Part 86 (1/2)

Horse and rider, Traveller and Robert Edward Lee, stood in the pale light above the Antietam. ”Gentlemen, we will not cross the Potomac to-night. If General McClellan wants to fight in the morning I will give him battle again.--And now we are all very tired. Good-night.

Good-night!”

The sun came up, dim behind the mist. The mist rose, the morning advanced. The September suns.h.i.+ne lay like vital warmth upon the height and vale, upon the Dunkard church and the wood about it, upon the cornfields, and Burnside's bridge and the b.l.o.o.d.y Lane, and upon all the dead men in the cornfields, in the woods, upon the heights, beside the stream, in the lane. The suns.h.i.+ne lay upon the dead, as the prophet upon the Shunamite's child, but it could not reanimate. Grey and blue, the living armies gazed at each other across the Antietam. Both were exhausted, both shattered, the blue yet double in numbers. The grey waited for McClellan's attack. It did not come. The ranks, lying down, began to talk. ”He ain't going to attack! He's cautious.”--”He's had enough.”--”So've I. O G.o.d!”--”Never saw such a fight. Wish those buzzards would go away from that wood over there! They're so dismal.”--”No, McClellan ain't going to attack!”--”Then why don't we attack?”--”Go away, Johnny! We're mighty few and powerfully tired.”--”Well, _I_ think so, too. We might just as well attack. Great big counter stroke! Crumple up Meade and Doubleday and Ricketts over there! Turn their right!”--”'T ain't impossible! Ma.r.s.e Robert and Old Jack could manage it.”--”No, they couldn't!”--”Yes, they could!”--”You're a fool! Look at that position, stronger 'n Thunder Run Mountain, and Hooker's got troops he didn't have in yesterday! 'N those things like beehives in a row are Parrotts 'n Whitworths' 'n Blakeley's.

'N then look at _us_. Oh, yes! we've got _spirit_, but spirit's got to have a body to rush those guns.”--”Thar ain't anything Old Jack couldn't do if he tried!”--”Yes, there is!” ”Thar ain't! How _dast_ you say that?”--”There is! He couldn't be a fool if he tried--and he ain't a-going to try!”

The artillerist, Stephen D. Lee, came to headquarters on the knoll by Sharpsburg. ”General Lee sent for me. Tell him, please, I am here.” Lee appeared. ”Good-morning, Colonel Lee. You are to go at once to General Jackson. Tell him that I sent you to report to him.” The officer found Stonewall Jackson at the Dunkard church. ”General, General Lee sent me to report to you.”

”Good, good! Colonel, I wish you to take a ride with me. We will go to the top of the hill yonder.”

They went up to the top of the hill, past dead men and horses, and much wreckage of caissons and gun wheels. ”There are probably sharpshooters in that wood across the stream,” said Jackson. ”Do not expose yourself unnecessarily, colonel.” Arrived at the level atop they took post in a little copse, wildly torn and blackened, a wood in Artillery h.e.l.l. ”Take your gla.s.ses, colonel, and examine the enemy's line of battle.”

The other lifted the field-gla.s.s and with it swept the Antietam, and the fields and ridges beyond it. He looked at the Federal left, and he looked at the Federal centre, and he looked along the Federal right, which was opposite, then he lowered the gla.s.ses. ”General, they have a very strong position, and they are in great force.”

”Good! I wish you to take fifty pieces of artillery and crush that force.”

Stephen D. Lee was a brave man. He said nothing now, but he stood a moment in silence, and then he took his field-gla.s.s and looked again. He looked now at the many and formidable Federal batteries cl.u.s.tered like dark fruit above the Antietam, and now at the ma.s.ses of blue infantry, and now at the positions, under artillery and musketry fire, which the Confederate batteries must take. He put the gla.s.s down again. ”Yes, general. Where shall I get the fifty guns?”

”How many have you?”

”I had thirty. Some were lost, a number disabled. I have twelve.”

”Just so. Well, colonel, I could give you a few, and General Lee tells me he can furnish some.”

The other fingered a b.u.t.ton on his coat for a moment, then, ”Yes, general. Shall I go for the guns?”

”No, not yet.” Stonewall Jackson laid his large hands in their worn old brown gauntlets, one over the other, upon his saddle bow. He, too, looked at the Federal right and the guns on the heights like dark fruit.

His eyes made just a glint of blue light below the forage cap. ”Colonel Lee, can you crush the Federal right with fifty guns?”

The artillerist drew a quick breath, let the b.u.t.ton alone, and raised his head higher. ”I can try, general. I can do it if any one can.”

”That is not what I asked you, sir. If I give you fifty guns can you crush the Federal right?”

The other hesitated. ”General, I don't know what you want of me. Is it my technical opinion as an artillery officer? or do you want to know if I will make the attempt? If you give me the order of course I will make it!”

”Yes, colonel. But I want your positive opinion, yes or no. Can you crush the Federal right with fifty guns?”

The artillerist looked again, steadying arm and gla.s.s against a charred bough. ”General, it cannot be done with fifty guns and the troops you have here.”

Hilltop and withered wood hung a moment silent in the air, sunny but yet with a taste of all the powder that had been burned. Then said Jackson, ”Good! Let us ride back, colonel.”

They turned their horses, but Stephen Lee with some emotion began to put the case. ”You forced me, general, to say what I did say. If you send the guns, I beg of you not to give them to another! I will fight them to the last extremity--” He looked to the other anxiously. To say to Stonewall Jackson that you must despair and die where he sent you in to conquer!

But Jackson had no grimness of aspect. He looked quietly thoughtful. It was even with a smile of sweetness that he cut short the other's pleading. ”It's all right, colonel, it's all right! Everyone knows that you are a brave officer and would fight the guns well.” At the foot of the hill he checked Little Sorrel. ”We'll part here, colonel. You go at once to General Lee. Tell him all that has happened since he sent you to me. Tell him that you examined the Federal position. Tell him that I forced you to give the technical opinion of an artillery officer, and tell him what that opinion is. That is all, colonel.”

The September day wore on. Grey and blue armies rested inactive save that they worked at burying the dead. Then, in the afternoon, information came to grey headquarters. Humphrey's division, pouring through the gaps of South Mountain, would in a few hours be at McClellan's service. Couch's division was at hand--there were troops a.s.sembling on the Pennsylvania border. At dark Lee issued his orders.

During the night of the eighteenth the Army of Northern Virginia left the banks of the Antietam, wound silently down to the Potomac, and crossed to the Virginia sh.o.r.e.

All night there fell a cold, fine, chilling rain. Through it the wagon trains crossed, the artillery with a sombre noise, the wounded who must be carried, the long column of infantry, the advance, the main, the rear. The corps of Stonewall Jackson was the last to ford the river. He sat on Little Sorrel, midway of the stream, and watched his troops go onward in the steady, chilling rain. Daybreak found him there, motionless as a figure in bronze, needing not to care for wind or sun or rain.

The Army of Northern Virginia encamped on the road to Martinsburg.