Part 40 (1/2)

In June, especially during the latter part of the month, Strahan and Blauvelt's letters to Marian had been brief and infrequent. The duties of the young officers were heavy, and their fatigues great.

They could give her little information forecasting the future.

Indeed, General Hooker himself could not have done this, for all was in uncertainty. Lee must be found and fought, and all that any one knew was that the two great armies would eventually meet in the decisive battle of the war.

The patient, heroic army of the Potomac, often defeated, but never conquered, was between two dangers that can be scarcely overestimated, the vast, confident hosts of Lee in Pennsylvania, and Halleck in Was.h.i.+ngton. General Hooker was hampered, interfered with, deprived of reinforcements that were kept in idleness elsewhere, and at last relieved of command on the eve of battle, because he asked that 11,000 men, useless at Harper's Ferry, might be placed under his orders. That this was a mere pretext for his removal, and an expression of Halleck's ill-will, is proved by the fact that General Meade, his successor, immediately ordered the evacuation of Harper's Ferry and was unrestrained and unrebuked. Meade, however, did not unite these 11,000 men to his army, where they might have added materially to his success, but left them far in his rear, a useless, half-way measure possibly adopted to avoid displeasing Halleck.

It would seem that Providence itself a.s.sumed the guidance of this longsuffering Union army, that had been so often led by incompetence in the field and paralyzed by interference at Was.h.i.+ngton. Even the philosophical historian, the Comte de Paris, admits this truth in remarkable language.

Neither Lee nor Meade knew where they should meet, and had under consideration various plans of action, but, writes the French historian, ”The fortune of war cut short all these discussions by bringing the two combatants into a field which neither had chosen.”

Again, after describing the region of Gettysburg, he concludes: ”Such is the ground upon which unforeseen circ.u.mstances were about to bring the two armies in hostile contact. Neither Meade nor Lee had any personal knowledge of it.”

Once more, after a vivid description of the first day's battle, in which Buford with his cavalry division, Doubleday with the First Corps, and Howard with the Eleventh, checked the rebel advance, but at last, after heroic fighting, were overwhelmed and driven back in a disorder which in some brigades resembled a rout, the Comte de Paris recognizes, in the choice of position on which the Union troops were rallied, something beyond the will and wisdom of man.

”A resistless impulse seems to spur it (the rebel army) on to battle.

It believes itself invincible. There is scorn of its adversary; nearly all the Confederate generals have undergone the contagion.

Lee himself, the grave, impa.s.sive man, will some day acknowledge that he has allowed himself to be influenced by these common illusions.

It seems that the G.o.d of Armies had designated for the Confederates the lists where the supreme conflict must take place: they cheerfully accept the alternative, without seeking for any other.”

All the world knows now that the position in the ”lists” thus ”designated” to the Union army was almost an equivalent for the thousands of men kept idle and useless elsewhere. To a certain extent the conditions of Fredericksburg are reversed, and the Confederates, in turn, must storm lofty ridges lined with artillery.

Of those days of awful suspense, the 3d, 4th, and 5th of July, the French historian gives but a faint idea in the following words: ”In the mean while, the North was anxiously awaiting for the results of the great conflict. Uneasiness and excitement were perceptible everywhere; terror prevailed in all those places believed to be within reach of the invaders. Rumors and fear exaggerated their number, and the remembrance of their success caused them to be deemed invincible.”

When, therefore, the tidings came, ”The rebel army totally defeated,”

with other statements of the victory too highly colored, a burden was lifted from loyal hearts which the young of this generation cannot gauge; but with the abounding joy and grat.i.tude there were also, in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of hundreds of thousands, sickening fear and suspense which must remain until the fate of loved ones was known.

In too vivid fancy, wives and mothers saw a b.l.o.o.d.y field strewn with still forms, and each one asked herself, ”Could I go among these, might I not recognize HIS features?”

But sorrow and fear shrink from public observation, while joy and exultation seek open expression. Before the true magnitude of the victory at Gettysburg could be realized, came the knowledge that the nation's greatest soldier, General Grant, had taken Vicksburg and opened the Mississippi.

Marian saw the deep gladness in her father's eyes and heard it in his tones, and, while she shared in his grat.i.tude and relief, her heart was oppressed with solicitude for her friends. To her, who had no near kindred in the war, these young men had become almost as dear as brothers. She was conscious of their deep affection, and she felt that there could be no rejoicing for her until she was a.s.sured of their safety. All spoke of the battle of Gettysburg as one of the most terrific combats of the world. Two of her friends must have been in the thick of it. She read the blood-stained accounts with paling cheeks, and at last saw the words, ”Captain Blauvelt, wounded; Major Strahan, wounded and missing.”

This was all. There was room for hope; there was much cause to fear the worst. From Lane there were no tidings whatever. She was oppressed with the feeling that perhaps the frank, true eyes of these loyal friends might never again look into her own. With a chill of unspeakable dread she asked herself what her life would be without these friends. Who could ever take their place or fill the silence made by their hushed voices?

Since reading the details of the recent battle her irritation against Merwyn had pa.s.sed away, and she now felt for him only pity. Her own brave spirit had been awed and overwhelmed by the accounts of the terrific cannonade and the murderous hand-to-hand struggles.

At night she would start up from vivid dreams wherein she saw the field with thousands of ghastly faces turned towards the white moonlight. In her belief Merwyn was incapable of looking upon such scenes. Therefore why should she think of him with scorn and bitterness? She herself had never before realized how terrible they were. Now that the dread emergency, with its imperative demand for manhood and action, had pa.s.sed, her heart became softened and chastened with thoughts of death. She was enabled to form a kinder judgment, and to believe it very possible that Merwyn, in the consciousness of his weakness, was suffering more than many a wounded man of sterner mettle.

On the evening of the day whereon she had read the ominous words in regard to her friends, Merwyn's card was handed to her, and, although surprised, she went down to meet him without hesitation.

His motives for this call need brief explanation.

For a time he had given way to the deepest dejection in regard to his own prospects. There seemed nothing for him to do but wait for the arrival of his mother, whom he could not welcome. He still had a lingering hope that when she came and found her ambitious dreams of Southern victory dissipated, she might be induced to give him back his freedom, and on this hope he lived. But, in the main, he was like one stunned and paralyzed by a blow, and for a time he could not rally. He had been almost sleepless for days from intense excitement and expectation, and the reaction was proportionately great. At last he thought of Strahan, and telegraphed to Mrs.

Strahan, at her country place, asking if she had heard from her son.

Soon, after receiving a negative answer, he saw, in the long lists of casualties, the brief, vague statement that Marian had found.

The thought then occurred to him that he might go to Gettysburg and search for Strahan. Anything would be better than inaction.