an excessive enthusiasm. But when Harry did remember him he remembered him well.
"How do you do, Captain Bertrand?" he said—the man wore the uniform of a captain.
Bertrand stared at Harry, and then he gradually remembered. It was not strange that he was puzzled at first, as in the two years that had passed since Bertrand was in Colonel Kenton's house at Pendleton, Harry had grown much larger and more powerful, and was deeply tanned by all kinds of weather. But when he did recall him his greeting was full of warmth.
"Ah, now I know!" he exclaimed. "It is Harry Kenton, the son of Colonel George Kenton! And we held that meeting at your father's house on the eve of the war! And then we went up to Frankfort, and we did not take Kentucky out of the Union."
"No, we didn't," said Harry with a laugh. "Captain Bertrand, Lieutenant St. Clair and Lieutenant Langdon."
But Bertrand had known them both in Charleston, and he shook their hands with zeal and warmth, showing what Harry thought—as he had thought the first time he saw him—an excess of manner.
"We've a fine big dry place under this tree," said St. Clair. "Let's sit down and talk. You're the new Captain in our regiment, are you not?"
"Yes," replied Bertrand. "I've just come from Richmond, where I met my chief, that valiant man, Colonel Leonidas Talbot. I have been serving mostly on the coast of the Carolinas, and when I asked to be sent to the larger theater of war they very naturally assigned me to one of my own home regiments. Alas! there is plenty of room for me and many more in the ranks of the Invincibles."
"We have been well shot up, that's true," said Langdon, whom nothing could depress more than a minute, "but we've put more than a million Yankees out of the running."
"How are your Knights of the Golden Circle getting on?" asked Harry.
Bertrand flushed a little, despite his swarthiness.
"Not very well, I fear," he replied. "It has taken us longer to conquer the Yankees than we thought."
"I don't see that we've begun to conquer them as a people or a section," said St. Clair, who was always frank and direct. "We've won big victories, but just look and you'll see 'em across the river there, stronger and more numerous than ever, and that, too, on the heels of the big defeat they sustained at Fredericksburg. And, if you'll pardon me, Captain, I don't believe much in the great slave empire that the Knights of the Golden Circle planned."
Bertrand's black eyes flashed.
"And why not?" he asked sharply.
"To take Cuba and Mexico would mean other wars, and if we took them we'd have other kinds of people whom we'd have to hold in check with arms. A fine mess we'd make of it, and we haven't any right to jump on Cuba and Mexico, anyway. I've got a far better plan."
"And what is that?" asked Bertrand, with an increasing sharpness of manner.
"The North means to free our slaves. We'll defeat the North and show to her that she can't. Then we'll free 'em ourselves."
"Free them ourselves!" exclaimed Bertrand. "What are we fighting for but the right to hold our own property?"
"I didn't understand it exactly that way. It seems to me that we went to war to defend the right of a state to go out of the Union when it pleases."
"I tell you, this war is being fought to establish our title to our own."
"It's all right, so we fight well," said Harry, who saw Bertrand's rising color and who believed him to be tinged with fanaticism; "it's all that can be asked of us. After Happy Tom sleeps in the White House with his boots on, as he says he's going to do, we can decide, each according to his own taste, what he was fighting for."
"I've known all the time what was in my mind," said Bertrand emphatically. "Of course, the extension of the new republic toward the north will be cut off by the Yankees. Then its expansion must be southward, and that means in time the absorption of Mexico, all the West Indies, and probably Central America."
St. Clair was about to retort, but Harry gave him a warning look and he contented himself with rolling into a little easier position. Harry foresaw that these two South Carolinians would not be friends, and in any event he hated fruitless political discussions.
Bertrand excused himself presently and went away.
"Arthur," said Harry, "I wouldn't argue with him. He's a captain in the Invincibles now, and you're a lieutenant. It's in his power to make trouble for you."
"You're not appealing to any emotion in me that might bear the name of fear, are you, Harry?"
"You know I'm not. Why argue with a man who has fire on the brain? Although he's older than you, Arthur, he hasn't got as good a rein on his temper."
