Part 18 (2/2)

But however violent the charge, and however tremendous the fire of cannon and rifles, the Rock of Chickamauga merely sank deeper in the soil, and nothing could drive him from his base. The Union dead heaped up, regiments were shattered by the Southern fire, but Thomas, calm, and, inspiring courage as on the day before, pa.s.sed here and there, strengthening the weak points, and sending many great guns to the crest of Missionary Ridge, whence they swept the front of the enemy with a devastating fire.

The hail of death from the heights enabled the infantry and cavalry below to gather breath and strength for the new attacks of the enemy. They knew, too, that their cannon were now giving them more help than before, and defiant cheers swept along the line in answer to the mighty battle cry of the South. The Rock of Chickamauga had not moved a foot.

d.i.c.k caught gleams of the sun through the smoky canopy, but he did not know how far the day had advanced. He seemed to have been in battle many hours, but in such moments one had little knowledge of time. He was aware that the battle had been lost in the center and on the right, but he had sublime faith in Thomas. The left would stand, and while it stood the South could win but a barren triumph.

The peril was imminent and deadly. A strong Southern force, having cut through another portion of the line, was endeavoring to take Thomas on the flank. Rosecrans, seeing the danger and almost in despair, sent Thomas orders which his stern lieutenant fortunately could not obey. The rock did not move.

Bragg, an able leader, increased the attack upon Thomas. His generals gathered around him, and seconded his efforts. Their view was better than that of the Union commanders, and they knew it was vital to them to move the rock from their path. Brigades, already victorious on other parts of the field, came up, and were hurled, shouting their triumphant battle cry against Thomas, only to be hurled back again.

The resolution of the defenders increased with their success. A sort of fever seized upon them all. Death had become a little thing, or it was forgotten. The blood in their veins was fire, and, transported out of themselves, they rained sh.e.l.ls and bullets upon men whom in their calm moments they did not hate at all.

d.i.c.k's regiment had suffered with the rest, but Pennington and Warner and the colonel were alive, and he caught a few glimpses of Hertford with his gallant hors.e.m.e.n beating back every attack upon their flank. But nothing stood out with sharp precision. The whole was a huge turmoil of fire, smoke, confusion and death. The weight upon them seemed at last to become overwhelming. In spite of courage the most heroic, and dreadful losses, the right of Thomas was driven back, his center was compelled to wheel about, but his left where the Winchester regiment stood with others held on. Thomas himself was there among them, still cool and impa.s.sive in face of threatened ruin.

About twenty thousand men were around Thomas, and they alone stood between the Union army and destruction. At all other points it had been not only defeated, but routed. Vast ma.s.ses of fugitives were fleeing toward Chattanooga. Rosecrans himself withdrew, and, now wholly in despair, telegraphed at four o'clock in the afternoon to Was.h.i.+ngton: ”My army has been whipped and routed.”

But Thomas was neither routed nor whipped. Many of the brave generals elsewhere refused to flee with the troops, but gathering as many soldiers as possible joined Thomas. Among them was young Sheridan, destined to so great a fame, who brought almost all his own division and stood beside the Rock of Chickamauga, refusing to yield any further to the terrible pressure.

The line of Thomas' army was now almost a semicircle. Polk was leading violent attacks upon his left and center. Longstreet, used to victory, was upon his right and behind him, and the veterans from the Army of Northern Virginia had never fought better.

d.i.c.k saw the enemy all around him, and he began to lose hope. How could they stand against such numbers? And if they tried to retreat there was Longstreet to cut off the way. He b.u.mped against Sergeant Whitley in the smoke and gasped out: ”We're done for, Sergeant! We're done for!”

”No, we're not!” shouted the sergeant, firing into the advancing ma.s.s. ”We'll beat 'em back. They can't run over us!”

The sergeant, usually so cool, was a little mad. He was wounded in the head, and the blood had run down over his face, dyeing it scarlet. His brain was hot as with fire, and he hurled epithets at the enemy. His life on the plains came back to him, and, for the time, he was like a hurt Sioux chief who defies his foes. He called them names. He dared them to come on. He mocked them. He told them how they had attacked in vain all day long. He counted the number of their repulses and then exaggerated them. He reminded them it was yet a long time until dark, and asked them why they hesitated, why they did not come forward and meet the death that was ready for them.

d.i.c.k gazed at him in astonishment. He heard many of his words through the roar of the guns, and he saw his ensanguined face, through which his eyes burned like two red-hot coals. Was this the quiet and kindly Sergeant Whitley whom he had known so long? No, it was a raging tiger. Still waters run deep, and, enveloped, at last, with the fury of battle the sergeant welcomed wounds, death or anything else it might bring.

