Part 80 (1/2)

”No--you had to do it.”

”Grant then,” the persuasive voice went on, ”that I have treated you unfairly, that I had personal feelings. Surely you should in this hour of my reckoning, this hour of my Golgotha, when I climb the hill alone and ask the man I have wronged to take my place--surely you should be content with my humiliation? I shall not hesitate to proclaim it from the housetop when I ask for your election. If I have wronged you, my anguish could not be more pitifully complete! Will you do as I ask, and a.s.sure the safety of our country?”

”I'll do my best to save my country,” was the slow, firm answer, ”but in my own way.”

The General rose, bowed stiffly and left the President standing in sorrowful silence, his deep eyes staring into s.p.a.ce and seeing nothing.

On the morning of July 1st the two armies were rapidly approaching each other, marching in parallel lines stretched over a vast distance--the extreme wings more than forty miles apart.

Buford, commanding the advance guard of the Union army, struck Hill's division of the Confederates before the town of Gettysburg and the first gun of the great battle echoed over the green hills and valleys of Pennsylvania.

The President caught the flash of the shock from the telegraph wires with a sense of sickening dread. The rear guard of his army was yet forty miles away. What might happen before they were in line G.o.d alone could tell. He could not know, of course, that but twenty-two thousand Confederates had reached the field and stood confronting twenty-four thousand under John F. Reynolds, one of the ablest and bravest generals of the Union army.

Through every hour of this awful day he sat in the telegraph office of the War Department and read with bated breath the news.

The brief reports were not rea.s.suring. The battle was raging with unparalleled fury. At ten o'clock General Reynolds fell dead from his horse in front of his men, and when the news was flashed to Meade he sent Hanc.o.c.k forward riding at full speed to take command.

The President read the message announcing Reynolds' death with quivering lip. He put his big hand blindly over his heart as if about to faint.

At three o'clock the smoke which had enveloped the battle line was lifted by a breeze as Hanc.o.c.k dashed on the field. He had not arrived a moment too soon. His superb bearing on his magnificent horse, his shouts of confidence, his promise of heavy reinforcements, stayed the tide of retreat and brought order out of chaos.

The day had been won again by Lee's apparently invincible men. They had driven the Union army from their line a mile in front of Gettysburg back through the town and beyond it, captured the town, taken five thousand men in blue prisoners with two generals, besides inflicting a loss of three thousand killed and wounded, including among the dead the gallant and popular commander, John F. Reynolds.

When this message reached the President late at night he had eaten nothing since breakfast. He rose from his seat in the telegraph office and walked from the building alone in silence. His step was slow, trance-like, and uncertain as if he were only half awake or had risen walking in his sleep.

He went to his bedroom, locked the door and fell on his knees in prayer.

Hour after hour he wrestled alone with G.o.d in the darkness, while his tired army rushed through the night to plant themselves on the Heights beyond Gettysburg, before Lee's men could be concentrated to forestall them.

Over and over again, through sombre eyes that streamed with tears, the pa.s.sionate cry was wrung from his heart:

”Lord G.o.d of our fathers, have mercy on us! I have tried to make this war yours--our cause yours--if I have sinned and come short, forgive! We cannot endure another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. Into thy hands, O Lord, I give our men and our country this night--save them!”

CHAPTER x.x.x

SUNs.h.i.+NE AND STORM

When the sun rose over Gettysburg on the second day of July, the Union army, rus.h.i.+ng breathlessly through the night to the rescue of its defeated advance corps, had reached the heights beyond the town. Before Longstreet had attempted to obey Lee's command to take these hills, General Meade's blue host had reached them and were entrenching themselves.

The Confederate Commander discovered that in the death of Jackson, he had lost his right arm.

It was one o'clock before Longstreet moved to the attack, hurling his columns in reckless daring against these bristling heights. When darkness drew its kindly veil over the scene, Lee's army had driven General Sickles from his chosen position to his second line of defense on the hill behind, gained a foothold in the famous Devil's Den at the base of the Round Tops, broken the lines of the Union right and held their fortifications on Culp's Hill.

The day had been one of frightful slaughter.

The Union losses in the two days had reached the appalling total of more than twenty thousand men. Lee had lost fifteen thousand.

The brilliant July moon rose and flooded this field of blood and death with silent glory. From every nook and corner, from every shadow and across every open s.p.a.ce, through the hot breath of the night, came the moans of thousands, and louder than all the long agonizing cries for water. Many a man in grey crawled over the ragged rocks to press his canteen to the lips of his dying enemy in blue, and many a boy in blue did as much for the man in grey.

Fifteen thousand wounded men lay there through the long black hours.