With Lee in Virginia: A Story of the American Civil War by G. A. Henty (feel good fiction books TXT) 📖

be kept out of the way, except three men to carry Vincent upstairs. The lad was consequently got up to his room without any excitement, and was soon lying on his bed with a sheet thrown lightly over him.

"That is comfortable," he said, as his mother bathed his face and hands and smoothed his hair. "Where are the girls, mother?"

"They will come in to see you now, Vincent; but you are to keep quite quiet, you know, and not to talk." The girls stole in and said a few words, and left him alone again with Mrs. Wingfield. He did not look to them so ill as they had expected, for there was a flush of fever on his cheeks. Dr. Mapleston arrived a little later, examined and redressed the wound, and comforted Mrs. Wingfield with the assurance that there was nothing in it likely to prove dangerous to life.

"Our trouble will be rather with the effect of the shock than with the wound itself. He is very feverish now, and you must not be alarmed if by this evening he is delirious. You will give him this cooling draught every three hours; he can have anything in the way of cooling drinks he likes. If he begins to wander, put cloths dipped in cold water and wrung out on his head, and sponge his hands with water with a little Eau de Cologne in it. If he seems very hot set one of the women to fan him, but don't let her go on if it seems to worry him. I will come round again at half-past nine this evening and will make arrangements to pass the night here. We have telegrams saying that surgeons are coming from Charleston and many other places, so I can very well be spared."

When the doctor returned in the evening, he found, as he had anticipated, that Vincent was in a high state of fever. This continued four or [Pg 102]five days, and then gradually passed off; and he woke up one morning perfectly conscious. His mother was sitting on a chair at the bedside.

"What is the time, mother?" he asked. "Have I been asleep long?"

"Some time, dear," she answered gently; "but you must not talk. You are to take this draught and go off to sleep again; when you wake you may ask any questions you like." She lifted the lad's head, gave him the draught and some cold tea, then darkened the room, and in a few minutes he was asleep again.

CHAPTER VII. THE "MERRIMAC" AND THE "MONITOR."

It was some weeks before Vincent was able to walk unaided. His convalescence was somewhat slow, for the shock to the system had been a severe one. The long railway journey had been injurious to him, for the bandage had become somewhat loose and the broken pieces of bone had grated upon each other, and were much longer in knitting together than they would have been had he been treated on the spot.

As soon as he could walk he became anxious to rejoin his troop, but the doctor said that many weeks must elapse before he would be able to undergo the hardships of a campaign. He was reconciled to some extent to the delay by letters from his friends with the troop and by the perusal of the papers. There was nothing whatever doing in Virginia. The two armies still faced each other, the Northerners protected by the strong fortifications they had thrown up round Washington—fortifications much too formidable to be attacked by the Confederates, held as they were by a force immensely superior to their own, both in numbers and arms.

The Northerners were indeed hard at work, collecting and organizing an army which was to crush out the rebellion. General[Pg 103] Scott had been succeeded by McClellan in the supreme command, and the new general was indefatigable in organizing the vast masses of men raised in the North. So great were the efforts that, in a few months after the defeat of Bull Run, the North had 650,000 men in arms.

But while no move had at present been made against Virginia there was sharp fighting in some of the border States, especially in Missouri and Kentucky, in both of which public opinion was much divided, and regiments were raised on both sides.

Various operations were now undertaken by the Federal fleet at points along the coast, and several important positions were taken and occupied, it being impossible for the Confederates to defend so long a line of seacoast. The South had lost rather than gained ground in consequence of their victory at Bull Run. For a time they had been unduly elated, and were altogether disposed to underrate their enemies and to believe that the struggle was as good as over. Thus, then, they made no effort at all corresponding to the North; but as time went on, and they saw the vastness of the preparations made for their conquest, the people of the Southern States again bestirred themselves.

Owing to the North having the command of the sea, and shutting up all the principal ports, they had to rely upon themselves for everything, while the North could draw arms and ammunition and all the requisites of war from the markets of Europe. Foundries were accordingly established for the manufacture of artillery, and factories for muskets, ammunition, and percussion caps. The South had, in fact, to manufacture everything down to the cloth for her soldiers' uniforms and the leather for their shoes; and, as in the past she had relied wholly upon the North for such goods, it was for a time impossible to supply the troops with even the most necessary articles.

The women throughout the States were set to work spinning and weaving rough cloth and making uniforms from it. Leather, however, cannot b[Pg 104]e produced all at once, and indeed, with all their efforts, the Confederate authorities were never, throughout the war, able to provide a sufficient supply of boots for the troops, and many a battle was won by soldiers who fought almost barefooted, and who reshod themselves for the most part by stripping the boots from their dead foes. Many other articles could not be produced in the Southern States, and the Confederates suffered much from the want of proper medicines and surgical appliances.

