Part 26 (2/2)
”Nothing very singular about that, is there?”
”Rather a remarkable coincidence, I should say,” replied the captain with easy indifference, as he twirled his sword on the ground.
”I don't see it.”
”You read the poem at school, and I was in that charge.”
”You?”
”Yes, my boy. I was a captain in that brigade. But what called the circ.u.mstance to my mind was the music which struck up just now. I had a bugler in my company who played 'Hail, Columbia' during the whole of the fight.”
”'Hail, Columbia?'” demanded Somers.
”Certainly; the fellow had a fancy for that tune; and though it wasn't exactly a national thing to the British army, he always played it when he got a chance. Well, sir, I think that bugler did more than any other man in the charge of the light brigade. He never lost a note, and it fired the men up to the pitch of frenzy.”
”He was a brave fellow,” replied Somers languidly; for he was too thoroughly worn out to appreciate the stories of his veteran companion.
”He was the most determined man I ever met in my life. He was killed in the charge, poor fellow; but he had filled his bugle so full of wind, that the music did not cease till full five minutes after he was stone-dead.”
”Come, come, captain! that's a little too bad,” said Somers seriously.
”Too bad? Well, I should not be willing to take oath that the time was just five minutes after the bugler died. I did not take out my watch, and time it; and, of course, I can only give you my judgment as to the precise number of minutes.”
”You are worse than Baron Munchausen, who told a story something like that; only his was the more reasonable of the two.”
”Somers, my boy! you have got a villainously bad habit of discrediting the statements of a brother-officer and a gentleman,” said Captain de Banyan seriously.
”And you have got a bad habit of telling the most abominable stories that ever proceeded from the mouth of any man.”
”We'll drop the subject, Somers; for such discussions lead to unpleasant results. Do you see that rebel battery?” added the captain, pointing to a road a mile off, where the enemy had taken position to sh.e.l.l the Union line.
”I see it.”
The rebel battery opened fire, which was vigorously answered by the other side. The scene began to increase in interest as the cannonade extended along the whole line; and, through the entire day, there raged the most furious artillery conflict of the war. The rebel ma.s.ses were hurled time after time against the Union line; but it maintained its position like a wall of iron, while thousands of the enemy were recklessly sacrificed in the useless a.s.sault. General M---- had probably drunk more than his usual quant.i.ty of whiskey; and, though he was as brave as a lion, hundreds of his men paid the penalty with their lives of his rashness and indiscretion.
Night came again upon a victorious field, while hundreds of weeping mothers in the neighboring city sighed for the sons who would return no more to their arms; and while mothers wept, fathers groaned and sisters moaned, the grand army of the Confederacy had been beaten, and the proud rulers of an infatuated people were trembling for their own safety in the presence of the ruin with which defeat threatened them.
After the battle commenced the movement of the Army of the Potomac down the river to Harrison's Landing. The rain fell in torrents, and the single road was crowded with troops and wagons. Though the exhausted soldiers slept, even while the guns of the enemy roared in front of them, and during the brief halts which the confusion in the road caused, there was no real repose. The excitement of the battle and the retreat, and the undefinable sense of insecurity which their situation engendered, banished rest. Tired Nature a.s.serted her claims, and the men yielded to them only when endurance had reached its utmost limit.
At Harrison's Landing, the work of intrenching the position was immediately commenced; and it was some days before the army were entirely a.s.sured that defeat and capture were not still possible. The failure of the campaign was not without its effect upon the troops. They felt, that, instead of marching under their victorious banners into the enemy's capital, they had been driven from their position. It was not disaster, but it was failure. Though the soldiers were still in good condition, and as ready as ever to breast the storm of battle, they were in a measure dispirited by the misfortune.
General McClellan and General Lee had each failed to accomplish his purpose. It was the intention of the latter to send Stonewall Jackson into the rear of the Union army, cut it off from its base of supplies, and then attack in front and on the left. The plan was defeated by General McClellan's change of base, which was forced upon him by the cutting-off of his communications with the Pamunkey River. The Union generals, who were first attacked on the right, supposed they were confronted by Jackson, who had come down to flank them in this direction; while Lee intended that he should attack farther down the Peninsula. Each commanding general, to some extent, mistook the purpose of the other.
Whatever errors were made by the grand players in this mighty game, about one thing there can be no mistake--that the courage and fort.i.tude of the rank and file saved the Army of the Potomac, and pushed aside the mighty disaster in which its ruin would have involved the country. All honor to the unnamed heroes who fought those great battles, and endured hards.h.i.+ps which shall thrill the souls of Americans for ages to come!
CHAPTER XVIII
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