Part 17 (1/2)

The great Southern line, blazing with fire and steel, advanced, never stopping for a moment, while the fire of their cannon beat incessantly upon the devoted brigades. It was well for the Northern army, well for the Union that here was the Rock of Chickamauga. Amid all the terrible uproar and the yet more terrible danger, Thomas never lost his courage and presence of mind for a moment. d.i.c.k saw him more than once, and he knew how he doubly and triply earned the famous name which that day and the next were to give him.

But the weight was so tremendous that they began to give ground. They went back slowly, but they went back. d.i.c.k felt as if the whole weight were pressing upon his own chest, and when he tried to shout no words would come.

Back they went, inch by inch, leaving the ground covered with their dead. d.i.c.k was conscious only of a vast roar and shouting and the continuous blaze of cannon and rifles in his very face. But he understood the immensity of the crisis. By a huge victory in the West the Confederacy would redress the loss of Gettysburg in the East. And now it seemed that they were gaining it. For the first and only time in the war they had the larger numbers in a great battle, and the ground was of their own choosing.

Elated over success gained and greater success hoped, the Southern leaders poured their troops continually upon Thomas. If they could break that wing, cut it off in fact, and rush in at the gap, they would be between Rosecrans and Chattanooga and the Northern army would be doomed. They made gigantic efforts. The cavalry charged again and again. Huge ma.s.ses of infantry hurled themselves upon the brigades of Thomas, and every gun that could be brought into action poured shot and sh.e.l.l into his lines.

Many of the young as well as the old officers in Thomas' corps felt the terrible nature of the crisis. d.i.c.k knew despite the hideous turmoil that Thomas was the chief target of the Southern army. He divined that the fortunes of the Union were swinging in the balance there among those Tennessee hills and valleys. If Thomas were shattered the turn of Grant farther south would come next. Vicksburg would have been won in vain and the Union would be broken in the West.

Order and cohesion were lost among many of the regiments, but the men stood firm. The superb, democratic soldier fought for himself and he, too, understood the crisis. They re-formed without orders and fought continuously against overwhelming might. Ground and guns were lost, but they made their enemy pay high for everything, and the slow retreat never became a panic.

”We're going back,” shouted Warner in d.i.c.k's ear. ”Yes, we're going back, but we'll come forward again. They'll never crush the old man.”

Yet the pressure upon them never ceased. Bragg and his staff had the right idea. Had anyone but Thomas stood before them they would have shattered the Union left long since, but his slow, calm mind rose to its greatest heights in the greatest danger. He understood everything and he was resolved that his wing should not be broken. Wherever the line seemed weakest he thrust in a veteran regiment, and he went quickly back and forth, observing with a measuring eye every s.h.i.+ft and change of the battle.

The Winchester regiment in its new position was still among the gullies and bushes, and they were thankful for such shelter. Although veterans now, most were lads, and they did not scorn to take cover whenever they could. For a little while they did not reply to the enemy's fire, but lay waiting and seeking to get back the breath which seemed to be driven from their bodies by the very violence of the concussion. Shrapnel, grape and canister whistled incessantly over their heads, and on either flank the thunder of the battle swelled rapidly.

The Southern attack was spreading along the whole front, and it was made with unexampled vigor. It even excelled the fiery rush at Stone River, and the generals on both sides were largely the same that had fought the earlier great battle. Polk, the bishop-general, still led one wing for the South, Buckner ma.s.sed Kentuckians who faced Kentuckians on the other side, and Longstreet and Hill were to play their great part for the South. Resolved to win a victory, the veteran generals spared nothing, and the little Chickamauga, so singularly named by the Indians ”the river of death,” was running red.

d.i.c.k crouched lower as the storm of sh.e.l.ls swept over him. Despite all his experience impulse made him bow his head while the whistling death pa.s.sed by. He felt a little shame that he, an officer, should seek protection, but when he stole a look he saw that all the others, Colonel Winchester included, were doing the same. Sergeant Whitley had sunk down the lowest of them all, and, catching d.i.c.k's glance, he said in clear, low tones audible under the storm: ”Pardon me for saying it to you, an officer, Mr. Mason, but it's our business not to get killed when it's not needed, so we can save ourselves to be killed when it is needed.”

”I suppose you're right, Sergeant. At any rate I'm glad enough to keep under cover, but do you see anything in those woods over there? We're on the extreme left flank here, and maybe they're trying to overlap us.”