For these and many other necessaries they had to depend solely upon the ships which succeeded in making their way through the enemy's cruisers and running the blockade of the ports. Wine, tea, coffee, and other imported articles soon became luxuries beyond the means of all, even the very wealthy. All sorts of substitutes were used; grain, roasted and ground, being chiefly used as a substitute for coffee. Hitherto the South had been principally occupied in raising cotton and tobacco, depending chiefly upon the North for food; and it was necessary now to abandon the cultivation of products for which they had no sale, and to devote the land to the growth of maize and other crops for food.

By the time that the long period of inaction came to a close, Vincent had completely recovered his strength, and was ready to rejoin the ranks as soon as the order came from Colonel Stuart, who had promised to send for him directly there was a prospect of active service.

One of Vincent's first questions, as soon as he became convalescent, was whether a letter had been received from Tony. It had come, he was told, among the last batch of letters that crossed the frontier before the outbreak of hostilities, and Mrs. Wingfield had, as he had requested, opened it. As had been arranged, it had merely contained Tony's address at a village near Montreal; for Vincent had warned him to say nothing in the letter, for there was no saying, in the troubled times which were approaching when Tony left, into whose hands it might fall.

Vin[Pg 105]cent had, before starting, told his mother of the share he had taken in getting the negro safely away, and Mrs. Wingfield, brought up, as she had been, to regard those who assisted runaway slaves to escape in the same light as those who assisted to steal any other kind of property, was at first greatly shocked when she heard that her son had taken part in such an enterprise, however worthy of compassion the slave might be, and however brutal the master from whose hands he had fled. However, as Vincent was on the point of starting for the war to meet danger, and possibly death, in the defense of Virginia, she had said little, and that little was in reference rather to the imprudence of the course he had taken than to what she regarded in her own mind as its folly, and indeed its criminality.

She had, however, promised that as soon as Tony's letter arrived she would, if still possible, forward Dinah and the child to him, supplying her with money for the journey, and giving her the papers freeing her from slavery which Vincent had duly signed in the presence of a justice. When the letter came, however, it was already too late. Fighting was on the point of commencing, all intercourse across the border was stopped, the trains were all taken up for the conveyance of troops, and even a man would have had great difficulty in passing northward, while for an unprotected negress with a baby such a journey would have been impossible.

Mrs. Wingfield had therefore written four times at fortnightly intervals to Tony, saying that it was impossible to send Dinah off at present, but that she should be dispatched as soon as the troubles were over, upon receipt of another letter from him saying that his address was unchanged, or giving a new one. These letters were duly posted, and it was probable that one or other of them would in time reach Tony, as mails were sent off to Europe, whenever an opportunity offered for them to be taken by a steamer running the blockade from a Southern port. Dinah, therefore, still remained at the Orangery. She was well and[Pg 106] happy, for her life there was a delightful one indeed after her toil and hardship at the Jacksons'; and although she was anxious to join her husband, the knowledge that he was well and safe from all pursuit, and that sooner or later she would join him with her child, was sufficient to make her perfectly contented.

During Vincent's illness she had been his most constant attendant; for her child now no longer required her care, and passed much of its time down at the nursery, where the young children of the slaves were looked after by two or three aged negresses past active work. She had therefore begged Mrs. Wingfield to be allowed to take her place by the bedside of her young master, and, after giving her a trial, Mrs. Wingfield found her so quiet, gentle, and patient that she installed her there, and was able to obtain the rest she needed, with a feeling of confidence that Vincent would be well attended to in her absence.

When Vincent was well enough to be about again, his sisters were surprised at the change that had taken place in him since he had started a few months before for the war. It was not so much that he had grown, though he had done so considerably, but that he was much older in manner and appearance. He had been doing man's work,—work requiring vigilance, activity, and courage,—and they could no longer treat him as a boy. As he became stronger he took to riding about the plantation; but not upon Wildfire, for his horse was still with the troop, Colonel Stuart having promised to see that the animal was well cared for, and that no one should ride upon it but himself.

"I hope you like Jonas Pearson better than you used to do, Vincent," Mrs. Wingfield said a day or two before he started to rejoin his troop.

"I can't say I do, mother," he replied shortly. "The man is very civil to me now—too civil, in fact; but I don't like him, and I don't believe he is honest. I don't mean that he would cheat you, though he may do so for anything I know; but[Pg 108] he pretends to be a violent Secessionist, which, as he comes from Vermont, is not natural, and I imagine he would sing a different tune if the bluecoats ever get to Richmond. Still I have nothing particular to say against him, except that I don't like him, and I don't trust him. So long as everything goes on well for the Confederacy I don't suppose it matters, but if we should ever get the worst of it you