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

He thrust out the muzzle of his gun, an' Whitley thrust out his. Then they shook them at each other in friendly salute, and the little group moved away from the river bank.

“I'm glad I've seen Bill again,” said the sergeant. “Fine feller an' that Mississippian with him was quaint like. Mighty big bragger.”

“You did some bragging yourself, sergeant,” said Dick.

“So I did, but it was in answer to Henderson. I'm glad we had that little talk across the river. It was a friendly thing to do, before we fall to slaughterin' one another.”

They rejoined Colonel Winchester, and Dick worked through a part of the night carrying orders and other messages. A great movement was going on. Fresh troops were continually coming up, but there was little noise beyond the Antietam, although he saw the light of many fires.

He slept after midnight and awoke at dawn, expecting to go at once into battle. Some of the troops were moved about and Colonel Winchester began to rage again.

“Good God! can it be possible!” he exclaimed, “that another day will be lost? Is General McClellan instead of General Lee waiting for Jackson to come? With the enemy safely within the trap, we refuse to shut it down upon him!”

He said these things only within the hearing of Dick, who he knew would never repeat them. But he was not the only one to complain. Men higher in rank than he, generals, spoke their discontent openly. Why would not McClellan attack? He had claimed that the rebels had two hundred thousand men at the Seven Days, when it was well known that half that figure or less was their true number. Why should he persist in seeing the enemy double, and even if Lee did have fifty thousand men on the other side of the Antietam, instead of the twenty thousand the scouts assigned to him, the Army of the Potomac could defeat him before Jackson came up.

But McClellan was overcome by caution. In spite of everything he doubled or tripled the numbers of the enemy. Personally brave beyond dispute, he feared for his army. The position of the enemy on the peninsula seemed to have changed somewhat through the night. He believed that the batteries had been moved about, and he telegraphed to Washington that he must find out exactly the disposition of Lee's forces and where the fords were.

Meanwhile the long, hot hours dragged on. The dust trodden up by so many marching feet was terrible. It hung in clouds and added a sting to the burning heat. Dick was wild with impatience, but he knew that it was not worth while to say anything. He, Warner and Pennington, for the lack of something else to do, lay on the dry grass, whispering and watching as well as they could what was going on in Sharpsburg.

Meanwhile Sharpsburg itself seemed a monument to peace. It was deep in dust and the sun blazed on the roofs. Staff officers rode up, and when they dismounted they lazily led their horses to the best shade that could be found. Within a residence Lee sat in close conference with his lieutenants, Stonewall Jackson and Longstreet. Now and then, they looked at the reports of brigade commanders and sometimes they studied the maps of Maryland and Virginia. Lee was calm and confident. The odds against him—and he knew what they were—apparently mattered nothing.

He knew the strength and spirit of his army and to what a pitch it was keyed by victory. Moreover, he knew McClellan, whom he had met at the Seven Days, and he believed, in truth he felt positive that McClellan would delay long enough for the remainder of Jackson's troops to come up. Upon this belief he staked the future of the Confederacy in the battle to be fought there between the Potomac and the Antietam. His troops were worn by battles and tremendous marches. Jackson's men in three days had marched sixty miles, and had fought a battle at Harper's Ferry within that time, also, taking more than thirteen thousand prisoners. Never before had the foot cavalry marched so hard.

The men in gray, ragged and many of them barefooted, slept in the woods about Sharpsburg all through the hot hours of the day. Their officers had told them that the drums and bugles would call them when needed, and they sank quietly into the deepest of slumbers. From where they lay Red Hill, a spur of a mountain, separated them from the Union army. It was only those like Dick and his comrades who mounted elevations and who had powerful field glasses who could see into Sharpsburg. The main Union force saw only the top of a church spire or two in the village. But each felt fully the presence of the other and knew that the battle could not be delayed long.

Dick, in his anxiety and excitement, fell asleep. The heat and the waiting seemed to overpower him. He did not know how long he had slept, but he was awakened by the sharp call of a trumpet, and when he sprang to his feet Warner told him it was about four o'clock.

“What's up?” he cried, as he wiped the haze of heat and dust from his eyes.

“We're about to march,” replied Warner, “but as it's so late in the day I don't think it can be a general attack. Still, I know that our division is going to cross the Antietam. Up here the stream is narrower than it is down below, and the banks are not so high. Look, the colonel is beckoning to us! Here we go!”

They sprang upon their horses, and a great corps advanced toward the Antietam, far above the town of Sharpsburg. The sun had declined in the West, and a breeze, bringing a little coolness, had begun to blow. They did not see much preparation for defense beyond the river, but as they advanced some cannon in the woods opened there. The Union cannon replied, and then the brigades in blue moved forward swiftly.

The officers and the cavalry galloped their horses into the little river and Dick felt a fierce joy as the water was dashed into his face. This was action, movement, the attack that had been delayed so long but which was not yet too late. He thought nothing of the shells hissing and shrieking over his head, and he shouted with the others in exultation as they passed the fords of the Antietam and set foot on the peninsula. The cannon dashed after them through the stream and up the bank.

A heavy rifle fire from the woods met them, but the triumphant division pressed on. They were held back at the edge of the woods by cannon aiding the rifles, and for some time a battle swayed back and forth, but the Confederate resistance ceased suddenly. Infantry and batteries disappeared in woods or beyond a ridge, and then Dick noticed that night was coming. The sun was already hidden by the lofty slopes of the western mountains, and there would be no battle that day. In another half hour full darkness would be upon them.

But Dick felt that something had been achieved. A powerful Union force was now beyond the Antietam, with its feet rooted firmly in the soil of the peninsula. It looked directly south at the Confederate army and there was no barrier between. Lee would have to face at once, Hooker on the north and McClellan on the east across the Antietam. The Union army had been numerous enough to outflank him.

Dick was quite sure of success now. They had lost two of the most precious