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

“Sh! sh!” said Warner, as he listened to the violent outbreak, so unusual on the part of the reserved and self-contained lad. “Here come two generals.”

“Two too many,” muttered Dick. A moment or two later he was ashamed of himself, not because of what he had said, but because he had said it. Then Warner seized him by the arm and pointed.

“A new general, bigger than all the rest, has come,” he said, “and although I’ve never seen him before I know with mathematical certainty that it’s General John Pope, commander-in-chief of the Army of Virginia.”

Both Dick and Pennington knew instinctively that Warner was right. General Pope, a strongly built man in early middle years, surrounded by a brilliant staff, rode into a little glade in the midst of the troops, and summoned to him the leading officers who had taken part in the battle.

Dick and his two comrades stood on one side, but they could not keep from hearing what was said and done. In truth they did not seek to avoid hearing, nor did many of the young privates who stood near and who considered themselves quite as good as their officers.

Pope, florid and full-faced, was in a fine humor. He complimented the officers on their valor, spoke as if they had won a victory—which would have been a fact had others done their duty—and talked slightingly of Jackson. The men of the west would show this man his match in the art of war.

Dick listened to it all with bitterness in his heart. He had no doubt that Pope was brave, and he could see that he was confident. Yet it took something more than confidence to defeat an able enemy. What had become of those gray horsemen in the bush? They had appeared once and they could appear again. He had believed that Jackson himself was at hand, and he still believed it. His eyes shifted from Pope to the dark woods, which, with their thick foliage, turned back the moonlight.

“George,” he whispered to Warner, “do you think you can see anything among those trees?”

“I can make out dimly one or two figures, which no doubt are our scouts. Ah-h!”

The long “Ah-h!” was drawn by a flash and the report of a rifle. A second and a third report came, and then the crash of a heavy fire. The scouts and sentinels came running in, reporting that a great force with batteries, presumably the whole army of Jackson, was at hand.

A deep murmur ran through the Union army, but there was no confusion. The long hours of fighting had habituated them to danger. They were also too tired to become excited, and in addition, they were of as stern stuff at night as they had been in the morning. They were ready to fight again.

Formidable columns of troops appeared through the woods, their bayonets glistening in the moonlight. The heavy rifle fire began once more, although it was nearly midnight, and then came the deep thunder of cannon, sending round shot and shells among the Union troops. But the men in blue, harried beyond endurance, fought back fiercely. They shared the feelings of Pennington. They felt that they had been persecuted, that this thing had grown inhuman, and they used rifles and cannon with astonishing vigor and energy.

Two heavy Union batteries replied to the Southern cannon, raking the woods with shell, round shot and grape, and Dick concluded that in the face of so much resolution Jackson would not press an attack at night, when every kind of disaster might happen in the darkness. His own regiment had lain down among the leaves, and the men were firing at the flashes on their right. Dick looked for General Pope and his brilliant staff, but he did not see them.

“Gone to bring up the reserves,” whispered Warner, who saw Dick’s inquiring look.

But the Vermonter’s slur was not wholly true. Pope was on his way to his main force, doubtless not really believing that Jackson himself was at hand. But the little army that he left behind fighting with renewed energy and valor broke away from the Southern grasp and continued its march toward that court house, in which the boys could see no merit. Jackson himself, knowing what great numbers were ahead, was content to swing away and seek for prey elsewhere.

They emerged from the wood toward morning and saw ahead of them great masses of troops in blue. They would have shouted with joy, but they were too tired. Besides, nearly two thousand of their men were killed or wounded, and they had no victory to celebrate.

Dick ate breakfast with his comrades. The Northern armies nearly always had an abundance of provisions, and now they were served in plenty. For the moment, the physical overcame the mental in Dick. It was enough to eat and to rest and to feel secure. Thousands of friendly faces were around them, and they would not have to fight in either day or dark for their lives. Their bones ceased to ache, and the good food and the good coffee began to rebuild the worn tissues. What did the rest matter?

After breakfast these men who had marched and fought for nearly twenty hours were told to sleep. Only one command was needed. It was August, and the dry grass and the soft earth were good enough for anybody. The three lads, each with an arm under his head, slept side by side. At noon they were still sleeping, and Colonel Winchester, as he was passing, looked at the three, but longest at Dick. His gaze was half affection, half protection, but it was not the boy alone whom he saw. He saw also his fair-haired young mother in that little town on the other side of the mountains.

While Dick still slept, the minds of men were at work. Pope’s army, hitherto separated, was now called together by a battle. Troops from every direction were pouring upon the common center. The little army which had fought so gallantly the day before now amounted to only one-fourth of the whole. McDowell, Sigel and many other generals joined Pope, who, with the strange faculty of always seeing his enemy too small, while McClellan always saw him too large, began to feed upon his own sanguine anticipations, and to regard as won the great victory that he intended to win. He sent telegrams to Washington announcing that his triumph at Cedar Run was only the first of a series that his army would soon achieve.

