Part 84 (1/2)

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE WHIRLWIND

The draft of half a million men was scarcely completed when Rosecrans'

Western army, advancing into Georgia, met with crus.h.i.+ng defeat at Chickamauga, ”The River of Death.” His shattered hosts were driven back into Chattanooga with the loss of eighteen thousand men in a rout so complete and stunning that Charles A. Dana, the a.s.sistant Secretary of War, telegraphed the President from the front that it was another ”Bull Run.”

Rosecrans himself wired that he had met with a terrible disaster. The White House sent him words of cheer. The Confederate Commander, General Bragg, rapidly closed in and began to lay siege to Chattanooga, and the defeated Federal army were put on short rations.

The President turned his eyes now from Meade and his army of the Potomac which Lee's strategy had completely baffled and gave his first thought to the armies of the West. He sent Sherman hurrying from the Mississippi to Rosecrans' relief and Hooker from the East. In the place of Rosecrans he promoted George H. Thomas, whose gallant stand had saved the army from annihilation and won the t.i.tle, ”The Rock of Chickamauga.” And most important of all he placed in supreme command of the forces in Tennessee the silent man whom his patience and faith had saved to the Nation, the conqueror of Vicksburg--Ulysses S. Grant.

On November the 24th and 25th, the new Commander raised the siege of Chattanooga, and drove Bragg's army from Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain back into Georgia.

At last the President had found the man of genius for whom he had long searched. Grant was summoned to Was.h.i.+ngton and given command of all the armies of the United States East and West.

The new General at once placed William Tec.u.mseh Sherman at the head of an army of a hundred thousand men at Chattanooga for the purpose of reinvading Georgia, sent General Butler with forty thousand up the Peninsula against Richmond along the line of McClellan's old march, raised the Army of the Potomac to one hundred and forty thousand effective fighters, took command in person and faced General Lee on the banks of the Rapidan but a few miles from the old ground in the Wilderness around Chancellorsville where Hooker's men had baptized the earth in heroic blood the year before.

Grant's army was the flower of Northern manhood and with its three hundred and eighteen great field guns the best equipped body of fighting men ever brought together on our continent. His baggage train was over sixty miles long and would have stretched the entire distance to Richmond.

By the spring of 1864 when he reached the Rapidan Lee's army had been recruited again to its normal strength of sixty-two thousand.

A great religious revival swept the Southern camps during the winter and its meetings lasted into the spring almost to the hour of the opening guns of the Wilderness campaign. Had whispers from the Infinite reached the souls of the ragged men in grey and told them of coming Gethsemane and Calvary?

Certain it is that though Lee's army were ragged and poorly fed their courage was never higher, their faith in their Commander never more sublime than in those beautiful spring mornings in April when they burnished their bayonets to receive Grant's overwhelming host.

The Chaplain of Ned Vaughan's regiment was leading a prayer meeting in the moonlight. An earnest brother was praying fervently for more manhood, and more courage.

A ragged Confederate kneeling nearby didn't like the drift of his pet.i.tion and his patience gave out. He raised his head and called.

”Say, hold on there, brother! You're getting that prayer all wrong. We don't need no more courage--got so much now we're skeered of ourselves sometimes. What we need is provisions. Ask the Lord to send us something to eat. That's what we want now----”

The leader took the interruption in good spirit and added an eloquent request for at least one good meal a day if the Lord in his goodness and mercy could spare it.

No persimmon tree was ever stripped without the repet.i.tion of their old joke. They all knew the words by heart,

”Don't eat those persimmons--they're not good for you!”

”I know it, man, I'm just doin' it to pucker my stomach to fit my rations!”

Ned was pa.s.sing the door of a cabin in which a prayer meeting of officers was being held. He was walking with his Colonel who was fond of a sip of corn whiskey at times. He was slightly deaf.

The leader of the meeting called from the door:

”Won't you join us in prayer, Colonel?”

”Thank you, no, I've just had a little!” he answered innocently.

Ned roared and the brethren inside the cabin joined the laugh.

No body of men of any race ever marched to death with calmer faith than those ragged lines of grey now girding their loins for the fiercest, bloodiest struggle in the annals of the world.

Lee allowed Grant to cross the Rapidan unopposed and penetrate the tangled wilds of the Wilderness. The Southerner knew that in these dense woods the effectiveness of his opponent's superior numbers would be vastly reduced. Longstreet's corps had not yet arrived from Gordonsville where he had been sent to obtain food, and he must concentrate his forces.