Part 25 (1/2)
Harry, rising up in his stirrups, tried to see over the dense undergrowth, but patches of saplings and scrub oaks farther on hid the view. Nevertheless he caught the flash of heavy guns and saw many columns of smoke rising. It was toward their left now, and they would soon be parallel with it, whence their own guns would open a flanking fire, if any open spot or elevation could be found.
They had gone about a half mile, when Stuart uttered an exclamation and pointed to a hillock. It was not necessary to say anything, because everyone knew that this was the place for the guns.
”Now we'll drop a few sh.e.l.ls of our own among those Yankee gunners and see how they like it,” said Dalton.
The cannon were unlimbering rapidly, but the open s.p.a.ce on the hillock was so small that only one gun could be brought up, and it sent a shot toward the Union lines. The Union artillery, superb as always, marked the spot whence the shot came, and in an instant two batteries, masked by the woods, poured a terrible fire upon the hillock and those about it.
So deadly was the steel rain that the little force was put out of action at once. Harry had never beheld a more terrifying scene. Most of the horses and men around the first cannon were killed. One horse and one gunner fell dead across its wheels. Other horses, wounded and screaming with pain and fright, rushed into the dense undergrowth and were caught by the trailing vines and thrown down. Some of the cavalrymen themselves were knocked out of the saddle by the fleeing horses, but they quickly regained their seats.
A second discharge from many guns sent another rain equally as deadly upon the hillock and its vicinity. More men and horses fell, and a scene of wild confusion followed. Attempting to turn about and escape from that spot of death, the cannon crashed together. There was not room for all the men and horses and guns. Most of them were compelled to plunge into the undergrowth and struggle desperately through it for shelter.
But Harry did not forget the two generals who were worth so much to the South. It would be fate's bitterest irony if Jackson and Stuart were killed in a small flanking movement, when, as was obvious to everyone, a battle of the first magnitude was just before them. And yet, while fragments of steel, hot and hissing, fell all around them, Jackson and Stuart and all the members of their staffs escaped without hurt.
The deadly fire followed them as they retreated, but the two generals rode on, unharmed. Harry and Dalton breathed deep sighs of relief when they were out of range.
”If a bullet had gone through my left side,” said Dalton, ”it wouldn't have come near my heart.”
”Why not?”
”Because my heart was in my mouth. In fact, I don't think it has gone back yet to its natural place. The Yankees certainly have the guns.”
”And the gunners who know how to use them. But doesn't it feel good, George, to be back on the plank road?”
”It does. I'll take my chance in open battle, but when I'm tangled up among bushes and vines and briars, I do hate to have a hundred-pound sh.e.l.l fired from an invisible gun burst suddenly on the top of my head. What's all that firing off there to the left and farther on?”
”It means that some of our people have got deeper into the Wilderness than we have, and are feeling out Hooker. I imagine we won't go much farther. Look how the night's dropping down. I'd hate to pa.s.s a night alone in such a place as this Wilderness. It would be like sleeping in a graveyard.”
”You won't have to spend the night alone here. I wish I was as sure of Heaven as that. You'll have something like two hundred thousand near neighbors.”
The sun set and darkness swept over the Wilderness, but it was still lighted at many points by the flash of the firing and, after that ceased, by the campfires. Jackson's advance was at an end for the time. He was fully in touch with his enemy and understood him. Hooker had retreated as far as he would go. When the fog cleared away in the morning the men in the captive balloons had informed him that heavy Southern columns were marching toward Chancellorsville. He was sure now that the full strength of the Southern army was before him, and he continued to fortify the Chancellor House and the plateau of Hazel Grove. He also threw up log breastworks through the heavily wooded country, and his lines, bristling with artillery and defended now by six score thousand men, extended along a front of six miles.
Jackson's division lay in the Wilderness before Hooker, but out of cannon shot. All along that vast front hundreds and hundreds of pickets and riflemen on either side were keeping a vigilant watch. Jackson and his staff had dismounted and were eating their suppers around one of the campfires. The general was again impa.s.sive.
After the supper Harry walked a little distance and found the Invincibles, resting comfortably on the trodden undergrowth. The two colonels had preserved the neatness of their attire, and whatever they felt, neither showed any anxiety. But St. Clair and Langdon were free of speech.
”Well, Harry,” said Happy Tom, ”is Old Jack going to send us up against intrenchments and four to one?”
”He hasn't confided in me, but I don't think he means to do any such thing. He remembers, as even a thick-head like you, Happy, would remember, how the splendid army of Burnside beat itself to pieces against our works at Fredericksburg.”
”Well, then, why are we here?”
”There's sense in your question, Tom, but I can't answer it.”
”No, there isn't any sense in it,” interrupted St. Clair. ”Do you suppose for an instant that Lee and Jackson would bring us here if they didn't have a mighty good reason for it?”
”That's so,” admitted Happy Tom; ”but General Lee isn't here. Yes, he is! Listen to the cheering!”
They sprang to their feet and saw Lee coming through the woods on his white horse, Traveler, a roar of cheers greeting him as he advanced. Behind him came new brigades, and Harry believed that the whole Southern army was now united before Hooker.