”I think I do. Men with rifles are in there. I'll speak to the colonel.”

He crawled to Colonel Winchester, who was crouched a dozen feet away, and pointed to the wood, or rather thicket of scrub. But d.i.c.k meanwhile saw increasing numbers of men there. They were beyond the line of battle and were not obscured by the clouds of smoke. As he stared he saw a weazened figure under an enormous, broad-brimmed hat, and, although he could not discern the face at the distance, he knew that it was Slade, come with a new and perhaps larger body of riflemen to burn away the extreme left flank of the Union force.

As the colonel and the sergeant crawled back d.i.c.k told them what he had seen, and they recognized at once the imminence of the danger. Colonel Winchester looked at the great columns of fire and smoke in front of him. He did not know when the main attack would sweep down upon them again, but he took his resolution at once.

He ordered his men to wheel about, and, using Slade's own tactics, to creep forward with their rifles. Most of his men were sharpshooters and he felt that they would be a match for those whom the guerrilla led. Sergeant Whitley kept by his side, and out of a vast experience in border warfare advised him.

d.i.c.k, Warner and Pennington armed themselves with rifles of the fallen, and they felt fierce thrills of joy as they crept forward. Burning with the battle fever, and enraged against this man Slade, d.i.c.k put all his soul in the man-hunt. He merely hoped that Victor Woodville was not there. He would fire willingly at any of the rest.

Before they had gone far Slade and his riflemen began to fire. Bullets pattered all about them, clipping twigs and leaves and striking sparks from stones.

Had the fire been unexpected it would have done deadly damage, but all of the Winchesters, as they liked to call themselves, had kept under cover, and were advancing Indian fas.h.i.+on. And now a consuming rage seized them all. They felt as if an advantage had been taken of them. While they were fighting a great battle in front a sly foe sought to ambush them. They did not hate the Southern army which charged directly upon them, but they did hate this band of sharpshooters which had come creeping through the woods to pick them off, and they hated them collectively and individually.

It was d.i.c.k's single and fierce desire at that moment to catch sight of Slade, whom he would shoot without hesitation if the chance came. He looked for him continually as he crept from bush to bush, and he withheld his fire until fortune might bring into his view the flaps of that enormous hat. The whole vast battle of Chickamauga pa.s.sed from his mind. He was concentrated, heart and soul, upon this affair of outposts in the thickets.

Men around him were firing, and the bullets in return were knocking up the leaves about him, but d.i.c.k's finger did not yet press the trigger. The great hat was still hidden from view, but he heard Slade's whistle calling to his men. Sergeant Whitley was by the lad's side, and he glanced at him now and then. The wise sergeant read the youth's face, and he knew that he was upon a quest, a deadly one.

”Is it Slade you're looking for, Mr. Mason?” he asked.

”Yes, I want him!”

”Well, if we see him, and you miss him, I think I'll take a shot at him myself.”

But Slade, crafty and cunning, kept himself well hidden. The two bands fighting this Indian combat, while the great battle raged so near them, were now very near to each other, but as they had both thickets and a rocky outcrop for refuge, they fought from hiding. Nevertheless many fell. d.i.c.k, the ferocity of the man-hunt continuing to burn his brain, sought everywhere for Slade. Often he heard his silver whistle directing his troop, but the man himself remained invisible. In his eagerness the lad rose too high, but the sergeant pulled him down in time, a bullet whistling a second later through the air where his head had been.

”Careful, Mr. Mason! Careful!” said Sergeant Whitley. ”It won't do you much good for one of his men to get you while you are trying to get him!”

d.i.c.k became more cautious. At last he caught a glimpse of the great hat that he could not mistake, and, aiming very carefully, he fired. Then he uttered an angry cry. He had missed, and when the sergeant was ready to pull the trigger also Slade was gone.

Now, the colonel called to his men, and rising they charged into the wood. It was evidently no part of Slade's plan to risk destruction as he blew a long high call on his whistle, and then he and all his men save the dead melted away like shadows. The Winchesters stood among the trees, gasping and staunching their wounds, but victorious.

Now they had only a few moments for rest. Bugles called and they rushed back to their old position just as the Southern cavalry, sabers circling aloft swept down upon them again. They went once more through that terrible turmoil of fire and flas.h.i.+ng steel, and a second time the Winchesters were victorious. But they could have stood no more, and Thomas watching everything hurried to their relief a regiment, which formed up before them to give them breathing time.