He shouted and fired his rifle again. Then he fell like a log. d.i.c.k rushed to him at once, but he saw that he had only fainted from loss of blood. He bound up the sergeant's head as best he could, and, easing him against a bank, returned to the battle front.

A shout suddenly arose. Officers had seen through their gla.s.ses a column of dust rising far behind them. It was so vast that it could only be made by a great body of marching troops. But who were the men that were making it? In all the frightful din and excitement of the battle the question ran through the army of Thomas. If fresh enemies were coming upon their rear they were lost! If friends there was yet hope!

But they could not watch the tower of dust long. The enemy in front gave them no chance. Polk was still beating upon them, and Longstreet, having seized a ridge, was pouring an increased fire from his advanced position.

”If that cloud of dust encloses gray uniforms we're lost!” shouted Warner in d.i.c.k's ear.

”But it mustn't enclose 'em,” d.i.c.k shouted back. ”Fate wouldn't play us such an awful trick! We can't lose, after having done and suffered so much!”

Fate would not say which. They could not send men to see, but as they fought they watched the cloud coming nearer and nearer, and d.i.c.k, whose lips had been moving for some time, realized suddenly that he was praying. ”O G.o.d, save us! save us!” he was saying over and over. ”Send the help to us who need it so sorely. Make us strong, O G.o.d, to meet our enemies!”

He and all his comrades wore masks of dust and burned gunpowder, often stained with scarlet. Their clothing was torn by bullets and reddened by dripping wounds. When they shouted to one another their voices came strained and husky from painful throats. Half the time they were blinded by the smoke and blaze of the firing. The crash did not seem so loud to them now, because they were partly deafened for the time by a cannonade of such violence and length.

d.i.c.k looked back once more at the great cloud of dust which was now much nearer, but there was nothing yet to indicate what it bore within, the bayonets of the North or those of the South. His anxiety became almost intolerable.

Thomas himself stood at that moment entirely alone in a clump of trees on the elevation called Horseshoe Ridge, watching the battle, seeing the enemy in overpowering numbers on both his flanks and even in his rear. Apparently everything was lost. Taciturn, he never described his feelings then, but in his soul he must have admired the magnificent courage with which his troops stood around him, and repelled the desperate a.s.saults of a foe resolved to win. Although his face grew grimmer and his teeth set hard, he, too, must have watched the approaching cloud of dust with the most terrible anxiety. If it bore enemies in its bosom, then in very truth everything would be lost.

Down a road some miles from the battlefield a force of eight thousand men had been left as a reserve for one of the armies. They had long heard the terrific cannonade which was sending shattering echoes through the mountains, and both their chief and his second in command were eager to rush to the t.i.tanic combat. They could not obtain orders from their commander, but, at last, they marched swiftly to the field, all the eight thousand on fire with zeal to do their part.

It was the eight thousand who were making the great cloud of dust, and, as they came nearer and nearer, the suspense of Thomas' shattered brigades grew more terrible. d.i.c.k, reckless of sh.e.l.l and bullets, tried to pierce the cloud with his eyes. He caught a glimpse of a flag and uttered a wild shout of joy. It was the stars and stripes. The eight thousand were eight thousand of the North! He danced up and down on the stump, and shouted at the top of his voice: ”They're our own men! Help is here! Help is here!”

A vast shout of relief rose from Thomas' army as the eight thousand still coming swiftly joined them. Granger was their leader, but Steedman, his lieutenant, galloped at once to Thomas, who still stood in the clump of trees, and asked him what he wanted him to do. The general, calm and taciturn as ever, pointed toward a long hill that flamed with the enemy's guns, and said three words: ”Take that ridge!”

Steedman galloped back and the eight thousand charged at once. The battle in front sank a little, as if the others wished to watch the new combat. d.i.c.k had been dragged down from the stump by Warner, but the two stood erect with Pennington, their eyes turned toward the ridge. Colonel Winchester was near them, his attention fixed upon the same place.

The eight thousand firing their rifles and supported by artillery charged at a great pace. The whole ridge blazed with fire, and the dead and wounded went down in sheaves. But d.i.c.k could not see that they faltered. Hoa.r.s.e shouts came again from his dry and blackened lips: ”They will take it! they will take it! Look how they face the guns!” he was crying.

”So they will!” said Warner. ”See what a splendid charge! Now they're hidden! What a column of smoke! It floats aside, and, look, our men are still going on! Nothing can stop them! They must have lost thousands, but they reach the slope, and as sure as there's a sun in the heavens they're going up it!”

