The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide by Joseph A. Altsheler (book club reads .TXT) 📖

in the cool of the evening, both armies now being lost to the anxious world that waited and sought to find them.

Lee himself, as Harry gathered from the talk about him, was uncertain. He did not wish a battle now, but his advance toward the Susquehanna had been stopped by the news that the Army of the Potomac could cut in behind. The corps of Ewell had been recalled, and Harry, as he rode to it with a message from his general, saw his old friends again. They were in a tiny village, the name of which he forgot, and Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire, sitting in the main room of what was used as a tavern in times of peace, had resumed the game of chess, interrupted so often. Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire was in great glee, just having captured a pawn, and Colonel Talbot was eager and sure of revenge, when Harry entered and stated that he had delivered an order to General Ewell to fall back yet farther.

"Most untimely! Most untimely!" exclaimed Colonel Talbot, as they rapidly put away the board and chessmen. "I was just going to drive Hector into a bad corner, when you came and interrupted us."

"You are my superior officer, Leonidas," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, "but remember that this superiority applies only to military rank. I assert now, with all respect to your feelings, that in regard to chess it does not exist, never has and never will."

"Opinions, Hector, are—opinions. Time alone decides whether they are or are not facts. But our corps is to fall back, you say, Harry? What does it signify?"

"I think, Colonel, that it means a great battle very soon. It is apparent that General Lee thinks so, or he would not be concentrating his troops so swiftly. The Army of the Potomac is somewhere on our flank, and we shall have to deal with it."

"So be it. The Invincibles are few but ready."

Harry rode rapidly back to Lee with the return message from Ewell, and found him going into camp on the eve of the last day of June. The weather was hot and scarcely any tents were set, nearly everybody preferring the open air. Harry delivered his message, and General Lee said to him, with his characteristic kindness:

"You'd better go to sleep as soon as you can, because I shall want you to go on another errand in the morning to a place called Gettysburg."

Gettysburg! Gettysburg! He had never heard the name before and it had absolutely no significance to him now. But he saluted, withdrew, procured his blankets and joined Dalton.

"The General tells me, George, that I'm to go to Gettysburg," he said. "What's Gettysburg, and why does he want me to go there?"

"I'm to be with you, Harry, and we're both going with a flying column, in order that we may report upon its conduct and achievements. So I've made inquiries. It's a small town surrounded by hills, but it's a great center for roads. We're going there because it's got a big shoe factory. Our role is to be that of shoe buyers. Harry, stick out your feet at once!"

Harry thrust them forward.

"One sole worn through. The heel gone from the other shoe, and even then you're better off than most of us. Lots of the privates are barefooted. So you needn't think that the role of shoe buyer is an ignominious one."

"I'll be ready," said Harry. "Call me early in the morning, George. We're a long way from home, and the woods are not full of friends. Getting up here in these Pennsylvania hills, one has to look pretty hard to look away down South in Dixie."

"That's so, Harry. A good sleep to you, and to-morrow, as shoe buyers, we'll ride together to Gettysburg."

He lay between his blankets, went quickly to sleep and dreamed nothing of Gettysburg, of which he had heard for the first time that day.

CHAPTER XII THE ZENITH OF THE SOUTH

The sun of the first day of July, which was to witness the beginning of the most tremendous event in the history of America, dawned hot and clouded with vapors. They hung in the valleys, over the steep stony hills and along the long blue slopes of South Mountain. The mists made the country look more fantastic to Harry, who was early in the saddle. The great uplifts and projections of stone assumed the shapes of castles and pyramids and churches.

Over South Mountain, on the west, heavy black clouds floated, and the air was close and oppressive.

"Rain, do you think?" said Harry to Dalton.

"No, just a sultry day. Maybe a wind will spring up and drive away all these clouds and vapors. At least, I hope so. There's the bugle. We're off on our shoe campaign."

"Who leads us?"

"We go with Pettigrew, and Heth comes behind. In a country so thick with enemies it's best to move only in force."

The column took up its march and a cloud of dust followed it. The second half of June had been rainy, but there had been several days of dry weather now, allowing the dust to gather. Harry and Dalton soon became very hot and thirsty. The sun did not drive away the vapors as soon as they had expected, and the air grew heavier.

"I hope they'll have plenty of good drinking water in Gettysburg," said Harry. "It will be nearly as welcome to me as shoes."

They rode on over hills and valleys, and brooks and creeks, the names of none of which they knew. They stopped to drink at the streams, and the thirsty horses drank also. But it remained hard for the infantry. They were trained campaigners, however, and they did not complain as they toiled forward through the heat and dust.

They came presently to round hillocks, over which they passed, then they saw a fertile valley, watered by a creek, and beyond that the roofs of a town with orchards behind it.

"Gettysburg!" said Dalton.

"It must be the place," said Harry. "Picturesque, isn't it? Look at those two hills across there, rising so steeply."