It was late in the afternoon when Dick awoke, and he was amazed to see that the sun was far down the western sky. But he rubbed his eyes and, remembering, knew that he had slept at least ten hours. He looked down at the relaxed figures of Warner and Pennington on either side of him. They still slumbered soundly, but he decided that they had slept long enough.

“Here, you,” he exclaimed, seizing Warner by the collar and dragging him to a sitting position, “look at the sun! Do you realize that you’ve lost a day out of your bright young life?”

Then he seized Pennington by the collar also and dragged him up. Both Warner and Pennington yawned prodigiously.

“If I’ve lost a day, and it would seem that I have, then I’m glad of it,” replied Warner. “I could afford to lose several in such a pleasant manner. I suppose a lot of Stonewall Jackson’s men were shooting at me while I slept, but I was lucky and didn’t know about it.”

“You talk too long,” said Pennington. “That comes of your having taught school. You could talk all day to boys younger than yourself, and they were afraid to answer back.”

“Shut up, both of you,” said Dick. “Here comes the sergeant, and I think from his look he has something to say worth hearing.”

Sergeant Whitley had cleansed the blood and dust from his face, and a handkerchief tied neatly around his head covered up the small wound there. He looked trim and entirely restored, both mentally and physically.

“Well, sergeant,” said Dick ingratiatingly, “if any thing has happened in this army you’re sure to know of it. We’d have known it ourselves, but we had an important engagement with Morpheus, a world away, and we had to keep it. Now what is the news?”

“I don’t know who Morpheus is,” replied the sergeant, laughing, “but I’d guess from your looks that he is another name for sleep. There is no news of anything big happenin’. We’ve got a great army here, and Jackson remains near our battlefield of yesterday. I should say that we number at least fifty thousand men, or about twice the rebels.”

“Then why don’t we march against ‘em at once?”

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders. It was not for him to tell why generals did not do things.

“I think,” he said, “that we’re likely to stay here a day or two.”

“Which means,” said Dick, his alert mind interpreting at once, “that our generals don’t know what to do. Why is it that they always seem paralyzed when they get in front of Stonewall Jackson? He’s only a man like the rest of them!”

He spoke with perfect freedom in the presence of Sergeant Whitley, knowing that he would repeat nothing.

“A man, yes,” said Warner, in his precise manner, “but not exactly like the others. He seems to have more of the lightning flash about him. What a pity such a leader should be on the wrong side! Perhaps we’ll have his equal in time.”

“Is Jackson’s army just sitting still?” asked Dick.

“So far as scouts can gather, an’ I’ve been one of them,” replied Sergeant Whitley, “it seems to be just campin’. But I wish I knew which way it was goin’ to jump. I don’t trust Jackson when he seems to be nappin’.”

But the good sergeant’s doubts were to remain for two days at least. The two armies sat still, only two miles apart, and sentinels, as was common throughout the great war, became friendly with one another. Often they met in the woods and exchanged news and abundant criticism of generals. At last there was a truce to bury the dead who still lay upon the sanguinary field of Cedar Run.

Dick was in charge of one of these burial parties, and toward the close of the day he saw a familiar figure, also in command of a burial party, although it was in a gray uniform. His heart began to thump, and he uttered a cry of joy. The unexpected, but not the unnatural, had happened.

“Oh, Harry! Harry!” he shouted.

The strong young figure in the uniform of a lieutenant in the Southern army turned in surprise at the sound of a familiar voice, and stood, staring.

“Dick! Dick Mason!” he cried. Then the two sprang forward and grasped the hands of each other. There was no display of emotion—they were of the stern American stock, taught not to show its feelings—but their eyes showed their gladness.

“Harry,” said Dick, “I knew that you had been with Jackson, but I had no way of knowing until a moment ago that you were yet alive.”

“Nor I you, Dick. I thought you were in the west.”

“I was, but after Shiloh, some of us came east to help. It seemed after the Seven Days that we were needed more here than in the west.”

“You never said truer words, Dick. They’ll need you and many more thousands like you. Why, Dick, we’re not led here by a man, we’re led by a thunderbolt. I’m on his staff, I see him every day. He talks to me, and I talk to him. I tell you, Dick, it’s a wonderful thing to serve such a genius. You can’t beat him! His kind appears only a few times in the ages. He always knows what’s to be done and he does it. Even if your generals knew what ought to be done, most likely they’d do something else.”

Harry’s face glowed with enthusiasm as he spoke of his hero, and Dick, looking at him, shook his head sadly.

“I’m afraid that what you say is true for the present at least, Harry,” he said. “You beat us now here in the east, but don’t forget that we’re winning in the west. And don’t forget that here in the east even, you can never wear us out. We’ll be coming, always coming.”

“All right, old Sober Sides, we won’t quarrel about it. We’ll let time settle it. Here come some friends of mine whom I want you to know. Curious that you should meet them at such a time.”

Two other young lieutenants in gray uniforms at the head of burial parties came near in the course of their work, and Harry called to them.

“Tom! Arthur! A moment, please! This is my cousin, Dick Mason, a Yankee, though I think he’s honest in his folly. Dick, this is Arthur St. Clair, and this is Tom Langdon, both friends of mine from South Carolina.”