That tremendous cheer burst again from the beleaguered Union army. Granger and Steedman, with their fresh troops, were rus.h.i.+ng up the slopes of the formidable ridge, and though three thousand of the eight thousand fell, they took it, hurling back the advancing columns of the South, and securing the rear of Thomas.

Then the Winchester men and others about them went wild with joy. They leaped, they danced, they sang, until they were commanded to make ready for a new attack. Rosecrans in Chattanooga, with the most of his army there also in wild confusion, had sent word to Thomas to retire, to which Thomas had replied tersely: ”It will ruin the army to withdraw it now; this position must be held till night.”

And he made good his resolve. The Southern ma.s.ses attacked once more with frightful violence, and once more Thomas withstood them. The field was now darkening in the twilight, and, having saved the Union army from rout and wreck, Thomas, impervious to attack, fell back slowly to Chattanooga.

The greatest battle of the West, one of the most desperate ever fought, came to a close. Thirty-five thousand men, killed or wounded, had fallen upon the field. The South had won a great but barren victory. She had not been able to reap the fruits of so much skill and courage, because Thomas and his men, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, had stood in the way. Never had a man more thoroughly earned the t.i.tle of honor that he bore throughout the rest of his life, ”The Rock of Chickamauga.”

Chickamauga, though, was a sinister word to the North. Gettysburg and Vicksburg had stemmed the high tide of the Confederacy, and many had thought the end in sight. But the news from ”The River of Death” told them that the road to crowning success was still long and terrible.

CHAPTER XV. BESIDE THE BROOK

When the slow retreat began d.i.c.k looked for the sergeant. But a stalwart figure, a red bandage around the head, rose up and confronted him. It was Sergeant Whitley himself, a little unsteady yet on his feet, but soon to be as good as ever.

”Thank you for looking for me, Mr. Mason,” he said, ”but I came to, some time ago. I guess the bullet found my skull too hard, 'cause it just ran 'roun' it, and came out on the other side. I won't even be scarred, as my hair covers up the place.”

”Can you walk all right?” asked d.i.c.k, overjoyed to find the sergeant was not hurt badly.

”Of course I can, Mr. Mason, an' I'm proud to have been with General Thomas in such a battle. I didn't think human bein's could do what our men have done.”

”Nor did I. It was impossible, but we've done it all the same.”

Colonel Winchester rejoiced no less than the lads over the sergeant's escape. All the officers of the regiment liked him, and they had an infinite respect for his wisdom, particularly when danger was running high. They were glad for his own sake that he was alive, and they were glad to have him with them as they retreated into Chattanooga, because the night still had its perils.

The moon, though clouded, was out as they withdrew slowly. On their flanks there was still firing, as strong detachments skirmished with one another, but the Winchester men as yet paid little attention to it. They said grimly to one another that two days in the infernal regions were enough for one time. They looked back at the vast battlefield and the clumps of pines burning now like funeral torches, and shuddered.

The retreat of Thomas was harried incessantly. Longstreet and Forrest were eager to push the attack that night and the next day and make the victory complete. They and men of less rank dreamed of a triumph which should restore the fortunes of the Confederacy to the full, but Bragg was cautious. He did not wish to incur the uttermost risk, and the roll of his vast losses might well give him pause also.

Nevertheless Southern infantry and cavalry hung on the flanks and rear of the withdrawing Union force. The cloudy moon gave sufficient light for the sharpshooters, whose rifles flashed continuously. The lighter field guns moved from the forests and bushes, and the troops of Thomas were compelled to turn again and again to fight them off.

The Winchester regiment was on the extreme flank, where the men were exposed to the fiercest attacks, but fortunately the thickets and hills gave them much shelter. At times they lay down and returned the fire of the enemy until they beat him off. Then they would rise and march on again.

All the officers had lost their horses, and Colonel Winchester strode at the head of his men. Just behind were d.i.c.k, Pennington and some other members of his staff. The rest had fallen. Further back was Sergeant Whitley, his head in a red bandage, but all his faculties returned. In this dire emergency he was taking upon himself the duties of a commissioned officer, and there was none to disobey him. Once more was the wise veteran showing himself a very bulwark of strength.

Despite the coolness of the night, they had all suffered on the second day of the battle from a burning thirst. And now after their immense exertions it grew fiercer than ever. d.i.c.k's throat and mouth were parched, and he felt as if he were breathing fire. He felt that he must have water or die. All the men around him were panting, and he knew they were suffering the same torture.

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