"You can't resist flattery like that, can you, Arthur? I know I couldn't," said Happy Tom, grinning his genial grin.
St. Clair's face relaxed.
"You're right, fellows," he said. "We oughtn't to be quarreling among ourselves when there are so many Yankees to fight."
Mail forwarded from Richmond was distributed in the camp the next day and Harry was in the multitude gathered about the officers distributing it. The delivery of the mail was always a stirring event in either army, and as the war rolled on it steadily increased in importance.
There were men in this very group who had not heard from home since they left it two years before, and there were letters for men who would never receive them. The letters were being given out at various points, but where Harry stood a major was calling them in a loud, clear voice.
"John Escombe, Field's brigade."
Escombe, deeply tanned and twenty-two, ran forward and received a thick letter addressed in a woman's handwriting, that of his mother, and, amid cheering at his luck, disappeared in the crowd.
"Thomas Anderson, Gregg's brigade. Girl's handwriting, too. Lucky boy, Tom."
"Hey, Tom, open it and show it to us! Maybe her picture's inside it! I'll bet she's got red hair!"
But Tom fled, blushing, and opened his letter when he was at a safe distance.
"Carlton Ives, Thomas' brigade."
"In hospital, Major, but I'll take the letter to him. He's in my company."
"Stephen Brayton, Lane's brigade."
There was a silence for a moment, and then some one said:
"Dead, at Antietam, sir."
The major put the letter on one side, and called:
"Thomas Langdon, the Invincibles."
Langdon darted forward and seized his letter.
"It's from my father," he said as he glanced at the superscription, although it was half hidden from him by a mist that suddenly appeared before his eyes.
"Here, Tom, stand behind us and read it," said Harry, who was waiting in an anxiety that was positively painful for a letter to himself.
"Henry Lawton, Pender's brigade," called the major. "This is from a girl, too, and there is a photograph inside. I can feel it. Wish I could get such a letter myself, Henry."
Lawton, his letter in his hand, retreated rapidly amid envious cheers.
"Charles Carson, Lane's brigade."
"Dead at Fredericksburg, sir; I helped to bury him."
"Thomas Carstairs, Field's brigade."
"Killed at the Second Manassas, sir."
"Richard Graves, Archer's brigade."
"Died in hospital after Antietam, sir."
"David Moulton, Field's brigade."
"Killed nearly a year ago, in the valley, sir."
"William Fitzpatrick, Lane's brigade."
"Taken prisoner at Antietam. Not yet exchanged, sir."
"Herbert Jones, Pender's brigade."
"Killed at South Mountain, sir."
Harry felt a little shiver. The list of those who would never receive their letters was growing too long. But this delivery of the mail seemed to run in streaks. Presently it found a streak of the living. It was a great mail that came that day, the largest the army had yet received, but the crowd, hungry for a word from home, did not seem to diminish. The ring continually pressed a little closer.
St. Clair received two letters, and, a long while afterwards, there was one for Dalton, who, however, had not been so long a time without news, as the battlefield was his own state, Virginia. Harry watched them with an envy that he tried to keep down, and after a while he saw that the heap of letters was becoming very small.
His anxiety became so painful that it was hard to bear. He knew that his father had been in the thick of the great battle at Stone River, but not a word from him or about him had ever come. No news in this case was bad news. If he were alive he would certainly write, and there was Confederate communication between Eastern Tennessee and Northern Virginia.
It was thus with a sinking heart that he watched the diminishing heap. Many of the disappointed ones had already gone away, hopeless, and Harry felt like following them, but the major picked up a thick letter in a coarse brown envelope and called:
"Lieutenant Henry Kenton, staff of Lieutenant-General Thomas Jonathan Jackson."
Harry sprang forward and seized his letter. Then he found a place behind a big tree, where St. Clair, Langdon and Dalton were reading theirs, and opened it. He had already seen that the address was in his father's handwriting and he believed that he was alive. The letter must have been written after the battle of Stone River or it would have arrived earlier. He took a hurried glance at the date and saw that it was near the close of January, at least three weeks after the battle. Then all apprehension was gone.
