The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis by Joseph A. Altsheler (novels to read in english TXT) 📖

In this desperate crisis of the Confederacy, more desperate than any of the Southern generals yet realized, the brain under the old slouch hat never worked with more precision, clearness and brilliancy. He would not only do his own task, but he would help his chief while doing it. When McClellan began his march after a delay of a day he was nearer to Lee than Jackson was and every chance was his, save those that lightning perception and unyielding courage win.

The lads heard the mutter of the cannon grow louder, and rise to a distant thunder. Far ahead of them, where high hills thick with forest rose, they saw smoke and flashes of fire. A young Maryland cavalry officer, riding near, explained to them that the point from which the cannonade came was a gap in South Mountain, although it was as yet invisible, owing to the forest.

“We heard that Lee's army was much further away,” said Warner to Dick. “What can it mean? What force is there fighting our vanguard?”

It was Shepard, the spy, who brought them the facts. He had already reported to General McClellan, when he approached Colonel Winchester. His face was worn and drawn, and he was black under the eyes. His clothes were covered with dust. His body was weary almost unto death, but his eyes burned with the fire of an undying spirit.

“I've been all the night and all this morning in the mountains and hills,” he said. “Harper's Ferry is not yet taken, but I think it will fall. But Hill, McLaws and Longstreet are all in this pass or the other which leads through the mountain. They mean to hold us as long as they can, and then hang on to the flank of our army.”

He passed on and the little regiment advanced more rapidly. Dick saw Colonel Winchester's eyes sparkling and he knew he was anxious to be in the thick of it. Other and heavier forces were deploying upon the same point, but Winchester's regiment led.

As they approached a deadly fire swept the plain and the hills. Rifle bullets crashed among them and shell and shrapnel came whining and shrieking. Once more the Winchester regiment, as it had come to be called, was smitten with a bitter and deadly hail. Men fell all around Dick but the survivors pressed on, still leading the way for the heavy brigades which they heard thundering behind them.

The mouth of the pass poured forth fire and missiles like a volcano, but Dick heard Colonel Winchester still shouting to his men to come on, and he charged with the rest. The fire became so hot that the vanguard could not live in it without shelter, and the colonel, shouting to the officers to dismount, ordered them all to take cover behind trees and rocks.

Dick who had been carried a little ahead of the rest, sprang down, still holding his horse, and made for a great rock which he saw on one side just within the mouth of the pass. His frightened horse reared and jerked so violently that he tore the bridle from the lad's hand and ran away.

Dick stood for a moment, scarcely knowing what to do, and then, as a half dozen bullets whistled by his head, urging him to do something, he finished his dash for the rock, throwing himself down behind it just as a half a dozen more bullets striking on the stone told him that he had done the right thing in the very nick of time.

He carried with him a light rifle of a fine improved make, a number of which had been captured at the Second Manassas, and which some of the younger officers had been allowed to take. He did not drop it in his rush for the rock, holding on to it mechanically.

He lay for at least a minute or two flat upon the ground behind the great stone, while the perspiration rolled from his face and his hair prickled at the roots. He could never learn to be unconcerned when a dozen or fifteen riflemen were shooting at him.

When he raised his head a little he saw that the Winchester regiment had fallen back, and that, in truth, the entire advance had stopped until it could make an attack in full force upon the enemy.

Dick recognized with a certain grim humor that he was isolated. He was just a little Federal island in a Confederate sea. Up the gap he saw cannon and masses of gray infantry. Gathered on a comparatively level spot was a troop of cavalry. He saw all the signs of a desperate defense, and, while he watched, the great guns of the South began to fire again, their missiles flying far over his head toward the Northern army.

Dick was puzzled, but for the present he did not feel great alarm about himself. He lay almost midway between the hostile forces, but it was likely that they would take no notice of him.

With a judgment born of a clear mind, he lay quite still, while the hostile forces massed themselves for attack and defense. Each was feeling out the other with cannon, but every missile passed well over his head, and he did not take the trouble to bow to them as they sailed on their errands. Yet he lay close behind that splendid and friendly rock.

He knew that the Southerners would have sharpshooters and skirmishers ahead of their main force. They would lie behind stones, trees and brush and at any moment one of them might pick him off. The Confederate force seemed to incline to the side of the valley, opposite the slope on which he lay, and he was hopeful that the fact would keep him hidden until the masses of his own people could charge into the gap.

It was painful work to flatten his body out behind a stone and lie there. No trees or bushes grew near enough to give him shade, and the afternoon sun began to send down upon him direct rays that burned. He wondered how long it would be until the Union brigades came. It seemed to him that they were doing a tremendous amount of waiting. Nothing was to be gained by this long range cannon fire. They must charge home with the bayonet.

He raised himself a little in order that he might peep over the stone and see if the charge were coming, and then with a little cry he dropped back, a fine gray powder stinging his face. A rifle had been fired across the valley and a bullet chipping the top of the rock sheltering Dick warned him that he was not the only sharpshooter who lay in an ambush.

Peeping again from the side of the rock, he saw curls of blue smoke rising from a point behind a stone just like his own on the other side of the valley. It was enough to tell him that a Southern sharpshooter lay there and had marked him for prey.

Dick's anger rose. Why should anyone seek his life, trying to pick him off as if he were a beast of prey? He had been keeping quiet, disturbing nobody, merely seeking a chance to escape, when this ruthless rebel had seen him. He became in his turn hot and fiercely ready to give bullet for bullet. Smoke floating through the pass and the flash of the cannon, made him more eager to hit the sharpshooter who was seeking so hard to hit him.

Watching intently he caught a glimpse of a gray cap showing above the rock