The young soldiers threw themselves panting upon the ground, and were a.s.sailed by a burning thirst. The canteens were soon emptied, and still their lips and throats were parched. Exhausted by their tremendous exertions, many of them sank into a stupor, although the battle was at its zenith and the earth shook with the crash of the heavy batteries.

”General Thomas has had news that we're driven in elsewhere,” said d.i.c.k.

”And we've yielded ground here, too,” said Warner.

”But so slowly that it's been only a glacial movement. We've made 'em pay such a high price that I think old 'Pap' can boast he has held his ground.”

d.i.c.k did not know it then nor did the general himself, but 'Pap' Thomas could boast of far more than having held his ground. His long and stubborn resistance, his skill in moving his troops from point to point at the right time, his coolness and judgment in weighing and measuring everything right, in all the vast turmoil, confusion and uncertainty of a great battle, had saved the Northern army from destruction.

Now, as the Winchester men lay gasping behind the fresh regiment, Thomas, who continually pa.s.sed along the line of battle, came among them. He was a soldier's soldier, a soldier's general, and he spoke encouraging words, most of which they could not hear amid the roar of the battle, but his calm face told their import, and fresh courage came into their hearts.

The news spread gradually that Thomas only was holding fast, but now his men instead of being discouraged were filled with pride. It was they and they alone whom the Southerners could not overwhelm, and Thomas and his generals inspired them with the belief that they were invincible. Charge after charge broke against them. More ground was yielded, but at the same immense price, and the corps, sullen, indomitable, maintained its order, always presenting a front to the foe, blazing with death.

Thomas stood all day, while the Southern ma.s.ses, flushed by victory everywhere else, pressed harder. Terrible reports of defeat and destruction came to him continually, but he did not flinch. He turned the same calm face to everything, and said to the generals that whatever happened they would keep their own front unbroken.

The day closed with the men of Thomas still grim and defiant. The dead lay in heaps along their front, but as the darkness settled down on the unfinished battle they meant to fight with equal valor and tenacity on the morrow. The first day had favored the South, had favored it largely, but on the Union left hope still flamed high.

Darkness swept over the sanguinary field. A cold wind of autumn blew off the hills and mountains, and the men s.h.i.+vered as they lay on the ground, but Thomas allowed no fires to be lighted. Food was brought in the darkness, and those who could find them wrapped themselves in blankets. Between the two armies lay the hecatombs of dead and the thousands of wounded.

d.i.c.k, his comrades and the rest of the regiment sat together in a little open s.p.a.ce behind a thicket. It was to be their position for the fighting next day. Thomas, pa.s.sing by, had merely given them an approving look, and then had gone on to re-form his lines elsewhere. d.i.c.k knew that all through the night he would be conferring with his commander, Rosecrans, McCook and the others, and he knew, too, that many of the Union soldiers would be at work, fortifying, throwing up earthworks, and cutting down trees for abattis. He heard already the ring of the axes.

But the Winchester men rested for the present. Nature had made their own position strong with a low hill, and a thicket in front. They lay upon the ground, sheltering themselves from the cold wind, which cut through bodies relaxed and almost bloodless after such vast physical exertions and excitement so tremendous.

CHAPTER XIV. THE ROCK OF CHICKAMAUGA

d.i.c.k, after eating the cold food which was served to him, sank into a state which was neither sleep nor stupor. It was a mystic region between the conscious and the unconscious, in which all things were out of proportion, and some abnormal.

He saw before him a vast stretch of dead blackness which he knew nevertheless was peopled by armed hosts ready to spring upon them at dawn. The darkness and silence were more oppressive than sound and light, even made by foes, would have been. It numbed him to think there was so little of stirring life, where nearly two hundred thousand men had fought.

Then a voice arose that made him s.h.i.+ver. But it was only the cold wind from the mountains whistling a dirge. Nevertheless it seemed human to d.i.c.k. It was at once a lament and a rebuke. He edged over a little and touched Warner.

”Is that you, d.i.c.k?” asked the Vermonter.

”What's left of me. I've one or two wounds, mere scratches, George, but I feel all pumped out. I'm like one of those empty wine-skins that you read about, empty, all dried up, and ready to be thrown away.”

”Something of the same feeling myself, d.i.c.k. I'm empty and dried up, too, but I'm not ready to be thrown away. Nor are you. We'll fill up in the night. Our hearts will pump all our veins full of blood again, and we'll be ready to go out in the morning, and try once more to get killed.”