It was a long letter, dated from headquarters near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Colonel Kenton had just heard of the battle of Fredericksburg and he was rejoicing in the glorious victory. He hoped and believed that his son had passed through it safely. The Southern army had not been so successful in the west as in the east, but he believed that they had met tougher antagonists there, the men of the west and northwest, used to all kinds of hardships, and, alas! their own Kentuckians. At both Perryville and Stone River they had routed the antagonists who met them first, but they had been stopped by their own brethren.
Harry smiled and murmured to himself:
"You can never put down dad's state pride. With him the Kentuckians are always first."
He had a good deal of this state pride himself, although in a less accentuated form, and, after the momentary thought, he went on. The colonel was looking for a letter from his son—Harry had written twice since Fredericksburg, and he knew now that the letters would arrive safely. He himself had been wounded slightly in a skirmish just after Stone River, but he was now entirely well. The Southern forces were gathering and General Bragg would have a great army with which they were confident of winning a victory like that of the Second Manassas or Fredericksburg. He was glad that his son was on the staff of so great a genius as General Jackson and that he was also under the command of that other great genius, Lee.
Harry stopped reading for a moment or two and smiled with satisfaction. The impression that Lee and Jackson had made upon the South was as great in the west as in the east. The hero-worship which the fiery and impressionable South gives in such unstinted measure to these two men had begun already. Harry was glad that his father recognized the great Virginians so fully, men who allied with genius temperate and lofty lives.
He resumed his reading, but the remainder of the letter was occupied with personal details. The colonel closed with some good advice to his son about caring for himself on the march and in camp, drawn from his own experience both in the Mexican war and the present strife.
Harry read his letter three times. Then he folded it carefully and put it in an inside pocket of his tunic.
"Is it good news, Harry?" asked Happy Tom, who had already finished with his own letter.
"Yes, it's cheerful."
"So's mine. I'm glad to hear that your father's all right. Mine didn't go to the war. I wish you could meet my father, Harry. I get my cheerful disposition and my good manners from him. When the war was about to begin and I went over to Charleston in about the most splendid uniform that was ever created, he said: 'You fellows will get licked like thunder, and maybe you'll deserve it. As for you, you'll probably get a part of your fool head shot off, but it's so thick and hard that it will be a benefit to you to lose some of it and have the rest opened up. But remember, Tom, whenever you do come back, no matter how many legs and arms and portions of your head you've left behind, there'll be a welcome in the old house for you. You're the fatted calf, but you're sure to come back a lot leaner and maybe with more sense.'"
"He certainly talked to you straight."
"So he did, Harry; but those words were not nearly so rough as they sound, because when I came away I saw tears in his eyes. Father's a smart man, a money-maker as good as the Yankees themselves. He's got sea island cotton in warehouses in more than one place along the coast, and he writes me that he's already selling it to the blockade runners for unmentionable prices in British and French gold. Harry, if your fortunes are broken up by the war, you and your father will have to come down and share with us."
"Thanks for your invitation, Tom; but from what you say about your father we'd be about as welcome as a bear in a kitchen."
"Don't you believe it. You come."
"Arthur, what do you hear?" asked Harry.
"My people are well and they're sending me a lot of things. My mother has put in the pack a brand new uniform. She sewed on the gold lace herself. I hope the next battle won't be fought before it gets here."
"Impossible," said Harry gravely. "General Hooker is too polite a man to push us before Lieutenant St. Clair receives his new clothes."
"I hope so," said St. Clair seriously.
The new uniform, in fact, came a few days later, and as it even exceeded its promise, St. Clair was thoroughly happy. Harry also received a second letter from Colonel Kenton, telling of the receipt of his own, and wishing him equally good fortune in the new battle which they in the west heard was impending in the east.
Harry believed they would surely close with Hooker soon. They had been along the Rappahannock for many weeks now, and the winter of cold rain had not yet broken up, but spring could not be far away. Meanwhile he was drawn closer than ever to Jackson, his great commander, and was almost constantly in his service.