One of the hills, the one that lay farther to the south, a mass of apparently inaccessible rocks, rose more than two hundred feet above the town. The other, about a third of a mile from the first, was only half its height. They were Round Top and Little Round Top. In the mists and vapors and at the distance the two hills looked like ancient towers. Harry and George gazed at them, and then their eyes turned to the town.

It was a neat little place, with many roads radiating from it as if it were the hub of a wheel, and the thrifty farmers of that region had made it a center for their schools.

Harry had learned from Jackson, and again from Lee, always to note well the ground wherever he might ride. Such knowledge in battle was invaluable, and his eyes dwelled long on Gettysburg.

He saw running south of the town a long high ridge, curving at the east and crowned with a cemetery, because of which the people of Gettysburg called it Cemetery Ridge or Hill. Opposed to it, some distance away and running westward, was another but lower ridge that they called Seminary Ridge. Beyond Seminary Ridge were other and yet lower ridges, between two of which flowed a brook called Willoughby Run. Beyond them all, two or three miles away and hemming in the valley, stretched South Mountain, the crests of which were still clothed in the mists and vapors of a sultry day. Near the town was a great field of ripening wheat, golden when the sun shone. Not far from the horsemen was another little stream called Plum Run. They also saw an unfinished railroad track, with a turnpike running beside it, the roof and cupola of a seminary, and beside the little marshy stream of Plum Run a mass of jagged, uplifted rocks, commonly called the Devil's Den.

Harry knew none of these names yet, but he was destined to learn them in such a manner that he could never forget them again. Now he merely admired the peaceful and picturesque appearance of the town, set so snugly among its hills.

"That's Gettysburg, which for us just at this moment is the shoe metropolis of the world," said Dalton, "but I dare say we'll not be welcomed as purchasers or in any other capacity."

"You take a safe risk, George," said Harry. "Tales that we are terrible persons, who rejoice most in arson and murder, evidently have been spread pretty thoroughly through this region."

"Both sections scatter such stories. I suppose it's done in every war. It's only human nature."

"All right, Mr. Pedantic Philosopher. Maybe you're telling the truth. But look, I don't think we're going into Gettysburg in such a great hurry! Yankee soldiers are there before us!"

Other Southern officers had noted the blue uniforms and the flash of rifle barrels and bayonets in Gettysburg. As they used their glasses, the town came much nearer and the Union forces around it increased. Buford, coming up the night before, had surmised that a Southern force would advance on Gettysburg, and he had chosen the place for a battle. He had with him four thousand two hundred mounted men, and he posted them in the strong positions that were so numerous. He had waited there all night, and already his scouts had informed him that Pettigrew and Heth were advancing.

"Are we to lose our shoes?" whispered Harry.

"I don't think so," replied Dalton in an undertone. "We're in strong force, and I don't see any signs that our generals intend to turn back. Harry, your glasses are much stronger than mine. What do you see?"

"I see a lot. The Yankees must be four or five thousand, and they are posted strongly. They are thick in the railroad cut and hundreds of horses are held by men in the rear. It must be almost wholly a cavalry force."

"Do you see any people in the town?"

"There is not a soul in the streets, and as far as I can make out all the doors are closed and the windows shuttered."

"Then it's a heavy force waiting for us. The people know it, and expecting a battle, they have gone away."

"Your reasoning is good, and there's the bugle to confirm it. Our lines are already advancing!"

It was still early in the morning, and the strong Southern force which had come for shoes, but which found rifles and bayonets awaiting them instead, advanced boldly. They, the victors of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, had no thought of retreating before a foe who invited them to combat.

Harry and Dalton found their hearts beating hard at this their first battle on Northern soil, and Harry's eyes once more swept the great panorama of the valley, the silent town, the lofty stone hills, and far beyond the long blue wall of South Mountain, with the mists and vapors still floating about its crest.

Heth was up now, and he took full command, sending two brigades in advance, the brigades themselves preceded by a great swarm of skirmishers. Harry and Dalton rode with one of the brigades, and they closely followed those who went down the right bank of the stream called Willoughby Run, opening a rapid fire as they advanced upon a vigilant enemy who had been posted the night before in protected positions.

Buford's men met the attack with courage and vigor. Four thousand dismounted cavalry, all armed with carbines, sent tremendous volleys from the shelter of ridges and earthworks. The fire was so heavy that the Southern skirmishers could not stand before it, and they, too, began to seek shelter. The whole Southern column halted for a few minutes, but recovered itself and advanced again.

The battle blazed up with a suddenness and violence that astonished Harry. The air was filled in an instant with the whistling of shells and bullets. He heard many cries. Men were falling all around him, but so far he and Dalton were untouched. Heth, Davis, Archer and the others were pushing on their troops, shouting encouragement to them, and occasionally, through the clouds of smoke, which were thickening fast, Harry saw the tanned faces of their enemies loading and firing as fast as they could handle rifle and cannon. The Northern men had shelter, but were fewer in number. The soldiers in gray were