Part 36 (1/2)
Harry and Dalton rejoined the staff, bringing with them no information of value, and they marched slowly on another day, camping in the cool of the evening, both armies now being lost to the anxious world that waited and sought to find them.
Lee himself, as Harry gathered from the talk about him, was uncertain. He did not wish a battle now, but his advance toward the Susquehanna had been stopped by the news that the Army of the Potomac could cut in behind. The corps of Ewell had been recalled, and Harry, as he rode to it with a message from his general, saw his old friends again. They were in a tiny village, the name of which he forgot, and Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire, sitting in the main room of what was used as a tavern in times of peace, had resumed the game of chess, interrupted so often. Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire was in great glee, just having captured a p.a.w.n, and Colonel Talbot was eager and sure of revenge, when Harry entered and stated that he had delivered an order to General Ewell to fall back yet farther.
”Most untimely! Most untimely!” exclaimed Colonel Talbot, as they rapidly put away the board and chessmen. ”I was just going to drive Hector into a bad corner, when you came and interrupted us.”
”You are my superior officer, Leonidas,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, ”but remember that this superiority applies only to military rank. I a.s.sert now, with all respect to your feelings, that in regard to chess it does not exist, never has and never will.”
”Opinions, Hector, are-opinions. Time alone decides whether they are or are not facts. But our corps is to fall back, you say, Harry? What does it signify?”
”I think, Colonel, that it means a great battle very soon. It is apparent that General Lee thinks so, or he would not be concentrating his troops so swiftly. The Army of the Potomac is somewhere on our flank, and we shall have to deal with it.”
”So be it. The Invincibles are few but ready.”
Harry rode rapidly back to Lee with the return message from Ewell, and found him going into camp on the eve of the last day of June. The weather was hot and scarcely any tents were set, nearly everybody preferring the open air. Harry delivered his message, and General Lee said to him, with his characteristic kindness:
”You'd better go to sleep as soon as you can, because I shall want you to go on another errand in the morning to a place called Gettysburg.”
Gettysburg! Gettysburg! He had never heard the name before and it had absolutely no significance to him now. But he saluted, withdrew, procured his blankets and joined Dalton.
”The General tells me, George, that I'm to go to Gettysburg,” he said. ”What's Gettysburg, and why does he want me to go there?”
”I'm to be with you, Harry, and we're both going with a flying column, in order that we may report upon its conduct and achievements. So I've made inquiries. It's a small town surrounded by hills, but it's a great center for roads. We're going there because it's got a big shoe factory. Our role is to be that of shoe buyers. Harry, stick out your feet at once!”
Harry thrust them forward.
”One sole worn through. The heel gone from the other shoe, and even then you're better off than most of us. Lots of the privates are barefooted. So you needn't think that the role of shoe buyer is an ignominious one.”
”I'll be ready,” said Harry. ”Call me early in the morning, George. We're a long way from home, and the woods are not full of friends. Getting up here in these Pennsylvania hills, one has to look pretty hard to look away down South in Dixie.”
”That's so, Harry. A good sleep to you, and to-morrow, as shoe buyers, we'll ride together to Gettysburg.”
He lay between his blankets, went quickly to sleep and dreamed nothing of Gettysburg, of which he had heard for the first time that day.
CHAPTER XII
THE ZENITH OF THE SOUTH
The sun of the first day of July, which was to witness the beginning of the most tremendous event in the history of America, dawned hot and clouded with vapors. They hung in the valleys, over the steep stony hills and along the long blue slopes of South Mountain. The mists made the country look more fantastic to Harry, who was early in the saddle. The great uplifts and projections of stone a.s.sumed the shapes of castles and pyramids and churches.
Over South Mountain, on the west, heavy black clouds floated, and the air was close and oppressive.
”Rain, do you think?” said Harry to Dalton.
”No, just a sultry day. Maybe a wind will spring up and drive away all these clouds and vapors. At least, I hope so. There's the bugle. We're off on our shoe campaign.”
”Who leads us?”
”We go with Pettigrew, and Heth comes behind. In a country so thick with enemies it's best to move only in force.”